Racist attacks on black Africans - they're not just for Libyans.

Demonstrators have attacked African migrants in Tel Aviv in a protest against refugees and asylum-seekers that indicates an increasingly volatile mood in Israel over what it terms as "infiltrators".

Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament, told the crowd "the Sudanese are a cancer in our body". The vast majority of asylum-seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea.

Around 1,000 demonstrators took part in the demonstration on Wednesday night, waving signs saying: "Infiltrators, get out of our homes" and "Our streets are no longer safe for our children." A car containing Africans was attacked and shops serving the refugee community were looted. Seventeen people were arrested.

A reporter for the Israeli daily Maariv described it as an "unbridled rampage" and explosion of "pent-up rage".

Seems to me everyone in the North has it in for sub-Saharans. But I do wonder whether the Israeli bigots have a heirarchy of racism which ranks Arabs and black Africans on a scale of hateability. The bigots would doubtless complain that their hate is also about "infiltrators" taking jobs and causing crime. As Ta-Nehisi Coates notes today though, "Complicating racism with other factors doesn't make it any better. It just makes it racism. Again." That's as true in Israel as it is anywhere else.

May 21

ABC - Starting Wednesday, Egypt is holding its first free presidential election since it came under dictatorship 60 years ago. The winner will succeed Hosni Mubarak, one of four rulers toppled in the uprisings that began 18 months ago across the Middle East and became known as the Arab Spring. But replacing dictatorships with democracy is proving much harder. Here's where things stand:

Lesley Clark | Washington | May 18

McClatchy - President Barack Obama will announce an alliance Friday with nearly 50 companies to boost productivity among small farmers in Africa with the goal of lifting 50 million people out of poverty.

Business executives from agricultural giants such as DuPont and Monsanto will join Obama, along with the leaders of three African countries who have pledged policy changes that U.S. officials say will improve business climates and encourage investment.

“We believe we’re really unlocking business investment in African agriculture in a way that will transform that sector and support improved outcomes for small farmers,” said Raj Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The plan comes as aid groups are calling on the U.S. and members of the G-8 nations gathering Friday at Camp David to renew a pledge they made at their 2009 summit to spend $22 billion on efforts to alleviate global hunger.

Advocates said they hoped the largely private effort would complement, not replace, a public commitment from the countries, which gather amid worries over the troubled European economy.

Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch passes along this World Food Program video from Chad, "ground zero of the Sahel food crisis".

London-based journalist Neal mann is in Burkina Faso, where children are eating the leaves off trees to survive. You can follow his social media posts from his journey here.

Now, ask yourself why footage from across West Africa isn't on your nightly news, every night.

There's nowhere the U.S. doesn't consider it's own backyard, whether the locals like it or not.

The US army has said a combat brigade will be assigned to the Pentagon's Africa Command next year in a pilot programme that will send small teams of soldiers to countries around the continent to do training and participate in military exercises.

A brigade from 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, NY will be assigned the task of putting US boots on the ground across the continent.

Africa Command is still based out of Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany because not a single African nation volunteered to host the US military basing required when Bush first stood up the unit in 2007. The view of the Southern African Development Community, which includes South Africa, Angola, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that "it is better if the United States were involved with Africa from a distance rather than be present on the continent" was echoed by every other African security organisation and individual nations. Given that, one has to wonder just how welcome the guys from 10th Mountain will be.

Go read David Axe on how Italian aviation blogger David Cenciotti joined the dots to throw some new light on America's shadow wars along Africa's Indian Ocean coastline. F-15s based in Djibouti carrying out airstrikes in Yemen, spyplanes at the same airbase, Reaper drones with bases in the Seychelles Yemen and Ethiopia. Axe himself adds the possibility of a floating headquarters for special forces ops sitting somewhere of the coast.

America is waging more wars, with a bigger involvement, than it wants to admit.

Ongoing border disputes between Sudan and South Sudan over unresolved oil revenue issues have reached a violent, near-critical mass in recent days (three guesses who's bearing the brunt of the clashes). So it's not surprising that China, a key patron & trading partner of both warring states (and very much concerned with keeping investments in local energy infrastructure stable & on track), is highly uncomfortable with the burgeoning tension. As South Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit reportedly cuts short his diplomatic mission to Beijing to deal with the growing crisis at home, Beijing (with a li'l help from Washington -- lead from behind, baby) has stepped up diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation.

The Limpopo river has become one of the greatest victims of climate change to date. It used to be one of the greatest rivers of the world, irrigating large areas of Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe and feeding 12 million people. Now it is often reduced to a bare trickle or to nothing at all. "Dust," laments Ramovha, who has lived here since 1942. "It is nothing but a dust river."

If you see anyone about to shell out $30 to an organisation that has never been externally audited in order to "Stop Kony 2012", make sure they read this from Michael Wilkerson first.

Johannesburg | Feb 28

The Guardian - Cassava is "the Rambo of food crops", and could be the best bet for African farmers threatened by climate change, scientists claim.

Cassava is the second most important source of carbohydrate in sub-Saharan African, after maize. It is eaten by about 500 million people every day.

The root becomes even more productive in hotter temperatures, growing in poor soil and without water, scientists said. It outperformed potatoes, maize, beans, bananas, millet and sorghum in tests using a combination of 24 climate prediction and crop suitability models.

The scientists producing the research were from the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Research Program. Their findings were published on Monday in a special edition of the scientific journal Tropical Plant Biology.

"Cassava is a survivor; it's like the Rambo of the food crops," said climate scientist Andy Jarvis, the report's lead author. "It deals with almost anything the climate throws at it. It thrives in high temperatures, and if drought hits it simply shuts down until the rains come again. There's no other staple out there with this level of toughness."

As the years-long drought in Texas subsides, I feel this would be a good time to remind everyone that water is not only precious, but scarce.

Indeed, Africa is seeing some of the worst droughts in recorded history. Drought doesn't only affect humanity, afflicting us with thirst, famine, and war, but wildlife too. And while the famine in Somalia (not directly water-related, but...) has been declared "over", countries like Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone face dismal prospects for the near future.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

Many of us are thinking about the changes we want to make this year. For some, these changes will be financial; for others, physical or spiritual. But for all of us, there are important resolutions we can make to “green” our lives. Although this is often a subject focused on by industrialized nations, people in developing countries can also take important steps to reduce their growing environmental impact.

Algerian forces cross into Mali as the possibility of another Tuareg rebellion looms over the region.

London - There is a new crisis in the Sahel: On December 20, Algerian army forces crossed into Mali. The sequence of events leading up to this extraordinary development began with a new spate of hostage-taking in the Sahel. On November 23, two Frenchmen were kidnapped from their hotel in Hombori, a small town in eastern Mali on the road from Mopti to Gao. The next day, four European tourists were seized from a restaurant in Timbuktu. One of them, a German who resisted, was shot dead.

Most western intelligence agencies and the media immediately attributed the attacks to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Indeed, on December 8, the Nouakchott News Agency (ANI) in Mauritania and the AFP office in Rabat received communiqués in which AQIM claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.

But these communiqués were probably false: The evidence pointed in other directions. Tamashek, the Tuareg language, had been heard spoken by the Hombori abductors, and the initial local rumours suggested that the abductors were Tuareg back from Libya, motivated by their desire for revenge against France and NATO for toppling Gaddafi.

In order to reduce energy costs and protect Rwanda's forests, the country's 14 prison have introduced biogas burners, so they are now 75% powered by the inmates' own waste. The burners need one thing - a regular, reliable supply of waste - and jails are perfect. Slideshow

Don't laugh! The short slideshow is enlightening.

Nick Amies | Dec 11

Deutsche Welle - A spate of violent kidnappings of westerners by groups affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has prompted the European Union to take action to protect its citizens in the Sahel region of Northern Africa.

This series is the result of a six-month investigation by Army Times senior staff writer Sean D. Naylor.

Naylor reached out to dozens of current and former diplomatic and military leaders and special operators about their activities in the Horn of Africa.

It is a war few will acknowledge and even fewer will discuss.

Nevertheless, Army Times was able to piece together a mosaic that shows the level of involvement by U.S. forces in Africa and the significant resources that have been employed — with mixed success — to hunt terrorists in Africa. Army Times

London | Nov 28

USA TODAY - Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague says there is a risk mercenary fighters driven out of Libya could switch allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Hague told the House of Commons on Monday that Britain is also concerned that weapons from unguarded stockpiles in Libya may have fallen into AQIM hands following dictator Moammar Gadhafi's fall.

He warned that the al-Qaeda affiliate had established ties to Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based extremist group waging a bloody sectarian fight against the African nation's weak central government.

Hague said there was an escalating threat across the entire Sahel region, which stretches from Mauritania to Chad.

Britain is "stepping up our efforts to counter terrorism in the Sahel," Hague said.

Thank God Africom is there!...

London | Oct 30

AFP - British merchant ships travelling around the Horn of Africa will for the first time be able to carry armed guards to protect them from pirates, Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Sunday.

Officials said a legal ban will be relaxed so that shipping companies can apply for a licence from the government to carry weapons on board in the most dangerous areas, mainly off the coast of Somalia.

“We are now going to say to British-flagged ships that they would be licensed if they want to have security guards, armed guards on those ships,” Cameron told the BBC.

“The evidence is that ships with armed guards don’t get attacked, don’t get taken for hostage or for ransoms. So we think it’s a very important step forward,” he said.

The plan could see commercial, passenger and cargo ships carrying firearms off the coast of Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and the wider Indian Ocean within a month, a spokesman for Cameron’s office said.

Experts agree that private guards do deter pirates, but their use can cause problems of legal jurisdiction and spark concerns about the use of mercenaries, questions of liability and private militarisation of the seas.

geez what could go wrong?

Harare, Zimbabwe | October 26

Bulawayo24 News - A Zvishavane man has told a court that he hired a prostitute who during the night transformed into a donkey, and that he is now "seriously in love" with the animal, state media said on Wednesday.

"I think I am also a donkey. I do not know what happened when I left the bar, but I am seriously in love with donkey," Sunday Moyo told the court, according to The Herald newspaper.

Julie Steenhuysen | Chicago | Oct 24

Reuters - Malaysian Muslims denounce alleged Christian conversion efforts
Former Irish President Mary Robinson was just making polite conversation when she asked an Ethiopian teenager about her wedding day.

The 16-year-old had already been married a year.

"She looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, 'I had to drop out of school,'" Robinson said in a telephone interview.

"That conveyed to me the reality," said Robinson, the first woman to serve as Ireland's president and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights. "Her life, as far as she is concerned, had more or less ended."

Robinson said keeping girls in school was one of the most important things policymakers could do to address the coming challenges of an ever-increasing population, predicted by the United Nations to reach 7 billion at the end of the month.

Sarah Morrison & Paul Carsten | Oct 23

The Independent - Deal is struck to stop poor nations becoming global dump

One of the most persistent and insidious pollution problems visited by the West on the developing world has taken a huge step towards a permanent solution this weekend.

A UN environmental conference in Cartagena, Colombia, attended by more than 170 countries, has agreed to accelerate a global ban on the export of hazardous waste, including old electronics and discarded computers and mobile phones, from developed to developing countries.

Environmental campaigners, who have been battling to broker a deal on the dumping of toxic waste for more than 20 years, said they were "ecstatic" about this "major breakthrough".
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The ban will be introduced when 17 more countries ratify an amendment to the 1989 Basel Convention, a treaty aimed at making nations manage their waste at home. It is expected that this could be achieved in two to five years. More than 50 countries have already ratified it.
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The US, the world's top exporter of electronic waste, is among nations that have yet to ratify the original convention. "Unless the US joins the treaty they are just going to be a renegade," Mr Puckett said, adding that the US has no rules for exporting electronic waste, which it sends mostly to China but also to Africa and Latin America.

Once again, just like the cluster bomb ban, we are on the wrong side of humanity.

Scott Baldauf | Johannesburg, South Africa | Aug 7

CSM - Matt Damon, listen up: After five years of covering Africa, our departing correspondent tells how his perceptions have changed about a complex continent, including why some Africans resent celebrity visits.

worthy reading

The trend of international land grabbing—when governments and private firms invest in or purchase large tracts of land in other countries for the purpose of agricultural production and export—can have serious environmental and social consequences, according to researchers at the Worldwatch Institute. Deals that focus solely on financial profit can leave rural populations more vulnerable and without land, employment opportunities, or food security.

...I would think Anthony Weiner's "mistake" wasn't.

While the nation has been focused on one dick, a bunch of other dicks in the White House have been fighting a shadow war in Yemen:

A major American newspaper is reporting that the U.S. government has intensified its covert war in Yemen in recent weeks, deploying armed drones and fighter jets to attack militant suspects seeking to undermine the shaky Sana'a government.

Citing U.S. officials, The New York Times said that after nearly a year-long pause in American airstrikes, the U.S. has accelerated its campaign in an attempt to keep militants linked to al-Qaida from consolidating power. The attacks are being led by the U.S. Defense Department's Joint Special Operations Command in close coordination with the CIA.

I'm sure this won't happen, at least in the US, anytime in the near future, but you have to admit there's an awful lot of sense here:

The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

The panel includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

The US and Mexican governments have rejected the findings as misguided.

The Global Commission's 24-page report argues that anti-drug policy has failed by fuelling organised crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths.