SEE ALSO: Bootleg Liquor Kills At Least 22 In India

The attack is a sign that violence in Syria is reaching the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities. Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility, it could also indicate that rebel soldiers who have risen up in numerous cities and towns are trying to step up action in Damascus.

SANA news agency said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital.

Such assassinations are not uncommon outside Damascus and army officers have been killed in the past, mostly in the restive provinces of Homs and Idlib.

Violence in other parts of the country left at least 11 people dead as regime troops pushed into rebel-held neighborhoods in the restive central city of Homs and shelled the mountain town of Zabadani, north of Damascus.

The U.N. estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March. But that figure is from January, when the U.N. stopped counting because the chaos in the country has made it all but impossible to check the figures. Hundreds are reported to have been killed since.

The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime. The Syrian government says more than 2,000 soldiers and police officers have been killed by terrorists since March.

Syria’s turmoil began with peaceful protests against Assad’s rule, sparking the fierce regime crackdown. But it has since grown more militarized as army defectors and armed protesters formed a group known as the Free Syrian Army. The FSA has carried out attacks on the military and sought to secure control of opposition-dominated areas, as well as defend against regime assault.

After Russia and China last weekend vetoed a Western and Arab attempt at the U.N. to pressure Assad to step down, the FSA’s commander said there was no choice now but armed force to oust the president. Western and Arab countries are considering forming a coalition to help Syria’s opposition, though so far there is no sign they intend to give direct aid to the FSA.

The president of Iran, one of Assad’s top allies, warned Arab countries on Saturday not to give aid to the opposition.

Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters in Tehran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad said countries in the region that have never held free elections are trying to write a “prescription for freedom and elections for others” with the help of the United States.

“This is a very bitter and the most ridiculous joke of history,” Ahmadinejad said.

For the past week, Syrian forces have been bombarding rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs, aiming to regain control of one of the main cities involved in the uprising. Activists say more than 400 people have been killed in the campaign.

On Saturday, Syrian troops shelled the Baba Amr district in Homs, killing at least four people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees said 15 people were killed in Baba Amr on Saturday.

Troops and rebel soldiers battled in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, said Mohammed Doumany, an activist there. The Observatory said troops stormed the Grand Mosque in Douma and detained a number of people who were inside.

The Observatory also reported a rare clash between troops and defectors late Friday in the northern Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun but had no details. It said troops shot dead an activist in the area.

The group also said three people were killed Saturday in the rebel-held mountain town of Zabadani near the Lebanon border when troops shelled it, and reported another three killed in the southern province of Daraa when troops conducted a sweep in the village of Msaifra.

The violence came a day after two suicide car bombers struck security compounds in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 28 people. The blasts were the first significant violence in an industrial center that has largely stood by Assad during the 11-month uprising against his rule.

Anti-Assad activists denied any involvement and accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to smear the opposition. State media touted the bombings as proof the regime faces a campaign by terrorists.

In neighboring Turkey, Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said late Friday that five Turks, including a former intelligence officer, were being questioned for allegedly kidnapping and handing over to Damascus a Syrian army officer, who had sought refuge in Turkey.

Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush was one of the first officers to defect after the uprising began. Harmoush, of the so-called Free Officers Movement, put out videos urging the army to stand by the people instead of the regime and saying he had been ordered by his commanders to fire on protesters.

After his return to Syria, state TV aired an interview with him in September in which he retracted his earlier comments. His fate since is unknown.

SEE ALSO:

First Lady Hits Road For “Let’s Move” Anniversary

Why Bush Jr. And Sr. Are The Real Food Stamp Presidents

Jamaica’s emergency management office said it would likely take three more days to bring the fire under control and five days after that before the foul-smelling smoke stopped billowing from the Riverton City solid waste dump.

Firefighters have struggled to extinguish the blaze at the seaside dump since it erupted Monday night. On Thursday, the waste management authority appealed for help to people with water trucks and heavy-duty equipment.

Officials in the control tower at Norman Manley International Airport on the outskirts of Kingston said no flights had been delayed or rerouted, but air traffic controllers and pilots struggled in the hazy conditions.

Shantytowns ring the open-air landfill, and government housing complexes and middle class neighborhoods have been built nearby. Smoke also hung over the southern city of Portmore, just west of Kingston and downwind from the dump.

The Jamaica Environment Trust said the health of all Kingston residents was being threatened by the gray smoke wafting from the dump, calling the fire an “environmental, human rights and public health catastrophe.”

There has been virtually no control over what is unloaded at the site so fluorescent bulbs containing mercury, car batteries, tires and all manner of industrial, commercial and animal waste are burning there, the group said.

SEE ALSO:

Facebook Defriending Triggers Double Murder

L.A.’s School Sex Abuse Scandal

SEE ALSO: Bootleg Liquor Kills At Least 22 In India

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 or the “Kill the Gays” bill,  as it is most commonly referred to, created an international outcry and was shelved in 2011.

In a land where a reported 95 percent of the population does not accept homosexuality, the bill was thought of as “good for its people.”  Homophobia runs rampant in Uganda, with homosexuality being viewed as an abomination, evil, and illegal.

The bill was prompted after a visit by several American missionaries, who spoke at a conference called the “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda.”   The preachers helped to create the virulent spread of homophobia throughout the country by warning the masses about indoctrination into gay lifestyles by gays visiting from the United States and Europe.

The original bill drew an onslaught of harsh criticism from leaders throughout the globe.  There were threats from European nations who threatened to cut off the country from any monetary assistance if the bill passed.  President Barack Obama referred to the bill as “odious”  and added that it is “unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are.”

The current bill the way it stands now increases punishments for certain acts and gives 14 years to life in prison. It also calls for mandatory HIV testing in some instances. If someone knows of a homosexual and fails to report it to the authorities within 24 hours, they can also be penalized in the ultra-conservative country.  The bill also proposes prison time for anyone who counsels or reaches out to gay people, so activists, human rights defenders, or even clergymen would be looking at spending time behind bars.

Bahati, the architect of the bill, is steadfast in his quest to get the legislation passed:

This is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children,  Bahati told CNN. Every single day of my life now I am still pushing that it passes.

According to Amnesty International, the other provisions remain inherently discriminatory and the continued attempt to further criminalize consensual sexual activity between individuals of the same sex is abhorrent:

It’s alarming and disappointing that Uganda’s Parliament will once again consider the Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” said Michelle Kagari, deputy Africa programme director at Amnesty International.  If passed, it would represent a grave assault on the human rights of all Ugandans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This deplorable bill would not only violate the rights of Ugandans to life, to non-discrimination, to equality before the law, and to privacy, but would sanction hatred, violence and the persecution of a group of people based on whom they love alone,’ said Kagari. We strongly urge the Ugandan Parliament to reject this bill in its entirety. It must not legislate hate.

SEE ALSO:
Baby Eats Cocaine Found In Motel 6 (VIDEO)

Study: Curb Obesity By Giving Babies Finger Food

RELATED: In America, Black AIDS Institute Is Winning The War

But what you may not know about Africa is that the number of people newly infected with HIV in 2009 fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million, according to recent statistics published by United Nations AIDS. Moreover, the continent has many activists from all walks of life who are helping their countries fight stereotypes and taboos about the disease.

One of the most-prominent activists is soccer star Samual Eto’o (pictured) of Cameroon. He heads the 2012 African World Cup campaign “CAN Without AIDS,” which uses soccer (or football for those outside of the United States) as a platform to raise AIDS and HIV awareness among Africans across the continent. Check out one of his ads below.

Samual Eto’o Campaign Ad

Recently, Eto’o held a press conference in Libreville, capital of Gabon, where he challenged his fellow Africans to take control of themselves so that they and the continent could better take on HIV/AIDS, according to goal.com.

Eto’o called on African youths to shun ‘destructive pleasures of the moment’ and focus on their future, as he did by modelling himself on compatriot Roger Milla during his early days.

We are using football to convey this message because Africans love football and it has become a gathering point. We want to bring this as an alert that HIV-Aids is not only a threat to the sport in Africa but a danger for the youths and development on the continent, Eto’o said.

That soccer is being used to promote this message shouldn’t be surprising. South Africa hosted a very successful 2010 World Cup, which showed the rest of the world that Africa is much more than its HIV and AIDS issues. Moreover, Africa’s GDP is expected to rise some 6 percent in 2012, so governments across the continent realize that they need healthy citizens to take advantage of this economic upsurge.

Another influential African taking the lead on HIV/AIDS is South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, who has three wives. After sparking controversy with his suggestion that one can reduce the risk of of HIV/AIDS by showering after sex, he released test results showing he was HIV negative.

Whether Eto’o's efforts can influence the sexual behavior of  young Africans remains to be seen, but one thing is clear, he is one of many Africans who is making themselves seen and heard in Africa’s HIV/AIDS fight.

SEE ALSO:

Top 7 Places To Visit For Thrill-Seekers

Top 5 Winter Travel Destinations

The relative said Sarah Obama was traveling to her home in the village of Kogelo, in western Kenya, when the accident happened Saturday night.

He said the vehicle lost control and rolled as the driver attempted to overtake a truck near the Kisumu airport. The relative asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak for the family.

Najim Mawji, the chief operating officer of the Agha Khan hospital in Kisumu, said doctors discharged her Saturday night after she had gone through several tests.

Mawji said she coped well with the shock that came from the accident.

Sarah Obama is the second wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather. Obama referred to her as “Granny” in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” and described meeting her during his 1988 trip to his father’s homeland and their awkwardness as they struggled to communicate.

Barack Obama has visited his Kenyan relatives three times in Kogelo, and his step-grandmother has gone to the U.S. at least three times. In a 2008 interview she said they are close, although they have to speak through an interpreter.

Kenya has a special regard for President Obama, the son of a Kenyan economist and an American anthropologist. Children, shops and dozens of minibuses — which carry names in Kenya — are named after the president.

SEE ALSO:

Sick And Twisted? Man Adopts Girlfriend In Florida

5 Ways “Soul Train” Changed America

SEE ALSO:  Sexually Assaulted: Am I To Blame?

Taliban-affiliated militants were responsible for more than three-quarters of the civilian deaths in 2011, the fifth year in a row in which the death toll went up, the U.N. said.

The figures were a grim testament to the violence the Taliban and allied Islamist militants can still unleash in Afghanistan, even as NATO begins to map out plans for international troops to draw down and give Afghan security forces the main responsibility for fighting insurgents by the end of 2014.

“A decade after the war began, the human cost of it is still rising,” said Georgette Gagnon, director for human rights for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. The number of civilian deaths was up 8 percent over the previous year.

Deaths in suicide bombings jumped dramatically to 450, an 80 percent increase over the previous year. While the number of suicide attacks remained about the same, they killed more civilians. On Dec. 6, a bomber detonated his explosives-filled vest at the entrance of a mosque in Kabul, the capital, killing 56 worshippers during the Shiite Muslim rituals of Ashoura. It was the single deadliest suicide attack since 2008.

The single biggest killer of civilians remained the ever-more-powerful roadside bombs planted by insurgents. The homemade explosives, which can be triggered by a footstep or a vehicle and are often rigged with enough explosives to destroy a tank, killed 967 people – nearly a third of the total.

The 130,000-strong coalition force led by the U.S. says it has been hitting the Taliban hard, seizing their one-time strongholds while expanding and training the Afghan army and police to take over primary responsibility for waging the decade-old war.

Still, insurgent attacks are killing more and more civilians, according to a detailed annual U.N. report.

The increased presence of security forces managed to reduce civilian casualties in the troubled southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, but the U.N. said insurgents simply pulled back and focused instead on areas along the country’s border with Pakistan, relying more on roadside bombs and suicide attacks in places like bazaars, schoolyards, footpaths, and bus stations.

“The tactics have changed,” said Jan Kubis, the U.N. Secretary-General’s special representative to Afghanistan. “The anti-government forces being squeezed in certain areas … move to some other areas and again use these inhuman, undiscriminating weapons like human-activated explosive devices and suicide attacks.”

He pointed out that the Taliban itself banned the use of land mines as “un-Islamic and anti-human” in a 1998 proclamation issued while the hard-line movement ruled Afghanistan with their harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

The U.N. report said there is little difference between mines and the buried homemade bombs used by the Taliban. The majority of improvised explosives have about 9 pounds (20 kilograms) of explosives and are triggered by pressure plates rigged to explode when a person steps on it or a vehicle passes over.

“These are basically land mines,” Kubis said of the roadside bombs. “So why is this ‘inhuman and un-Islamic’ weapon being increasingly used?”

The sheer number of roadside bombs that insurgents planted last year overwhelmed security forces’ improved ability to detect and neutralize them. An average of 23 roadside bombs per day were either detonated or discovered and defused last year – twice the daily average in 2010, the U.N. report said. Actual explosions increased by 6 percent.

The report’s toll of 3,021 civilians dead in violence related to the war and 4,507 more wounded made 2011 the deadliest year for Afghan civilians recorded by the U.N. since it started keeping a detailed count of civilian casualties five years ago. Last year’s figure was roughly double the number from 2007.

The U.N. attributed 77 percent of the deaths to insurgent attacks and 14 percent to actions by international and Afghan troops. Nine percent of cases were classified as having an unknown cause.

The number of civilian deaths caused by insurgents was up 14 percent over 2010, the U.N. said, while those caused by security forces went down 4 percent.

Last year was also the second-deadliest year of the decade-long war for international forces in Afghanistan, with at least 544 NATO troops killed. The coalition has been in Afghanistan since the aftermath of the 2001 American-backed intervention to topple the Taliban, which followed the hard-line Islamist regime’s refusal to hand over al-Qaida terrorist chief Osama bin Laden, who sponsored the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

While the total number of civilian deaths caused by international and Afghan forces dropped, the number of civilians killed by air strikes targeting insurgents rose to 187 in 2011, accounting for nearly half the deaths attributed to forces supporting the government.

The number of civilians killed during controversial, coalition-led night raids on homes dropped to 63 in 2011, down 22 percent from the previous year, the U.N. said.

The U.N. noted a shift in where the violence affecting civilians was centered. In 2010, the provinces with the highest numbers of civilian casualties were the southern Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar, where an increased number of U.S. troops pushed to take back territory from insurgents.

While those two provinces still had the most deaths in 2011, their numbers dropped, while civilian deaths went sharply up in southeastern provinces including Khost and Paktika, and the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar. All those areas lie along Afghanistan’s volatile border with Pakistan, where many of the Taliban’s leaders and the al-Qaida-allied Haqqani network are believed to be based.

Insurgents also intensified an assassination campaign against people associated with the Afghan government. The U.N. report documented 495 targeted killings in 2011, including provincial and district officials, peace council members and pro-government tribal elders. Assassinations were up 3 percent from the previous year and up 160 percent from 2009.

Among the highest profile assassination victims last year was former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the high peace council charged with seeking talks with the Taliban. He was killed by a suicide bomber claiming to carry a message from the insurgents.

That Thursday more than a year ago, police in a van skidded to a stop where Mickey Hill stood among friends and relatives outside his home on the main street in Negril, a western beach town popular with tourists. He had just returned from the store with a black plastic bag of groceries: canned milk, flour and cornmeal.

One of the policemen, addressing Mickey as “big man,” ordered him to open the bag, Richard Hill said.

“When he brought his hand out, it was boom boom boom! Man, the first of the three shots went straight through the tinned milk he was holding in front of him,” said Richard Hill. Police then threw his brother’s lifeless body into the back of a jeep and drove away, he said.

The Hill case has become a rallying point to end what human rights activists say is a culture of impunity that has allowed police to serve as judge, jury and executioner. Police said they were investigating the presence of gunmen and had indeed recovered a gun, but witnesses insisted there was no gun, nor were there gunmen, in the area. Hill worked as a captain of a sight-seeing boat.

“He was a family man, a working man, but the cops gave him no chance,” said Hill, his eyes tearing.

The family’s supporters have staged small rallies, including a candelight vigil in Negril on the anniversary of his slaying, demanding answers. The human rights group Jamaicans for Justice raised the case in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

Hill and the rest of his family are bracing for a delayed round in court to determine whether the accused officer may be held accountable. But in Jamaica, chances are it will be a long, painful wait.

More than 2,000 fatal shootings by security officers were reported by police over the last decade in this Caribbean country of 2.8 million people, but only one officer stands convicted of involvement in a wrongful killing. Police almost always claim that the deaths came as they responded to unprovoked gunfire.

Police statistics show that more accused officers have fled the island than have been convicted of abuse since 1999.

In May 2010, in one of the bloodiest episodes in Jamaica’s recent history, 70 civilians were killed over the course of a few days while security forces hunted drug kingpin Christoper “Dudus” Coke. Officials promised to investigate, but have barely begun.

“After more than a year-and-a-half of waiting, what can you possibly find if you begin an investigation now? Blood samples, gunshot residue, likely fingerprints are lost,” said Yvonne McCalla Sobers, head of the Jamaican rights group Families Against State Terrorism. “That is enshrining impunity.”

Some despair of ever getting answers.

“I have no faith in the integrity of the systems in Jamaica,” said Claudine Clarke, whose father, an accountant, was shot 22 times by security forces in his upscale home outside Kingston during the police and military raids to catch Coke. At the time, authorities said they were operating on intelligence that the powerful gang leader was hiding there.

Most of the killings occur in rough neighborhoods that are seldom seen by the tourists who flock to the scenic island’s beaches. The areas are usually densely populated slums and shantytowns where violence is common.

Deputy Police Commissioner Glenmore Hinds says the complaints are overblown, noting that Jamaican officers often work in very difficult environments and are threatened by the enormous number of illegal guns on the streets. About 70 percent of last year’s roughly 1,100 murders were committed with illegal guns and about 12 to 14 police officers are killed each year.

Hinds said police are trying to dismantle major gangs and lowered Jamaica’s crime rate last year by 23 percent. Allegations of recurrent police abuses are from “ill-informed people,” he said.

“But we would never say that there are not any problems, and we take no comfort in any allegations of wrongdoing,” said Hinds, who pointed out that the 211 reported police killings last year were 69 fewer than the official tally of 2010.

Critics say they see no changes in what they call a shoot-first mentality among police.

“In the late 1990′s, we were aghast at the police killing figures of 130, 140. Now, amazingly, 211 killings is touted as a sign that we had a good year,” Sobers said.

The roughly year-old Independent Commission of Investigations, set up by the government to investigate police abuses, is struggling to get reforms from security forces and cooperation from an ineffective justice system, where a backlog of unresolved criminal cases stands in excess of 414,000.

The commission says investigations of alleged brutality by agents of the state continue to be “plagued by delay, inertia and a lack of adequate resources.”

The problems have been aggravated by an overworked and under-equipped crime lab that can take months or even years to analyze ballistics evidence.

National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who has been in office for about a month, said he hopes to develop new policies encouraging the use of non-lethal weapons to stem the bloodshed.

It is often tough to even know which officers commit abuses because police in gritty slums sometimes wear masks or kerchiefs over their faces and too many routinely conceal their badge numbers on patrols, said independent commission chief Terrence Williams.

“It is already difficult to identify them with all their gear. When on top of that they wear a mask covering their face, it is impossible to identify them,” Williams said.

Police spokesman Karl Angell said there would be no comment about another agency’s criticism. But at a press conference last year, Angell said officers are only permitted to wear masks in “very, very special circumstances” to protect their identities on sensitive operations, and must have received approval of the high command.

Nevertheless, the use of identity-masking balaclavas or handkerchiefs is actually on the rise, according to Carolyn Gomes, executive director of the Jamaicans For Justice rights group.

At least two of the officers who descended upon Hill’s brother on Nov. 4, 2010, were wearing masks, according to relatives and other witnesses.

Hill and his family are getting frustrated with the slow pace of Jamaican justice, which they believe is meant to chip away at their resolve.

Early last year, Williams’ commission arrested and charged an officer with the slaying, but the public prosecutor’s office withdrew that charge, arguing the panel did not have the power to bring a case before the court. The backlogged prosecutor’s office then filed its own indictment, and the accused Kingston-based officer was released on roughly $6,000 bail. Setting a trial date was delayed last month and it’s not clear when the case might be heard.

“The way they do it here, people always wait for years so the witnesses give up if they don’t get scared first,” Hill said quietly, standing beside a tree where one of the accused policeman’s bullets lodged. “But we’re seeing this through. We’re not letting this go.”

SEE ALSO:

Serena: Venus “Coming Along Awesome”

Denzel Talks About Being Black In Hollywood

SEE ALSO: “Vampire Woman” Gives Interview In Venezuela

The world body moved the crisis from the top step of a five-point scale – based on the death rate – to the fourth step, formally reducing it from a “famine” to a “humanitarian emergency”.

However, the U.N. said that 2.3 million people remain in a food crisis situation in Somalia and still need assistance. That represents 31 percent of the country’s population. Across the Horn of Africa region the total is 9.5 million who need help.

The international body declared famine in Somalia last July after successive failed rains. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled to refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and the Somali capital Mogadishu in search of food.

The famine was exacerbated by the Somali militant group al-Shabab, which has let few aid agencies into the area it controls in south-central Mogadishu.

Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that without assistance in the region over the next three months “those people will not survive.”

“The Horn of Africa will be for FAO the most important region and we’ll be doing our best here to improve food security,” he said. “We do believe it is possible to have a Horn of Africa free of hunger.”

Mark Bowden, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said that a massive increase in assistance last year helped lift Somalia out of famine conditions. But he said the international community needed to keep helping.

“The gains are considerable but they are also very fragile and one of the things I want to highlight is we have a temporary respite in terms of addressing the crisis in Somalia,” Bowden said.

He later added: “The years of conflict and poor rains have left millions of Somalis vulnerable. The mortality rates in southern Somalia are still among the highest in the world.”

The militant group al-Shabab this week banned the international Red Cross from operating in southern Somalia. Bowden said any reduction in assistance “is of critical concern to us,” and he urged all sides of the conflict not to impede humanitarian aid.

The U.N. does not have a death toll from Somalia’s famine and will say only that it knows tens of thousands of people died, mostly between April and September last year. A study will be commissioned to look at the death toll in more detail, one U.N. official said Friday.

Senait Gebregziabher, the head of Oxfam in Somalia, lauded the gains against hunger but said that Somalia “is still in the throes of its worst humanitarian crisis in decades” and said that insecurity is disrupting aid supplies, warning the world not to turn its back on the crisis.

“We are seriously concerned that if people do not have the security to tend their crops and animals, or the freedom to access clean water and food in the markets, the humanitarian situation will deteriorate once again,” Gebregziabher said.

After months without rainfall across the region, the U.N. on July 20 declared several parts of Somalia a famine zone. Exhausted, rail-thin women were stumbling into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia with dead babies and bleeding feet.

The journeys sometimes took weeks, and weaker family members – children and the elderly – were left behind on the way to die alone. The U.N. expanded Somalia’s famine zone a couple weeks later, defined as when two adults or four children per 10,000 people die of hunger each day and a third of children are acutely malnourished.

Aid groups quickly sent in planes and boats full of food, though a critical report written by two prominent aid agencies has found that government and aid groups were much too slow to respond despite early warnings of impending disaster. The crisis was the worse since 1991-92, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death.

This time, the British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died, most of them children. Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti were all badly affected, but the famine hit hardest in areas of Somalia suffering from a toxic mixture of drought, war, high taxes levied by armed groups, and rising food prices.

The Hollywood star received the honor from Haitiian President Michel Martelly at a special ceremony Tuesday evening at the National Palace.

Martelly thanked Penn for keeping the spotlight on the Caribbean nation.

The president joked that the “only downside” to Penn’s new position is that he can no longer call the actor by his first name. Now Penn will be called “Ambassador.”

Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization was set up a few months after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake to oversee a settlement camp where thousands of people displaced by the disaster lived.

SEE ALSO:

Biden Says He Advised Against bin Laden Raid

Fox News Tops Ranking For 10th Year

SEE ALSO: Topless Protesters Detained In Ukraine

Activist Sello Mokhalipi of the Treatment Action Campaign, an organization that advocates for people with HIV/AIDS, said that complaints of the condoms and their defects have been reported.

We had people flocking in, coming to report that the condoms had burst while they were having sex, said Mokhalipi.

In the judicial capital province of Free State, health department spokesperson Jabu Mbalula said that his department recalled all 1,350,000 condoms but urged that there was no need for alarm –although he was unable to quote a direct number of used or recovered condoms.

Mr. Mokhalipi also added that some of the users who complained of the defective and reportedly porous condoms were infected with AIDS and concerned that they may have infected their partners.

We want the department to go out and tell people about these faulty condoms, Mokhalipi said. How can they say people should not panic if there are still clearly people out there in possession of these condoms?

In 2007, 20-million defective condoms were recalled by the government, and the following year, 5-million condoms had to be taken off the market due to faulty manufacturing. In 2009, a reported 5.6-million people were living with AIDS and HIV in South Africa, an infection rate that is more than any other country.

SEE ALSO:
UFO Found In Baltic Sea? (VIDEO)

Connecticut Mayor Makes Anti-Latino Taco Joke

SEE ALSO: How To Get Free Wifi Anywhere!

The violence is uncharacteristic for Senegal, a normally peaceful nation on Africa’s western coast, and suggests its political conflict is escalating. Protests spread from the capital to the interior last Friday after the constitutional court validated President Abdoulaye Wade‘s candidacy in next month’s election.

The legality of the 85-year-old Wade’s quest for a third term is disputed. The constitution was revised in 2001 to impose a two-term limit. Wade, who came to power in 2000, argues that he is exempt because he was elected before the new law was drafted.

Early on Monday, the five-judge panel rejected the appeals lodged by the opposition over the weekend. Later in the day, demonstrators gathered in the center of Podor, some 300 miles (480 kilometers) north of the capital of this nation of 12 million, to protest the court’s siding with Wade.

Amadou Diagne Niang, a resident of Podor who is the local correspondent for Le Soleil, the state-owned newspaper, said the paramilitary police, known as the gendarmes, ran out of tear gas. When the protesters refused to disperse, they opened fire with live bullets. The woman and young man were killed in front of him, Niang said by telephone from Podor

Amnesty International confirmed the killings, and its West Africa researcher, Salvatore Sagues, said it “marks a dramatic escalation in the violence that has plagued Senegal in the run up to its elections.”

“As further protests are planned for tomorrow, we call on the authorities to refrain from using live bullets against peaceful protesters,” Sagues said.

Cmdr. Papa Ibrahima Diop, a spokesman for the National Gendarmerie, also said he had been informed that two people were killed in Podor, but that he could not disclose details because an investigation is ongoing.

In the court’s ruling, the judges said Wade’s first term under the new constitution should be considered as being the one that started when he was first re-elected in 2007. Therefore, his second term would be the one that he would serve if he is re-elected in Feb. 26 election.

“It was never our intention in any way to violate the constitution of our country,” Wade’s spokesman Cheikh Serigne Ndiaye told reporters on Monday. “The (constitutional) council agreed with our reasoning.”

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday that the United States respects the decision of the court. But she added that it was not in Senegal’s best interest for the elderly Wade to seek another term.

“Our message to him remains the same: That the statesmanly-like thing to do would be to cede to the next generation. And we think that would be better,” she told reporters in Washington.

SEE ALSO:

What’s Drake’s favorite Vacation Destination?

Top 4 Shoes To Wear While Traveling

SEE ALSO: Romney Fights Back

David Bompart, 50, of Columbus, Ohio, was shot Tuesday afternoon outside a bank and was in critical condition Friday at a Florida hospital. Bompart was picking up money for an orphanage building project when robbers sprayed bullets at him at close range. He was hit but able to walk to a nearby Project Medishare hospital for help, said his wife, Nicolle Bompart, 45.

The robbers stole his camera and passport, but the money for the orphanage remained safe in Bompart’s pants pocket, his wife said. The suspects have not been arrested.

“I feel like this was a robbery (by) some people who were desperate to feed their families, and I choose to look at it as that’s why they did it,” Nicolle Bompart said.

He underwent two surgeries at Hospital Bernard Mevs Project Medishare before he was airlifted Thursday night to a Miami hospital, said spokeswoman Catherine Murphy.

Bompart was on a ventilator at the Ryder Trauma Center and had gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, said Dr. Nicholas Namias, the center’s co-medical director.

“What we’re dealing with now are the effects of being in shock for a long time in Haiti,” Namias said.

Bompart managed Project Medishare’s warehouse and logistics, said co-founder, Dr. Barth Green.

Since October, Bompart had been working on building the orphanage through the couple’s own charity, Eyes Wide Open International, said his wife, who flew to Haiti after the shooting.

The couple has spent much of their time since January 2010 flying between Haiti, Florida and Ohio for their charity work and for medical care for their 14-year-old son, a Haitian boy they adopted after the earthquake. The Bomparts also have a 26-year-old daughter.

Bompart knew about the potential risks of working in Haiti’s capital, which had been prone to instability and violence before the earthquake. But he was devoted to helping widows and orphans in Haiti and he felt he could rely on his training as a former United Nations employee and as a member of the military in his native Trinidad and Tobago, his wife said.

“Honestly, if he was able to tell you, he would say that he would do it all over again, if it would change someone’s life or bring awareness to this situation,” Nicolle Bompart said. “He would still do it, because that’s the kind of guy he is.”

SEE ALSO:

Welfare Office Bans Pajamas

Bank Robber Shoots Himself In The Foot (VIDEO)

SEE ALSO: Has GOP Racism Become The Norm?

The United States warned Thursday that the campaign raised concerns about Egypt’s transition to democracy and could jeopardize American aid that Egypt’s battered economy needs badly after a year of unrest.

The travel ban was part of an Egyptian criminal investigation into foreign-funded democracy organizations after soldiers raided the offices of 10 such groups last month, including those of two American groups.

The investigation is closely intertwined with Egypt’s political turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly a year ago. The generals who took power have accused “foreign hands” of being behind protests against their rule and they frequently depict the protesters themselves as receiving foreign funds in a plot to destabilize the country.

Egyptian opponents of the military say the generals are trying to smear the protesters in the eyes of the public and silence organizations they fear will undermine their managing of the country.

Also startling is the military’s willingness to clash with its longtime top ally, the United States, over the issue, particularly since the army itself receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington. The December raids brought sharp U.S. criticism, and last week President Barack Obama spoke by telephone with Egyptian military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to emphasize “the role that these organizations can play in civil society,” according to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday.

The ban became public after Sam LaHood, Egypt director of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, went to Cairo’s airport Saturday to catch a flight and was told by an immigration official that he couldn’t leave.

“I asked her why I was denied, she said she didn’t know. I asked how to fix it, and she said she didn’t know,” said LaHood, 36. An hour later, a man in civilian clothes gave him back his passport and escorted him to the curb, LaHood said.

“It’s a dark signal for groups who are interested in doing this kind of work,” he said.

LaHood’s father, a former congressman from Illinois, is the only Republican in Obama’s Cabinet. The elder LaHood declined to comment.

The IRI was among the groups raided last month, along with the National Democratic Institute and a number of Egyptian organizations. Both American groups, linked to the political parties of the same name, monitored Egypt’s recent parliamentary elections. In the raids, troops ransacked 17 offices of the 10 organizations around the country, carting away computers and documents.

The Egyptian government said the raids were part of a legitimate investigation into whether the groups were operating legally.

Sen. John McCain blasted Egypt’s handling of the issue Thursday, warning that continued restrictions on civil society groups “could set back the long-standing partnership between the United States and Egypt.”

IRI and NDI officials said they have been trying since 2005 to register as required by law, but were left in legal limbo, never officially denied nor granted permission. Both groups continued to operate while keeping authorities abreast of their activities, they said. Many Egyptian non-governmental organizations say officials often keep their groups in such limbo to maintain a threat over their heads.

Sam LaHood said he was told by his lawyer that he is under investigation on suspicion of managing an unregistered NGO and receiving “funds” from an unregistered NGO, namely, his salary.

Two other Americans and a European with IRI have also been banned from travel, Lahood said his lawyer had been told. From the National Democratic Institute, three Americans and three Serb employees are also on the list, according to its Egypt director Lisa Hughes.

Hughes, who is among those barred, said she has been interrogated for more than four hours about her group’s work and that she had planned to fly to the U.S. next month before she heard about the ban.

“I think we would be silly not to be concerned,” she said. “We were concerned the moment armed men showed up at our office door, and this has done nothing to calm those concerns.”

The State Department’s top human rights official, Michael Posner, told reporters in Cairo Thursday that such moves could jeopardize U.S. aid to Egypt, one of the biggest recipients.

“All need to have the ability to operate openly, freely, without constraint, not based on the content of their work,” he said.

Posner pointed to recent U.S. legislation that blocks annual aid to Egypt unless it takes certain steps. These include abiding by its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, holding free and fair elections and “implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion and due process of law.”

“Obviously, any action that creates tension between our governments makes the whole package more difficult,” Posner said.

The U.S. is due to give $1.3 billion in military assistance and $250 million in economic aid to Egypt in 2012. Washington has given Egypt an average of $2 billion in economic and military aid a year since 1979, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Egypt’s military has been locked in a confrontation for months with protesters who demand it immediately hand over power to civilians.

Hundreds of protesters camped Thursday in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square, a day after several hundred thousand people massed there to mark the one-year anniversary of the 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising.

Thursday evening, hundreds moved from Tahrir and rallied in front of the state TV building, beating drums as they chanted for the “liberation” of state-run media from the military’s control. They projected video footage of soldiers beating protesters onto the building.

State TV has been a mouthpiece of the military, broadcasting its accusations against protesters. Activists demand it be restructured as an independent media institution.

“The media is still manipulated and projects the same lies,” said protester Mahmoud Ragab. “We will be here everyday to let them know it is a revolution.”

SEE ALSO:

Is Washington Post Focus On Black Women Superficial?

French Magazine Calls The Obamas’ Style “Black-geoisie”

SEE ALSO: Remembering Ugandan LGBT Activist David Kato

In an interview with The Associated Press, Michel Martelly pledged to respect the independence of the judge expected to rule within days whether Duvalier should face trial on corruption and human rights violations. Duvalier was driven into exile in 1986 and returned to Haiti a year ago.

But Martelly suggested he has little appetite for a trial that could be explosive for the Caribbean nation, recovering from decades of political turmoil and a devastating earthquake two years ago.

“My way of thinking is to create a situation where we rally everyone together and create peace and pardon people, to not forget about the past – because we need to learn from it – but to mainly think about the future,” he said, adding: “You cannot forget those who suffered in that time, but I do believe that we need that reconciliation in Haiti.”

Duvalier assumed power in 1971 at age 19 following the death of his notorious father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. The two presided over a dark period in which their private militia of thugs in sunglasses, known as the Tonton Macoute, tortured and killed opponents. The younger Duvalier has been accused of stealing millions of dollars from public funds; he denies the accusations.

Martelly said any decision on a possible pardon would come only with “a consensus among all leaders, all political parties.”

Martelly also pledged to build a new Haitian security force to maintain order without the U.N. peacekeepers – about 11,000 foreign military and police officers have patrolled Haiti since 2004. They have recently come under fire for allegations of sexual abuse and suspicion of being the source of a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 7,000 people and sickened a half-million.

The president refused to blame the United Nations for the problems, saying individual troops should be held accountable for their own misdeeds. But he said he will replace the peacekeepers with a Haitian security force that will create jobs for 3,000-5,000 Haitian youths and help Haiti become self-sustaining.

Martelly said he’ll need foreign cooperation to fund and train the security force, but pledged to have it at least partially in place by the end of his term in 2016. He has run into opposition from donor countries that criticized earlier pledges to build a new Haitian army – disbanded in disgrace in 1995 – and he acknowledged Thursday that a new army wasn’t realistic.

He refused to put a time frame on an exit for the peacekeepers.

“We are working with them to establish a calendar where they can retreat,” he said. “I don’t want to force the peacekeeping nations to feel like I’m pushing them out.”

The Haitian president spoke on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of global power brokers at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, where he came to meet with potential investors.

Martelly, a popular musician sworn in as president in May, said he has already provided new homes to thousands of earthquake refugees, sent nearly 1 million more children to free schools and made progress on rebuilding the airport and the ports. Investment, he said, is booming.

His main priority, he said, is to create jobs so Haiti can support itself without being dependent on foreign aid.

“The Haiti that has been waiting for help and not moving no longer exists,” he said. “Enough handouts; we need hands up. Enough aid; we need trade.”

Part of that mission will involve helping Haitians to take over the earthquake reconstruction work, which has been dominated by foreigners working for non-governmental organizations.

“When I came in, Haiti was not governed by Haitians anymore. Probably mostly by NGOs. And that has done what to Haiti? It has weakened our institutions,” he said. “We need to focus on the plan that Haiti has today. We have a plan. When we want to go somewhere we are going to have them accompany us. … We need to organize and better use that aid.

A key part of that will be drawing home well-educated Haitians who have abandoned their country amid corruption and lack of opportunity. This week the foreign affairs minister in Paris appealed to Haitians abroad to return.

“The diaspora will be put back to work. We need them,” Martelly said.

But he said he wouldn’t be offering them specific incentives: “It’s not we have anything to offer. They need to have something to offer too. They need to come back and understand that Haiti is their country. By going away…” He broke off and sighed.

“Don’t they always come back?”

SEE ALSO:

Why Obama’s Economy Is Built To Last

Is Washington Post Focus On Black Women Superficial?

Ahmadinejad, however, says sanctions won’t force Iran to capitulate to Western demands.

The United States and allies want Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which they worry could lead to weapons-grade material. Iran says it only seeks reactors for energy and research.

Ahmadinejad made the remarks in Kerman, southeastern Iran on Thursday.

Iran had previously indicated that it is ready for a new round of talks with the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany. A senior U.N. nuclear agency team is expected to visit Tehran on Saturday.

SEE ALSO:
Why Obama Should Say “I’m Rich”

Roots, More Than A Miniseries

SEE ALSO: Tea Party: Don’t Mention Founding Fathers, Slaves

Abdulrazak Jbero was on his way by from Damascus to Idlib when he was shot, said Hicham Hassan, an ICRC spokesman in Geneva. An ICRC statement said he was riding in a “vehicle clearly marked with a Red Crescent emblem” and expressed shock at the killing.

Syria’s state-run media blamed “terrorists” for the attack.

President Bashar Assad’s regime claims terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy are behind the country’s 10-month-old uprising, not protesters seeking change in one of the region’s most autocratic states.

The Syrian revolt, which began 10 months ago with largely peaceful protests, has grown increasingly militarized in recent months, as frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces.

On Wednesday, government forces clashed with army defectors and stormed rebellious districts in central Syria, firing mortars and deploying snipers in violence that killed at least seven people, including a mother and her 5-year-old child, activists said.

Pressure on Syria to end 10 months of bloodshed has so far produced few results. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia have pulled out of the Arab League’s observers mission, asking the U.N. Security Council to intervene. Decisive action from the U.N. appeared unlikely, however, as Russia, a strong Syrian ally, has opposed moves like sanctions.

While Syria has approved extension of the observers’ presence for another month, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem signaled on Tuesday that the crackdown on protests will continue, insisting that Syria will solve its own problems.

A Syrian military assault near Hama began Tuesday night, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists and opposition members. Shells slammed into several districts around Hama’s Bab Qebli area, the LCC said.

“It was impossible to rescue the wounded due to the ongoing arbitrary shelling,” the group said in a statement.

Two people were killed by sniper fire, according to the LCC and another opposition group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the town of Qusair near the central city of Homs, a woman and her 5-year-old child were killed when a shell struck their home during clashes between government troops and gunmen believed to be army defectors, both groups said.

Three other people were killed during raids in a Damascus suburbs.

The Arab strategy to solve the crisis appears to be collapsing. After announcing their pullout from the observers mission, Gulf Arab countries urged the U.N. Security Council to take all “necessary measures” to force the country to implement a League peace plan announced Sunday to create a national unity government in two months.

Damascus has rejected the plan as a violation of national sovereignty.

The U.S., the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey all have introduced sanctions against Damascus in response to Assad’s crackdown, but Russia threatens to veto such measures.

Syria informed the Arab League Wednesday that it had agreed to extend the observer mission one month, until Feb. 24, said Adnan al-Khudeir, head of Cairo operations room that handles reports by the monitors.

He also said the League has put together a new group of observers to replace the 55 GCC monitors, who were leaving Wednesday. They consist of 15 Mauritanians, 10 Palestinians and six Egyptians, and they will head to Syria within a week, he said.

Defectors clashed with government soldiers Wednesday in northern Syria’s Idlib province, activists said.

Soldiers siding with a group of anti-regime army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army are also known to be active in Hama, and some in the city said they were the target of the current government assault.

Residents near Hama reported hearing loud explosions throughout the night and on Wednesday and said phone lines to the targeted areas were down.

“They are trying to storm the Bab Qebli, Hamidiyeh and Malaab districts because defectors are there,” said Ahmad al-Jimejmi, an activist who spoke by telephone from a town several miles away.

A Jordanian man of Palestinian origin accused pro-regime forces of kidnapping and killing his 27-year old son in Hama.

Hafez Abu Osbeh said his son, Ahmed, 27, was kidnapped last Friday, and his body was left outside his mother’s residence three days later with gunshot wounds to his head. He said a description of the kidnappers’ vehicle pointed to government loyalists.

SEE ALSO:
Gingrich: Latinos, Blacks Don’t Understand Keys To Wealth

Do Romney’s Tax Returns Matter?

SEAL Team Six parachuted into Somalia under cover of darkness Wednesday and rescued an American woman and a Danish man from an outdoor camp where they were being held by Somali pirates, the official said.

The same team executed the mission last May in which al-Qaida leader bin Laden was killed.

The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the top secret operation.

SEE ALSO:

Did George Lucas Play The Race Card

Spike Lee: Hollywood Doesn’t Know About Black People

Taylor has been charged with murder, rape and using child soldiers by the Special Court Of Sierra Leone. A former military commander of Taylor also accused him of forcing his soldiers to use cannibalism to terrorize his enemies.

The BBC reports:

Rumors of CIA ties were fueled in July 2009 when Mr Taylor himself told his trial, at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, that US agents had helped him escape from a maximum security prison in Boston in 1985.

The CIA at the time denied such claims as “completely absurd”.

But now the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spy arm, has disclosed that its agents – and those of the CIA – did later use Mr Taylor as an informant, the Globe reports.

Read More At The BBC

SEE ALSO:

Top 7 Addicting Foods

America’s Worst 9 Urban Food Deserts

SEE ALSO: WHO: Almost Half Of Abortions Are Unsafe

Soldiers and police officers swarmed over streets Saturday in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious hub in Nigeria’s Muslim north. But their effectiveness remains in question, as the uniformed bodies of many of their colleagues lay in the overflowing mortuary of Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano’s largest hospital.

Hospital records seen by an Associated Press reporter there showed at least 120 people died in the attacks that started Friday afternoon after Muslim prayers and as shops closed for the weekend in the sprawling, dusty city. A mortuary attendant, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with journalists, said they had 126 bodies there.

Other bodies likely lay at other clinics and hospitals in the city.

In a statement issued late Friday, federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said attackers targeted five police buildings, two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police.

Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers offered first aid to the wounded, and evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. He said officials continued to collect corpses scattered around sites of the attacks. A survey of two hospitals by the Red Cross showed at least 50 people were injured in Friday’s attack, he said.

State authorities declared a 24-hour curfew late Friday as residents hid inside their homes amid the fighting.

A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists. He said the attack came as the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.

Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 196 killings, according to an AP count.

SEE ALSO:
Chinese Bloggers Mock U.S. SOPA Outrage
Saddam Hussein’s Bronze Butt Cheek: Iraq Wants It Back (VIDEO)

SEE ALSO: Black Movies At Sundance Festival

In a report handed to the country’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, an expert panel made up of 19 indigenous leaders, politicos, entrepreneurs, and legal eagles will review and revamp the document that still contains racist Aboriginal references, even though it had been previously amended back in 1967 when Aborigines were finally recognized as “real citizens.”

Like the Native Americans and other indigenous people, Aborigines were displaced by British settlers. The dispossession and dislocation from their land had devastating consequences to the Aborigines, because land was central to their identity. From that time, the Aborigines have endured a marginalized existence including being victims of racism and discrimination.Consequently, they are one of the poorest, unhealthiest, and most-disadvantaged people, with an average lifespan 17 years shorter than other Australians.

As for the constitution, possible revisions would include a section that would prohibit racial discrimination and acknowledge the indigenous people’s continuous relationship to their traditional lands and waters.

According to Prime Minister Gillard, changing the constitution would recognize the “unique and special place of Aboriginal people and strengthen the identity of our nation,” she told the Associated Australian Press. Gillard has reportedly pledged to hold a referendum on the constitutional changes before the next general election, due in 2013.

Perhaps this recent change to the country’s constitution is finally a step toward reconciliation as Australia strives to improve relations with the Aborigine population.

SEE ALSO:
Black Movies At Sundance Festival
Chinese Bloggers Mock U.S. SOPA Outrage

SEE ALSO: Santorum Has The Answer To Black Poverty?

Most rich donor nations waited until East Africa’s crisis was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money, said a report by Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage was predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011.

The report, written by two prominent aid groups, even blamed aid agencies, saying they were too slow to scale up their response.

“We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in East Africa and need to learn the lessons of the late response,” said Oxfam head Barbara Stocking.

One Kenyan economist, though, said it would have been difficult to prevent the famine in south-central Somalia, which is mostly controlled by militants from al-Shabab, an insurgent group that has greatly limited the work that aid agencies can do in the region.

“I don’t think the solution to famine is just sending money in good time,” said economist James Shikwati. “It also needs policy changes. Look at Somalia. (Even) if you have all the money in your pocket and all the grain in your store, unless al-Shabab allows you to access their areas then people there are still going to starve.”

Kenya and Ethiopia also suffered from the drought, but the famine hit hardest in areas of Somalia suffering from a toxic mixture of drought, war and high taxes levied by armed groups.

The aid agencies in the report said many donors wanted to first see proof that there was a humanitarian catastrophe. That caused a funding shortfall that delayed a large-scale response to the crisis by around six months.

Now, there are clear signs that there is an impending hunger crisis in West Africa, said Save the Children’s head Justin Forsyth. The report said that a food crisis in the West African region known as the Sahel is being driven by drought and high food prices. The report says agencies should put into practice there what has been learned in the Somalia crisis.

A recent Save the Children assessment in Niger shows families in the worst-hit areas are already struggling with around one-third less food, money and fuel than is necessary to survive.

The report says the delays in East Africa caused thousands of deaths and increased costs for aid agencies. The British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people have died from the famine, mostly Somalis. Ethiopia and Kenya were also affected but aid agencies were able to work more easily there than in war-ravaged Somalia.

More than half of those who died are believed to be children. The U.N. says 250,000 Somalis are still at risk of starvation and more than 13 million people need aid.

“The earlier you respond, the more you get for your money,” said Oxfam’s regional spokesman Alun McDonald.

“We’ve done a lot of water trucking. It’s the last resort,” he said. “It’s a very expensive and inefficient way of delivering water.”

Friday will mark six months since the U.N. declared famine in Somalia.

“It’s much more cost-effective to invest early on,” he said, in things like dams, reservoirs, and boreholes.

Trucking just over a gallon (5 liters) of water per day per person to 80,000 people in Ethiopia costs more than $3 million for five months, the report said, compared to $900,000 to prepare water sources in the same area for an oncoming drought.

The report also said it costs three times as much to restock a herd in northern Kenya than to keep it alive through supplementary feeding.

“The world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children,” said Forsyth.

The World Food Program says that even though the worst of the crisis appears to be over, hundreds of thousands of people will still need food aid in coming months to survive, because their livestock have died and crops have not yet grown.

Earlier this week, food donated by Cargill, the Minnesota-based producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products, was delivered to communities in need in Kenya. Cargill donated 10,000 metric tons of rice to World Food Program USA to be distributed in the Horn of Africa.

The group said the donation – the largest ever food donation to WFP USA – would feed nearly 1 million people for a month.

SEE ALSO:

“Smoking Object” Tossed At White House
The New Jim Crow Is Alive And Well

SEE ALSO: Mutombo’s Congolese Gold Scandal

Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia’s ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel’s rabbis are now working to phase out the community’s white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate’s Orthodox Judaism.

The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel’s 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept them as tenants, prompting a large rally planned for Wednesday across from Israel’s parliament.

“We are just like all the other Jews. We don’t have any other religion,” said Kess Semai Elias, 42.

Descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Dan, according to Jewish lore, Ethiopian Jews spent millennia isolated from the rest of the Jewish world. In most Jewish communities, the priesthood of the Bible was replaced by rabbis who emphasized text study and prayer. Ethiopia’s Jewish kessoch continued the traditions of Biblical-era priests, sacrificing animals and collecting the first fruits of the harvest.

The two traditions diverged so much that the first trickle of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel were asked to undergo a quickened conversion ceremony to appease rabbis who were dubious about their religious pedigree.

When Israeli clandestine operations rescued large groups of Ethiopian Jews from war and famine in the 1980s and early 1990s, a rabbinic consensus was reached and the newcomers did not have to convert – except for a group known as the Falash Mura, whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity generations before.

The 58 kessoch who arrived in Israel in those early days maintained their leadership role in the Ethiopian Jewish community, and in 1992 successfully lobbied the Israeli government to grant them salaries and status similar to those of government rabbis. But as the aging clergy began ordaining a new generation of kessoch over the past decade, and those new leaders also wanted recognition, Israel’s rabbinate objected.

After public demonstrations and a brief hunger strike, the newly ordained kessoch struck a bittersweet deal last month with Israel’s ministry of religious services.

The ministry would finally implement a 2010 government resolution to recognize 13 of them and give them state salaries. But Israel’s state rabbis made it very clear to the new kessoch: They would be the last.

“It’s for the best,” said Rabbi Yosef Hadana, 63, of the Israeli rabbinate.

Himself the son of a respected kess, Hadana long ago traded the shash, the white turban of his father’s tradition, for the black suit and fedora of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

“After 2,500 years of isolation from the nation of Israel, we have returned. Now we need to find a way to be one people,” Rabbi Hadana said.

Hadana says he holds great respect for the kessoch. They were the ones who once spun tales of Jerusalem’s splendor at evening storytelling sessions, keeping alive the Ethiopian Jews’ religious tradition. But anyone in Israel who wants to continue that tradition, he said, must get rabbinic training. Streamlining their religious practice can help integrate Ethiopian immigrants into Israeli society, he said.

Ethiopian-Israelis have long struggled in Israel, with literacy rates relatively low, the culture gap wide and rates of poverty and domestic violence well above the national average.

Many of the older generation work menial jobs, men as security guards and women as cleaners. Their children, most of whom grew up in Israel’s Orthodox Jewish religious schools, speak fluent Hebrew, serve in the army alongside native Israelis and are increasingly studying engineering and sciences in Israel’s universities. Despite these gains, the younger generation is still struggling compared to other Israelis.

The immigrants have also long complained of discrimination. In the late 90s it was discovered that Israel’s health services were throwing out Ethiopian-Israelis’ blood donations over fears of diseases contracted in Africa.

This is not the first time in history that Ethiopian Jews have been asked to reform. Jacques Faitlovitch, one of the first Jewish outsiders to meet the community, told the kessoch in 1904 they would have to stop antiquated paschal sacrifices if they wanted acceptance in the wider Jewish world.

Polish-born Faitlovitch also pushed them to stop Judaism’s last existing monastic tradition. Ethiopia’s last Jewish monk spent his final days in Israel, secluded in a synagogue annex and preparing his own food for reasons of purity. He died about 10 years ago.

Other traditions, like priestly tithes and huts for menstruating women, were also given up upon moving to Israel.

Still, the kessoch, easily recognized by their ceremonial fly-swatting tassels and rainbow-colored sunbrellas, are not ready to be relegated to history. First-generation Ethiopian immigrants still call on them to adjudicate family conflicts, lead funeral prayers, and slaughter meat according to tradition.

Israel only recently allowed kessoch into butcheries to slaughter their own animals – even though it is not considered kosher by rabbinic standards.

But the rabbis still put their foot down when it comes to marriage. To be legal, weddings must be presided by state-recognized rabbis and include mainstream Jewish practices, like exchanging rings and stomping on a glass.

Despite the country’s secular majority, its Orthodox rabbis strictly govern Jewish weddings. Israel does not recognize civil marriages, intermarriages or marriages performed by rabbis from the more liberal Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism – unless they took place abroad.

Israeli rabbis have now agreed to train the 13 new kessoch to perform marriages the mainstream Jewish way. Nevertheless, for most of the kessoch, the prohibition on marrying is such a slap in the face that they cannot bear to show up at the weddings of their own community members.

Instead, they perform their own pirate wedding ceremonies for the newlyweds a few days later – a modest reenactment of the weeklong marriage celebrations they used to hold back in Africa.

At one nighttime ceremony in seaside Ashkelon, women in embroidered cotton robes bounced their shoulders to African beats. Family and friends greeted the couple with the toot of a golden horn. Honey beer flowed from a steel kettle, and an army of men scooped curried lamb – slaughtered by the presiding kess – onto flat injera bread.

Newly ordained Kess Abiyu Azariya, 44, pushed his way to the head of the dance floor. Wearing a white turban and shawl, he recited wedding blessings in the ancient Ethiopian tongue, Geez. “I am singing these prayers to remind the young people what a wedding was like in Ethiopia,” he told the crowd in spoken Amharic.

But the young people were nowhere in sight. Most of the 300 revelers in the room were of the older generation. The dozen young Ethiopian-Israelis who showed up that evening were outside drinking cheap Israeli beer and fiddling with their smartphones. When asked about the practice, they were ambivalent.

“I hope it continues, but it probably won’t,” said David Nadou, 24, shrugging.

The newly ordained kessoch are trying to work against that tide. Kess Semai says they’re close to ordaining yet another group of 30 kessoch – even though Israel vows not to recognize any more.

“We kept this tradition for more than 2,500 years,” Kess Semai said. “Our community won’t allow in the span of 30 years for this tradition to be erased completely.”

SEE ALSO:

White Students Yell N-Word While Beaten Asian Student
NPR Loses Another Black Voice

SEE ALSO: Stars Celebrate D-Wade’s Birthday Party

This is only the fifth time in history scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks weren’t discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December.

This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars’ potential for life. So far, no NASA or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only samples scientists can examine are those that come here in a meteorite shower.

Scientists and collectors are ecstatic, and already the rocks are fetching big bucks because they are among the rarest things on Earth – rarer even than gold. The biggest rock weighs over 2 pounds.

“It’s Christmas in January,” said former NASA sciences chief Alan Stern, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida. “It’s nice to have Mars sending samples to Earth, particularly when our pockets are too empty to go get them ourselves.”

A special committee Tuesday of meteorite experts, including some NASA scientists, confirmed test results that showed the rocks came from Mars, based on their age and chemical signature.

Astronomers think millions of years ago something big smashed into Mars and sent rocks hurtling through the solar system. After a long journey through space, one of those rocks plunged through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into smaller pieces.

Most other Martian meteorite samples sat around on Earth for millions of years – or at the very least, decades – before they were discovered, which makes them tainted with Earth materials and life. These new rocks, while still probably contaminated because they have been on Earth for months, are purer.

The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds.

The new samples were scooped up by dealers from those who found them. Even before the official certification, scientists at NASA, museums and universities scrambled to buy or trade these meteorites.

“It’s incredibly fresh. It’s highly valuable for that reason,” said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico. “This is a beauty. It’s gorgeous.”

Meteorite dealer Darryl Pitt said he is charging $11,000 to $22,500 an ounce and has sold most of his supply already. At that price, the Martian rock costs about 10 times as much as gold.

One of the key decisions the scientists made Tuesday was to officially connect these rocks to the fiery plunge witnessed by people and captured on video last summer. The announcement and the naming of these meteorites – called Tissint – came from the International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science, which is the official group of 950 scientists that confirms and names meteorites.

Tony Irving of the University of Washington did the scientific analysis on the rocks and said there is no doubt they are from the red planet. Several of the world’s top experts in meteorites told The Associated Press that they, too, are convinced.

Scientists can tell when meteorites are from Mars because they know what the Martian atmosphere is made of, thanks to numerous probes sent there. The chemical signature of the rocks and the Martian air match, Irving said.

Another clue is that because Mars is geologically active, its rocks tend to be much younger – millions of years old instead of hundreds of millions or more – than those from the moon or asteroids.

Most of the known Martian rocks on Earth have been around for centuries or longer and have been found in Antarctica or the desert. They look so similar to dark Earth rocks that if they fell in other places, such as Maryland, they would blend right in and never be discovered.

Because known Martian meteorite falls happen only once every 50 years or so – 1815 in France, 1865 in India, 1911 in Egypt and 1962 in Nigeria – this is a once-in-a-career or even a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Jeff Grossman, a NASA scientist who is the meteorite society’s database editor, said there is a higher probability of finding “something interesting” from Mars on these rocks because they fell so recently. However, six months is a long time for Earthly contamination to occur, he said.

University of Alberta meteorite expert Chris Herd, who heads the committee that certified the discovery, said the first thing he would do with the rocks would be to rinse them with solvents to try to get rid of earthly contamination and see what carbon-based compounds are left.

But Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, who is the principal investigator for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Program and the space agency’s go-to guy on Mars, said unfortunately this type of rock isn’t the kind scientists are most hoping for. This find is igneous, or volcanic, rock.

A softer kind of rock that could hold water or life would be better, but that type is unlikely to survive a fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, he said.

Scientists are hoping NASA and the European Space Agency team up in 2018 to send robotic spaceships to Mars that can bring back samples of rock and dirt. Just this past weekend, a Russian probe that was going to try to bring samples back from a Martian moon came plummeting back to Earth in failure.

A Martian meteorite that was buried in Antarctica made news in 1996. NASA scientists theorized the rock showed traces of life from Mars. Even the White House declared it the first sign of life outside of Earth. Years of study since then have led much of the astronomy world to conclude there was insufficient evidence to support the claim.

SEE ALSO:
Reheating The Tea Party

Romney The Flip-Flopper

SEE ALSO: Juan Williams Booed At Fox Debate

The main roads of Mozambique’s capital were flooded Tuesday after heavy rain fell intermittently Monday. The storm whipped up waves as high as 20 feet (6 meters), keeping Maputo fishermen in port Monday.

State radio reports that much of Xai-Xai, the capital of the southern province of Gaza, was underwater and without electricity. The storm had also brought power lines down. Xai-Xai was worst hit by the 2000 floods that killed at least 700 people.

The National Meteorological Institute on Tuesday predicted more heavy downpour.

SEE ALSO:

Reheating The Tea Party

Romney The Flip-Flopper

SEE ALSO: How To Talk With Your Kids About Dr. King’s Death

Union leaders claimed a victory for labor, saying this would allow its leaders to guide the country’s policy on fuel subsidies in the future. But the newly agreed price of about $2.27 a gallon (60 cents a liter) is still more expensive than the previous price of $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter), putting additional economic strain on those living in a nation where most earn less than $2 a day and few see the rewards of being a major oil exporter.

And to force the compromise and stop popular protests, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered soldiers to take over security in the country’s major cities, something unseen since the nation abandoned military rule for an uneasy democracy in 1999. The move raises new questions about freedom of speech in a nation where government power still appears absolute.

“This is a clear case of intolerance and shutting of the democratic space against the people of Nigeria which must be condemned by all democracy-loving people around the world,” read a statement from the Save Nigeria Group, which has organized massive demonstrations in Lagos.

The six-day strike began after fuel prices more than doubled to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter) following a Jan. 1 decision by Jonathan’s administration to end the government-sponsored subsidies. Low gasoline prices, something Nigeria has been accustomed to since 1973, remain one of the only benefits the average Nigerian sees from the nation producing 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day. Gasoline also powers the small generators that provide shops and homes electricity in a nation with a failed national power grid.

Many protesters also joined the growing demonstrations to speak out against a culture of government corruption in a nation where lawmakers earn pay packages of $1 million a year and states have budgets larger than neighboring countries. Under the hash-tagged slogan of “Occupy Nigeria,” many used social media to criticize the nation’s poor roads and failing hospitals amid the excesses of the country’s elite.

The government tried to persuade the nation to its side, promising the estimated $8 billion saved a year by ending the subsidies would go toward needed public work projects. That failed to win popular support as tens of thousands joined in protests across the country.

In the last two days, government authorities began warning that provocateurs wanted to exploit the rallies to cause unrest in a nation with a long history of coups.

“It has become clear to government and all well-meaning Nigerians that other interests beyond the implementation of the deregulation policy have hijacked the protest. … These same interests seek to promote discord, anarchy and insecurity to the detriment of public peace,” President Jonathan said in a speech aired Monday morning on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority.

Jonathan gave no further explanation to his remarks. Opposition politicians did sometimes lead demonstrations, but they were not connected to the violence that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 600 others during strikes.

The Nigeria Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress told journalists on Monday they chose to abandon the strike “in order to save lives and in the interest of national survival.” They previously met with Jonathan late Sunday night, who made the same claims about security concerns.

“We are sure that no government or institution will take Nigerians for granted again,” said Abdulwaheed Omar, the president of the Nigeria Labor Congress.

That did not appear the case as soldiers and armored personnel carriers moved in overnight to occupy a park in Lagos where tens of thousands had gathered to protest. Soldiers also took over major highways and road junctions throughout Lagos, home to 15 million people, and in Kano, Nigeria’s second-largest city.

Labor organizers had urged workers to stay home on Monday after Jonathan’s appeal Sunday night. At the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria Labor Congress, some 50 protesters gathered anyway. Lawyer Bamidele Aturu led the crowd in chants and cheers, comparing the president to military rulers of the past who used soldiers to suppress dissent.

“It’s very clear the revolution has begun!” Aturu shouted. However, those gathered looked warily at passing pickup trucks filled with soldiers.

The protesters began to march, passing soldiers who slung their assault rifles over their shoulders, allowing them to walk on. But as they drew closer to the surrounded Lagos park, around 20 soldiers arrived in two pickup trucks to cut them off, with bayonets affixed to their assault rifles. They told the protesters to go back and some of them began to turn around.

Soldiers fired into the air and tear gassed the crowd to disperse it, leaving protesters running through a stinging white cloud as gunshots echoed down the highway.

Meanwhile, authorities also targeted some foreign media outlets in Lagos. Officers of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police, raided an office compound Monday used by the BBC and CNN, witnesses said. Marilyn Ogar, a secret police spokeswoman, said she had no information about the raid.

Though an oil workers association threatened to cut Nigeria’s crude oil production, they held off. Such a shutdown could have shaken oil futures, as Nigeria is the fifth-largest crude supplier to the U.S.

Meanwhile, an offshore rig being run for a Chevron Corp. subsidiary near Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta caught fire and officials tried to account for all the workers there, the oil company said. Chevron spokesman Scott Walker said the fire started early Monday morning. Government officials blamed the fire on an industrial accident.

SEE ALSO:

Idris Elba, Octavia Spencer Win Golden Globes

King Leads Anti-Vietnam March

The child’s mom, Karla Noriega (pictured), said that her son, Santiago, received the gas-powered minibike as a Christmas present.  The kindergartner was out riding in his two-day-old bike when he crashed into the vehicle.  When police were called onto the scene, they gave the child several summonses for reckless driving, driving without a license, and not having his vehicle registered.  The fines totaled $183.

Noriega, who thought that her young son’s exorbitant fines were absurd, made the decision to go public.  The media picked up on the boy’s case and now police officials are stating that they regret their hasty ticketing.

Hector Arceluz, the city council secretary, told the AP that as of Thursday, the minibike was released to the family, the fines dismissed, and the officers who ticketed the child will be punished for their actions.

Meanwhile, although Gael is happy that his motorized toy has been returned to him, it went kaput after the car crash.

SEE ALSO:
Natalie Holloway Declared Dead

Miss. Judge Squashes Barbour Pardons

Tunisia greeted the anniversary with prudent optimism, amid worries about high unemployment that cast a shadow over Tunisians’ pride at transforming their country.

Now a human rights activist is president, and a moderate Islamist jailed for years by the old regime is prime minister at the head of a diverse coalition, after the freest elections in Tunisia’s history.

Tunisia’s uprising began on Dec. 17, 2010, when a desperate fruit vendor set himself on fire, unleashing pent-up anger and frustration among his compatriots, who staged protests that spread nationwide. Within less than a month, longtime president Ben Ali was forced out of power, and he fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, 2011.

Boisterous marches Saturday reflected the country’s new atmosphere.

On a crisp, sunny day in Tunisia’s capital, Islamists shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great.” Alongside them were leftists and nationalists celebrating freedom, and mourning the more than 200 people killed in the month-long uprising.

Leading Arab dignitaries are joining Tunisia’s leaders for ceremonies to commemorate the anniversary, including Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika – who faced down protests in his own country last year – and the head of Libya’s interim government, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who helped lead opposition to Moammar Gadhafi.

Tunisian media reported that the new leadership, to mark the anniversary, pardoned 9,000 convicts and converted the sentences of more than 100 prisoners from the death penalty to life in prison.

As the country that started the Arab Spring, Tunisia appears to be the farthest along in its transformation. Political analysts warn, however, that further gains will not be easy or painless.

Heykel Mahfoudh, a law professor and advisor to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Tunisia is entering its second post-Ben Ali year “in a paradoxically necessary phase of turbulence.”

Mahfoudh says he is “cautiously optimistic” for Tunisia’s development, but remains worried about the country’s economic and social situation. It’s unclear, too, what the Islamists who won the elections will do with their power.

Unemployment has risen to almost 20 percent today from 13 percent a year ago, and economic growth has stagnated as investment dries up and tourism, once a pillar of Tunisia’s economy, evaporates.

Tunisia under Ben Ali was renowned among European tourists for its sandy beaches and cosmopolitan ways. But for many of its people, Ben Ali’s presidency was 23 years of suffocating one-party rule.

The revolution started when 26-year-old fruit-seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of a town hall after he was publicly slapped and humiliated by a policewoman reprimanding him for selling his vegetables without a license. He suffered full-body burns, and died soon afterward. His act struck a chord in the impoverished interior of the country.

At first it was just local unrest, until clandestinely shot videos started popping up on Facebook and other social networking sites, inspiring youths across the country.

The focus of the protests soon moved to the capital Tunis as tens of thousands braved tear gas and battled police along the elegant, tree-lined boulevards.

And then on Jan. 14 it was over. After Ben Ali’s army refused to shoot protesters and his security forces wavered, he fled to Saudi Arabia with his family.

Ben Ali’s departure immediately reverberated across the Arab world. Within hours, protesters took to the streets in Cairo, and within weeks, longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had also been forced out of power.

Protests rose up, and were pushed down, in Bahrain. Opposition fighters took on Libya’s Gadhafi and vanquished him after months of bloody civil war and with the help of NATO airstrikes.

Yemen’s authoritarian president is supposed to step down as part of a U.S.-backed effort to end the country’s political quagmire. And Syria is in the throes of an uprising that has seen more than 5,000 killed as protesters demand that President Bashar Assad step down.

Ben Ali has maintained a low profile since his ouster but has been convicted in absentia for corruption and other crimes during his regime.

SEE ALSO:

Black Latinos Talk Struggles

Scott Sisters Seek Pardon From New Miss. Governor

The documentary is a five part series that covers the fight against South African apartheid by the South African people, as well as from people around the world.

The director of the documentary series,” Connie Field said.

“The story is not a history of apartheid, nor a history of the liberation struggle, but a history of what the international community did and what events in South Africa most affected the international world”

The documentary rivals the excellent PBS series on the civil rights movement, “Eyes On The Prize” in its wide range of interviews and news footage. While “Have You Heard” covers many familiar faces against the struggle against racial injustice in South Africa, it also ads many other faces of the soldiers against apartheid.

The hero of of “Have You Heard” is not Nelson Mandela, who is incarcerated for most of the time covered by the series, but Oliver Tambo, who was the head of the ANC while he was in exile. For over 30 years, Tambo was one of the main figures in turning the anti-Apartheid struggle from a South African issue, to a global issue.

In 1976 the murder of South African school children who were protesting being forced to learn the white regime’s language of Afrikans in Soweto and the murder of anti-Apartheid leader, Steve Biko by South African police put the eye of the world of South Africa.

The documentary does a great job showing how all sorts of people from around the world with different backgrounds helped to eventually end apartheid. From religious leaders to world leaders, to workers and students, millions of people joined in to end racial segregation in South Africa.

The worldwide boycotts and protests highlight a global consciousness and worldwide cohesive effort to rally around a cause. The protests ranged from Black congressmen and celebrities such as John Conyers and Stevie Wonder getting arrested protesting the South African embassy, to workers such as Caroline Hunter, a Polaroid employee who organized a protest to get Polaroid to divest from South Africa.

Student activism and protest is also shown in the film series. Students from Cambridge University in England to Columbia University in New York organized mass protests forcing their schools to divest from South Africa.

The American villain of the series is Republican President, Ronald Reagan whose strong opposition to sanctions and pressure on the apartheid regime made him a target of people both in America and abroad who opposed apartheid. The South African government was successful in labeling the anti-Apartheid movement as “communist,” and Reagan’s support of the apartheid regime is an embarrassment to America.

The series gives hope to the world and shows how people from all different racial, social and economic backgrounds can come together for a common cause. With so many negative things going on in the world, hopefully this movie will rally people to join in the continuing fight against worldwide injustice.

SEE ALSO: 8 Surprises In “The Obamas”

The young man decided to get a tattoo in Persian script written on  his “lil’ guy,” reading, “Borow be salaamat,” or good luck on your journeys. He also had the first initial of his girlfriend’s last name, “M,” tattooed as well.

What exactly left this man HARD-ly euphoric?

An article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine explains that the tattoo artist used a handheld needle, which lends itself to little control if any, and now doctors are saying that the man has a non-ischemic priapism, a condition where blood flowing out of the penis is not sufficient enough to shrink the erection.  Apparently, the tattooing procedure punctured holes into his penis that went deeper than they should have and vessels were damaged in the shaft.

According to the study’s urologists at the medical journal:

Henna, ash, and other natural pigments are used by traditional tattooists. They first use their needles to penetrate the skin. Then they apply the coloring material on the perforated skin surface…. The man’s painful penis had no erections for eight days following the tattooing and then he noticed longer-than-usual sleep-related erections.

To fix his “situation,” the man tried a recommended procedure, where a shunt was implanted into his penis to drain the excess blood, but it failed.  Researchers wrote:

Predictably, the procedure was unsuccessful,” they wrote. “Because of the painless nature of erections, moderately good preservation of erectile function during intercourses, and disappointment with former surgery, the patient has declined to undergo further therapies, and lives with his condition.

The report added:

Considering this case, we discourage penile tattooing.

Just in case you’re wondering, yes, the man is still able to have intercourse, but if you’re thinking of getting a penile tattoo, I WOODn’t if I were you!

SEE ALSO:
Give Birth Like A Celebrity

OWS Needs Accountant

SEE ALSO: Woman With Two Vaginas Shares Her Story

In the video, a group of females, some scantily clothed and others naked, dance for gawkers as they are being egged on by police. The tourists are seen throwing scraps of bananas and biscuits at the women. The video has shed a harsh spotlight on the island’s administration who have claimed that the film was shot 10 years ago, but these claims are false. The “human zoo” display was apparently caught on film (see below) last month for the world to see, and now human rights campaigners and international politicians are outraged.

The tourists’ and police’s antics were first uncovered in 2010, when tourists utilized an illegal route, Trunk Road, to enter the Jarawa reserve.  Reportedly, the tour companies and cab drivers, usually outfitted with wealthy tourists, would coerce local police with bribes of upwards of $200 just to allow them to travel the illegal road.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the Jarawa and some of the Andaman aborigines is banned.

Local Andaman organization SEARCH and Survival International, a lobby movement for tribal peoples, launched the tourist boycott of the illegal Trunk Road in June.  The groups have also distributed pamphlets to tourists arriving at the islands’ airport, warning of the dangers of using the closed road. Up until now, their efforts had fallen on deaf ears, but the video has put the human safari issue dead center.

Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo promised to take action over the incident on Wednesday, calling it “obnoxious and disgusting.”  He told the Sakal Times newspaper:

It is disgraceful if something like this is happening,” Deo said. “It cannot be pardoned. It deserves exemplary punishment.

It is undoubtedly deplorable that something this inhumane could occur in this day and age.  What are your thoughts?

SEE ALSO:
Brangelina Visits White House

Solange Fights Back Against Blue Ivy Haters

SEE ALSO: Who Will Romney Pick As VP?

A 2007 study from the World Health Organization found that male circumcision can reduce the HIV infection rate from women to men by about 60 percent. The report concluded that if 80 percent of males in 14 countries were circumcised by 2015, the effort would result in 4 million less HIV infections at a savings of $20 billion. Since countries in Africa have high infection rates and low levels of circumcisions, organizations such as WHO and UNAIDS prioritized populations in that region.

However, the success rate has been low with only 5 percent of WHO’s goal reached in Kenya. Several factors have made it difficult including there being few qualified surgeons, governments like Uganda’s not being on board, and men not willing to go through with the surgery.

But Circ MedTech’s CEO Tzameret Fuerst says PrePex could change all that. The device has three rings that are placed on the genitals to stop the flow of blood to the foreskin. The procedure can be administered by nurses, takes about a minute and is painless. After one week, the skin becomes “like fingernails” and can be removed with blunt, safe scissors.

Fuerst compares the difference between conventional circumcision and what the procedure’s like using PrePex.

“One message is come get circumcised—the procedure entails injected anesthesia, bleeding, a surgical procedure and post-healing time,” she says, “versus telling a man: ‘You’re going to go through something that is virtually painless, there’s no blood, there are no needles, and you can go back to work.’ Now think of the impact on uptake.”

The innovation is patent pending and no country has bought the device yet. (The device is not for sale in the US.) Rwanda has approved it after clinical trials and its health minister Anges Binagwaho has written in the Washington Post that it can be a great thing for her country. And Zimbabwe has begun testing.

Still, PrePex is just one method. HIV prevention counseling has to go hand-in-hand with any effort to fight the disease.

Do you think African countries should give PrePex a chance?

SEE ALSO:

Calif. Parents To Fire School

Haiti’s Uncertain Future, 2 Years Later

The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was the latest in a year that has already seen new U.S. economic sanctions, threats to bar American ships from the Persian Gulf, an Iranian death sentence to a jailed U.S. citizen and an escalation in Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

Iranian reports said two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to Roshan’s car, killing him and his driver. Roshan was a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, and the slaying suggested a widening covert effort to set back the Islamic republic’s atomic program.

But U.S. officials said they had nothing to do with it.

“I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters. “We believe there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbors and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behavior, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community and be a productive member of it.”

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wouldn’t answer a question about whether Washington was involved in the killing — or if the administration viewed Roshan as an innocent victim. “I’m not going to speak to who may or may not have done this,” she told reporters.

The attack also came one day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary committee that 2012 would be critical for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

And other Israeli officials, hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

“Many bad things have been happening to Iran in the recent period,” said Mickey Segal, a former director of the Israeli military’s Iranian intelligence department. “Iran is in a situation where pressure on it is mounting, and the latest assassination joins the pressure that the Iranian regime is facing.”

Iranian authorities blamed Israel.

One former official said the magnetic-bomb attack does bear the hallmarks of an Israeli hit. Current and former U.S. officials say Washington prefers proxies like Israel to carry out operations inside Iran, and that up until two years ago, the U.S. and Israel coordinated actions against Iran closely. But the officials say the White House halted such cooperation after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took power.

The officials, past and present, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations.

In the event that a military intervention might be needed to halt Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability, they said counterterrorist officials had considered allowing Israel to use the U.S.-Afghan Shindand Airbase, in western Afghanistan, to launch an air strike against Iranian weapons facilities

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program — which Iran has blamed on Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and Britain’s spy agency. They point to at least three slayings since early 2010 and the release of a malicious computer virus known at Stuxnet in 2010 that temporarily disrupted controls of some centrifuges — a key component in nuclear fuel production. But all three countries have denied the Iranian accusations.

The U.S. and its allies are pressuring Iran to halt uranium enrichment, fearful that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists the program is for peaceful purposes only and geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Clinton condemned Iran in a statement Tuesday for enriching uranium at the underground Fordo bunker to a level that can be upgraded more quickly for use in a nuclear weapon than the main stockpile. She said Tehran was demonstrating a “blatant disregard for its responsibilities” and that “”there is no plausible justification” for its decision to increase enrichment to 20 percent — higher than the 3.5 percent being made at Iran’s main plant.

Speaking beside Qatar’s visiting prime minister, Clinton expanded her criticism of Iran on Wednesday and expressed concern about a series of “provocative and dangerous” threats by Iranian officials to close off the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the world to the oil-rich waters of the Persian Gulf.

“This is an international waterway,” she told reporters in Washington. “The United States and others are committed to keeping it open. It’s part of the lifeline that keeps oil and gas moving around the world.”

She said the U.S. and its partners were making it clear to Tehran that such threats were unacceptable.

Washington and Tehran also are at odds over an Iranian court’s death sentence Monday for Amir Hekmati, a 28-year-old former U.S. military translator who was born in Arizona and raised in Michigan. Iran says he is a CIA spy; the Obama administration flatly rejects the accusations.

It is the first time Iran has handed down a death sentence to a U.S. citizen since the Islamic Revolution 33 years ago. Hekmati’s family says he was in Iran visiting his grandmothers.

Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani of Qatar, a country with deep economic ties to Iran and which exports its natural gas to the rest of the world through the Strait of Hormuz, urged more negotiations among Tehran, Washington and the rest of the international community.

“We need to find a way to live together, a peaceful way,” he said. “For us, it’s very important that we don’t trigger any military tension in the region.”

SEE ALSO:

Salt Lake Is Gayest City In Nation

A Broken Heart Can Kill You

SEE ALSO: Beyonce Baby Hospital Complaints Dismissed

A new study shows that text messages are becoming a viable avenue to give and receive charitable donations, even though the amounts people give are smaller.

A nationwide campaign after the January 2010 disaster encouraged people to donate $10 to recovery efforts by texting the word “Haiti” to a number, such as 90999 for the Red Cross. The donation would be added to their monthly cellphone bill.

A survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project asked the people who sent those text donations why they gave, who they are and whether they have contributed to charity since.

Only donors who agreed in advance to be contacted were included in the survey. This amounted to only about 13 percent of those who contributed to the Haiti relief effort via text, so it’s possible that the people who were excluded have different attitudes.

With that caveat, here are some of the findings:

- Eighty percent of the Haiti donors did not contribute money to the relief efforts through any means other than texting.

- Most donations were the product of impulse-giving. Eighty-nine percent of the donors heard about the “Text to Haiti” campaign on TV and half of them donated right away.

- Three-quarters of the donors said they don’t do a lot of extra research when donating via text message.

- The majority of those surveyed – 56 percent – have contributed to more recent disaster recovery efforts via text since the Haiti quake. These include the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March and the Gulf oil spill in 2010.

- Text donors tend to be younger and more racially diverse than the people who give to charity through more traditional means.

The survey conducted in September and October by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on behalf of Pew, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the mGive Foundation, a mobile-giving nonprofit. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The results of 863 donors randomly selected from those who agreed to participate were included in the study.

SEE ALSO:
Casey Anthony’s 2nd Video Diary: She’s Got New Piercings

Boy Suspended For Reporting Knife At Georgia School

SEE ALSO: Is Common Too Classy For Drake Beef?

The Haitian migrants endure journeys of thousands of miles with small amounts of money in search of opportunities for work that are not available in their homeland.

The New York Times reports:

Gambling everything, thousands of Haitians have made their way across the Americas to reach small towns in the Brazilian Amazon over the past year in a desperate search for work, including a surge of hundreds arriving in recent days amid fears that Brazil’s government could slow the influx before it overwhelms the authorities here.

Their improbable journeys — from the rubble of their island homes to remote outposts here in the Amazon — say as much about the dire economic conditions that persist in Haiti two years after the earthquake as it does about the rising economic profile of Brazil, which is fast becoming a magnet not only for poor foreign laborers but also for growing numbers of educated professionals from Europe, the United States and Latin America.

Read More At The New York Times

SEE ALSO:

D.C. Teen Killed For $200 Sneakers

Is Common Too Classy For Drake Beef?

SEE ALSO: Yoga Gurus Fight Back Against Negative Press

Tendai Biti, the southern African country’s finance minister, is the brains behind a new statute that bans the importation of “articles of second-hand undergarments of any type, form or description, whether purchased, donated or procured in any other manner,” according to a report in UK’s The Guardian.

Recently, he sounded particularly offended that any self-respecting husband would even fathom allowing his wife to wear such clothing.

“I am told we are now even importing women’s underwear in this country,” he was quoted saying recently. “How does that happen? If you are a husband and you see your wife buying underwear from the flea market, you would have failed.”

The minister added: “If I was your in-law, I would take my daughter and urge you to first put your house in order if you still want her back.”

With one of the world’s highest unemployment rates at more than 90 percent, some Zimbabweans have been forced to buy under garments that are often used or supplied by donations from abroad, according to the report.

The ban, which has been in effect since Dec. 30, has ticked off some trade associations who claim they are being pushed out of business. But there are hopes that the new restrictions will spur the country’s textile industry into producing garments locally.

Ghana had also banned secondhand underwear in 1994 but the measure was never implemented. But last year, officials started enforcing the restriction citing the potential health hazards.

SEE ALSO:

Book Frightened Michelle Obama

Haitian Children Remain In Adoption Limbo

SEE ALSO: Will New Hampshire Have An Impact?

Best known among international audiences for his 1994 song “Seven Seconds” with Neneh Cherry, N’Dour won a Grammy in 2005 for the album Egypt. He performs a style of traditional music known as mbalax.

Now at age 52, N’Dour, who has never held elected office before, hopes to defeat presidential incumbent Abdoulaye Wade.

This summer, Senegalese protestors took to the streets to rally against Wade’s efforts to implement constitutional changes that would have helped ensure him a third term. As a result, Wade, 85, has backed down from seeking those changes, but is still running in the election.

N’Dour told TIME magazine his reasons for throwing his hat in the ring and what he hopes to do if he’s elected.

Why are you running?

Youssou N’Dour: Firstly, I am a citizen of this country and I see the situation here deteriorating. Rights and civil liberties are being degraded. I cannot sit back and watch them diminish further. Secondly, more than a million people have, directly or indirectly, called for my candidacy. And thirdly, I do not have confidence in the way elections are conducted in this country. My joining the race will shed some light on it, bring some attention, some transparency.

What’s your vision for Senegal?

After my Presidency, this is the Senegal you will see: a moderate state, not a huge, encumbering state; where children are going to school; where AIDS and malaria programs are effective; where the country is clean and managed in an environmentally friendly way, just as well as Rwanda; more democracy, good governance; free, fair and transparent elections, safeguarded by an independent electoral commission; and robust institutions, which I think are the key to democracy.

Presumably it helps being a superstar when you’re running for office?

It helps. But it also brings a challenge. I have to change people’s perceptions of me from a superstar, as you put it, to someone with a credible story and with something meaningful to say. I have to convince the voters that I am sincere and have something significant to offer.

Read more here.

Entering the race just a few weeks before elections, it’s hard to gauge N’Dour’s chances as he joins an already crowded field of more than a dozen candidates. Some critics argue that N’Dour should have thrown his support behind another opposition candidate to oust Wade who has come under fire for years of accusations of corruption, nepotism and attacks against personal freedoms.

However, where he may be lacking in political and academic credentials, N’Dour has been politically active. He’s worked on Amnesty International events with other pop stars like Sting and Bruce Springsteen and as an U.N. goodwill ambassador, supporting anti-malaria campaigns and awareness about the crisis in the Darfur.

N’Dour told the New York Times:

“It’s true that I haven’t pursued higher education,” but “I have proved my competence, commitment, rigor and efficiency time and time again,” he said. “I have studied at the school of the world. Travel teaches as much as books.”

In fact, N’Dour’s far from the only pop star to seek office. With varying degrees of success from Wyclef Jean to Ruben Blades, singers have eyed the political arena.

Now it’s N’Dour’s turn. What do you think of his chances?

SEE ALSO:

Nicotine Gum, Patches Don’t Help Long-Term

Beverly Johnson Reveals “Price” Of Fame

SEE ALSO: Jay-Z, Beyonce’s Miscarriage

Thousands of young South Africans and their parents began gathering at the University of Johannesburg campus on Monday to seek admission. Space was limited, symptom of a larger crisis in South African education and perhaps contributing to a sense of desperation that led to the stampede. Many would-be applicants had only learned they were eligible for further study after getting results from high school final exams last week.

University of Johannesburg vice chancellor Ihron Rensburg said a mother who had accompanied her son to the campus was killed in the melee, which started about 7:30, a half hour before the gate was scheduled to open. Two others were seriously injured and seven slightly hurt, he said. It was not immediately clear whether the injured were prospective students, parents or both.

Desmond Mlangu, a prospective student, said he witnessed a “traumatizing” scene, with women screaming and people continuing to push. He said those at the back of the crowd did not seem to realize what was happening at the gate.

Tendai Nembidzane, a final-year business student who is head of the university’s student council, said he witnessed the stampede and afterward saw the dead woman’s son crouching near her body. Nembidzane said student council members later took the young man to their campus office to be comforted. Rensburg said the young man and others affected by the stampede would be offered counseling.

Hours later, shoes and other debris were strewn at the site. People remained in line, still seeking to study. Classes begin in February.

Those at the university this week were seeking late admission. Regular admission closed in June. Rensburg said some 11,000 people were expected to use the late window to apply for as few as 800 remaining places at his school. Across South Africa, universities are under strain as prospective students seek a better life as professionals in a nation beset by high unemployment. The government hopes to expand its universities over the next decade.

Rensburg said the crisis was further complicated because many young South Africans who were applying for university places should instead be continuing their studies at vocational colleges and other institutions.

SEE ALSO:

Kevin Hart Is On Fire

Nokia Outsmarts Apple

Partners in Health, which works in Haiti, reported the case Monday in a study it did on the outbreak and published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Officials say the cholera outbreak that began in 2010 has killed 7,000 people and sickened nearly 500,000. The disease surfaced in Haiti months after a powerful earthquake struck the country two years ago this week.

The humanitarian group’s Dr. David Walton, who co-authored the study with Dr. Louise Ivers, said information points to a 28-year-old mentally ill man from the central town of Mirebalais as the first person infected with the waterborne disease.

He said the man’s family had access to clean drinking water but his auditory hallucinations and paranoia went without treatment and he bathed in and drank frequently from a river into which the Meye River fed. The Meye has been identified as the likely source of the epidemic.

“It’s a striking example of how mental health, infectious disease and community health affects overall well-being,” Walton, an internist, said by telephone.

The case serves as a reminder of how mental health services are often an afterthought in health services planning, he added.

The mentally ill man developed acute diarrhea on Oct. 12, 2010, and died at his home without seeking medical attention less than 24 hours later.

He was buried the next day and two people who prepared the body for the wake developed severe diarrhea in less than 48 hours.

The study also points out how globalization can help spread a disease like cholera to other parts of the world. Cholera cases were also found in the neighboring Dominican Republic, Miami and Boston.

Studies suggest the cholera was likely brought to Haiti by a United Nations peacekeeping battalion from Nepal, where the disease is endemic. Haiti now has the highest cholera infection rate in the world, according to Partners in Health.

On Tuesday, Partners in Health’s co-founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, and the Haitian government will “inaugurate” the near completion of a 320-bed, national referral and teaching hospital in Mirebalais, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince. It is described as one of the largest projects completed since the earthquake.

The new hospital will offer clinical facilities not previously available at any public hospital in Haiti, which include intensive care units and six operating rooms, Partners in Health said.

The center will also help train future generations of Haitian doctors, nurses and lab technicians. Located in the countryside, the hospital will bring to rural areas the medical services that have long been limited to Port-au-Prince.

SEE ALSO:

Teen Beaten Unconscious Over Bus Seat

N’Dour Halts Music Career For Presidency

Jamaica has been independent for almost 50 years as it left the British Empire in 1962, but the Jamaican constitution still lists Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state.

Aljazeera reports:

Speaking at her inaugural address on Friday, Portia Simpson Miller, said her government would “initiate the process of detachment from the monarchy”, establishing a republic with a president as head of state, and breaking off links with the former colonial power.

Jamaica is a constitutional parliamentary democracy and also a Commonwealth realm.

“I love the Queen. She’s a beautiful lady and apart from being a beautiful lady a wise lady and a wonderful lady. But I think time come,” Simpson Miller said.

Read More At Aljazeera

SEE ALSO:

Teen Beaten Unconscious Over Bus Seat

N’Dour Halts Music Career For Presidency

Behnaz Hekmati, mother of Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, said in an email to The Associated Press that she and her husband Ali are “shocked and terrified” that their son has been sentenced to death. The verdict is “the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair,” she said.

Iran charged that Hekmati received special training and had served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for an intelligence mission. A court convicted him of working with a hostile country, belonging to the CIA and trying to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism, according to a state radio report Monday.

The 28-year-old former military translator was born in Arizona and graduated from high school in Michigan. His family is of Iranian origin, and Amir Hekmati claims dual citizenship. His father, Ali, a professor at a community college in Flint, Mich., has said his son was visiting his grandmothers in Iran.

The State Department demanded Hekmati’s release anew Monday, while officials worked to confirm the details of his sentence and what could be done about it. The White House said the U.S. would work with its diplomatic partners “to convey our condemnation to the Iranian government.”

Swiss diplomats, acting on behalf of the United States because Washington and Tehran don’t have diplomatic relations, have tried unsuccessfully to gain consular access to Hekmati. Iran doesn’t recognize dual citizenship and considers Americans of Iranian origin to be solely citizens of the Islamic republic.

“We are working through the Swiss protecting powers in Tehran to confirm reports in the Iranian press that Mr. Hekmati has been sentenced to death by an Iranian court,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

“If true, we strongly condemn this verdict,” she said. “Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA are simply untrue. The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons.”

The State Department has warned U.S. citizens of Iranian background to avoid visiting the country because of “the risk of being targeted by authorities.”

“Iranian authorities have detained and harassed U.S. citizens of Iranian origin,” the department says in its Iran travel warning.

The sentence against Hekmati comes amid heightened U.S.-Iranian tensions.

The Obama administration is initiating new sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear enrichment program, specifically targeting the regime’s central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad. Iran has responded with warnings to American vessels against entering the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that carries to market much of the oil pumped in the Middle East.

Nuland urged Iran’s government to release Hekmati without delay. But American officials are concerned his case may become a political tool for the Iranian government.

Having imposed the worst possible sentence immediately, Iran could now seek to drag the case out. In past cases Iran has held out the possibility of releasing American prisoners on humanitarian grounds, presumably in the hopes of gaining a counter-concession from Washington. September’s release of a pair of American hikers held captive by Iran for two years is the most recent example.

In the email, Hekmati’s mother said her son did not engage in any acts of spying, or “‘fighting against God,’ as the convicting judge has claimed in his sentence. Amir is not a criminal. His very life is being exploited for political gain.”

“A grave error has been committed, and we have authorized our legal representatives to make direct contact with the Iranian authorities to find a solution to this misunderstanding,” the family statement said. “We pray that Iran will show compassion and not murder our son, Amir, a natural born American citizen, who was visiting Iran and his relatives for the first time.”

SEE ALSO:

Why George Romney Overshadows Mitt

White House Hid Costume Bash