A provocative offering by Barbara A. Worley of the University of Massachusetts on the Tuareg Culture and News website, Feb. 20:

Some of the worst enemies of the Tuareg people are Westerners who make their livelihood by spreading fear and hatred for an entire population that they do not know.  Several days ago, USA Today published an article [Feb. 14] by a young American reporter who wrote that "Tuaregs have long kept slaves," and implied that Tuaregs are still "taking slaves" today and holding them captive.  This is incorrect.  The Tuaregs do not own slaves today, and do not capture people or hold them as slaves.  The reporter based her article largely on propaganda she heard from one individual in southern Mali. 

Under an agreement signed Jan. 30 in the port of Agadir, 1,400 US Marines and 900 Moroccan soldiers will join in April on the North African country's Atlantic coast for a training exercise dubbed "African Lion." The joint forces will land more than 200 vehicles at Agadir and advance with weapons and equipment 300 kilometers before returning to the starting point where they will disassemble the equipment for re-embarkation within 24 hours. The forces will deploy long-range missiles that can reach targets more than 60 kilometers away accurately—a first for an exercise involving Morocco.

More than 3,000 Tunisians, led by the father of assassinated opposition figure Chokri Belaid, marched through the capital Feb. 23 in a protest against the government's "slow" investigation into the slaying. The case has become a focal point for widespread grievances against the ruling Islamist party and the country's economic state. (AP, Feb. 23) Tunisian authorities say they have arrested an unspecified number of suspects in the killing, but Belaid's family says members of the ruling Ennahda party were behind the assassination, and are being protected. (Middle East Online, Feb. 21)

President Obama announced Feb. 22 that about 100 US troops have been mobilized to Niger to help set up a new base for supposedly unarmed Predator drones to conduct surveillance in the region. The new drone base is to be located for now in the capital, Niamey. The only permanent US base in Africa is in Djibouti, but Niamey may now constitute a second. (NYT, Feb. 22)  Also Feb. 22, Chad announced that 13 of its soldiers and 65 Islamist rebels were killed in a fierce battle in the mountain region of Adrar des Ifoghas, on Mali's border with Algeria. In other fighting that day, at Tessalit, on the edge of the mountains, two vehicles carrying civilians and members of the MNLA Tuareg rebel group exploded, killing three and wounding several others. (VOA, Feb. 22) A second car bomb attack in Khalil, on the Algerian border, left five MNLA fighters dead. (Reuters, France24, Feb. 22)

A new report highlighting Mexico's human rights crisis finds that security forces have taken part in many kidnappings and disappearances over the six-year term of President Felipe Calderón, with the government failing to investigate most cases. Despite some controversy over the numbers, an estimated 70,000 are believed to have met violent deaths under Calderón's militarized crackdown on the cartels. But the new report, released by Human Rights Watch Feb. 20, finds that on top of this figure, possibly more than 20,000 disappeared during Calderón's term. Many were abducted by narco gangs, but all state security forces—the military, federal and local police—are also accused in "the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades."

Residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa will appeal next week to Israel's Supreme Court to halt construction of a highway that is to divide the district, community activists said at a press conference Feb. 18. Work on the six-lane artery, an extension of the north-south Begin Expressway, is sparking opposition in Beit Safafa, a quiet, middle-class Arab neighborhood that lies among Jewish areas in southern Jerusalem. Aluminum walls along the construction site are covered in graffiti against the expressway, with slogans such as "Don't run over Beit Safafa." Said Mohannad Gbara, a lawyer for residents: "The road in its current format cannot go ahead. It would be a disaster for Beit Safafa."

Violence broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers on Feb. 21 during a rally in the West Bank near the town of Beitunia. At least 1,000 protesters were marching to Ofer Prison in support of four Palestinian inmates on a hunger strike. As Israeli forces obstructed the march protesters threw stones and burning tires, at which point the Israeli forces utilized rubber-coated bullets and tear gas to break up the crowd. At least 29 Palestinian protesters were injured in the incident. The recent clash is only one of many incidents in the last few days. There was a similar incident two days earlier in which Israeli soldiers used the same measures against protesters. The four inmates have been under administrative detention, which is renewable and permits detention for up to four months without charges. They have been protesting against such detention through hunger strikes. Among them are Tarek Qa'adan and Jafar Azzidine who have been on hunger strike for 78 days and Samer al-Issawi who has been on partial hunger strike for 200 days. A Jerusalem court on Feb. 19 rejected al-Issawi's request to be released on bail.

International human rights advocates have commended Colombia on the return of usurped lands to 32 displaced families in northwest Córdoba department. Human Rights Watch (HRW) which had previously been critical of the Victims' Law which includes the Land Restitution Law, hailed the occasion as "a major step." The ruling on Feb. 13 by a specialized land restitution tribunal, orders the return of approximately 164 hectares (405 acres) on the Santa Paula finca (plantation), outside the city of Montería. Persons linked to the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) forced out the 32 families and fraudulently titled their land between 1999 and 2002, according to the ruling—especially naming AUC founders Carlos and Vicente Castaño.