HIV in Washington, D.C. compared to African nations
If Washington, D.C. were a nation in Africa, it would rank 23rd out of 54 countries in percentage of people with HIV.
—
HEAL Africa co-founder Lyn Lusi died Saturday from cancer at age 62. The organization, which stands for Health, Education, Action in the community and Leadership development, helps women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who suffer from assault and other traumatic injuries.
We featured her work earlier this month in ‘The Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman’: Healing the Eastern Congo.
The United Nations says the Democratic Republic of Congo is the worst place on earth to be a woman.
By one estimate, more than 1,000 women are assaulted every day. One of the few places women can turn is HEAL Africa, where women work to shake off atrocities they have faced and deal with their traumatic injuries.
South Sudan has most of the oil reserves, and Sudan to the north has most of the pipelines and processing facilities, along with the Red Sea port used to export the oil.
It’s a symbiotic relationship that was supposed to motivate the two countries toward a resolution.
The Democratic Republic of Congo country now embarks on “two very tense weeks” as ballots are counted in the second democratic elections since a bloody war involving eight African nations from 1998 to 2003.
These are the first run by the government and not the international community.
(Photo: Congolese queue to vote at a polling station in Goma during the presidential and legislative elections on November 28, 2011. SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images)
What are the Somalian refugees eating at Dadaab? We take a look at the World Food Program’s ‘Food Basket.’
From an interview with Jeffrey Brown in 2005:
Thirty years ago, Wangari Maathai had a simple idea: To plant trees.
Wangari Maathai, savior of trees, dies
Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, died Sunday after a long struggle with ovarian cancer.
More than 10 million people are desperately in need of food assistance in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, the World Food Program estimated this week.
The situation in Somalia in particular is the “worst humanitarian disaster in the world,” the U.N. refugee agency said on Sunday.
Abshira Abdukadir, a four-year-old Somali girl suffering from severe diarrhea and having trouble breathing, is looked after by her parents hours after they finally reached a refugee camp in northeast Kenya and were able to get medical assistance for their ailing daughter on July 6, 2011. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
