On any given day in Egypt, a U.S. ally with a much-criticized human rights record, citizens who cross the nation’s security forces may be subject to brutal violence, according to a leading human rights organization here. Complaints arrive daily: An 18-year-old man was beaten in a police station and thrown off a third floor balcony. Another man was punched and flogged. Earlier, a family was dragged to the police station, where the father was beaten and the women were threatened with rape. These and hundreds more allegations have been logged into Egypt’s “torture diary,” a chronicle of claimed transgressions compiled by the Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, an independent victims advocacy group.

Rokia Traoré is a singer/songwriter/guitarist /dancer from Mali. In many parts of West Africa, professional musicians are often from a certain lowly caste called the 'griots'. However, Traoré's family are from the Bamana ethnic group who do not observe this restriction so strictly. Therefore when Rokia was young she was able to sing with others at wedding celebrations, despite coming from a privileged background. As Rokia's father was a diplomat, her family spent a lot of time in different countries while Rokia was growing up. She came into contact with many local and international styles of music, although her parents were reluctant for her to become a musician. When she was a bit older Rokia stayed at the lycée in Bamako while her parents were in Brussels and there she developed her voice and first performed in public. In 1997 she met Ali Farka Toure who gave her quite a lot of guidance and then in 1998 she recorded her first album, Mouneïssa. The tracks on 2000's Wanita CD are all in Bamanan except 'Château de sable', which is in French. Her lyrics cover issues like respect, traditions and relationships. She is joined by Boubacar Traoré on the track 'Mancipera'. Coco Mbassi does the backing vocals on several tracks and Toumani Diabaté plays kora. Hauntingly beautiful gentle tracks make this a real treasure trove. The hallmark of Rokia's music is trance-like rhythms, in contrast to many of the other women musicians from Mali like Kandia Kouyate. [African Musicians Profiles] [Aimer; Dounia; Yaafa N'ma; Interview with Rokia Traoré - Victoires de la musique 2009 (in French)]

Police in the Ivory Coast have arrested three journalists on charges of stealing secret documents about a judicial inquiry into corruption in the country’s Coffee and Cocoa Bourse. Le Nouveau Courrier on Tuesday reportedly carried as its front page story an article detailing the contents and results of a report on the ongoing investigation into the graft allegations. Authorities on Tuesday arrested the editor, managing editor and director of publications at the newspaper and accused them of stealing judicial documents. According to local media, the police asked the journalists for the source of the documents, which they refused to divulge. The public prosecutor had said that the journalists would be held for the legal maximum of 48 hours for questioning and would be charged today.

Researchers in Gabon are studying fossils containing signs of life dating back two billion years. To the un-trained eye, they are just stones. But for researchers from all over the world, it is a fabulous treasure trove.

Said Abderrazak El Albani a geologist from the University of Poitiers: “We took a sample or two, then back in France we went to a specialist and he told us, “Ok, you’re working on fossils that are 600 million years old!” so from then I knew we were onto something.”

These 600 million year-old fossils were excavated from earth which dated from 2 billion years ago. So scientists did further tests, using a three-dimensional scanner. There could be no further doubt; this find threw the chronology of the entire planet into question. If we say that the first single cell organisms appeared 3 billion years ago, the complex forms of life that we knew about up until now dated from 600 million years ago. But the Gabon fossils push back the date of the appearance of multicellular life. It’s a fundamental discovery for researchers and now they want to protect the site in Franceville, Gabon, because it could be the place where life on earth began.

EL-ARISH, Egypt — A Libyan ship with aid for Gaza has docked in an Egyptian port after Israel's navy stopped it from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory. The director of the port of el-Arish, Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, says the ship will unload its cargo Thursday and hand it over to the Red Crescent for delivery to Gaza by land. Israeli missile ships stopped the aid vessel from reaching Gaza, which has been blockaded for three years. The Gadhafi foundation, headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said the ship, the Amalthea, left Greece on Saturday carrying 2,000 tons of food and medical supplies. The standoff followed a botched Israeli raid on a similar Gaza-bound ship in May in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed. EuroNews: Egypt awaits go-ahead to transfer Gaza ship aid.

Israeli navy boats forced the Libyan aid ship "Hope" to sail to the Egyptian harbor of El-Arish instead of Gaza Strip, Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday. The AFP earlier today quoted Mashallah Zawi, the representative of the Gaddafi Foundation which chartered the vessel, as saying that the solidarity activists on board the ship were adamant on heading to Gaza and that their morale was high. He told the French news agency via satellite phone that the ship stopped at sea for 12 hours due to "technical difficulties". Zawi said that the ship was surrounded by eight navy boats. The international campaign to break the siege on Gaza in a statement on Wednesday morning urged the world community to immediately act to protect the Libyan aid vessel. The world must assume its responsibility in protecting the ship and to enable it to reach Gaza especially when it is on a humanitarian mission. PIC: Egypt blocks entry of Jordanian aid convoy to Gaza.

A Libyan aid ship bound for the Gaza Strip was stopped and surrounded by four Israeli vessels about 60 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, said Youssef Sawani, director of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, which organized the aid ship. Sawani spoke in a telephone interview from Libya. BBC: Libyan ship with Gaza aid 'heads to Egypt', Israel says.

PressTV: Israeli Navy surrounds aid vessel. The Israeli Navy reportedly blockades a Libyan-chartered aid vessel which has set sail for the blockaded Gaza Strip, issuing threats against the convoy. "Israeli warships are surrounding and threatening the cargo ship. There is a real threat," said Yussef Sawan, the executive director of the Tripoli-based Gaddafi International Charity and Development Association, AFP reported. The organization tasked the seaborne mission on board the Moldova-flagged cargo ship, Amalthea, to break Tel Aviv's years-long siege of Gaza. The vessel is carrying 12 crewmembers and 2,000 tons of relief supplies from Greece to the impoverished sliver. Communications with the ship are being jammed, Sawan added, pointing at possible electronic obstructions against the humanitarian effort.

The IDF is preparing for the forceful interdiction of a Libyan sponsored ship allegedly headed for the Gaza Strip, despite lingering criticism over the handling of the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla on May 31 in which nine people were killed, military sources told Haaretz yesterday. An internal military probe into the incident released yesterday found only professional mistakes in planning and carrying out the operation against the Mavi Marmara. The Libyan ship could come within range of the Gaza-shore tonight, but at this stage it is still unclear whether its captain will opt to head for the Sinai port of El Arish, where it will instead aim for Gaza. In its official log the ship has El Arish as its destination.

Three separate explosions have rocked the Ugandan capital of Kampala, killing dozens of people who were packed into restaurants and clubs to watch the World Cup football final. The number of those killed in the deadly blasts has reached 74, AFP quoted a government official as saying on Monday. "The latest official count is 74 confirmed dead," Fred Opolot said. Earlier, officials said 64 people were killed when two blasts took place at an Ethiopian restaurant in the south of the capital and another at a rugby sports club in the east of Kampala, on Sunday. A senior police official who did not wish to be named said that 64 people had been killed, 49 at the rugby club and 15 at the Ethiopian restaurant, Foxnews reported. Joann Lockard, spokesperson for the US embassy in Kampala confirmed that one American national was killed in the blast in the restaurant and several others were wounded.

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) said Sunday that the best way to handle the Libyan ship on its way to Gaza with “humanitarian” supplies was to sink it. The ship, he said, was “a threat to Israel's independence. In order to prevent a flood of hundreds of ships and thousands of refugees gathering on our borders, the ship must be sunk. Only thus will these people realize how 'crazy' we are about how we defend our rights. The damage will be short-term, but the benefit will be long-term,” he said. AWIP: Israel warns Gaza-bound Libyan aid ship.

At least 64 people died in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in two bomb attacks suspected to have been carried out by Somali Islamist insurgents, Ugandan security officials said. The explosions occurred at bars in the south and east of the city where crowds of football fans were watching the soccer World Cup finals, Agence France-Presse reported, citing police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba. At least 67 people were injured. Al-Shabaab is accused by the U.S. of having links to al- Qaeda. The rebel group has been battling Somalia’s Western- backed government since 2007 for control of the Horn of Africa country. An American citizen was among those killed in yesterday’s blasts, Joann Lockard, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, said in a phone interview. “There were Americans injured, but I don’t have any details,” she said. More information will be released later today, Lockard said.

Israel has issued a warning against a Libyan aid ship en route to the Gaza Strip as part of its bid to hinder pro-Palestinian relief efforts. Tel Aviv lied, saying allowing the ship to go ahead with its mission will have serious consequences for "Israel's security," [nonsense] adding that it will stop [attack] the Libyan aid vessel from entering the impoverished enclave. Al Jazeer/You Tube: New aid ship leaves for Gaza.

Egyptian archaeologists unveiled on Thursday two rock-hewn painted tombs belonging to a man who had a supervising role in the construction of pyramids -- and his son. It's considered among the most distinguished Old Kingdom tombs. Dating from around 4,300 years old, the burials feature vividly colored wall paintings -- as fresh as if they were just painted. They were found in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo by an Egyptian team working in the area since 1986. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the leader of the excavation, said that the tombs belonged to a father, Shendwa, and his son, Khonsu. Consisting of a false door with paintings depicting scenes of the deceased seated before an offering table, Shendwa’s tomb featured inscriptions with the different titles of the tomb’s owner. According to the inscriptions, Shendwa was a top governmental official during the Sixth Dynasty (2374-2191 B.C.). He was the head of the royal scribes and the supervisor of the missions managing the materials used for pyramid construction. Beneath the false door, 20 meters below the ground level, the archaeologists found the burial chamber. “When Dr. Hawass descended into the tomb he realized that it was intact and had not previously been plundered by tomb robbers. Unfortunately Shendwa’s wooden sarcophagus had disintegrated due to humidity and erosion,” Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

The theft of fish from Western Saharan waters should be damned by the European commission, not encouraged. There is one surefire way of allowing the internet to damage your sanity: spend too much time reading politicians' blogs. Take a recent post from Maria Damanaki, whose career has taken her from agitating against the Greek dictatorship in the 1970s to being the European commissioner for fisheries today. "Blue should become green," she declared in her blog on EU efforts to lessen the ecological destruction wrought by illegal fishing. Those efforts might have some credibility if the Brussels bureaucracy was not actively encouraging European vessels to act unlawfully in the waters off Western Sahara.

Egypt has destroyed hundreds of Palestinian tunnels across its border with the Gaza Strip as part of the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the enclave. Egyptian authorities on Sunday announced that they have destroyed some 400 tunnels since the beginning of 2010 to counter what it alleges to be smuggling of goods and weapons, Ma'an news agency reported. This is while years of a crippling Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip has left its impoverished people with a network of cross-border underground tunnels as the last resort to push their basic needs into the territory.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — The photographs have spread online and in the press: a before-and-after montage showing a handsome young man smiling in a gray hoodie on one side and a battered and bloodied corpse on the other. His eyes are rolled back in his head, mouth agape and his lower lip ripped half off his face. His name was Khaled Said, age 28. His murder on June 6 — allegedly at the hands of undercover police — is causing a political uproar that has brought thousands into the streets here in recent weeks to demand justice for the man now known as “the emergency law martyr.” His death is Egypt’s latest — and largest — rallying cry for critics of 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak, the country’s feared security services and the state of emergency that has granted both near limitless power since 1981.

Egypt allowed at least one Israeli and 11 American warships to pass through the Suez Canal as an Iranian flotilla approaches Gaza. Egypt closed the canal to protect the ships with thousands of soldiers, according to the British-based Arabic language newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi. One day prior to the report on Saturday, Voice of Israel government radio reported that the Egyptian government denied an Israeli request not to allow the Iranian flotilla to use the Suez Canal to reach Gaza, in violation of the Israeli sea embargo on the Hamas-controlled area. International agreements require Egypt to keep the Suez open even for warships, but the armada, led by the USS Truman with 5,000 sailors and marines, was the largest in years. Egypt closed the canal to fishing and other boats as the armada moved through the strategic passageway that connects the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Despite Egypt’s reported refusal to block the canal to Iranian boats, the clearance for the American-Israeli fleet may be a warning to Iran it may face military opposition if the Iranian Red Crescent ship continues on course to Gaza. AWIP: Report: US battleships cross Suez Canal.

AWIP/Kurt Nimmo: Most Americans and Europeans Support Impending Attack on Iran. Naturally Americans are more susceptible to neocon propaganda than other people around the world. In America, a sucker is born every minute, as P. T. Barnum said (actually it was “Paper Collar Joe” Bessimer who made the cynical comment). “Americans are among the most supportive of a military option to deal with Iran with 66 per cent of those who oppose a nuclear-armed Iran saying they would consider the use of force, a figure second only to Nigeria’s 71 per cent.” No explanation why Nigerians are more brain-dead than Americans who spend large periods of time sucking up fallacious and absurd propaganda disseminated by a corporate media that works hand-in-glove with transnational corporations and the military-industrial complex, or maybe that should be military-industrial-media complex.

An Egyptian security official declared the blockade of Gaza a failure Monday and said his country will keep its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely. Keeping that crossing point open long term would ease the blockade imposed by Israel three years ago to isolate and punish Gaza's Hamas rulers. It also restores a link to the outside the world for some of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians. Egypt opened its border with Gaza soon after Israel's deadly raid on an international flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade a week ago. Israel has not publicly protested the Egyptian move, but officials declined to comment Monday. In another escalation of the tension off Gaza's shores, Israeli naval forces shot and killed four men wearing wet suits off the coast on Monday, and the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said they were members of its marine unit training for a mission.

In 1995, at a trial that resulted in his conviction and execution, the Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa vowed that the oil giant Shell would one day be brought to justice. That day is looming large as a New York court prepares for a trial in which the oil giant Shell stands accused of crimes against humanity over its activities in the oil-rich Niger Delta of southern Nigeria.

Kenya's Islamic courts are illegal and discriminatory, a panel of judges has ruled. The three judges said the Islamic "Kadhi" courts favoured Islam over other faiths, and that this was unconstitutional as Kenya was a secular country. The issue of Islamic courts has been a contentious point in the country's new proposed constitution. It is due to go to a referendum in August. Indian Express: Grant death for blasphemy: Islamists to UN.

Documents reveal how then-defence minister Shimon Perez tried to sell South Africa's apartheid government the bomb. AWIP: Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. Juan Cole: Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors.

● Declassified memo from General RF Armstrong
● Minutes of third ISSA meeting, 30/6/1975
● Minutes from further ISSA meeting
● Israel-South Africa agreement
● Letter from Shimon Peres, 11/11/1974

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons. The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret. Al Jazeera: 'Israeli nuclear offer to S Africa'.

ABC News: Israel 'tried to sell nuclear weapons': If Obama & Co. were serious about a sustained process of nuclear diminution, an early part of that process has to be an Israel that comes out of the closet, and in the process of doing that, says yes, we've got the bomb.

The Guardian: Israel and apartheid: a marriage of convenience and military might: For years after its birth, Israel was publicly critical of apartheid and sought to build alliances with the newly independent African states through the 1960s. But after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, African governments increasingly came to look on the Jewish state as another colonialist power. The government in Jerusalem cast around for new allies and found one in Pretoria. For a start, South Africa was already providing the yellowcake essential for building a nuclear weapon. By 1976, the relationship had changed so profoundly that South Africa's prime minister, John Vorster, could not only make a visit to Jerusalem but accompany Israel's two most important leaders, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, to the city's Holocaust memorial to mourn the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. Neither Israeli appears to have been disturbed by the fact that Vorster had been an open supporter of Hitler, a member of South Africa's fascist and violently antisemitic Ossewabrandwag and that he was interned during the war as a Nazi sympathiser. Rabin hailed Vorster as a force for freedom and at a banquet toasted "the ideals shared by Israel and South Africa: the hopes for justice and peaceful coexistence".

A man whose same-sex "marriage" has become a symbol of the struggle for gay rights in Africa has vowed to become a martyr rather than give in to homophobia, campaigners say. Tiwonge Chimbalanga and his partner Steven Monjeza are facing a possible 14 years in prison with hard labour after becoming the first gay couple in Malawi to declare their commitment in a public ceremony.

''The rebel leader asked me two things: 'Do you want us to be your husband? Or do you want us to rape you?'" -Congolese mother-of-eight Clementine speaks in a quiet and hesitant voice: "I chose to be raped." She explains: "I told myself, if I tell them that I want to be their wife, they will kill my husband. I didn't want my children growing up saying the one that made our father die is our mother." But that sacrifice was not enough. Her husband left her for another woman. "After they raped me, my husband hated me. He said I was dirty. I often ask myself: 'Surely, I gave up my dignity for him, how come he can abandon me this way?'" Asian Human Rights Commission: PAKISTAN: A girl of 14 year was gang raped to take revenge from her father for nominating accused persons in a theft case.

GAZA CITY: A Palestinian fisherman was killed his boat collided with an Egyptian security vessel off southern Gaza at dawn on Wednesday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said. According to reports, the fisherman’s 19-year-old son Ahmad and another three fishermen who were also on the boat suffered light injuries in what they said was a deliberate attempt to ram them by the Egyptian naval vessel.

Up to 104 people have been killed in a plane crash in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Libya's Afriqiyah Airways said its Airbus-330 arriving from South Africa was coming in to land when it crashed on Wednesday morning. The airline said 93 passengers and 11 crew were on board the plane.

Libyan state television showed footage of a large field scattered with small and large pieces of plane debris and dozens of police and rescue workers with surgical masks and gloves, some of them carrying at least one body away. "All of the passengers and crew died except one child, " a Libyan security official at the airport said. The survivor was said to be an eight-year-old boy with Dutch nationality.

Africa’s newest architectural miracle is a gigantic stadium in the earthy colours and shape of a calabash, the traditional cooking pot that symbolizes African village life. At night, on the Soweto horizon, it glows like the embers of a slumbering fire, waiting to be stirred into life. On June 11, the embers will awaken. Nearly 90,000 people will crowd into Africa’s biggest stadium, known as Soccer City, for the opening ceremonies of the World Cup, the most popular sporting event on the planet, held on African soil for the first time ever.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The taxi drivers hustling around the bars on Long Street in Cape Town say they are ready for all the soccer fans that will flood the city in June for the World Cup. So are hotels, restaurants, breweries and, inevitably, prostitutes. Arguably, the soccer World Cup is to the sex industry what the holiday season is to candy shops. A temporary surge of excited people feeling collectively festive, willing to pay for a bit of extra indulgence. South Africa's Drug Central Authority estimates 40,000 sex workers will trickle in for the event from as far as Russia, the Congo and Nigeria to cater to the wide taste spectrum of some 400,000, mostly male, visitors and their apres-soccer needs.

Countries most likely to be subject of a US invasion in 2010

Russia probably killed all 10 pirates they arrested.

The Hamas Interior Ministry later said in a statement the gas used to try to clear the tunnel was poisonous. Besides those killed, six people were injured, it said. "This is a terrible crime committed by Egyptian security against simple Palestinian workers who were trying to earn their daily bread," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum to The Associated Press. "It was a killing in cold blood. Hamas and all the Palestinian people condemn it strongly." PressTV: Hamas: Egypt kills Gazans with gas.

A senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has held Egypt responsible for the death of four Palestinians killed in a border tunnel and has demanded for an impartial investigation. Speaking at a press conference in Gaza on Thursday, Abu Zuhri strongly condemned Cairo's application of gas against Palestinian citizens. The Hamas official also demanded Egypt to conduct an immediate probe into the incident and to prosecute the perpetrators, the International Middle East Media Center reported. "This is not the first time Egypt launches poison gas attacks against tunnel workers. At least 40 tunnel workers have been poisoned by toxic gasses since the siege on Gaza began. A total of 145 have lost their lives in various events," Abu Zuhri pointed out.

Four Palestinians were killed and another 10 injured after Egyptian security forces blew up four tunnels under the border with Gaza. The Palestinian police blame the Egyptian security forces for killing the Palestinians by destroying the tunnels while they were working in them, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Egyptian security officials have admitted they destroyed four tunnels north of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Three people died of smoke inhalation and a fourth died due to injuries received from flying debris. Palestinians have largely relied on the tunnels for importing food and other vital assistance into the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a tight blockade on the coastal enclave after Hamas took control of the region in June 2007.

The American media says little or nothing about the genocide in South Africa because it's black against white, so it's politically incorrect to notice. The genocide of white South Africans is heating up. Last week, South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) finally told its members to stop singing the song "Kill the Boer" -- that is, murder white South Africans. ("Boer" is Afrikaans for "farmer," but colloquially, it is a disparaging term for any white South African.) This came after ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema defied a court ruling and kept singing the song (he still refuses to stop), and after Eugene Terreblanche, leader of the noxious and hateful neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), was found savagely bludgeoned to death at his farm in South Africa's North West province.

Researchers say they've found the most religious place on Earth--between the southern border of the Sahara Desert and the tip of South Africa. Religion is "very important" to more than three-quarters of the population in 17 of 19 sub-Saharan nations, according to a new survey. In contrast, in the United States, the world's most religious industrialized nation, 57 percent of people say religion is very important.

At least 19 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in an outburst of fighting in the divided Somali capital Mogadishu. Thirteen people died when African Union peacekeepers and government forces hit back after a militant attack on a military ceremony. Reports say the AU forces used heavy artillery in densely populated areas in what was the worst shelling in months. Another six people were killed by roadside bombs near Mogadishu airport.

"It was indiscriminate shelling," Ali Muse, head of Mogadishu's ambulance services, told AFP news agency. "Our teams collected the bodies of 16 civilians, while 55 others were injured in the shelling. Several children are among the dead." The shelling started in the afternoon when Islamist fighters fired mortars at the presidential palace and airport during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the country's national army. Government troops backed by the AU reportedly responded with heavy artillery fire.

On April 7 the United Nations began its annual commemoration of the anniversary of what we know as the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, when as many as one million Rwandans were slaughtered in 100 days. The ceremonies raise several questions for all those who contest the received history of the Rwanda Genocide: How to honor Rwanda’s dead without honoring the lies? And, how to honor six million more Congolese dead, but not commemorated, in the ongoing aftermath of the Rwanda Genocide when Rwanda’s war crossed its western border into neighboring D.R. Congo?

Baton-wielding Egyptian police have broken up a pro-democracy demonstration in Cairo. Riot police beat and dragged protestors away from outside the upper house of Parliament, put them in trucks and took dozens away. Demonstrations are illegal under Egypt's stern "emergency laws", which have been in place for 30 years. The protesters were calling for a change to the constitution that they say would make elections more fair.

The man known throughout South African for his distinctive two-hands-in-the-air (like he jus' don' care) stance, white supremacist, Eugene Terreblanche, died today.

A photo exhibition showcasing gory pictures of victims of violence in the country’s 2008 elections was confiscated by the police, later returned to the organizers after they secured a court order and then hidden when the police threatened a second raid. The police wanted to see written permission from everybody featured in the 65 pictures. In the midst of this tussle, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formally opened the exhibit. A photo of him with a swollen face after a savage beating at a police station in March 2007 formed part of the display. Tsvangirai, who had instructed the minister responsible for the police to uphold the court order and return the pictures, said he felt sorrow not anger when he heard of the attempt to stifle the display.

What is the current meaning of "War against Terror” for Africa? The true intention of America's recent military interventions in the African continent (both covert and open) is nothing other than the expansion and consolidation of Western capital. It all started in 2001 when George W. Bush declared his "War on Terror" in the continent, but has developed in a manner that has gone beyond human imagination in the body counts on the streets of Somalia, in the jungles of Uganda and Congo, and deserts of Sudan.

Thousands of homeless people are being forced off the streets of South Africa to hide the scale of poverty there from World Cup fans. More than 800 tramps, beggars and street children have already been removed from Johannesburg and sent to remote settlements hundreds of miles away. And in Cape Town, where England face Algeria on June 18, up to 300 have been moved to Blikkiesdorp camp where 1,450 families are crammed in a settlement of tin huts designed for just 650 people.

The Lord's Resistance Army killed about 300 people and kidnapped 250 more in a rampage in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, according to an international rights group and the UN. The previously undocumented massacre, undertaken over four-days in the remote Makombo area of DRC's northeastern Haute Uele district, was highlighted in reports by Human Rights Watch and the UN on Sunday. The killings of 321 civilians occurred between December 14 and 17, HRW said in a reportafter documenting the deaths in a visit to the region in February.

A battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo, and 2 crocodiles at a watering hole in South Africa's Kruger National Park while on safari.

Nigerian police say they have arrested 164 people in connection with recent clashes near the central city of Jos, charging 41 with terrorism and homicide offenses. The Police added that only two of the 164 suspects will appear as prosecution witnesses while 121 are to be charged with multiple offences, including unlawful possession of firearms, rioting, and arson. Authorities say 500 people were killed in the March 7 massacre in Dogo Nahawa village, but the exact cause of the violence are still unknown and subject to various speculations.

The world’s oldest extant military bloc (formed 61 years ago) and the largest in history (twenty eight full members and as many partners on five continents), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, counts among its major member states all of Africa’s former colonial powers: Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium. With the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union nearly twenty years ago, the major Western powers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, united under the aegis of NATO, saw that as with the Balkans and the former republics of the Soviet Union itself, Africa was now wide open for penetration and domination.

A Nigerian man on hunger strike has died on the tarmac at Zurich airport after Swiss authorities tried to deport him using a special flight to deport asylum seekers. Switzerland has since halted the use of special flights to deport asylum seekers following the unfortunate incident.

Jos has been ravaged by sectarian violence, with hundreds killed and thrown into mass graves. Daniel Howden, the first British newspaper journalist to visit the Nigerian town since the massacre, hears the survivors' stories.

About 200 people have been arrested and 49 charged with murder after massacres at three Christian villages at the weekend, police in Nigeria said yesterday. The announcement came as more details emerged of the violent outburst in the central Plateau state whose capital, Jos, lies at the faultline between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south.

Reports continue to come in since the weekend that US surveillance drones have been flying overhead in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, providing intelligence to the self-proclaimed government that soon hopes to launch a major attack across the city. Global Research: Decade Of The Drone: America’s Aerial Assassins.

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens. "We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less. There will be more conflict and political instability and cultures will be uprooted. The small farmers of Africa are the basis of food security. The food availability of the planet will decline."

Much of the violence in the early hours of Sunday was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, near the northern city of Jos, where a journalist counted a total of 103 bodies amid the smouldering embers. Another 18 bodies were counted at the morgue in Jos city -- the scene of inter-religious riots in January which left several hundreds dead. "There has been an attack on Dogo Nahawa. Over a hundred people have been killed -- most of them women and children," said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Some of the children are less than one year old," he added. BBC: Nigeria religious clashes 'kill 500' near Jos. Reuters: Muslims Attack Christian Village, 300 Hacked to Death Including Women and Children With Machetes.

The Lemba people are easy to distinguish from most other Zimbabweans - they wear skull caps, pray in a language which is a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, and put the Star of David on their gravestones. Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago. It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their Semitic origin.

Tony Baldry MP has set libel lawyers Olswang on British bloggers who have had the temerity to refer to this extremely interesting article from Sahara Reporters. Olswang state that Baldry has been hired as a QC to defend the truly horrible James Ibori on charges of money laundering. Ibori was Governor of Delta State in Nigeria, scene of appalling environmental devastation, dreadful human rights abuse, and massive corruption from the oil industry. Ibori chose to launder millions of pounds of his looted wealth through London. The Nigerian government refused to extradite him to the UK, but family and associates of his in London face money laundering charges.

FROM THE LOONY BIN: Libya slapped a trade embargo on Switzerland on Wednesday and demanded an apology for caustic U.S. comments about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's call for a jihad, or armed struggle, against the European state. The announcements, reported by the state news agency Jana, marked an escalation of a dispute between Libya and Switzerland and showed the sensitivity of Tripoli's ties with the West more than six years after its decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction led to a rapprochement with the United States. Reuters: U.S. stops short of offering apology to Libya. AfricaNews: Libyan leader dictator Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland.

Extradition 'unlikely'
French police have arrested Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of Rwanda's assassinated former president, who is wanted in her home country in connection with genocide charges. The authorities made the arrest at Habyarimana's home in Paris on Tuesday, but later freed her on bail. Her detention comes just a week after Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, visited Rwanda where he admitted that Paris had made serious errors of judgement over the 1994 genocide. Rwandan authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Agathe Habyarimana last year, calling on France to pursue genocide suspects living there.

Rwandan authorities welcomed the arrest, with Tharcisse Karugarama, Rwanda's justice minister, saying: "At long last the long arm of the law is finally taking its course." Agathe Habyarimana has steadfastly denied involvement in the genocide. The death of her husband, Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwanda's former president, in April 1994 when his aeroplane was shot down, marked the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. In less than 100 days, 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsis, while most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus. Agathe Habyarimana left Rwanda three days after her husband died and moved to France, but Rwandan authorities are convinced she played a key role in plotting the killings. WikiPedia: Hutu Power. Rwanda Development Gateway: Habyarimana’s wife bailed out of court.

Libyan leader dictator Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland, as an ongoing diplomatic row between the two nations heats up. He criticised a recent Swiss vote against the building of minarets and said Muslims must boycott the country. A Swiss foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the jihad call.

Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has called for a jihad or armed struggle against Switzerland branding it an "infidel state". Libya's relations with Switzerland broke down in 2008 when one of Colonel Gaddafi's sons, Hannibal, was arrested in a Geneva hotel and charged with assaulting a member of his staff. He was detained for two days before being released, but in protest Libya cut oil supplies to Switzerland, withdrew billions of dollars from Swiss bank accounts and arrested two Swiss businessmen working in the North African country.

Tensions had been high in the west African uranium exporter since Tandja changed the constitution to extend his rule last year, a move that drew widespread criticism at home and led to international sanctions. Mutinous troops led by an army colonel captured Niger's President Mamadou Tandja after a gun battle on Thursday, and said they were suspending the constitution and dissolving all political institutions. Google/PressAssociation: Niger junta names leader after coup. University of Texas: Big Man Disease Killing Africa. Yahoo: Niger government says 2.7 million face hunger.

The number of women raped in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where sexual violence committed by warring factions has reached endemic proportions, topped 8,000 last year, according to fresh estimates released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) today.

Some of the continent's leaders used the US financial system to protect millions of dollars. Several African leaders, their relatives and associates used Western banks, including British ones, to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of their countries and into accounts and companies they controlled, according to a US Senate report released late last week.

Here are two examples of people who could be put to death. ►Someone who has gay sex once and doesn’t turn his partner in to the authorities. ►A straight person who doesn’t turn in a gay friend after hearing about about a couple romantic evenings. You don’t have be gay to be executed under this bill.

Tunisia has become the most electrified country in Africa according to a recent report on "Powering Africa" published by African Business. Tunisia which is credited with an electrification rate of 99% comes ahead of Algeria, 98%, Egypt 98%, Libya 97%, Mauritius 94%, Morocco 85% and South Africa 70%.

The Senate, on Wednesday, asked the federal government and security agencies to bring an end to the carnage in Jos, the capital of Plateau State. The senate passed the resolution following a motion brought before it by the three senators from Plateau State and about 20 other senators. The senators condemned the recent crises in Jos and blamed its persistence on the inability of governments to punish perpetrators. Fresh hostilities erupted on Sunday in Jos North local government area following disagreements among diverse ethnic factions. The police have, however, described the latest hostilities as reprisal attacks following the violence that erupted in November 2008. The senate also ordered the federal government to investigate how fake military uniforms and sophisticated military hardware were in the possession of suspects and also assess the effectiveness of intelligence networking among the various security agencies in Jos. This Day: Senate Rejects Emergency Rule, Curfew Relaxed.