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5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Posted by Laura Heaton on June 25, 2010

5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.

Somali-born rapper K’Naan’s song Wavin’ Flag had been a radio hit in the U.K. and topped charts in 14 countries long before it became an anthem of the 2010 World Cup. But the popular song performed by K’Naan and will.i.am at the World Cup Kick-off Concert was revised from the original to give it a more uplifting spin. The BBC’s Ian Youngs described the real story behind the music.

Foreign Policy put together a spectacular photo collection to illustrate the Failed States Index released by FP and the Fund for Peace. Sixty photos in all, the list begins with Somalia and covers Enough’s full repertoire by the time we get to photo 9.

Writing on Change.org’s Human Rights blog, Daniel Gerstle responded to the Failed States Index with some valuable points about how aggregating statistics masks the serious challenges that marginalized populations in wealthy countries face – and the progress made by entrepreneurs in poorer, unstable countries. Such lists and criteria would be more helpful for development initiatives if statistics were grouped by community rather than theme, Gerstle argued. Here’s a key passage:

“[W]hat would really help the most is to isolate the ‘Mogadishus’ which need a dramatic increase in conflict mitigation and humanitarian aid from the ‘Hargeisas’ which need a dramatic increase in private sector employment, and which largely relies on partnerships with regional and distant traders. While one part of a country fails, another part of the same country may have solutions which need to be supported.”

Scott Simon of the NPR program Weekend Edition spoke to filmmaker Mark Hopkins and one of the doctors featured in the new film "Living in Emergencies." The film follows four doctors through their stints with Doctors Without Borders in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the interview, Simon delves into one of the film’s most provocative themes and one that creates the most palpable tension: MSF’s policy of leaving a crisis zone when a modicum of stability returns. (A couple of us from Enough saw the film while it was briefly playing in Washington. Seek this one out – it’s intense, thought provoking, and captivating.)

Sudan activist and former pro basketball player Manute Bol passed away last Saturday, June 19, at the age of 47. The Washington Post published this slideshow of photos from his public life, cut too short.