News for the Glasses-Half-Empty

Zimbabwe: "The threats of xenophobic attacks pose less danger than the threats of persistent hunger, political violence and shortages of just about everything” in Zimbabwe, says a mother of moving her family to South Africa.

Sudan: “One of the great foreign policy risks right now,” writes Nicholas Kristof, “is that Sudan’s north-south war will start up again.” Fighting erupted in the oil-rich Abyei region, called “Sudan’s Kashmir” by the Enough Project due to its unresolved and disputed status, forcing up to 50,000 people to flee and threatening the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended over 20 years of civil war. In addition, Save Darfur continues to document reprisals by the Sudanese government against Darfuri civilians following the JEM attack on Khartoum. (See previous posts for background.) Kristof writes, “My fear is that the Darfur conflict will be remembered just as the prologue to an even bloodier war that engulfs all of Sudan.” Sobering.

Burma (Myanmar): The government said today that the country faces a severe food shortage if the rice crops destroyed by a hurricane are not replanted within 3 weeks. Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you denied both international and domestic aid to the region. Idiots.