Reuters: "Some 2.6 billion people in the world, mainly in Africa and Asia, lack access to basic sanitation, increasing the risk of diarrhea and other diseases fatal to children, said a U.N. report released on Thursday.
UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, in a study on water and sanitation in developing nations, concluded that U.N. goals could be met on clean water, especially in urban areas, but the same was not true for access to the crudest of toilets."
From Salon: "I want to vote for Ted Turner for president ... of the world. Turner gave a speech at the World Trade Organization's Public Forum this morning in Geneva that is equal parts inspiring and enlightening, and cuts right to the core of what this blog cares about. It is, in short, a program for making the world work."
"Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the provincial director of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.
Reuters: "Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, under international pressure over wartorn Darfur, said on Sunday his government would impose a travel ban on U.S. officials that would confine them to the capital Khartoum.... Sudan is under heavy international pressure to allow 20,000 U.N. troops into the western region of Darfur to replace 7,000 poorly funded African Union troops tasked with monitoring a shaky ceasefire."
Jane Holl Lute: "Not many people know this, but the United Nations' peacekeeping force represents the world's second largest deployed military operational presence in the world.