As Mark and I are on vacation this week, posting will be lite and there will be no Morning Coffee. We will return, with a vengeance, next week.
According to news reports Russian and Georgian armed forces are in a pitched battle over South Ossetia, the majority ethnic-Russian breakaway province in Georgia. The Secretary General is urging restraint. And so far, over 1,000 civilians have fled South Ossetia to Russian territory. Global Voices Online offers a grounds eye view from bloggers in the region.
Also via Global Voices, this Russia Today clip (posted on Aid Worker Daily) gives an update from the front lines.
...introducing "Rattus Holmes in the Case of the Spoilsports," in which a rat detective and his feline sidekick help restore honor and integrity to the summer games by investigating doping and steroid use.
UNESCO launched the cartoon this week, in advance of today's opening ceremony, to help garner support for the International Convention Against Doping in Sport.
With 7,000 young women becoming HIV positive every day, it's no news that massive efforts are being made to specifically to target its prevalence among girls and young women in the world. And yesterday, a UN-backed guide was released in an attempt to decrease these staggering numbers. Via UN News Center:
At the publication's launch in Mexico City against the backdrop of the XVII International AIDS Conference, Purnima Mane of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said that "girls and young women face double vulnerability, and double efforts are needed to protect them."The guide "Make it Matter" was created by UNFPA, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Young Positives and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. What really stands out about this guide is that its focus is not only on increasing access to reproductive and sexual health services for girls and young women (which is obviously a key component), but recognizes that there are a number of other factors - like socioeconomic status and certain patriarchal customs like child marriages - that contribute to this epidemic among the world's women. You can find more information and download the full guide here.
Top Stories
>>China - Speaking in Thailand yesterday, President Bush denounced China's treatment of political dissidents and limitations put on the press and religion hours ahead of his arrival in Beijing. President Bush is in the middle of a seven-day trip to Asia, which also included a stop in South Korea and will culminate with his attendance at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in China on Friday.>>Pakistan - Pakistan's ruling coalition today agreed to initiated impeachment proceedings against President Musharraf, expected to begin next week in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly. It is expected that Musharraf will be asked to call a vote of confidence, and, if he refuses, the impeachment will begin. In order to be impeached two-thirds of both the upper and lower houses would need to approve; Musharraf would be the first. It was also announced today that Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani will attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics Games, not Musharraf as previously planned.>>Mauritania - A bloodless coup d'etat was executed in Mauritania on Wednesday by a group of senior military officers who arrested the president and the prime minister, the first democratically elected government in two decades. The coup directly followed the president's firing of the officers, some of whom were instrumental in the 2005 coup that led to President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi's election and were his supporters. The officers have committed to holding elections soon. The UN, U.S., EU, and AU all condemned the coup.Yesterday in UN Dispatch
Piracy is a big problem off of the Somali coast. World Food Program shipments have been held up, threatening the food security of an already vulnerable population. But, thanks to Canada, it looks like the WFP is about to get some relief. The Royal Canadian Navy is sending a frigate to the Horn of Africa to protect World Food Program Vessels. From the UN News Center:
Some 90 per cent of WFP food aid for Somalia arrives by sea. Since a naval escort system began last November, no escorted ships carrying WFP food have been attacked. The last escorted ship loaded with WFP food arrived in Mogadishu in late June. There were a total of 31 incidents off Somalia in 2007 - the worst year on record for Somali piracy. Without escorts, WFP's whole maritime supply route is under threat, according to the agency, which noted that since the escorts ended in late June some shippers have refused to load WFP food for Somalia. WFP urgently needs to double the amount of food it delivers to Somalia - which is facing a dire humanitarian crisis owing to drought, insecurity, failed harvests, the weakness of the Somali shilling and rising food and fuel prices - through the coming months so it can feed 2.4 million people by December.Read more. (Image: a Canadian Naval Vessel at flag lowering from Flickr user MiguelB)
The NY Times has published a cool graphic displaying the history of the Olympic torch. What struck me immediately is the clear delineation between the torches made after 1990 and those made before. Have we just gotten more design conscious, or are the photos of the new torches just better?
Check out this description:
Montreal - Summer 1976: The torch designers began to consider the torch as part of the television coverage of the Games: The top of the torch is black to make the flame more visible in photographs and the logo is prominent on the handle.
The logo is prominent on the handle!
In comparison, according to the accompanying audio, narrated by reporter Phil Patton, the Beijing torch is "a long, red thin item that resembles a rolled scroll and is decorated by swirling graphics, known as 'happy clouds,' said to reflect 'vivid distance' -- a very good description of how China is presenting itself to the world with this Olympics." was is designed by Lenovo.
The design process for the Vancouver torch has already begun. It's to be the "cleanest and greenest torch ever."
In a Washington Post op-ed the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs reflects on a recent visit Myanmar, three months after Cyclone Nargis killed an estimated 140,000 people and displaced millions more. He reports that progress is being made.
The international response has helped save lives and reduce suffering. While it is impossible to be sure all survivors have been reached, I am confident that the overwhelming majority have received help, even if many still need a good deal more. Crucially, a much-feared second wave of deaths from starvation or disease has not happened -- no small achievement, given that 75 percent of hospitals and clinics in the affected areas were destroyed. The people's resilience has been remarkable, as was the degree of help and solidarity from individual citizens and organizations in Myanmar.So what does this mean? For one, it shows that pundits who said that only forced intervention could help the people of Burma were wrong:
[t]he aid operation in Myanmar -- as is true everywhere we work -- had to be about helping vulnerable people in need, not about politics. In this post-Iraq age, I am concerned that humanitarians are often pressured to choose between the hammer of forced intervention and the anvil of perceived inaction. Was there a realistic alternative to the approach of persistent negotiation and dialogue that we pursued? I do not believe so. Nor have I met anyone engaged in the operations who believes that a different approach would have brought more aid to more people more quickly. (Emphasis added)John Holmes does not name names. I will. Here in the United States, those who conflated toppling the odious Burmese junta and delivering aid to the vulnerable Burmese people included Robert Kaplan. This Washington Post editorial made basically the same point. Three months later it's clear that they were wrong. We never had to choose between forced intervention and doing nothing. Fortunately, they were ignored. And in the meantime, lives were saved.
Steve Clemons tries to cut through the smog surrounding the domestic debate on oil prices:
This debate over oil and energy policy disgusts me because both Obama and McCain are trying to force short term, knee jerk responses to a major policy challenge for the nation.
[snip]
To get the price of oil down, candidates should work harder at thinking through what the characteristics of a new equilibrium in the Middle East and globally might look like. What kind of deal can be done with Iran that preserves Israeli security, Iran's domestic energy interests, and does not leave Iran with a domestic capacity to covertly manufacture nuclear weapons? There's much that can be done.