SEE ALSO: Obama’s Patronizing Visit To ‘The View’

Obama announced $3 billion in private sector pledges to help boost agriculture and food production in Africa. He said the U.S. and other donor nations would continue to make “historic investments” in development, though he offered no new American financial pledges.

“Some have asked in a time of austerity, whether this new alliance is just a way for governments to shift the burden on to somebody else,” Obama said of the private sector commitments. “I want to be clear, the answer is no.”

Obama’s announcement in Washington kicked off four days of international summitry. World leaders are gathering at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, later in the day for a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations. Obama heads to Chicago on Saturday evening for NATO meetings.

While much of the G-8 meetings will focus on Europe’s mounting economic troubles, leaders will also hold a session on food security in Africa. Obama invited the heads of four African nation – Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania – to attend the meeting.

Obama said that even as G-8 leaders dealt with Europe’s pressing fiscal challenges, he felt it was “also important, also critical, to focus on the urgent challenge that confronts some 1 billion men, women and children around the world: the injustice of chronic hunger.”

The White House said the private sector pledges, along with commitments from donor countries to work with African nations on food security programs, could raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years.

Obama also championed a food security initiative at the 2009 G-8 summit that resulted in $22 billion in government-backed pledges. The pledge period for L’Aquila Food Security Initiative ends later this year, and some humanitarian groups say much of the promised money has not been dispersed.

The president urged wealthy nations to make good on their pledges.

“We must do what we say. No empty promises,” Obama said.

The G-8 will release an accountability report this weekend detailing how much of the $22 billion is still on the sidelines. Administration officials say the U.S. is on track to fulfill its $3.5 billion pledge.

Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, sought to put the problem of food security in Africa in personal terms. Some of his relatives in Kenya live in villages where hunger is sometimes a reality, he said.

SEE ALSO: It’s Easy To Get A Concealed Weapon Permit In Florida

SEE ALSO: Treatable Infections Cause 1 In 6 Cancers

“We heard gunshots and blasts. We had no option but to flee,” the 34-year-old Kabeja said after arriving in Rwanda. “We couldn’t sleep. Bullets were flying all over the place.”

Watch video of the Congolese fleeing to Rwanda here:

Violence in eastern Congo has surged after dozens of soldiers mutinied on Monday and created a new group in a largely lawless area of Africa where numerous rebel armies have taken root.

The new group created by the mutinous soldiers calls itself March 23, the date of the 2009 peace accord signed by rebel groups and the Congolese government. It is purportedly led by a colonel who was formerly under Bosco Ntaganda, a former warlord who was integrated into the Congolese army under the peace deal despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Congolese army spokesman Col. Sylvain Ekenge called the new group a “farce” but clashes between it and Congo’s army continued for days in the Masisi region of North Kivu.

Kabeja, her youngest child strapped on her back, waited with thousands of others in a long, snaking line at Nkamira Transit Camp to receive food rations and other basic necessities. Rwanda normally uses the facility in Rwanda’s mountainous, rainy and cold Northern Province to temporarily welcome repatriated refugees from the jungles of Congo.

Straton Kamanzi, the manager of the U.N.-supported camp, said it’s designed to hold 4,000, but currently houses 7,000. Women, girls and infants sleep crammed together under the temporary shelters.

“For (the men) it is OK. We sleep outside and let women and children who are more vulnerable to sleep in the tents,” said Herve Munyentwari, a 22-year-old university student. “My worry is that my studies have been interrupted but hopefully we will return home.”

Richard Ndaula, who is with the U.N.’s refugee agency, said 250 to 300 people are showing up at the camp near the Congo border each day.

“We are not sure when the situation in Congo will calm down, but we anticipate more people will be coming in,” he said.

Other refugees were arriving in the nearby town of Rubavu. Officials tried to sort out who was Congolese and who was Rwandan. Many Rwandans fled into Congo after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and stayed there. Many of the refugees are Rwandan but Congolese are among them.

“We cannot identify who is Rwandese and who is not, but at the end of the day we have to let them all in,” said a Rwandese official.

Over the weekend, the governor of Congo’s North Kivu Province, Julien Kahongya Paluku, visited the camp inside Rwanda, giving assurances that peace would return.

Ekenge called on the mutinous soldiers to reintegrate into the Congolese army and for military leaders to create favorable conditions for those wanting to return.

Ntaganda is accused of using child soldiers for fighting in northeastern Congo from 2002 to 2003. He was first indicted on war crimes charges in 2006 by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court. Congo President Joseph Kabila said last month that Ntaganda should be arrested and face a military tribunal in Congo.

In the past, Kabila had refused calls to hand over Ntaganda, arguing his cooperation was essential to keeping the peace in the troubled east of the country.

Ntaganda was integrated into the Congolese army along with unknown hundreds of troops under a peace deal ending a 2009 rebellion that was negotiated as the rebels were about to take the provincial capital of Goma.

SEE ALSO:
Charles Barkley Has Fightin’ Words For Presidential Hopeful

A Soldier Home From Kuwait And His Father-In-Law Share An Emotional Reunion (VIDEO)

SEE ALSO: South Sudan’s Looming War

Want to Keep Up With NewsOne.com? LIKE Us On Facebook!

1. Sekou Toure (Guinea) – For more than two and a half decades, Ahmed Sekou Toure ruled Guinea with an iron fist, which was not how he was originally perceived. His people welcomed him as the “Guinean Messiah” as he helped liberate the country from French rule. However, that freedom came with the price of oppression and intolerance of opposition by way of the many “death camps” he instilled in the country. Toure would die in America from cardiac arrest in 1984 while still in rule.

2. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) – Ruling his country for 22 years to the day, April 26, Robert Mugabe was once a lauded figure in his homeland. Although he is largely credited for bringing Zimbabwe to freedom and prominence, Mugabe’s iron fist has also been the catalyst for the country being one of Africa’s poorest nations. A long list of cruel crimes have been levied toward the leader, all pointing to Mugabe’s power-hungry aims to crush his opposition.

3. Muammar Gaddafi (Libya) – Muammar Gaddafi, also known as the “brother leader,” ruled his country for more than 30 years and was infamous for his erratic nature and renowned status in the Arab world. Although many Westerners have a view of Gaddafi as a dictator, many in Africa have hailed the leader as a hero. However, many Libyans would come to realize that Gaddafi would begin to crack down on anyone he felt was a disruption to his rule by way of public hangings and other atrocities. Gaddafi would die in the fall of 2011 at the hands of Libyan rebels. The details surrounding his death are still murky to this day.

4. Idi Amin (Uganda) – Idi Amin Dada may be one of the more infamous figures in the history of African warlords. Called the “Butcher of Uganda,” Amin’s reign of terror was relatively short but encompassed a violence of legendary proportions. On the day of his military coup in 1971, when he established his rule, Amin would famously declare himself a prominent leader and responded viciously to anyone who dared to challenge him. It was rumored that Amin suffered from mental illness, given his propensity to order killings at a moment’s notice. Amin would die in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003, this after being ousted in 1979 by a Ugandan nationalist.

5. Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire) – Born Joseph-Desire Mobutu, Mobutu Sese Seko would rule in the Congo for 31 years, employing the same oppressive tactics of other dictators before him. Leading the Congolese Army in 1965, he would conquer the country and become its ruler. Seko considered himself a warrior, even taking on a name (Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga) that signified him as such. He was a notoriously self-promoting leader, and he didn’t tolerate any criticism of his rule. A government uprising in 1996 would lead to Seko’s overthrow at the hands of opposition leader Laurent Kabila, leading to an exile. Ailing from cancer, Seko would step down and flee to Morocco, where he would die of prostate cancer in 1997.

SEE ALSO:
Why NAACP Should Let Allen West Speak

When Background Checks Violate Civil Rights

But that doesn’t stop Teca Miguel Garcia from rocking crowds in her native Angola as an out-and-proud transsexual techno-rap sensation.

For the past four years, the 24-year-old performer has been building her reputation as a uniquely skilled dancer and singer who fuses urban Hip-Hop flair with upbeat dance beats (better known as Kuduro) that attract wide and diverse audiences. She has even performed at Angola’s “Diva’s concert” where she was named a Diva. This month, Titica will begin her first international tour that will take her to the United Kingdom, Portugal and the United States.

LIKE NewsOne On Facebook To Stay Up On Black News Worldwide!

Titica told the BBC that she’s happy about her success, but the price she has paid to enjoy it has been significant:

I’ve been stoned, I’ve been beaten, and there is a lot of prejudice against me, a lot of people show that. There is a lot of taboo,” she told the BBC.

Still, it seems as if Teca’s influence as a budding star has helped her country become more accepting of gays and lesbians. If only a little bit.

Angolan creative Hugo Salvaterra, who has been involved in the filming of a documentary about Kuduro for Swedish television, said Titica is a musician first and transsexual second.

“Titica is talented, she is making good music and she has a fantastic live show, that is why people like her,” he said.

“Kuduro has definitely opened the door for Titica’s acceptance. Her music is good, she entertains us, and so we accept her.

“Throughout the whole history of music, that’s what art does, it transcends and it breaks taboos,” he added, comparing her to Chuck Berry who won over black and white audiences in segregated 1960s America.

As well as Titica’s full integration into the local music scene, which has seen her share the stage with internationally acclaimed Angolan artists such as Anselmo Ralph, she has been invited to perform for the Angolan consulate in Houston, Texas, as part of the celebrations of 10 years of peace.

For more on Titica and her challenges of being openly homosexual in Angola, go to BBC.

SEE ALSO:

SEE ALSO:

Inside Jail With Zimmerman: Jolly Ranchers, No TV 

Newark Mayor Rescues Woman From Fire

SEE ALSO: London Mayor Bans ‘Gay Cure’ Bus Ads

Even if he doesn’t succeed in winning one of those three coveted pieces of hardware, simply a strong performance from the 400 meter runner would mean so much more.

For much of 2011, Libya was in a civil war. Its dictator, Muammar Gadhafi, who ruled for over 42 years and actively discouraged sports, was killed while trying to escape from anti-government rebels. Moreover, Black Africans in Libya were often accused of fighting for pro-Gadhafi forces during the civil war and imprisoned throughout the country.

Many Africans were subjected to torture and humiliated for their alleged allegiance to the fallen dictator. Here is a video of Libyan rebels forcing jailed Africans to eat the Gadhafi-era Libyan flag.

LIKE NewsOne On Facebook To Stay Up On Black News Worldwide!

Khawaja told BBC that he barely had time to train last year. Given that he could have easily been mistaken for a Gadhafi sympathizer or died from shrapnel, it is understandable that his time and attention were focused elsewhere.

Given all of this, an impressive showing from Khawaja would certainly be a coup. He ran a 44.98 in the 400 meters at the African Championships in Kenya; that time would have been a fifth-place finish at the 2008 Beijing Games. Besides bringing home a medal, Khawaja’s dark skin could help ease some of the racial strife that many dark skin Africans felt so helpless against during the war.

This brotha may not bring home the gold, but let us hope his performance can help bring his nation some much needed joy and unity.

That is the real prize.

SEE ALSO:

Inside Jail With Zimmerman: Jolly Ranchers, No TV 

Newark Mayor Rescues Woman From Fire

The Grio reports:

Lively has a different appeal in other places,” said Pam Spees of the Center for Constitutional Rights. His main message, that homosexuals are a menace and danger to children, becomes the basis for everything. “And he will say that America is a loss cause.”

Then he goes much further than just speaking about it and stirring it up. According to Spees, Lively has met with like-minded legislators and religious leaders in these countries. In these meetings he expresses the importance of silencing the LGBT movement.

“You have to criminalize any form of advocacy,” Spees said Lively has argued. “You have to cut back on the rights of LGBT persons and criminalize their existence.”

Lively is not the only American based evangelical preacher spreading this message overseas. According to Sharon Groves, PhD, director of the Religion and Faith Program at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, there are several others including: a known “right-wing leader” named Lou Engle, Georgia-based pastor Carl Ellis Jenkins, and Paul Cameron. In response, the HRC recently created a petition here in the United States to garner awareness of the globe-trotting actions of these evangelical preachers.

Are the silenced voices of LGBT Africans finally being heard?

‘LIKE’ NewsOne’s FB Page To Stay Up On Black News From Around The World

Read more at The Grio.

SEE ALSO:

Southern Miss Apologizes For “Green Card” Chant

Strip Club Donation To Lennox Little League: $1,200 To Let The Game Go On (VIDEOS)

Philip Ward Charged With Beheading Girlfriend Veronica Bowen, Cops Say

SEE ALSO: Poor Black Youth Publishes Fantasy Novel

With all the “Stop John Kony” brouhaha, a video Hounsou did back in 2009 has come back to life. The video is based off of an essay Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina wrote, originally entitled “How to Write About Africa.” In the essay, Wainaina writes:

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

…

Taboo subjects [are]: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

…

Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

Hounsou collaborated with Wainaina to produce this:

Just like many other parts of the world, i.e., Syria, Lybia, most of America’s inner cities and don’t forget your random white bread high school (Cleveland and Columbine, anyone?), Africa has its problems. What isn’t shown, though, is prosperous and productive Africa. Obviously, not every tribe or klan is struggling with war and not every child is going to sleep with an empty belly at night.

‘LIKE’ NewsOne’s FB Page To Stay Up On Black News From Around The World

Ask yourself this, if Africa is so destitute and worthless, why have Europeans found themselves unwilling to leave much of the continent for hundreds of years, and why are the Chinese investing more money in Africa at such an aggressive rate?

Here’s the real question: What do Europeans and the West gain by continuing to paint Africa one dimensionally?

Black people everywhere need to be recognized for our diversity of experiences, feelings, realities, environments and overall ability. In order for us to effectively challenge the age-old stereotypes about Africans throughout the diaspora, we will need to take control of the media, making sure that we are green lighting film, TV, and news representations. We will need to be the ones to manage our conversations rather than having others manage them for us. And the conversation starts right here and now.

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.

Eugene Pothy

SEE ALSO: White Students Yell N-Word While Beating Asian Student

For Pothy, finally reuniting with his only son was a long time coming. Any-Grah and her family refused to return Philippe year after year, and on top of that, any assistance the Father was able to drum up for his cause was intermittently blocked by red tape and regulations.

In 2011, Pothy reached out to the State department, but they couldn’t help him because the Ivory Coast isn’t a member of the Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction. Then last November, the agitated Father reached out to the NY Daily News with his story. And still, nothing became of his case. Finally, it was anti-abduction activist Peter Thomas Senese who made Pothy’s dreams come true.

The New York Daily News reports:

Pothy said Senese brokered an agreement with the boy’s mother, Judith Any-Grah, that stipulated his return. The judge approved it and Any-Grah’s family overseas complied. The boy will now live with Pothy, who already has residential custody of his 6-year-old sister, but his mom will have joint custody.

For her part, Any-Grah claims she sent the boy away because it was difficult being a Mother while in college. Still, Pothy maintains that it is best for his son to be in the United States with him:

Now, I can do my job. I can be his dad.

Watch Pothy reunite with his son here:

SEE ALSO:

Mutombo’s Congolese Gold Scandal

Wikipedia Goes Dark For 24 Hours

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: GOP Candidates Go Hard on Romney

Authorities said Kabiru Sokoto planned the bombing that killed 38 people at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, just outside Nigeria’s capital Abuja. But his arrest at the mansion of a state governor in Abuja, and subsequent escape, raised more questions about the government’s ability to stop the radical sect, known as Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the church attack.

Federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said in statement that a local commissioner ordered Sokoto transferred to another police station in Abaji, just outside of Abuja and that the policemen escorting him were attacked by suspected sect gang members who freed him.

Commanders have suspended the local police commissioner and are investigating his actions, as well as those of the officers guarding Sokoto, Amore said.

Amore did not say whether there were injuries suffered in the attack. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

The statement did not address Sokoto’s arrest occurring at the official compound of the Borno state governor in Abuja as widely reported in the media. Borno state, in Nigeria’s arid and dusty northeast, is Boko Haram’s spiritual home.

The Christmas Day bombing targeted target worshippers at a Catholic church as they were leaving Mass, witnesses said. It was one of several attacks that day that killed at least 42 people, drawing worldwide criticism and new attention to Boko Haram.

The sect 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 Associated Press count.

So far this year, the group, that has warned it will kill Christians living in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north, has been blamed for at least 74 killings. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years.

Boko Haram also claimed responsibility an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100.

In a video released last week, Imam Abubakar Shekau a Boko Haram leader, said the government could not handle attacks by the group.

Though President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, has declared emergency rule in some regions, the sect is blamed for almost daily attacks.

Jonathan has said he believes the sect has infiltrated security agencies and government offices in the country, though he has offered no evidence to back up the claim.

On Tuesday, authorities blamed Boko Haram gunmen for killing seven people in three separate attacks. Gunmen shot dead two soldiers distributing food to other service members, Borno state police commissioner Simeone Midenda said.

Two others were killed Monday when gunmen invaded their homes, military field operation officer Col. Victor Ebhaleme said. In Damaturu in nearby Yobe state, gunmen from the sect shot and killed three more people from Chad on Monday, Yobe state police chief Tanko Lawan said.

SEE ALSO:

The Case Against Liberal Despair

Has ESPN Sold Out?

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

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

SEE ALSO: College Kids Boo Santorum

President Goodluck Jonathan’s comments about the sect known as Boko Haram came as authorities said that suspected gunmen from the group killed at least six people in separate weekend assaults. The sect has killed at least 52 people in recent days after pledging to target Christians living in the multiethnic nation’s Muslim north.

Speaking at a church service honoring the country’s military dead, Jonathan said he believes Boko Haram members or sympathizers work in the government and the country’s National Assembly, as well as its security agencies.

“The situation we have in our hands is even worse than the civil war that we fought,” Jonathan said. “During the civil war, we knew and we could even predict where the enemy was coming from. You can even know the route they are coming from, you can even know what caliber of weapon they will use and so on.”

He added that Boko Haram remains murky, people in the north had told him it could be possible their own children could belong to the sect without them knowing about it.

“Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won’t even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house,” Jonathan said.

Nigeria’s civil war began in 1967, when the Igbo people of Nigeria’s southeast broke away from the country and formed the Republic of Biafra. Fighting lasted about three years, with many fatalities coming from Biafran refugees starving from a lack of food.

While largely not talked about even today, Jonathan has referenced the civil war in the past. After his April election win saw 800 people die in political and religious rioting, he described the violence as “sad reminders” of the war.

“As a nation we are yet to come to terms with the level of human suffering, destruction and displacement, including that of our children to faraway countries, occasioned by those dark days,” he said then.

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 Associated Press count. It has targeted churches in the past in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria. In a recent attack, it killed 20 Igbo traders holding a meeting in Nigeria’s northeast.

Authorities said gunmen attacked a military vehicle Sunday afternoon in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed says the attack killed three civilians and wounded six civilians and one soldier.

Local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said another attack on a tea shop Saturday night in Biu in Borno state killed three people.

SEE ALSO: Obama Refocuses Military

The attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram come after it promised to kill Christians living in Nigeria’s largely Muslim north, exploiting long-standing religious and ethnic tensions in the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The pledge by the leader of an umbrella organization called the Christian Association of Nigeria now raises the possibility of retaliatory violence.

In the last few days alone, Boko Haram has killed at least 44 people, despite the oil-rich nation’s president declaring a state of emergency in regions hit by the sect.

Speaking Saturday to journalists, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, vowed the group’s members would adequately protect themselves from the sect. He declined to offer specifics, raising concerns about retaliation.

“We have decided to work out means to defend ourselves against these senseless killings,” Oritsejafor said.

In Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, gunmen covered their faces with black cloth when they attacked Apostolic Church on Friday night, local police commissioner Ade Shinaba said. Shinaba said at least eight worshippers died in that attack.

At a nearby beauty salon, at least three others were killed in a similar attack.

“Three gunmen with their faces covered with black cloth burst into my salon and started shooting at customers, chanting, ‘God is great, God is great,’” said Stephen Tizhe, 35.

Responding to the violence, Adamawa state Gov. Murtala Nyako ordered a 24-hour curfew through the rural state. The violence comes ahead of a planned gubernatorial election later this month.

In the town of Potiskum in Yobe state, gunmen set two banks ablaze with gasoline bombs, starting a gunfight with police that lasted three hours, local police commissioner Tanko Lawan said. At least two people were killed in the fight, he said.

On Saturday, sect gunmen also shot and killed two Christian students who attend the University of Maiduguri in nearby Borno state, local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.

No arrests have been made in any of the attacks, authorities said.

The attacks came after gunmen claimed by Boko Haram attacked a town hall earlier that day in Mubi, Adamawa state, killing at least 20 people who had gathered for a meeting of the Christian Igbo ethnic group. On Thursday night, the sect also attacked a church in Gombe state, killing at least eight people.

In a statement Friday to The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record in Nigeria’s north, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in Gombe and Mubi.

“We want to prove to the federal government of Nigeria that we can always change our tactics,” the spokesman said.

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 Associated Press count. It has targeted churches in the past in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria.

The group claimed responsibility for attacks that killed at least 42 people in a Christmas Day strikes that included the bombing of a Catholic church near Abuja. The group also claimed an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100.

Nigeria’s central government has been slow to respond to the sect. On Dec. 31, President Goodluck Jonathan declared regions of Borno, Niger, Plateau and Yobe states to be under a state of emergency, meaning authorities can make arrests without proof and conduct searches without warrants. He also ordered international borders near Borno and Yobe state to be closed.

However, the areas where the recent church and town hall attacks happened are not in the areas marked by the president.

Boko Haram promised to begin attacking Christians in Nigeria’s north several days before the recent violence. The new killings have sparked fears among Christians living in the north about the group and caused some to flee. There also has been at least one report of retaliatory violence against Muslims living in Nigeria’s mostly Christian south in recent days as well.

RELATED:

Did Romney Have 20 Incorrect Votes?

Why Republicans Keep Talking Race

SEE ALSO: Spike Lee To Host Obama Fundraiser

Pastor Johnson Jauro said the gunfire sprayed the Deeper Life Church in Gombe, the capital of Gombe state, injuring several worshippers and killing his wife and two others. He spoke at a local hospital, where a joint team of soldiers and police officers stood guard. Two other people later died at the hospital from their wounds and an Associated Press reporter saw their bodies.

Local police spokesman Ahmed Muhammad confirmed the attack, but declined to say how many people the gunmen killed and wounded.

The assault occurred as Nigeria remains under attack by the sect known as Boko Haram. The oil-rich nation’s president recently put regions of the country under a state of emergency due to the threat, but that did not include Gombe, which sits about 350 miles (570 kilometers) from Nigeria’s central capital, Abuja.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram. The sect 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 more than 500 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 39 people in a Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church near Abuja, as well as a suicide car bombing targeting the U.N. headquarters in the capital that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100.

Nigeria’s weak central government has been slow to respond to the sect.

On Dec. 31, President Goodluck Jonathan declared regions of Borno, Niger, Plateau and Yobe states to be under a state of emergency – meaning authorities can make arrests without proof and conduct searches without warrants. He also ordered international borders near Borno and Yobe state to be closed.

However, it remains unclear what effect that will have on a sect that has adopted hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings to target the country’s military and police, as well as civilians.

Meanwhile, a military spokesman said Thursday that soldiers killed two armed men suspected to be Boko Haram members after “resisting arrest” in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said the army believes the gunmen were responsible for an attack Wednesday evening that left two people dead.

However, human rights activists say security forces have carried out so-called “extra-judicial killings” out of frustration and anger at being unable to stop Boko Haram.

SEE ALSO:

Missing Teen Accidentally Deported to Columbia

Ron Paul Confused By His Own Tweet

SEE ALSO: African Dictator Propped Up By Coke (As In Coca-Cola)

Ndour, who made the announcement late Monday on his private radio and TV stations, joins some 20 other candidates already running against President Abdoulaye Wade.

While the Grammy-winning artist sells out concert venues worldwide and is the West African country’s most famous cultural export, his prospects with Senegalese voters remain unclear.

The election less than two months away, and the incumbent president has been in power for more than a decade.

“For a very long time, many Senegalese of different backgrounds have called for my candidacy for the presidency next February,” Ndour said. “I’ve listened, I’ve heard and I am responding favorably to their request. I am a candidate. It’s a supreme patriotic duty, the best I can give of myself. I am the alternative to the current leadership in place in the country.”

Ndour, 52, is well known in Senegal for his scathing critique of the country’s ruling party. He already owns a hugely popular private radio station that holds regular debates featuring government critics.

And he has a newspaper that routinely highlights corruption allegations involving the country’s ruling elite, including the president’s family.

Wade’s plans to run, as well as frequent power cuts and the spiraling cost of living, sparked violent protests last year in what has historically been one of West Africa’s most stable democracies.

Once a symbol of the opposition, Wade became president in a landmark election hailed for being one of the first peaceful transfers of power on the continent.

He set off a wave of criticism though when he announced he planned to run for a third term, using a loophole in the electoral law to circumvent the two-term maximum set out in the constitution.

And massive street protests hit Senegal’s capital last year following a proposed constitutional change that would have paved the way for Wade’s son to succeed him. Wade later agreed to cancel it, but the unrest marked the biggest challenge to his 11-year rule.

SEE ALSO:

Santorum: Obama Should Be Pro-Life BECAUSE He’s Black

Beyonce Watch: The “Tiana-May Carter” Twitter Rumor

SEE ALSO: How Ron Paul Got A Free Pass

This single story creates stereotypes,” she said, “and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete … Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes: There are immense ones, such as the horrific rapes in Congo and depressing ones, such as the fact that 5,000 people apply for one job vacancy in Nigeria. But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe, and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them.

Her success writing books has led her to start a non-profit called “Farafina Trust” with the vision to build and refurbish libraries and organize reading and writing workshops for “people who are eager to tell our many stories.”

Check out her impassioned presentation as well as 10 other moments that highlight the Motherland:

1. Joseph Lekuton, a member of the Kenyan parliament, shares a parable to inspire:

I’m trying to develop homegrown solutions to our issues,” he said, “because we realize that people from outside can come and help us, but if we don’t help ourselves, there’s nothing we can do.

2. William Kamkwamba, an inventor from Malawi, explains how he built an electrical system including a power-generating windmill from scrap materials and a library book, when he was just 14 years old:

Because of the hunger, I was forced to drop out of school … It was the future I couldn’t accept.

3 and 4. Rokia Traore, an award-winning Malian singer/songwriter/musician, blends operatic vocals with an acoustic guitar and an n’goni in live renditions of the songs “Kounandi” and “M’Bifo.”

5. Spencer Wells, a geneticist, explains that all humans share common DNA coding that traces back to African ancestors:

Every piece of DNA we look at has greater diversity within Africa than outside of Africa.

6. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, offers a different perspective on AIDS in Africa that involves looking at the overall issue of short-life expectancy:

“How much you want to invest is going to depend on how much longer you expect to live in the future, even if you don’t make those investments. AIDS is the same kind of thing. It’s costly to avoid AIDS. People really like to have sex … . But life expectancy in Africa, even without AIDS, is really, really low: 40 or 50 years in a lot of places.

7. Patrick Awuah, co-founder of the Ghanaian liberal arts college Asheshi University, explains how Africa has reached a critical point that can be changed in a single generation with “inspired leadership” in all facets of life:

When I speak of leadership, I’m not talking about just political leaders. We’ve heard a lot about that. I’m talking about the elite. Those who’ve been trained, whose job it is to be the guardians of their society. The lawyers, the judges, the policemen, the doctors, the engineers, the civil servants — those are the leaders.

8. Andrew Mwenda, a journalist, says that the world needs to stop looking at Africa as a charity case:

Africa has 53 nations. We have civil wars only in six countries, which means that the media are covering only six countries.

9. Franco Sacchi, a Zambia-born filmmaker, explains Nigeria’s Nollywood:

“Try to imagine 40, 50 films wrapped, distributed, every week in the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, and West Africa. Some estimates put the value of this industry at $250 million. It has created thousands, if not tens of thousands of jobs. And it’s expanding. But keep in mind that this was a grassroots movement. This is something that happened without foreign investment, without government aid, and actually, it happened against all odds, in one of the most difficult moments in Nigerian economy.

10. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first female finance minister in Nigeria, shares a story of successful economic reform in Nigeria and describes how to best help the continent as a whole:

The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet, and the best way to do that is by helping create jobs. There’s no issue with fighting malaria and putting money in that and saving children’s lives. That’s not what I’m saying. That is fine. But imagine the impact on a family if the parents can be employed and make sure that their children go to school, that they can buy the drugs to fight the disease themselves. If we can invest in places where you yourselves make money whilst creating jobs and helping people stand on their own feet, isn’t that a wonderful opportunity? Isn’t that the way to go?

SEE ALSO:

How Bachmann’s Campaign Fell Apart

Noose Discovered At World Trade Center

SEE ALSO: The Disappearing Black Journalist

Some 1,000 supporters gathered near Kinshasa’s Martyrs’ Stadium Friday morning. Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi had announced that he planned to hold the ceremony there. Police also thronged Tshisekedi’s neighborhood, possibly in an effort to keep him from reaching the stadium.

Tshisekedi declared himself the winner of the Nov. 28 poll that international and local observers say lacked credibility. President Joseph Kabila was inaugurated earlier this week.

Kabila first came to power after his father’s assassination and now has led the massive, mineral-rich Central African nation for a decade. Presidential election results showed Kabila with 49 percent, and Tshisekedi with 32 percent of the nearly 19 million votes cast. Some international observers, however, have said the turnout was impossibly high in some districts.

Kabila was declared winner following constitutional reforms he pushed through parliament limiting the election to one round. Under the old rules, any winner had to have more than 50 percent of votes.

Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that security forces have killed at least 24 people and detained dozens in attacks to quell dissent over the much-criticized vote.

Tshisekedi has previously proclaimed himself president and last month ordered his followers to stage jailbreaks to free detained colleagues.

Observers fear unrest if Tshisekedi – a 79-year-old longtime opposition leader who is enormously popular with the country’s impoverished masses – orders his supporters to take to the streets.

The November election was only the second democratic vote in Congo’s 51-year history, and the first to be organized by the Congolese government rather than by the international community.

Congo, which is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country, has suffered decades of dictatorship and civil war. The country’s east is still wracked by violence perpetrated by dozens of militia and rebel groups.

SEE ALSO:

After Rhodes Lie Exposure, Yale Coach Quits

Romney Says He Won’t Release His Tax Returns
100 Newsmakers

Start Gallery

The summit will feature mayors from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The mayors will discus ways to build alliances and trade ideas.

The Huffington Post reports:

The goal: to build alliances with local leaders from across the planet and exchange a world of ideas and information that they hope will impact communities both on a local, national and international level. “All politics really is local…” insists Omar Neal who is mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama — a notable city that boasts a population of about 11,000. And that was the general consensus of the delegation which convened in the glitzy Hotel Meridien President Conference Hall faintly resembles the United Nations, save for its rich wooden structures and distinct architecture which pays homage to the African continent.

Read More At The Huffington Post

SEE ALSO: Man Steals His Date’s Car

People who have spent time with him recently say they found him weaker than they’d ever seen him, seemingly too tired to engage with what they were saying. He no longer meets individually with visiting bishops. A few weeks ago he started using a moving platform to spare him the long walk down St. Peter’s Basilica.

Benedict turns 85 in the new year, so a slowdown is only natural. Expected. And given his age and continued rigorous work schedule, it’s remarkable he does as much as he does and is in such good health overall: Just this past week he confirmed he would travel to Mexico and Cuba next spring.

But a decline has been noted as Benedict prepares for next weekend’s grueling Christmas celebrations, which kick off two weeks of intense public appearances. And that raises questions about the future of the papacy given that Benedict himself has said popes should resign if they can’t do the job.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi has said no medical condition prompted the decision to use the moving platform in St. Peter’s, and that it’s merely designed to spare the pontiff the fatigue of the 100-meter (-yard) walk to and from the main altar.

And Benedict rallied during his three-day trip to Benin in west Africa last month, braving temperatures of 32 Celsius (90F) and high humidity to deliver a strong message about the future of the Catholic Church in Africa.

Wiping sweat from his brow, he kissed babies who were handed up to him, delivered a tough speech on the need for Africa’s political leaders to clean up their act, and visited one of the continent’s most important seminaries.

Back at home, however, it seems the daily grind of being pope – the audiences with visiting heads of state, the weekly public catechism lessons, the sessions with visiting bishops – has taken its toll. A spark is gone. He doesn’t elaborate off-the-cuff much anymore, and some days he just seems wiped out.

Take for example his recent visit to Assisi, where he traveled by train with dozens of religious leaders from around the world for a daylong peace pilgrimage. For anyone participating it was a tough, long day; for the aging pope it was even more so.

“Indeed I was struck by what appeared to me as the decline in Benedict’s strength and health over the last half year,” said Rabbi David Rosen, who had a place of honor next to the pope at the Assisi event as head of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee.

“He looks thinner and weaker … which made the effort he put into the Assisi shindig with the extraordinary degree of personal attention to the attendees (especially the next day in Rome) all the more remarkable,” Rosen said in an email.

That Benedict is tired would be a perfectly normal diagnosis for an 84-year-old, even someone with no known health ailments and a still-agile mind. He has acknowledged having suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in 1991 that temporarily affected his vision. And his older brother, who has a pacemaker for an irregular heartbeat, has expressed concern about Benedict’s own heart.

But Benedict is not a normal 84-year-old, both in what he is called to do and the implications if he were to stop.

Popes are allowed to resign; church law specifies only that the resignation be “freely made and properly manifested.”

Only a handful have done so, however. The last one was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

There’s good reason why others haven’t followed suit: Might the existence of two popes – even when one has stepped down – lead to divisions and instability in the church? Might a new resignation precedent lead to pressures on future popes to quit at the slightest hint of infirmity?

Yet Benedict himself raised the possibility of resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue on, when he was interviewed for the book “Light of the World,” which was released in November 2010.

“If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign,” Benedict said.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had an intimate view as Pope John Paul II, with whom he had worked closely for nearly a quarter-century, suffered through the debilitating end of his papacy. After John Paul’s death at age 84, it was revealed that he had written a letter of resignation to be invoked if he became terminally ill or incapable of continuing on.

And it should be recalled that at the time Benedict was elected pope at age 78 – already the oldest pope elected in nearly 300 years – he had been planning to retire as the Vatican’s chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

It is there that his elder brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, still lives. Ratzinger, who turns 88 next month, is nearly blind. Benedict has said his brother has helped him accept old age with courage.

Benedict said in “Light of the World” that he knew his own strength was diminishing – steps are difficult for him and his aides regularly hold his elbows as he climbs up or down. But at the same time Benedict insisted that he had no intention of resigning to avoid dealing with the problems of the church, such as the sex abuse scandal.

“One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it,” he said.

As a result, a papal resignation anytime soon seems unlikely.

And Benedict is maintaining a hectic agenda. His planned trip to Cuba and Mexico next spring will fall shortly before he turns 85 on April 16. He has also said he’d like to make it to Rio de Janeiro in 2013 for the next World Youth Day.

Sometime in the New Year he will presumably preside over a new consistory to name the new cardinals who will elect his successor. And he has lots of unfinished business close to his heart: Bringing back breakaway traditionalists under Rome’s wing, the fate of the sex abuse-scarred Irish church, tensions with China.

And he still cuts a robust figure in public given his age, walking briskly, speaking clearly and emphasizing key points. But his public engagements have been trimmed back; he had far fewer speeches in Benin than during his September visit to his native Germany or the United Kingdom last fall.

And behind closed doors, during audiences without the glare of TV cameras or throngs of the faithful encouraging him on, he has begun to show his age, acquaintances say.

The Rev. Joseph Fessio, Benedict’s U.S. publisher and onetime student, sees the pope every so often, including during the summer when Benedict gathers his former theology students for an informal academic seminar at the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo.

Fessio recalled a day in the 2010 edition that remains with him: “In the Saturday morning session, the pope looked older and weaker than I had ever seen him before. In fact I remarked to someone that it’s the first time I’ve seen him look like the old man that he is. He was speaking in softer tones than even his normally soft speaking voice. His head was bowed. He was pale. He just looked frail.”

But then, after lunch and an apparent rest, Benedict returned for the afternoon session. “It was a complete transformation. He was lively, vigorous, attentive, and with his usual good humor,” Fessio said.

Clearly, at his age Benedict has good days and bad, even good half-days and bad.

Yet he’s never called in sick. In fact as pope, he has only had one significant known medical incident: He broke his right wrist when he tripped on the leg of his bed and fell while on vacation in the Alps in 2009.

Lombardi says the pope realizes the limitations of his strength, and that’s why the recent trip to Benin was a one-stop-only affair.

“I think it’s an example of the great willingness and wisdom of the Holy Father to continue doing these trips, even those that are difficult or far away,” Lombardi said. He said the pope “measures well what his strengths are, and the possibility of doing the trips well.”

“When I’m 84 I think I’ll have been buried for many years,” he added.

But he refused to give any kind of medical updates on the pope.

“I’m not a doctor. I don’t give medical bulletins,” Lombardi said. He paused, then added quietly: “In this phase. At this moment.”

SEE ALSO:

Sandusky Accuser: I SAW Sex Abuse Happening

Church Ad Shows Virgin Mary Taking Pregnancy Test

SEE ALSO: Why Obama Was Right To Back “Abortion Pill” Restrictions

The statement, purportedly by Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, said the group was focusing its efforts against French and Malian interests and had nothing to do with the October kidnapping of an Italian and two Spanish aid workers in southern Algeria.

The group’s statement was reported Thursday by Nouakchott Information Agency, a private news agency that has carried the group’s statements before, but its veracity could not be independently confirmed.

“We deny all responsibility in the kidnapping of Europeans from the camp in Tindouf,” the statement said, referring to a refugee camp in Algeria for those fleeing the conflict in the Western Sahara, where the local population is agitating for independence from Morocco.

Spain had no comment on the hostages or the al-Qaida statement. Italy’s foreign ministry also declined to comment, noting it typically does not discuss ongoing kidnapping cases.

The militant group did claim to have abducted two French tourists from their hotel room in eastern Mali on the night of Nov. 24 and alleged that they were French spies.

A Western counterterrorism official denied that the men, who have been identified as Serge Lazarevic and Philippe Verdon, were intelligence agents. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The statement also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Dutch, Swedish and South African national from a restaurant in Timbuktu the next day. A German national was executed when he refused to get into a waiting truck.

Photos purportedly showing the two groups of hostages appeared Friday on the Nouakchott Information agency.

The statement said the kidnappings were carried out in revenge for recent Malian attacks against members of al-Qaida, as well as France’s aggression in the Sahel region – a possible reference to French military strikes against the militants.

“Here are two more French to be added to those from Arlit,” said part of the statement addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and referring to a uranium mining town in Niger where seven French citizens were kidnapped in September by AQIM.

“You are solely responsible for the consequences of their kidnapping.” Four of those from the Arlit kidnapping are still being held.

The kidnappings in Mali indicate that the group is moving into areas which it previously had left alone. Before last month’s rash of abductions, only one person had been snatched by AQIM in Mali.

According to a 2009 State Department cable, the Mali government and al-Qaida apparently had a tacit agreement to leave each other alone, though that appears to have changed now. Malian forces have launched two attacks against the group’s hideouts in the Wagadou forest in the past six months.

“It is time you learned your lesson and stop killing mujahedeen and their families to please the impious crusaders,” said the part of the statement addressed to the Mali government.

The spike in kidnappings in the Sahel region could also be related to competition between different factions of militants.

An Algerian daily last month carried an interview with two captured militants who said three different groups were competing to see which could kidnap more foreigners.

AQIM grew out of armed Islamic groups fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s and eventually expanded its operations to the lightly populated empty wastes of the Sahel region where they made money on smuggling and kidnapping.

In 2006, the group announced it had joined al-Qaida. Some 50 Europeans and Canadians have been kidnapped and ransomed by the group, earning it an estimated $130 million in less than a decade.

SEE ALSO:

Virginia Tech Slain Cop Was Father To Five

Can Food Make You Infertile?

See Also: Afghanistan: We Need More Aid

Before leaving, they rolled down the windows of their pickup truck and called over the children to give them chocolate.

That was 18 months ago, and since then, the bearded men in tunics like those worn by Osama bin Laden have returned for water every week. Each time they go to lengths to exchange greetings, ask for permission and act neighborly, according to locals, in the first intimate look at how al-Qaida tries to win over a village.

Besides candy, the men hand out cash. If a child is born, they bring baby clothes. If someone is ill, they prescribe medicine. When a boy was hospitalized, they dropped off plates of food and picked up the tab.

With almost no resistance, al-Qaida has implanted itself in Africa’s soft tissue, choosing as its host one of the poorest nations on earth. The terrorist group has create a refuge in this remote land through a strategy of winning hearts and minds, described in rare detail by seven locals in regular contact with the cell. The villagers agreed to speak for the first time to an Associated Press team in the “red zone,” deemed by most embassies to be too dangerous for foreigners to visit.

While al-Qaida’s central command is in disarray and its leaders on the run following bin Laden’s death six months ago, security experts say, the group’s 5-year-old branch in Africa is flourishing. From bases like the one in the forest just north of here, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is infiltrating local communities, recruiting fighters, running training camps and planning suicide attacks, according to diplomats and government officials.

Even as the mother franchise struggles financially, its African offshoot has raised an estimated $130 million in under a decade by kidnapping at least 50 Westerners in neighboring countries and holding them in camps in Mali for ransom. It has tripled in size from 100 combatants in 2006 to at least 300 today, say security experts. And its growing footprint, once limited to Algeria, now stretches from one end of the Sahara desert to the other, from Mauritania in the west to Mali in the east.

The group’s stated aim is to become a player in global jihad, and suspected collaborators have been arrested throughout Europe, including in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, England and France. In September, the general responsible for U.S. military operations in Africa, Army Gen. Carter Ham, said AQIM now also poses a “significant threat” to the United States.

The answer to why the group has thrived can be found in this speck of a town, where homes are made of mud mixed with straw and families eke out a living either in the fields of rice to the south or in the immense forest of short, stout trees to its north.

It’s here, under a canopy stretching over an area three times larger than the city of New York, that Sokolo’s herders take their cattle. They avoid overgrazing by organizing themselves into eight units linked to each of the eight wells, labeled N1 through N8, along the 50-mile-long perimeter of the Wagadou forest. They pay $5 per year per head of cattle, and $3 per head of sheep, for the right to water their animals.

When the al-Qaida fighters showed up about 1 1/2 years ago with four to five jerrycans and asked for water, they signaled that they did not intend to plunder resources. They stood out in their tunics stopping a little below the knees, small turbans and beards, a foreign style of dress associated with the Gulf states and bin Laden.

“From the moment you lay eyes on them, you know that they’re not Malian,” said 45-year-old herder Amadou Maiga.

They started to come every four or five days in Land Cruisers, with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. At first they stayed for no more than 15 to 20 minutes, said the villagers, including herders, a hunter and employees of the Malian Ministry of Husbandry who travel to the area to vaccinate animals and repair broken pumps. If on Monday they took water from one well, on Wednesday they would go to another, always varying their path.

Fousseyni Diakite, 51, a pump technician who travels twice a month to the forest to check the generators used to run the wells, first ran into the cell in May 2010, when he saw four men in Arab dress inside a Toyota Hilux truck, all with AK-47s at their feet.

He said the men come with medical supplies and try to find out if anyone is sick.

“There is one who is tall with a big chest – he’s Arab, possibly Algerian. He’s known for having an ambulatory pharmacy. He goes from place to place giving treatment for free,” Diakite said.

They venture into the camps where the herders sleep at dusk and hand out cash to villagers who join them for prayers, he said – bills of 10,000 West African francs (about $20), equal to nearly half the average monthly salary in Mali.

Most of the herders sleep in lean-to’s in camps at the forest’s edge. Because these are temporary settlements, they do not have mosques, unlike most villages in this nation twice the size of France that is 90 percent Muslim.

In Boulker, a hamlet near the forest, the fighters left 100,000 francs (around $200), instructing locals to buy supplies and build an adobe mosque, Diakite said.

“They said that for every population center with at least 10 people, there should be a mosque,” he said.

Along with its poverty, Mali has an enormous geography and a weak central government – not unlike Afghanistan, where bin Laden first used the charm offensive to secure the loyalty of the local people, said Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaida, now an analyst at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.

“We used to teach our people about this. It’s part of the military plan – how to treat locals. This is the environment that keeps them alive,” said Benotman, who first met bin Laden in Sudan and who spent years fighting alongside al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He said bin Laden gave his fighters specific instructions on how to conduct themselves: Don’t argue about the price, just make the locals happy. Become “like oxygen” to them.

AQIM is taking the lesson to heart. Soon after they began taking water, one of the bearded fighters approached a shepherd at the pump to buy a ram. The fighters were looking to slaughter it to feed themselves. The shepherd offered it to him for free – too afraid to ask for money, said Maiga, the man’s friend.

But the stranger refused to take the ram without payment, and immediately handed over a generous sum.

“They seem to know all the prices ahead of time. They point to a ram and say, ‘I’ll buy that one for 30,000 cfa ($60),’” said Maiga, quoting the highest sum a herder could expect to get for a ram in these parts. “They never bargain.”

AQIM grew out of the groups fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s, after the military canceled elections to stave off victory for an Islamist party. Over the next decade, they left a trail of destruction in Algeria. Around 2003, they sent an emissary to Iraq to meet an al-Qaida intermediary, according to Benotman. Three years later, the insurgents joined the terror family, in what second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri called “a blessed union.”

Since then, their attacks have taken on the hallmarks of al-Qaida. A pair of explosions this August killed 18 people as they tore through the mess hall of Algeria’s military academy, with the second bomb timed to hit emergency responders.

Al-Qaida in turn appears to be learning from its affiliates, which have used kidnappings for ransom in Algeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. After bin Laden’s death in May, investigators found files on his hard drive showing plans to turn to kidnapping to compensate for a decline in donations.

AQIM in particular has perfected what analysts call a “kidnap economy,” drawing on its refuge in Mali, according to diplomats, hostage negotiators and government officials. In 2003, the group kidnapped and transported 32 mostly German tourists from southern Algeria to Mali, where, according to a member of Mali’s parliament, they struck a deal with local authorities that is still in effect today.

“The agreement was, ‘You don’t hurt us, we won’t hurt you,’” said the parliament member, formerly involved in hostage negotiations, who asked not to be identified because of the danger involved.

The government of Mali denies these accusations, but officials cited in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks make the same assertion. The president of neighboring Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, told his American counterparts in 2009 that Mali is “at peace with AQIM to avoid attacks on its territory.” Whereas the al-Qaida cell has captured more than 50 foreigners in Algeria, Niger and Mauritania, hardly any of the violence has touched Mali.

The cell has also managed to recruit local fighters, including 60 to 80 Tuaregs, the olive-skinned nomads who live in the Sahara desert, according to a security expert. And villagers say they have seen black-skinned sub-Saharan Africans in the pickups speaking the languages of Mali, Guinea and Nigeria.

“The situation in Mali is they have become locals – they are not foreigners,” said Benotman. “This is really, really very, very difficult to do, and it makes it very hard to get rid of them.”

One thing still stands in al-Qaida’s way: Its hardcore ideology does not gel with the moderate Islam practiced by Mali’s nomads. Most of them said they were afraid, caught between need for the money al-Qaida offers and wariness of its extremist beliefs.

When bin Laden died, the members of the local cell went from well to well to ask people to pray for his soul, according to Amaye ag Ali Cisse, an employee of the Ministry of Husbandry who travels twice a month to the wells to oversee the vaccination of animals.

“Everyone is uncomfortable,” he said. “This is a religion that doesn’t belong to us.”

The herders say the fighters have not tried to impose their ideology by force. Instead, they say that the AQIM members wait until they have seen a herder at least a few times before broaching the subject.

“It was the third time that I saw them that they started preaching to me,” said Maiga. “They said that everything they do is in order to seek out God.”

Herder Baba Ould Momo, 29, said he tries to come up with an excuse to leave when the pickup trucks arrive at the well, because he’s afraid the terror cell will pull him in. He said they backed off when they noticed he wasn’t interested.

“The first thing they try to do is invite people to join them in the forest. If they see that the person is wavering, it’s then that they start preaching – saying everything is transitory,” said Momo, who like most of the herders wears plastic flip-flops, with a robe of wrinkled cloth. “But if the person is categorical in saying ‘No,’ they leave them alone.”

In June, Mauritania and Mali led a rare joint attack on the al-Qaida cell in the Wagadou Forest. However, herders say that a week earlier, the al-Qaida fighters told them that an attack was imminent and that they had laid down land mines in the forest. Mauritania blames Malian officials for tipping off AQIM.

The herders said that for around two weeks, they didn’t see the bearded fighters. Then they returned with a new fleet of Hilux pickup trucks, and with more men. Since then, the fighters’ tracks have been all over the forest floor, in a map of constant movement, said 60-year-old hunter Cheickana Cisse. They no longer sleep in the same place.

Just as Cisse was taking a drink of water at the N7 pump on a recent evening, two pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft cannons and loaded with combatants drove up. The men had chains of ammunition strapped across their chests, and belts loaded with cartridges.

They laid their AK-47s in a circle on the ground to create a space to pray, like a symbolic mosque. One of them asked Cisse if he had heard of bin Laden.

“He said, ‘We’re like this with bin Laden,’” Cisse explained, intertwining his right and left index fingers like a link in a chain. “He said, ‘We’re al-Qaida.’”

The elderly hunter tried to slip away just as one of the fighters made the call to prayer.

“And they said, ‘You? Aren’t you going to pray?’ They told me to come into the circle. I could feel them watching me,” he said.

The men kneeled inside the circle of weapons. Four others guarded them, including one who climbed on the roof of the truck. Cisse tiptoed inside and began going through the prayer. “I kept stealing glances to see if they were doing the same moves as me,” he said. “I know the words, but I was scared.”

When the group had finished, the four who had kept vigil took their turn inside the circle. Cisse quietly walked away.

They didn’t try to stop him.

See Also: Russian Protestors: ‘Down With Putin’

See Also: Romney Hid Governor Records

Also See: The Voice Of Treason

A statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security says that the Gola Rainforest has been identified as a “Biodiversity hotspot” and is of global importance because of its rich variety of plants and animals.

It said President Ernest Bai Koroma is making the declaration Saturday as part of a government action plan that recommends creating a national network of protected areas for terrestrial and wetland ecosystems across the country.

The Gola Rainforest National Park lies in the countries southeast at the border with Liberia.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says the declaration of the over 71,000-hectare Gola Rainforest as a national park should subdue ongoing threats from logging and mining.

See Also: Cain-Saw Modern

See Also: Why Is Art So Damned Expensive

“SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Company) contained a spill in Adibawa delivery line which was reported yesterday (Saturday),” Shell’s Nigerian joint venture said in a statememt.

See Also: Meet J.Lo’s New Boyfriend

See Also: Black Travel: Visit Atlanta, Georgia

“We had dispatched our spill containment team to the site as soon as we received the reports and the personnel succeeded in containing the leak,” it said.

Shell, which announced a production cut from the same facility last week, said it was investigating the incident to determine the cause and impact.

“The delivery line is part of the Okordia-Rumuekpe line, which SPDC shut down following a leak on November 8 and subsequent fire incident,” it said, blaming last week’s incident on sabotage.

“A joint investigation visit found that the spill was caused by hacksaw cuts,” it said, adding that there had been several hacksaw cuts on the Adibawa delivery line this year.

But Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FoEN), which visited the site, ruled out sabotage in a statement Sunday.

“Anybody who visits this spill site can attest to the fact that this is a case of equipment failure,” the environmental group said.

“From experience gained in the field, this is one of the most obvious cases that points to that fact: no signs of any clearing around the spill site, no signs of any digging,” it said.

“This is the 12th oil spill that has occurred between August and November 2011 in Ikarama community environment,” ERA said, adding that Shell should visit the area, clean up the spill and compensate the affected residents.

“Adequate compensation should be paid for damages to crops, impacted farmlands and general damages incurred by the victims of this latest spill,” it said.

Oil spills occur regularly in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, and are often caused by oil thieves seeking to steal crude for sale on the lucrative black market.

The drone of generators is omnipresent, at offices and markets, in neighborhoods rich and poor, because the power grid doesn’t produce enough power. Periodic blackouts extend for hours, days, sometimes weeks.

Such is daily life in Nigeria’s commercial capital, where the population is estimated at 15 million and growing at 6 percent or more each year. Problems with traffic congestion, sanitation and water supplies are staggering; a recent article in UN-Habitat said two-thirds of the residents live in poverty.

The rest of Nigeria isn’t growing as fast – estimates of its growth rate range from 2 percent to 3.2 percent. But it’s already Africa’s most populous country with more than 160 million people.

Ndyanabangi Bannet, the U.N. Population Fund’s deputy representative in Nigeria, notes that 60 percent of the population is under 30 and needs to be accommodated with education, training and health care.

“It is a plus if it is taken advantage of,” he said of Nigeria’s youth. “But if it is not harnessed, it can be a challenge, because imagine what hordes of unemployed young people can do.”

In Uganda, another fast-growing country, President Yoweri Museveni used to be disdainful of population control and urged Ugandans, especially in rural areas, to continue having large families.

Recently, the government has conceded that its 3.2 population growth rate must be curbed because the economy can’t keep pace. Earlier this year, anti-government protests by unemployed youths and other aggrieved Ugandans flared in several communities, and nine marchers were killed in confrontations with police.

“The government has been convinced that unless it invests in reproductive health, Uganda is destined to a crisis,” says Hannington Burunde of the Uganda Population Secretariat.

Among those who are struggling is John Baliruno, 45, of Mpigi in central Uganda, a father of nine.

“I never intended to have such a big number,” he said. “I with my wife had no knowledge of family planning and ended up producing one child after another. Now I cannot properly feed them.”

Looking ahead, he’s pessimistic.

“The environment is being destroyed by the growing population. Trees are being cut down in big numbers and even now we can’t get enough firewood to cook food,” he said. “In the near future, we will starve.”

Another of the fastest-growing countries is Burundi. With roughly 8.6 million people, it’s the second most densely populated African country after neighboring Rwanda.

Omer Ndayishimiye, head of Burundi’s Population Department, said continued high growth coincides with dwindling natural resources. Land suitable for farming will decline, and poverty will be rampant, he said, noting that 90 percent of the population live in rural areas and rely on farming to survive.

The government has been trying to raise awareness about the demographic challenges among the clergy, civic leaders and the general public.

“We are suggesting couples to go to health clinics to get taught different birth control methods,” Ndayishimiye said. “But we are facing some barriers … Many Burundians still see children as source of wealth.”

At her modest house in Gishubi, Godelive Ndageramiwe ponders the changes that have made her regret her large family.

“Children were a good labor force in the past when there was enough space to cultivate,” she said. “Today I can’t even feed my family properly. My kids just spend days doing nothing.”

After her fourth child, she began to worry how her family could be cared for.

“But my husband was against birth control and wanted as many children as possible,” she said. “It was delicate because he could marry another wife.

“My friends advised me to go to a nearby clinic, but I was told I must come with my husband. Now I have laid the issue in the hands of God.

RELATED:

United States Hispanic Population Tops 50 Million

Oakland Joins List Of Cities Declining In Black Population

Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle conducted a study on 3,790 women in Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. They found that the women using hormonal contraceptives were twice as likely to become infected with HIV.

The risk was increased among those using injectable and oral contraceptives.

It’s possible that biological changes, such as changes to the cells that line the vagina or cervix, could possibly influence susceptibility to HIV, the researchers said.

“Recommendations regarding contraceptive use, particularly emphasizing the importance of dual protection with condoms and the use of non-hormonal and low-dose hormonal methods for women with or at risk for HIV-1, are urgently needed”, said study researcher Renee Heffron, also of the University of Washington.

Read more at MSNBC.com

RELATED:

1 In 3 Vets See Iraq, Afghan Wars As Wastes

Obama Donates Nobel Peace Prize Money To Charities

The Day Obama Won The Nobel Peace Prize Compared To Today

Kenya’s most recognizable woman, Maathai won the Nobel in 2004 for combining environmentalism and social activism. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, where over 30 years she mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees.

In recognizing Maathai, the Nobel committee said that she had stood up to a former oppressive regime – a reference to former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi – and that her “unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression.”

Maathai said during her 2004 acceptance speech that the inspiration for her life’s work came from her childhood experiences in rural Kenya, where she witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed biodiversity and the capacity of forests to conserve water.

Although the Green Belt Movement’s tree-planting campaign did not initially address the issues of peace and democracy, Maathai said it became clear over time that responsible governance of the environment was not possible without democracy.

“Therefore, the tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilized to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement,” Maathai said.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Maathai’s death “strikes at the core of our nation’s heart.”

“I join Kenyans and friends of Kenya in mourning the passing of this hero of our national struggles,” Odinga said. “Hers has been heroism easily recognized locally and abroad. … Prof Maathai has passed on just when the causes she long fought for were just beginning to get the attention they deserved as threats to the survival of the human race and that of our planet.”

The United Nations Environment Program called Maathai one of Africa’s foremost environmental campaigners. The U.N. agency recalled that Maathai was the inspiration behind UNEP’s Billion Tree Campaign, which was launched in 2006. To date, more than 11 billion trees have been planted as part of the campaign.

“Wangari Maathai was a force of nature. While others deployed their power and life force to damage, degrade and extract short term profit from the environment, she used hers to stand in their way, mobilize communities and to argue for conservation and sustainable development over destruction,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of UNEP.