The Sudanese government charged Oct. 23 that Israeli airstrikes were responsible for explosions overnight at the Yarmouk Military Industrial Complex, an armaments plant in the south of the capital Khartoum. Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman said four Israeli warplanes struck the factory, causing a huge fire and killing two. The Israel Defense Forces said that the military "will not comment on the report"; while the Prime Minister's office refused to say anything at all. Israel's daily Haaretz cited "opposition sources" in Sudan as saying the Yarmouk complex belongs to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and is producing arms intended for use by Hamas. The account also claims that after the fall of Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi last year, the Revolutionary Guard's elite al-Quds Force succeeded in smuggling dozens of anti-aircraft and SA-24 missiles from the Libyan army's crumbling arsenals to Sudan, in order to later pass them on to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (BBC News, YNet, Haaretz, Oct. 24)

Gunmen attacked a mosque in a village in Dogo Dawa village in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state Oct. 14, killing 22 worshippers as they were leaving after prayers. Authorities called it an attack by a criminal band against followers of a vigilante group rather than sectarian violence. But that same day saw multiple attacks in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, including an armed assault on a church that killed a married couple and their child in the city Gwange area. In a separate incident, the traditional chief in Gwange, Mala Kaka, was gunned down in his home. Kaka was close to Umar Garbai el-Kanemi, a local cleric who was the intended target of a suicide blast in July. The suicide attack, attributed to Boko Haram, killed five but left Kanemi unharmed. (AFP, Oct. 15; Reuters, Oct. 14)

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Oct. 10 dismissed a lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame alleging he ordered the killings of the former presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. The lawsuit was filed by the widows of Juvenal Habyarimana, the former president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the former president of Burundi, who were killed when their plane was shot down on approach to Rwanda. The widows have alleged that Kagame ordered the attack, which was allegedly carried out by a rebel army in Rwanda. They sought $350 million in damages. In its decision, the court ruled that Kagame is immune from suit because he is the leader of a foreign state. The court's decision upholds a district court ruling finding the same and is consistent with a suggestion of immunity filed by the US government last year.

Four Nigerian residents and an advocacy group told a Dutch court on Oct. 11 that Shell should be held liable for damage from oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The suit, which was filed by the four villagers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands in 2008, is the first time a Dutch company has been sued for the alleged misconduct of its foreign subsidiary. Shell has maintained throughout the trial that the case should be heard in Nigeria and that the Dutch court does not have jurisdiction. Friends of the Earth Netherlands says that the case could set an international precedent encouraging victims of pollution by Western corporations to sue in the Netherlands and other nations in the EU, noting that there are hundreds of thousands of pollution victims in Nigeria alone. Shell argues that the pollution damage was caused by thieves who sabotaged the oil lines and that its local subsidiary fulfilled its duty in cleaning up the spills. A verdict in this case is expected by early 2013.

The Queen's Bench Division on the High Court of England and Wales ruled Oct. 5 that three elderly Kenyans can sue the British government for torture they suffered while in detention under the British colonial administration in the 1950s. Judge Richard McCombe ruled that the three Kenyans could claim damages against the British government for the harm they sustained at the hands of their captors during the Mau Mau uprising. The three claimants, who were not in court to hear the ruling, seek apologies from Britain and reparations in the form of welfare benefit funding for other Kenyan victims of colonial torture.

A string of bombings rocked Somalia's port of Kismayo Oct. 3, killing two civilians and injuring many more—five days after the city was taken from al-Shabaab rebels by a combined force of African Union and Somali government troops. The taking of the city followed a two-month siege, culminating in a Kenyan-led amphibious assault, dubbed Operation Sledgehammer. Al-Shabaab leader Abdiaziz Abu Musab stated that his agents had carried out the bombings, boasting that they would continue their fight "until doomsday." He called the withdrawal from Kismayo a "tactical retreat." Kismayo was the last city controlled by al-Shaabaab, but the group and allied Islamist militias still control a broad swath of Somalia's south. The official government has achieved a shaky control over Mogadishu, but the rest of the country (outside the autonomous Somaliland and Puntland regions in the north) is controlled by local militia—some backed by Kenyan or Ethiopian forces, some nominally loyal to the government, and more aligned with al-Shabaab. (Mareeg, Garowe Online, Oct. 3; PRI, Sept. 26)

We are heartened to learn that President Obama is staying away from the funeral of Ethiopia's late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose death was announced last week, instead sending a comparatively low-level delegation led by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. (Nazret, Sept. 2) This may indicate a long-overdue distancing of Washington from Meles' odious regime, which we fear may change little with his passing. Meles, who ruled (either as president or prime minister) since 1991, made himself very useful to Washington, "renditioning" terror suspects for brutal "interrogations" in his prisons, and even now providing a military proxy force in Somalia. After Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 (with a US "green light," and probably military advisors), Meles' forces were shortly accused of war crimes by international human rights groups. (NYT, Aug. 16, 2007) Yet this now gets virtually no play in the overwhelmingly and sickeningly favorable media coverage of his legacy—contrary to Julius Ceasar, the evil Meles did is being interred with his bones.

Another one to file under "Orwell would shit." From BBC News, Aug. 30:

Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine have been charged in court with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot by police.