It doesn't get worse than this. Last week, 13-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death in Somalia by insurgents because she was raped.
Reports indicate that was raped by three men while traveling by foot to visit her grandmother in conflict capital, Mogadishu. When she went to the authorities to report the crime, they accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death. Aisha was forced into a hole in a stadium of 1,000 onlookers as 50 men buried her up to the neck and cast stones at her until she died.
When some of the people at the stadium tried to save her, militia opened fire on the crowd, killing a boy who was a bystander.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, issued a heated statement condemning the brutal killing, calling for the protection of children in Somalia. She said, "The incident highlights the extreme nature of violence against children and women in Somalia, which has been heightened by the increasing lawlessness."
Coomaraswamy also raised concern of the increasing recruitment of children as soldiers, in which they are killed on a daily basis. But Aisha's death not only serves as a reminder of the brutality towards children in the midst of war, but a reminder of the brutality towards women. This girl was raped, and killed, because she was female.
Elizabeth Dickinson of Foreign Policy has the goods. And while I'm on the subject, I just posted a new Delegate's Lounge piece on the terrible nexus between refugees and Malaria. Even if the vaccine is successful, it will be some time before it reaches vulnerable refugee populations. A quick, cheap and effective way to stem the deadly scourge of Malaria is through the use of insecticide treated bed nets. $10 pays for one bed net that can cover a family of four for up to four years. Send a net. Save a life.
Six weeks before his election on November 4, President-elect Barack Obama made a promise to the one million people around the world who die from Malaria each year. "When I am President," he said, "We will set the goal of ending all deaths from Malaria by 2015. The United States will lead."
This may sound like a typical grandiose promise made by a candidate seeking election. But to those in the public health community it offered validation that ending Malaria deaths is not some pie in the sky dream--but a goal that can be achieved in the here and now. Following through on this commitment, however, means that the fight against Malaria must be taken to where the disease is most destructive and most difficult to contain: refugee camps in Africa.
A former Japanese race car driver has designed a new kind of electric car, called the Electric Sunflower. Via, the United Nations University's new webzine Our World 2.0.
The electric sunflower from UNUChannel on Vimeo. As the video notes, the electric sunflower is selling fairly poorly for the moment. That said, they are looking to March 20009 when a new government subsidy kicks in.
The electric sunflower from UNUChannel on Vimeo. As the video notes, the electric sunflower is selling fairly poorly for the moment. That said, they are looking to March 20009 when a new government subsidy kicks in.
Where EVs are concerned, one of the most forward thinking prefectures in Japan is Kanagawa, which will start in March 2009 to provide a subsidy of about half that of the national government (i.e., ¥300,000), making EVs truly more price competitive. Kanagawa prefecture also has a plan to ensure that there are 3000 EVs on local streets by fiscal year 2014. This includes a range of measures to promote EVs, such as subsidies, lower taxes, plus reduced parking fees and expressway tolls. The electric charging infrastructure will be further developed with "quick chargers" installed in 30 locations by 2010, aiming for 1,000 charging outlets of 100 and 200 volts within the prefecture by 2014.It's amazing to consider the extent to which truly local policies like parking and toll fees can have a global impact.
At the Morning Side Post, Monique Tuyisenge-Onyegbula revisits her experience as a Rwandan refugee in Goma.
It's veterans day here in the United States. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America chose this day to launch a new social networking site for veterans, Community of Veterans.
Jeet Heer has more on the origins of Veterans Day.
The UN's second-highest peacekeeping official pens a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, responding to critics of the overwhelmed, undermanned, under-resourced, and under-appreciated mission in eastern Congo.
MONUC forces are patrolling, holding access routes to the provincial capital of Goma and maintaining the fragile peace there. It is the only force actively contributing to the protection of the vulnerable and helping to make a difference where it matters most. However, with barely one peacekeeper for every 10,000 civilians in eastern Congo, MONUC cannot be everywhere at once. Its troops are spread thin throughout the country; moving large numbers of them would destabilize other volatile regions. This is why we have called on the international community to reinforce the mission immediately. We need the right tools if we are to succeed in the difficult days ahead. Without the U.N. force, the situation in North Kivu would have been far worse. Without the blue U.N. helmets and U.N. expertise, Congo could not have emerged from the horrors of its brutal civil wars to hold its first national elections in half a century. U.N. peacekeeping is an imperfect instrument, but where would Congo and indeed Africa as a whole be without it? [emphasis mine]UN troops cannot indeed be "behind every tree," and Mulet raises a good point about the counter-factual difficulty of realizing the benefits of having UN peacekeepers behind at least some of those trees. Check out this RI bulletin that I flagged earlier for more on what the mission is doing -- and what needs to be done to support it.
Anne Bayefsky's caricature of the UN in The National Review would be offensive if it weren't so laughable.
The U.N. is an uncomplicated place. Every sick, unsatiated tyrant, European has-been, or miserable wretch brainwashed about the Great Satan wants to take America down - unless they are able to immigrate of course. Their modus operandi? The United Nations.So...everyone at the UN hates the U.S. so much that they either want to destroy it, or...become a citizen? Besides insulting the fairly significant contingent of non-brainwashed, America-hating, "washed-up" Member States in the UN, Bayefsky makes some astonishingly spurious claims about Barack Obama's agenda for U.S.-UN relations, groundlessly accusing him of already planning to "put Israel on the chopping block" and "agree to some form of global taxation" (see here and here for indications that Obama's actual policies on these respective issues could not be more opposite). These are only the two most ludicrous of a number of other nefarious positions that Bayefsky plants on the incoming administration and which it has in no way voiced support for. Needless to say, the UN is a complicated place. It is the only forum at which representatives from all countries can voice their concerns, pursue their interests, and -- ideally, of course -- work together. Naturally, there is a fair share of bad actors who use its platform as a bully pulpit, but it is also the only mechanism through which the weight of the entire international community can -- legitimately, concertedly, and most effectively -- be leveraged to address transcendent global issues, from climate change to extreme poverty, counter-terrorism to peace in the Middle East. This is simply far too expansive an organization to be boiled down as "uncomplicated."
South African singer, long-time anti-apartheid activist, and UN Food and Agriculture Organization Goodwill Ambassador Miriam Makeba died this morning at the age of 76.
A fitting epitaph:
"I just told the world the truth, and if the truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that."And a video of her performing her most famous song, Pata-Pata, in 1979.