All Global News on One Page

Three and a half months from now, the world’s newest nation will be born: the Republic of Southern Sudan. Heady times for a people who have fought for fifty years for freedom, and won the right to vote in what was a peaceful independence referendum in January. But this road to freedom is filled with danger points, none more so than Abyei, the hotly disputed Connecticut-sized territory wedged within the border between North and South.
Peace processes are full of moments, of choices, with implications that affect hundreds of thousands of

There is a moment in every global crisis where things no longer seem new and dynamic. Where hope for a solution is replaced with uncertainty, which morphs into cynicism, despair, or even indifference. Many people who were such enthusiastic supporters of building a movement to end the genocide in Darfur have gone through some of these stages, frustrated by the lack of a resolution of the crisis there.
As one of our former presidents used to say, “We feel your pain.” But people are still dying in Darfur. Villages are still being

Thanks to my friends at the Gallup Organization, our partner around the new Gallup-Operation HOPE Financial Literacy Index, I now have the data-backed evidence to “make the case” for the power of innovation and ideas in the success of nations; here in America and around the world.
Based on verifiable data, from 1963 through 2009, there were 4.5 million total patents granted globally, with more than 2.6 million of those patents originating here in the United States, or almost 2/3rd’s of all world patents. News flash: The U.S. also happens to be the largest economy in the world. Now stay with me here.
Within the United States, California has more than 450,000 total patents, or 20% of all

Whenever Jimmy Carter makes a statement, opinions fly.
Yet it wasn’t the former U.S. President’s political views that had a crowd of students and parents gasping during his speech at an Atlanta private school February 17. It was his talk of a horrific creature known as Guinea Worm that elicited dropped jaws from the

Some sweet irony in the referral of the Gaddafi regime to the International Criminal Court.
As court-watchers well know, longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi long has been a thorn in the ICC’s side.
It’s not just that Libya’s not a party to the Rome Statute that governs the decade-old, Netherlands-based ICC. The same holds true of many of Libya’s Arab neighbors — not to mention a number of very large states east and west, like China, Russia, and the United States.
Rather, Libya’s particularly prickly relation to the ICC stems from Gaddafi’s efforts to exerts his brand of leadership on the African continent.
To cite an example: It’s no accident that, as Pittsburgh Law Professor Charles Jalloh, among others, has noted, the first African Union resolution condemning the ICC’s pursuit of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir occurred at a meeting in Libya. (Bashir remains under ICC indictment on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity related to government attacks on the people of Darfur.)
Libya also is a member of the Human Rights Council, formed in 2006 as a means better to promote human rights within U.N. member states and throughout the world.
The Human Rights Council broke with Libya on

Last month, Bishop Elias Taban, head of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, wrote an urgent plea to Christians in the West:
The treaty Bishop Taban references is the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which would be the first international agreement to regulate the international sale of weapons. It would close current loopholes that are at the heart of countless stories of violence against women, families forced to become refugees, children made soldiers, and other horrors.
From the Sudan to Kosovo to Burma, from the Somali coast to the Mexican border, the situation is the same: Christians live in terror as well-armed warlords, rival clans and drug smugglers use the threat of violence to control innocent populations. Churches are forced to pull missionaries or limit services as armed conflict engulfs a region. And economic growth is stifled, leaving another generation without options to build a life of dignity and purpose.
In places like these, power is defined by who has the most guns and the most bullets — and the ATT would be a major step to breaking the backbone of this violent

My guest post today is from Angel Santiesteban, a Cuban writer whose work has been published in more than 15 countries. His blog from Cuba is titled, The Children Nobody Wanted.
The Reflection in the Mirror: Castro and Mubarak
by Angel Santiesteban
The newspaper Granma, official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, which also controls the rest of the official media as is common in totalitarian regimes, announces that demonstrations against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are a response to his thirty years in power.
The news seems to mock Cubans. The Castro government is already threatening to reach double that figure at the helm of the country, leading to ever growing poverty and scarcity.
Common sense, however, seems to fail authorities because a certain logic dictates that they shouldn’t publish this image of Mubarak–their reflection in the mirror. Thirty years in power in the Egyptian nation is bad, but fifty-three years for the Cuban dictatorship is good?
Mubarak declared, according to an interview on the American network ABC, that his departure from power would lead the country into

A few months ago, I led a workshop in Cairo attended by representatives of many countries including Sudan. The representatives from Northern and Southern Sudan were very precise in their choice of language when they explained that they were both “from one single country, for now.” With the recent vote in South Sudan, that is changing. As the creation of a new country comes about, many people find themselves asking the simple question, “What does it take to become a new independent country (sovereign state)?”
There are at least two necessary conditions: (1) the former ruling authority has to recognize the new independent country and (2) there must be general recognition of the new independent country from other countries.
For the Confederate States of America (1861-1865), these two conditions weren’t

by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
With millions of Americans out of work, House Republicans are focusing in on real priorities: decimating private abortion coverage and crippling public funding for abortion, as Jessica Arons reports in RH Reality Check. In AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte notes that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3, also redefines rape as “forcible rape” in order to determine whether a patient is eligible for a Medicaid-funded abortion. Under the Hyde Amendment, government-funded insurance programs can only cover abortions in cases of rape and incest, or to save the life of the

Watching this new video produced by the human rights NGO Iran 180, I was struck by Congressman Barney Frank’s pithy summation of what good governance involves. “No government ought to consider itself threatened by its citizens wanting to express themselves,” Frank said. “And no truly popular government need worry about that.”
Frank was addressing the Iranian people, but his remarks are applicable to Egypt too. And they stand out in marked contrast to this next item, so excruciating that a word like “hypocrisy” simply falls short as a

The referendum on independence for Southern Sudan has come off with minimal violence, and it seems that Sudan’s president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir will accept the inevitable outcome: Southern secession. The Obama administration is rightfully pleased with how the referendum has been carried out, but this is not the time to let up. A peaceful resolution to the North-South conflict may be possible, but there are many issues that are not yet resolved, and the situation in Darfur remains unstable and threatening to those living there in camps for displaced persons. We must urge the White House to stay

Dams have impoverished tens of thousands of people and triggered serious human rights violations in Sudan. Now Chinese companies have won contracts to build three more hydropower projects in the country. Of particular concerns are plans to dam the Nile near Kajbar, on the lands of ancient Nubia. The Kajbar project has already caused massive human rights

In 2005, leaders representing North and South Sudan signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended decades of civil war in which millions died. This month, as part of the CPA, Southern Sudanese went to the polls in a week long ballot to vote on whether to remain part of Sudan. The ballot took place relatively peacefully, and early vote counts show a comfortable majority in favor of secession.
Yet the real challenge may come now that the voting has ended. In a briefing released last November, the International Crisis Group warned that “the referendum is sure to shock Sudan’s political system.” Several outstanding issues may raise tensions on either side of the world’s newest border unless the North and South leaderships negotiate a working

This week George Clooney is there, as well as Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, and some 20,000 observers and over 1,000 journalists from around the world. The polls close January 15th on the referendum to split Africa’s largest nation in two, creating the new state of Southern Sudan. It’s a part of the world few travelers have had the pleasure to experience, it being locked for over two decades in Africa’s longest running civil war.
It has little infrastructure; bad roads, few experienced guides, and modest accommodations. But Southern Sudan possesses what much of the rest of the world has lost, often in abudance, including vast herds of wildlife, integrous cultures, and wild

Today, Sunday January 9th, the people of Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for independence. Americans of all persuasions should support the democratic process of this long-anticipated vote.
The product of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s mostly Muslim North and its mostly Christian South, the election will provide the Southern Sudanese – a population estimated at between 10 and 13 million people, Christians and animists, or practitioners of native religions – the opportunity to choose to remain part of a unified Sudan or to break away and become an independent nation.
Unity may sound nice in theory. But for the Southern Sudanese, whose suffering was dramatically illustrated for Western audiences in a 2004 documentary about the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” the reality of life under a Muslim extremist government based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has all too often meant forced conversions, enslavement, and

Today, Sunday January 9th, the people of Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for independence. Americans of all persuasions should support the democratic process of this long-anticipated vote.
The product of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s mostly Muslim North and its mostly Christian South, the election will provide the Southern Sudanese – a population estimated at between 10 and 13 million people, Christians and animists, or practitioners of native religions – the opportunity to choose to remain part of a unified Sudan or to break away and become an independent nation.
Unity may sound nice in theory. But for the Southern Sudanese, whose suffering was dramatically illustrated for Western audiences in a 2004 documentary about the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” the reality of life under a Muslim extremist government based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has all too often meant forced conversions, enslavement, and

Today, Sunday January 9th, the people of Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for independence. Americans of all persuasions should support the democratic process of this long-anticipated vote.
The product of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s mostly Muslim North and its mostly Christian South, the election will provide the Southern Sudanese – a population estimated at between 10 and 13 million people, Christians and animists, or practitioners of native religions – the opportunity to choose to remain part of a unified Sudan or to break away and become an independent nation.
Unity may sound nice in theory. But for the Southern Sudanese, whose suffering was dramatically illustrated for Western audiences in a 2004 documentary about the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” the reality of life under a Muslim extremist government based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has all too often meant forced conversions, enslavement, and death. Between 1983 and 2005, over 2 million Southern Sudanese were killed through slaughter and starvation.
Omar al Bashir, president of Sudan, has spoken nicely in recent days about respecting the outcome of the vote. But his history of reportedly unleashing janjaweed militias on ethnic African villages and his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes against fellow Muslims in Darfur, combined with his recent statement threatening imposition of Sharia Law in the North if the South breaks away, are troubling.
Outstanding issues yet to be resolved between North and South include citizenship rights, borders, and the division of valuable water and oil resources – the latter of which are disproportionately concentrated in the South.
Yet despite these potential flashpoints and the threat of possible violence in the months following the vote, most Southern Sudanese in the U.S. say their choice in January 9th’s vote is crystal clear.
“Yes, one hundred percent. If Sharia Law is the law of the nation, how can you tell me I have a place?” says Simon Deng, a Sudanese-American human rights activist whose 300-mile “Freedom Walk” to raise awareness about the slaughter of Darfuri Muslims gained him an audience with former President George W. Bush, who brought about the CPA. “I’ll speak for myself and my family …We want freedom now.”
Thousands of Southern Sudanese residing in the U.S. have registered to vote in eight U.S. cities – Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, Boston, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Omaha, and Seattle. Close to 4 million Southern Sudanese have registered in all – many of them traversing long distances overland on foot in Sudan and coming long distances by bus, automobile and foot to do so in the Diaspora. Hundreds of thousands lined up before dawn at voting places throughout South Sudan.
Voting will take place over the course of a week and tallying the vote will take several weeks. Results are due before February 15th.
Even in the best case scenario, Sudan’s democracy will take time to build. Many Southern Sudanese are illiterate. After decades of neglect, the South lacks basic infrastructure like schools and hospitals. Its people will need assistance from the international community to begin the strenuous process of building a democratic nation. But in the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.”
Should its people choose independence, South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation, born by popular will in a region where democracy is all too rare. Americans should extend a hand of welcome and support to a people with the courage to fight for their survival and their liberty.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Today, Sunday January 9th, the people of Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for independence. Americans of all persuasions should support the democratic process of this long-anticipated vote.
The product of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s mostly Muslim North and its mostly Christian South, the election will provide the Southern Sudanese – a population estimated at between 10 and 13 million people, Christians and animists, or practitioners of native religions – the opportunity to choose to remain part of a unified Sudan or to break away and become an independent nation.
Unity may sound nice in theory. But for the Southern Sudanese, whose suffering was dramatically illustrated for Western audiences in a 2004 documentary about the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” the reality of life under a Muslim extremist government based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has all too often meant forced conversions, enslavement, and death. Between 1983 and 2005, over 2 million Southern Sudanese were killed through slaughter and starvation.
Omar al Bashir, president of Sudan, has spoken nicely in recent days about respecting the outcome of the vote. But his history of reportedly unleashing janjaweed militias on ethnic African villages and his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes against fellow Muslims in Darfur, combined with his recent statement threatening imposition of Sharia Law in the North if the South breaks away, are troubling.
Outstanding issues yet to be resolved between North and South include citizenship rights, borders, and the division of valuable water and oil resources – the latter of which are disproportionately concentrated in the South.
Yet despite these potential flashpoints and the threat of possible violence in the months following the vote, most Southern Sudanese in the U.S. say their choice in January 9th’s vote is crystal clear.
“Yes, one hundred percent. If Sharia Law is the law of the nation, how can you tell me I have a place?” says Simon Deng, a Sudanese-American human rights activist whose 300-mile “Freedom Walk” to raise awareness about the slaughter of Darfuri Muslims gained him an audience with former President George W. Bush, who brought about the CPA. “I’ll speak for myself and my family …We want freedom now.”
Thousands of Southern Sudanese residing in the U.S. have registered to vote in eight U.S. cities – Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, Boston, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Omaha, and Seattle. Close to 4 million Southern Sudanese have registered in all – many of them traversing long distances overland on foot in Sudan and coming long distances by bus, automobile and foot to do so in the Diaspora. Hundreds of thousands lined up before dawn at voting places throughout South Sudan.
Voting will take place over the course of a week and tallying the vote will take several weeks. Results are due before February 15th.
Even in the best case scenario, Sudan’s democracy will take time to build. Many Southern Sudanese are illiterate. After decades of neglect, the South lacks basic infrastructure like schools and hospitals. Its people will need assistance from the international community to begin the strenuous process of building a democratic nation. But in the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.”
Should its people choose independence, South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation, born by popular will in a region where democracy is all too rare. Americans should extend a hand of welcome and support to a people with the courage to fight for their survival and their liberty.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Today, Sunday January 9th, the people of Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for independence. Americans of all persuasions should support the democratic process of this long-anticipated vote.
The product of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s mostly Muslim North and its mostly Christian South, the election will provide the Southern Sudanese – a population estimated at between 10 and 13 million people, Christians and animists, or practitioners of native religions – the opportunity to choose to remain part of a unified Sudan or to break away and become an independent nation.
Unity may sound nice in theory. But for the Southern Sudanese, whose suffering was dramatically illustrated for Western audiences in a 2004 documentary about the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” the reality of life under a Muslim extremist government based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has all too often meant forced conversions, enslavement, and death. Between 1983 and 2005, over 2 million Southern Sudanese were killed through slaughter and starvation.
Omar al Bashir, president of Sudan, has spoken nicely in recent days about respecting the outcome of the vote. But his history of reportedly unleashing janjaweed militias on ethnic African villages and his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes against fellow Muslims in Darfur, combined with his recent statement threatening imposition of Sharia Law in the North if the South breaks away, are troubling.
Outstanding issues yet to be resolved between North and South include citizenship rights, borders, and the division of valuable water and oil resources – the latter of which are disproportionately concentrated in the South.
Yet despite these potential flashpoints and the threat of possible violence in the months following the vote, most Southern Sudanese in the U.S. say their choice in January 9th’s vote is crystal clear.
“Yes, one hundred percent. If Sharia Law is the law of the nation, how can you tell me I have a place?” says Simon Deng, a Sudanese-American human rights activist whose 300-mile “Freedom Walk” to raise awareness about the slaughter of Darfuri Muslims gained him an audience with former President George W. Bush, who brought about the CPA. “I’ll speak for myself and my family …We want freedom now.”
Thousands of Southern Sudanese residing in the U.S. have registered to vote in eight U.S. cities – Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, Boston, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Omaha, and Seattle. Close to 4 million Southern Sudanese have registered in all – many of them traversing long distances overland on foot in Sudan and coming long distances by bus, automobile and foot to do so in the Diaspora. Hundreds of thousands lined up before dawn at voting places throughout South Sudan.
Voting will take place over the course of a week and tallying the vote will take several weeks. Results are due before February 15th.
Even in the best case scenario, Sudan’s democracy will take time to build. Many Southern Sudanese are illiterate. After decades of neglect, the South lacks basic infrastructure like schools and hospitals. Its people will need assistance from the international community to begin the strenuous process of building a democratic nation. But in the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.”
Should its people choose independence, South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation, born by popular will in a region where democracy is all too rare. Americans should extend a hand of welcome and support to a people with the courage to fight for their survival and their liberty.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Al Jazeera’s interview with President Omar al Bashir of Sudan just a couple of days before the South votes on secession is making headlines. In it he says that the South will face instability if it chooses independence from Khartoum.
This will no doubt excite the pro-breakaway American meddlers, who have long seen independence for the South as the first step to regime change in the North. They will, ironically, accuse Bashir of interfering in the Southern vote. But what has he really said? Only exactly the same thing as any analyst who understands the place will tell you. Without support, cash and expertise the South is a failed state in waiting. Africa is littered with countries where rebel movements have taken power only to rule as if they were still in the bush: through centralisation, patronage and an iron fist.
Let’s hope the lessons of Ethopia, Eritrea and Uganda have been learned – just to cite a few countries in the region – and that South Sudan does not follow when it becomes the world’s newest country.

This Blogger’s Books from
Saving Darfur: Everyone’s Favourite African War

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Juba, January 8, 2011 — A giddy optimism prevails in Juba, in Southern Sudan. Almost everyone in this dusty boomtown — from teachers and students, to politicians and bodaboda taxi drivers — says they will choose separation from the North in the January 9 referendum for southern independence.
If they do, the ten southern states of Sudan will become Africa’s newest nation, with enormous state-building challenges ahead. They will have to build the rule of law from scratch here and end entrenched patterns of communal violence and human rights abuses, especially by southern security forces.
Meanwhile, in Sudan’s northern states, which will also emerge as a new country, the mood is grim. In recent weeks, the Khartoum government has stepped up its hostile rhetoric and cracked down on northern human rights activists, journalists, critics, and opponents of the ruling party. In Darfur, where rebels and government forces continue to clash and peace remains distant, the Khartoum government has resumed attacks on civilians.
World leaders have understandably pressed Sudan, Africa’s largest country, to conduct the referendum peacefully, and on time. The vote is a milestone in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended Sudan’s brutal 22-year civil war, and its peaceful conduct is key to regional stability.
Implementation of the agreement has been halting and incomplete, but the parties have not resorted to violence against each other. The main flashpoints for renewed conflict — disputed and militarized parts of the North-South border — have not escalated despite provocations on both sides. Voter registration for the referendum, which I observed in several southern towns in November and early December, was relatively calm and for the most part free of the political intimidation, arrests, violence and fraud that tainted national elections in April.
The northern ruling National Congress Party seems to have come to terms with its likely loss of the South, which contains about a quarter of the country’s population, a third of the land, and 70 percent of the oil reserves. Last week, President Omar al-Bashir promised to respect the outcome and support Southern Sudan should it secede. Such positive, peaceful messages are exactly what the world wants from al-Bashir at this critically important moment for North and South.
To be sure, plenty could still go wrong during and after the vote — especially if the ruling party contests the results or if the parties fail to agree to a solution on Abyei, the disputed oil-producing area straddling the North-South border. Northern and southern armies and allied militias clashed there in May 2008 and threaten to clash again. Abyei was to have its own separate referendum starting on January 9 as well. But with no agreement about voter eligibility or land rights there, the political parties have put it on hold, indefinitely. All eyes should remain on this possible trouble spot.
All eyes should also stay on Sudan’s human rights record. For all their progress on the referendum, Sudan’s leaders have ignored the other aspects of the 2005 peace agreement, such as reforming the brutally repressive national security service and criminal laws that violate Sudan’s constitution, or ensuring accountability for human rights violations across Sudan. The fact is, al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for serious crimes committed in Darfur, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, while his government continues to engage in abusive, repressive tactics.
Just before Christmas, al-Bashir disparaged the idea of a society with ethnic and religious diversity and declared that if the South secedes, Sudan will impose strict Islamic sharia laws and make Arabic the only official language. Last month, in response to a broad public outcry, he defended public floggings for “indecent and immoral acts” — women wearing trousers, for instance — while police violently suppressed women who gathered to denounce the practice. High-level ruling party officials have threatened to strip the 1.5 million southerners in northern states of their rights in the event of southern independence.
Based on these threats and incidents, and past government practice, northern civil society members are bracing for more repression. In recent weeks, the government’s security forces arbitrarily arrested a group of Darfur activists and journalists, who remain in detention without charges. The authorities have targeted other prominent members of civil society, including by jailing the executive director of a prominent Sudanese human rights group on baseless charges, and used violence to suppress peaceful gatherings by opposition party members.
In Darfur, meanwhile, for the eighth year in a row, Sudan is carrying out aerial bombing and attacks on civilians. Peace talks have sputtered to a halt, and the resurgence of clashes has brought renewed targeting of civilians on the basis of their ethnicity.
Little detailed information is available about the conditions on the ground. After the March 2009 announcement by the International Criminal Court of charges against President al-Bashir, he expelled international organizations and shuttered Sudanese human rights groups. The result is an information vacuum, which the Sudanese government has maintained by repressing activists and journalists working on Darfur and restricting the access of the UN and other international organizations to conflict-affected areas.
International actors engaged on Sudan — foremost among them the United States and African Union — consider Sudan’s human rights record and justice for crimes in Darfur a “second-tier” issue, subordinate to the “first-tier” issues that they felt Sudanese leaders needed to resolve to carry out a peaceful, credible referendum. Their focus on averting renewed conflict is both necessary and laudable. Sudan’s 22-year civil war killed more than 2 million people.
But focusing on the agreement’s end goal — a peaceful referendum — rather than the real reforms the peace agreement called for is short-sighted. Sudan’s leaders and international supporters of the referendum process have collectively failed to address the very sorts of human rights violations that gave rise to Sudan’s civil war in the first place — indiscriminate attacks on civilians, denial of basic rights, and political repression.
As experience demonstrates, accountability is a critical component of lasting peace and stability. Justice and human rights issues need to be addressed at the same time as peace processes, not at some future indeterminate date. Sudanese people have seen how impunity fuels abuse: lack of accountability for attacks on civilians by militia during the long civil war probably factored into Khartoum’s decision to use the same strategy again in Darfur.
The African Union’s High Level Panel on Darfur, in its October 2009 report, recognized this crucial nexus, which others continue to ignore. Sadly, the Sudanese government has made no meaningful progress in the implementation of the panel’s recommendations for more than one year, and international actors have not sufficiently pressed Sudan to act on the report’s findings.
With the North-South referendum now clearly in sight, it is high time for world leaders to press Khartoum to secure a sustainable, enduring peace. It can do so by ending its long history of abuses, respecting the will of the voters, and fulfilling basic commitments to dignity and justice. Sudan’s long-term stability, in the North and South, as well as in Darfur and the troubled East, will depend on guaranteeing these fundamental rights.
Jehanne Henry is a senior researcher in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and in Southern Sudan to observe the referendum.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This post has nothing to do with taking your clothes off. But it is very revealing.
Confirmation that the world is flat (to quote Thomas Friedman) can be found in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. East Africa has been transported from the 10th century to the 21st thanks to the cell phone. Hundreds of millions of them in fact.
They’re ubiquitous here in the Serengeti (see photo taken with my cell phone!)
Our Maasai guides, who live in dung covered huts and whose tribe measures wealth by the number of cattle, carry their phones (along with their machetes) under their shukas. With the help of mobile devices and information shared by researchers, Maasai can now find where to bring their herd instead of roaming for hundreds of miles in search of water and pasture.
They also now know what the going price of cows is… not to mention what their wives expect them to bring home tonight. Although these warriors and other Africans can easily purchase the phones (the price of a goat,) seconds (let alone minutes) are less affordable. So they’ve learned a third language. First Swahili. Then English. Now Flashing.
Flash language gets around tariffs quite effectively. Mobile phone users ring (or flash) once to say “I am on the way.” Flashing twice means “I’m waiting for you;” and thrice translates to “I am home!” These definitions were provided by two Peace Corps workers we met in Rwanda. They’re learning the lingo as part of their un-official orientation.
This is really no different than the signaling that went on between my parents and me when I was in college… decades before cell phones. I’d call collect from the dorm phone; my parents wouldn’t accept the charges. They’d then call me back without an operator as a less expensive option. As telecommunications evolve so do the ‘short cuts.’
Our time in Tanzania provided other examples of our increasingly flat world. 5 years ago when my family and I were in South Africa and Botswana our safaris were lengthy adventures with no guarantees of animal sightings. Now, guides can ensure customer satisfaction by texting each other the coordinates of a cheetah kill or a pride of lions. There still has to be one tracker who hits pay dirt, but chances are, by the time your jeep arrives on the scene you’ll have company.
Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” focused on commerce and globalization. But the ‘flatness’ resulting from technology has huge implications for Africa.
One Kenyan we spoke with said he believes that increasing connectivity de-mystifies the inter-tribal relations within his own country and across the continent as a whole. He told us that while these relations have historically led to xenophobia and even violent conflict (as was the case in Rwanda), the prevalence of cell phones has fostered a new, larger sense of community that is glossing over tribal differences.
Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but technology is playing a more direct role in combating violence. A new human rights project, initiated by George Clooney, combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports with Google’s Map Maker technology to deter the resumption of war between North and South Sudan and the world’s next genocide.
With the cameras’ unblinking eyes it will certainly be harder for countries like ours to feign ignorance, but perhaps the ‘flattening’ of our world will one day render these precautions unnecessary.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

It’s the time of year to draw up 2010′s “best” and “worst” lists. When it comes to human rights, that’s pretty easy. The repudiation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would be on the on the credit side; the continued ravishing of civilians, especially women, in Congo on the debit; and some events right in the middle: Charter 08 author Liu Xiabao was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, sure enough, but Liu Xiabao still languishes in a Chinese prison.
What is far trickier is to spot future trends. Calvin Coolidge once peered into his crystal ball and offered this brave prognostication: “When people are out of work, unemployment will result.” Similarly, it is safe to assume that the Chinese will continue to restrict freedoms; that the United States will continue to employ the death penalty; and that some strongman somewhere will steal an election.
Perhaps the more meaningful course is simply to identify those human rights stories to watch in 2011. How these challenges are resolved will tell us much about where human rights are going.
Will Laurent Gbago survive? Africa, long notorious for allowing corruption and brute force to thwart the popular will in elections, has seen a few positive signs in recent years that norms may be shifting. Ellen Sirleaf Johnson’s election in Liberia in 2005; the surprisingly peaceful adoption of a new Constitution in Kenya last summer and recent closely contested elections in Tanzania and Guinea have fueled the hope that the continent may be looking with greater favor on legitimate democracy. But now comes Cote d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbago, the clear loser in the recent presidential election there, refusing to vacate his office. The international community has unanimously called on Gbago to step down and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has even threatened military intervention. If Gbago survives or the country devolves once again into civil war, it will send an unmistakable signal that, despite President Obama’s calls for Africans to take responsibility for good governance, that message has not yet been widely adopted. Robert Mugabe, among others, will be taking note.
Will Sudan stay “peaceful?” In January south Sudan will almost certainly vote to secede from the north. The last civil war in Sudan cost 2.5 million lives and helped generate the genocide in Darfur. Relative calm has prevailed recently in Darfur and the south but secession could prompt the government in Khartoum to reinstitute its reign of terror in both places. The international community must make clear that that is not an option.
Will the ICC convict? No development in the human rights world over the past decade has held greater promise than the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). But thus far the Court has failed to convict any of those it has indicted and, what’s worse, has been characterized by chaotic administration and sloppy prosecutions. The stakes are enormous: if the ICC is discredited, the best hope for a way to hold tyrants to account for human rights crimes will be lost. The ICC’s critics will be delighted. So will the tyrants.
Will Medvedev prevail? With the murders of journalist Anna Politovskaya; human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov; Chechen human rights activist Natalya Estemirova and many others like them having gone unsolved in Russia, profound questions have arisen as to whether the rule of law carries any meaning there. President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken frequently of the need for an independent judiciary, less concentrated power; and more competitive elections; he even vetoed a proposed law that would have restricted antigovernment demonstrations. But until those responsible for attacks on human rights defenders are brought to justice, his sentiments, benign as they appear, can only be interpreted as reflecting duplicity or powerlessness. If the former, Medvedev deserves to be replaced when his term of office ends in 2012; if the latter, he will be.
Will Aung San Suu Kyi stay free? There is no greater human rights heroine in the world today than the leader of the democracy movement in Burma (Myanmar). Suu Kyi is currently engaged in a complicated chess game with the Burmese generals and some of her own supporters to determine the best strategy to employ against Southeast Asia’s most brutal regime. She has, for instance, recently rolled back her call for sanctions against the state. The stakes are high — not just her freedom but Burma’s too.
Lots of other stories deserve attention too: Will Venezuela slip further into autocracy? Will the US ever figure out what to do with the Guantanamo prisoners? But how these five play out will have profound implications for the future of human rights and, not incidentally, for tens of millions of people. Stay tuned.
William F. Schulz, President of the Unitarian Universalst Service Committee, is former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The age of ideology in China may soon be ending. Caught between its longstanding opposition to independence movements worldwide and its expanding economic interests, Beijing finds itself remarkably choosing to court a separatist government in south Sudan.
The south is scheduled to vote on January 9 on independence from Khartoum after 43 years of civil war that left more than 2 million people dead. The referendum is still uncertain amid fears of a new war. But if the vote goes ahead, the south is overwhelmingly expected to break the continent’s biggest nation in two.
China has long had substantial investments in all of Sudan, the most of any foreign country. It has a 40% stake in the oil industry and 60% of Sudan’s oil is exported to China. To protect those interests Beijing has supported Khartoum in the U.N. Security Council over separatist movements in Darfur and, until recently, in the south.
That was consistent with China’s opposition at the U.N. to separatist movements elsewhere in the world, such as in Kosovo and East Timor. The aim has been to give no encouragement to Taiwan and its own restive minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang. Those independence movements
are watching what China does abroad. Taiwan, notably, was among the first countries to recognize Kosovo.
Until early this year, China steadfastly opposed southern independence in Sudan too. But China saw the writing on the wall in Juba and was faced with a choice: either risk emboldening its domestic independence movements or its oil investments in the south, where 80% of the country’s petroleum is found.
“Khartoum had insisted that they alone were the interlocutor on oil for a long time and the Chinese respected that,” said Fabienne Hara, an Africa specialist at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Khartoum awarded China’s four oil concessions. But by 2007 the south Sudanese realized they needed China if they were to become independent and the Chinese realized they might soon need an independent south Sudan too, if the oil went with it. “It is pragmatism. I don’t think anyone believes that the referendum process can be stopped,” Hara said.
China opened a consulate in Juba, the south’s capital, a normally unusual move for Beijing in a place that wants to break away. Chinese Communist Party officials routinely visit the south. Southern leader Salva Kiir has twice visited China.
But Beijing must walk a fine line between courting the south and not alienating the north. It still has major business there, including arms sales and infrastructure projects. Li Baodong, China’s U.N. ambassador, told me that Beijing is clearly trying to stay on good terms with both sides.
“We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country, any argument amongst themselves, that’s their internal affairs and we are not getting into it,” Li said. “Whatever the choice the people make, we will respect that.”
Oil revenue is currently shared 50-50 between north and south under the 2005 peace deal that set up the referendum. It is pumped from the south through the north in a 1,000-mile Chinese-financed pipeline to a Chinese-built refinery in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where it is shipped.
How to share this oil in an independent south Sudan is still one of the trickiest questions the two sides, under the mediation of Thabo Mbeki, are trying to work out. Other issues under discussion are the border, sharing water and what to do with Abeyi. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir warned of war if these issues aren’t worked out by Jan. 9.
The south would likely enrage Khartoum if it were to find a way to get the oil out bypassing the north altogether. With Chinese help, this may one day happen.
Kenyan officials have been studying a pipeline and refinery project from south Sudan to the port of Lamu on the Indian Ocean coast. The Kenyan Transport Ministry has sought bids for the project. According to China Daily, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed China’s commitment to build the $16 billion project last May in Shanghai. China is conducting a feasibility study, according to Kenyan media.
I asked Ali Karti, the Sudanese foreign minister, about how his government would react to such a project. “We have our own oil,” he said, adding, “That project will never be built.”
Adopting a Western business mentality, in which profit and economic growth are often the only tenets, has launched China into a head-on collision with some of its traditional policies, said Dru Gladney, an expert on Chinese minorities at Pomona College in California.
China has always portrayed itself as a leader of developing countries, but its own rapid development has changed its relationship with the developing world, he said. “Encouraging a so-called separatist movement is one that is going to complicate that position very much,”
he said.
“It is a delicate issue for China. It is a very important development that China is seriously considering going against its 50-year long policy of non-intervention,” Gladney told me.
China has apparently calculated that it can suppress its own separatists while courting separatists in Sudan, he said. “Chinese separatists are going to recognize that China first and foremost is very pragmatic, that its development and national self-interest is clearly taking precedence over ideology in China today.”
“They may take some encouragement from it, but I don’t think they really will take it that China is changing its position on separatism, especially within China,” Gladney said.
He expects Beijing to crack down on separatists at home while making deals with them abroad. “It’s whichever cat catches mice and in this case the cat that supports a separatist, Christian group will catch more mice for China,” Gladney said.

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