DemocracyNow: Horn of Africa Famine – Millions at Risk in “Deadly Cocktail” of War, Climate Change, Neoliberalism

KIKI GBEHO: As I said, I think it is a deadly cocktail. It’s an ongoing conflict. We have challenges with access, so we don’t have, as you would see in other aid operations, large numbers of international agencies working on the ground. And then the global crisis, we see price hikes all over the world. The whole Horn is affected by the drought. And you end up where we are now.

I think that the good news in all of this is that we still do have the possibility to save lives. When we talk to the technical people on the ground who assess for us, they tell us, if we act now, if we take advantage of the upcoming raining seasons and plant, if we manage to get food into the country, if we manage to put cash in the hands of people, and if we manage to scale up our health interventions, we could prevent the situation from deteriorating further. At the moment, only two regions have been declared as being in drought, but if we don’t do something, we can see the remainder of the regions in the south quickly roll into the same situation.

Watch video at DemocracyNow.org.

Thandie Newton: Embracing otherness, embracing myself

Disclaimer: Going Deep Alert! Do not bother to listen if you are merely into celebrity worship.

Actor Thandie Newton tells the story of finding her “otherness” — first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves. A warm, wise talk, fresh from stage at TEDGlobal 2011.

Somali Pirates Go High Tech | Fast Company


“Somali pirates aren’t content just floating around in their fishing boats, looking for victims. These days, pirates off the Horn of Africa are turning to a sophisticated mix of weaponry, jerry-rigged GPS devices, and ingenious hacks of shipping-industry databases to hunt down prey. The resulting technology isn’t just fascinating–it also has a real impact on foreign millitaries who are fighting piracy.”

Read more via Fast Company.