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8,000 Women Raped Last Year by Combatants in Democratic Republic of the Congo
International
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 18:27
8,000 women have been raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by warring factions, according to fresh estimates released by the UN Population Fund Monday. Hutu rebel militia, known as the FDLR, operating in the DRC since the 1994 Rwandan genocide are believed responsible for most of the rapes. But members of the national army are also guilty. The UN study said humanitarian agencies have praised the Government for trying to end rape committed by its troops, but believe much more should be done to end the army’s impunity. Meanwhile, the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan militia notorious for abducting children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves, has continued attacking civilians in northeastern DRC. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the Lord's Resistance Army killed 849 civilians in 2009 and abducted 1,486, including 185 children.
The U.S. is reviving what Haitians call "the plan of death."
International
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 18:22
The web site Socialist Worker says the U.S. is reviving what Haitians call "the plan of death." In Haiti during the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. used the dictatorship of Baby Doc Duvalier to impose a "structural adjustment program" on the country. Duvalier opened Haiti to heavily subsidized U.S. agricultural exports, undermining the ability of Haitians to compete. Dislocated peasants flooded Port-au-Prince, swelling the population from 760,000 in the early 80s to 3 million before the earthquake. The Street, an investment Web site, in an article titled "An Opportunity to Heal Haiti," showed how U.S. corporations could cash in on the disaster. In The Shock Doctrine, author Naomi Klein writes: “Disaster capitalists have no interests in repairing what was. In Iraq, Sri Lanka and New Orleans, the process …called "reconstruction" began with finishing the job of the original disaster .. then quickly moving to replace them with a kind of corporate New Jerusalem.”
More than half of Chinese people questioned in a recent poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war.” The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights, issues that have poisoned relations in the three months since Barack Obama visited Beijing. According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way in the US government, led by officials who think Obama was badly advised and made to appear weak. In China’s eyes, the US response, which included a pledge by Obama to get tougher on trade, was a reaction against its rising power. An independent survey of Chinese-language media for The UK Sunday Times found army and navy officers are predicting a military showdown and political leaders are calling for China to sell more arms to America’s enemies. They are angry at Obama’s decision to sell $6.4 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan.
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