tagged w/ Congo
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On International Women's Day there's no better place to be than Bukavu, in the troubled eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Although this place is often associated with the world's worst rape crisis, women throughout the east, especially in Bukavu and Goma--the provincial capitals of South and North Kivu--use the occasion to show they refuse to let victimization define them.
"I think there is great progress because women have proved that after so often being a victim, she can fight," said Justine Masika Bihumba, coordinator of Synergy of Women Against Sexual Violence, a network of 35 women's organizations in North Kivu. "She's found she can speak out against what's happened to her."
Women's eNews reporter Danielle Shapiro joined the women of Congo on Intnernational Women's Day, find out what they had to say http://www.womensenews.org/story/cultural-trendspopular-culture/100312/in-congo-women-put-power-behind-rejoicingOn International Women's Day there's no better place to be than Bukavu, in... more
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U.S. Marines have begun training Congolese troops accused of attacking civilians and committing extreme abuses.U.S. Marines have begun training Congolese troops accused of attacking civilians and... more
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Today, January 28,2010 is UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but why do we only remember this one event, when so many other holocausts have taken place? Think Armenia, Rwanda, the Congo, Cambodia, Sudan, Iraq, etc. Why such a high-profile focus on this one holocaust, while the many other holocausts never get a mention?
But it seems that whenever there is any incident or conflict concerning Israel, we are almost forcibly reminded of the sad events that took place those many years ago. It is used as a sort of diversionary tactic, as if to say "hey, listen we are only protecting our existence after what happened to our people during the Holocaust." It's as if this is an excuse for the Israelis to do whatever they want today, because they were the victims of such a terrible crime during WW2. This mindset is terribly wrong and it is time to bring some logic back into the world.Today, January 28,2010 is UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but why do we... more
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Interview with Divine Word Missionaries.
Over five million people have died during the past decade as a result of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Few people are aware of the unimaginable scale of human suffering, death, and destruction that has occurred in this vast country deep in the heart of Africa. In the aftermath of this brutal war, children have endured the brunt of the suffering. This 67 minute film documents the plight of thousands of street children living in Kinshasa and confirms the wide-spread accusations of child witchcraft, torture and child prostitution. The film also examines the efforts to reintegrate demobilized child soldiers, displaced refugees, and orphaned children following the eruption of the massive Nyiragongo volcano, near the city of Goma in Eastern Congo. These heroic efforts are finally bringing some measure of hope and stability to the lives of the Congolese people.Interview with Divine Word Missionaries.
Over five million people have died during... more
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Over five million people have died during the past decade as a result of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Few people are aware of the unimaginable scale of human suffering, death, and destruction that has occurred in this vast country deep in the heart of Africa. In the aftermath of this brutal war, children have endured the brunt of the suffering. This 67 minute film documents the plight of thousands of street children living in Kinshasa and confirms the wide-spread accusations of child witchcraft, torture and child prostitution. The film also examines the efforts to reintegrate demobilized child soldiers, displaced refugees, and orphaned children following the eruption of the massive Nyiragongo volcano, near the city of Goma in Eastern Congo. These heroic efforts are finally bringing some measure of hope and stability to the lives of the Congolese people.Over five million people have died during the past decade as a result of the war in... more
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Mary Fanaro, founder of humanitarian fashion brand OmniPeace, and new media veteran/award winning director Adam Cunningham, have released a powerful and thought provoking viral video addressing the crisis in Congo that is responsible for killing over 5.2 million people over the past decade.
With the goal of raising awareness of the use of “conflict minerals” in our everyday electronics, Fanaro’s goal is to educate the American public on how to help stop the violence in Congo. The purchase of conflict minerals - minerals found in all our laptops, computers, cell phones, mp3 players, video game consoles and other electronic appliances - is funding the world’s worst conflict since World War II.Mary Fanaro, founder of humanitarian fashion brand OmniPeace, and new media... more
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Interview with ICRC.
Over five million people have died during the past decade as a result of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Few people are aware of the unimaginable scale of human suffering, death, and destruction that has occurred in this vast country deep in the heart of Africa. In the aftermath of this brutal war, children have endured the brunt of the suffering. This 67 minute film documents the plight of thousands of street children living in Kinshasa and confirms the wide-spread accusations of child witchcraft, torture and child prostitution. The film also examines the efforts to reintegrate demobilized child soldiers, displaced refugees, and orphaned children following the eruption of the massive Nyiragongo volcano, near the city of Goma in Eastern Congo. These heroic efforts are finally bringing some measure of hope and stability to the lives of the Congolese people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hgdaXLQe7AInterview with ICRC.
Over five million people have died during the past decade as a... more
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From the Article:
Diamonds from African countries have been funding guerrilla wars for decades. But they're not the only precious gems with blood on their hands. Here are four more prized resources that are fraught with conflict.
RUBIES
Location: Burma
Product: Burmese rubies are famous for their distinctive dark "pigeon's blood" color. Both the United States and the European Union ban Burmese gems, but outside groups estimate the junta still reaped almost $300 million from rubies in the 2006 fiscal year.
Casualties: The brutal Burmese junta, which earns much of its hard currency from the sale of gems, holds direct stakes in many of the mines and conducts official auctions to augment the profits made from illegal smuggling. At the mines themselves, child labor and diseases such as HIV/AIDS are common.
COLTAN
Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Product: Coltan, short for columbite-tantalite, a metallic ore that contains elements used in cell phones, is mined in the DRC's war-ravaged Kivu region. The U.N. estimates the DRC made $750 million worth of profits from coltan between 2000 and 2004.
Casualties: The 13-year-old civil conflict, which has so far claimed 5 million lives and pulled in armies from Rwanda and Uganda, is essentially a resource war over the DRC's minerals: vast reserves of diamonds, gold, tungsten, tin, and coltan. There have also been 200,000 recorded cases of sexual violence against women and girls, not to mention the destruction of one of the world's most endangered rain forests.
BAUXITE
Location: Guinea
Product: The West African republic of Guinea is the world's primary supplier of bauxite ore, used to make the aluminum that goes in everything from soda cans to airplanes. Twenty percent of Guinea's GDP, or $857 million a year, comes from its bauxite-dominated mining industry. A Chinese firm recently agreed to invest $7 billion in Guinean infrastructure in return for mining rights.
Casualties: The bauxite bounty has not trickled down to the 70 percent of Guineans living in poverty, though mining companies are technically supposed to pay development taxes to their local communities. Meanwhile, bauxite revenues have enabled the military junta to consolidate power and ignore international sanctions.
EMERALDS
Location: Colombia
Product: Colombia is the world's leading exporter of emeralds, accounting for half of the $280 million a year global trade.
Casualties: Emerald mafias fought a bloody "green war" in the 1980s to keep drug cartels out of the business. Violence from the rural Boyacá area extended to Bogotá, killing more than 3,500 people. Victor Carranza, the country's shady emerald czar, is accused of funding paramilitary groups, and he served jail time between 1998 and 2002 for organizing death squads. As for the mines, they rely on the children and wives of men killed in the region's ongoing violence.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/the_new_blood_diamondsFrom the Article:
Diamonds from African countries have been funding guerrilla wars... more
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UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are using their aircraft to help protect endangered chimpanzees and other wildlife following a volcanic eruption in Virunga National Park.
Nyamulagira, one of two active volcanoes inside the park, started erupting early on 2 January (PDF). The lava has since moved 4 kilometres in three days. Luckily it has gone south, away from major human settlements and Virunga's famous mountain gorillas, which are further east.
But another endangered ape, the 40 eastern chimpanzees that live on Nyamulagira itself, could still be at risk if they are surrounded by lava, and as the plants they rely on for food become coated by abrasive volcanic ash. Park officials hope animals in the lava's path will simply move away from it. "Our rangers say birds and animals in the area are behaving in a disturbed way," boosting hopes that they will move, says park spokesperson Samantha Newport.
The UN multinational force MONUC is stationed in the DRC to protect civilians in a war that has so far claimed the lives of at least 5 million people. On Saturday it offered Congolese authorities monitoring the volcano the use of its Indian planes and helicopters.
But Congolese conservation authorities were unaware of the offer, and on Tuesday staff at Virunga were still trying to arrange a flight over park to assess the damage. After being contacted by New Scientist, staff were able to arrange for Innocent Mburanumwe, the chief warden for the southern sector of the park, to take a MONUC overflight. "We are very happy about that," says Newport. "It has also allowed us to check on deforestation."
New threat
Eastern chimpanzees, a subspecies of the common chimp, are classed as endangered because their numbers are dropping steadily, mainly due to deforestation, although the Ebola virus poses an added threat. In total they may number as few as 76,000, all living in east and central Africa.
Richard Carroll, head of African programmes for the WWF, fears that if the eruption destroys people's livelihoods, they will be more likely to hunt or cut wood for charcoal in Virunga, increasing the threat to wildlife.
"This also shows how dangerous it is to rely on a few fragmented reserves for entire species," he says. The eruption is not currently threatening mountain gorillas, but it could be disastrous if it did: around 200 of the 700-odd mountain gorillas left in the wild live in Virunga.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18340-troops-protect-chimps-from-volcano-lava.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-newsUN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are using their aircraft... more
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xiola
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2 years ago
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*One fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. Left intact, the tropical rainforests of the Congo, the Amazon, and Inonesia act like a mighty set of planetary lungs, absorbing CO2 from human activity.
HONORING A TRUE HERO!
René Ngongo recieves award for his work to save the forests of the Congo.
René Ngongo, Greenpeace Africa Political Advisor and civil society activist for 18 years, today received the Right Livelihood Award at the Swedish Parliament for his dedicated, and at times dangerous, work in defending the rights and livelihood of Democratic Republic of Congo’s forest communities.
The Right Livelihood Award Foundation recognised Ngongo "for his courage in confronting the forces that are destroying the Congo's rainforests and building political support for their conservation and sustainable use."
Accepting his award, René said “I humbly receive this honour on behalf of many of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s poor communities for whom the forest is a source of livelihood, a supermarket, a pharmacy and an heirloom. If we do not continue to raise our voices against the destruction of these ancient forests, their future and our very own existence is at stake”.
Wars in the forest
Ngongo has dedicated his life to activism. In the midst of raging conflict, he tirelessly pushed for an end to illegal exploitation of his country’s natural resources, collecting abundant evidence on timber and mineral extraction under sometimes life-threatening conditions. In 1994, Ngongo founded the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s influential environment organisation, OCEAN. Ngongo has been able to build a strong network and momentum for better protection of the world’s second largest rainforest.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/congo-right-livelihood041209*One fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. Left intact, the... more
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KPFA Radio News interviewed me on Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009, a.k.a., "Hang the Gays" bill, as similar legislation was introduced in neighboring Rwanda. The Rwanda News Agency reported, on 12.11.2009, that: "Legislation is pending in Rwanda, as well as neighbors Burundi and Uganda, that would carry long prison sentences for anyone 'who practices, encourages or sensitizes people of the same sex, to sexual relation or any sexual practice.'" Rwanda's law, like Uganda's, includes prison terms for those who fail to report knowledge of homosexual behaviour, including any expression of interest in the opposite sex, realized or not. Consideration of Rwanda's legislation seems to have since been postponed, but Uganda's is still very much on the table, and, in the international spotlight.KPFA Radio News interviewed me on Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009,... more
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The UN envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo says a joint military operation against rebels will be concluded at the end of this month.
Alan Doss told the UN Security Council that the campaign in the east of the country had "largely achieved" its goal of weakening the Rwandan Hutu rebels.
The operation was criticised by rights groups, who accuse Congolese government troops of killing and raping civilians.
UN experts had said the campaign failed to dismantle militia infrastructure.
But Mr Doss declared that had not been the objective, as the rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), is deeply entrenched in eastern DR Congo.
He did acknowledge there was a dilemma at the heart of the peacekeeping mandate to both protect civilians and work with an undisciplined Congolese army.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8417450.stmThe UN envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo says a joint military operation... more
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On 11.09.2009, the PR Newswire announced that this "Dan Rather Report" on Freeport McMoran, an American corporation mining copper in D.R. Congo, has been nominated for an American television Emmy Award for investigative business reporting. BlipTV posted the clip below.
In this case corporate media gets some of the story and even gets that much of it right. There's no mention of the U.S. and its allies' complicity in the Rwanda genocide or the Congo War, or, of the U.S. government's commitment to controlling cobalt reserves in the Katanga Copper Belt, where this story is reported, so as to ensure U.S. military industries' ability to manufacture for war. But, Dan Rather did get the story of Freeport McMoran displacing Congolese people for foreign profit in D.R. Congo.On 11.09.2009, the PR Newswire announced that this "Dan Rather Report" on... more
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Ned Gardiner, a scientist who specializes in mapping ecosystems, is fiddling with an instrument floating over the side of our wooden pirogue when the boat emerges from an eddy into the main stream of the Congo River. The transition from the still water to the turbulent flow swings the bow downstream and nearly knocks Gardiner into the water. “Almost fell into the drink, eh?” he says with a laugh, though he knows a swim here could be dangerous, even deadly. The Congo is flowing at 1.25 million cubic feet of water per second, enough to fill 13 Olympic-size swimming pools every second. Gardiner, who works for the National Climatic Data Center, in Ashville, North Carolina, is here because he thinks the Lower Congo may contain the deepest point of any river in the world.
We’re in Central Africa, 90 miles west of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital of Kinshasa and about 100 miles east of where the river drains into the Atlantic Ocean, ending its 3,000-mile run across equatorial Africa. A series of grassy hills called the Crystal Mountains rise subtly behind us. Gardiner and John Shelton, a hydrologist from the United States Geologic Survey, are plotting how water moves in such a massive flow. To do this, they brought along an instrument that floats alongside a boat in an orange, plastic vessel about the size of an elementary-school desk. The instrument maps water movement and measures the river’s depth. Gardiner tried to accomplish the same thing last year with a device designed for rivers. “The signal petered out well before the bottom,” he explains, his hand skimming the river’s surface. “So we bought one for oceans.”
We’re midstream, heading from the north bank to the south, on a course directly perpendicular to the current. If we manage to keep the instrument from being swallowed by one of the 40-foot-wide whirlpools studding the flow, Shelton and Gardiner’s work will produce a digital cross section of the river’s currents and depth.
The Congo’s power—its depth, speed and turbulence—is of particular interest to ichthyologist Melanie Stiassny of the American Museum of Natural History, one of the scientists in our expedition. She studies fish on the lower Congo and over the past decade has discovered six new species (she’s working on identifying three more). The number of species known to live in the lower Congo now exceeds 300 and the river contains one of the highest concentrations of "endemism," or species found nowhere else in the world. Stiassny thinks the river’s power is shaping evolution in the Congo.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Evolution-in-the-Deepest-River-in-the-World.html#ixzz0WCNmMCVZNed Gardiner, a scientist who specializes in mapping ecosystems, is fiddling with an... more
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nkeg87
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2 years ago
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There are many men and women in the world who every day risk their lives, their freedom or both, simply because they try to tell the truth. Most people probably cannot understand why they do it. The problem is that the word journalist is not a good definition of the profession, because it includes three different behaviors that have nothing to do with each other.There are many men and women in the world who every day risk their lives, their... more
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The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their heroes—from FDR to JFK—promoted U.S. involvement in more wars than all modern GOP presidents combined.The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their... more
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