Ovi magazine; Friday May 13th, 2022 – World Cocktail Day

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday May 13th, 2022 – World Cocktail Day

World Cocktail Day is held annually by Drinkaware, a United Kingdom-based charity that brings awareness to the effects of drinking and aims to reduce the harm that drinking can have on people and families. The website provides facts and information about drinking, alcohol poisoning, and alcohol abuse. The World Cocktail Day page that Drinkaware hosts have events all over the world that you can partake in, a blog you can follow about your favorite recipes, and how you can drink safely while also having fun.

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Renewed Violence in #Darfur: An Unstable #Sudan by Rene Wadlow

24 April 2022 saw renewed violence in the Darfur Provence of Sudan between Arab militias and the indigenous tribes of the area, the Masalit and the Fur.  The violence began in 2003 and has caused some 300,000 deaths and some three million displaced.  While most of the fighting was when General Omar al-Bashir was President, his overthrow by new military leadership has not fundamentally improved the situation.

Darfur is the western edge of Sudan.  Its longist foreign frontier is with Chad, but communication with Libya is easy for camel herders and gunrunners.  To the south lies the Central African Republic – a state with a very unstable government, which feels the fallout from the Darfur conflict.  Darfur served as a buffer area between the French colony of Chad and the English-held Sudan until 1916 when French-English rivalry was overshadowed by the common enemy, Germany, in World War I.  Darfur, which had been loosely part of the Ottoman Empire, was integrated into Sudan with no consultation either with the people of Darfur or with those in Sudan.

Continue reading HERE!

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Open Eyes Laid Back #poem by Michael Lee Johnson

“Open eyes, black-eyed peas,
laid back busy lives,
consuming our hours,
handheld devices
grocery store
“which can Jolly Green Giant peas”

Continue reading HERE!

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Panic in Kooyong: The Threat to the Australian Liberal Party by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

He has been seen, not always accurately, as the more moderate in an otherwise conservative Liberal Party, which has governed Australia since 2013 in an at times troubled alliance with the Nationals. He has served as party deputy to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and proudly promotes his role as the country’s treasurer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Josh Frydenberg is nervous. There is also reason to suggest that he might even be panicking. The electorate he represents – that of Kooyong – is not quite so warm towards the sitting member as it has been in the past. The sitting MP has resorted to his home party base for comfort. “Incredible sea of Liberal blue at our Kooyong Campaign Launch, with more than 1,000 people present,” he tweeted on May 1. “So much energy in the room.”

Continue reading HERE!

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Screws & Chips #031 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Screws & Chips, HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi today

The challenge by Thanos Kalamidas
At this very moment more than forty million people all around the world have become refugees escaping from their homes, which is why we need days such as World Refugee Day.

In Darfur, Minnesota, Another Kind of Siege by Doug McGill
Every once in a while, someone in this tiny speck of a prairie town catches sight of a "Save Darfur!" poster in a magazine or a newspaper, or on the flickering TV at the Darfur Lounge on main street.

How Bizarre! by Asa Butcher
Browsing the news daily we often miss these little bits of news at the bottom of the page. They are often funny, sometimes weird, and they give us a new perspective on life, so here's the first of a new column series: How Bizarre!

Italian report by Euro Reporter
Euro-reporter travels to Italy, surviving tuna fish nets and getting ready for a bite into a pizza with the name ...Berlusconi special!!!

UN mission to study African wars

The UN Security Council is on a mission to Africa to look at the continent's wars and see how they might be ended.

The mission is due to have its first discussions with Somalia's government and its opponents, then go to Sudan and several other countries at war.

It has decided it is too dangerous to hold its Somali talks on Somali soil - they will be held in Djibouti instead. The Security Council is also hoping to broker the first official direct talks between the Somalis.

To study what? Obviously Ban Ki-moon is there to totally fail. When there is a war like the one in Sudan, when there are places like Darfur there is nothing to study but a lot to act!

Sudan cuts Chad ties

Sudan says it has cut off diplomatic relations with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels from Darfur to launch an attack on Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir made the announcement on state television. Sudan has accused Chad of helping the Jem rebels to attack the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman, which the rebels said they had taken control of. Although the government says the rebels have been defeated, this is the closest they have come to Khartoum.

Remember that Darfur is in Sudan, remember what’s going on in this poor African country, think how many more …innocent!!!

Hypocrisy Mr. Annan?

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan questioned whether all countries on the Security Council have lived up to their responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur from atrocities. Annan said there was "quite a bit of hypocrisy on all sides" in trying to resolve the five-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, especially in encouraging the African Union to take on peacekeeping without sufficient resources.

The overwhelmed A.U. force struggled for years to stem the bloodshed in Darfur until it was replaced by a joint A.U.-U.N. force that began deploying in January after months of wrangling with the Sudanese government. The new force is authorized to have 26,000 troops and police but only a fraction is on the ground. Annan criticized well-equipped countries for refusing to provide essential helicopters for the mission despite repeated appeals from the U.N.

At a dinner in his honor on Thursday, Annan said U.N. member states had placed the duty to protect civilians threatened by genocide or war crimes in the hands of the members of the Security Council. "It is fair to question whether all of them have yet fully lived up to that responsibility -- notably in Darfur," Annan said.

What Mr. Annan forgot to tell us is when all this started and who was the UN General Secretary when all this started! So in the end the greatest hypocrite of all it is Mr. Kofi Annan!

Darfur force 'may last 10 years'

The commander of the UN-African Union force in Darfur has said the mission could last for the next 10 years.

Gen Martin Luther Agwai said that tension with Chad made the conflict more difficult to resolve. The success of the UN-AU force will depend on what happens both internally in Sudan and externally with the international community, he said.

Peace talks stalled at the end of last year and there is little sign of fresh negotiations starting any time soon.

But of course he forgot to mention a small detail that nothing has started YET, if that is possible! The UN becomes a laughable-stock day after day and it would be much better if general Agwai has said all these wonderful things to the people who losing loved ones day after day!