Africa

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Red Cross: 16 Killed in Nigeria University Attack

Bayero University strike resembles assaults by Islamist sect

(Newser) - Gunmen attacked church services on a university campus today in northern Nigeria, using small explosives to draw out and gun down panicking worshipers in an assault that killed at least 16 people, officials said. The attackers targeted an old section of Bayero University's campus where religious groups use a...

Africa Sitting On Tons of ... Water?

Seemingly dry continent has vast groundwater reserves

(Newser) - Believe it or not, Africa is lousy with water—it's just mostly underground. British scientists have produced a new map of the groundwater hidden in aquifers under the arid continent, and found that there's about 100 times more water down there than there is on the surface, the...

Swede Minister Blasted for 'Racist Cake' Stunt

Controversial 'art' aimed to highlight genital mutilation

(Newser) - A Swedish culture minister is under attack for gleefully cutting into a cake made to look like a racist caricature of a black African woman. Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth defended the cake-cutting event, part of an art installation at Stockholm's modern art museum that was intended to highlight the issue...

Farmers Fight Elephants With Chili Peppers

Low-tech solution saves crops because elephants' noses very sensitive

(Newser) - With elephant populations finally on the rebound in eastern Africa, farmers are increasingly squaring off against the giant pachyderms, which can eat up to 660 pounds of food a day. Electric fences have been deemed too dangerous and expensive, so many farmers have started employing a much lower-tech solution to...

How Old Is That Giraffe? Check Its Spots

They get darker around the time of puberty

(Newser) - You can tell how old a male giraffe is by looking at its spots, according to a new study. Researchers looked at 33 years of data on Thornicroft giraffes in Zambia and discovered that the level of darkness of the animal's brown blotches reveals its age, reports BBC Nature...

Southern Africa Gets First Female Leader

Joyce Banda is Malawi's new president

(Newser) - A milestone for southern Africa today, by way of Malawi: Joyce Banda was sworn in as president to become the first female leader in the region, reports the BBC . Banda takes over from Bingu wa Mutharika, who died of a heart attack on Thursday but whose death was confirmed by...

Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Anti-Gay Law Is OK

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf spoke while Tony Blair squirmed

(Newser) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says gay sex should remain illegal: "We like ourselves just the way we are," she told the Guardian . "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve." Former British Prime...

Trump Sons Slammed for 'Desecrating' Elephant

Donald Jr., Eric shown posing with big game hunting kills

(Newser) - Donald Trump's sons went on a hunting safari in Africa last year, and thought it would be a good idea to pose in photo after photo with the animals they killed. Said photos surfaced yesterday, and not surprisingly, animal rights groups are outraged, TMZ reports. One picture in particular...

4 Dead, 40 Hurt in Kenya Attack

Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents blamed for grenade strike

(Newser) - A grenade attack at one of the main bus stations in Kenya's capital killed at least four people and wounded 40 others today, officials said, in the latest bloodshed blamed on sympathizers of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked insurgency. Witnesses reported that people in a moving car hurled three grenades at...

Amazing Race Producer Poisoned in Africa

Jeff Rice dead in Uganda following failed shakedown by thugs

(Newser) - An American Amazing Race producer was found dead of poisoning in an African hotel following a failed shakedown by local thugs, Fox News is reporting. Freelance producer Jeff Rice's assistant was also discovered critically ill from poisoning in the same Uganda hotel after the pair refused to comply with...

Ben Affleck Lends Star Power on African Atrocities

He and 'Washington Post' columnist hear tales of LRA brutalities

(Newser) - Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army have been terrorizing central Africa for years, "but the net around him tightens," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post . Gerson accompanied Ben Affleck, who founded the Eastern Congo Initiative , to the region to hear first-hand the tales of atrocities...

Bungee Cord Breaks Over Croc-Infested River

Australian tourist falls into African river on New Year's Eve

(Newser) - An Australian tourist plummeted 360 feet into crocodile-infested waters in Africa on New Year's Eve when her bungee cord broke, Channel 9 News reports. Plunging into the Zambesi River, which borders Zambia and Zimbabwe, Erin Langworthy, 22, blacked out for a moment before battling roaring water and a maddening...

Terror&#39;s New Home: Africa
 Terror's New Home: Africa 
Jan 8, 2012 9:01 AM CST

Terror's New Home: Africa

Islamist network stretches across continent, taking refuge in Sahara

(Newser) - On Christmas day, a car full of explosives plowed into a Catholic Church in Nigeria, killing dozens of people . A radical Muslim group named Boko Haram proudly claimed credit, saying it was trying to kill Christians. As recently as 2009, Boko Haram was a local Nigerian group, bloodily crafting a...

Activists: Coke Propping Up Swaziland Dictator

Huge Coca-Cola operation under fire

(Newser) - Swaziland's dictator keeps on going, thanks in part to support from Coca-Cola, activists are charging. King Mswati III has long been accused of human rights abuses and of looting the national treasury. Coca-Cola owns a large concentrate manufacturing plant in Swaziland, and has hosted trips by Mswati to its...

DNA Unlocks Secret of Early Humans

Homo sapiens may have gone to India first

(Newser) - Early humans may not have journeyed north out of Africa after all. Instead, DNA experts say, they built boats about 60,000 years ago and floated their way from East Africa over to India. That and other interesting tidbits are emerging from a DNA study called the Genographic Project, the...

Nigeria Declares Emergency After Attacks

It's battling radical sect Boko Haram

(Newser) - Nigeria's president today declared a state of emergency in parts of Africa's most populous nation, after a recent slew of deadly attacks blamed on a radical Muslim sect killed dozens of people. President Goodluck Jonathan declared an indefinite state of emergency in four states, which would all allow...

Gambians Get Out Their Voting Marbles

Mystic expected to win African nation's unique election

(Newser) - It's election time in the Gambia, and the west African nation's 800,000 voters are dropping their marbles. With the literacy rate under 50%, the country has adopted a unique voting system in which each voter drops a marble into one of three different colored drums representing presidential...

US Flying Armed Drones Out of Ethiopia Base

Ethiopia denies US presence, Air Force doesn't

(Newser) - Not only has the United States built a network of military drone bases in East Africa , it is flying its armed Reaper drones out of a base in southern Ethiopia on secret missions against al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups from Somalia to Yemen, reports the Washington Post . The Ethiopian government is denying...

Croc Takes on Elephant
 Croc Takes on Elephant 
Oct 19, 2011 1:40 AM CDT

Croc Takes on Elephant

Guess who wins

(Newser) - Don't mess with Dumbo—or Dumbo's mom. An adventurous croc found that out the hard way when he leaped up at an African water hole and grabbed a mama elephant's trunk. She hoisted the giant croc into the air, slammed him back in the water and stepped...

Malaria Deaths Plummet 20% Over Decade

Dozens of countries poised to eliminate disease

(Newser) - Countries across the globe are making giant strides against malaria, the World Health Organization says: The number of deaths from the disease has dropped more than 20% over the last 10 years, and a third of the 108 countries where the illness is endemic could be rid of it in...

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