"Nigeria excludes tribe, religion from census"

Malawi loses 600 hectares of forests to bush fires
Malawi has lost more than 600 hectares of pristine forests to bush fires that have been raging for one month in the Mulanje Mountain, some 100-km south of Blantyre, an environmentalist said Friday.

UN Oil-for-Food: Annan Vows to Stay
Despite the bashing he received from the independent report into the oil-for-food program, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has vowed not to resign. His rejection of calls for his resignation by US legislators is coming as France and United Kingdom declared support for his continued stay in office.

SON Wants Nigerians to Shun Foreign Goods
The Standards Organisa-tion of Nigeria (SON) has called on Nigerians to reduce their appetite for the consumption of foreign products in order to support the ongoing efforts to promote the manufacture, importation and sale of goods that meet international standards.

Nigeria will exclude religion and ethnicity from the questionnaire for a long-overdue census in Africa's most populous country in November, the organiser said on Monday, prompting boycott threats from interest groups.

Hurricane survivors accuse U.S. police
testimonies by survivors of Hurricane Katrina are anything to go by, human agents might have aided the angry elements in shooting up the casualty figures in the disaster that ravaged New Orleans in the United States (U.S.

Katrina evokes questions in Africa
Images of poor, black Americans homeless and in despair in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are resonating in Africa, evoking pointed questions about racism and surprise that disasters can wreak havoc and leave refugees even in the prosperous United States.

Zimbabwe lobbies against IMF expulsion
Zimbabwe's central bank chief on Friday held eleventh-hour meetings with International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials to lobby support against Harare's possible expulsion for debt arrears, state radio said.

Mubarak wins with 88% of vote
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has won his country's first contested presidential election with 88.5% of the vote, according to official results announced on Friday by the electoral commission.

Bombed Levees and Bleeding Hearts

Power to the victims of New Orleans
On September 4, six days after Katrina hit, I saw the first glimmer of hope. "The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funnelled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants. We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans."

So, What Was So Controversial About Kanye West's Remarks?
For the life of me, I am trying to figure out what was so controversial in the remarks by rapper Kanye West at the NBC fundraiser for the Katrina disaster victims. He stated that Bush apparently does not care about Black people. He also expressed concern about how Black families that were fighting for survival were compared with White families in the media, i.e., Black families tended to be viewed as looters while Whites were not.

In Storm's Ruins, a Rush to Rebuild and Reopen for Business
Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction.

The Physician Who Told Cheney The F*** Word

Black refugees ask if Utah will really accept them

U.S. military force-feeding 13 Guantanamo hunger strikers

Is the Government Trying to Stem the Tide of Images From New Orleans by Threatening Journalists?