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SUDAN: IDPs stretch resources to the limit in Akobo

PHILIPPINES: Bombings pose fresh threat to peace talks

SOMALIA: Young men running from militia conscription

WEST AFRICA: Tracking fake medicine, dirty money, siphoned oil

SOMALIA: Conditions worsen as more IDPs flood into Kismayo

DRC: MONUC denounces coalition between Mayi-Mayi and Rwandan rebels

SOMALIA: Women go where aid agencies fear to tread

LIBERIA: Opinion divided on Truth and Reconciliation findings

SENEGAL: Casamance residents warn of attacks’ impact

WEST AFRICA: Another stab at the "resource curse"

DRC: Violence forcing North Kivu civilians out of homes

SUDAN-UGANDA: Allan, "They call me tong-tong"

SOUTH AFRICA: No rest for weary peacekeepers

KENYA: Tensions over pasture in drought-hit Isiolo, Laikipia

GLOBAL: Cross-border diamond deals sidestep Kimberley Process

SOMALIA: Conflict timeline from 2000

AFGHANISTAN: 800 civilians killed in conflict in January-May – UN report

GUINEA-BISSAU: Another go at stability - 28 June election

KENYA: Thousands displaced in ethnic clashes in southwest

COTE D'IVOIRE: Children selling sex, having babies

Opportune dialogue in Honduras

Mercy Corps has been working in some of Honduras's poorest areas — including urban slums like Tegucigalpa's Flor del Campo neighborhood — since 1982. Photo: Geoff Bugbee for Mercy Corps

I still remember the dark days and the fear that the Cold War imprinted in all our souls. El Salvador and Guatemala were at war then, and Nicaragua became a communist state where Russian language was taught in schools. In the streets, hundreds died and thousands were missing.

As for Honduras, some 25,000 American troops took over the Palmerola Military Air Base in Comayagua, as well as provided money and technical support to the Contras, the guerrilla group fighting against the Nicaraguan communist regime. Those were days of bloodshed, torture and pain, days of car bombs and explosions, massive kidnappings, arms smuggling and the Iran-Contra scandal.

Those are days we don’t want to remember, days we all want to forget.

At the end of the 1990s I started working with Proyecto Aldea Global, Mercy Corps' local partner here in Honduras, implementing a civil society strengthening program. Mercy Corps officials came from Portland, Oregon and trained us on the three civil society principles: participation in decision making, accountability and peaceful avenues for conflict resolution. We then went to Comayagua — the epicenter of military activity in the Cold War years — and worked with the communities there, teaching them the Honduran laws, then organizing and training them on how to address local mayors and government officials, how to negotiate and how to solve their problems and differences through dialogue.

We offered the alternative of proposing solutions, not fighting.

The years went by and democracy was institutionalized here in Honduras: every four years, we've had the chance to have an election and to choose a new president. The new government was functioning under the 1982 National Constitution.

By 2006, the new president Manuel Zelaya Rosales took office, just as other presidents had done before him. Zelaya promised many things and worked hard for it, especially with the poor, yet there was an interesting difference between him and its predecessors: his strong ties with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. He signed a treaty with Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela under the name ALBA, aiming to promote commerce and cooperation between these governments. He then cut the ties with American oil companies and signed a new treaty to buy oil from Venezuelan companies only.

Hundreds of doctors and teachers came from Cuba to volunteer in Honduras from Cuba and, during the U.S. – Bolivian diplomatic conflict in September 2008, Honduras sided with Bolivia and challenged the U.S. by not receiving the credentials of their new ambassador for several days.

The current problem started when President Zelaya claimed that the Honduran Constitution was obsolete and then proposed that a new constitution must be signed into law. The current Honduran Constitution allows changes and reforms, as long as they are approved by the Congress; in fact, the Constitution has gone through many changes during the last 20 years, and many other changes were proposed. But there are some articles which the Constitution forbids to change, one of them being the article that prohibits Presidential re-election.

Many of our programs focus on promoting and fostering dialogue between citizens, business owners and government officials to achieve lasting peaceful change. Photo: Provash Budden/Mercy Corps

Honduras was governed by militaries for at least 40 years. Arms, force and coup d’état were the “modus operandi” selected by military generals to subdue the country, and some of these “governments” lasted more than 15 years in power. The fear of being deceived and the fear of generals to holding power again motivated the original citizens and lawyers who prepared the 1982 Constitution to close any door to re-election.

So President Zelaya attempted to change the Constitution in Honduras, spurring the present crisis because more than half of the population has rejected the idea of changing it.

But there are many at fault here. What did we do while all this was happening? Did the political parties express their opinion and seek dialogue with the president? No, they didn’t, they just criticized him and called him a mad cow. The Chamber of Commerce ignored him, the church said that they would be praying and the rest of the civil society kept doing business as usual.

There was a schism in the country — and a dangerous one — but no one turned to dialogue, they just ignored it.

Finally, in May 2009, a few lawyers and the General State Prosecutor declared President Zelaya's proposed changes illegal and demanded him to stop it. In spite of legal threats and resolutions, the president and his followers continued with all the preparations. One of the problems the president had to face was the money for this process, but the president did not present a national budget to the Congress in 2008 (even though the law says he must do it by September of each year). So, without a budget, he could use the state money at will. Even today, the Honduran government is operating without a fixed budget. The papers for the constitutional process were printed in Venezuela and tons of money was distributed among politicians to pay for the logistics demanded by a national referendum for at least seven million people.

Facilitating dialogue between everyone helps raise the fortune of all Hondurans, including poor farming families. Photo: Geoff Bugbee for Mercy Corps

The second problem faced by the president was logistics: President Zelaya was relying on the army to oversee the constitutional referendum. But the chiefs of the army, naval and air force refused to cooperate and all resigned on one single day. The President then turned to the local police for logistical support.

When the day of the referendum arrived on June 28, no one knew what was going to happen. That morning, the judicial court and the army reacted by arresting the president, accusing him of violating the Constitution and deporting him to Costa Rica. They thought that once he was gone, the problems would also vanish. They were wrong.

Today, I see my country facing United Nations and Organization of American States sanctions. The borders with Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador are closed, and the Honduran people are running here and there all in despair.

At this critical time, I remember what I learned long time ago with those Mercy Corps officials: “Dialogue is important, but opportune dialogue is even more important.” There are times when dialogue loses its momentum and effectiveness — we should never get to that point.

Last night, now-deposed president Zelaya flew in a private Venezuelan jet plane — along with the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay —and tried to land in Honduras, but their plane was not cleared to land. They had to fly to El Salvador, where the newly-elected president, Mauricio Funez received him with opened arms. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?

This November, a presidential election is scheduled here in Honduras. If we reach it in one piece and living democratically, we should feel blessed.

And so I repeat this lesson: dialogue is important, but opportune dialogue is even more important.

Making words count for everybody

Oral communication is the basis of learning and tradition in many rural Sudanese communities. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

When we're doing training around information sharing and technical skills, It is difficult to reach communities that depend heavily on oral communication. Most of the content we produce is invariably text based, and support for other forms of Information and Communication Technology is still very much in its infancy.

So —ultimately, because they are so dependent on oral communication — women, children and marginalized members of the community cannot easily access the information that helps them make important decisions that affect them.

We need to do a better job of helping them access and use this information. I believe that institutions working on strengthening civil society in developing countries should consider promoting oral communication as opposed to written forms of training, reporting and tracking community development.

Radio listening groups in Sudan, for example, have provided communities with instant access to information and helped create discussions on crucial issues such as the country's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Electoral Process, health, water and sanitation.

Across the region, organizations like Fahamu have gone on to develop a series of learning materials on human rights and democracy through their Crossroads drama series. Theatre and story telling, at their best, provide strong insights into day-to-day lives and generate more interest than point-by-point manuals handed out to community members.

Similarly, Mercy Corps Sudan Resource Centers have attracted huge turnouts for video documentaries and radio listening group sessions, because community members felt messages were reaching them.

Song and well-choreographed dance also allow community members to see themselves in the message being illustrated, as well as assist in shaping crucial decisions over health, welfare and civic issues.

Various forms of oral communication have shown great success in community outreach. Where possible, staff working closely with local partner organizations should encourage the use of the spoken word in delivering messages to target groups and promoting active and engaged feedback. Training manuals can be turned into scripts to be acted out, using the art forms and oral communications that are familiar to those we serve.

Just as we strive to achieve information literacy in communities that have a strong and vibrant reading culture, so too should we strive for an informed selection of skills and practices in semi-literate communities.

Farming Rice, Intensively

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Kanthi Weerasinghe is one of 160 farmers in the village of Yahangala East experimenting with a method of growing rice called SRI, which is short for System of Rice Intensification. As a widowed mother, every little bit of help is welcomed.

For the last five years, since her husband died of a heart attack, Kanthi has been in charge of cultivating three-and-a-half acres of rice paddy. She relies on the harvest — and a small shop in front of her home that sells vegetables and snacks to neighbors and passersby — to sustain her and her two school-age daughters.

Until last year, she and her neighbors have been using what's known as the "broadcast" method of planting rice, which isn't much more than flinging seeds onto a water-soaked field. But, recently, Mercy Corps helped her find a technique that will increase her harvest and improve her family's fortunes...

Read the rest of Kanthi's story — and tales of other women who are working hard for their families — at onetable.mercycorps.org.

Recycled Life

Darpi (far left) and two colleagues collect household compost from the neighborhood, which they will carry to the composting center for processing. Photo: Julisa Tambunan/Mercy Corps

Imagine living in a 215 square foot house that you split with your family of five, which happens to be an illegal settlement under a toll road with piles of waste that serve as your front yard. Sanitation problems, criminal activity, noise pollution and food insecurity are all part of your daily routine.

This has became the general situation in many neighborhoods in Jakarta, Indonesia, where slum areas and illegal settlements are scattered around and under any elevated toll road, particularly in the north part of the megapolitan city.

Life is "slow and hollow" to quote an area resident who declined to provide his name. In Hamlet 13 — one of the neighborhoods in Penjaringan, the largest slum area in Jakarta —nearly 800 households share this situation. The condition of the waste in this neighborhood is unbearable. On average, each household produces about two pounds of solid waste each day. The waste is mostly composed of organic material, three-fourths of which immediately carried off to the local dumpsites, resulting in hills and hills of waste as far as the eye can see.

But unlike some other slums, changes are coming fast round here.

A community cleans up

Darpi, a 56-year-old woman who’s been living in Penjaringan since the mid-1970s, has shown that things can improve. With Mercy Corps’ support, Darpi is managing a community-based solid waste management program in her neighborhood.

The project collects solid waste from the entire neighborhood, which provides jobs for Darpi and three others. Waste is transported by carts to a communal processing site under the toll road. At the site, the organic material and recyclables are separated, then the refuse is sent on to the temporary dumpsite for collection by municipal services.

The organic material is processed into compost, packaged and sold in the local market. The whole process takes place under the toll road, inside a 3,000 square foot space that the community named Rumah Kompos — the Composting House.

“It feels more like recycling my life for better purpose than recycling waste for better use”, Darpi said, smiling, “Rather than sitting in my cramped house and doing nothing, I’m doing this for my self and the community. I am used to the smells anyway because I’ve been living here for such a long time. So it’s not even a problem.”

In a period of less than two years since it first started in the end of 2007, Rumah Kompos has doubled its space to 6,350 square feet to expand its activity. The previous processing capacity of a little less than one ton of organic waste each month will expand to approximately six tons of organic waste per month due to the expansion.

Recognition, praise and possibility

The expanded Rumah Kompos was just recently launched by Mercy Corps Indonesia’s Country Director, Sean Granville-Ross, in a ceremony that was also attended by the Deputy Mayor of North Jakarta , Atma Sanjaya.

“I’m very pleased to see how the community could benefit from the sluggish space under the toll road," the Deputy Mayor commented.

Up to now, Rumah Kompos has collected and treated more than 33,500 pounds of organic solid waste and produced more than 1,470 pounds of compost. The use of compost for home plantings to make the environment more aesthetically pleasing and healthy provides a good motivation for residents to separate waste and compost.

Mercy Corps is now exploring the options of an agreement with the Provincial Landscape Department to make Rumah Kompos one of the preferred suppliers for the agency’s fertilizer needs across the city.

Today, under Penjaringan's toll road, life is bustling and more exciting than it has ever been before.

Crisis in Pakistan

Fighting between the Pakistan Army and Taliban militants has displaced about 2.5 million people in Pakistan's Swat Valley. Mercy Corps is delivering aid to thousands of families affected by the violence.

Nineteen: The Lives of Jakarta's Street Vendors

The hardcover printed companion to these videos is available through Powell's Books. This book tells and illustrates the stories of nineteen street vendors trying to make it in one of the world's biggest cities.

The Mongol Rally

The Mongol Rally is an 8,000-mile race across two continents, two deserts and five mountain ranges. It is described as the "greatest adventure in the world" and requires competing vehicles to have an engine displacement of less than 1000cc.

There are no pre-determined routes and no help provided to teams who might find themselves lost in the Kazakh desert, in a car slowly being shredded by a dirt track, hundreds of miles from civilization. With 300 teams participating, the Mongol Rally aims to raise over $143,000 for Mercy Corps.

The funds will support regions in Mongolia, where Mercy Corps is implementing training, advocacy and networking programs that will enable communities to develop projects to address what the communities have identified as priority issues. The community-led projects include setting up traditional Mongolian felt tent kindergartens, building children's playgrounds, establishing youth development centers, building wells, and implementing environmentally friendly waste management.

Please support the over forty American and Canadian teams will join teams originating from Great Britain, Italy and Spain to participate in the 2009 rally, including the following:

Mongolia Rovers
Part Minnesota, part Alberta, Canada, and a little bit California, this group of adventurers bring a unique skill set to the rally including knowledge of the Russian words for drink and cigarettes, martini mixing, and making holes in the ground in order to produce gas or oil. Mostly averse to granola crunching activities, several team members are mechanically-minded and enjoy hours of “wrenching” on old cars.

Airag Addicts
This team of eight named themselves after the Mongolian national drink, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented horse milk. The group of friends shares a love of travel and adventures, having visited or lived in over fifteen countries all together. Their secret weapon? Team member Zoya, who is a pro at duct-taping car engines together and siphoning transmission fluid using dry cleaner hangers and plastic bags.

The Flatlanders
A couple of crazy guys, friends since childhood, coming from the flat plains of Kansas grow up and do good against all odds in the wilds of Mongolia. They'll take plane, boat and car to get to the starting gate and then nothing will hold back Gaus and Schmidt from a great and mighty adventure.

Mongol Rally Guys
After meeting at age 12 in Tae Kwon Do class, the two team members were initially drawn together by a love of fantasy-genre video games and a passion for drawing. Now, the two men from Metro Detroit find themselves asking the questions: How will they buy a car in England while they are living in America? Will their visa into Tajikistan be denied? How many inoculations will they have to endure?

Great Job!
Team Great Job includes four students facing impending graduation from UCSD with a desire to rise to the challenge of queasy-inducing adventure. In true Mongol Rally spirit, none of the team members has any experience fixing cars. Any mechanical difficulties will be solved by learning on the fly, pure mental power, and kicking and shouting at various car parts.

SweaTeas
These two Southern belles travel ready for the unknown, packing duct tape, gold bond and world band radio where ever they go. While both are fond of life underwater, they aren’t shy about traveling to all the dry places on the map that guidebooks advise against visiting.

Sleepless Knights
Though they admit to the fears of crossing borders and preying mantis, this team of two is looking forward to drinking their way through the rally and introducing fellow rally teams to South Carolina’s official state dance, The Shag. Donors to the team are offered a fun incentive: their names will be printed on the rally vehicle and they will receive a photograph of the car en route to Mongolia as a keepsake. You can vote on which “sweet chariot” you think they should drive!

Team Tex-US
This team of two Texans would be happy to meet any fellow Rally members who might be willing to bail them out of jail, talk to unreasonable border guards, or just offer them a nice, hot cup of tea. The team loves to travel and counts Germany, Poland, Kyrgyzstan and China as previous home bases.

Team Zissou USA
This team of four take their inspiration from the eccentric oceanographer in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Based in Denver, the teammates’ motivations to participate in the Rally range from discovering a new species of beer to exacting revenge. The team plans to use a rickshaw for the Rally and then donate it to a low-income family in Mongolia to help them develop a new income stream.

Yearning for Yurts
Based in New York, this team includes a serious motorcyclist and a traveler who has logged miles in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The two have already begun prepping for the Rally by participating in the Finger Lakes Rally run by the BMW Motorcycle Owners Club in Watkins Glen, New York.

The Creeping Blandness Prevention Group
This team of three has already exceeded their fundraising goal for the Rally! The team includes a postdoc at Oxford, who brings map-making skills and a sense of direction to the team; a professional photographer with irrespressible enthusiasm, and a third member who not only is studying water and land management in Central Asia as a graduate student in California, but also happens to also have in her possession the book, "Teach Yourself Serbo-Croatian". The jury’s out on whether the book will be cracked before the Rally.

The Rolling Cones
This daring group of five is driving an ice cream truck across two continents. Contributing factors to their success in the rally include: one member can solder and read circuit diagrams, while another is a polyglot who can make meaningless gestures in several different languages. Check out their ice cream chariot.

Team Mongolritaville
Hailing from just outside Minneapolis, Team Mongolritaville includes a father and two sons. While David, the father, is the one most expected to provoke a border guard and be put away in a Kazakh prison for suspicion of international espionage, son Kelly is the one most expected to be shot by English (or French) border guards while trying to enter the country, son Cary is the sane, laid back mastermind of the group looking to perfect his golf game on the steppes of Mongolia. In true Jimmy Buffet style, they are looking forward to mounting a giant shark fin to their rally car, waterskiing through every country en route, with or without water, and collecting cheap souvenirs from Uzbekistani bars.

Team Canadialand
This team of two from Vancouver, BC seek out new and wild adventures. Together they bring a penchant for languages and gestures (for inquiring about bathroom facilities along the route) and expertise in medieval and military survival strategies. If they get their car mounted with a TV and VCR, they may fulfill a dream of bringing Roadrunner cartoons to the masses!

Rubik Crew
This wild duo bring surprising skills to their Mongol Rally team Rubik Crew. From a keen ability for Pun Tournaments to artistry and mechanics, the pair from Venice and Santa Monica, California plan to document their adventure with photos and text. Look for them on the road in their giant Rubik’s cube of a car.

China Earthquake, One Year Later

The Mongol Rally

An almighty adventure, the Mongol Rally is an 8,000-mile dash across a quarter of the earth's surface in cars that most people consider underpowered for doing the shopping. Thousands of miles of adventure lie ahead amidst some of the world's most stunning scenery, and lesser travelled routes. You choose the car, you choose the route!

Mercy Corps is delighted to be one of the three charities to benefit from this epic adventure, which will leave from London on July 18, 2009 and is due to culminate around 8,000 miles and four-to-six weeks later in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. All the vehicles must have engines of one litre or less, with teams taking part from all over the UK, Europe and the U.S.

The 2009 Mongol Rally is on target to raise a phenomenal £100,000 for Mercy Corps in Mongolia.

The funds will support regions where we are implementing training, advocacy and networking programmes, enabling communities to develop small projects addressing priority issues, as assessed by the communities themselves. These will range from setting up Ger (traditional Mongolian felt tent) kindergartens, building children's playgrounds, and establishing youth development centres, to building wells and environmentally friendly waste management.

Helping Those With Nowhere Else to Go

Several dozen women stand on jagged volcanic rock in the pouring rain. The drenched clothes they're wearing are among the only possessions they were able to salvage when fleeing burning homes and brutal violence. They've had to drink rainwater from dirty puddles just to survive.

Young sons are the only men to be found; husbands and fathers have perished in the war. And so, in the midst of eastern Congo's ongoing conflict, shattered families led by mothers have come to places like this: a primary school on the outskirts of a war-torn city called Goma.

Odette Bihoyoki is one of approximately one million people who have been displaced by fierce fighting between government troops and rebel forces in this lawless, chaotic region. The 34-year-old mother of six was forced from her home more than seven months ago, but not before soldiers killed her 4-year-old son and tossed his body into a latrine.

There was no time to grieve. She walked for four days from her village to a sprawling displacement camp to the north of Goma — but, within days of their arrival, gunshots tore through the camp as rebel forces pushed south. Odette and her children scrambled for their lives alongside hundreds of others, eventually finding refuge at this school. They live in the classrooms at night.

But, when class is in session, they have no place to go. So they sit and wait — sometimes in the rain. Since they don't live in an officially recognized displacement camp, they don't receive supplies like food, clothing or shelter supplies. They were completely on their own until Mercy Corps reached out to them last October.

Today, we're delivering more than 10,000 gallons of water per day to the 178 families living here. We've given them hygiene supplies and other small household items to help make their lives a little easier. And we're digging latrines nearby to help prevent the deadly diseases that often sweep through displaced populations in this part of Congo.

Mercy Corps has even found ways to employ women like Odette in the short term — giving them a bit of income to buy food.

"I thank Mercy Corps for providing us water, so we don't have to buy it or drink from dirty puddles," Odette said. "It's one less thing we have to worry about."

Worry — and uncertainty — stalks these places every day. There are not only concerns about how to feed their children, but what the future holds. And in this part of Congo, that has been unclear for more than a decade.

"I know very little about hope," Odette laments, "but I want a better future for my children."

You can help us meet their immediate needs — and begin to secure a more hopeful future — with a generous donation today. Life for women like Odette in eastern Congo is about survival. Please help us deliver more lifesaving assistance to those who need it most.

"Die Terroristen schauen nach Berlin", Samina Ahmed in Der Tagesspiegel

Congo: A Comprehensive Strategy to Disarm the FDLR

The Congolese and Rwandan governments, as well as the international community, must formulate a new comprehensive strategy to dismantle the Rwandan Hutu rebels or face continuing regional instability. All past attempts to break down the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have failed. Experience shows that piecemeal disarmament, forced or voluntary, and unilateral attempts by the Congo to negotiate a settlement with the rebels will not succeed. A new approach is needed to help end great civilian suffering and restore state authority in the eastern Congo.

Iraq and the Kurds: Trouble Along The Trigger Line

Iraqi leaders and the U.S. must manage increasing tensions between the Baghdad federal government and Kurdish authorities or face deadly violence following the U.S. troop withdrawal. In particular, frictions have been building steadily along a new, undemarcated “trigger line”, a curve stretching from the Syrian to the Iranian border, where at multiple places the Iraqi army and Kurdish fighters known as peshmergas are arrayed in opposing formations. To prevent an outbreak of deadly ethnic conflict after it pulls out its forces, Washington should craft an exit strategy that encourages Iraqis to reach a series of bargains on power, resources and territory.

"Iran, les leçons d'une crise", Frédéric Tellier dans Le Monde

Côte d'Ivoire: What's Needed to End the Crisis

To avoid jeopardising Côte d’Ivoire’s peace agreement, President Laurent Gbagbo and other Ivorian leaders must speed up implementation of its key provisions before the November election. The 2007 Ouagadougou Peace Agreement, which ended five years of fighting and territorial partition between the government and the rebel “Forces Nouvelles”, is fragile. National and local authorities need to dramatically increase the tempo of electoral preparations, administrative reunification and disarmament of armed groups or the country could slide back into open conflict. Time is pressing for a relaunch of the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement. A slide back into open conflict must be avoided.

US politician urges Iran 'sabotage'

China quake hits thousands of homes

Honduran leader quits crisis talks

Leaders vow climate change battle

Scores killed in Iraqi bombings

Swat valley refugees allowed home

Iranian police disperse protest

Students killed in Afghan blast

Sri Lanka doctors 'inflated' deaths