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Guardian (UK)
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Nov 29, 07 1:08 PM CST
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A Sudanese court sentenced British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan for inciting religious hatred by allowing her students to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, the Guardian reports. The sentence represented something of a success for British officials, who had said they would do everything possible to prevent Gibbons from receiving 40 lashes, a possible sentence.
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BBC
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Nov 28, 07 3:35 PM CST
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The British teacher held in Sudan for committing blasphemy by naming a teddy bear “Muhammed” has been charged with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, the BBC reports. The UK Foreign Secretary said he would summon the Sudanese ambassador; Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "surprised and disappointed" that Gillian Gibbons might face the lash.
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CNN
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Nov 27, 07 1:06 PM CST
(Newser) -
Gordon Brown said today that UK officials are working to free the British citizen being held in Sudan for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed." Gillian Gibbons was accused of blasphemy and faces prison time or 40 lashes. The British embassy in Khartoum is "giving all appropriate consular assistance to her," the PM said.
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Chicago Tribune
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Nov 27, 07 4:30 AM CST
(Newser) -
The world stands at the brink of eradicating polio, Bill Gates says, and his foundation yesterday awarded $100 million toward that end. One of the foundation's largest challenge grants will fund programs in four countries where the disease is still epidemic, notably Nigeria. The Rotary Foundation received the grant and will match it over the next 3 years, reports the Chicago Tribune .
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Daily Telegraph (UK)
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Nov 26, 07 7:25 PM CST
(Newser) -
A UK teacher in Sudan may get 40 lashes and a 6-month sentence over a teddy bear named "Mohammed," the Telegraph reports. Sudanese cops nabbed Gillian Gibbons yesterday for blasphemy after she let her elementary school kids name the bear after Islam's prophet. School director Robert Boulos, who has closed the school for fear of attacks, said Gibbons used the bear as a teaching tool.
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Associated Press
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Nov 25, 07 8:30 PM CST
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Kenyan cops have killed or fatally tortured more than 8,000 youth since 2002, human rights lawyers charged today. The deaths, along with 4,000 cases of missing men, are allegedly part of a state crackdown on the Mungiki—an outlawed sect the government blames for gang violence. Police have dismissed the report as “fictitious” and “a document not worth responding to.”
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Times (UK)
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Nov 21, 07 5:05 PM CST
(Newser) -
Two 16-year-olds were found guilty today of attempting to sneak $600,000 of cocaine from Ghana to Britain, the Times reports. The conviction could mean up to three years in a Ghanaian juvenile detention center for the British girls, who claimed they had been set up when they were arrested with the drugs hidden in computer bags at an airport in Accra.
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Washington Post
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Nov 20, 07 9:12 AM CST
(Newser) -
The United Nations will publish a report admitting that it has greatly overestimated the scale and the progress of the AIDS epidemic, writes the Washington Post . The UN's AIDS agency now believes that the disease has been slowing for a decade and that the worldwide toll of people living with AIDS will be revised from 40 million to 33 million.
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Christian Science Monitor
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Nov 16, 07 2:50 AM CST
(Newser) -
Even after decades of development, most African communities have no electrical power and still go dark when the sun goes down. Only 5% of Ugandans, 6% of the Congolese population and 15% of Kenyans have electricity. Now the World Bank has launched an initiative to light the homes of 250 million Africans by 2025.
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New York Times
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Nov 15, 07 1:34 PM CST
(Newser) -
Thousands of children in Angola, Congo, and the Congo Republic are being abused, abandoned, and even killed after being accused of witchcraft, the New York Times reports. Such accusations—born from tribal superstition and poverty that leaves some families unable to care for children—are a "massive" problem, sending hundreds of children alone into the streets of cities like Kinshasa and Luanda.
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Associated Press
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Nov 14, 07 3:52 PM CST
(Newser) -
The growth of Africa's economy over the past 10 years is strong enough to "put a dent in a dent in poverty," according to a World Bank report. Growth over the past decade has averaged 5.4%, but more foreign investment is needed to keep that going. The report credits economic and governmental reforms for the good news.
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BBC
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Nov 13, 07 9:20 AM CST
(Newser) -
Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf got a huge vote of confidence yesterday when the International Monetary Fund agreed to begin eliminating Liberia's debt, the BBC reports. Donor nations have pledged $842 million to get the West African country back on track after 14 years of civil war. "Liberia has established an encouraging track record of macroeconomic management and reforms," said the IMF's new chairman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
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BBC
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Nov 13, 07 3:10 AM CST
(Newser) -
The number of South Africans living on less than $1 a day has more than doubled in a decade since shortly after the end of apartheid, reports the BBC. Some 4.2 million people managed to eke out a living on a daily buck in 2005, according to a report of the latest statistics by the South African Institute of Race Relations. Officials attribute the upsurge in poverty to raging unemployment—as high as 26%—and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
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Reuters
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Nov 12, 07 11:30 AM CST
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Civilian exodus from Mogadishu continued today as government forces and Ethiopian allies fought Islamist rebels in the Somalian capital, sparking a humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of residents have fled the city in the past week as troops try to root out insurgents and their weapons stockpiles. "We had to run," a mother of eight told Reuters.
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Independent (UK)
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Nov 9, 07 11:11 AM CST
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Thabo Mbeki's campaign to remain South Africa's president got a boost yesterday when the country's top court opened the way for a corruption trial against his archrival, Jacob Zuma. The Independent notes that Zuma has weathered corruption charges twice before—and a trial for rape last year—but this time Mbeki is pushing the national prosecuting authority for a conviction.
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