Senegalese politicians court leaders of age-old Muslim sect

Sufi brotherhoods provide key support for Senegalese presidential candidates, but fragmentation within the groups could spill over into politics, writes guest blogger Alex Thurston.

? A version of this post ran on the author's blog,?Sahel Blog.?The views expressed are the author's own.

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Senegal's presidential elections are scheduled for Feb. 26, and politicians are courting the leaders of the country's large Sufi brotherhoods, also called "marabouts." They are one of four main Muslim communities who have contributed to shaping Senegal's democracy, reports Reuters.? President Abdoulaye Wade says he has never hidden that he is a Mouride, a 129-year-old order of Islam which counts millions of devotees within the West African country.

Wade?s affiliation with the Mouridiyya is definitely salient for many Mourides, including youth. When I was in Senegal in 2006-2007 I heard several young Mourides repeat with pride a prophecy that Senegal?s first president would be Christian (this was Leopold Senghor), the second Muslim but not Mouride (this was Abdou Diouf), the third Muslim and Mouride (they saw Wade as the fulfillment of this part of the prophecy), and all of the rest Mouride.

This feeling was not, however, universal. Even before the 2007 elections, many young Mourides were already dissatisfied with Wade?s performance, particularly with regard to the economy, and a shared religious affiliation did not seem to dilute their opposition to the president.

Another wrinkle in the relationship between Wade and the Mouridiyya is the growing complexity of the marabout ?field? in Senegal. The key lines for me in the Reuters article were these:

A heavily-set figure in a pristine white robe and with an earpiece connected to his Apple iPhone, Cheikh Abdoul Ahad Mbacke Gainde Fatma has seen more Dakar politicians in the last 24 hours than most Senegalese will see in a lifetime.

Ahad Mbacke is the great-grandson of revered Mouride founder Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke and heads the organizing committee for the ?Grand Magal,? the annual Mouride festival which draws millions to Touba for a week of praying, eating and revelry.

Why did I bold ?great-grandson?? Let?s do a little math. Sheikh Amadou Bamba died in 1927. The Sheikh had a number of sons. In Senegalese Sufi brotherhoods the system of hereditary succession works laterally ? ie, leadership typically passes from one brother to another inside the same generation before passing to the next generation. In polygamous families, the number of descendants can multiply rapidly, to the point where there can be dozens of potential male heirs. As political scientist Dr. Leonardo Villalon wrote in 1995 with regard to Senegal (see his book Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal, p. 137),

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Uiuam3VJ1II/Senegalese-politicians-court-leaders-of-age-old-Muslim-sect

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China celebrates new year with Warren Buffett

By msnbc.com staff and wire

American billionaire Warren Buffett appeared as a special guest on a popular Chinese Lunar New Year variety show this weekend -- strumming?a ukulele.

Buffett sang the folk song ?I?ve Been Working On The Railroad? in the video posted on state broadcaster CCTV?s ?Spring Festival Gala? website, with a model railroad set as the backdrop.

New Year is an important holiday in China, and Buffett is a well-known figure in the country because of his business success. His company Berkshire Hathaway is also part-owner of BYD, a Chinese company that makes electric vehicles.

Buffett?s song likely refers to his acquisition of railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $34 billion in 2009.

The deal was seen as a major bet on the future of the U.S. economy. The hauler of food products, coal and consumer goods imported from Asia is seen as an indicator of the country?s economic health.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10215682-china-celebrates-new-year-with-a-little-help-from-warren-buffett

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Islamist insurgents kill over 178 in Nigeria's Kano (Reuters)

KANO (Reuters) ? Gun and bomb attacks by Islamist insurgents in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last week killed at least 178 people, a hospital doctor said on Sunday, underscoring the daunting challenge President Goodluck Jonathan now faces to prevent his country sliding further into chaos.

A coordinated series of bomb blasts and shooting sprees mostly targeting police stations on Friday sent panicked residents of Nigeria's second biggest city of more than 10 million people running for cover.

The scale of the carnage makes this by far the deadliest strike claimed by Boko Haram, a shadowy Islamist sect that started out as a clerical movement opposed to western education but has become the biggest security menace facing Africa's top oil producer.

"We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital said following Friday's attacks, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa.

"There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early."

Boko Haram has been blamed for killing hundreds of people in increasingly sophisticated bombings and shootings, mostly targeting security forces, establishment figures and more recently Christians, in country split roughly evenly between them and Muslims.

Apart from a handful of forays into the capital Abuja, the sect's energies have been concentrated in the majority Muslim north, far from the oil producing facilities along the southern coast that keep Africa's second biggest economy afloat.

Explosions struck two churches in the northern city of Bauchi on Sunday, witnesses said, destroying one of them completely, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Jonathan, a Christian southerner who helped broker a deal that largely ended an insurgency by militants in the oil-rich southeast, has been criticized for failing to grasp the gravity of the crisis unfolding in the north, and of treating it as a pure security issue that will fizzle out by itself.

UN CONDEMNS ATTACKS

The government has announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Kano, an ancient city that was once part of an Islamic caliphate trading riches on caravan routes connecting sub-Saharan Africa with the Mediterranean.

Worsening insecurity has led some to question whether Nigeria isn't sliding into civil war, 40 years after the secessionist Biafra conflict killed over a million people, though few think an all-out war splitting the country into two or more pieces is a likely outcome.

A spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in a statement.

"The Secretary-General is appalled at the frequency and intensity of recent attacks in Nigeria, which demonstrate a wanton and unacceptable disregard for human life," it said.

"The Secretary-General also expresses his hope for swift and transparent investigations into these incidents that lead to bringing the perpetrators to justice."

European powers and the African Union have also condemned the attacks.

Boko Haram became active around 2003 in the remote, northeastern state of Borno, on the threshold of the Sahara, but its attacks have spread into other northern states, including Yobe, Kano, Bauchi and Gombe.

Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning "Western education is sinful," is loosely modeled on Afghanistan's Taliban, but analysts say the anger it channels reflects a perception that north has been marginalized from oil riches concentrated in the south.

The sect originally said it wanted sharia, Islamic law, to be applied more widely across Nigeria but its aims appear to have changed. Recent messages from its leaders have said it is attacking anyone who opposes it, at present mainly police, the government and Christian groups.

It has become increasingly deadly in the last few months.

At least 65 people were killed in the northeast Nigerian city of Damaturu, Yobe state, in a spate of gun and bomb attacks in November.

A bomb attack on a Catholic church just outside the capital Abuja on Christmas Day, claimed by Boko Haram, killed 37 people and wounded 57.

In a Reuters interview in late December, National Security Adviser General Owoye Andrew Azazi are considering making contact with moderate members of shadowy sect via "back channels," even though explicit talks are officially ruled out.

(Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/wl_nm/us_nigeria_violence

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Attempt to return from exile is thwarted midair

JOHANNESBURG?? The spokesman for Madagascar's toppled president said the leader's attempt to end his exile in South Africa was thwarted in the air when his plane was forced to turn back after authorities on the Indian Ocean island closed their airspace to prevent his return.

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The commercial plane carrying Marc Ravalomanana landed back in Johannesburg Saturday just after 2 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), about the time it had been expected to reach Madagascar's capital.

"Madagascar civil aviation has turned the plane around and it's been diverted to Pemba in Mozambique. It doesn't have enough fuel to return all the way. It will refuel there and then return to Johannesburg," a spokesman for the ousted president told Reuters earlier Saturday in Johannesburg.

But reporters on board later said it did not stop to refuel in Mozambique, as Peter Mann, the spokesman, had said would happen.

Ravalomanana has been exiled in South Africa since being toppled in 2009.

In Madagascar, a government minister said Ravalomanana's rival had closed the country's main airports to prevent Ravalomanana's return.

The minister said the reasons were unknown.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46081336/ns/world_news-africa/

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Drought returns to Sahel, bringing hunger (AP)

DAKAR, Senegal ? For the third time in the past decade, drought has returned to the arid, western shoulder of Africa, bringing hunger to millions. Aid agencies are warning that if action is not taken now, the region known as the Sahel could slip into crisis.

More than 1 million children in the eight affected countries are expected to face life-threatening malnutrition this year, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The region has not yet recovered from the last drought two years ago, and many families lost their herds which means that they will not have assets to purchase food.

Aid workers also worry that donors are suffering from "famine fatigue," as the looming West African crisis comes just six months after Somalia's capital was declared a famine zone.

"I think there is a real risk that people may think this is the kind of thing that just happens every few years," Stephen Cockburn, the West Africa regional campaign manager for Oxfam, said of the droughts in the Sahel.

Earlier this week, aid agencies revealed that thousands of people died needlessly in the Horn of Africa because donors waited until people started dying to respond. The warning signs were there as early as August 2010 but aid wasn't ramped up until July 2011.

Signs of the looming famine in the Sahel were first detected late last year, according to the report released Wednesday by Oxfam and Save the Children. The lessons of Somalia and the Horn of Africa, where as many as 100,000 people died, are front and center in how aid agencies are responding to the potential famine in West Africa.

"Everyone recognizes in looking back that there was a delay in responding (in the Horn of Africa). Tens of thousands of people died because of that delay ... We know from this recent and painful experience what the risks are," said Cockburn.

He said that there could be more hope for the Sahel, since the indications of a crisis have been detected early on.

"The alarms (for the Sahel) were already sounding in November and December. Every country in the region, and every president in the region, has recognized this and asked for outside help," he said.

The U.N. children's agency was among the agencies reacting early. The organization issued an appeal in December and began ordering therapeutic foods for infants and toddlers. By then, Niger had already issued its own alert saying that more than half the country's villages were vulnerable to food insecurity.

Droughts in the Sahel ? a region spanning eight countries, including northern Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria, Cameroon and southern Chad ? have become increasingly frequent with emergencies declared in 2005, 2008 and 2010. The consequences are especially dire for children, said UNICEF spokesman Martin Dawes.

"In this crisis adults will suffer, but children will die. Why? Because nutrition deterioration is a vicious cycle ? in growing, the body requires more to replace and make up what it lacks and when the right kinds of food are not available the situation gets worse," said Dawes. "They go from moderately malnourished to acute, and lifesaving intervention is needed."

As the child gets weaker, he or she becomes more vulnerable to routine problems, like diarrhea. The child is less able to fend off diseases, and the effects are more pronounced, Dawes said.

Even during a non-drought year, as many as 300,000 children die of malnutrition in the Sahel, says Cockburn. It's a region that is perpetually on the edge, and any extra shock sends it over the precipice.

"The increasing frequency of droughts in the Sahel means that communities have had little time to recover from the last food crisis," according to Malek Triki, the Dakar-based spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program. "Their savings are exhausted and livestock herds have not been rebuilt."

The United Nations is already purchasing food and deploying specialized teams to the region. Grain prices across the region are rising and WFP has observed a rush on maize by wholesalers, who are buying up local stocks. Markets are emptying and staples including millet and sorghum are now in short supply.

Traders from the Sahel are traveling increasingly greater distances to buy maize, with some spotted as far as northern Ivory Coast, according to the WFP.

Cockburn said that the hard-learned lessons of Somalia are already bearing fruit. He is cautiously optimistic by the response from the European Union, which announced this week that it is doubling its humanitarian aid for the Sahel.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid visited Niger on Wednesday in order to see the problem up close.

"Within months people will begin to starve unless we act," she said, according to a statement posted on the European Union's website. "The alarm bells are ringing."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_af/af_west_africa_hunger_crisis

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Body parts found in LA canyon; police seek answers (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? It's the perfect secluded hiking spot for those in the know, celebrities trying to keep clear of the paparazzi and others seeking a close-up view of the "Hollywood" sign or sweeping panoramas of downtown.

This week, someone apparently thought Bronson Canyon, a twisting, tiny warren of narrow streets just a mile up a hill from the studio where the TV show "Wizards of Waverly Place" was filmed, could also be the perfect place to hide a dismembered body.

A head. Feet. And hands.

Whoever it was that left the gruesome scene may be long gone now. That's one mystery, in a town that thrives on them and often rings up millions of dollars making up tales filled with gory scenes just like the one discovered Tuesday.

The other, more pressing mystery: Who do the body parts belong to?

So far, police believe the unidentified man is between 40 and 60 years old.

They also believe the body, found by a dog walker who let one of her animals off the leash, had been there only a short time. Just a few days at the most.

They note that the coyotes that roam rugged Bronson Canyon Park in packs at night ? their howls are the only sounds people hear after dusk ? would have destroyed the remains if they had been there longer than a few days.

"If it had not been for the dog walker, we might never have found it," police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said Thursday at the park.

As if to make Smith's point, a coyote strolled by a hillside at that moment, stopping no more than 30 yards away and turning its head curiously toward the assembled reporters as the officer continued to speak.

As 120 officers and firefighters on foot and horseback fought their way through 7 acres of brush this week looking for the victim's torso, some searchers used ropes to rappel into a steep drainage culvert. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, meanwhile, was attempting to identify the remains.

Smith said they would try to identify the man through fingerprints first and, if that doesn't work, search DNA databases and dental records.

Police are still searching for a motive, reviewing hundreds of theories provided by both detectives and local residents.

They don't believe the head, feet and hands are connected to a torso police in Tucson, Ariz., found on Jan. 6, Smith said.

That was too long ago for the head and other parts to have survived in the condition in which they were discovered. The head was found inside a plastic bag. Police also believe the victim was killed somewhere else and brought to the park.

They don't believe a serial killer was involved.

"We have no indication there is a serial murderer running around," Smith said.

The discovery, just inside Bronson Canyon Park's front gate, also was the first time police could recall finding a head or other body parts there.

Griffith Park, a huge, rugged expanse on the other side of the hill, is usually the dumping place for bodies, Officer Bruce Borihahn said.

Bronson Canyon is a quiet neighborhood of homes of various architectural styles and sizes that dead-ends at the rustic park, which features picnic tables, hiking trails and the so-called "Bat Cave," where segments of the "Batman" TV show were filmed.

"We're the area even celebrities come to hike when they don't want paparazzi following them," said Susan Moss, who has lived just seven houses down from the park's gate for the past 12 years. "It's so quiet the paparazzi don't even come up here."

Until the remains turned up, the most serious things residents said they had to worry about were the coyotes and the smash-and-grab burglars who sometimes target hikers' cars.

Renee Dake Wilson, who was walking her boxer-pit bull mix, Sweet Pea, near the park, said she was unnerved by the find, especially the fact that the head was uncovered right off the trail where she and her dog walk every day.

"I'm a little worried," she said. "It's a concern to have such an event happen in your neighborhood. But I do think it's an isolated event."

___

Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_us/us_human_head_found

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Nike FuelBand is the hot, healthy new thing to wear around your wrist (Yahoo! News)

Following up on the pioneering success of the 2006's?Nike+, the company that started the?wearable digital fitness revolution has a slick new product. Meet the Nike+ FuelBand, a bracelet in the same fitness-forward family as the?FitBit and the?Jawbone Up

The FuelBand has a few neat tricks to set it apart. Sure, it'll track your perambulations, but it also converts all of your physical activity into a kind of health currency called NikeFuel. It tracks steps walked and calories burned, but it also uses oxygen kinetics to take a more precise measurement of your exertion ? and in true Nike fashion, it turns the result into a competitive sport.

You can compete against your own NikeFuel score of course, but you'll also be able to compare against your friends (or foes!) on Twitter and Facebook (and later Foursquare and Path, potentially). You can also check your progress toward your own goals at a glance via the bracelet's little colorful LED lights. The Nike FuelBand goes on pre-order today for $149 and begin shipping on February 22.

(Source)

This article originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120119/tc_yblog_technews/nike-fuelband-is-the-hot-healthy-new-thing-to-wear-around-your-wrist

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Golden Globe Awards 2012: List of Winners!

Did the 2012 Golden Globe winners go according to plan? Or were there any big surprises? Are the Oscar favorites more or less cemented right now?

The Help, The Artist, The Descendants and Hugo proved they are early Oscar leaders, with each film taking home some hardware Sunday evening.

The Artist’s wins for Best Score and Best Actor for Jean Dujardin kept the critical favorite squarely in the driver’s seat as an early Oscar favorite.

After winning Best Actor for The Descendants, George Clooney is the man to beat for the honor at the Oscars. That film was also the best drama.

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical went to The Artist, while Meryl Streep won Best Actress (shocker) as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

The Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement went to Morgan Freeman (above), who received the honor from Sidney Poitier and Helen Mirren.

On the TV side, Homeland, Modern Family and Downton Abbey were the big winners.

Kicking off the night was a Ricky Gervais monologue that went after stars such as Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian this year. So ... there's that.

Here's the list of Golden Globe winners for 2012:

FILM

Best Motion Picture, Drama
The Descendants

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
The Artist

Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Actor, Motion Picture Drama
George Clooney, The Descendants

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Animated Film
The Adventures of Tintin

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Director
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical
Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Foreign Film
A Separation

Best Song
Masterpiece, W.E.

Best Score
Ludovic Bource, The Artist

TELEVISION

TV Series, Drama
Homeland

TV Series, Comedy
Modern Family

TV Movie or Miniseries
Downton Abbey

Actor in a TV Series, Drama
Kelsey Grammer, Boss

Actress in a TV Series, Drama
Claire Danes, Homeland

Actor, TV Series Comedy
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

Actress in a TV Series, Comedy
Laura Dern, Enlightened

Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie
Idris Elba, Luther

Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie
Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce

Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story

Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or TV Movie
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/golden-globe-awards-2012-list-of-winners/

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