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Africa
6 posts
As you have probably already heard Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95. I am not going to try and give you a full biography of his amazing life and career, I will leave that to the proper biographers. Instead, I will just give you a few thoughts from a person who is an ordinary, sometimes activist who is blessed enough to be surrounded by good people who want to make the world a better place. Continue reading
Escape the wild politics of human civilization with these live animal cameras direct from Africa.
It was announced today that the Obama administration has authorized the deployment of 100 US troops to capture the leader of Ugandan guerrilla group the Lord’s Resistance Army. In a letter to Congressional leaders Obama noted that the troops would not engage in wide scale operations against the LRA, but rather would be tasked with finding Joesph Kony. Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Continue reading
Gawker has an article today about three women who were arrested in Zimbabwe for alleged sexual assault and were found to have 31 condoms – “some with semen” – stashed in a boyfriend’s car. The author appears entirely baffled as to the nature of the crime, but her description of the press coverage as “slightly witch-hunty” is more accurate than she may realize.
Ritualistic sexual assault is actually just one particularly disturbing aspect of the larger phenomenon of witchraft and ostensibly magical practices that are commonly referred to as “juju” and remain widespread even in relatively developed and educated nations such as Zimbabwe. According to a recent study, sperm (in addition to blood, hair, and worse things) is collected for ritual purposes, often by force: Continue reading
The UN announced today that due to the massive news surplus in the first seven months of 2011, no more events will be permitted, anywhere in the world, for the rest of the year.
A spokesperson from the UN said today that the General Assembly have voted to ban all newsworthy happenings for the rest of the year; “After the horror of the Japanese tsunami, the roller-coaster ride of the Arab Spring and the global recession and debt crises, we were already emotionally shattered. Now after the shocking events in Norway and the spectre of famine hanging over the Horn of Africa we give up. 2011 is full; there will be no further events until 2012”.
This move was welcomed by journalists all over the globe; Continue reading