Trolling Cyber Space: Favorite Links of the Week

Published May 23, 2009 @ 08:54AM PT

Following along the lines of Humanitarian Relief and the Enough blog, here's a short list of links from the past week (and some a bit older) that I found particularly interesting:

William Dobson, writing in US News & World Report, argues that Sudanese President/Indicted War Criminal Omar al-Bashir is the "biggest test for Obama's foreign policy in Africa."

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum's serial podcast, "Voices on Genocide Prevention," featured filmmaker Ann Aghion discussing her films on gacaca, the post-genocide community-based justice system in Rwanda. Also from USHMM, Committee on Conscience direction John Heffernan writes that genocide prevention is gaining ground in international policy circles.

Over at Change.org's Criminal Justice blog, Matt Kelly writes that "Zimbabwe's prisons may be the worst place on Earth."

Mo'dernity, Mo'problems hit the proverbial nail on the head with a post on famed-author Philip Gourevitch's excessive fawning over Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Gourevitch's book has merit, for sure, but I always refer people to Elizabeth Neuffer's The Key to My Neighbor's House for a more nuanced and more thoroughly-researched approach to the Rwandan genocide.

Texas in Africa reviews an article that seeks to answer the question: "Why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on peacekeeping, peace deal negotiations, democracy promotion, humanitarian aid, development assistance, and celebrity awareness-raising, is the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo still an anarchic war zone?"

Finally, for a bit of comic relief, Michael at Humanitarian Relief (perhaps putting too much faith in the elusive moving fairies) posted Procrastination Junction, highlighting The Onion's less-than-PC Atlas of the World.

[Photo of a Zimbabwean prison inmate, snagged from Matt's blog.]

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Michelle became involved in the anti-genocide cause at a young age, and has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns, ever since.