Over 1,000,000,000 Children are at RiskWritten by Gary R. Hess
A new report by United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has showed remarkable statistics about how world’s children are now at great risk.The report shows that more than 640 million children don't have sufficient shelter, while 140 million have never been to school. It also shows 400 million children do not have safe water to drink and 500 million live without basic sanitation. Another 90 million children starve. The 1989 Convention on Rights of Child asked countries to help give children a healthy and protected up bringing however violence, aids and poverty are still at their worst. Nearly one in six children suffers from severe hunger and one in seven has no healthcare. Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, indicated that main cause of great risk is wars. Over 20 million children are forced from their homes due to fighting and 3.6 million, half of which are children, have died in such conflicts although a much higher number of children have died from indirect causes of wars.
| | The Ugly American ReturnsWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
Originally published in 1958, "The Ugly American" (Lederer & Burdick) documented American blunders abroad and our failure to identify that what we termed communism in undeveloped countries was merely screams of hunger and hopelessness becoming manifest. 15 years later, we extricated ourselves from Vietnam and licked our wounds for 30 years, finally coming to some sort of accommodation with free fire zones, Agent Orange, and My Lai. Never again, we swore. We would protect our nation's security but only move into war zones when gross injustice or humanitarian concerns demanded a response -- Somalia, Bosnia, first Gulf War.We felt relief: a line in sand had been drawn that we would not cross. The new American protocol called for self-protection but also restraint, a hint of nobility, and belief that, above all, we were primary bastion of freedom, diversity, and rule of law. September 11 shook that hard-fought-for ideal. No longer must we simply protect our borders but now we had to look around us wherever we were - at stranger waiting for a train, sweating, swarthy fellow traveler at airport, foreigners in upstairs apartment. We felt betrayed. The quid pro quo of "You leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" went awry. Those who hate us were intruding into our private space. We felt violated. In a predictable reaction, we struck out, seeking enemy in hills and caves of Afghanistan where our agony had been meticulously planned with premeditation and cold indifference to our pain. For two years, we slowly revised our goals, our ideals, our national commitments. Our outraged sense of self, revulsion, and anger gradually overcame our democratic belief in rights of all to national self-determination. To fight enemy, we became him. We adopted his mindset of ends justifies means. Angry and frustrated at his ability to strike at our very heart and make our world fearful and dangerous, we morphed into him, using offense as a means of defense against terrifying vulnerability we feared to face.
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