Children at risk in flood-hit Pakistan – Foreign Policy/RTÉ World Report
September 8th, 2010
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/08/dispatch_from_sindh_children_at_risk_from_disease
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0905/worldreport.html
In the ad-hoc child malnutrition facility at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur, mothers cradle and nurse their toddlers, all emaciated and weakened. A row of beds runs either side of the ward in the brown and gray-painted Raj-era hospital.
Three year-old Zamina was malnourished before the floods hit, but the flight from the family farm in Thulla to this heaving city in northern Sindh worsened the tiny girl’s condition considerably, says Dr Sakina Jafri, pausing to speak as she moved from bed to bed.
“With the threat of disease all around, young children are most prone,” she said. “And when they are so young and are malnourished, it only adds to that level of vulnerability.”
Mother Zeina feeds Zamina. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
UNICEF Director Anthony Lake says that almost 9 million children are at risk of disease, an alarm call rung out in tandem with World Food Program head Josette Sheeran’s warning of a second wave of disaster looming even as flood waters slowly recede.
Authorities have also struggled to cope with a growing number of cases of severe diarrhea and malaria caused by dirty water that offers a perfect breeding ground for insects and disease. (more…)
Seven Questions: José Ramos-Horta – Foreign Policy
July 10th, 2009
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/09/seven_questions_jose_ramos_horta?a
East Timor’s Nobel Prize-winning president asks, just who is the failed state here?
President Ramos-Horta gives press conference at Dili Airport, July 09 (Simon Roughneen)
A year after surviving an assassination attempt, President José Ramos-Horta is feeling good about his country. Peace seems to have taken hold in East Timor, where U.N. peacekeepers have been based almost continuously since 1999. The economy is bucking trends in the region with a 12 percent growth rate last year. And Aug. 30 marks the 10-year anniversary of the vote for independence from Indonesia. For Ramos-Horta, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his nonviolent work toward independence and was elected president in 2007, things could hardly look better.
Proud of recent success and touting plans for more, Ramos-Horta spoke to Foreign Policy from his new Chinese-built presidential compound in Dili, East Timor’s capital. He criticizes the West’s misunderstandings about his country and discusses the progress it has made in recent years. Despite challenges ahead — from security reform to corruption to widespread poverty — Ramos-Horta says that the United States is closer to being a “failing state” than the country he leads. Excerpts: (more…)
Northern Ireland goes back in time – Foreign Policy
March 12th, 2009
http://experts.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/12/ireland_goes_back_in_time
Continuity IRA Slogan
It’s looking dangerously similar to the 1980s in Northern Ireland, but a lot has changed since the worst days of “the troubles.”
Last weekend shattered the illusion that the gun had been permanently removed from Irish politics. Two Irish Republican Army (IRA) splinter groups carried out what seemed to be well-planned hits, first against two Afghanistan-bound British soldiers, and later, against a Catholic policeman responding to what turned out to be a terrorist trap. Tragedy that it was, the violence was just the first of two related messes now threatening peace and prosperity in Ireland. The financial crisis has also sent a wave of panic across the now-dead ‘Celtic Tiger’ — whose economy is now set to shrink by at least 6 percent in 2009 after a decade and a half of record growth. (more…)
The coming war in Sudan – Foreign Policy
October 31st, 2007
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2007/10/31/the_coming_war_in_sudan
Abandoned Sudanese tank outside Malakal, Upper Nile State. The area here was heavily contested during the 1983-2005 war (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
On Monday, United Nations (U.N.) and African Union (A.U.) mediators tried to put a positive spin on the failure of the latest Darfur peace talks in Sirte, Libya, after various splinter movements were the only groups to show up to negotiate with a Sudanese government that has collapsed. Crucially, Darfur’s major rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), were absent.
The meeting’s host, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, said that the world should cut Khartoum some slack over international peacekeepers since Darfur is nothing more than a tribal “fight over a camel.”
