Friday, January 02, 2004 :::
Bonus Big-Ass Quote of the Day:
This is from a story on underreported news stories. From the website Working For Change.
Africa, Africa, Africa. So much is flying under U.S. media radar, it's hard to know where to start - from Mugabe's terrorizing of Zimbabwe to AIDS to the renewed national and regional depredations of Nigeria, a country effectively run by the likes of Shell and Chevron, and whichever local generals have the franchise this week. But as always the place to start is Central Africa - where a brutal, decade-long war has now killed a staggering four million or more people, replete with atrocities, civilian massacres, torture, sexual slavery, and lots and lots of U.S.-made weaponry. The war's raison d'etre? The mineral wealth of the eastern Congo, which includes several rare minerals used in the production of computer screens, keyboards, and chips. Prominent among the numerous American companies getting rich by paying "rebel" armies to take over mining regions are - surprise - Halliburton and Bechtel. This should be a scandal rocking the globe - but it's sub-Saharan Africa, where they don't value life the way we do [sic].
See the whole list of overhyped and underreported stories here.
::: posted by tom at 4:04 PM
