flickering pictures

About a million North Koreans died of starvation in the late 1990s, and the World Food Programme says 6 million more are on the brink. But just as the world is starting to think that Kim Jong-Il doesn’t care about his starving people, he comes up with new super-noodles designed to fight hunger.
From the […]

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While the world looks China-ward, mesmerized by Beijing’s Olympic flash and dash, Russia has quietly mobilized its powerful military and invaded a neighbouring country.
Russia insists it stepped in to protect its citizens living in the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia, who have faced harassment and bombings by Georgian troops. Russian officials say they […]

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In a powerful op-ed piece for the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof points out something we already know but try not to think about: rape has moved from a by-product of war to a weapon of war, used coldly and calculatingly to inflict maximum pain and intimidation on an entire population. It’s […]

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Spurred by rising world food prices, local flooding and Pyongyang’s nonsensical economic policies, widespread famine is threatening millions of North Koreans — even more than usual.
From Reuters:

[…] more than half of North Korean households had cut the number of meals they eat each day from three to two and close to three-fourths had reduced their […]

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The CBC reports that the International Olympic Committee has blocked Iraq from participating in the Beijing Olympics two weeks from now because “the country’s government dismissed officials in favour of its own appointees, who weren’t recognized by the IOC.”
A similar ban was imposed in May — and then repealed — by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, […]

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Translated literally from Japanese, “karoshi” means “death from overwork,” and has ended the lives of thousands of Japanese employees over the decades. Since the term was coined 20 years ago, authorities have started to take notice, commissioning studies but seemingly doing little else to protect workers like Kenichi Uchino, who according to The Economist […]

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Kermit Scott, the inspiration behind Jim Henson’s most beloved muppet character, has died.
The real Kermit taught philosophy at Purdue and Yale before his desire to help others led him to earn a Master’s degree in counseling and launch a new career at the age of 57. He and his wife co-founded the Welfare Rights […]

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Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced yesterday that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party is pulling out of the presidential run-off election, even though he won the main election held a few weeks ago. He says President Robert Mugabe’s widespread use of rape, torture, beatings and murder to intimidate opposition voters has made […]

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Human Rights Watch has just released its report on the ongoing violence in Zimbabwe, entitled “Bullets for Each of You.” The title is taken from a Zimbabwean army address to villagers in Karoi, a small city in the province of Mashonaland West:

“If you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election, you have seen […]

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But it’s hard.
Three days ago, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which aims to “defeat hunger” around the world, was addressed by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who has singlehandedly turned his country from Africa’s wealthy breadbasket into a violent, starving, terrifying place. He also built Zimbabwe’s infamous “rape camps,” routinely kills, tortures and/or imprisons […]

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