Africa matters

A uick quiz: Do you know where Somalia is? Do you know the difference between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo? Did you even know that there are two Congos?\nDid you know that both Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were in the news last week?\nI admit that I follow the news in Africa because it's my job. I also know that, for most people, Africa remains the "Dark Continent." But Africa's 840 million people are demanding our attention, no matter how much we want to ignore them.\nAt the simplest level, Africa and its problems are costing you and I a lot of money. The United Nations spends more than $5 billion a year on peacekeeping, with half of the missions in Africa. The U.S. taxpayer picks up $1.35 billion of that bill. The indirect costs of Africa's conflicts are even higher. Providing humanitarian aid to the victims of disease, famine and drought, all exacerbated by conflict, costs the United States billions.\nBut Africa's impact is about much more than dollars. Africa is at the center of three of today's biggest issues: terrorism, the spread of infectious diseases and immigration.\nExperts worry that Africa is a breeding ground for terrorists. The combination of weak governmental control and wars provides them the perfect haven. Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan before being forced to move to Afghanistan. The threat of terrorism is a big enough problem in east Africa that the U.S. maintains a military base in Djibouti whose primary mission is fighting terrorism. And this isn't one of George Bush's false fronts in the "war on terror." Our European allies take the threat seriously enough to monitor the sea lanes off of the Horn of Africa with us.\nThen there's disease. The bird flu may have everyone looking at Southeast Asia, but Africa's wars are sending millions of refugees all over the world, carrying a variety of deadly diseases. The ones we know about, like Ebola, are the least of our worries; there are ones we've never heard of that are scarier -- although, HIV/AIDS might be the scariest of them all. In some parts of Africa, the HIV infection rate is near 40 percent. In comparison, the U.S. rate is estimated to be 0.6 percent. Education about HIV is limited and refugees and other migrants often unknowingly take the disease with them.\nFinally, there's the topic on everyone's mind: immigration. The debate in the United States focuses on Latin America because it's next door -- but Africa has 1.5 times as many people as Latin America, and almost all of them are worse off. You don't think they're desperate to get out? They are already storming the borders of Europe -- and they'll soon be reaching our shores, too.\nSo pick up a map and a newspaper and find out what's happening. A western journalist was murdered during a rally celebrating an agreement between Islamists and warlords fighting for control of Somalia. An EU force is heading for Congo to keep the peace during upcoming elections. You'll have to figure out which Congo.