There has been a great deal of news happening, as always, and it is time to catch up with some of it.

Reports from Chad are all over the place with the confusing story of Zoe's Ark and whatever those people were trying to pull off.

The French charity workers claim their aim was to rescue 103 sick children from Darfur by flying them to France.

“The team is made up of firemen, doctors and journalists,” said Christophe Letien, the charity’s spokesman. “It’s unimaginable that doubts are being cast on these people of good faith who volunteered to save children from Darfur.”

Officials in Chad say they are nothing more than kidnappers.

Ahmat Daoud, the prosecutor in Abéché, eastern Chad, said: “For the nine French people it is a matter of kidnapping of minors . . . as well as extortion.”

If these people are found guilty of kidnapping, they could face sentences of twenty years in a Chadian jail, but a lawyer for the group insists that they are "humanitarian hardliners" who wanted to do things differently. She also suggests the situation is being exaggerated for political purposes, as evident by accusations that French pedophiles were to become responsible for the children when they arrived in France.

Political? Hmmmm. Is it possible that children would ever be used as political tools?

On one hand, could a group of activists frustrated over the great big nothing that is action in Darfur decide amongst themselves during the course of impassioned meetings that taking matters into their own hands, thereby garnering some media attention, just might be a good step forward in efforts to focus some attention on the ongoing plight of children in that part of the world?

On the other hand, could Chadian authorities see grandly stepping in to halt any such action as a guaranteed method of whipping up anti-French feeling just as the European Union gets ready to set up a peacekeeping force on the Chad/Sudan border that the county is not terribly happy about?

Of course, the UN is there, and the quote from their spokesperson does nothing to clear up anything:

Annette Rehrl, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said few of the children appeared to have been orphaned. “They keep saying that they want to return to their parents. Most of them are between three and six years old. It’s very difficult to ask three-year-olds their names and where they come from. Also, some children have already changed their names and stories,” she said.

Huh? Anyone else having a problem asking three-year-olds their names and where they came from?

Hi. What's your name? Do you know the name of your village?

Seems easy enough to me.

Those sort of questions aside for the moment, as Reporters Without Borders jumps into the fray accusing the Chadian government of trying to "exploit the media interest in this case for geopolitical gain.”

One journalist covering Zoe's Ark after coming across the organization in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 was arrested with the group's members and is still in custody, as is another reporter who was in Chad in a personal capacity.

The idea of international adoption was apparently not involved in any of the discussion about the eventual fate of these children. It was the term 'fostering' used to explain the relationship intended between the children and the French 'sponsors'. (Adoption is illegal in Sudan and Chad, although so is murder and rape, but those happen all the time with little to no consequence whatsoever.) The French government is staying well out of this, condemning where they can while being careful not to offend. Many others seem to be scratching their heads in confusion.

So ... what do we have here? Really stupid child traffickers? Really stupid do-gooders? Dedicated, caring people taking desperate measures to bring attention to a crisis? Concerned government authorities? Government authorities gleefully taking advantage of stupid do-gooders to make political points? All of the above? None of the above?

Only two things are certain here: there's more to this than we'll ever know, and 103 kids are going through hell.