"Knowledge fades as Africa languages die"

Knowledge fades as Africa languages die
A U.N. Conference on Trade and Development report on protecting traditional knowledge argues that beyond a devastating impact on culture, the death of a language wipes out centuries of know-how in preserving ecosystems - leading to grave consequences for biodiversity.

Sentiment, business pull Ethiopians home
The cigar smoke was thick at the swank Office Bar. Danny Davis, a stylish businessman raised in Washington, D.C., huddled with other Ethiopians visiting from the United States, sharing tips about the best local neighborhoods, most promising investment opportunities and best restaurants to munch a burger.

Africa luring back many expatriates
After 23 years of living abroad, Tadiwos Belete left Boston five years ago to return to his native Ethiopia. He hoped to cash in on what he sees as an untapped market here: one-stop, full-service beauty salons and day spas.

S. Africa may introduce single currency by 2016
A plan to better integrate markets of southern African countries may lead to a single currency managed by a single central bank by 2016, it was revealed on Sunday.

US attack against Italians in Baghdad was deliberate
"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive," he added.
When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.
Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail of bullets" rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them.
"I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...) when he leant on me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two Italian magistrates.

Napalm Raid on Falluja?
73 charred bodies -- women and children -- were found 23 November 2004
People from Saqlawiya village, near Falluja, told al Jazeera television, based in Qatar, that they helped bury 73 bodies of women and children completely charred, all in the same grave. The sad story of common graves, which started at Saddam’s times, is not yet finished. Nobody could confirm if napalm bombs have been used in Falluja, but other bodies found last year after the fierce battle at Baghdad airport were also completely charred and some thought of nuclear bombs. No independent source could verify the facts, since all the news arrived until now are those spread by journalists embedded with the American troops, who would only allow British and American media to enrol with them. But the villagers who fled in the last few days spoke of many bodies which had not been buried: it was too dangerous to collect the corpses during the battle.

Outrage as US soldiers kill hostage rescue hero
Pier Scolari, Sgrena's partner who flew to Baghdad to collect her, put an even more sinister construction on the events, suggesting in a television interview that Sgrena was the victim of a deliberate ambush. 'Giuliana may have received information which led to the soldiers not wanting her to leave Iraq alive,' he claimed.
Sgrena was kidnapped on 4 February as she interviewed refugees from Falluja near a Baghdad mosque. Two weeks later her captors issued a video of her weeping and pleading for help, calling on all foreigners to leave Iraq. Italian journalists were subsequently withdrawn from the city after intelligence warnings of a heightened threat to their safety.

U.S. used banned weapons in Fallujah
Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, an official at Iraq’s health ministry, said that the U.S. military used internationally banned weapons during its deadly offensive in the city of Fallujah.

Flashback
Foreign Taint on National Election? A Boomerang for U.S.
The toppling of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala in the early 1950s brought decades of repression and growing anti-American sentiment, the committee found.
"We're more than a little hypocritical about these issues," said Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was staff director of the committee. "The United States has certainly engaged in these things, but we get all up in arms when someone else does."
"The things the CIA cited as successes really weren't successes," added Schwarz, now a lawyer at the firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. "They were an arrogant exercise of our power to intervene in domestic affairs."

Israel accuses Syria of being involved in terrorism
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom accused Syria of being involved in terrorism and reiterated its demand for a total withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

China slaps at U.S. on North Korea
BEIJING Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing expressed doubt on Sunday that the United States had good intelligence about North Korea's nuclear program and said the onus for easing escalating tensions fell mainly on the United States and North Korea, not on China or other regional powers.

U.S. Threatens Bolivia in Effort to Secure Criminal Court
The U.S. government is demanding that the Bolivian Congress approve an agreement that would grant immunity to U.S. troops and officials accused of human rights violations, exempting them from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. That effort, which includes a threat to withhold financial aid and access to free trade, seems to be backfiring.

White Power's New Face
Shocking murders of judge's husband and mother point up Internet's potential for breeding 'lone wolf' supremacists

Lies Military Recruiters Tell
Recently, most students at the University of Vermont (UVM) in Burlington received an email with the heading ARMY PAYS OFF STUDENT LOANS in their university email box. The general message of the mass mailing was that if a student was nearing graduation and wondering how they were going to pay off the massive debt today's US college students incur, they should join the army. In essence, this email was a college student's version of the poverty draft that entraps so many working class and poor young people into enlisting in the service. The sender was a military recruiter working out of the US Army recruitment office in the Burlington suburb of Williston.

Brazil Triumphs Over U.S. in WTO Subsidies Dispute
International development groups are calling on the United States to swiftly comply with a World Trade Organisation (WTO) final ruling issued Thursday declaring the bulk of U.S. government subsidies to its cotton industry illegal.

Back off or suffer oil shock: Tehran
OIL-rich Iran has raised the stakes in the standoff over its nuclear program, warning that any attempt to impose sanctions on its activities would lead to an energy crisis in the US and Europe.