Despite the money generated from oil, many people still live in poverty
Sunday, February 12, 2006
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Nigeria's oil hope and despair
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Nigeria's oil hope and despair: "For 50 years oil has been pumped from beneath the creeks, swamps and forests of the Delta, an area about the size of Scotland.
It has earned the Nigerian government billions of pounds. Yet the communities in the Delta say they continue to live in poverty.
Most of the promised development projects, like schools, roads and electricity supplies, have failed to materialise. Instead, they say, their land and water have been polluted by oil spills and their air ruined by the constant burning-off of natural gas."
It has earned the Nigerian government billions of pounds. Yet the communities in the Delta say they continue to live in poverty.
Most of the promised development projects, like schools, roads and electricity supplies, have failed to materialise. Instead, they say, their land and water have been polluted by oil spills and their air ruined by the constant burning-off of natural gas."
Reuters photo of child famine victim wins top award
Reuters photo of child famine victim wins top award: "AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Reuters picture of a mother and child at an emergency feeding center in Niger during the recent famine there won the coveted 2005 World Press Photo of the Year Award, organizers said on Friday.
The picture, taken by Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on August 1 2005 shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year old child pressed against the lips of his mother.
A swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the west African state.
'The picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago,' said James Colton, chairman of the World Press jury. 'It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition."
The picture, taken by Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on August 1 2005 shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year old child pressed against the lips of his mother.
A swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the west African state.
'The picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago,' said James Colton, chairman of the World Press jury. 'It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition."
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
BBC NEWS | Africa | African bird flu 'set to spread'
BBC NEWS | Africa | African bird flu 'set to spread': "The first case of H5N1 bird flu in Africa is likely to be followed quickly by others, creating a 'very severe situation', the UN's top expert says"...
Experts have been sent to the commercial chicken farm in Jaji, in Kaduna state, where bird flu was found.
Authorities there said they had taken measures to stamp out the outbreak by disinfecting the affected premises, imposing a quarantine and putting restrictions on animal movements.
Dr Nabarro, who is leading the UN's response to bird flu, said reports from Nigeria's ministry of agriculture suggested bird flu may also have been found in the northern state of Kano and further south in Joss....
Experts have long feared that if H5N1 reached Africa, it could quickly take hold and spread out of control.
Dr Alex Thiermann of the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health told the BBC that Africa's "veterinary infrastructures are very weak"....
Nigeria says it will cull all infected birds and compensate farmers.
But a northern Nigerian farmer told the BBC News website that people fear they will not be paid.
"The dead birds are being sent to market to be sold as meat... because people are not sure if the government will assist them," said Auwalu Haruna from Kano.
BBC NEWS | Africa | How easy is it to do business?
BBC NEWS | Africa | How easy is it to do business?: "ccording to the World Bank, African nations make it harder for entrepreneurs to succeed than other parts of the world, so why is it so difficult to start a business in Africa?
For example if you want to start a business in Mozambique, it takes 153 days to register a business, with a total of 14 separate steps.
But it isn't always so long-winded. Rwanda was singled out as among the biggest reformers in the past year.
Are you trying to start a business? What problems are you currently facing? How do you maintain a successful business? Is it more difficult if you are a woman?
Please send your business queries using the form. The African trading specialist, Luyton Driman will answer them in a special African business Q&A web feature.
Click here to read the interactive Q&A web feature"
For example if you want to start a business in Mozambique, it takes 153 days to register a business, with a total of 14 separate steps.
But it isn't always so long-winded. Rwanda was singled out as among the biggest reformers in the past year.
Are you trying to start a business? What problems are you currently facing? How do you maintain a successful business? Is it more difficult if you are a woman?
Please send your business queries using the form. The African trading specialist, Luyton Driman will answer them in a special African business Q&A web feature.
Click here to read the interactive Q&A web feature"
Wired News: Sharper Image, Better Performance
Wired News: Sharper Image, Better Performance: "With over 10 inches of rain in January alone, one would be hard-pressed to find a single person sporting sun glasses at Nike headquarters in Hillsboro, Oregon. But that hasn’t kept Nike designers from thinking about sunny-weather sports.
The company has teamed up with contact lens maker Bausch and Lomb to create performance-enhancing contact lenses called MaxSight. They're a tinted version of daily disposal lenses for athletes that reduce glare and improve visual acuity.
They block nearly all the sun's damaging UVA and UVB rays just like sunglasses, but their optics can also give athletic performance a boost."...
The company has teamed up with contact lens maker Bausch and Lomb to create performance-enhancing contact lenses called MaxSight. They're a tinted version of daily disposal lenses for athletes that reduce glare and improve visual acuity.
They block nearly all the sun's damaging UVA and UVB rays just like sunglasses, but their optics can also give athletic performance a boost."...
The lenses make objects appear sharper by eliminating 90 percent of blue light -- the primary component in "visual noise." Then, in a process Nike calls "light architecture," MaxSight manipulates the brightness and hue of the remaining light transmitted through the lens. The result is improvement of visual acuity. The seams on baseballs are sharper, images in shadows are more clear, and every blade of grass has definition.
"There is a dramatic 'wow’ effect when you put them on," says Reichow.
Wired News: Super Vision Sans Bionics
On the other end of the scale, another person goes blind every second in China due to cataracts...the things that make you say hmmm...
Wired News: Super Vision Sans Bionics: "Before he became an inventor and businessman, Ron Blum was a practicing opthalmologist. About twice a year, he would encounter a patient whose eyesight was better than 20/20. Such cases of super vision were a phenomenon that Blum and the science of opthalmology couldn't explain.
'I would just say to the person: Consider yourself blessed,' says Blum. 'I never would have believed that I would be running a company 20 years later that was developing a product that could give supervision to anyone.'
That company, PixelOptics of Roanoke, Virginia, just won a $3.5 million Department of Defense grant to refine its 'supervision' technology, which Blum claims could double the quality of a person's eyesight. 'Theoretically, this should be able to double the distance that a person can see clearly,' he says.
At the heart of PixelOptics' technology are tiny, electronically-controlled pixels embedded within a traditional eyeglass lens. Technicians scan the eyeball with an aberrometer -- a device that measures aberrations that can impede vision -- and then the pixels are programmed to correct the irregularities"
Wired News: Super Vision Sans Bionics: "Before he became an inventor and businessman, Ron Blum was a practicing opthalmologist. About twice a year, he would encounter a patient whose eyesight was better than 20/20. Such cases of super vision were a phenomenon that Blum and the science of opthalmology couldn't explain.
'I would just say to the person: Consider yourself blessed,' says Blum. 'I never would have believed that I would be running a company 20 years later that was developing a product that could give supervision to anyone.'
That company, PixelOptics of Roanoke, Virginia, just won a $3.5 million Department of Defense grant to refine its 'supervision' technology, which Blum claims could double the quality of a person's eyesight. 'Theoretically, this should be able to double the distance that a person can see clearly,' he says.
At the heart of PixelOptics' technology are tiny, electronically-controlled pixels embedded within a traditional eyeglass lens. Technicians scan the eyeball with an aberrometer -- a device that measures aberrations that can impede vision -- and then the pixels are programmed to correct the irregularities"
NPR : Babies' Cells Linger, May Protect Mothers
NPR : Babies' Cells Linger, May Protect Mothers: "Morning Edition, February 8, 2006 · Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That's because a baby's cells linger in its mom's body for decades and -- like stem cells -- may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It's such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true"
Deadly Bird Flu Found in Nigeria
Deadly Bird Flu Found in Nigeria: "LAGOS, Nigeria -- The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected on a large commercial chicken farm in Nigeria _ the first reported outbreak in Africa, the World Organization for Animal Health said Wednesday.
The outbreak appears to be restricted to birds, and no human infections have been reported, the Paris-based organization said.
Nigeria said the outbreak was on a farm in Jaji, a village in the northern state of Kaduna. Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello told reporters in Abuja that the deadly strain of the virus was detected in samples taken Jan. 16 from birds on the farm.
'We are dealing with a new continent,' said Alex Thiermann, an expert for the World Organization for Animal Health, known as the OIE, told The Associated Press."
The outbreak appears to be restricted to birds, and no human infections have been reported, the Paris-based organization said.
Nigeria said the outbreak was on a farm in Jaji, a village in the northern state of Kaduna. Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello told reporters in Abuja that the deadly strain of the virus was detected in samples taken Jan. 16 from birds on the farm.
'We are dealing with a new continent,' said Alex Thiermann, an expert for the World Organization for Animal Health, known as the OIE, told The Associated Press."
Low-Fat Diet's Benefits Rejected
Another debunking of the latest diet fashion trend
Low-Fat Diet's Benefits Rejected: "Low-fat diets do not protect women against heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer or colon cancer, a major study has found, contradicting what had once been promoted as one of the cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle.
The eight-year study of nearly 50,000 middle-age and elderly women -- by far the largest, most definitive test of cutting fat from the diet -- did not find any clear evidence that doing so reduced their risks, undermining more than a decade of advice from many doctors."
Low-Fat Diet's Benefits Rejected: "Low-fat diets do not protect women against heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer or colon cancer, a major study has found, contradicting what had once been promoted as one of the cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle.
The eight-year study of nearly 50,000 middle-age and elderly women -- by far the largest, most definitive test of cutting fat from the diet -- did not find any clear evidence that doing so reduced their risks, undermining more than a decade of advice from many doctors."
Discovery Health :: HealthDay :: Building Self-Esteem One Lap at a Time
I have several friends and colleagues with teen age girls who are very active atheletes and very poised and confident...
Discovery Health :: HealthDay :: Building Self-Esteem One Lap at a Time: "SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Hitting puberty can be like hitting a brick wall for a girl.
One day she's playing soccer and softball and hanging out with her girlfriends. The next day she can feel pressure to be pretty, thin, flirtatious and not too smart if she wants to be popular with boys.
How's a girl to navigate her way around this trap?
Molly Barker of Charlotte, N.C., thinks she's hit on a solid solution. She's the founder of Girls on the Run, an innovative program that prepares young girls for the pitfalls of puberty by combining a big dose of running with games, exercises and discussions designed to enhance a girl's self-esteem so she can enter her teens with confidence.
'I really believe that women struggle to remain true to themselves,' said Barker, a former Ironman triathlete with a master's degree in social work."
Discovery Health :: HealthDay :: Building Self-Esteem One Lap at a Time: "SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Hitting puberty can be like hitting a brick wall for a girl.
One day she's playing soccer and softball and hanging out with her girlfriends. The next day she can feel pressure to be pretty, thin, flirtatious and not too smart if she wants to be popular with boys.
How's a girl to navigate her way around this trap?
Molly Barker of Charlotte, N.C., thinks she's hit on a solid solution. She's the founder of Girls on the Run, an innovative program that prepares young girls for the pitfalls of puberty by combining a big dose of running with games, exercises and discussions designed to enhance a girl's self-esteem so she can enter her teens with confidence.
'I really believe that women struggle to remain true to themselves,' said Barker, a former Ironman triathlete with a master's degree in social work."
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Dark Chocolate, Health and Weight Loss
Dark Chocolate, Health and Weight Loss: "Recent research has shown that dark chocolate offers some surprisingly favorable health benefits, and the companies that make it want you to think that eating lots of it will improve your health.
A Harvard University study found that eating dark chocolate three times a month could prolong a person's life by roughly one year. Another study by Dundee University found that volunteers who ate dark chocolate cut their risk of developing blood clots by about 75 percent.
What these and other research studies have identified are the flavonoids found in cocoa. Flavonoids are chemicals derived from antioxidant-rich plants that are believed to offer a wide variety of nutritional benefits.
Flavonoids are also found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. They help keep blood platelets from massing together, reducing the risk of blood clots that can lead to heart attack and stroke. They have also been shown to lower blood pressure."
A Harvard University study found that eating dark chocolate three times a month could prolong a person's life by roughly one year. Another study by Dundee University found that volunteers who ate dark chocolate cut their risk of developing blood clots by about 75 percent.
What these and other research studies have identified are the flavonoids found in cocoa. Flavonoids are chemicals derived from antioxidant-rich plants that are believed to offer a wide variety of nutritional benefits.
Flavonoids are also found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. They help keep blood platelets from massing together, reducing the risk of blood clots that can lead to heart attack and stroke. They have also been shown to lower blood pressure."
Political Islam | Forty shades of green | Economist.com
An excellent analysis of the multiple shades in Islamic politics, that one can argue the current administration does not understand...(subscription required)...
Political Islam | Forty shades of green | Economist.com: "EVER since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, George Bush has been telling Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network they will fail in one of their main aims: to trigger a broad global conflict between America and its allies, and Islam. The president has called Islam a peaceful religion, bringing “hope and comfort” to over a billion people.
To judge by opinion polls, many Muslims around the world are unimpressed. To them, America's actions in the Middle East tell a different story about Mr Bush's attitude to their faith. And the president may not be right when he says that a broad clash of civilisations can be avoided. To anyone skimming the headlines in recent weeks, it seems as though believers in an imminent clash between Islam and the West have plenty of new evidence to support their case."...
Political Islam | Forty shades of green | Economist.com: "EVER since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, George Bush has been telling Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network they will fail in one of their main aims: to trigger a broad global conflict between America and its allies, and Islam. The president has called Islam a peaceful religion, bringing “hope and comfort” to over a billion people.
To judge by opinion polls, many Muslims around the world are unimpressed. To them, America's actions in the Middle East tell a different story about Mr Bush's attitude to their faith. And the president may not be right when he says that a broad clash of civilisations can be avoided. To anyone skimming the headlines in recent weeks, it seems as though believers in an imminent clash between Islam and the West have plenty of new evidence to support their case."...
For all these reasons, outside observers might be forgiven for thinking that political Islam, in various violent forms, was on the march against the West. In fact, the Islamist movement, though it may look monolithic from afar, is highly quarrelsome and diverse, and in many ways its internal divisions are deepening.
By no means everybody in the Muslim world rejoiced at the Hamas victory. It was disturbing in at least two different quarters. One was the corridors of power in Arab states, such as Jordan and Egypt, where the Brotherhood is already a powerful grass-roots movement and is steadily gaining confidence. In Egypt's partially-free elections last November, the Brotherhood did far better than expected; and in Jordan, where the Brothers have long been treated as an innocuous vent for letting off anti-Israel and anti-western steam, the movement is demanding a higher profile.
Even more dismayed by the Hamas victory, it seems, are the al-Qaeda terrorist network and its sympathisers. They were already furious with Hamas for compromising with secular liberal ideas by taking part in multi-party elections, and the fact that Hamas has played the democratic game rather successfully will only increase their dismay.
Here lies a paradox. The two best known forms of political Islam (broadly speaking, al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood) have common ideological origins. Both have their roots in the anti-secular opposition in Egypt, a conservative reading of Sunni Islam and the wealth and religious zeal of the Saudis. But they differ hugely over politics and tactics....
America as arbiter
Observing the ideological fights between al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood, and the physical fights between Sunnis and Shias, some American strategists might ask themselves: since they all oppose us and our allies, shouldn't we take comfort from the fact that they hate each other too?
In reality, things don't work that way. However little the arcana of Sunni or Shia theology are understood in Peoria or even in Washington, DC, the hard fact is that the American occupation of Iraq has made it appear, to many people in the Middle East, that America is now the main arbiter in the balance of power between the different components of the Islamic world. To put it another way, people who were already inclined to see almost every development in the Islamic world as America's work will be harder to dissuade.
Tolerance Toward Intolerance
A well written op-ed piece by the Washington Bureau Chief of the German newsweekly Die Zeiton the controversial cartoon issue...
Tolerance Toward Intolerance: "Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do."But the criteria change when material that is seen as offensive becomes newsworthy. That's why we saw bodies falling out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's why we saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. On such issues we print what we usually wouldn't. The very nature of the discourse is to find parameters of what is culturally acceptable. How many times have we seen Janet Jackson's breast in the course of a discussion of the limits of family entertainment? How many times have we printed material that Jews might consider offensive in an attempt to define the extent of anti-Semitism? It seems odd that most U.S. papers patronize their readers by withholding cartoons that the whole world talks about. To publish does not mean to endorse. Context matters....
It's worth remembering that the controversy started out as a well-meaning attempt to write a children's book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. The book was designed to promote religious tolerance. But the author encountered the consequences of religious hatred when he looked for an illustrator. He could not find one. Denmark's artists seemed to fear for their lives. In turning down the job they mentioned the fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist for harshly criticizing fundamentalism.When this episode percolated to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the paper's cultural editor commissioned the caricatures. He wanted to see whether cartoonists would self-censor their work for fear of violence from Muslim radicals. Still, the European media ignored this story in a small Scandinavian country. It took months, a boycott of Danish products in the Arab world and the intervention of such champions of religious freedom as the governments of Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya (all of which withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen) for some European papers to reconsider their stance on the cartoons. By last week it was not an obscure topic anymore but front-page news. And it wasn't about religious sensibilities as much as about free speech. That's when the cartoons started to show up in papers all over Europe...
In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe's supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules...
Tolerance Toward Intolerance: "Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do."But the criteria change when material that is seen as offensive becomes newsworthy. That's why we saw bodies falling out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's why we saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. On such issues we print what we usually wouldn't. The very nature of the discourse is to find parameters of what is culturally acceptable. How many times have we seen Janet Jackson's breast in the course of a discussion of the limits of family entertainment? How many times have we printed material that Jews might consider offensive in an attempt to define the extent of anti-Semitism? It seems odd that most U.S. papers patronize their readers by withholding cartoons that the whole world talks about. To publish does not mean to endorse. Context matters....
It's worth remembering that the controversy started out as a well-meaning attempt to write a children's book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. The book was designed to promote religious tolerance. But the author encountered the consequences of religious hatred when he looked for an illustrator. He could not find one. Denmark's artists seemed to fear for their lives. In turning down the job they mentioned the fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist for harshly criticizing fundamentalism.When this episode percolated to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the paper's cultural editor commissioned the caricatures. He wanted to see whether cartoonists would self-censor their work for fear of violence from Muslim radicals. Still, the European media ignored this story in a small Scandinavian country. It took months, a boycott of Danish products in the Arab world and the intervention of such champions of religious freedom as the governments of Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya (all of which withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen) for some European papers to reconsider their stance on the cartoons. By last week it was not an obscure topic anymore but front-page news. And it wasn't about religious sensibilities as much as about free speech. That's when the cartoons started to show up in papers all over Europe...
In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe's supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules...
On Friday the State Department found it appropriate to intervene. It blasted the publication of the cartoons as unacceptable incitement to religious hatred. It is a peculiar moment when the government of the United States, which likes to see itself as the home of free speech, suggests to European journalists what not to print.
The writer is Washington bureau chief of the German newsweekly Die Zeit.
Finding Satisfaction In Protein
Finding Satisfaction In Protein: "In the study, researchers report for the first time that consuming nearly a third of daily calories as lean protein, such as lean meat or poultry without the skin, revs a person's metabolism during sleep. And the benefits aren't just nocturnal: The researchers also found that higher protein intake boosted the burning of calories and fat during the day."
Blog world growing by leaps and bounds | CNET News.com
Blog world growing by leaps and bounds | CNET News.com: "The blogosphere is in the middle of a big bang.
According to the blog trackers at Technorati, a company that indexes and searches blog postings, the number of blogs online is doubling about every five and a half months .
As of Monday, the company is tracking more than 27 million separate blogs around the world, or about 60 times what was online three years ago. About 2.7 million of those blogs are updated at least weekly, with about 1.2 million total posts appearing per day, Technorati founder David Sifry said in his 'State of the Blogosphere' post on Monday."
According to the blog trackers at Technorati, a company that indexes and searches blog postings, the number of blogs online is doubling about every five and a half months .
As of Monday, the company is tracking more than 27 million separate blogs around the world, or about 60 times what was online three years ago. About 2.7 million of those blogs are updated at least weekly, with about 1.2 million total posts appearing per day, Technorati founder David Sifry said in his 'State of the Blogosphere' post on Monday."
Helping Bill O'Reilly - New York Times
Helping Bill O'Reilly - New York Times: "After Mr. O'Reilly denounced me in December as a 'left-wing ideologue' (a charge that alarmed me, given his expertise on ideologues), I challenged him to defend traditional values by joining me on a trip to Darfur. I wrote: 'You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared ... and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause.'
A few days ago, I finally got my answer. Mr. O'Reilly declared in his column: 'I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa.'"...
A few days ago, I finally got my answer. Mr. O'Reilly declared in his column: 'I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa.'"...
Worse, all the horrors that we've already seen in Darfur may be remembered only as the prelude. Security in the region is deteriorating, African Union peacekeepers are becoming targets, and the U.N. has warned that if humanitarian agencies are forced out, the death toll may rise to 100,000 per month.
Just as dangerous, the government-supported janjaweed — the brutal militia responsible for the slaughter — is now making regular raids across the border into Chad. There is a growing risk that Chad will collapse into war as well, hugely increasing the death toll and spreading chaos across a much larger region.
Last week, the United Nations agreed to plan for an international force. It will be nice if the force materializes — but even that half-step is probably almost a year away. The solution isn't American ground forces, but a starting point would be American resolve to put genocide at the top of the international agenda. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush barely lets the word "Darfur" past his lips.
The best way for President Bush to honor Coretta Scott King isn't simply to recite platitudes at her funeral today, but to push loudly and forcefully to stop genocide. Was the essential message of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. about the need to be seen at funerals? Or about standing up to injustice, like a genocide in which infants are grabbed from their mothers' arms and tossed onto bonfires?
The reality is that the only way the White House will move on Darfur is if it is flooded with calls from the public — and that will happen only when the genocide is brought home to living rooms around America.
According to the Tyndall Report, which analyzes the content of the evening newscasts of the broadcast networks, their coverage of Darfur actually declined last year. The total for all three networks was 26 minutes in 2004. That wasn't much — but it dropped to just 18 minutes during all of 2005.
ABC's evening news program had 11 minutes about Darfur over the year, NBC's had 5 minutes, and CBS's found genocide worth only 2 minutes of airtime during the course of 2005.
In contrast, the networks gave the Michael Jackson trial in 2005 a total of 84 minutes of coverage. There aren't comparable figures for cable networks like Fox, but Mr. O'Reilly and other cable newscasters pretty much ignored the Darfur catastrophe.
Mr. O'Reilly has a big audience and a knack for stirring outrage. Lately, he (quite properly) galvanized an outcry over a ridiculously light sentence for a sexual predator in Vermont. The upshot was that the sentence was increased. Good stuff!
So imagine the furor Mr. O'Reilly could stir up if he publicized the hundreds of thousands of rapes, murders and mutilations in Darfur. He could save lives on a grand scale.
Join the pledge drive! I'm starting with my own $1,000 pledge to sponsor Mr. O'Reilly's trip. Please help.
allAfrica.com: Uganda [column]: Visit to the Villages of Horror
And moving from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Uganda--perhaps the most (known) evil force in the world--the Lord's Resistance Army...makes Iraq look like Mr. Roger's neighborhood...
allAfrica.com: Uganda [column]: Visit to the Villages of Horror: "They forced parents to smash the heads of their children against trees. The rebels then used axes and machetes to kill the parents. Sixty people died here.
But not even the wackiest alarmist could have conjured what the LRA had in store for the villagers of Geregere.
After tying up the men and herding the rest into the village centre, the rebels hacked and clubbed their victims to death. Twenty eight people were killed.
But the rebels were not through. They ordered one of the child soldiers to bring a big pot from one of the houses. A rebel commander called Otto lit a fire.
As the water boiled, they chopped off the limbs and heads of some of the bodies and tossed them into the pot."...
In the middle of the photo is a huge black pot. Sticking out of the pot is part of a human leg. There are reports that the LRA rebels forced the survivors to eat the human flesh from the pot and drink the soup. I, however, did not get any person who could confirm that...
allAfrica.com: Uganda [column]: Visit to the Villages of Horror: "They forced parents to smash the heads of their children against trees. The rebels then used axes and machetes to kill the parents. Sixty people died here.
But not even the wackiest alarmist could have conjured what the LRA had in store for the villagers of Geregere.
After tying up the men and herding the rest into the village centre, the rebels hacked and clubbed their victims to death. Twenty eight people were killed.
But the rebels were not through. They ordered one of the child soldiers to bring a big pot from one of the houses. A rebel commander called Otto lit a fire.
As the water boiled, they chopped off the limbs and heads of some of the bodies and tossed them into the pot."...
In the middle of the photo is a huge black pot. Sticking out of the pot is part of a human leg. There are reports that the LRA rebels forced the survivors to eat the human flesh from the pot and drink the soup. I, however, did not get any person who could confirm that...
All the displaced people I interviewed in camps in Lira, Pader and Gulu described how the LRA's extremes drove them into the camps for protection.
In a typical attack, the LRA strike shortly after dark. When operating deep in northern Uganda, they dress in civilian attire, making them virtually indistinguishable from regular citizens.
They either target a settlement like a village or go for other undefended targets like schools. In Lira district, the LRA once attacked Aboke Girls Secondary School and abducted 139 girls....
In a typical attack, the LRA strike shortly after dark. When operating deep in northern Uganda, they dress in civilian attire, making them virtually indistinguishable from regular citizens.
They either target a settlement like a village or go for other undefended targets like schools. In Lira district, the LRA once attacked Aboke Girls Secondary School and abducted 139 girls.
Once the target has been secured, the rebel commander rounds up all captives and make his selection. The rest are either shot or let loose with debilitating injuries.
Terrorising the population is not the main reason for the massacres. The attacks are accompanied by abductions. This is LRA's preferred mode of recruitment.
Boys and girls as young as six are dragged at gun point from their homes and schools at night and forced to join the rebel ranks.
A former LRA commander explained that children are easier to mould into vicious, soulless fighters than adults with more developed mindsets.
The girls double up as fighters and wives of the LRA commanders. Janet, a former captive and sex-slave of rebel leader Joseph Kony, told me that the LRA commander has taken at least 60 such girls as wives.
The training starts early. Children are methodically turned into remorseless killing machines soon after capture. Some are forced to kill their own kin.
Christine Akello, who was abducted at 12, says she watched as the rebels beat her father unconscious. The rebel commander then forced her to kill her uncle or she would be killed as well. She had to beat him to death. It was the first of her many killings in the seven years she served as an LRA fighter.
Patrick Oneka described how he was forced to kill his little brother, Joseph, because the boy could not keep up with the pace and had tried to escape.
In an emotionless tone, Patrick recounted how he was handed an axe and forced to split the head of the boy he was supposed to protect.
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And George Opiyo, then 12, recalled how he was ordered to kill his father. The boy at first refused.
The rebels then untied Opiyo's father and ordered him to kill the son. Terrified, George screamed that he would kill his father. He was given a rifle, and he shot his father dead.
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