Puppies and Flowers

Few things exemplify the chaos of Liberia more than the sight of doped-up, AK-47-wielding 15-year-olds roaming the streets decked out in fright wigs and tattered wedding gowns. Indeed, some of the more fully accessorized soldiers in Charles Taylor's militia even tote dainty purses and don feather boas. Why did this practice begin and what is the logic behind it?

The cross-dressing combatants blipped onto the Western press's radar screen right around the time the Liberian Civil War started on Christmas Eve in 1989. During Taylor's rebel siege on Monrovia in the '90s, his band of dolled-up marauders—aka the National Patriotic Front of Liberia—put on one of the most disturbing horror shows the planet has ever seen. Between 1989 and 1997, 150,000 Liberians were murdered, countless others were mutilated, and 25,000 women and girls were raped. The NPFL's shock-and-awe antics were apparent from the very start of the conflict. In an essay in Liberian Studies Journal, an administrator at Cuttington University College tells a story of Taylor's forces storming the rural campus during the initial stages of the war in "wedding [dresses], wigs, commencement gowns from high schools and several forms of 'voodoo' regalia. … [They] believed they could not be killed in battle."

Found on Slate

Not to be confused with the post from last week.

(image: trunc) 

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan police are holding a Ghanaian preacher over a stage magic device they fear may dupe people into believing they have experienced miracles.

Customs officials seized the Electric Touch device -- which magicians use to give small electric shocks to volunteers -- from "Prophet" Obiri Yeboah at the airport last week, the state owned New Vision daily reported Tuesday.

The pastor heads one of many Pentecostal churches in Uganda, receiving large sums of money from congregations seeking miracle cures for diseases or help with financial problems.

The Electric Touch device is usually sold in magic shops alongside card tricks, magic coins and disappearing balls.

"With a simple touch, make a fluorescent bulb glow on and off at your command, make confetti move, charge a spoon and watch as it shocks a volunteer!" says one online magic shop selling the device.

"People could be duped to think it is a miracle," the New Vision quoted Civil Aviation Authority security chief Herman Owomugisha as saying.

Officials are worried about the proliferation of "miracle" churches in Uganda, many of which claim to cure HIV/AIDS.

Link to Reuters

(image: sheilaz413) 

Officials in Honduras are trying to solve the mystery of a woman believed to be from Africa who has been living at an airport there for over a month.

The woman, who says her name is Sara Williams and comes from Burkina Faso, told the BBC she was stranded after being robbed of her travel documents.

But Honduran authorities say they are baffled as there is no record of her entering the country on any airline.

Her case echoes that of an Iranian man stuck at Paris airport for years.

The story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was turned into a film starring Tom Hanks, and there have been several other documented cases of people "living" at airport terminals.

Ms Williams told the BBC's Spanish American Service that people were treating her well at the airport in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, and giving her money to buy food.

Link to BBC article

photo: Genocide Intervention

From Radar Online:

Cheadle, co-author of Not On Our Watch, about the genocide in Darfur, was recently called in to talk to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the issue. And he wasn't impressed.

"She wanted to tell me what the U.S. was doing," Cheadle said. "First she said, 'We're doing all we can, but it's not us, it's the United Nations. They're bogged down with red tape, and trying to push anything through just takes forever. The bureaucracy is almost insurmountable, and it's the United Nations, not the U.S.' And then she said, 'It's like when we had this crisis in Lebanon, I had to send someone down specifically to push through all of our legislation and make sure that everything moved through efficiently.' I'm thinking, I thought you had no control over the United Nations. But I didn't say that, 'cause I wanted to leave!" more

More information about the Sudan divestment movement.

photo: jlacpo 

From article:

“I do not use the word life-changing lightly,” Geldof said, adding that jatrophas curcas was the first solution that he had seen in his 23 years of involvement with African causes that offered Africans jobs, cash crops and economic power.  more

via Biofuel Worldwide 

previous biofuel post on P&F