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Which is it, do you think? The absolute worst place in the world for human beings at the moment? Just to review the choices up there (there are probably plenty of others I'm not familiar with):
Southern BURMA (officially Myanmar) has dropped out of the news lately, but last I heard the people in cyclone-afflicted areas were sifting through muddy waters filled with the rotting corpses of their relatives in the vain hope of finding a stray grain of rice to eat. Yum! The government insists that international aid is unnecessary since the people can just go out by night and catch frogs to eat. Really, frogs. Oh, and of course they're still insanely repressive, and so on.
DARFUR is, of course, that lovely region in western Sudan where Arab militias supported by the government have been running around chasing the native blacks with trucks and machine guns. There's plenty of rape and murder, but most of the death at this point is caused by famine and disease in crowded refugee camps.
The DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo, nee Zaire) is like Darfur, but less one-directional in its bloodshed. There are three major factions (Congolese Army, Hutu and Tutsi Militias), who spend half their time fighting and the other half illegally turning the rainforests into charcoal. But where this place really stands out is in rape. The Janjaweed really are rank amateurs in sexual violence compared to their southern pals. It seems rape is an essential part of the magic spells needed to make an army invincible. Also forcing a man to rape his own sister/daughter/mother before shooting both of them, or to have sex with a hole in the ground that's been lined with razors...it's a fun place.
NORTH KOREA is ruled by Kim Jong Il's psychotic personality cult. The country's too secretive for any details to be known, but it's a safe bet that a significant proportion of the population spends a significant portion of its time having belt sanders applied their faces so they will learn to love Dear Leader properly. The rest are probably slowly starving to death and cursing Yankee Imperialism for causing it.
Southern BURMA (officially Myanmar) has dropped out of the news lately, but last I heard the people in cyclone-afflicted areas were sifting through muddy waters filled with the rotting corpses of their relatives in the vain hope of finding a stray grain of rice to eat. Yum! The government insists that international aid is unnecessary since the people can just go out by night and catch frogs to eat. Really, frogs. Oh, and of course they're still insanely repressive, and so on.
DARFUR is, of course, that lovely region in western Sudan where Arab militias supported by the government have been running around chasing the native blacks with trucks and machine guns. There's plenty of rape and murder, but most of the death at this point is caused by famine and disease in crowded refugee camps.
The DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo, nee Zaire) is like Darfur, but less one-directional in its bloodshed. There are three major factions (Congolese Army, Hutu and Tutsi Militias), who spend half their time fighting and the other half illegally turning the rainforests into charcoal. But where this place really stands out is in rape. The Janjaweed really are rank amateurs in sexual violence compared to their southern pals. It seems rape is an essential part of the magic spells needed to make an army invincible. Also forcing a man to rape his own sister/daughter/mother before shooting both of them, or to have sex with a hole in the ground that's been lined with razors...it's a fun place.
NORTH KOREA is ruled by Kim Jong Il's psychotic personality cult. The country's too secretive for any details to be known, but it's a safe bet that a significant proportion of the population spends a significant portion of its time having belt sanders applied their faces so they will learn to love Dear Leader properly. The rest are probably slowly starving to death and cursing Yankee Imperialism for causing it.
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