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Still, the volunteers take much more abuse than they deserve. According to a manager of a group of volunteers, several IOC officials like to take late-night trips to Sochi House, where the Russians are partying hard and promoting the 2014 Olympics, which they will be hosting. Several suits have asked volunteer drivers to wait past midnight for a ride and then complained when the volunteers went home rather than stick around for the tipsy bigwigs. (In fairness, the manager did say that this same group of IOC officials gave away 50 event tickets to the volunteers...
...coup itself was over just hours after it began Thursday, when shots were heard at the presidential palace in the dusty capital of Niamey, where Tandja was holding a Cabinet meeting. Late that night, a group of army officers calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy appeared on national television and announced the suspension of the constitution and dissolution of all state institutions. An unnamed uniformed officer asked the people of Niger to "remain calm and stay united around the ideals postulated by the council," which were to "make Niger an example of democracy and good governance...
...more testy than last year's Obama-induced euphoria. There was a universal sense among the Muslim delegates that the President had offered fine words in the past year but not much action. And now, Clinton entertained a question from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on behalf of an interfaith group of religious leaders, about the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: Why wasn't the U.S. doing more to alleviate it? (See pictures of Obama's diplomacy...
...Wednesday, however, a Haitian judge released eight of the missionaries, who according to their lawyers left the country by sunset. Two others - the group's leader, Laura Silsby, and her nanny and assistant, Charisa Coulter - remained behind bars for further investigation, but they may eventually be freed as well. Either way, the question now is whether their high-profile detention has put the fear of God into others who might think it's O.K. to take Haitian kids without lawful process - even if the intent is to give them refuge and more hopeful lives after a disaster as horrific...
...Many - if not most - of those 33 children, it turns out, aren't even orphans; they were given to Silsby's group by desperate parents, either directly or via orphanages. De la Soudiere, a French citizen and veteran child advocate in disaster and war zones, believes the Haitian children's registry will make people like orphanage directors and clueless missionaries "think twice" before unlawfully scooping up lost or abandoned kids. "It gives these children a legal identity they didn't have before," she says. "In the end, I also think it will strengthen Haitian family culture, because Haitians have been...