United States Africa Command Public Affairs Office 20 January 2012

USAFRICOM - related news stories

Please find attached news clips related to U.S. Africa Command and Africa for January 20, 2012, along with upcoming events of interest and UN News Service briefs. Of interest in todays clips: -'Dozens' killed in Mali clashes -US Advisers Raise Hopes in Hunt for Rebel Warlord -Cameroon region concerned about Islamist militants -US plans to defy Khartoum with aid for starving Sudan 01/19/2012 The National -A Military Cutback We Can't Afford: Fighting Tropical Diseases -Clinton Promotes Democracy in Four-Nation Africa Trip This message is best viewed in HTML format.

U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs Please send questions or comments to: publicaffairs@usafricom.mil 421-2687 (+49-711-729-2687) -------------------------------------------Top News related to U.S. Africa Command and Africa 'Dozens' killed in Mali clashes (Al Jazeera) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/201212005320729639.html January 20, 2012 Country fears nomadic fighters once employed by Gaddafi regime in Libya have returned home to renew independence fight. At least 45 rebels and two government soldiers have died this week during fighting in nothern Mali, the country's military said. US Advisers Raise Hopes in Hunt for Rebel Warlord (Spiegel) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808793,00.html January 19, 2012 By Horand Knaup His troops murder, rape and force children to become killers. For decades, rebel leader Joseph Kony has savagely terrorized the jungles of Central Africa and evaded all his

would-be captors. Many are hoping that bringing 100 US military advisers into the fight will finally end it. News Headline: The Butchers Of Nigeria (Newsweek) http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/wole-soyinka-on-nigeria-s-antichristian-terror-sect-boko-haram.html January 20, 2012 By Wole Soyinka How a corrupt nation bred Boko Haram, the Islamic sect terrorizing the country's Christians. Over the past year, Nigeria's homegrown terror group Boko Haram has escalated its deadly attacks against Christian and government targets, with the aim of establishing a Sharia state in the country's north. Cameroon region concerned about Islamist militants (CNN) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/africa/cameroon-bokoharam/index.html?iref=24hours January 20, 2012 By Tapang Ivo Tanku, for CNN Maroua, Cameroon (CNN) -- The governor of Cameroon's Far North Region on Thursday said threats posed by militant Islamist group Boko Haram were "very critical." US plans to defy Khartoum with aid for starving Sudan (The National) http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/africa/us-plans-to-defy-khartoum-with-aid-forstarving-sudan January 19, 2012 JUBA, South Sudan The Obama administration is planning a possible humanitarian operation to prevent mass starvation in two Sudanese states in defiance of the Khartoum government, which has refused to allow aid groups access. A Military Cutback We Can't Afford: Fighting Tropical Diseases (The Atlantic) http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/a-military-cutback-we-cant-affordfighting-tropical-diseases/251527/ January 20, 2012 By Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. James Kazura In recent months, many politicians and presidential hopefuls have called for budget reductions, and many have specifically targeted military spending for cutbacks. Unfortunately, even programs proven to be cost effective are vulnerable to cuts. Medical research for our troops is no exception to this rule -- programs such as the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) often find themselves low on the priority list despite their crucial role in saving the lives of our troops on the battlefield and here at home. Clinton Promotes Democracy in Four-Nation Africa Trip (Department of State) http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/01/20120118160641elrem0.11245 36.html#axzz1jhdrxL5N January 20, 2012

By Merle David Kellerhals Jr. WASHINGTON Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton completed a four-nation visit to Africa to promote democracy, good government and economic reforms, and to demonstrate a U.S. commitment to a post-conflict return to peace. News Headline: Google launches Web project in South Africa (USA Today) http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-19/woza-south-africagoogle/52674792/1 January 20, 2012 By Donna Bryson Associated Press PRETORIA, South Africa Getting more small companies wired will help their businesses grow, and help their country fight unemployment, officials said Thursday as Google launched a project that makes it easy to showcase South African entrepreneurship on the Internet. Saving lives, making partners in Africa (News Journal) http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120119/BUSINESS06/201190309/Savinglives-making-partners-Africa?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cp January 19, 2012 By Aaron Nathans The News Journal WILMINGTON -- Aid to impoverished countries can produce big returns in the form of improved human health and new markets for U.S. goods, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development told a Wilmington audience on Wednesday. Ethiopia: Journalists, politician found guilty (Arab News) http://arabnews.com/world/article565385.ece January 19, 2012 By Luc Van Kemenade Associated Press ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: An Ethiopian court on Thursday found three journalists, a politician and a politician's assistant guilty of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism, in a case that drew rebukes from rights groups who fear the country's anti-terrorism law is being used to suppress dissent.

### UN News Service Africa Briefs http://www.un.org/apps/news/region.asp?Region=AFRICA (Full Articles on UN Website) Eastern, Southern Africa scale up efforts against high AIDS prevalence - UN official 19 January Eastern and Southern Africa, the region most affected by the HIV/AIDS

epidemic, is making great strides to scale up access to prevention and treatment services, a United Nations official said today, adding that focus is on behavioural change and prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Impunity for criminal acts in Darfur camps must stop UN official 19 January The chief of the joint United Nations-African Union operation in Darfur (UNAMID) stressed today his commitment to end impunity for criminal acts in displacement camps during a meeting with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state of North Darfur. South Sudan: UN urges redoubling of efforts to end cycle of deadly ethnic violence 19 January The top United Nations envoy in South Sudan today urged an immediate end to the cycle of ethnic violence in the newly independent nation, and called on the Government to hold the perpetrators to account and to deploy more forces to key areas to avert further bloodshed. ### Upcoming Events of Interest: JANUARY 25, 2011 WHEN: 4:00 -7:30 p.m. WHAT: U.S. Institute of Peace, Next Generation Peacebuilding and Social Change in the Arab World. Featured the U.S. premiere of "Salam Shabab" (Peace Youth), the first peacebuilding reality TV series for Iraqi youth WHERE: USIS, 2301 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC CONTACT: Alexis Toriello at atoriello@usip.org SOURCE: http://www.usip.org/salam-shabab-premiere ### -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------FULLTEXT 'Dozens' killed in Mali clashes (Al Jazeera) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/201212005320729639.html January 20, 2012 Country fears nomadic fighters once employed by Gaddafi regime in Libya have returned home to renew independence fight.

At least 45 rebels and two government soldiers have died this week during fighting in nothern Mali, the country's military said.

The battles ended several years of fragile peace in the country's northern desert, which borders Algeria and Mauritania, and appeared to confirm the Malian government's fear that nomadic Tuareg fighters once employed by the regime of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had returned. "Our armed forces have bravely beaten back the attacks of the former Libyan fighters and the MNLA rebels," the armed forces said in a statement on state media on Thursday, using the acronym of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. But Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, a spokesman for the rebels, denied the government's account, telling the Reuters news agency that his fighters had killed around 30 to 40 soldiers. The MNLA says it is fighting for independence for the traditional Tuareg homeland of Azawad, in the Sahara. "Hunt down the criminals" The MNLA launched an offensive to seize several northern towns, including Tessalit and Aguelhok. Both rebel and government forces claim to be in control of Aguelhoc. The MNLA spokesman said fighting was suspended in Tessalit to allow for the withdrawal of Algerian soldiers who had been helping Mali. Fighting erupted in Aguelhoc and Tessalit on Wednesday morning, keeping residents indoors as gunfire was exchanged, a day after the army said it had fought off an attack in the town of Menaka by bombing rebel positions. "Lieutenant Oumar Toure, an army officer, said the military "would not allow anyone to meddle with Mali's sovereignty". "The instructions are clear: Don't hurt civilians, but use all your energy to hunt down the criminals," he said. Sources told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the army was conducting house raids and arrests in the northern towns of Gao and Kidal, targetting Tuareg tribal sheikhs, as well as Tuareg military and political figures. Local government officials in Tessalit and Aguelhoc reported heavy weapons fire on Wednesday as the rebels attacked military camps in the two locations. "Our aim is to flush out the Malian army in several northern towns," said a Tuareg rebel spokesman, who called himself "Moussa Salam", in a telephone interview. Pro-Gaddafi fighters

Hundreds of armed Malian Tuareg recently returned from Libya where they fought alongside troops of toppled leader Muammar Gaddafi. The MNLA is a movement with no known leader which was founded at the end of 2011 after a fusion of rebel groups, including the Northern Mali Tuareg Movement (MTNM), whose leader died in a road accident last year. "This new organisation aims to free the people of Azawad from the illegal occupation of its territory by Mali," the organisation said in its first press statement in October 2011. The Azawad, a region considered the birthplace of the Tuareg, stretches from the west to the north of Mali. A nomadic community of some 1.5 million people, Tuareg are scattered between Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Niger and Mali. Mali and Niger experienced uprisings as the Tuareg fought for recognition of their identity and an independent state in the 1960s, 1990s and early 2000 with a resurgence between 2006 and 2009. Following these rebellions many fighters left for Libya, where they were integrated into Gaddafi's security forces. After his fall they returned to northern Mali, particularly the Azawad region between Timbuktu and Kidal. The return of the rebels has added to Mali's woes as the region battles al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has carried out many attacks on troops, kidnappings of Westerners and various trafficking operations, including drugs. ### US Advisers Raise Hopes in Hunt for Rebel Warlord (Spiegel) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808793,00.html January 19, 2012 By Horand Knaup His troops murder, rape and force children to become killers. For decades, rebel leader Joseph Kony has savagely terrorized the jungles of Central Africa and evaded all his would-be captors. Many are hoping that bringing 100 US military advisers into the fight will finally end it. He's like a phantom. Of course, thousands have seen him, tens of thousands have died because of him, and hundreds of thousands have suffered thanks to him and his supporters. But the people on his trail haven't been able to catch him. The man is 49-year-old Joseph Kony, the self-appointed general of God, guerrilla fighter and mass murderer. For more than two decades, he and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have terrorized people living in an area of roughly 100,000 square kilometers

(40,000 square miles) of jungle in Uganda, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. At times, his forces have included several thousand armed men, women and children, though they have reportedly now dwindled to only several hundred. On his behalf, they have murdered, robbed, plundered and raped. Uganda has sent out elite soldiers to hunt him down. In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of committing crimes against humanity. But no one has succeeded in capturing him. In October, US President Barack Obama announced that he was sending US forces to join in the hunt for Kony. The roughly 100 military advisers will reportedly be stationed in Uganda, where they will help prepare the missions of elite troops hoping to finally get hold of the murderous rogue. However, American officials in Kampala, Uganda's capital, currently decline to provide any detailed information on the mission. The Roots of Kony's Terror In 1986, Kony and his followers retreated into the jungle after Uganda's President for a brief time, Tito Okello, from Kony's Acholi tribe in the country's north, was driven from power by Yoweri Museveni, the country's current ruler, causing the Acholi to fear losing their influence and rights. Since then, Kony has called himself a "mouthpiece of God." At first, he assembled a radical group of people that primarily directed its recruiting efforts toward children and youths. His supporters revere him as something of a messiah with prophetic powers. His ideology has always been crude, and he has never had a welldefined political platform. His only motto has been: "We fight for God's Ten Commandments." Over the years, Kony's army has grown larger and more brutal. Children have been abducted and their parents murdered. LRA members regularly execute those who try to run away. Merciless Murder Kony is believed to have recruited over 100,000 children over the years, primarily by force. He turns them into soldiers who murder, rape and pillage. A while back, Florence Ameny, a former member of the LRA, described what it meant to be kidnapped by Kony's forces. "I was 13 when I was kidnapped," she said. "That was 1992. All the girls were raped. I was eventually married to a 50-year-old fighter." Long marches were commonplace, she says, and the children were forced to carry heavy loads, which caused many of them to collapse from exhaustion. Raids and fighting were part of everyday life, as were the frequent executions of fellow fighters. The children were systematically taught to have no pity, sympathy or other feelings. Florence was also a soldier. And she also killed the defenseless, including women and children.

Florence says that anybody caught trying to escape was killed. Some were burned to death, others drowned, others hacked to pieces. Kony has never known any mercy. After 12 years, Florence finally succeeded in escaping with her three children and reaching a refugee camp in northern Uganda. Having failed to capture Kony with various special operations, the Ugandan government tried to play nice for a while. Government negotiators tried to get him to give up, going so far as to guarantee him safe passage, despite the ICC's demands for extradition. But after the talks broke down in 2008, Kony retreated back into the jungle, where he has continued the killing ever since. Evading His Pursuers On several occasions, Kony has narrowly escaped capture. Last October, officials thought that they had detected him in Ndjema, in the Central African Republic. But when they struck, they only found a basin of water and a towel that had just been abandoned. Kony had vanished. Before that, in late 2008, Ugandan forces almost captured him in Garamba National Park, in Congo's remote northeastern corner. More than a dozen US military advisers had come to Uganda and provided native forces with support in the form of night-vision goggles, fuel and satellite telephones. After pursuers led by President Museveni's son Muhoozi Kainerugaba had pinpointed Kony's location using satellite images, Ugandan helicopters dropped bombs on the camp. What they didn't know, however, was that he had already abandoned it. Ugandan soldiers who reached the camp days later said they liberated 100 children. Otherwise, their only spoils were cookware, three rifles, a wig and a guitar. Kony took his revenge some days later by raiding several villages not far from the park. These kinds stories feed the myth of the general's invulnerability. Even Florence Ameny believes he has magical powers. "He told everyone outright whether they would die, flee or rise in the LRA hierarchy. It was always correct." But the truth is much more commonplace. Kony is clever. And careful. For example, to avoid detection, he has banned the use of satellite phones around him. Beefing Up the Hunt Kony has also benefited from the fact that Uganda, the DRC, the CAR and Sudan have never teamed up to try to capture him. On the contrary, the Sudanese government in Khartoum supplied him with weapons and vehicles for a long time because it was upset that Uganda harbored sympathies for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the rebel force in the south. Over the years, Ugandan troops have also been active in the CAR and what is now South Sudan. But they haven't been in the DRC, which has not allowed Ugandan troops to chase after Kony on its territory after they reportedly plundered some of its local natural resources.

In the meantime, the African Union (AU) has also announced plans to put together a force and coordinate Kony's pursuit. Until this force is ready to act -- which can often take a long time with AU forces -- the Americans want to get back in the act. And this time they mean business. US officials have already held talks with their counterparts in the CAR, the DRC and South Sudan. They don't want to be prevented from crossing the borders that Kony has crossed so freely. Though they have only just arrived, the advisers have already been training Ugandan units on how to prepare air-dropped packages meant to help better organize the resupply system on the front. They have observed Ugandan troop operations in the western part of South Sudan and the southern part of the CAR. They have also helped by providing satellite imagery, though it has been of only limited use in some cases owing to the dense forest cover. Lastly, plans call for the local population to play a significant role in helping track Kony down. Experts predict that the capture of the self-proclaimed general is already drawing near. In November 2011, the International Crisis Group, which has focused on the LRA and its leader for some time now, wrote a report in which in questioned whether the LRA was approaching its "end game." Likewise, Gen. Margaret Woodward, the commander of US Air Force operations in Africa , told the Ugandan newspaper Daily Monitor in midDecember that Ugandan military forces "are going to win here in a short time, and it is not going to be that long before they are victorious in the war and the LRA will no longer be a problem." ### News Headline: The Butchers Of Nigeria (Newsweek) http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/wole-soyinka-on-nigeria-s-antichristian-terror-sect-boko-haram.html January 20, 2012 By Wole Soyinka How a corrupt nation bred Boko Haram, the Islamic sect terrorizing the country's Christians. Over the past year, Nigeria's homegrown terror group Boko Haram has escalated its deadly attacks against Christian and government targets, with the aim of establishing a Sharia state in the country's north. Nearly 30 years ago, in the largely Christian heartland of a multireligious Nigerian nation, and at that nation's pioneer institutionthe University of Ibadana minister of education summoned the vice chancellor and ordered him to remove a cross from a site dedicated to religious worship. Some Muslims had complained, he claimed, that the cross offended their sight when they turned east to pray.

The don's response was: Mr. Minister, it would be much easier to remove me as vice chancellor than to have me remove that cross. Christians mobilized. A religious war was barely averted on campus. Today the Christian cross occupies that same spot, with the Islamic star and crescent raised only a few meters away. As I observed at a lecture several years later, there has been no earthquake beneath, no convulsions of the firmament above that space, no blight traceable to the cohabitation of that spot by Christian and Muslim symbols. I evoked that occurrence when the latest torch bearers of fanaticisma group called Boko Haramemerged. I did so to draw attention to the fact that religious zealotry is not new in the nation, nor is it limited to the unwashed masses who have been programmed into killing, at the slightest provocation or none, in the name of faith. Unfortunately, far too many have succumbed to the belligerent face of fanaticism, believing that any form of excess is divinely sanctioned and nationally privileged. Sectarian killingsnumbered in the thousandspreceded Boko Haram, much organized butch-ery, sometimes announced in advance, always tacitly endorsed by silence and inaction, escalating in intensity and impunity. It was consciousness of the geographical expansion and the increasingly organized nature of the fanatic surge and its international linkages that compelled me to warn on three public occasions since 2009 that the agencies of Boko Haram, its promulgators both in evangelical and violent forms, are everywhere. Even here, right here in this throbbing commercial city of Lagos, there are, in all probability, what are known as sleepers' waiting for the word to be given. If that word were given this moment, those sleepers would swarm over the walls of this college compound and inundate us. Much play is given, and rightly so, to economic factorsunemployment, misgovernment, wasted resources, social marginalization, massive corruptionin the nurturing of the current season of violent discontent. To limit oneself to these factors alone is, however, an evasion, no less than intellectual and moral cowardice, a fear of offending the ruthless caucuses that have unleashed terror on society, a refusal to stare the irrational in the face and give it its proper nameand response. That minister was not one of the unwashed masses. He was, quite simply, the polished face of fanaticism. His prolonged career as secretary of the Universities Commission and minister of education inflicted on the nation a number of other policies of educational separatism that left a huge swath of Nigeria open to fanatic indoctrination. Yes, indeed, economic factors have facilitated the mass production of these foot soldiers, but they have been deliberately bred, nurtured, sheltered, rendered pliant, obedient to only one line of command, ready to be unleashed at the rest of society. They were bred in madrassas and are generally known as the almajiris. From knives and machetes, bows and poisoned arrows they have graduated to AK-47s, homemade bombs, and explosivepacked vehicles. Only the mechanism of inflicting death has changed, nothing else. This horde has remained available to political opportunists and criminal leaders desperate to stave off the day of reckoning. Most are highly placed, highly disgruntled, and thus

highly motivated individuals who, having lost out in the power stakes, resort to the manipulation of these products of warped fervor. Their aim is to bring society to its knees, to create a situation of total anarchy that will either break up the nation or bring back the military, which ruled Nigeria in a succession of coups between the mid-1960s and the late '90s. Again and again they have declared their blunt manifestonot merely to Islamize the nation but to bring it under a specific kind of fundamentalist strain. Rather than act in defense of Nigeria's Constitution, past rulers have cosseted the aggressors for short-term political gains. However, those who have tweaked the religious chord are discovering that they have conjured up a Frankenstein. Arrogance has given way to fear. The former governors of the northern states of Gombe and Borno wasted no time in issuing full-page advertorials in the media, apologizing to Boko Haram when the latter issued threats against them for their alleged role in the deaths of the group's members at the hands of security forces in 2009. They had precedent. It was in Nigeria, after all, that a deputy governor, later backed by his superior, pronounced a fatwa on a Nigerian citizen in 2002: Like Salman Rushdie, [her blood] can be shed. It is binding on all Muslims, wherever they are, to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty. That was the fallout from a beauty contest in Abuja that drew the ire of some Islamic extremists. Reacting to the mayhem, a female journalist had speculated that, were the Prophet Muhammad alive, he might have selected one of the contestants for wife. For that alleged blasphemy, hundreds, guilty only of innocently pursuing a living, were massacred by hordes of fanatics, who were mostly bused into the capital for organized violence. The president went groveling before the presumably offended elite. It was the same governor of an impoverished state called Zamfara who unilaterally commenced the separatist agenda that turned parts of Nigeria into theocracies under a supposed secular Constitution. His whim was indulged, his political support was courted by the then-sitting president, obsessed with prolonging his tenure. The governor, now turned senator, was also caught as a serial pedophile. Challenged in the media, he boasted that the Quran was above the Constitution, and thus he was not subject to laws that criminalized copulation with underage children or, indeed, cross-border sex trafficking, of which he was equally accused. He was neither censured by his fellow senators nor placed on trial. His followers have taken their cue from his declaration, convinced that the greater the crime, the greater its deserving of immunity. How many of the hundreds of cases of impunity need one cite, with their corresponding gestures of appeasement? Where does one begin? Can the Nigerian police or judicial records reveal how many were prosecuted when a man called Gideon Akaluka was beheaded, his head paraded on a stake through the streets of Kano in northern Nigeria, for allegedly desecrating the Quran? It turned out no such offense had been committed. Nor has there been a single arrest in the secondary school where an invigilating teacher, a Mrs. Oluwasesin, was stripped naked, beaten, and then necklacedset on fire by students for allegedly treating the Quran with disrespect. Her real crime? She had confiscated a Quranand, incidentally, a Bible as wellfrom cheating students during a

paper on religious studies. How does one convey scenes where killers perform ritual recitations before or after the meticulous throat-slitting of schoolchildren, in the conviction that this carries the same potency of immunity as papal indulgences once did in the decadent era of Christianity? For decades, leaders of those communities remained mute or uttered pietisms. Now the foot soldiers have matured on the taste of blood. They understand the essence of power. Some have come to realize they have been programmed, used, abused, and discarded. Now they seek to exercise power and have turned on all, mentors and appeasers alike. Nigeria is at war. The Somalia scenario nibbles at her cohesion. When we insisted that the nation had become a prime target of al Qaeda, the reply was that Boko Haram was a homegrown phenomenonas if this were ever the question! The reality is that it has, inevitably, developed ties with al Qaeda and its borderless company of religious insurgency. Only a few have sown the wind, but that wind was fanned by the breath of appeasement. Only one choice remains: to ride, or else reap, the whirlwind. ### Cameroon region concerned about Islamist militants (CNN) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/africa/cameroon-bokoharam/index.html?iref=24hours January 20, 2012 By Tapang Ivo Tanku, for CNN Maroua, Cameroon (CNN) -- The governor of Cameroon's Far North Region on Thursday said threats posed by militant Islamist group Boko Haram were "very critical." Speaking in Mokolo, Gov. Joseph Beti Assomo told reporters that all senior state security officials, divisional heads and religious leaders have been put on the alert. Some 600 soldiers in the Far North region have been ordered out of their barracks and strategically deployed in localities close to the border with Nigeria, he added. Cameroon's regional governments have intensified rigorous checks after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ordered border closures with some neighboring countries, including Cameroon, due to threats from the Boko Haram. Residents in the Far North capital of Maroua have been reporting to police a growing number of strangers and unusual occurrences. The Far North Region is largely Muslim and shares a border with northern Nigeria, where the Boko Haram is based. Trade and custom officials in Maroua say nearly 80% of its regional economy has shrunk since the closure of the borders.

Consumers of Nigerian sugar, flour, cement and other manufactured products are concerned about plummeting supplies, while smuggled Nigerian fuel, locally called "zoua-zoua," is the object of sharp price hikes. The Far North Region is home to more than 2 million people, according to an official head count. Recent weeks have seen an escalation in clashes between Boko Haram and security forces in Nigeria's northeastern states of Borno and Yobe, as well as attacks on churches and assassinations. Boko Haram (which according to the group means "Western civilization is forbidden") is demanding the imposition of Islamic sharia law across Nigeria. ### US plans to defy Khartoum with aid for starving Sudan (The National) http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/africa/us-plans-to-defy-khartoum-with-aid-forstarving-sudan January 19, 2012 JUBA, South Sudan The Obama administration is planning a possible humanitarian operation to prevent mass starvation in two Sudanese states in defiance of the Khartoum government, which has refused to allow aid groups access. "We are simply not going to sit back and watch while 100,000 people starve to death," a state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity told The National. "We are actively planning and Khartoum knows this." Humanitarian agencies pulled out of the two states when fighting between Khartoum and insurgents erupted in June in Southern Kordofan and spread to neighbouring Blue Nile in September. On Wednesday, the US' special envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, told reporters in South Africa that about half a million people could face "emergency conditions bordering on famine". "That's something that our government at the highest levels cannot let happen," said the state department official. He refused to divulge details of how aid would be moved into Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, saying the plan is "obviously quite sensitive". Mr Lyman told reporters that as Khartoum continues to block international and UN agencies access to the area, pressure is mounting to "provide assistance across the border

against the wishes of the government of Sudan", but added, "We have made no decision to do that." Zach Vertin, a Sudan analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said that the US faces a difficult decision. "Washington has given this a great deal of thought, as it and others have made clear that it will be difficult to ignore further catastrophe in Southern Kordofan. The challenge will be to minimise any broader costs in doing so," he said. Mr Vertin added that providing aid without Khartoum's consent could have negative consequences. "It's a very tough call, but with Khartoum providing no avenues for cooperation and an even greater humanitarian crisis looming, Washington feels pressed to act," he said. "Such a move could potentially prompt a negative response from Khartoum, cause further deterioration of US-Sudan relations, and generate consternation from those already made wary by international intervention in Libya." John Ashworth, an expert on the region who has spent 28 years in Sudan and South Sudan, said a US push to move aid into Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile could worsen Khartoum's already troubled relations with the US as well as South Sudan. "Khartoum will certainly try to portray it as South Sudanese assistance to a rebel group, rather than as a humanitarian response to Khartoum's own intransigence," said Mr Ashworth. The insurgents are former armed divisions of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, which is now the ruling party in South Sudan. The movement fought a two-decade civil war that led to South Sudan's secession. When the south declared independence on July 9, the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile divisions declared themselves a separate political party and added "North" to their name. Khartoum has accused Juba of backing the rebels - a charge South Sudanese officials including the president, Salva Kiir, have repeatedly denied. But in a November 21 statement, the White House noted that Mr Lyman had discussed with South Sudan "the need to respect the sovereignty of Sudan, including by ending support for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile." The nature of that support "is both material as well as command and control", said the state department official. He added that the UN Security Council "is basically paralysed" because it does not want to intervene in Sudan, even on humanitarian grounds, while South Sudan is backing the SPLM-N.

"I imagine that a number of council members will for now be reluctant to sanction any move that further infringes Sudan's sovereignty," said Aly Verjee, an analyst with the Rift Valley Institute. "The situation will probably have to deteriorate further before any real action is contemplated." Meanwhile, Juba has accused Khartoum of arming militia groups in an attempt to destabilise South Sudan. Those allegations are backed up by organisations such as the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. "We've gathered evidence that strongly links weapons used by southern militias to Khartoum," said Jonah Leff, a researcher with the group. "Weapons in rebel stocks seem to correlate closely with Sudan Armed Forces' small arms arsenal." Mr Ashworth said a US-backed humanitarian aid operation into Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile could hurt relations between Khartoum and Juba, but it would be better than Juba providing support itself. If South Sudan were to unilaterally assist beleaguered civilians in Sudan, it would be easier for Kharin toum to justify some form of retaliation," he said. "But if the USA is fronting an international humanitarian effort, that might prove more difficult. ### A Military Cutback We Can't Afford: Fighting Tropical Diseases (The Atlantic) http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/a-military-cutback-we-cant-affordfighting-tropical-diseases/251527/ January 20, 2012 By Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. James Kazura In recent months, many politicians and presidential hopefuls have called for budget reductions, and many have specifically targeted military spending for cutbacks. Unfortunately, even programs proven to be cost effective are vulnerable to cuts. Medical research for our troops is no exception to this rule -- programs such as the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) often find themselves low on the priority list despite their crucial role in saving the lives of our troops on the battlefield and here at home. One important area of research is tropical medicine. During World War II and the Vietnam War, more than one million service members acquired tropical infections such as malaria, dengue fever, hookworm, and typhus, and many of these diseases continued to plague our veterans after they returned home. Today, American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan still face formidable tropical disease threats, especially from a disease transmitted by the bite of sand flies known as leishmaniasis, which can cause a disfiguring ulcer in one form, and a serious systemic condition that clinically resembles leukemia in another. In the coming years leishmaniasis may become the most important condition you have never heard of among veterans.

We now risk sending U.S. troops into harm's way deprived of our nation's most important resource for preventing tropical infections. For over 100 years, WRAIR has been the U.S. military's premier institution for preventing these types of tropical infections. Beginning in 1893 as the Army Medical School, WRAIR physicians developed some of the first treatments for dysentery and malaria, and developed methods to disinfect drinking water. They developed vaccines for typhoid fever, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, meningitis, and respiratory infections. Their Military HIV Research Program led to the first human clinical trial demonstrating some initial evidence of vaccine protection from the AIDS virus. And some WRAIR discoveries contributed to the recent success of the new malaria vaccine that just underwent clinical trial testing in Africa. Despite this extraordinary track record of important global health discoveries, WRAIR faces massive budget cuts from Congress and the Department of Defense. Since WRAIR already has difficulty maintaining staff and expertise to fight the leishmaniasis outbreaks affecting our troops and veterans, these new cuts will only further jeopardize the future of WRAIR and the health of our soldiers. WRAIR's leishmaniasis diagnostic laboratory is the only one of its kind in the world, so each time funding is slashed our military loses considerable expertise and capabilities in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of this devastating disease. For example, in the years prior to the Gulf War, the WRAIR leishmaniasis program was officially decommissioned and all research was halted. Only after cases of leishmaniasis among U.S. forces exposed to sand-fly bites in the Iraqi desert were the remaining leishmaniasis experts at WRAIR quickly assembled and tasked with making up for lost time. In 2002, the WRAIR leishmaniasis program was again dissolved only to be urgently activated once more with the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The interruptions to the WRAIR leishmaniasis program are part of much larger budget cuts across all of WRAIR's tropical infectious disease research programs. There is no end to the irony of such cutbacks given that they coincide with the activation in 2008 of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), charged with fighting the war on terror across the African continent. Today, sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of cases of tropical diseases anywhere in the world. Many of these tropical infections, such as river blindness and African sleeping sickness, have been shown to destabilize communities and may actually promote conflict in the region. We now risk sending U.S. troops into harm's way in Africa deprived of our nation's most important resource for preventing tropical infections. We need a strong and active military medical presence in global conflict hotspots such as the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. Strangling WRAIR with ever worsening budget cuts threatens the safety of our troops and their mission readiness, as well as the health of our returning veterans. Cutting WRAIR will deprive our troops and also the

world's poorest people of one of America's greatest global health treasures. Both our national and our global security depend on a strengthened and robust WRAIR. (Drs. Peter Hotez and James Kazura are past president and president, respectively, of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene) ### Clinton Promotes Democracy in Four-Nation Africa Trip (Department of State) http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/01/20120118160641elrem0.11245 36.html#axzz1jhdrxL5N January 20, 2012 By Merle David Kellerhals Jr. WASHINGTON Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton completed a four-nation visit to Africa to promote democracy, good government and economic reforms, and to demonstrate a U.S. commitment to a post-conflict return to peace. Clinton led a U.S. delegation to the January 16 inauguration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the start of her two-day trip, which included visits to Cte d'Ivoire, Togo and Cape Verde. U.S. Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware and General Carter Ham, the commander of the U.S. Africa Command, accompanied her. Clinton was pleased to attend Sirleaf's second inauguration because I've known Ellen for a long time, Clinton told U.S. Embassy staff in Monrovia January 16. I have a great deal of admiration and appreciation for the work she is doing, along with her other colleagues in government. In her inaugural address, Sirleaf invited opposition leaders to come forward and to participate in helping to govern Liberia. Sirleaf, who was first elected to office in 2005, shared in the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to stabilize the country and promote women's rights. There has to be a recognition that in elections sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, Clinton said. I have done both of them, and I think it's important that the lessons that we have learned over more than 235 years of trying to perfect our union be understood by other democracies and countries that are really making such strides. Clinton said that it doesn't matter if you always win in politics, but it does matter that you put the common good of the nation ahead of any personal and political interests. But she added that it is important for any healthy democracy to continue to allow opposing opinions. At the end of the day you have to agree upon certain values and then work together to fulfill them, she said.

The United States' relationship with the people of Liberia goes beyond elections, Clinton said. The work includes security issues, health care and education. It's a whole-of-government effort, because that's what it takes to support this extraordinary journey that Liberia is on, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure they get to the destination of democracy, prosperity, peace and security safely, Clinton said. In Cte d'Ivoire, Clinton met with President Alassane Ouattara to showcase U.S. support for national reconciliation and strengthening democratic institutions after legislative elections in December 2011. Clinton told Ouattara during a press conference after their January 17 meeting that she admired the progress that the country is making in a steady return to peace and reconciliation as well as continued economic and social development. This is an exciting time for Cte d'Ivoire, as it is for West Africa as a whole, Clinton told reporters. We have seen successful elections in Nigeria, the restoration of a civilian government in Niger, the establishment of the first elected government in Guinea. And yesterday [January 16], I had the privilege of representing my country, as did President Ouattara, at the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for her second term after another free and fair election, Clinton said. Securing these gains for democracy, prosperity, peace and security for the people here as well as for your neighbors will take consistent hard work. After consultations in Cte d'Ivoire, Clinton traveled to Togo for meetings with Togolese President Faure Gnassingb at the presidential palace in Lom. It was her first visit as secretary of state. She said national elections to be held later in 2012 will be an important milestone. The United States will be a partner to the government of Togo as it builds on its recent democratic gains, brings dissenting voices to the table for an inclusive dialogue, increases political participation of women and carries out a successful constitutional reform process, Clinton said, according to news reports. Clinton met with Prime Minister Jos Maria Pereira Neves of Cape Verde to discuss cooperation on issues including counternarcotics, good governance, economic reforms and Cape Verde's second Millennium Challenge Corporation compact. ### News Headline: Google launches Web project in South Africa (USA Today) http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-19/woza-south-africagoogle/52674792/1 January 20, 2012

By Donna Bryson Associated Press PRETORIA, South Africa Getting more small companies wired will help their businesses grow, and help their country fight unemployment, officials said Thursday as Google launched a project that makes it easy to showcase South African entrepreneurship on the Internet. With a few clicks Thursday, the first entrepreneurs used Google's Woza Online to create their own websites. Woza Online, which Google launched with help from South African government researchers and cash from mobile phone company Vodacom, offers free domain names with South Africa's co.za tag for the first 10,000 applicants. It took Rajis Reddy less than 15 minutes to set up a website for her company, which employs 10 craftsmen and other workers in rural eastern South Africa to create traditional, brightly colored wooden toys. "We've developed a website!" Reddy said. "I can't believe it." South Africa has the most vibrant economy in Africa, but also is beset by high rates of unemployment and poverty. The government sees small business as a key weapon in the battle to create jobs. Businesses with Web presence "are able to be part of the globe," said Elizabeth Thabethe, South Africa's deputy minister of trade and industry, who joined Google executives at Thursday's launch. "Small businesses are an incredibly important part of a vibrant economy," said Luke Mckend, head of Google's South African operations. The numbers in South Africa bear that out, said Taddy Blecher of South Africa's Human Resource Development Council. Blecher said small businesses employ 65% of the 13.8 million South Africans with jobs. "If we can just increase that presence by 10%, that will create 1.4 million jobs, just like that," Blecher said. Officially, a quarter of the labor force in this country of 50 million is unemployed. Researcher Arthur Goldstuck, who regularly surveys small businesses in South Africa, says about 400,000, or two-thirds, are online. Woza Online is designed to address some of the most common reasons entrepreneurs give for not having websites that they are too busy, and lack funds and expertise. Bryan Nelson, Google's business development manager, described Woza Online as "nontechie, simple, easy to understand."

Toy entrepreneur Reddy's unfamiliarity with the Web was apparent in her hesitant keyboard touch Thursday. But she easily navigated a fill-in-the-blanks process similar to completing an online order form. Entrepreneurs can dress up their sites with their own images or graphics provided by Google. Blecher said services South Africans can turn to now would charge at least 1,000 rand ($125) to design a website, beyond the budget of many small businesses. "We've been very slack online," said Reddy, who said advertising until now had consisted of word of mouth and flyers. She sells her toys and other crafts at crafts markets in Johannesburg. She had been considering going online to reach a broader market when a Google representative saw her wares at a market and approached her about Woza Online. ### Saving lives, making partners in Africa (News Journal) http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120119/BUSINESS06/201190309/Savinglives-making-partners-Africa?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cp January 19, 2012 By Aaron Nathans The News Journal WILMINGTON -- Aid to impoverished countries can produce big returns in the form of improved human health and new markets for U.S. goods, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development told a Wilmington audience on Wednesday. Rajiv Shah spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of hundreds at the University of Delaware's Wilmington campus at the Opportunity: Africa conference, sponsored by the office of Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. The event was focused on ways for businesses in Delaware and other states to do business with developing African nations. Coons said the conference provided a vision of Africa as "a continent of immense opportunity." U.S. innovations, especially those by Delaware companies like DuPont, are helping make a big difference in Africa, Shah said. DuPont is making seeds for crops in Tanzania, he said. Proctor & Gamble is making water purification systems that are providing clean water to Kenya, he said. And J.P. Morgan is providing loan guarantees to entrepreneurs in East Africa. "We can lift entire nations out of poverty and into a position where they can be effective long-term partners with us," Shah said.

Shah's agency had $7 billion in aid budgeted for Africa last year, his office reported. Shah illustrated the impact of foreign aid by showing nighttime satellite photographs of North and South Korea. Fifty years ago, the United States gave aid to South Korea to help bring it out of poverty. Now it is flourishing, he said. The photograph showed lights streaming from South Korea, while North Korea, still a dictatorship, was largely dark. That, he said, is symbolic of the human suffering that continues in North Korea. "The future has never been stronger to bring billions of people who have not benefited from a global economy into a global economy," Shah said. He said a massive aid campaign to famine-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa effectively helped limit the number of deaths there. The aid, he said, brought food to markets and vaccines to children. Shah's remarks came on a day that the groups Oxfam and Save the Children issued a report that said the international response to the famine was too slow, costing thousands of lives. Tim McCoy, vice president of the Corporate Council on Africa, said there's plenty of opportunity in a country like Benin -- whose ambassador, Cyrille Oguin, was on one of the panels -- to grow cotton and cashews, to extract fossil fuels and produce solar electricity. Panel discussions included locally known business leaders like Rebecca Faber of the Delaware World Trade Center, which connects regional businesses with foreign markets; and Mike Haney, whose Wise Power is active placing solar power systems in African countries. Stephen Morrison of the U.S. Export Assistance Center said there's opportunity for U.S. companies to provide transportation, agricultural and medical equipment to Africa. Morrison told the group that much of the planning can be done from afar, but it takes an actual handshake -- a visit to Africa -- to properly seal the deal. "The consumers of tomorrow are in Africa today," said Daniel Yohannes, chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corp. ### Ethiopia: Journalists, politician found guilty (Arab News) http://arabnews.com/world/article565385.ece January 19, 2012 By Luc Van Kemenade

Associated Press ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: An Ethiopian court on Thursday found three journalists, a politician and a politician's assistant guilty of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism, in a case that drew rebukes from rights groups who fear the country's anti-terrorism law is being used to suppress dissent. The five were charged under Ethiopia's controversial anti-terrorism laws. Government spokesman Shimeles Kemal has said they were involved in planning attacks on infrastructure, telecommunications and power lines. Alemu Gobebo, a private lawyer and a father of one of the defendants, called the case politically motivated. The five will be sentenced Jan. 26. They could face the death penalty. Among the three journalist convicted were Reeyot Alemu, a columnist for the independent weekly Fetah and a former opposition member; Elias Kifle, editor-in-chief of a US-based opposition website, who was tried in absentia; and Wubshet Taye, deputy editor-in-chief of the recently closed-down weekly newspaper Awramba Times. International rights groups have been calling for the release of the journalists. Ethiopia recently found two Swedish reporters guilty of supporting terrorism and sentenced them to 11 years in prison. Ethiopia has arrested close to 200 people, among them journalists and opposition politicians and members, under last year's anti-terrorism proclamation. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more journalists have fled Ethiopia than any other country in the world. No evidence of guilt Amnesty International said it does not believe there is any evidence that the five were guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. Claire Beston, the group's Ethiopia researcher, called the five prisoners of conscience. She said a significant amount of the prosecution's evidence relied on the defendants' reporting of and alleged involvement in calls for peaceful protest against the government. Human Rights Watch said the anti-terrorism law violates free expression and due process rights. The verdict against these five people confirms that Ethiopia's anti-terrorism law is being used to crush independent reporting and peaceful political dissent, said Leslie Lefkow, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. The Ethiopian courts are complicit in this political witch-hunt.

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