All of a sudden their husband's dead and maybe a child is dead and they have absolutely nothing - and they're heading through the desert at night.

If President Bush is serious about genocide, an immediate priority is to stop the cancer of Darfur from spreading further, which means working with France to shore up Chad and the Central African Republic.

Neither Western donor countries like the U.S. nor poor recipients like Cameroon care much about Africans who are poor, rural and female.

Neither left nor right has focused adequately on maternal health.

Most of the villagers were hiding in the bush, where they were dying from bad water, malaria and malnutrition.

Just a little help, a small security force, a bit of food, can save lives.

It's easy to keep issuing blame to Republicans or the president.

It really is quite remarkable that Darfur has become a household name. I am gratified that's the case.

One of the things that really got to me was talking to parents who had been burned out of their villages, had family members killed, and then when men showed up at the wells to get water, they were shot.

I have often tried to tell the story of a place through people there.

Random violence is incredibly infectious.

As soon as I was old enough to drive, I got a job at a local newspaper. There was someone who influenced me. He wrote a column for The Guardian from this tiny village in India.

I think it's dangerous to be optimistic. Things could go terribly wrong virtually overnight.

Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.

A little bit of attention can go a long way.