News round

Matthew McConaughey has been pretty popular over the last few days.Below are the links.Happy clicking.Kate Hudson & Matthew McConaughey are remaking Goldie Hawn’s film Foul Play Matthew And Lance Work On Their Collective FitnessBest buds Matthew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong convened in Malibu, CA yesterday to go for a little work-out jog together. Jake Gyllenhaal Prepares For His &lsq

Sorry for the lack of posts folks. The internet is down so I'm writing from the Student Union. I feel very collegiate.Let's do a news round-up to get back in the swing of things shall we?Everyone is still reeling over the loss of Tim Russert. His empty chair during yesterday's Meet The Press spoke volumes. His son Luke spoke to Matt Lauer on The Today Show this morning. Luke's passion will be a f

In just over 72 hours it will be D-Day for Apple fans across the globe. June 9th marks the coveted Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference and this is when the 3G iPhone will be announced to the world. Make no mistake about it folks, all the clues point to this day being that magical day. Let’s take [...]

As you certainly know by now, Google Earth version 4.3 has been released.  It has a bunch of great new features and already has generated a lot of reviews, screenshots and videos.  Here are some of the best we've seen so far: Download it! -- First up, you need to download ...

Alyssa Milano made some news.Check out the links below.Happy clicking.Playboy Throws A Super Bowl Party Leading up to the big game, Hugh Hefner threw his always-hot Playboy Super Saturday Night Party last night in a 52,000-square-foot tent in the middle of the Arizona desert. Alyssa Milano @ Playboy’s Super Saturday Night Party (2/2) Alyssa looks so good, it is unbelievable that she

Anne Hathaway has been pretty popular over the last few days.Below are the links.Happy clicking.Anne Hathaway Gets Fashionable It’s that time of year again… time for New York Fashion Week.  And that means tons of celebrity sightings and fabulous new looks. Anne Hathaway is Fashion ForwardAnne Hathaway attends the Erin Fetherston Fall 2008 fashion show during the Mercedes-Benz Fa

Sometimes blogging can be absolutely infuriating. Like just now, I sat down, wrote my post for the day and then just as I went to publish it on the internet my computer froze and it was gone. I’ll be buggered if I’m going to write it all again (I am at work after all!) so I’ve decided I’ll take a slightly different/lazy approach to today’s post. There are numerous little stories around the traps so instead of writing about them again I’ll just provide the links for you to go and read about them yourself. Here goes then… Randall. Win over Blackburn. Tottenham. Chimbonda. Djourou. And that’s about it. Today’s post was going to be a little shorter than normal anyway because I’m off to see Daft Punk live later today. Anyone who has heard of them will know what a blast that’s going to be. Hopefully my mood should pick up a little more before then. Cheers! Have your say on today’s Arsenal news by leaving a comment.

Unicef published the pictures of the year, snapshots of children around the world. This picture shows a girl on her birthday, living near a waste dump in Manila (Philippines).Picture courtesy Hartmut Schwarzbach. Thanks to E. for the link.For updated humanitarian news, check out The Other World News

Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets as deep as 60 miles inside northern Iraq for three hours Sunday. Turkey's military chief said the U.S. gave intelligence and tacit approval for the raid.An Iraqi official said the planes attacked several villages, killing one woman. The rebels said two civilians and five rebels were killed.The U.S. Embassy in Iraq refused to comment Monday on the Turkish general's assertion that American officials had given Turkey permission to enter Iraq's air space. (Full item)Eh? And I thought Iraq was a sovereign country?! Did the Iraqi government have no say in this? The US "gives permission" to bomb villages on the territory of another state.. On basis of what authority? Picture courtesy AP

Rain caused by tropical storm Noel hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic pretty hard at the end of October.While the press did not pay too much attention to the human emergency caused by Noel's aftermath, the humanitarian organisations did...Here are some pictures we received from our staff in the area: A flooded village in Barradères Haiti.This is how Petit Trou de Nippes in Haiti looks like after the storm. The remains of a banana plantation in the Dominican Republic.Pictures courtesy Alejandro Chicheri and WFP

Sri Lanka: Fighting intensified in the war-wracked north as the government asked Parliament for a 20 percent increase in military spending. There were conflicting accounts of casualties by the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers. Government officials have said that they plan to open a major offensive soon against the Tigers’ northern mini-state in an effort to destroy the group.Somalia: Insurgents dragged the bodies of dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of the capital Mogadishu after another flare-up of fighting that killed at least 21 people and sent thousands fleeing the volatile city.Ethiopia/Eritrea: The continuing tensions between the two countries, the failure to resolve their longstanding boundary dispute and the military build-up along their common border are causes for serious concern.Picture courtesy AFP

The world has 800 million people suffering from hunger. About 100-150 million of those receive regular food aid. Up to now, we could say "the world is producing enough food to feed everyone, so it is just a matter of re-dividing the food!". This might no longer be true. In less than 10 years, the price for a barrel of crude oil went from less than US$20 to almost US$100. Soaring fossil fuel prices, and the push for non-fossil fuel -either out of environmental concerns, or to create less dependency on foreign oil- had many governments stimulate farmers to switch from food crops to biofuel crops. As if they really had to stimulate farmers: the growing demand made biofuel a real profitable cash crop.So, more farmers growing biofuel, means less farmers growing food crops. More land in use for biofuel, less land for food crops. The dilemma shows even more drastically in developing countries. As an example, the government of Swaziland announced this week that it would be allocating thousands

One of the most popular short stories on "The Road to the Horizon", is "The Day I Got Exiled from the US". This non-fiction piece states the dry facts of my detention at Dulles Airport, and in the end of my deportation from the US. I have not been able to get a tourist visa ever since, and nowadays can only get into the US for work on my diplomatic visa. Not without being interviewed each time.And I am not the only one (and not the only diplomat) having problems with US immigration, apparently. The BBC reports how Shahid Malik - a Muslim Member of Parliament and the UK's current International Development Minister - was detained at Dulles Airport (Washington DC). He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.The funny thing is Shahid Malik was in the US as a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism. I am extatic th

Vogue published a series of pictures from fashion photographer Steven Meisel approaching the war in Iraq from a different and rather unique angle. Some see it at distasteful, others see it as criticism on the war, others see it as pure commercialism. Whatever it is, it is controversial in a world often dominated by conformism.More pictures from the "Make Love, Not War" series, you find here.

Wars stripped about $284 billion from Africa's economies between 1990 and 2005, roughly equal to the amount of aid money given to the world's poorest continent, according to a report by Oxfam International. In the study "Africa's Missing Billions," the British aid group said the 23 conflicts engulfing Africa in the period had shrunk economies by an average 15 percent per year at a cost of almost $18 billion a year. Oxfam based its estimate on a calculation of the various costs of conflicts and violence, including higher military expenditures, loss of development aid, rising inflation and medical expenses of those injured or disabled. Picture courtesy of Reuters

Bolstered by windfall oil profits, Venezuelan president Chávez's government is now offering more direct financial aid to Latin America and the Caribbean than the United States. This article states Venezuela pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing, and energy funding for its neighbours so far this year.Compare that to the $3 billion of US grants and loans reaching the same region in 2005, and you can see who gains more influence...!Add to this, a previous news round-up showing the UAE investing $10 billion USD in an education package, and you easily see international (financial) aid shifting from the US and IMF's lead "Western Alliance" to... well, to others... Good! Hopefully the same will happen also with the economical power in the world!

In an earlier post, I wrote about a leaked UN report accusing the Government of Sudan transporting weaponry into Darfur, disregarding UN security resolutions.New pictures released last week, showed once again Antonov military planes and Russian-supplied Mi-24 military helicopters at an airport in Geneina, a town in Sudan's Darfur region... I wonder how the Government of Sudan will deny this, yet again.Picture courtesy Washington Post

Have you noticed too the slowly but steadily escalating posturing between Russia and the US... ?I guess it all started with their stand-off on the war in Iraq. They certainly did not agree on Iran, with the US trying to force Iran out of their nuclear ambitions while Moscow supplied fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant. Then there was an indirect standoff during the Orange revolution in the Ukraine, taking one more nation away from Putin's area of influence. Add their differences about Kosovo's independence, the recent integration of ex-USSR satellite states into the EU (with the alleged Russian-stoked unrest in Estonia), etcetera etcetera, and you have a recipe for problems.Even more worrying is the recent escalation of direct posturing. NATO wants to install new radar installations in countries which used to be direct USSR allies. Russia says: "Ahaaa" and tests a new long range missile and re-activates its long range spy plane flights, which alerted the UK to scramble R

E. points out that while yesterday we were discussing whether or not we, aid workers, are not paid too much, at the same time local staff working for the UN Peace Keeping forces in DRC (MONUC) went on strike.They claim lacking of promotions and raises in wages since MONUC started in 1999, and the discrepancy between wages for equally qualified local and international staff.Even though this incident involved UN Peace Keeping Operations (UNDPKO), which are seperate and very different from UN humanitarian operations, it shows the relativity of the issue: while some of us work in comfortable headquarters, feeling we might be paid too much, others working in the field might not paid sufficiently for the work they do...(Full news-item here)Picture courtesy Myriam Asmani-MONUC

Alas, I was unable to attend Defcon this year. It makes me sad. But there is always next year. I tried to follow some of the news coming out of Defcon this year on the web. Below are some of the highlights from the convention (as best as I can tell, not actually being there). (more…)

Senegal's leading film maker and author Ousmane Sembene, who was a staunch critic of Africans taking aid from the West, passed away.His films and books often touched on issues of colonialism and Western racism but his subject always focused on what Africans need to do for themselves.Born on 1 January, 1923 in southern Senegal's Casamance region, Sembène had little formal education, starting work at age 14 as a fisherman and auto mechanic. He was drafted by the French Army in World War II then worked as a dockworker in Marseilles after which he wrote 'Le docker noir' the first of his many acclaimed books. He also became a trade unionist and member of the French Communist Party until 1961 when he went to Moscow to study filmmaking.Sembène was influenced by the Marxist-based 'dependence theory' which was popular in the years following Africa's independence. The premise of the theory was that wealthy nations need Africa to remain impoverished as a way for them to sustain their own

Strange. A day after I posted an introspective blog-entry on the role and usefulness of humanitarian aid, the leaders of the G8 nations meeting in Germany announced to spend $60bn fighting Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa.Several aid agencies say member nations have not met the commitments they made at their 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, and G8 leaders are acknowledging as much. Rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof were on the spot to remind the world leaders of their 2005 promise."There is a great crisis of credibility,” said Geldof in this article when he referred to the G8's unfulfilled commitment, “If I sign a contract in my business life and don't fulfil it, I would be sued. I could go to jail. Do these leaders live outside the norms of human behaviour?".Interesting statement, raising an issue which could also be extended to areas other than commitments of foreign aid. Do we actually have mechanisms to keep our politicians to their promise, other than "not re-electi

In an article in Der Spiegel, the Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, says aid to Africa does more harm than good. He explains the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem. Even though it is an older article (which hit digg.com again today), the question is still a right one to ask today.To be honest, as an aidworker with a conscience, I often struggle within myself "if we really make a difference". In both general and in specific cases. Up to what level can we, "the West", "the Industrialized Nations", stand by and watch poverty, decease, starvation, lack of education take its toll in poorer countries. And as of what level is the aid we are providing, starting a vicious circle of making people dependent on this foreign aid. Corrupting their economy? When do we stop? And how do we stop? How do we, the aid agencies, ensure that we do not fall into a trap of 'inventing aid-needs' just to ensure we sti

The UN released the "Stories the world should hear more about", for the year 2006.Journalists are often inundated with stories, all competing for their -and the public's- attention. The aim of the stories is to make it easier for the press and the public, to see that important issues do not fade from the headlines."The initiative, first launched in 2004, covers a spectrum of issues and geographical regions, some of which draw on troubling humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations, while others focus on such vital areas as human rights and development. The stories are:Liberia: Development challenges top agenda as the nation recovers from years of civil strife Lost in migration: Asylum seekers face challenges amid efforts to stem flows of illegal migrants DR of Congo: As the country moves boldly towards historic vote, humanitarian concerns continue to demand attention Nepal's hidden tragedy: Children caught in the conflict Somalia: Security vacuum compounding effects of drought

Worthplaying has posted a review of Dawn of Mana for the PS2. The verdict? Below average.Wesp has released an unofficial v3.6 patch for VtM: Bloodlines.Michael Madej, on the dev team for The Witcher, has been interviewed at GamingHeaven.Sources: Worthplaying, RPG Watch.

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum is giving US$10bn (ten billion US dollars...) to set up an educational foundation in the Middle East.The money is meant to improve the standard of education and research in the region, and aims to stimulate job creation.It is thought to be one of the largest charitable donations in history. (Full article)And don't give me any crap about oil revenue etc... Oil is only 10% of Dubai's income. Commerce and tourism count for about 80% of the BNP. Talk about vision instead !(Link sent to me by Peter Scott-Bowden. Tnx Peter! )

Sixteen years after the established government fell in Somalia, the East African nation just lurches from one disaster to another, some man-made, some natural, each one deepening the humanitarian crisis.Last year marked more than six years of a record-breaking drought, followed by renewed fighting as the Islamic Courts Union sought to oust feuding clan warlords, which they did, establishing a semblance of order in the unruly capital and most of the country for the first time in a decade and a half. Then the drought ended—only to be replaced by devastating floods, cutting off much of the population from aid deliveries. And by the end of 2006, warfare resumed, with Ethiopia, encouraged by the United States, invading Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts, which were a little too pro-Al Qaeda for U.S. tastes, and prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an amalgamation of former warlords with little popular support in Somalia. (full article)Picture courtesy Irinnews.org

There was a lot of controversy about the appointment of Wolfowitz as the president of the Worldbank. He is seen as a Bush puppet and one of the architects of the Iraq war. The nomination did not get a lot of support from the UN member states, and certainly not from the general public. Personally, I felt ashamed to be a UN staff member when he became one.Wolfowitz recently became involved in a scandal as he personally intervened in the handling of a high-paying promotion for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. European countries led by France, Germany and the Netherlands, jumped on the opportunity and have said Wolfowitz should step down to salvage the bank's credibility.A Worldbank board panel now found Wolfowitz broke bank rules and represented a conflict of interest.Read the full story here. It seems his last days in the Worldbank are numbered. It was just a matter of time...Flash update: Wolfowitz resigns from the Worldbank. Full story here.Picture courtesy Reuters. I found this news item

Human Rights Watch has nominated the following people to its Hall of Shame during the International Day Against Homophobia:Pope Benedict XVIUS President George W. BushIranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadPolish Minister of Education Roman GiertychBienvenido Abante, Chair of the Philippine House Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights. To get your picture on the Hall of Shame, you have to do a serious effort to undermine human rights by actively promoting prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (full article)

Who wins? Bah, read the Commander in Chief's version, in this article.The full transcript of the talk of the Commander in Chief, you find here. Real intelligent stuff. I mean deep stuff. He opens his speech with a real winner: "What I thought I would do is talk a little bit, share my mind with you, and then answer questions for a while. We're on the record until I tell you we're not on the record.""My responsibility is to speak as often as I can to the American people.", he adds. Maybe he should not and leave the Republican candidate at least 'some' chance in the next election ! Maybe one that knows how to sing better than McCain? At least a different tune please! We're so tired of war songs!NEXT! Picture courtesy funnypics.dk

Since decennia, Afghanistan has been one of the main producers of heroin. The plant, the poppy, grows easily, needs little water or care in general, and is easy to harvest: farmers milk opium resin from the plants which is processed into heroin and smuggled.Opium and heroin has become Afghanistan's runaway export success. At the end of the Taliban reign, the cultivation of poppy was outlawed, and the crops were eradicated, up to the extend that the UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) had closed its offices in Afghanistan with a note "Job Done!".Since the fall of the Taliban, the poppy crop soared from 8,000 hectares in 2001 to a record 165,000 hectares last year. The street value of the annual crop is estimated at US$3 billion, representing about 90% of the world's heroin production. An estimated 2.9 million Afghans, 13% of the population, are involved. There are no cartel lords. Western officials believe trade is controlled by 25 smugglers including three government ministers according

MSF (Doctors Without Borders) published the Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2006: The current conflict in Somalia may generate fleeting worldwide attention, but the abysmal day-to-day living conditions faced by Somalis remains largely forgotten. Civilians in the Central African Republic (CAR) once again fell victim to horrific violence in the latest bout of conflict in a string of coups and rebellions that have plagued the country since it achieved independence from France in 1960.While many people in the West consider tuberculosis (TB) a disease of a bygone era, the devastating human toll taken by the disease is increasing worldwide.The conflict in Chechnya and its consequences on civilians has been almost entirely hidden from the rest of the world. While it may be decreasing in intensity, for many people who lived through the ebb and flow of this bitter twelve-year war, physical and mental scars remain. Civilians in Sri Lanka have born the brunt of major fighting th

April 17. The New York Times reports:A confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft.In one case, illustrated with close-up pictures, the report says the letters “U.N.” have been stenciled onto the wing of a whitewashed Sudanese armed forces plane parked on a military apron at a Darfur airport. Bombs guarded by uniformed soldiers are laid out in rows by its side.Read the NY Times article with a copy of the UN report..

A new humanitarian crisis looms in the Middle East unless urgent measures are taken to assist four million Iraqis uprooted by the escalating violence, Amnesty International warned today.Already two million have fled to Syria and Jordan, another 1.9 million is displaced inside Iraq. (Full article)One month ago, WFP already raised the alarm flag in this appeal.Four million people is about same as the total population of Norway.The latest humanitarian news, you can find in the "News from the Other World" aggregator.Picture credit: IRINnews.

A Chinese government delegation visited refugee camps and met officials in western Sudan's strife-torn Darfur province to "get acquainted" with the situation there, Chinese state media reported on Sunday. "Administrative officials said that life of some 50,000 internally displaced people (at the camp) was stable and natural."Continuing their four-day official visit, the delegation also visited a refugee camp with 14,000 people in Nyala, South Darfur province, and met provincial governor Al-Haj Atta al-Mannan Idris. Idris said the general situation was "stable and improving".Yeah, right! Read more here

The global view of the United States’ role in world affairs has significantly deteriorated over the last year according to a BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people across 25 different countries.The survey reveals that three in four (73%) disapprove of how the US government has dealt with Iraq.Across all 25 countries polled, one citizen in two (49%) now says the US is playing a mainly negative role in the world.Over two-thirds (68%) believe the US military presence in the Middle East provokes more conflict than it prevents and only 17 percent believes US troops there are a stabilizing force. More in this article.Picture courtesy www.alertnet.org, Reuters, Kareem Raheem

This week, we celebrate the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. I still remember the start very well.Time for a calculation.1. The newspaper today states one minute of war in Iraq costs US$380,000. A calculation made by Joseph Stiglitz, a US Nobelprize winning economist. That is almost double the cost of the war in Vietnam.2. According to WFP, the UN's food aid organisation, it costs US$0.19 to feed a child for a day. Nineteen cents. 20,000 children die of hunger every day. The time it took you to read this post, already 15 died.3. Taking those two figures together, one minute of war in Iraq would feed 2,000,000 children for a day. One day of war in Iraq would feed 20,000,000 children for a year. I do not understand. Somewhere the calculation does not make sense. Otherwise all intelligent people in the world would have cried foul. Wouldn't we? ...Wouldn't we? Photo credit: Robert Kasca. Picture taken after the bombing of the UN building in Baghdad.

Hey, I was not wrong with my observations in my rumble about climate change! News got out this has been the warmest winter ever. Globally!NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported that during the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976. NOAA said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February this year were 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average since record keeping began in 1880...You watch what that will do to developing countries who are already struggling with drought and flooding every year!Maybe now is time to think if that Kyoto Treaty should not be signed after all! Foto credit: WFP/Mahamane Goni Boulama

Famine in Third World countries generally follows a grim script: first the rains fail, then aid agencies issue dire warnings, and finally the United Nations scrambles to raise money and send food aid as journalists write stories of horror and tragedy. In the worst cases, real alarms don't go off until the starving appear on television screens. Even when peasants are spared death, they often lose everything they own—including animals and seeds.Does it have to unfold like this? Here is a radical new idea: famine insurance. (Full story) Picture: courtesy WFP/Goni Boulama

Iraq: Killings Drive Women to Become Suicide Bombers: Um Abdallah, 41, has a difficult task ahead of her - she has to learn how to use a gun and begin preparing for a day she believes is going to be one of God's forgiveness and revenge against foreign forces occupying her country. (Full Story from IRIN)Lebanon: My Sheep Were My Life:Muhammad Zein el Abidyn Jaber is a 72-year-old farmer who lives with his family of five in the small Lebanese village of Maroun El Ras, on the border with Israel. During the July-August 2006 war between Israel and the armed wing of the political party Hezbollah, he fled his town and left his sheep and cattle behind. When Muhammad returned a few weeks later, he found they had died of hunger and thirst. In addition, his tobacco plantation was heavily damaged by the bombings and he was unable to harvest the few olive trees he made a living from because hundreds of unexploded cluster bombs were strewn on his land. (Full Story from IRIN) And I am sitting here,