Sad News

Some of the countries that I have spent some time working in, have captured my interest a little more than others and I like to follow what happens there a little closer. Today almost all of them made it to the headline news. Unfortunately not in any positive manner. In the Philippines a ship stranded and lot of people died and at the same time a typhoon is making others homeless and probably kills more. Zimbabwe is sinking even deeper into chaos and despair and the opposition is being cracked down on even harder. And well, I sit and watch it all on BBC in my hotel room in Afghanistan that makes it to the news almost every day, but hardly ever any good news.

Of cause one can not really compare disasters and say one is more tragic than the other, but somehow what is happening in Zimbabwe makes me the saddest. Floods and powers of nature are hard to completely avoid and the situation in Afghanistan is so complex that it is difficult to see a feasible solution. But what is happening in Zimbabwe just seems so unnecessary. I am sure it could be such a nice country. Right now there is a longer reportage on BBC on the situation in Zim and they were just talking to a group of people that had been badly beaten and harassed to the extent that they had fled their homes and hid in the bush, but still they were all convinced to vote for the opposition. That is impressive and brave!! Unfortunately Tzwangirai has now decided not to run in the elections as there is no chance that the election will be fair, so what choice do the poor people have??