Six-year-old girl killed for her body parts. In East Africa’s Burundi, a 6-year-old albino girl was found brutally murdered, with her head and limbs cut off, reports the BBC.  The day of the killing, attackers broke into her home, tied up her parents and shot her in the head, said local officials. Killing albinos for their body parts has become a disturbing trend in the country as well as in neighboring Tanzania because witchdoctors have claimed their limbs can be for magic potions. But this was not always the case in Burundi. According to Kasim Kazungu, who heads Burundi Albinos’ Association, albinos were not a target until word got out about the money they could make from selling body parts in Tanzania. And, recently, a man in Tanzania was arrested for trying to sell his albino wife to traders from Congo. This is the sixth albino person in Burundi killed since September.   
Powerful quake hits Panama overnight. An earthquake measuring 6.2 in magnitude shook Panama overnight, reports Reuters. It hit at 1:11 a.m. local time about 35 miles from David, Panama. While tremors were felt in the capital of neighboring Costa Rica, there are no immediate reports of damage there, according to the nation’s emergency commission. People in Panama, who called into a local radio station, said they felt the quake intensely along with several aftershocks. Another caller, who said he was a Red Cross worker, reported that there wasn’t any signs of major structural damage or landslides near the quake’s epicenter, reports Reuters.

A U.S. Marine and his wife apparently were killed by his own. California authorities are holding four U.S. Marines they say tortured and killed a bi-racial couple from Brooklyn, N.Y., in their San Diego-area home. The Marines apparently served under the command of Brooklyn-raised  Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak, of  Bensonhurst, who, with his wife, Quiana, were found bound and gagged in the ransacked house, each shot in the head execution-style, reports The New York Daily News.  Pietrzak was the suspects’ sergeant at Camp Pendleton, according to Quiana’s mother. Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak, 26, worked for the county’s Black Infant Care Center. Pietrzak’s mother, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, said she had prepared herself “for the possibility that my son could die in Iraq.” “But to die like this, in their own home?” she told the News.  Read the rest here.

Ugandan man killed because he kept smoking.

In Uganda, a group of people attacked and killed a man because he would not stop smoking, reports the BBC. The incident, which has left local officials in shock, happened in a public bar, where the country has had a ban on smoking for about four years. “I’m really not happy with it. He had broken the law, but they should have taken it to the police for the law to take its course,” saidJohn Okeya, an official in the village where it all happened. While the victim was smoking and drinking at the bar he made “provocative comments” to others who told him to stop smoking before the mob eventually approached him and strangled him to death. Many residents have spoken out against the case of extreme vigilantism, saying the attackers went too far. “These people who killed made a mistake because the law does not say kill a smoker, the law says take the smoker to the authority concerned,” said one resident. However another local said the action was necessary. “He was told to move away and smoke from outside and he refused,” the he said. The police have detained several suspects in the killing.

Zimbabwe leaders already aren’t getting along, reports say. Not too long after holding a press conference where everyone was all smiles, it looks like there’s trouble between the Zimbabwe leaders already. Just days after President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (along with Arthur Mutambara who leads a small faction of the opposition) publicly agreed on a power sharing deal, they are reportedly deadlocked once again on ministry appointments. Sources tell CNN that ZANU-Pf, the party of controversial longtime leader Mugabe wants to control important ministries like defense, justice and home affairs while giving Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change less important ones like correctional services. In the deal signed earlier this week, ZANU-Pf was assigned 15 council ministers and the opposition altogether was assigned 16. Mugabe seemed to have misgivings about the deal very early on. In fact, he told his supporters that the agreement was a humiliation, but that he had to sign it since Tsvangirai gained so many votes in the first round of elections (while Tsvangirai had the majority he didn’t have the over 50 percent needed to secure a victory). And at least one official from the Movement for Democratic Change also had problems with the deal the weekend before it was signed, saying Tsvangirai shouldn’t sign until issues with the ministries were taken care of. Still, he went ahead and inked the deal on Monday.

Wyclef helps Haiti, and there’s model search in Kenya

World Lens: Musician Wyclef Jean pitches in to help Haiti, Zimbabwe leaders are all smiles and the search for is on for Kenya’s next top model. See these pictures and more.

http://www.bet.com/News/Photos/NewsFlipBookWorldlens0915.htm??Referrer={457FF100-3B70-4ACA-BAD9-54876F2F0D30}

U.N., Afghan observers say scores of women and children were killed

New evidence appears to back up claims by the United Nations and Afghanis who contend that a U.S. raid killed some 90 civilians, including scores of women and children in the western Afghanistan village of Azizabad . The Associated Press reported Monday that it had obtained two grainy videos - apparently taken by cell phones - of the grisly scene. According to AP, the video shows “bodies lying side-by-side on the mosque floor, covered by floral-patterned blankets and Black-and-White checkered shawls. One young boy lay curled in a fetal position; others looked as though they were asleep. One child had half its head blown off. Turbaned men walked around, gently lifting the blankets covering the faces of the dead. At least two elderly men were among the dead. There appeared to be several dozen bodies lying on the mosque floor, though a precise count was difficult because of the poor quality of the images.” While the videos are not definitive proof that 60 children were killed in the raid, they do seem to contradict the Pentagon’s assertion that 35 militants and only seven civilians were killed in Azizabad.

The was began in 2001 following the acts of terrorism on U.S. soil

The war against terrorism has marked another grisly milestone. A U.S. sailor killed in Afghanistan Saturday marked the 500^th time an American military person lost his/her life in the country since the United States invaded it following the terrorist attacks of 2001. The sailor, Petty Officer 1^st Class Joshua Harris, of Lexington, N.C., was 36. He was the 22^nd U.S. service member to die in Afghanistan during the month of August. Over the past seven years, 940 members of the U.S. coalition force have been killed.

Plane crash in Guatemala kills 10. A Guatemalan plane carrying 14 people crashed Sunday, killing 10 people, reports CNN. Eight Americans are among the dead.  About 45 minutes after the Cessna Caravan 208 took off, the pilot started making calls about engine failure, according to the country’s director of civil aeronautics. But the air-traffic tower lost contact with the plane at 9:45 a.m. and it crashed in Zacapa, killing the pilot, co-pilot and the Americans on board. The other four passengers were taken to a hospital after the crash. “It seems like the pilot tried her best to make a safe landing in an open field but was not successful. On impact, the aircraft was split into pieces,” a Zacapa firefighter told reporters at the scene.  

Civilians killed by Sudan’s government forces, witnesses say. Sudanese forces attacked a refugee camp in Darfur, killing at least 32 civilians early Monday, witnesses say. The witness accounts of the attack are chilling. More than 50 vehicles “packed with armed men wearing police and security forces’ uniforms … hit us with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns,” resident of the refugee camp, Mandela Abdullah Mohammed, told The Associated Press. He also said the victims included many women and children. One rebel group spokesman from the Sudan Liberation Army claimed an even higher death toll - 45 people dead and 135 people wounded - due to the Sudanese soldiers “storming” the camp and attacking. “The government sent a strong military force and attacked the camp with the intentions of killing civilians,” another spokesman for the group told AP.  A Sudanese military spokesman, though, insists they had good reason to fire on the camp. “They were surprised by heavy gunfire from within the camp. There was an exchange of fire and a number of victims,” the spokesman, Sawarmy Khaled, said.  But the United Nations say they received reports about Sudanese police surrounding and attacking the camp in southern Darfur, which resulted in “injuries and deaths of civilians.” The United Nations would not give an estimate on the death toll, but a coordinator for nearby clinic run by Doctors Without Borders says that at least 65 people were admitted for treatment for gunshot wounds. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is facing genocide charges brought on by the International Criminal Court for allegedly supporting attacks against the nation’s ethnic Africans. Since fighting started in Darfur in 2003, about 300,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million have been made homeless.

Spanish airplane crash investigated

 In Spain, investigators continue to look into what might have caused a passenger jet to crash during takeoff killing 153 people. The jet, Spanair Flight JK5022, was carrying 172 people when it crashed at Barajas Airport in Madrid Wednesday afternoon. “The government will do all it can to support the families in this difficult situation. The whole government, logically, is affected, very affected, as are all Spanish citizens, by this tragedy,” said Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Nineteen people, including two infants, survived the crash, according to Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez. According to survivors, passengers could hear an explosion as the plane was taking off. “They were about 200 meters [600 feet] in the air, and then they were landing but not crashing. They were landing, like, little by little; it was not like they [fell] down suddenly,” a reporter told CNN. One of the aircraft’s engines caught on fire, according to local officials. Since the jet’s engine was made in America, the United States National Transportation Safety Board will send an investigation team to look into crash causes, a spokesman said.

Algeria suffers two deadly car bomb attacks. Algerians are mourning the deaths of 50 people after car bomb attacks on consecutive days, reports CNN. On Tuesday, an explosion near a military school killed 43 people and wounded 38 in what’s being labeled a “terrorist attack,” said the nation’s interior ministry. Then on Wednesday, a car bomb attack outside of a hotel killed 11 people. No group has taken responsibility for the attacks yet, although the group al-Qaeda Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for two recent blasts.

Nigerian city cracks down on prostitution. Authorities in Bauchi, a Nigerian city under Islamic rule, have decided to crack down prostitution, reports the BBC. Using a census by the Red Cross (which the charity conducted to help slow the spread of HIV) the Sharia commission ordered that the 320 women identified be rounded up. None of the women has been arrested, though; the city just wants to supervise and make sure that no illegal acts go on, according to a commissioner. The Sharia commission (which is ruled under the Islamic Sharia law) went to hotels to round up the prostitutes using only their own security forces and without the help of police. According to the BBC, officials were moved to act against prostitution to get rid of the idea that they were not adequately enforcing laws against prostitution. Sharia commission member Mustapha Babe, refuted any claims that the women were arrested or detained. The commission is just watching some sections of the city more closely, he said. “In every nook and corner and cranny, illegal acts were being committed contrary to Sharia law. As a result of this, we sent them to supervise the areas where something has happened,” he said. Of the 320 women rounded up, between 75 and 100 of them have tested positive for HIV.

Somali charity worker killed in his country. A Somali aid worker for the United Nation’s World Food Program was kidnapped and killed as he tried to escape his attackers, reports CNN. Abdulkadir Diad Mohamed was visiting his home town of Dinsor, Somalia this weekend, when he, along with people he was traveling with in a vehicle, were abducted. When he and the driver tried to escape, they were killed by their kidnappers, but a third passenger managed to escape. “I am shocked by this senseless and barbaric attack on one of our staff. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and colleagues,” said Josette Sheeran, the WFP executive director. Mohamed, who was an administration and finance assistant for the organization, joined the charity in June. According to the WFP, this is the first violent death of a worker in Somalia since 1993, although five drivers who were employed by the charity’s contractors were killed this year alone in Somalia.

The accident left another 100 people missing
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