Africa

2010-2012 Somalia famine ‘killed 260,000 people’

by BBC News May 2, 2013

Nearly 260,000 people died during the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012, a study shows. Half of them were children under the age of five, says the report by the UN and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net). ...

Pentagon deploys small number of troops to war-torn Mali

by Craig Whitlock Washington Post April 30, 2013

The Pentagon has deployed a small number of troops to Mali to support allied forces fighting there, despite repeated pledges by the Obama administration not to put “boots on the ground” in the war-torn African country....

Women and children in front of burned houses in Baga, Nigeria, after as many as 200 civilians were killed in an assault that survivors blamed on soldiers. Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Massacre in Nigeria spurs outcry over military tactics

by Adam Nossiter New York Times April 29, 2013

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Days later, the survivors’ faces tensed at the memory of the grim evening: soldiers dousing thatched-roof homes with gasoline, setting them on fire and shooting residents when they tried to flee. As the village went up in smoke, one said, a soldier threw a child back into th...

Donald R. Hopkins: Guinea Worm Slayer: Dr. Donald R. Hopkins reflects on how the prejudice he experienced growing up in the American South helped him communicate with the rural villages most affected by Guinea worm disease. Photo: New York Times

Another scourge in his sights: guinea worm

by Donald G McNeil Jr New York Times April 22, 2013

CHICAGO — In his home office, Dr. Donald R. Hopkins has statues of the Hindu smallpox goddess and the Yoruba smallpox god. And, floating coiled up in a glass jar, something that looks like a yardlong strand of capellini but is actually one of the last Guinea worms on earth....

President is said to flee as rebels seize capital of the the Central African Republic

by Adam Nossiter New York Times March 24, 2013

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Rebels entered Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, on Sunday morning, seizing control of the city in the culmination of a lengthy uprising in one of the world’s weakest and most impoverished states. The country’s president was reported to have fled....

Rosalie Rabodozafy stands in her family’s flourishing rice field. Sambiana, her village, was selectied as one of 14 Millennium Villages, where it was hoped that that a large injection of public investment and foreign aid could boost household incomes, improving savings and local investment.  Now the foreign aid is coming to an end.  Photo: Andreea Câmpeanu/IRIN

Madagascar’s Millennium Village goes it alone

by IRIN News March 22, 2013

A Millennium Village in Madagascar is learning to stand on its own as five years of support from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) come to an end this month. ...

Drone base in Niger gives US a strategic foothold in West Africa

by Craig Whitlock Washington Post March 21, 2013

NIAMEY, Niger — The newest outpost in the U.S. government’s empire of drone bases sits behind a razor-wire-topped wall outside this West African capital, blasted by 110-degree heat and the occasional sandstorm blowing from the Sahara....

Arrests, intimidation and no new Zimbabwe

by Nyarai Mudimu Inter Press Service March 21, 2013

Prominent Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa was arrested for allegedly obstructing the course of justice. She is pictured here exiting a police vehicle as she arrived at the Harare Magistrate’s Court on Mar. 20. Credit: Nyarai Mudimu/IPS ...

In Africa, corruption dirties the water

by Kenneth Odiwuor IRIN News March 14, 2013

Collusion among government officials, unscrupulous water vendors and large farm owners results in diverted water supply lines, misappropriated funds, and failure to implement laws on protecting water sources from encroachment and pollution. These are just some of the ways corruption is denying milli...

At Pentagon, ‘pivot to Asia’ becomes ‘shift to Africa’

by Craig Whitlock Washington Post March 14, 2013

In his first term, President Obama instructed the Pentagon to pivot its forces and reorient its strategy toward fast-growing Asia. Instead, the U.S. military finds itself drawn into a string of messy wars in another, much poorer part of the world: Africa....

  • World Hunger Education
    Service
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  • For the past 50 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
    • Educate the general public and target groups about the extent and causes of hunger and malnutrition in the United States and the world
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    • Facilitate communication and networking among those who are working for solutions
    • Promote individual and collective commitments to sustainable hunger solutions.