Reuters—Six million trapped as long-term refugees: UNHCR
Some six million people around the globe are trapped in mainly poor countries as long-term refugees, many facing deprivation that feeds crime and human trafficking, a senior UN official said yesterday. There are at least 30 crisis areas around the world where people had been forced to flee into neighboring states and had not been able to return home for many years, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, said. “The burden of hosting these refugees falls almost exclusively to developing states. It is important to recognize that the international community as a whole has not done enough to share that burden,” he said.

Reuters—China offers Zimbabwe aid, urges national unity
China offered food and economic aid to cholera-stricken Zimbabwe this week, urging formation of a national unity government to rescue the nation from a spiral of economic and political chaos. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao announced the aid plan, and his bleak words suggested that Beijing was distancing itself from increasingly isolated Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. “China along with the broader international community expresses its concern with the current constant deterioration of the economic and political situation in Zimbabwe,” Liu said. Experts say Liu’s comments suggest that Beijing was hardening its stance on Zimbabwe as growing numbers of African leaders warn of a crisis of disease and economic collapse.

NY Times—Darfur, Another Year Later (Editorial)
A NY Times editorial says that although the world has long declared its revulsion at the atrocities committed by Sudan’s government in Darfur, global powers still have done almost nothing to stop it. While the UN Security Council approved a strengthened peacekeeping force this past January, now more than 11 months later, the Council has managed to send only 10,000 of the promised 26,000 peacekeepers—and large-scale military attacks against populated areas continue.

Christian Science Monitor—Sen. Dick Lugar: The petroleum and poverty paradox
U.S. Senator Dick Lugar writes today about the “petroleum and poverty paradox” in the Christian Science Monitor. The senator writes, “history shows that oil and natural gas reserves frequently can be a bane, not a blessing, for poor countries, leading to corruption, wasteful spending, military adventurism, and instability. Too often, oil money intended for a nation’s poor lines the pockets of the rich, or is squandered on showcase projects instead of productive investments.” He lays out several steps—mainly anti-corruption and transparency measures—that the United States can take the lead on to help reverse the ‘resource curse’ that still astoundingly hampers poor, yet oil-rich, nations.

New Vision (Uganda)—African ministers to petition for child drugs
African health ministers are petitioning the African Union (AU) to ask drug manufacturers to donate drugs to fight diseases common in tropical and subtropical areas that disproportionately affect children. Diseases such as Bilharzia, river blindness, intestinal worms, trachoma and elephantiasis still affect tens of thousands of children, although they are nearly fully eradicated in the western world. The ministers made the resolution yesterday during a forum in Kampala, Uganda.

-Steve Wilson