Word: africa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Diarrhea has been ignored for decades. For many people outside Africa, the continent's calamitous health problems are largely defined by two epidemics: AIDS and malaria. There is a World AIDS Day and a World Malaria Day, and countless medical researchers work to combat the two diseases. In 2008 about 60% of the world's funding for research into major epidemics went to AIDS and malaria; diarrhea received a tiny fraction in comparison. Just 4% of all U.S. funding for research into major developing-world epidemics in 2007 went to diarrhea. The European Commission has given about $1.33 billion...
...Within a few years of People Power in the Philippines, it was hard to keep up with all the peaceful uprisings that were sweeping aside authoritarian regimes across the globe: Solidarity in Poland, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the antiapartheid movement in South Africa, the end of dictatorships in South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan. Even the extinguished idealism of student protesters in Tiananmen or the monks in Burma drew succor from the example of a certain Filipino homemaker's bravery - a woman who herself almost inadvertently assumed the mantle of Mohandas Gandhi after the assassination of her political-dissident husband...
...might just as easily have ended up spending her days pruning her beloved bonsai. Nevertheless, in 1986 Aquino made People Power - and People Power made the world we now inhabit a freer place. "When we were struggling with apartheid," recalls retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the moral force of South Africa's political change, "we spoke of People Power. You had to be with the people to make change happen." At the dawn of a new century, his words may feel stunningly obvious. Yet to a planet conditioned by colonialism or Confucianism or tyranny to think that the people's obligation...
...July 30, as security forces moved to squash a five-day uprising by the militant Islamic group. Boko Haram members attacked police stations, churches, schools and private homes, killing nearly 800 people in an effort to overthrow the government and impose a stricter version of Islamic law in Africa's most populous nation. Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, seeking to maintain control of an increasingly volatile situation, ordered an investigation into Yusuf's death, which authorities claim occurred during an attempted escape. Human-rights groups say the leader may have been executed as an example to deter other militants...
...Lebanese descent--are believed to be connected to al-Shabaab, an Islamic group fighting Somalia's enfeebled government; officials said at least one had participated in the insurgency. Analysts say the plot highlights the prospect of future attacks by Western radicals steeled by combat in the Horn of Africa. Terrorism is rare in Australia, a close U.S. ally, though its citizens have been targeted overseas...