SPIEGEL Surfs the Web: Fast Paced Statistics - DER SPIEGEL
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SPIEGEL Surfs the Web Fast Paced Statistics

The world, we are often told, is changing all the time. But just how fast is it changing? A Web site keeping tabs on everything from the number of babies born in the world this year to the number of lightening strikes to hit Earth will tell you. With up to the nanosecond statistics.
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So how many babies do you think have been born this year? How about 45,659,945? Or is it 45,660,045? Both actually. Or rather, it kind of depends on when you look. The Web site World Meters  keeps current tabs on all sorts of statistics -- and they are updated constantly. Check it out to watch the number of bicycles produced worldwide this year rocket upward. Or learn how many people die from communicable diseases every few minutes. Perhaps just as shocking, you can also watch the numbers of tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere shoot upward so fast, the digits are blurred. It's perfect for those who want to be just as up to date as they can possibly be.

Auction Idiocy

There's a meaning to the Golden Palace's auction madness. The online casino, based in Austin, Texas, made headlines on Friday after paying $244,000 dollars for a used 1999 VW Golf -- simply because it may have once belonged to the pope. The casino has a page on its Web site  devoted solely to bizarre eBay buys, from the secular, like Britney Spears' pregnancy test (for an undisclosed amount), to the sacred, such as a John Paul II-shaped chicken breast ($232.50), a Dorrito chip shaped like the pope's hat ($1,209) and a sandwich with an image of the Virgin Mary on it ($28,000). GoldenPalace.com CEO Richard Rowe invites us to see the whole things as just one big act...of charity. In a statement on the casino's Web site, he says: "We have amassed a collection of what many consider to be holy artifacts. It seems only natural to get a blessed vehicle to carry these items. We are planning to showcase our acquisitions by bringing them on tour and allowing people to enjoy the experience of sitting in the divine car, in an effort to raise as much money for charity as possible."

A Child's-Eye View of the Darfur Massacre

Since the Sudan-government backed Janjaweed militias in the Darfur region began a campaign of ethnic cleansing and rape in 2003, more than 2 million refugees have been forced to cross the border on their way to refugee camps in Chad. Despite the often abysmal conditions -- and prevalence of sexual violence -- in the camps, refugees in this remote, dusty desert often feel safer than back home.

Recently, the US-based organization Human Rights Watch sent researchers to interview refugees about conditions in the camps. Among them was Dr. Annie Sparrow, a pediatrician who, along with her partner Olivier Bercault, is fond of giving children notebooks and crayons to keep them occupied while she interviews their parents. It is a simple idea that can yield powerful results. The children weren't given any instructions, but almost all drew of their experiences in the Sudan conflict. They produced vivid images of Janjaweed attacks, burning villages, killings and other horrors, showing how children deal with their memories of the tragedy.

Fotostrecke

Darfur Drawn: Children's Images of Sudan

Foto: Human Rights Watch

This week, Human Rights Watch posted  the sketches Sparrow and Bercault collected. In addition to the drawings, the site also tells the often painful stories of the child-artists behind them.

5 Bilder Darfur Drawn: Children's Images of Sudan
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Doa', Age 11 or 12: "Janjaweed descend on a village on horses and camels, a woman flings her arms in the air as she is targeted for sexual violence or execution. A soldier takes a woman to be raped. She has a cell phone next to her head: 'She wants to call the agencies for help.'"

Foto: Human Rights Watch
2 / 5

Musa, Age 15: "It was July 2003. At 6 a.m., the Sudanese government soldiers and Janjaweed came by car, tank, horse, camel, and on foot. There were three or four villages in our area, with a total population of maybe 1,200. Men, women, and children were killed—some by bombing, some by shooting. Some ran away. Then the village was burned: Some huts were set on fire by the Janjaweed. Later a plane came in the evening and burned the village. All the people who were still hiding in their huts—the old, the weak, the blind—were rounded up and shot."

Foto: Human Rights Watch
3 / 5

Abd al-Rahman, Age 13: "I am looking at the sheep in the wadi (riverbed, or oasis). I see Janjaweed coming quickly, on horses and camels, with Kalashnikovs, shooting and yelling, 'kill the slaves, kill the blacks.' They killed many of the men with the animals. I saw people falling on the ground and bleeding. They chased after children. Some of us were taken, some we didn’t see again. All our animals were taken: camels, cows, sheep, and goats. Then the planes came and bombed the village."

Foto: Human Rights Watch
4 / 5

Taha, Age 13 or 14: "In the afternoon we returned from school and saw the planes. We were all looking, not imagining about bombing. Then they began the bombing. The first bomb (landed) in our garden, then four bombs at once in the garden. The bombs killed six people, including a young boy, a boy carried by his mother, and a girl. In another place in the garden a women was carrying her baby son -- she was killed, not him. Now my nights are hard because I feel frightened. We became homeless. I cannot forget the bad images of the burning houses."

Foto: Human Rights Watch
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Ala', Age 13: Like many other children, Ala' witnessed conflict between rebel groups and the Janjaweed. This drawing depicts a rebel soldier first shot in the arm, then executed by gunshots to the groin. Ali, a teacher in a refugee camp, said the rebels are killed this way to emasculate them. 'They (the Janjaweed) know what they are doing,' he said. “They are doing it with purpose."

Foto: Human Rights Watch