Charles Taylor Converts to Judaism, and Other Monday Links

Published June 15, 2009 @ 05:58PM PT

A few of the more interesting links from the past week or so:

- In the lessons-learned department, my global health co-blogger Alanna Shaikh has a great post on Blood and Milk about ten ways to make development work better.

- Similarly, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement looks at the situation in Pakistan in light of lessons learned from other mass displacements.

- Following the World Vision corruption scandal in Liberia, Reuters AlertNet takes a broader look at aid corruption. (The question and answer with Transparency International - what can be done to tackle corruption in humanitarian aid - is also defnitely worth a look.)

- Speaking of which, an article in The Times entitled UN food stolen from the starving in Somalia fake camp fraud. John Boonstra at UN Dispatch also adds a much-needed reality-check:

"Somalia is the most difficult, dangerous, and complicated place for an aid worker to operate. Ensuring that every sack of food gets to the place it is supposed to go to is likely as impossible as accounting for every one of the ransom dollars that Somali pirates spend so recklessly. This is not an apology; it is a reality."

- Because I'm in a semi-provocative mood - Conor Foley's piece in The Guardian on the liberal left's war lies, about how certain conflicts are fetishized while even worse crises elsewhere are ignored (e.g. Darfur as opposed to Sri Lanka). According to Foley:

"[T]he liberal-left intelligentsia simply does not understand what war, with all its attendant horrors and hypocrisies, entails. They are prepared to accept even the most outrageous propaganda and exaggerations if it helps them to build emotional superstructures around their own myths."

Of course, the same can be said for the right as well.

- An amusing post by Harry Rud about what it's like in Kabul, complete with the re-appearance of the 'Be Scene' section in Afghan Scene magazine.

- The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has an online quiz to test your knowledge of international humanitarian law. (I only got 7 of 12. So much for that law school education.)

- Finally, seeing as how it's only six weeks until Tishah Bav - Charles Taylor (of Liberian war-crime fame) has apparently converted to Judaism. Hat tip to Wronging Rights.

PS - for your daily Darfur news fix, see my genocide co-blogger Michelle.

[Photo of Charles Taylor from AFP / Getty Images]

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Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.