mostly nuggets

blessed britons

President Suharto, who ruled Indonesia, had massacred over a million of his fellow citizens when he seized power in 1965. Over 30 years later, he was waging a vicious war against an independence movement in East Timor. (Foreign Secretary) Robin Cook said he supported the delivery of Hawk aircraft to Indonesia. He claimed that the Indonesian government had assured the Foreign Office that the planes were only training aircraft and would not be used against the people of East Timor. The Hawk was originally developed as a trainer but was also marketed by British Aerospace for use as a cheap ground attack plane. The Hawks were delivered to Indonesia and used to bomb villages in East Timor.

mad world

Take sub-Saharan Africa. Since the late 1970s, major aid institutions... have called most of the shots in African economic policy and public investment. In no other region has the aid system held such commanding political and financial positions for so long...
Now according to World Bank researchers, the number of Africans living in extreme income poverty ($1 per day or less) in the two decades after 1981 nearly doubled from 164 to 316 million, or from 42 to 47 percent of the sub-Saharan population. Just above them, another 30 percent in 2001 occupied the $1 to $2 per day stratum at the edge of wretchedness. Yet even that grim total estimate of 77 percent is probably too optimistic; experts have disputed World Bank data as seriously understating poverty's true scope and depth.

— David Sogge

Development Aid Is Driven by Politics, Not a Desire to Alleviate Poverty

The quiet of the dead

Submitted by antarchi on September 16, 2007 - 14:39.

One after another, residents spoke of Fallujah finding the quiet of the dead. The streets are empty except for the occasional person walking to clinic, or at some of the few markets still open. Most shops remain closed, others open only a few hours.
Residents say unemployment is above 80 percent. Most of the rest who have some work are government employees. The huge industrial area has been closed by U.S. and Iraqi Army units.
"After sacrificing thousands of our beloved, Americans and their tails want to kill the rest of us," said a 50-year-old woman at the football field that was turned into a graveyard following the April 2004 U.S. siege of the city, in which residents say at least 700 were killed.