Zimbabweans Denied Medical Care in S.A. Zimbabweans, many of whom fled their homeland because of the poor economy and rights violations, are not getting needed medical care in neighboring country, South Africa, according to Doctors Without Borders. Many of the injured are charged astronomical fees by hospitals or are just being flat out rejected. About 25 percent of Zimbabwe’s population (three million people) has migrated to South Africa, reports the BBC. And while the country’s government announced that they would be giving out permits to Zimbabweans, which would allow them to stay in the nation for six month and receive employment and healthcare, they are still “treated very poorly,” the nonprofit claims. “Our medical teams see a shocking array of illnesses and they hear stories from our patients which are quite horrifying,” a representative told the BBC. “We are witnessing daily a kind of failure of the South African government, and also United Nations agencies that do have a mandate to protect refugees, asylum seekers and so forth.” Children traveling alone across the border also rises concern because they are exposed to all kinds of danger.

Somalia Experiencing Worst Crisis in Africa The humanitarian crisis in Somalia is the worst in Africa, according to representative from Oxfam International. There are currently 1 million displaced Somalis (many of whom are surviving with limited food or water) and 3.2 million residents are in need of food aid. “I have seen the situation in Darfur, northern Uganda, some parts of Congo, but what is actually happening now in Somalia is indeed the worse kind of humanitarian in Africa in many years,” Oxfam’s Somalia coordinator, Hassan Noor, told the BBC.  ”There are hundreds of children all over the area with tubes on their faces and [saline] drips on their hands. Some of them are actually unconscious and suffering from all sorts of diseases, mainly acute diarrhea and cholera.” Many of the displaced were driven away by severe fighting between pro-government and guerrilla forces. The east African nation has not had a stable government since 1991. There are currently 4,300 African Union peacekeepers in the capital, Mogadishu, but they don’t have permission to go after insurgents, the news service reports.

Barack Obama may be the president of the United States during the worst economic crisis in recent history, but most Americans don’t blame him, a new poll shows. When asked who’s responsible for the current economic mess, an overwhelming eight in 10 people point to banks, financial institutions and corporations, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll published Tuesday. Seven in 10 respondents said that consumers took on too much debt and that the Bush administration was too lax with borrowing regulations, the poll revealed. Read the rest.

Global Economic Crisis Will Cost Africa Billions By the end of 2009, Africa’s economy stands to lose up to $49 billion due to the global economic crisis, according to research from ActionAid. Almost half of the amount –$27 billion – is due to a drop in foreign aid, earnings from exports and money from richer nations who are struggling through recession, reports the BBC. “Although developing countries didn’t make this crisis, it has become all too clear that they are in the firing line when it comes to suffering its worst effects,” said an ActionAid official. Countries that were making progress in recent years could start to backslide. “There is a real risk that development will start to go backwards in many countries as the money dries up and that the recession will lead to worsening poverty and terrible consequences for the men, women and children caught in its grip.” The country set to suffer the most is South Africa, the report says, because of the drop in foreign income.

U.S. AIDS Program Did Wonders in Guyana Guyana’s AIDS prevention program, sponsored by the United States, has helped cut the nation’s HIV rate by almost 2 percent, according to the government. The Caribbean nation’s infection rate dropped down from almost 3 percent to about 1 percent, reports the BBC. The government has been able to monitor the program’s success by testing almost half of the nation. The numbers prompted one of the nation’s health officials to call the program, which started five years ago and is headed up by the U.S. Agency for International Development, a “huge success story.” The program, which cost $20 million, focused on both awareness and prevention.

The cholera epidemic is getting worse in Zimbabwe, with more than 3,000 people dying from the illness since its outbreak in August. In addition, 57,702 people have been infected with the water-borne disease, according to statistics from the World Health Organization. “The problem in Zimbabwe is that the infrastructure is obsolete, especially when it comes to water sanitation. People are going for months without tap water in towns,” an official from World Hunger Help, a group helping to fight cholera in the nation, told CNN.  The spread of cholera in the nation came at the same time as a doctor and nurse strike, which has lasted for five months. The health professionals are demanding that they be paid in foreign currency due to Zimbabwe money’s quickly diminishing worth because of a struggling economy. President Robert Mugabe did declare a cholera epidemic in the nation in December, but the international aid has not made the situation any better.

Tanzanian husband tries to sell his albino wife. Police caught a man in Tanzania trying sell his albino wife for $3,000, reports the BBC. He allegedly tried to make the sale to two businessmen from Congo, police say. His wife (who’s not pictured) did not know she was about to be sold. Albinos have been a target for killings in the country, mainly because many witchdoctors claim that albino body parts make their magic potions stronger. Police arrested the husband, a fisherman, after receiving a tip. The businessmen, though, escaped and are thought to have returned to their native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tanzania has asked the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to help find them. Just since March, at least 27 albinos have been murdered in the country. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has ordered a crackdown on such killings, and 170 witchdoctors have been arrested as a result. The condition affects about 1 in 20,000 people all over the world, but it seems like the figure is much higher in Tanzania. According to the Albino Association of Tanzania, while there are only 4,000 registered albinos in the nation, there could actually be as many as 173,000. The nation is conducting a census to find out what the real number is.

The world isn’t doing enough to help Congo, says agency. When it comes to helping out with the crisis in Congo, the world is dragging its feet, said Oxfam International head Juliette Prodhan. The latest fighting in the nation, between government troops and rebels lead by Tutsi Gen. Laurent Nkunda, has caused 250,000 people to flee from their homes. “There appears to be no urgency in the international community’s talks on the crisis, but this is a deeply urgent situation. The world is failing in its responsibility to protect the Congo’s innocent civilians,” Prodhan said in a written statement, reports CNN. The refugee camps to which many flee are in poor shape, with constant outbreaks of disease due to unsanitary conditions. Workers from Oxfam have visited camps across the Democratic Republic of Congo and found that “civilians continue to face widespread brutality.” Rape and forced labor are also prevalent throughout the nation and are on the rise. There are United Nations peacekeepers in Congo, but they have been ineffective in stopping violence. In total, the country has 17,000 international peace troops and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the European Union to send in 3,000 troops. With the country’s suffering, Oxfam is teaming up with other organizations to provide help. “It’s a traumatized population of people who didn’t have very much. They’ve been on the road now for weeks, and they’ve lost everything they have, and they’re in a very vulnerable situation,” Oxfam spokesman Chris Black told the news service.

Denzel Washington writes of child “crisis.”

Oscar-winner and Boys and Girls Clubs spokesman Denzel Washington wants America to pay attention to youth when considering the issues raised in this election year. “There is an underlying problem that we, as a nation, have not addressed a situation that should concern any American with an eye on the future, regardless of party affiliation,” Washington writes in a CNN.com essay. “It is the crisis affecting our children.” Among stats that the American Gangster star cites are: 30 percent of the present high school freshman class will likely drop out before graduating; youths are responsible for 20 percent of violent crime in America; and childhood obesity has risen 300 percent since 1980.

Mozambicans could revolt, says Mandela’s wife
An increase of attacks against foreigners living in South Africa sent thousands of them (including those from Mozambique) fleeing back to their homelands. As a result, Nelson Mandela’s wife (former Mozambican first lady), Graca Machel, believes that those that returned to Mozambique from South Africa might revolt against their government because of its inability to provide for them, reports the BBC. “For the first few weeks, they will cry on the shoulders of their families for having lost everything. Then they will go and cry to the government, and at the end they will revolt against the government and all who are around them,” she said at a conference on ethnic cleansing attended by delegates from Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. After the spike in deadly anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa, in which 27 Mozambicans were killed, 39,000 of them returned to the country. When they got back to Mozambique, most had to depend on others to survive. In South Africa, Machel said, the influx of foreigners put a lot of pressure on the country’s infrastructure, reports the news service. “Extreme poverty dehumanizes people and leads them to madness. That’s what happened in Rwanda over 10 years ago,” she said. Many South African attackers blamed foreigners for taking jobs and increasing to the nation’s crime rate.

Uganda’s president is “very happy” about the worldwide food crisis
People all over the world are suffering from high food prices, yet the president of an African nation says he’s happy about it. “Why? Because we produce a lot of food…we are stuck with food,” Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told head government officials, reports the BBC. According to Museveni, milk production in the country was so high people had to pour it away, until Uganda set up a deal with an Indian plant where they now ship their extra milk to. “Our problem has been marketing…we produce 10 million metric tons of bananas and 40 percent of it rots because we have nowhere to sell it,” he also told officials. Museveni is hoping that trade barriers will be removed, resulting in Uganda and like nations gaining from their food production. But, not all Ugandans share their leader’s positive outlook on the food crisis, according to the BBC. In fact, many poor Ugandans (who only grow food for themselves to eat, not to export) are suffering while only large commercials farmers are benefiting, says the news service. However, Uganda’s food production is expected to increase 8.9 percent this year.