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Scores dead in south Sudan cattle raid
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| The south Sudan government has accused Khartoum of aiding the rebels to destabilise the region [EPA] |
At least 82 people, including women and children, have been killed after a south Sudan rebel group attacked cattle herders, a southern army spokesperson has said.
Fighters under the leadership of Philip Bepan attacked southern troops of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in neighbouring Unity state on Saturday, Philip Aguer, SPLA spokesperson, told AFP news agency on Tuesday.
“They were chased away and went to Warrap state, where they attacked cattle camps on May 8, at a place called Balhom Weth. They killed 34 and wounded 45 civilians, including women and children,” he said.
“On the same day they were returning with the looted cattle, they were ambushed by the cattle herders. Forty-eight of the fighters Read more…
Disease hits wheat crops in Africa, Mideast
PARIS — Aggressive new strains of wheat rust disease have decimated up to 40 percent of harvests in some regions of north Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, researchers said Wednesday.
The countries most affected are Syria and Uzbekistan, with Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, Ethiopia and Kenya also hit hard, they reported at a scientific conference in Aleppo, Syria.
“These epidemics increase the price of food and pose a real threat to rural livelihoods and regional food security,” Mahmoud Solh, director general of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), said in a statement.
In some nations hit by the blight, wheat accounts for 50 percent of calorie intake, and 20 percent of protein nutrition.
“Wheat is the cornerstone for food security in many of these countries,” said Hans Braun, director of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), near Mexico City, singling out Syria.
“Looking at the political and social situation, what they don’t need is a food crisis,” he told AFP by phone.
Wheat rust is a fungal disease that attacks the stems, grains and especially the Read more…
African Pathogens Must Be Secured, Lugar Says
A senior U.S. senator highlighted the need to protect deadly pathogen samples housed in African laboratories from hostile actors who might seek to deploy them in a biological attack, Chemical & Engineering News reported on Monday (see GSN, Nov., 23, 2010).
During the Cold War, the former Soviet Union conducted research into the biowarfare uses of African-origin disease agents. While Russia has since shuttered that biological weapons effort, a number of those naturally occurring pathogens are sill being studied in facilities throughout Africa that often have limited defenses.
“Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are active in Africa, and it is imperative that deadly pathogens stored in labs there are secure. This is a threat we cannot ignore,” said Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a co-creator of the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative.
Lugar and a delegation of U.S. defense officials traveled last fall to Uganda and Kenya to assess security at biological research facilities that stored such deadly agents as Ebola and anthrax. While biodefense laboratories in the United States that work with similarly dangerous pathogens have advanced security measures in place, defenses at the African research institutes were more likely to consist of barbed wire, according to the magazine.
At a laboratory in Uganda’s capital, the U.S. delegation observed significant security vulnerabilities including a failure to track Read more…
World sea attacks surge with more violent pirates
AP
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Sea piracy worldwide hit a record high of 142 attacks in the first quarter this year as Somali pirates become more violent and aggressive, a global maritime watchdog said Thursday.
Nearly 70 percent or 97 of the attacks occurred off the coast of Somalia, up sharply from 35 in the same period last year, the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur said in a statement.
Attackers seized 18 vessels worldwide, including three big tankers, in the January-March period and captured 344 crew members, it said. Pirates also murdered seven crew members and injured 34 during the quarter.
“Figures for piracy and armed robbery at sea in the past three months are higher than we’ve ever recorded in the first quarter of any past year,” said the bureau’s director Pottengal Mukundan.
He said there was a “dramatic increase in the violence and techniques” used by Somali pirates to counter increased patrols by international navies, putting large tankers carrying oil and other flammable chemicals at highest risk to firearm attacks.
Of the 97 vessels attacked off Somalia, he said 37 were tankers including 20 with more than 100,000 deadweight tonnes.
International navies have taken a tougher stance against pirates, with the Indian navy alone arresting 120 mostly Somalian pirates over the past few months. The U.S. and other nations have also prosecuted suspects caught by their militaries, although some were released as countries weigh legal issues and other factors.
Mukundan said the positions of some of the attackers’ mother ships were known and called for stronger action to be taken against these mother ships to prevent further hijackings. Pirates held some 28 ships and nearly 600 hostages as of end-March, the bureau said.
Elsewhere, nine attacks were reported off Malaysia and five in Nigeria in the first quarter.
Ancient Human Metropolis Found in Africa
By Dan Eden for viewzone.
They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who made them — or why? Until just recently, no one even knew how many there were. Now they are everywhere — thousands — no, hundreds of thousands of them! And the story they tell is the most important story of humanity. But it’s one we might not be prepared to hear.
Something amazing has been discovered in an area of South Africa, about 150 miles inland, west of the port of Maputo. It is the remains of a huge metropolis that measures, in conservative estimates, about 1500 square miles. It’s part of an even larger community that is about 10,000 square miles and appears to have been constructed — are you ready — from 160,000 to 200,000 BCE!
The image [top of page] is a close-up view of just a few hundred meters of the landscape taken from google Read more…
Nigeria Christians Concerned Amid New Deadly Clashes
ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– Tensions remained high in Nigeria’s Plateau State Wednesday, February 16, where up to eight people were killed and more injured in sectarian clashes sparked by the stabbing of a police officer.
Witnesses said Tuesday’s violence in the city of Jos included a gang setting up a roadblock in one neighborhood, leading to up to four deaths. Others, including Christians, said up to four more people were murdered and their bodies set ablaze elsewhere, including in the Gada-Biu area.
There were also reports that tires, cars and motorcycles were burned as well.
Christians said the violence began after the police officer was stabbed to death when he Read more…
Police open fire in third day of South Africa protest
By Joshua Howat Berger
WESSELTON, South Africa — Police fired rubber bullets as protestors set alight tyres in a destitute South African township on Wednesday in a third day of demonstrations to demand jobs and improved services.
Riot police deployed into the streets of Wesselton, around 200 kilometres (124 miles) east of Johannesburg, to disperse protesters who also dragged the charred remains of Tuesday’s barricades back into the road.
However calm returned on the streets of the township after South African police commissioner Bheki Cele visited the area and warned residents that law enforcements officers will not tolerate any further violent protests.
“It is their constitutional right to participate in mass action without violence, if they do that then police can go home,” he told reporters.
“But it is not their right to burn tires, it is not their right to loot, it is not their right to injure and attack people. If they do that we (police) will respond accordingly. It looks for now we have agreed on that approach. I hope that approach stays that way.”
He said 160 police officers were deployed to Read more…
Biodefense Scientists Fight Lassa Fever
Scientists are at work in Sierra Leone studying the rat-carried Lassa fever with the aim of developing a speedy and uncomplicated process for diagnosing the virus in the event of a bioterrorism attack, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 23, 2010).
A laboratory in Sierra Leone’s southeast is conducting U.S.-funded research on Lassa fever, which is classified as a “category A” pathogen, a designation given to biological agents such as botulism and anthrax that can produce significant health threats.
The disease is found in a particular species of rat that is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and regularly consumed for Read more…
Pirates hijack $200 million crude oil: owners say Somali pirates dangerously disrupting world oil supplies
A supertanker carrying about $200m (£125m; 146m euros) worth of crude oil has been hijacked off the coast of Oman, the vessel’s Greek operator says.
Athens-based shipping company Enesel said they had lost communication with the Irene SL.
The 333m (1,093ft) vessel was on its way from the Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico when it was attacked.
Although the incident happened hundreds of miles from Somalia, pirate gangs are known to operate there.
A body representing the owners of much of the world’s tanker fleet warned that Read more…
Sudanese Student dies in Sudan clash
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| Sudanese riot police patrol the streets of Khartoum [AFP] |
A student who was beaten by police during violent anti-government demonstrations in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, has died of his wounds in Omdurman hospital, protesters have said.
“Mohammed Abdulrahman, from Ahlia University, died last night in Omdurman hospital as a result of his … wounds after he was beaten by police,” said an activist who took part in Sunday’s protests.
“This morning (Monday) both Ahlia University and the Islamic University of Omdurman have been closed by a government decision,” said the activist, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Two other students said Abdulrahman had fallen during the clashes and was taken to the hospital, where medics informed them that he had died early on Monday.
“Medical sources confirmed to us that the student died yesterday from his injuries inflicted by security forces,” said Yasir Arman, the top official in the north of south Sudan’s main party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Arman condemned the use of force and said the students were trying to hold peaceful demonstrations.
The Omdurman hospital morgue declined to Read more…
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