Justice a long in coming

Col. Theoneste Bagasora, the main organizer behind the 1994 slaughter of more than 500,000 people in Rwanda, was convicted of genocide 12/17/08 and sentenced to life in prison. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity. The court said he used his position as the former director of Rwanda's Ministry of Defense to direct Hutu soldiers to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
His conviction was welcomed by genocide survivors, who still live uneasily among perpetrators in Rwanda's green hills nearly 15 years later. Bagosora also was found responsible for the deaths of former Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, and 10 Belgian peacekeepers who tried to protect her as she was killed at the outset of the genocide. At the time of the genocide, Bagasora was the second-highest ranking official in the defense department. (Associated Press)

If the world were a village of 100 project

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
51 would be male, 49 would be female
82 would be non-white; 18 white
67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian
80 would live in substandard housing (a very subjective stat)
67 would be unable to read
50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
33 would be without access to a safe water supply
39 would lack access to improved sanitation
24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)
7 people would have access to the Internet
1 would have a college education
1 would have HIV
5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
33 would be receiving --and attempting to live on-- only 3% of the income of “the village”

These statistics were taken from the STATE OF THE VILLAGE REPORT by Donella H. Meadows, published in 1990 as "Who lives in the Global Village?" and updated in 2005.

Statistics

Taken from www.one.org/

In 2007, HIV/AIDS killed 2.2 million people, 1.7 million people died from tuberculosis (TB) and malaria killed another 881,000 people. These global pandemics disproportionately affect the world’s poorest people and Africa is by far the hardest hit: over 8,000 people die every day in Africa from these three preventable and treatable diseases.
The human impact of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria is undeniable, but their socioeconomic impact is also severe. In Africa, AIDS threatens to wipe out an entire generation during its most productive years- businesses are losing their workers, governments are losing their civil servants and families are losing their breadwinners. These three diseases are having a measurable impact throughout developing world: 12.1 million children in Africa have already lost one or both parents to AIDS. Some estimates indicate that annual GDP growth rates in countries with high incidences of HIV/AIDS can be 2-4% lower than in countries with an absence of the disease. It is estimated that malaria-an entirely preventable and treatable disease-costs Africa $12 billion in lost economic growth each year.

Evidence for Action
The good news is that these diseases are preventable and treatable using proven, cost-effective strategies:
Antiretroviral medication to treat people living with HIV/AIDS costs as little as $140 per patient per year, down from nearly $10,000 a year less than 10 years ago.
Malaria can be all but eliminated through four highly successful interventions: insecticide-treated bed nets (which cost $6 to manufacture and distribute) and anti-malarial treatment (which costs $2 per dose), as well as indoor residual spraying and preventative treatment for pregnant women.
In many endemic countries, $16-35 will buy a full six month drug course of TB treatments.
The establishment of initiatives such as the Global Fund, PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative has helped to dramatically scale up global resources to fight these diseases: In 2002, only 50,000 HIV-positive people in Africa had access to antiretroviral medicines (only 1% of those in need). At the end of 2007, over 2 million Africans (30% of those in need) — and 2 million people globally (31% of those in need) — were receiving treatment. To protect families from malaria, the Global Fund has helped deliver 59 million bed nets since 2002. In Rwanda and Ethiopia, the dramatic scale-up of bed nets and anti-malaria treatment has reduced malaria deaths by over 50% in the past two years. Moving Forward Despite recent successes, current efforts are not on the scale necessary. Around the world, 6.7 million people who need antiretroviral treatment are still not receiving it and 7,400 people are newly infected with HIV each day. In 2005, world leaders committed to helping provide universal access to AIDS prevention, care and treatment by 2010, but there is still no plan in place for realizing this ambitious goal. Malaria is still responsible for one in every five childhood deaths in Africa. 2.5 million Africans become newly infected with TB each year and more than 500,000 of those infected people die.Much more must be done on all three of these deadly diseases and one necessary prerequisite for doing so is increased global funding. While the world spent approximately $10 billion fighting HIV/AIDS in 2007, UNAIDS estimates that funding levels will need to increase by over 50% by 2010 in order to maintain the current scale up of universal access for prevention, care and treatment. Malaria efforts will require between $1.9-3.1 billion per year and stopping TB will cost an estimated $3.1 billion from donors annually but in 2007 donors fell more than $1 billion short. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that health systems must be strengthened in order to deliver these scaled up services. Already stretched doctors, nurses and pharmacists as well as the systems and facilities that support them must be reinforced not just to address AIDS, TB and malaria but to ensure that while we do so, we don't further exacerbate other basic health challenges as well. HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria can be defeated, but if the effective solutions that are currently within reach are scaled up dramatically.

"We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3;16-18

Aid in Sudan

Inspired by the movie The Girl in the Cafe, I have done some research on actual G8 Summits and what is going on in Africa based on the work of the Bush Administration. I found this on a government website. Unfortunately the vast needs in Africa and the tremendous obstacles to true reform of hearts, minds and power make it inadequate to completely eradicate the devastation of the past few years in Sudan and other areas in Africa where greed, corruption, ignorance, racism and power hungry people hurt others by the thousand.

In a nutshell at this year's G8 Summit discussions regarding Africa resulted in the G8 leaders announcing new measures on improving education, health, water supplies and sanitation and increasing the number of doctors and nurses in Africa. They set a five-year deadline to commit $60-billion in funding to help Africa fight disease, including pledging 100 million mosquito nets by 2010 which will prevent thousands of deaths from malaria. They also renewed a commitment made three years ago to double aid for Africa to $25-billion by 2010 and to consider pledging further assistance after 2010

The following facts were posted on a US Government website. They sound fabulous--I just confess I doubt that the full intended goals will be reached on the other side of the ocean.

Fact Sheet: Leading the Global Response to the Crisis in Darfur
President Bush Meets With Sudanese Human Rights Advocate, Pledges Continued U.S. Support To End The Violence In Darfur
"For too long, the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder, and rape of innocent civilians. My Administration has called these actions by their rightful name: genocide. The world has a responsibility to help put an end to it. ... I promise this to the people of Darfur: the United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world." – President George W. Bush, 5/29/07
The United States Is Committed To Ending The Genocide In Darfur
The United States is the largest single donor to the people of Sudan, including to Darfur where more than 2.5 million are currently displaced. America leads the world in responding to the crisis there by providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations, facilitating the deployment of an international peacekeeping force, and promoting a lasting political settlement. Specifically, the United States providing support through:
Humanitarian Aid and Human Rights. The United States is the leading international donor to Sudan, providing more than $5 billion in assistance to Sudan since 2005, including $3.7 billion in humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance to Darfur. In 2008, the United States provided half of the World Food Program's food aid request for more than 6 million people throughout Sudan and eastern Chad. In FY 2007, the United States gave more than $1 billion in assistance to the people of Sudan, including Darfur.
More than 30 U.S. Government partners are currently implementing programs to provide food, health, shelter, water, and other life-saving services, in the face of the many challenges caused by escalating banditry, bureaucratic impediments, and attacks on humanitarian staff. The United States also continues to promote efforts to ensure the safety and basic rights of Darfur's most vulnerable people. The United States has spearheaded a $16 million initiative to combat the widespread violence against women and girls and help communities to heal. The U.S. government supports radio programming in local languages on human rights issues and peace processes that are directed at persons displaced because of the conflict and other vulnerable populations in Darfur.

Earlier this year, the President made available $100 million in U.S. funding to augment the training and equipping of African peacekeepers pledged to deploy under UNAMID. Up to $40 million dollars of these new funds ensured that Rwanda's forces have the training and equipment they need to deploy four battalions (3,200 troops) to Darfur. Already, the United States has helped train more than 7,000 Rwandans for peacekeeping in Darfur and spent more than $40 million to ensure they are properly prepared, equipped, and on the ground.
Economic Sanctions. Since violence erupted in Darfur in 2003, the United States has imposed economic sanctions on seven Sudanese individuals responsible for violence in Darfur and on more than 160 companies owned or controlled by the Government of Sudan (GOS).
The United States supports a political solution to the ongoing Darfur conflict, including necessary security and compensation provisions as outlined in the DPA, which creates broad structures for an eventual outcome that will allow millions of Darfuris to return to their homes and rebuild their lives in peace.