“The president of Sudan, he doesn’t need the people. He only needs what he can take,” said Chief Nyol Jeffur Alor, one of the leaders of the Ngok Dinka people of Abyei—the contested zone straddling Sudan’s North-South border that has often become a battleground where the political interests of NCP and SPLM and their respective armies have played out with brutal consequences for the people on the ground.“He’s taken enough, we should get the rest.”
Ban Ki Moon visited Pakistan over the weekend. The normally soft spoken Sec Gen tried to rouse the international community into action:
I have been avoiding the writing of this blog post because it scares me. We could lose all our effective antibiotics in the next decade. A drug-resistant bacterial strain is spreading fast and globally and as a result we could be looking at the post-antibiotic era.
As of this morning, the UN has received about 20% of its $459 million flash appeal. But it does seem as if funds are coming in at a rapid clip. Norway announced it is giving $16 million to UN -led relief efforts. The Netherlands announced a 2 million euro pledge. Meanwhile Ban Ki Moon and John Kerry--who shephearded multi-billlion dollar aid package through congress last year.
Earlier today, our friends at Nothing But Nets hosted an Facebook "townhall" event featuring the actress Mandy Moore, who will be delivering anti-Malaria bed nets to the Central African Republic.
Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors are headed to Afghanistan for a month of on-the-ground reporting. They are going to focus on talking to regular Afghans, looking at the human, everyday experience of the war.
They’re launching their trip from Dushanbe, where I live, so I met up with them today to talk about their trip. Here’s what I asked them:
Why are you doing this?
Here’s a quick tip for following events in Sudan from afar: go to www.sudantribune.com and look on the right side of the home page for the latest readers’ poll. This poll often gives an accurate indication of an important issue of the day in Sudan. Right now the polling question is: “How should the SPLM [the southern ruling party] respond to a referendum postponement?” The three options are 1) agree to it 2) negotiate to keep the referendum date unchanged and 3) go to war with the North.
The UN's top humanitarian official John Holmes is interviewed on PBS Newshour about the Pakistan Floods."The scale of this we are only beginning to understand now"
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched a $459.7 million flash appeal for Pakistan.