Google Earth maps out Darfur atrocities

[ohio2007]

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If you Google the word Darfur, you will find about 13 million references to the atrocities in the western Darfur region of Sudan -- what the United States has said is this century's first genocide.

As of today, when the 200 million users of Google Earth log onto the site, they will be able to view the horrific details of what's happening in Darfur for themselves.

In an effort to bring more attention to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has teamed up with Google's mapping service literally to map out the carnage in the Darfur region.

Experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million more have been displaced since the conflict flared in 2003, when rebels took up arms against the central Sudanese government.

The new initiative, called "Crisis in Darfur," enables Google Earth users to visualize the details in the region, including the destruction of villages and the location of displaced persons in refugee camps.


<snip>


Google Earth hopes to educate users about the atrocities in Darfur through its new "Crisis in Darfur" feature.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/04/10/google.genocide/index.html

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The worlds most deadliest human conflict is just one click away by mouse. That says a lot about how we distance and insulate ourselves from what should be a high profile story.
Sort of like saying,lets oooh and ahhh about the technology as opposed to what the picture really represents.

[Exultant Democracy]

1. I applaud google

they should include a petition feature.

[Lurking Dem]

11. And I applaud the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Never again!

[A wise Man]

2. Theres no oil in Dafur

therefore the US doesn't give a S_ _T what happens to them. You'd come out best asking the KKK to invade them.

[yourout]

3. Ding Ding Ding.....We have a winner!

Darfur is Iraq without oil.

[Igel]

4. Oft said, and oft wrong.

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/111885496661.htm

http://www.energybulletin.net/925.html

[dipsydoodle]

5. Couldn't be further from the truth

With the signing of the treaty last January, and the prospect of stability for most of war-torn Sudan, new seismographic studies were undertaken by foreign oil companies in April. These studies had the effect of doubling Sudan's estimated oil reserves, bringing them to at least 563 million barrels. They could yield substantially more. Khartoum claims the amount could total as much as 5 billion barrels. That's still a pittance compared to the 674 billion barrels of proven oil reserves possessed by the six Persian Gulf countries -- Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran, and Qatar. The very modesty of Sudan's reserves speaks volumes to the desperation with which industrial nations are grasping for alternative sources of oil.

The rush for oil is wreaking havoc on Sudan. Oil revenues to Khartoum have been about $1 million a day, exactly the amount which the government funnels into arms -- helicopters and bombers from Russia, tanks from Poland and China, missiles from Iran. Thus, oil is fueling the genocide in Darfur at every level. This is the context in which Darfur must be understood -- and, with it, the whole of Africa. The same Africa whose vast tapestry of indigenous cultures, wealth of forests and savannas was torn apart by three centuries of theft by European colonial powers -- seeking slaves, ivory, gold, and diamonds -- is being devastated anew by the 21st century quest for oil.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0819-26.htm

Edit - See also http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1503470,00.html

[Psephos]

10. That's a tired trope, and grossly inaccurate...the facts are as close as Google

China, btw, is their biggest oil investor and developer.

So much for that theory.

Here's a WaPo piece from a few years ago. One of dozens.

China Invests Heavily In Sudan's Oil Industry - Beijing Supplies Arms Used on Villagers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21143-2004Dec22.html

[uppityperson]

6. Good. Now change MS/LA back to post Katrina too. Looks like they are

Edited to add this article link.
http://www.ogleearth.com/2007/04/new_orleans_tak.html

Monday, April 02, 2007 (08:05 UTC)

if you check out New Orleans this morning, you will now see distinctive blue tarpaulins on rooftops, construction in progress along the dykes, and a city that — from the air, at least — looks like it is springing back determinedly from Katrina.

In other words, Google Earth has just updated its imagery for New Orleans following a hue and cry after it became widely noticed that the existing imagery in the default layer was from before hurricane Katrina.

[uppityperson]

7. Hopping along the coast and places are still pre, some post, most pre.

I found the division. MS, between Espy Ave and Wisterla Dr., right W of Long Beach.


Edited to add, for myself even, looks like Slidell is pre, Chalmette post (New Orleans area). So, basically, where the eye passed is fine. Mandeville (n of lake ponch) is fine also.

[uppityperson]

8. Kick for Darfur. Those circles are creepy.

Dead people. Dead villages. Dead towns.

[Princess Turandot]

9. I posted a largish screenshot of this last night..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x614800

Dropped like a stone! It gives you an idea of how much detail the presentation covers.

The article probably mentions this but the orange outline is turned on by default, which means that when you run the program, and look at the Eastern Hemisphere, this orange shape shows up quite distinctly, even from high up, so it draws you in to see what it is.

[DaveJ]

12. Google Earth maps genocide in Darfur

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/12/wdarfur12.xml

Satellite pictures of razed villages and squalid refugee camps scattered across Darfur can now be viewed by a global audience after Google Earth put the images online.

Users of Google Earth, a satellite mapping service that attracts hundreds of millions of viewers, will see the war-torn region of western Sudan highlighted with yellow boundaries and labelled "Crisis in Darfur". Blue marks scattered across the pictures of Darfur's harsh, arid landscape indicate refugee camps, which are holding some two million people; red flames denote villages, which gunmen have destroyed.

Google Earth also carries graphic photographs and eyewitness testimony of atrocities committed during the civil war, which broke out in 2003 and has claimed about 300,000 lives through violence, starvation or disease.


Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/12/wdarfur12.xml

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Interesting they put "genocide" in quotes in the original article's title, as if its reality were up for debate.

[Javaman]

13. Ahh but yet they replace the New Orleans maps with preKatrina ones.

I guess what ever is in vogue.

Sigh. :(

[JPZenger]

14. I read that was fixed

I read on another web site that Google reposted the after-Katrina photos of New Orleans after the uproar.

[Javaman]

15. That's good to hear. :) nt

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. They fixed that the week after the article came out that publicized it.

The reason for the oversight was explained on the Google Earth official blog. The images had always been available anyway, via Google's DEDICATED KATRINA PAGE. Sheesh.

[Amused Musings]

17. Unfortunately it is up for "debate"

as countless Sudanese are killed. I completely agree that what is happening is genocide but because "genocide" is a legal term, and the UN has yet to declare it so, people keep throwing around the sickening term "greatest humanitarian disaster." My understanding is that members of the UN are de facto obligated to do whatever necessary to end a situation deemed "genocide" and thus Russia and China will kill any legislation passed through the Security Council. So the war criminals will never be brought to justice I'm afraid.