News: Sandinista priest presides UN General Assembly
link[i-link]Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann is elected president of the U.N. General Assembly. His bio is more interesting than merely "being a US born Roman Catholic priest".
He backed the revolution in Nicaragua, joining Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega's government as foreign minister, a period sprouting fierce US under cover opposition in the so-called "contra-revolution".
D'Escoto's anti-American past includes successfully taking the US to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for arming Contra rebels and staging a hunger strike against U.S. policy.
In 2004 he told a U.S. news program former President Ronald Reagan was "the butcher of my people" and called President George W. Bush Reagan's "spiritual heir". (Full)
In his acceptance speech, he said "(..) love is what is most needed in this world. Selfishness is what has gotten us into the terrible quagmire in which the world is sinking, almost irreversibly, unless something big happens."
d'Escoto spoke out against what he called "acts of aggression" in Iraq and Afghanistan — without mentioning the US by name: "The behavior of some member states has caused the United Nations to lose credibility as an organization capable of putting an end to war and eradicating extreme poverty from our planet," he said. (Full)
The only thing, I can say is: "Hear, hear!"
Source: The Road Daily
Picture courtesy Isidro Hernandez (La Prensa)
Rumble: Hurricane Felix
link[i-link]link[i-link]link[i-link]As you might remember, I now work in the logistics section in HQ. First hand reports from disasters, conflicts, famine come in here pretty fast. Ebola outbreak in DRC, flooding in Ghana and Uganda, earthquakes in Colombia and Indonesia,... Most of these have an immediate and direct effect on the work we do, either in aid food dispatches or in the allocation of logistics support staff.
One example is Hurricane Felix. Even though the hurricane occurred early September, and has long gone from the news headlines, people in Nicaragua are still dealing with the aftermath of the disaster.
Pictures courtesy Mirjana Kavelj (WFP)
