They are superpower even if their tanks are horses:
"In Nigeria, young poets protest against injustice; Popular contests offer outlet for creative talent" by Caelainn Hogan Associated Press September 16, 2015
LAGOS, Nigeria — The rousing, rhythmic delivery that the poets use in the country’s exploding slam poetry scene is similar to rap. Written to be performed with dramatic flair and body language, slam poetry is becoming a catalyst for literacy beyond textbooks.
Many see the performance art as reviving Nigeria’s tradition of oral history. Young Nigerians are making it their own, crafting a tool to condemn rampant corruption, discrimination against women, and poor education.
The performances one recent Sunday were visceral, the audience drumming on tables as a poet’s torrent of rhymes built to a crescendo, only to fall to a whisper, hands cupped as if in prayer during rhapsodies about the power of faith or a woman desired.
Poets clenched fists, wagged fingers, and one spread his arms wide as if the words could make him fly....
I'm turning that down.
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I'm sorry I'm not into the album, but I scrolled across the menu of songs and just don't like the producer anymore. Sorry.
"Nigeria in talks with extremists over kidnapped girls; President might trade captives with extremists" by Tom Odula Associated Press September 16, 2015
This is all bull. The whole girls kidnapped narrative was a complete hoax, a staged and scripted piece of fiction, pure propaganda to once again pull on the heart strings, waving women and children at us so we'll want more war!
LAGOS, Nigeria — The Nigerian government is talking to members of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram to try to get the release of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls, the president said.
Military from Nigeria and Chad freed hundreds of hostages from Boko Haram captivity this year but none of those rescued were from the 219 girls abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok.
Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremist group has used dozens of girls and women in recent suicide bombings in Nigeria and neighboring Chad, Cameroon, and Niger, raising fears they are kidnap victims.
President Muhammadu Buhari predicted in July that Boko Haram would be defeated in 18 months or less. But he conceded that Nigerian authorities lack intelligence about the girls still missing after the mass kidnapping from the northern town of Chibok — an act that stirred international outrage and a campaign to ‘‘Bring Back Our Girls’’ that reached as far as the White House.
They won't be bringing back some girls from the Afghanistan hospital that House bombed. And that really happened; this kidnapping is all crafted propaganda and completely fake. Sorry. I wanted to believe as much as you, and there once was a time when I did.
Buhari said his government is open to freeing detained militants in exchange for the girls’ freedom.
More than 1,000 people have been killed since Buhari was elected in March with a pledge to annihilate Boko Haram, whose six-year uprising has killed around 20,000 people. At least 2.1 million people have been driven from their homes, some across borders.
There are migrants, refugees, whatever, all over the world. That's the surest sign it truly is a World War, even if no one is calling it that.
Earlier this year, troops from Chad and Nigeria drove the extremists out of some 25 towns held for months by Boko Haram, which had declared an Islamic caliphate aligned with the Islamic State. The insurgents have returned to hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.
In Cameroon, a new report says that more than 380 people have been killed by Boko Haram in the north, and the military’s response has left dozens more dead.
Amnesty International said Wednesday that the extremists have committed war crimes ‘‘and caused untold fear and suffering to the civilian population.’’
AI, like HRW, is nothing but a Zionist tool with timely reports. That's why they are the "experts" being constantly turned to for comment in my war-promoting pre$$.
Yes, they do a report critical of Israel, for credibility reasons, if they didn't say anything then, well, it gets criticized, then forgotten. You don't get the drum beat of agenda-pushing concern as with other matters.
In the last two months alone, more than 70 people have been killed in a series of suicide bombings. A 13-year-old girl is among those who have been used to carry out the attacks.
That's what is claimed happened to some of the girls. They were turned into little female suiciders, uh-huh!
Amnesty’s report also said that the government’s efforts to quash Boko Haram have led to dozens of deaths, and many more young men remain missing.
But they are a U.S. ally (plus they got bucket loads of oil) so there isn't going to be too much of a stink raised against slaughter being plied at you from both ends.
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Related: Bombings in Nigerian city kill 54
At least there is no longer any polio in Nigeria:
"Nigeria on Saturday celebrated the announcement by the United Nations health agency that polio is no longer endemic in the West African country. The news of Nigeria’s progress, issued by the World Health Organization late Friday, leaves only Pakistan and its war-battered neighbor Afghanistan as countries where the disease is prevalent. Polio which can cause life-long paralysis can be prevented with a simple vaccination."
Who will be cooking up that?
Maybe there is a better beat elsewhere:
"Somali militants hit African military base" Associated Press September 02, 2015
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Al Shabab overran an African Union base in southern Somalia early Tuesday, a Somali military official said, in the latest display of the Islamic extremists’ capacity to hit back amid a prolonged offensive against them.
It's the weaponry with which "Al-CIA-Bob" is being supplied.
The attack in the small farming town of Janale started with a suicide car bombing at the base’s gate, followed by a firefight that lasted more than an hour, said Colonel Ahmed Hassan.
The African Union force in Somalia, known by its acronym as AMISOM, insisted on Twitter soon after the attack that it was still in control of the base but later issued a statement saying the troops ‘‘undertook a tactical withdrawal’’ and then returned to the base.
‘‘Given the complex nature of the attack, AMISOM is currently verifying the number of casualties and extent of the damage,’’ the statement said.
Al Shabab said it killed about 50 AU troops from Uganda at the base.
Hassan said by phone that the militants overran the base after bombing a nearby bridge to prevent troops from escaping.
The bridge is a famous landmark that travelers often use to shuttle through south and central Somalia.
A Ugandan contingent of the African Union forces was targeted in retaliation over alleged killings by Ugandan troops of six men at a wedding in the nearby Somali port town of Merka in July, Al Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab said on the group’s online Andalus radio.
Yeah, I'd almost forgotten about Uganda, and it's an easy thing to do. It's a U.S. lynchpin in the region.
‘‘Very few escaped,’’ Abu Musab said, referring to Ugandan troops. ‘‘Others swarmed into the river and drowned. Others might have escaped into the jungle.’’
Which is where I feel I am slogging through this war slop every day.
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Speaking of jungles:
"Fighting flares in Central African Republic" by Nick Cumming-Bruce New York Times September 30, 2015
GENEVA — Dozens of people have been killed in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, raising fears of a return to the sectarian killings that have torn the country apart during the past two years.
The clashes prompted the country’s interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza, to return home early Monday from New York, where she was attending the UN General Assembly meetings. They also threatened to derail a peace process that includes a presidential election scheduled for Oct. 18.
What an outrage that was, huh?
At least 37 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in clashes that erupted in the city after the discovery Saturday of the body of a young motorcycle-taxi driver, said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency.
Some reports, still unconfirmed, said the man’s body was inscribed with slogans showing he had been targeted because he was Muslim.
The country’s religious divide — Muslims predominate in the north, and Christians in the south — had largely driven previous conflicts and threatened to do so again. “At the sight of the mutilated body, young neighborhood self-defense militiamen wanted to avenge the killing of the Muslim,” Moctar Mahamat, one of the few residents left in the capital’s once-vibrant Muslim quarter, said in a phone interview.
And jwho benefits from Muslim vs. Christian strife?
Some 27,000 people in the capital have fled their homes, many for a displaced-persons camp near the Bangui airport.
The violence has contributed to a breakdown of law and order. Around 60 inmates escaped early Tuesday from a jail in the western town of Bouar, after the escape of more than 500 — including some who had been involved in armed violence — from the main jail in Bangui on Monday night.
And that's the last I saw of 'em.
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I didn't forget to find any links, before or since; I just couldn't find the last time the C.A.R. was noteworthy to the Globe.
"Fifty-two soldiers and rebels have been killed in recent fighting in South Sudan’s contested state of Unity, a military official said Saturday, blaming rebels for the latest violation of a peace deal signed last month. Rebel forces have attacked positions held by government troops, killing 14 and wounding 42 others, spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer said. Government troops have killed 38 rebels and have captured two others, he said (AP)."
Sudanese coverage has been a little more recent.
14 elephants poisoned in Zimbabwe
The poison was put on salt licks, and wasn't it lions that were the problem with Zimbabwe last time?
