This is the story of World Champion Boxer, Kassim “The Dream” Ouma - born in Uganda, kidnapped by the rebel army and trained to be a child soldier at the age of 6. When the rebels took over the government, Kassim became an army soldier who was forced to commit many horrific atrocities, making him both a victim and perpetrator. He soon discovered the army’s boxing team and realized the sport was his ticket to freedom. After 12 years of warfare, Kassim defected from Africa and arrived in the United States. Homeless and culture shocked, he quickly rose through the boxing ranks and became Junior Middleweight Champion of the World. 

Kassim, now age 27, seems to have obtained the American Dream with his jovial nature, fame and hip hop lifestyle. As Kassim trains for his next world title fight against Jermain Taylor in Little Rock Arkansas, keeping his demons out of the ring becomes increasingly difficult. His desires to reunite with family in Uganda intensify when Kassim’s only hope for a safe return is a military pardon from the president and government responsible for his abduction. 

From the director of The Devil’s Miner, Kief Davidson received unprecedented access to Kassim Ouma during a pivotal time in the boxer’s career. Filmed in cinema verite, current events are skillfully woven in with brutal revelations of a stolen childhood. The parallels reveal a complex and haunted fighter surviving against incredible odds.

above: An Israeli flare lights up an area on the edge of Gaza City after a day of heavy clashes between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces on January 5, 2009. (Getty Images)

Source: Boston Globe

It has now been two weeks since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. On January 3rd, the Israeli Defense Force ground troops began entering Gaza, soon cutting the territory in half. Israel’s stated goals are to end rocket attacks originating from Gaza - which had increased sharply following the end of a cease-fire agreement in December. As Israeli troops began entering Gaza, foreign reporters and photographers were denied entry to the territory by Israel, halting any reports originating from Gaza except those coming from Palestinians.

As of Wednesday, since the beginning of this campaign, there have reportedly been over 650 deaths in Gaza, and 10 Israelis killed, including 7 soldiers. Israel suspended operations for a few hours today, to allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza. Officials from France, Egypt and Turkey are working with Israel and the Palestinians to draw up a cease-fire plan, but many details still remain unresolved. 

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above: Smoke from Israeli artillery shelling covers the ground of the northern Gaza Strip on January 3, 2009. (Getty Images)

An estimated 250,000 children are exploited every day as child soldiers around the world. There are more than 30,000 former child soldiers in the West African nation of Liberia alone, many of whom are eager to help rebuild their country. Now a unique photography program is helping some of them see hope and beauty again, and regain the respect of their communities as peacemakers.

Source LA Times: Eritrean refugees, wearing white masks, participate in a protest in front of Israel’s Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. The protesters are seeking refugee status in Israel after coming in from a county where the U.N. says men are often forced into military service for life. Israel has granted refugee status to people fleeing Darfur, but says it will deport all others who have entered illegally.

pictured above: Kudakwashe Chiveura digs for crickets to eat in Mutoko, about 80 miles northeast of Harare. Grazing land has been destroyed by poachers setting fires to scare rabbits, rodents and other small animals into traps and nets

pictured above: Children wait by the roadside with wild fruit for sale in Murewa. Zimbabwe’s inflation, the highest in the world, pegged at over 230 million percent, has spiraled out of control at a time when health and education services have collapsed.

Crop failure and economic collapse have left the nation without food. Millions survive on nothing but wild fruit. ‘Children are dying out in the bush,’ one foreign doctor says.

By Robyn Dixon  (LA Times)

Reporting from Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe — The child’s name is Godknows, and his mother smiles softly when she explains the choice: Only God knows whether he will live or die.

“I’m leaving everything in God’s hands because the child is always ill,” she whispers.

Godknows is 2 but looks like a frail 6-month-old, wrists and ankles like twigs, dark hollows under his solemn eyes, sores on his face. He flops in his mother’s arms like an exhausted old man, a victim of Zimbabwe’s silent hunger crisis.

The twin miseries of crop failure and economic collapse have left Zimbabwe’s villages without food. Millions survive on nothing but wild fruit, and many have died.

There are no official statistics. But ask people here in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South province whether they know anyone who died of hunger recently, and the answer is nearly always yes. Sometimes it’s four or six people in the last couple of weeks. Sometimes they just say “plenty.”

“Children are dying out in the bush,” one foreign doctor says, on condition of anonymity. “We are all guarded. We have to keep quiet or else we’ll be kicked out” by the government.

The crisis has been exacerbated by President Robert Mugabe’s decision in June to suspend humanitarian aid during the run-up to his one-man presidential runoff. The long-ruling Mugabe, stunned when he won fewer votes than opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round in March, accused aid agencies of supporting the opposition and didn’t lift the ban until August. Critics say the regime, which has a history of denying food to opposition areas, was using hunger as a political tool to force people to vote for Mugabe.

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The evening of November 26th, Mumbai, India found itself the target of a ferocious terrorist attack, and the situation remains unresolved even now, three days later. According to reports, upwards of 60 young men entered Mumbai in small inflatable boats on Wednesday night, carrying bags filled with weapons and ammunition, and spread out to nine locations to begin their attacks. Lobbing grenades and firing their weapons, they entered hotels, a railway station and several other buildings, killing scores and wounding even more.

As of this moment, the identity of the attackers has yet to be definitively determined, though there are reports indicating some of the gunmen were Pakistani - at least nine of them have been killed, nine more arrested. As of this writing, there were a reported 151 people killed from 11 different countries - though nearly 100 were Indian. More than 300 injuries have also been reported - those numbers may yet rise as several hostage situations still exist in the city.

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Can you believe that the unemployment rate jumped from 6.1 to 6.5 percent in October alone?! When the economy busted it’s back right tire, veered off the side of the highway, and crashed into a tree, I wasn’t affected. I remember having conversations with my friends and asking them, “Am I an idiot to go on a shopping spree when people are getting laid off and jumping off of buildings?” At the time, I was rolling in the dough and brand new shoes were more important than anything. My job situation was on lock and I had not a care in the world. Little did I know that as of November 26th, I would be… dun dun dun dun DUNNNNNN…UNEMPLOYED. So much for that dirty, old, rusty lock…

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pictured above: A girl looks on at refugee camp near a UN peacekeepers camp on November 07, 2008 in Kiwanja, DR Congo. Over 250,000 people have been displaced after fighting erupted between the rebel CNDP and the army in the last several weeks. According to reports, violence continues despite a ceasefire declared by (CNDP) rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda.

As the Congo crisis continues, over the past days the civilian population has endured more continued fighting amongst multiple factions, cholera outbreaks, separation from family members, hunger, and further losses (of life, property, safety and trust) as both rebel forces and government soldiers have committed many acts of theft, rape and murder while thinly-stretched UN forces have been unable to provide much help.

The organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has recently launched their own multimedia initiative to “bring global attention to the humanitarian consequences of the intensifying war in eastern DR Congo”, called Condition: Critical (plesae view the video on the website).

[source: Boston Globe]