Angry protests against rising food prices [2] in Burkina Faso [3] spread to the capital, Ouagadougou, Feb. 28, shutting the city down as young people burned tires and clashed with police. "The choice is to demonstrate or to die of hunger," a protester told the UN news agency IRIN. The unrest was sparked when the government announced that rather than lowering the price of basic goods as people were demanding, it would reduce taxes on imported goods. (IRIN via AllAfrica [4], Feb. 28)
See our last posts on Burkina Faso [5] and West Africa [6].