This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Hurricane Sandy a new disaster for Haiti
- Hillary in Algeria to discuss military invasion of Mali
- Al-Assad bombs Damascus, to celebrate end of Syria’s ‘ceasefire’
Hurricane Sandy a new disaster for Haiti
The only good thing about this picture is that the floods are hiding the piles of garbage littering the streets
Hurricane Sandy has been disastrous for the eastern United States,
destroying the New Jersey shore where I grew up, but not nearly as
disastrous as it’s been for Haiti. Haiti has still not come close to
recovering from the January, 2010, earthquake that killed hundreds of
thousands of Haitians, and collapsed most buildings, leaving thousands
of people buried under the wreckage and hundreds of thousands without
homes. (See “Haiti, seething with ethnic violence, may require US forces for a long time”)
The United Nations humanitarian team from Nepal brought cholera with
them, and that’s spread across the country. There are still 270,000
Haitians living in refugee camps, and Hurricane Sandy has just been
one more disaster piled on a stream of previous disasters, killing 54
and leaving refugee camps flooded. But the worst may be yet to come:
the floods are spreading cholera again, and there has been massive
destruction of crops, raising the specter of famine, and a repeat of
the violent “food price” riots of 2008. Guardian (London) and Reuters
Hillary in Algeria to discuss military invasion of Mali
With terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
increasingly taking control of the northern two-thirds of the country
of Mali, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Algeria
to discuss regional plans for military intervention. The plan is for
the nations of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas)
to supply 3,300 troops to retrain Mali’s army and help retrain the
north. These forces will depend heavily on help from Algeria for
military intelligence and logistics. The French are playing a heavy
role in preparing the Ecowas force, and this is causing growing unease
among Algerians who presumably fear that their formal colonial power,
whom they only got rid of in 1962, will refuse to leave after the
military action has ended. For that reason, Hillary Clinton is
promising greater United States involvement in the military effort, to
reduce the concerns of the Algerians. VOA
Al-Assad bombs Damascus, to celebrate end of Syria’s ‘ceasefire’
About 500 people were killed over the weekend, during the so-called
ceasefire negotiated by U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. To
celebrate the end of the ceasefire, the regime of president Bashar
al-Assad bombed opposition-held territory in Damascus, and the rebel
opposition claimed responsibility for the assassination of al-Assad’s
air force general, Abdullah Mahmud al-Khalidi. BBC and
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail