Africa Theater

Eritrea's Jews: down to one

We wonder how he feels to be briefly on the Reuters wire April 30?

Eritrea's last native Jew tends graves, remembers
58-year-old Sami Cohen has fond memories of friends, parents and families in the Horn of Africa. Now there's little left, apart from an empty synagogue

Tending graves knee-deep in dry grass and purple flowers, Eritrea's last native Jew clutches memories of a forgotten community.

Niger Delta insurgents escalate tactics

From Newsday, April 23:

LAGOS - A militant group that has been attacking Nigeria's oil pipelines and helping to drive up world oil prices added a new tactic last week by detonating a car bomb in a major oil city to publicize its standing threat to shut down the country's entire crude output.

Nigeria: more religious violence

Still hailing the cartoon protests as heroic anti-imperialism? From AP, Feb. 21:

Christian and Muslim mobs rampaged through two Nigerian cities Tuesday, killing at least 24 people in violence that followed deadly protests against caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed during the weekend.

Northern Nigeria explodes

The Niger Delta, in Nigeria's south, has long been beset by ethnic struggles over distribution of the region's oil wealth. Now the north, where Muslim-Christian tensions have long simmered, is boiling over—ostensibly over the cartoon controversy, but one wonders what local Nigerian Christians have to do with Danish cartoonists.

Niger Delta militia warns of "total war"

A new adittion to the alphabet soup of armed rebel groups in Africa's most oil-rich region: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). From the BBC, Feb. 17:

A Nigerian militant commander in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta has told the BBC his group is declaring "total war" on all foreign oil interests.

Eritreans march in DC for border demarcation

From Africa News Dimension, Feb. 15:

Around 10,000 Eritrean-Americans marched from the White House to the Department of State in Washington , DC to urge the U.S. government to ensure the enforcement of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's (EEBC) "final and binding" decision to demarcate the border between the two countries.

Protein wars in Somalia

From Reuters, Feb. 14:

Militias in Somalia are looting shipments of aid for drought victims and forcing aid drivers to pay bribes, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Ethiopia: police attack Epiphany processions

At least 16 people were injured Jan. 20 as Ethiopian police cracked down on opposition protests in the capital, Addis Ababa, on the second and final day of celebrations marking Timkat, the Epiphany festival of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Demonstrators joined up with religious processions around the city, and were attacked by police, who charged with truncheons. (South Africa Mail & Guardian, Jan. 20)

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