A New Global Economy?

This week’s “G-20” summit in London couldn’t have a more dramatic backdrop. Soaring jobless rates, economic depression and corporate meltdowns are just a sampling of what the leaders of the world's 20 largest economic powers have come to discuss as they examine the global financial crisis and decide new measures to set the world on a more stable economic footing.

But in the midst of all the discussion concerning free-trade, open markets and globalization, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling on an extension of values. “Instead of a globalization that threatens to become values-free and rules-free, we need a world of shared global rules founded on shared global values,” Brown said.

“The unsupervised globalization of our financial markets did not only cross national boundaries -- it crossed moral boundaries, too.” Markets need morals, he continued, and they work best when the values are upheld. “We do not need the benefit of hindsight to know that the sheer scale, scope and speed of today's global changes is throwing up problems which, if we do not address, will condemn millions around the world to a life that is unsustainable, insecure and unfair.”

Something that might be noted, however, is that millions of people around the world are ALREADY living lives that are “unsustainable, insecure and unfair.“

So where do we go from here?

A Death Blow for Darfur?

Following an announcement from Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir that all foreign aid agencies working in the country would soon be ousted from Sudan, a Sudanese staffer working for a Canadian relief group was shot dead in Darfur. After the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity on March 4, his Khartoum government expelled 13 international aid agencies and revoked the permits of three organizations in the country. Bashir -- the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes by the court -- has continued to say that humanitarian efforts in the country should be “Sudanized.”

“Within a year, we don't want to see any foreign aid group dealing with a Sudanese citizen,” he said at a rally a week after his arrest warrant was issued.

Following Bashir’s actions, the United Nations issued a report stating that “more than one million people in Darfur are at risk of losing food, water and shelter in coming months because of the expulsion of international aid groups by Sudan's government.” “As the rainy season arrives within the next two months,” one relief agency explained, “people living in weak temporary shelters, in flood-prone locations where latrines can fill and overflow, will become at extreme risk of disease and death.”

Quite plainly, it is a crisis that demands immediate international attention.

The Pope and Africa

Pope Benedict XVI was met by tens of thousands of people in a packed soccer stadium in Cameroon this week. Among the crowd attending Mass during the Pope's African tour were Cameroon’s President Paul Biya and his wife. Africa is the last continent that Pope Benedict had left to visit, “and one he could not avoid,” explained David Gibson, a biographer of the Pope. "He knows he has to do this. He knows Africa is the future of the Catholic Church, as it is for all of Christianity," said Gibson.

Christianity, like Islam, is on the rise in Africa and Latin America, even as the northern hemisphere tends to become more secular. Recent studies by the Pew Foundation show that both Christianity and Islam are expanding rapidly in Africa. Less than one in ten people in sub-Saharan Africa was Christian in 1900. Today nearly six in ten are. The region was about 14 percent Muslim at the beginning of the 20th century, he said, and about 30 percent Muslim now.

With all of the changes going on in this vast continent -- its increasing influence on First World cultures and the growing presence of African issues on the world stage -- one must consider that the next Pope may well be an African. And what a change that might be!

A Troubling Time for East Africa

As countries in East Africa continue their struggle to stand firm in the midst of hardship, it has been a troubling week.

In Zimbabwe, an automobile accident claimed the life of Susan Tsvangirai, the wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai -- who has been an opposing element to President Robert Mugabe. The couple was traveling Friday from Harare to their rural home in Buhera when a truck collided with their vehicle, killing Susan Tsvangirai. The prime minister suffered minor injuries in the wreck, which occurred along a busy two-lane highway. Tsvangirai received the most votes in a March 2008 election, but fell short of the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. He withdrew as a candidate in the runoff, citing political violence and intimidation targeting his supporters. Negotiations between the two sides culminated in the power-sharing agreement.

Last week, judges with The Hague-based International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Darfur war. Almost immediately after the arrest warrant was issued for its president, Sudan revoked the registrations of 13 international non-profit aid organizations, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The U.N. office said that 85 non-governmental organizations are working in Darfur, but the agencies whose work has been suspended -- including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and Mercy Corps -- account for more than half the aid delivered. The United Nations also estimates that at least 1.1 million people will be left without food, 1.5 million without health care, and 1 million without drinkable water as a result of the Sudanese government's decision.

And in Kenya, two human-rights activists were shot and killed in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, on Thursday evening. U.N. investigator has called for an independent investigation to prove that Kenyan police were not involved. The shootings spurred a protest by students that led police to fatally shoot a student, police said. A U.N. investigator called the killings of the human-rights workers an assassination. "It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight in the middle of Nairobi," U. N. spokesman Phillip Alston said.

Extremely troubling indeed.

George Clooney and Darfur

Taking on the role of peace activist, actor George Clooney recently met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss the U.S.’s role in pursuing peace in the troubled region of Darfur. “Basically, we were talking about there's a moment coming up relatively soon -- probably by the middle of next week -- where the International Criminal Court is going to indict the president of Sudan for war crimes, which has never happened before -- a sitting president,” Clooney explained. Last year, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court for the government's campaign of violence in Darfur.

Under pressure to end the fighting, Al-Bashir in November agreed to an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Darfur.

“This isn't about needing American dollars,” Clooney said. “I understand that it's a very difficult time. It's not about needing American troops. It's about needing what we do best -- what we have done best since the start of this country -- which is good, robust diplomacy all across the world.” The priorities, as Clooney advocated to Obama and Biden, are an envoy working full time on bringing peace to Darfur -- someone "getting up every morning with their sole job to find peace in the area,” he said. “Persuading China to leverage its investment muscle in Darfur to push for peace and pressing Egypt, the African Union and Europe to strengthen diplomatic efforts in the region.”

“Diplomacy has to start and it has to be aggressive and it has to start soon. We have an opportunity here,” the actor concluded.