The moral responsibility of the international community, whether killing or letting die

It is a grave indictment of the international community that it has had the power and freedom to act but has chosen instead to watch as children are killed by lead poisoning (see "a poisonous environment" below).

It is also, surely, an indictment of the policy of the international community, who, as Dzenana Karup-Drusko noted in 1999 in relation to Bosnia, "offered Islamic centres equipped [with] computers, instead of bread". The government unable - and its sponsors unwilling - to fulfil the basic human right to physical health, direct donors have stepped in, but rather than feeding "hungry people" and funding welfare - whether food, medicine, clothing or shelter - they are building "magnificent mosques".

It is true - if truistic - that the government in Bosnia and the international administration in Kosovo ought to have enough money to pay for everything, but as it is, with what they have, surely those governments, their sponsors and the direct donors first ought to provide adequate food, medicine, clothing and shelter, so everybody has something to be thankful for; then - and only then - could they justify spending money on religious buildings and cultural centres.