Africa

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Python Attack Survivor: 'I Had to Bite It'

Python dragged Kenyan man up a tree

(Newser) - A Kenyan farm worker beat the odds last weekend, surviving an attack by a 13-foot python that dragged him up a tree, the BBC reports. "I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," Ben...

Piracy Jacks Up Insurance, Fuel Costs

Entering high-risk areas or navigating around South Africa both add millions

(Newser) - Piracy in the Gulf of Aden is driving up shipping costs as companies are forced to choose between paying higher insurance or taking longer routes, the AP reports. Premiums have reportedly risen at least tenfold for travel near the Somali coast, and avoiding the Gulf of Aden by navigating around...

Liberian Prez's Plea: Don't Let Global Crisis Kill African Gains

This mess is not of Africa's making

(Newser) - Africa is in the midst of a great turnaround, with economies growing and democracy and human rights improving, Liberia’s president writes in the Washington Post. But progress is threatened by a global economic crisis it had no hand in creating. Some $50 billion in income could be lost as...

Heart of a Lion: YouTube Fave Lives On in Memoir

One-time owners of Christian the lion recall the wild years

(Newser) - A lion who went wild after being raised by his hippy "parents" in their London shop, and later became a YouTube fave, has been immortalized again in a new memoir, Time reports. The emotional reunion in Africa between Christian the lion and his former owners has been viewed over...

Pope May Be Right About Condoms in Africa

Study shows that monogamy is the best weapon against AIDS in Africa

(Newser) - Pope Benedict's controversial statements that condoms aren't helping in Africa may be unpopular, but evidence shows that he might be right, a public heath researcher argues in the Washington Post. It's a divisive topic in part because the condom has become such a potent symbol of sexual freedom and female...

Facebook Users to Deluge Pope With Condoms

Thousands protest pontiff's claim that contraceptives don't halt HIV

(Newser) - The pope’s recent remark that condoms not only don’t prevent the spread of HIV but make it worse hasn’t earned him many friends on Facebook, CNN reports. Almost a dozen groups have sprung up in protest of the pontiff’s scientifically inaccurate statement, with thousands of Facebookers—...

Top Medical Journal Blasts Pope's Condom Remark

(Newser) - The UK's most prestigious medical journal has joined the condemnation of Pope Benedict’s comments on contraception, the Financial Times reports. “By saying that condoms exacerbate the problem of HIV/AIDS, the Pope has publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue," says an editorial...

Madge's Crazy Sex Life May Derail Adoption

'Relationships' may hurt planned adoption of Malawi toddler, says official

(Newser) - Madonna's hijinks with A-Rod and Brazilian boytoy Jesus Luz threaten to block her planned adoption of 3-year-old Mercy James from Malawi, reports the New York Daily News. "The news she is linked to another woman's husband and a man less than half her age makes us question her morals,...

2 Teens Die in Pope Stampede
 2 Teens Die in Pope Stampede 
Mar 22, 2009 7:29 AM CDT

2 Teens Die in Pope Stampede

(Newser) - Two teenage girls were killed in a wild stampede as people rushed to view Pope Benedict in Angola yesterday, reports the Times of London. Some 30,000 people raced into a stadium where the pope spoke at a youth rally. The teenagers died at the scene and dozens were injured....

Pope to Angolans: Convert Witchcraft Believers

(Newser) - The Pope urged Catholics in Angola to reach out and convert witchcraft believers frightened by “evil powers,” the AP reports. “In today's Angola, Catholics should offer the message of Christ to the many who live in the fear of spirits,” a fear that can lead them...

African Union Suspends Madagascar

Pressure mounts against coup government

(Newser) - International pressure is mounting against the new government of Madagascar, installed this week via coup, the BBC reports. The African Union has suspended the island nation’s membership, calling the takeover “unconstitutional,” and South Africa said it might impose sanctions. France likewise condemned the takeover, and the US...

Latest Bin Laden Tape Targets Somali President

Oust leader for compromising with US, it says

(Newser) - An audio message allegedly from Osama bin Laden posted on the Internet today and entitled “Fight On, Champions of Somalia,” calls for Somalia's new president to be “dethroned, fought, and removed with armed force,” reports CNN. The elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed—who backtracked from a...

Pope Draws 60K in Cameroon
 Pope Draws 60K in Cameroon 
Mar 19, 2009 12:12 PM CDT

Pope Draws 60K in Cameroon

(Newser) - Roughly 60,000 people packed a soccer stadium in Yaounde, Cameroon, today to hear Pope Benedict XVI’s first giant African mass, the BBC reports. The pontiff used his sermon to warn the throngs of the dangers of urbanization and materialism. Earlier, Benedict met with Cameroon’s Muslim leaders, and...

Let's Impeach the Pope
 Let's Impeach the Pope 
opinion
Mar 18, 2009 5:09 PM CDT

Let's Impeach the Pope

(Newser) - In his short reign, Pope Benedict has managed to insult Muslims, women, and Holocaust survivors, writes Robert S. McElvaine, a professor at Millsaps College in Mississippi. But his latest controversy, telling Africans that condoms increase the spread of AIDS, is the last straw. "I am a Catholic and the...

French Blast Pope's Anti-Condom Remarks

Condoms make Africa AIDS crisis worse, he had said

(Newser) - Irked by Pope Benedict’s anti-condom remarks in Africa, the French foreign ministry today called them “a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life” and voiced “extremely sharp concern over the consequences,” the BBC reports. The pontiff said on the first day...

Church Must Protect Africa's Poor: Pope

Pontiff praises growing church but worries about 'superstition'

(Newser) - Pope Benedict XVI set down strategy for his church in Africa today, telling bishops to protect the traditional values of the African family and to spare the poor from the impact of globalization. The pontiff, beginning his first African pilgrimage in Cameroon, also said that the exuberant local African rites...

Guinness' Booming Market: Nigeria

(Newser) - Guinness may be synonymous with Ireland, but Nigerians down more of the stuff than the Emerald Isle, GlobalPost reports. Nigerians also out-Guinness the US—their country is second only to the UK in its consumption of the beer and is home to the first Guinness brewery outside the British Isles....

Pope: Condoms Make AIDS Crisis Worse

On visit to Africa, pope makes first statement on their use

(Newser) - Condoms are not the answer to Africa's fight against AIDS, and in fact exacerbate the epidemic, Pope Benedict said at the start of a 7-day visit to the continent today. It's the first explicit statement about condoms from the pontiff, who has said that the Roman Catholic Church is at...

Tsvangirai Heads Home for Wife's Funeral

Supporters feared Mugabe power grab in his absence

(Newser) - Grieving Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is expected back in Zimbabwe today to attend his wife's funeral, days after the couple's car was hit by a US aid truck. Tsvangirai had left for Botswana—home of his closest regional ally—shortly after the accident that some believe may have been an...

International Court Charges Sudan Prez on Darfur Crimes

(Newser) - The International Criminal Court today issued a warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, charging him with murder, extermination, and rape, among other war crimes and crimes against humanity, the New York Times reports. Prosecutors say orders to kill or displace tribal people in Sudan’s Darfur region, which resulted in...

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