International

In a commentary with the same title, Kathleen Parker discussed the reports that...

...the Vatican is considering sanctioning the use of condoms among married couples when one of the partners is infected with AIDS. This move, though not yet a done deal, has been heralded as revolutionary and as a sign of hope for AIDS sufferers, especially in Africa, where some 6,600 people die every day of the disease. The Vatican has made clear that any endorsement of condom use to prevent the spread of disease should not be construed as a shift in doctrine regarding birth control. This highly technical exception, if approved, would be permitted only in the spirit of self-defense, not contraception.

The rest of the commentary discusses how senators, such as Rick Santorum and Richard Durbin,

...have been pushing Congress to donate ever larger sums to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. While such expenditures are consistent with President George W. Bush's pledge to fight AIDS in Africa, they are nonetheless controversial in some quarters, specifically to Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who has been expressing disapproval and sending oblique threats to Santorum via the airwaves. Why? Because the Global Fund distributes money to countries and organizations, including some faith-based ones, that in addition to distributing drugs to AIDS victims also distribute condoms -- sometimes, possibly, to people who may use them for unapproved purposes, including prostitution. But condom distribution is a minute part of the work the Global Fund provides for, which includes antiretrovirals to more than 384,000 AIDS victims, care for widows and orphans, and treatment of more than 1 million cases of TB. Yet, in one of his radio broadcasts, Dobson used the word "wicked" to describe the Global Fund and to let Santorum know that he was on thin ice.

Dobson should get a clue about pragmatism. Surely fighting TB and AIDS (and reducing the occurrence of unwanted pregnancies and abortions) are worth taking the chance that distributed condoms might be used in ways Dobson wouldn't approve. This is the sort of battle Dobson would choose to fight?

What a mess there is in Africa. Something has to be done. From an article by Isaac Phiri in Christianity Today:

It still feels like last night to Newton Mudzingwa. Seven months ago, Mudzingwa, a security guard in an affluent suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, had a much-appreciated night off-duty. He spent the evening in one of the city's burgeoning slums, in the one-room shack he had rented-with him, his wife, and his two young children crammed into a single bed. It was to be their last night at home together. Around midnight, the blare of loudspeakers jolted them out of sleep. Police and military officers cheered by President Robert Mugabe's political activists swooped down on the slum to demolish "illegal" structures. Operation Murambastvina (meaning "Drive Out Trash") had begun. Mudzingwa quickly threw together whatever goods he could save. His wife bundled blankets around their children. As temperatures plummeted to biting levels, they rushed outside. The family then watched as bulldozers reduced to rubble the only home the children had ever known... The government says that only 700,000 people were relocated and that urban renewal was long overdue. Other reliable estimates put the figure at 1.7 million displaced people. Either way, the Mudzingwas were among tens of thousands of locals suddenly without shelter, proper food, and clean water... On the ground, away from the media, churches located in the slums felt the first brunt of the government's action. Thousands sought help... Churches responded by delivering food, water, and blankets, as well as by housing many of the displaced-at least until they, too, were forcibly moved. The government put many families into holding camps in remote areas... The government eventually succumbed to local and international pressure and halted the destruction. But by February, the beginning of the rainy season in Zimbabwe, thousands were still living out in the open or under plastic sheets. The government had promised earlier to build 200,000 new homes by the year's end. But the deadline came and went without much being done. Some media reports say the few houses that were constructed crumbled under the first heavy rains... Everything about Zimbabwe nowadays is bleak. Harare is gloomy. Potholes cripple the already rickety public transportation system. Water shortages occur daily. Power outages are frequent and will get worse. The utility company says it needs u.s.$9 million per month to pay its bills for imported power. People line up for basic necessities-food, gas, medicine-if they can be found, that is. Even cash is scarce. Banks run out. If you can get cash, you need a wheelbarrow to carry it home. Gideon Gono, the country's reserve bank boss, said inflation would be at 800 percent by March. "We are all millionaires," laughs a trader of foreign currency outside a Harare bus stop. He offers 1 million Zimbabwean dollars for u.s. $10. Pessimism reigns. In Mbare, a high-density slum township near Harare, the poverty is glaring. Garbage gathers. Burst sewage pipes gape and spill. Street children roam. Residents struggle to make ends meet by peddling anything and everything.

From an article in The Christian Chronicle by Erik Tryggestad (I remember Erik being on the Lipscomb "Babbler" newspaper staff) titled "Churches mourn seven Jamaican slaying victims":

The recent slayings of seven people - ages 3 to 40 - with ties to churches of Christ in Jamaica has church members across the country mourning and Jamaica's prime minister denouncing the tide of violence sweeping the island nation. Mourners packed the Morant Bay Church of Christ for the funeral of six members of a church family - Patrice George McCool, 28; her children Sean Chin, 9; Jihad George McCool, 6; and Lloyd McCool, 3; her aunt Terry-Ann Mohommed, 40; and another family member, Jesse O'Gilvie, 9. Their bodies were in three locations, some with slashed throats and one stuffed in a barrel... Minister Michael Dehaney conducted the funeral, which included a speech from Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who called for a time of prayer and fasting as Jamaica struggles to cut its high crime rate. Days after the funeral, the Mona Church of Christ in St. Andrew laid to rest 15-year-old Jordano Flemmings, who was fatally stabbed in a robbery while walking home from church.

An article in the by Carol J. Williams in the LA Times mentions the Morant Bay slayings, calling them a "suspected revenge attack for a failed drug deal":

Contrary to the islands' laid-back, reggae-rocked, calypso-serenaded image, the Caribbean is awash in murderous anger. Homicide rates have soared - Jamaica last year achieved the alarming distinction of being called the homicide capital of the world, and Trinidad isn't far behind. With suspects walking free because of ineffectual courts and corrupt law enforcement, vigilante justice is also on the rise.... Although the roots of the violence differ from island to island, some striving to contain it point to the region's shared afflictions of poverty, social inequity and racial resentment stemming from its history of slavery and colonization. "This is not just about people losing confidence in law enforcement. This is an eye-for-an-eye society," said Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields of the Jamaican Constabulary Force. "Even if you had an effective system of criminal justice, when children are murdered, you'd have mob rule." He was alluding to one of the more grisly recent slayings, the Feb. 25 suspected revenge attack for a failed drug deal that left a Morant Bay woman, her aunt and four children with their throats cut and the neighborhood enraged. Residents of the quiet community east of Kingston, the capital, stormed the police station demanding, "Give him to us!" after the suspect turned himself in for his own protection... Jamaica has been tabbed the world's most homicidal country since reporting 1,674 killings last year, a rate of 62 per 100,000 residents. The country had ranked third in the most recent U.N. global assessment, in 2000, with 32 per 100,000, behind Colombia's 61 and South Africa's 49. By contrast, anarchic Haiti, usually seen as the most unstable country in the Caribbean, had fewer than 20 homicides per 100,000 last year. Jamaica's shootings, stabbings and rapes mostly occur in Kingston, but bystanders and even tourists may be at greater risk as the incidence increases. "No one in his right mind goes to Kingston," said Rensselaer Lee, a security analyst and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, who has long studied crime in the Caribbean. "People can be shot walking down the streets. The violence is mainly turned inward, poor people killing each other. But increasingly people are getting caught in the cross hairs of these gangs and getting killed."

From an article in The Jamaica Observer:

The deaths sparked much public outrage amongst residents in St Thomas, and after a suspect was apprehended, many of them descended upon the Morant Bay Police Station, where he was being held, and demanded that he be turned over to them. This prompted a speedy transfer of the suspect from Morant Bay to a police station in Kingston. Still seething, the residents found recourse in setting fire to a house allegedly belonging to the suspect last Tuesday. Two rooms and the contents of the back of the house were scorched in the blaze.

Another article in The Jamaica Oberver describes Jamaica's new prime minister's remarks at the memorial service held at the Morant Bay church of Christ:

"Let us use this occasion of immense grief to make a safer Jamaica for our children," Simpson Miller said in her tribute. "We must stop the slaughter of our children, mothers, fathers and grandparents. We need to engage all sectors of society to play their part." She noted that nearly 100 children were killed last year and called for an end to the "savagery and barbarism". "We need to take back the power from the criminals and restore it to peace-loving citizens by influencing change in the society," she said. In a symbolic gesture of unity, she invited Golding, the MPs and the police commissioners onto the platform to stand beside her. "We need unity of purpose and to demonstrate that we are serious, because we need to secure the future of our children," Simpson Miller said. The six were honoured with numerous tributes in song and poetry by friends, family members and former schoolmates of the children.

This video of the traffic pattern at an intersection (purportedly in India) is kinda funny:

Previously I mentioned India's 10 million missing daughters. From a story by the BBC News:

A doctor in India and his assistant have been sentenced to two years in jail for revealing the sex of a female foetus and then agreeing to abort it. This is the first time medical professionals have been jailed in such a case. Under Indian laws, ultrasound tests on a pregnant woman to determine the gender of the foetus are illegal. It has been estimated that 10m female foetuses may have been terminated in India in the past 20 years. Dr Anil Sabhani and Kartar Singh were caught in a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana. Government officials sent in three pregnant women as decoy patients to find out if the clinic would carry out abortions based on sex selection. Audio and video evidence showed the doctor telling one woman that tests had revealed that she was carrying a "female foetus and it would be taken care of". But convictions are rare due to lax and corrupt officials and the slow judicial system.