In the second attack in three days, three Senegalese peace keepers were killed by an unidentified gunman while bringing water to the UN mission’s general headquarters in west Darfur. Last Friday a Zambian military officer was killed in Northern Darfur, and in July, seven Tanzanian soldiers along with a Sierra Leone police officer were killed near one of the main cities in Darfur. UN Secretary General has urged the Sudanese government to get these attacks under control and do something about the incidents that already occurred. Peacekeepers have increasingly been made the target of attacks in the western region of Sudan where at least 300,000 have died in the ongoing conflict.
Women in Uganda have to fight to stay alive in a country with a prevalent AIDS and malaria problem, but more recently the urgent problem of finding treatment for breast cancer has been brought to light. Women in many developing countries do not seek treatment for breast cancer because they feel entombed by social stigmas, poverty, and lack of knowledge about the disease. In the United States, about 20 percent of women with breast cancer will die from the disease compared to 40-60 percent in developing countries. This is because access to the much needed treatment is often unavailable, too expensive, or delayed. Additionally, many women in less developed countries do not seek medical attention until the cancer is already at stage 4, leaving the doctors with little they can do to treat the disease. This happens in part because women don’t know that something is wrong until it is too late explains Dr. Okuku from Uganda;
There is no word for cancer in most Ugandan languages. A woman finds a lump in her breast, and cancer doesn’t cross her mind. It’s not in her vocabulary.
Treatment tends to be unreliable or inaccessible, and doctors often find that they have to resort to mastectomies because chemotherapy and radiation are not options.
The Senate and House of Representatives passed a last minute bill to end the government shutdown and avoid a calamitous U.S. default. President Obama signed the short 35 page bill late Wednesday night. Along with aid for Colorado’s flood relief and fire suppression in California, money was allotted to continue the search for Joseph Kony. It gives authority to the Department of Defense to continue supporting African troops that are pursuing the Lord’s Resistance Army and Kony who was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005 for war crimes.
Francois Holland has become worried that the region surrounding the Central African Republic will become more unstable because of the recent collapse. France has promised to increase the number of troops it sends to its former colony by the end of the year in a preventative effort to stop the country from its downward spiral that could lead to a religious conflict. France already has about 400 troops in the capital, but would like that to be increased by 350.
About 30 kilometers away from Goma, a surprise Democratic Republic of Congo governmental offensive seized the area. This infuriated M23 leader Rene Abandi who called the attack ‘totally unacceptable’ at a press conference. The statements made by Abandi at the press conference are worrisome because they could be the catalyst for a military confrontation between M23 forces and the DRC army. Abandi also stated that he and his troops intend to continue to defend themselves against any future attacks, feeling obligated to respond when civilians in the region are put in danger.