Emily Bowers's Blog

Posted by Emily Bowers

On Sunday, voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo will choose between incumbent Joseph Kabila and vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba. It's the second stage of voting for the central African country which has been torn by a bloody civil war.

The first round was marked as largely free and fair by international observers and on the day of the polls, there were very few incidents of conflict reported. But in the wake of the announced results in August, clashes were sparked in the capital Kinshasa.

Complicating matters this week was the jailbreak by inmates in Kinshasa, including men convicting in the assassination of Laurent Kabila, the father of the incumbent. Laurent Kabila was president until his death in 2001 and Joseph Kabila assumed power shortly after the killing.

And there was a riot outside the prison the inmates escaped from, reportedly sparked by the guards' refusal to allow family members to bring food to their relatives held inside. Fighting was also reported in regional cities.

The United Nations operation in Congo, MONUC, appealed to Kabila and Bemba to ensure calm ahead of the voting.

"The whole world is looking at you; the Congolese are asking to be heard,” said Jean Tobie Okala, deputy spokesperson with MONUC.

Both Kabila and Bemba are highly divisive figures: each was active in the civil war that officially ended in 1999, but continued flare-ups have killed thousands. Sunday is a chance for peace -- and while the millions of voters have proved that they long for stability, the battles between fighters loyal to the two candidates threaten the country once more.

Posted by Emily Bowers

They've been coming nearly every day, for more than three years. Reports of deaths in Iraq are sadly commonplace, even routine. They earn footnote mentions in news reports and it's thought that -- as in most cases of war -- the true number won't fully be known.

But a new report from Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad has put forth a shocking number: 655,000 Iraqis dead since the invasion began in 2003. And the researchers say this amounts to a doubling of the usual mortality rate and the vast majority are the result of war-related conflict.

George W. Bush attacked the study, but didn't offer his own figures. The methodology is interesting. Researchers took a sample of more than 1,800 homes in locations across Iraq and asked them about deaths in their family.

They found gunshots the cause of half of the violent deaths, and one third are attributed to U.S.-led coalition attacks. Some 55,000 deaths were caused by illness, thought to be due to the deterioration of health care infrastructure.

The study was published in The Lancet, a highly-regarded medical journal in the UK.

Posted by Emily Bowers

Brazil's president didn't get the easy victory that polls had shown he would, so he'll face Geraldo Alckmin in a presidential runoff.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or Lula as he's popularly known, received just less than the 50 percent needed to win on the first ballot. Alckmin got 41.4 percent of the vote.

Brazil has been mired in political controversy, with Lula's party accused of dirty tricks during the campaign, including an apparent attempt to buy a dossier filled with information about Alckmin.

It caused the resignation of Lula's campaign manager just a few weeks before the polls and it was a blow for a president who had strong popularity, especially among the impoverished masses where his social programs have been applauded.

And Lula, at the last minute, pulled out of a presidential debate set for two days before the polls, fearing personal attacks from the other candidates. It was another piece of controversy for voters to mull over at the polling booth.

The runoff will take place on Oct. 29.

Posted by Emily Bowers

The bleeding noses, the chest pains, the breathing problems. The dead and the sick. For the past month, the economic capital of West Africa's once-prosperous Ivory Coast has been crippled with a sickening stench after 500 tonnes of waste from a Dutch ship was dumped around Abidjan.

But the company, Trafigura, says the waste offloaded from the Probo Koala in August wasn't toxic.

What is was, though, was bargain hunting. The ship was going to give its cargo to a company at home in Amsterdam to dispose of. But the price was too high, a director of the company told the BBC.

So, off to Nigeria. But officials there couldn't get a decent price, either. But an Ivorian company offered the best deal, and the devastating consequences of that bargain hunting are well known by the thousands were fell sick.

Ivory Coast is a complex, complicated country that is once more toeing the line to civil war. But it deserves more than to be a dumping ground for European sludge.

Posted by Emily Bowers

Note to leaders: if there's even a hint of someone out there, probably someone in the military, who's been talking about a coup, you might want to stay put in your country.

Sure, the United Nations General Assembly is probably a tough invitation to turn down, but the military leaders who drove tanks up to Bangkok's Government House and took it over took a page from past coup leaders, and general house robbers everywhere: just wait till they're not home, then move in.

Perhaps Thailand's leadership was as corrupt as it's alleged they are. But that should be up to the electorate to decide, not someone who controls a country's weaponry.

An opinion poll reported by the BBC shows that Thais seem to accept the coup as a necessary way to get Thaksin Shinawatra out of office, but now that coup leaders have banned all opposition political meetings and said it'll be year before they allow elections, democracy has taken an unfortunate hit in Thailand.

International leaders have called on Thailand's new leaders to return to democracy soon by organizing polls.

Posted by Emily Bowers

It's been building up all summer, as Canadians see the death toll of their troops in Afghanistan piling up: the uncomfortable transition from being a peacekeeping nation to a war-fighting nation, with soldiers in active, dangerous combat.

With Canada's parliament set to begin its fall session, a wide divide on the issue is opening up between the minority ruling Conservative party and the three main opposition parties.

An opinion poll taken over the summer showed that just 39 percent supported sending troops to Afghanistan, while some 56 percent opposed.

For some Canadians who had been used to seeing their troops in recent conflicts act as peacekeepers, seeing them in active combat has been tough to swallow.

In 2002, Canada took part in the International Security Assistance Force, mandated by the United Nations. But that ended in 2005 and Canada committed in early 2006 a battle group. More than 2,000 Canadians are now part of a NATO force fighting the resurgent Taliban.

It's divided the country politically, with one opposition party calling for the all-out withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan and another calling for an emergency debate.

The way Canada adjusts further to its role as a war-fighting nation will be further shaped. Soldiers are committed for at least two more years and even if the battle in Afghanistan is one that seems rather forgotten in the United States, Canadians are reminded daily of everything that's going on in the country's that's taken the lives of 36 soldiers.

Posted by Emily Bowers

The booming Asian economic beast is having some serious environmental consequences. While the West swelters under a heat wave which makes us wonder about things like global warming, the impacts of the rapid growth of China's economy is coming under the spotlight and having perhaps ironic consequences. The Chinese government's State Protection Agency says rising sulphur dioxide -- the gas which causes acid rain -- is having an impact on

Posted by Emily Bowers

This is the time when television screens are filled with pictures that don't look all that different than they did a year ago. The flood waters have long since receded, but the debris - piles of wrecked houses, cars, trees - are still there in the neighbourhoods outside the tourist hot spots of New Orleans.

There was much soul-searching in the aftermath of the hurricane that killed some 1,800 people along the United States' Gulf Coast. Too many things went wrong and this anniversary will serve to reopen those wounds.

But the calendar can't be fought, and the date also sparks determination, reminding survivors they are just that.

"We're not well. We're not finished. But I will say this: We've made it. Let's move on. Let's move forward," said Gulfport, Miss., Mayor Brent Warr in a ceremony, AP reported.

Residents are fighting insurance companies to fix their homes, those companies are fighting back with feel-good ads. Mental illnesses skyrocketed in the aftermath, diagnoses climbing among survivors, according to a Harvard study.

Anniversaries serve as a reminder of how far survivors have come, but in Katrina's case, it seems there's many reminders of how far the southern U.S. still needs to go.

Posted by Emily Bowers

There's a pride growing among Liberians in West Africa, the pride of a people who, as many hope, are turning away from bloody civil war to peace.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for the heady task of rebuilding a nation scarred and taking care of a generation of young adults who were used as the tools of war-mongering.

This summer has given Liberians some cause for celebration. Flanked by leaders from other West African countries, Sirleaf turned on streetlights powered by generators in the capital Monrovia for the first time in 15 years. And water flowed through the pipes in some parts of the capital.

Even if the ceremony was marked by a suspicious blaze in the presidential building, it was a milestone in the emotional growth of the country.

Liberia's civil war was particularly nasty, with routine rape and murder often perpetrated by child soldiers who were fed drugs.

The alleged leader of the violence, rebel leader-turned president Charles Taylor, is sitting a jail cell in The Hague, awaiting his trial on war crimes.

Posted by Emily Bowers

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the type of country that inspires too many clichés, too many quick strokes with a simple brush. With a complex and painful past, it's the kind of country where the hope of its citizens would shock and amaze many who are on the outside looking in. So while the rest of the world is distracted in the Middle East, the Congolese are preparing to cast historic ballots to see how far the DRC can go in living up to its lofty name.

The United Nations' huge peacekeeping force, MONUC, is in the country to make sure this Sunday's elections go smoothly. But how smooth can it be when Joseph Kabila, the incumbent, is seen as the favourite and his main rival, Etienne Tshisekedi isn't even on the ballot, arguing that a transparent vote will be impossible?

Even though the war is technically over, Unicef estimates that some 600 children a day still die as a result of the ongoing conflicts and disease. Rape is commonly used as a war crime in the parts of the DRC where fighting continues.

Even while Tshisekedi's supporters are disenfranchised, other Congolese seem excited to finally be able to cast a ballot. The enthusiasm is encouraging, but the decision by Tshisekedi seems to have condemned these elections before the polls even open.

Posted by Emily Bowers

It's times like this that we look to our leaders to, well, lead. At the G8 meeting, they came together and issued a terse statement, blaming Hezbollah for the current violent escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

But they also asked Israel, who has been steadily bombing Lebanon, to show restraint.

So, where do we go from here? People are dying, fleeing and scared on both sides of the border. And while the statement was being absorbed by the press and the world, we hear about the deaths of seven vacationing Lebanese-Canadians -- several known to be from the same family -- in an Israeli airstrike.

This is proving to be a big test for the G8, which has been questioned about its relevancy and purpose recently in a rapidly changing global economy.

And that statement seemed about as valuable as the paper it was printed on, with Hezbollah strikes landing in Haifa and Israel vowing a strong retaliation. The death toll stands at 178, according to the Associated Press.

Your move, G8.

Posted by Emily Bowers

It's getting hard to keep up with all the threats out there. The U.S. media machine has been feeding us plenty of fears about the Islamic terrorist next door who's probably living next door to you RIGHT NOW. But that loud grinding noise you hear is the shifting of gears to the Asia-Pacific. Time to dig up old footage of North Koreans goose-stepping for dictator Kim.

The U.S. president is working his phones, dishing out words like "provocative" in response to North Korea's missile test. In the global family dynamic, it seems North Korea is quite content to play the little brother anxious for attention. How far can L'il Kim (oops, is that name already taken?) push the boundaries before it's time for a time out?

It's tough, if impossible, to gauge what's going on. We've been hearing snippets of the devastating poverty North Koreans face for years but as usual, military trumps humanity. Is there a chance that by encouraging North Korea to return to international talks, the people stuck under Kim's thumb could wiggle free a bit? Some have speculated that North Korea's nuclear rumblings are part of the game: give us more aid and we won't play with our weapons. What a cruel jest.

In the meantime, we'll up North Korea a few notches on the scare list and add phrases like "six-party talks" to our water cooler vocabulary. And hope that somewhere along the way, someone will remember that there are millions of real people involved for whom rhetoric doesn't fill dinner plates.