I changed the name of the thread from Dafur, Sudan to the current name
I want people to add other examples of people helping people.
Sometime we get side tracked on the ills of the world - (example recent posts on racism etc)
Number 1 Example: Darfur Sudan - a city and country in need. But there is hope I believe and the following story is a promise of things to come - I am in a wait an see mode.
This is from a Canadian Perspective
facts/questions and opinion
1) this is part of the Prime Minster of England's new global commitment to end world poverty - fact
2) this is a Western led initiative - fact
3) 11 world leaders have signed on but I do not know who they are - fact
4) why is it taking so long to address the issues in Darfur? question
5) Philosophies and values that alienate the rich nations and their population will hinder any efforts to resolve the crisis - opinion
6)
200,000 have died and
two million have been left homeless as Arab janjaweed militias backed by Khartoum’s Arab-led government moved against black Sudanese - I believe this to be fact
here is an report from The National Post - a newspaper that some consider to be right wing
UN JOINS FORCES IN DARFUR, 19,000 SOLDIERS ASSIGNED
BY STEVEN EDWARDS CanWest News Service
Link to National PostAugust 1, 2007
UNITED NATIONS • After months of wrangling, the United Nations agreed yesterday to send 19,000 peacekeepers to Darfur to join an African Union force that has been unable to quell the violence.
The move came after an impassioned speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown about Western-led efforts to bring peace to the region — and his idea for a new global commitment to end world poverty.
Mr. Brown announced that 11 other world leaders have signed on to his “Commitment to Act” against poverty — one of them Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
By joining the group, Mr. Harper commits Canada to push for a UN summit next year to review the limited progress the world has made in meeting development goals set at the 2000 UN Millennium Summit.
That conference may in turn lead to new global pressure on Canada and other rich countries to dramatically increase overseas aid so that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are achieved by the 2015 target date.“The message for Darfur is that it is time for change,” Mr. Brown told a UN audience during his first visit to the world body since he succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister last month.
“And I am here to say that it’s also time for change so that we can meet the world’s Millennium Development Goals.”
On Darfur, the 15 members of the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution that will create the UN’s biggest peacekeeping operation — as long as Sudan honours a pledge to admit the soldiers.
The breakthrough came after Sudan and its veto-wielding Security Council ally
China which has extensive oil interests in the African country agreed to wording that limits the amount of force the peacekeepers can use.
The UN soldiers will join 7,000 AU troops to form a ‘ hybrid’ force that will fan out across the vast region where more than
200,000 have died and two million have been left homeless as Arab janjaweed militias backed by Khartoum’s Arab-led government moved against black Sudanese.Mr. Brown called Darfur the world’s “greatest humanitarian disaster.”“If ... the killings continue, I and others will redouble our efforts to impose further sanctions,” Mr. Brown said in reference to the United States and France as Security Council powers that led the push for the force, as well as earlier limited sanctions against Sudan.
On his anti-poverty initiative, Mr. Brown said the MDGs were a “million miles” from being met.
“I believe the scale of the challenge is such that we cannot now leave it to some other time and some other people but must act now, working together,” he said.
The Commitment to Act contains no specifics on what new funds may be needed, but the UN has long pushed for the “0.7 solution” — meaning rich countries should give 0.7% of their national incomes in aid.
Canada gives around 0.34% — meaning government overseas aid would have to more than double to meet the UN standard. This is despite a finding by the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, that Canada gives around 1% of its national income in foreign aid when charitable donations are included.
The MDGs include halving the number of people living on a dollar a day by 2015, ensuring all children complete primary school, and reducing the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds.
“Canada will continue to work with its partners — other governments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations — toward meeting these internationally agreed objectives,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in Ottawa.
But many development economists say wastage and corruption has played a large part in knocking the MDG timetable off track — something International Development Minister Josée Verner appears to acknowledge.
“Achieving the objectives described in the Millennium Development Goals requires all countries, developed and developing, to take responsibility for their respective roles for implementing reforms that will ensure the effective use of international assistance,” she said.
The Darfur force — to be called the UN African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid) — is expected to cost up to US$2-billion a year. UN assessments will charge Canada almost 3% of that amount.
Canada may also add to its current separate commitment to help the AUforce with troop transports. Eleven Canadian Forces members are involved in that operation, and 103 armoured vehicles are on loan to African units.
“We must now move forward in all haste [to] put in place the complex and vital peacekeeping operation,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said following the vote.
“Member states must provide every support — especially troop and police-contributing countries.
The deal on Darfur follows a ceasefire last year that Canada helped broker, but which collapsed in part because some rebel groups had not signed on.
