Kenyan Gang Riot Leaves 24 Dead Clashes between a violent Kenyan street gang and locals have left 24 dead and injured three others, reports CNN. According to police, the fighting began Monday, when residents resisted the gang’s efforts to remove people from the town of Karatina who are from nearby community. Police have arrest 37 people in connection with the violence and have confiscated several weapons. Some accuse the gang Mungiki (which means “multitude” in English), also known as the Kenyan mafia, of being one of the driving forces behind the country’s post-election violence in 2008 that killed thousands. Mungiki gang members have terrified many neighborhoods in the nation, shaking down locals and business owners alike, reports CNN.  People who resist them usually suffer horrific deaths at the hands of the gang.   

Is Guadeloupe At Risk of a Tsunami? The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is at risk of having a tsunami, according to a scientist from the United Kingdom, reports the BBC. The environmental disaster could be caused by the collapse of a volcano, called Morne aux Diables (Devil’s Peak) in nearby Dominica due to a landslide set off by a large earthquake. As a result, according to geologist Dr. Richard Teeuw, chunks of rock would fall into the sea which would cause the tsunami waves. Residents of the island would hardly have any time to escape to safe ground.  

Mom of Alleged Pirate Seeks Obama’s Help

The mother of an alleged Somali pirate who faces trial in New York wants President Obama’s help in freeing the boy. Abde Wale Abdul Kadhir Muse, 16, was spared last week when three other young men were shot to death by Navy snipers after allegedly hijacking a United States ship. Read more. 

Somali Pirates Attack Another U.S. Ship

Almost a week after successfully attacking the U.S. ship the Maersk Alabama, Somali pirates attacked another U.S. vessel Tuesday using rocket-propelled grenades and weapons, reports the BBC. This time, however, they were not able to actually get onboard. The Liberty Sun was carrying food aid near the coast of Somalia when it was attacked. An email from one of the crew members to his mother detailed the incident. “We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets, also bullets,” the email from 26-year-old Thomas Urbik read, reports The Associated Press. Read the rest.

Nigerian Muslims Arrested After Attacking Easter Parade A parade on Easter Monday turned violent when Muslim youths and Christians clashed, resulting in 120 people being arrested, police say. Churches were also set ablaze, and Christians were attacked in the towns of Gwada and Minna, making it necessary for police to enter the town to restore order, reports the BBC. Many of the injured had to be rushed to the hospital. While the west African nation is closely divided between Christians and Muslims, the two groups usually coexist peacefully. There are times, though, when the groups have violent clashes, more often than not due to a “competition for resources” and not religious intolerance reports the BBC.

Somali Pirates Drown With $3 million Ransom  It looked like they’d hit the jackpot when some Somali pirates received a $3 million ransom to release a Saudi oil tanker Friday. Instead, five of the pirates drowned when their boat capsized as they were trying to return to land, losing all of the millions, reports MSNBC. There were three other pirates who survived, but they lost their share of the money as well. The crew of the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star already had been released. On Sunday, the body of one of the pirates washed ashore in Somalia with $153,000 in his pocket, according to a local resident. But the unfortunate, and ironic, turn events won’t do much to discourage wannabe pirates, says the managing director of Dryad Maritime Intelligence Graeme Gibbon Brooks. “The loss or potential loss of the ransom means the pirates will be all the more keen to get the next ransom. There are people lining up to be pirates,” he said. With Somalia’s shaky government and the fighting between troops and insurgents that has depressed some areas in the country, hijacking ships has been one of the few ways to earn money for some of the pirates. Pirates attacked over 100 ships last year, hijacking 42 of them. The hijackings have gone down recently, most likely due to an international crackdown that has ships from all over patrolling the waters. An Ukrainian ship, MV Faina, which was held near the Sirius Star, is still under control of the pirates. A pirate spokesman told the Associated Press that the members of that crew were safe and would be released unharmed after successful negotiations for a ransom. “Nothing has changed from our previous demand of $20 million ransom for the release of the ship, but as negotiations continue we are likely to reduce the amount,” Sugule Ali told the AP.

Somali Ship Hijackings Drop
The number of ships hijacked by pirates off Somalia’s coast has plunged during the month of December, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The drop comes after an active year that saw more than 100 ships being attacked by Somali pirates, with 42 of them being successfully hijacked. “There have been many attempted attacks but there were only two vessels which were hijacked in December,” IMB’s director, Capt. Pottengal Mukundan, told the BBC. The drop could be attributed to the fact that several countries sent ships to the waters to help patrol the area. There were two recent attacks, though. On Thursday a pirate attack on an Indian oil tanker was thwarted by the Malaysian navy, who, after seeing the tanker’s SOS signal sent in a helicopter. But on the same day an Egyptian vessel with 28 crew members was hijacked by about 15 pirates and steered towards Somalia’s coast. “The crew are hostages. …There are efforts underway to conduct the necessary talks to free the ship,” said the Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmed Rizq.

Activists to remain jailed in Zimbabw
Fourteen Zimbabwe activists, who stand accused of planning to bring down the government and President Robert Mugabe, were ordered by a court to remain jailed pending a Supreme Court hearing, reports CNN. “It is clear that the attorney general has appealed against the high court judgment. For that reason, the accused cannot be released at this stage,” said Judge Mishrod Guvamombe. Nine activists, including the head of the rights group Zimbabwe Peace Project, were recently charged with recruiting citizens to participate in military training to overthrow the government. Seven others were charged with banditry, which, in Zimbabwe, carries the death penalty. Two activists were released.  The majority of those arrested are members of the opposition party Movement of Democratic Change. The party’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had said he’d pull out of the power-sharing deal he signed in September with Mugabe if the accused were not released by the end of the year.

Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf announced on Monday that he is stepping down. His surrender comes at a hectic time as Ethiopian troops, who have been in the country to help support the government, are due to leave this week. Government troops only have control of parts of Mogadishu and Baidoa, while Islamist and nationalist groups rule most of the southern part of the nation, reports the BBC.  Not to mention the country’s Parliament backed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, who President Yusuf had tried to fire. During his speech in front of Parliament and broadcast throughout the nation on radio, Yusuf said he has failed as a leader. “As I promised when you elected me on Oct. 14, 2004, I would stand down if I failed to fulfill my duty. I have decided to return the responsibility you gave me.” He added that he wanted to leave so he wouldn’t be a “stumbling block to the peace process.” The country’s Parliament speaker will assume his responsibilities.

Somali pirates demand millions for hijacked ship. Somali pirates, who on Thursday hijacked a Ukrainian ship headed to Kenya, are now demanding $20 million, down from an earlier request for $35 million. The ship was transporting tanks and weapons to Mombasa (a Kenyan port) when the pirates took control of the ship near the coast of Somalia, reports CNN. Ukraine had sold the weapons (including 33 tanks, grenade launchers) to Kenya. The Kenyan government hasn’t had any contact with the pirates; the only way their demands have been made public is through interviews with the media. “The pirates are very clever and well-connected. They know the importance of using the media to put forward their side of the story,” said Rashid Abdi, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. But a Kenyan official warned the media against giving the hijackers attention. The media is “being used by terrorists who, on realizing they cannot get away with their plunder, are trying to draw attention from their criminal acts. Do not empower them by giving them the publicity they seek,” the government spokesman told CNN. Although the ship, Faina, is from Ukraine, members of the hijacked crew include citizens from Ukraine, Russia and Latvia. Pirates reportedly told town elders that one of the crew members died due to high blood pressure problems.

AIDS activists happy about Dr. Garlic’s demotion. Not too long after he was sworn in as president Thursday, South African leader Kgalema Motlanthe demoted the nation’s health minister to another position in the cabinet, reports CNN. AIDS activists couldn’t be happier. The former health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, gained her unpopularity (and the nickname “Dr. Garlic”) because she pushed remedies like garlic, lemon, and olive oil for the nation’s AIDS patients, instead of manufactured medicine. Members of an AIDS activist group, the Treatment Action Campaign, were so excited that they threw a party outside Parliament. They also held a news conference praising the decision Friday.

World Lens:

South Africa’s president calls it quits; Ethiopia suffers through a hunger crisis; and hip hop comes to Peru. See pics.
 Somali militants attack peacekeepers. Somali Islamist militants unleashed an attack on peacekeepers sparking fighting that resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians Wednesday. According to witnesses the violence was ground shaking. “The fighting was so heavy it shook the ground under our feet. Both sides were using heavy artillery – including tanks used by the AU,” said a Somali cameraman, adding that it was the most violent fighting he’d seen between the two forces. The militia, Al-Shaabab, recently stepped up attacks against African Union peacekeepers. Fighting earlier this week killed at least 33 civilians. An AU spokesman accused the militia of trying to draw them into a war, when they are only there to keep peace. They were “intended to draw [AU] into direct armed confrontation with the opposition forces, and therefore appear to be involved directly in the conflict…We refuse to be drawn into this senseless war,” the spokesman, Maj. Barigye Ba-Hoku, said in a statement.  Al-Shaabab has also been launching attacks against Ethiopian troops who are in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu helping to stabilize the government. Ever since Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, the government has been unstable.

S.A. couple killed while having sex on a train track. In South Africa, a train ran over and killed two people having sex on the track, reports the BBC. The incident took place late last week at a train station in Kinross. The victims have not been identified yet. The couple apparently had ignored warnings from the train driver as he was getting closer, police spokesman Abie Khoabane told local media. “They continued with their business,” he said. The area was deserted at the time of the accident. The man passed away at the scene of the accident and the woman died at the hospital later. Police are asking for anyone who has relatives that might have recently gone missing to help with their investigation.

Abduction follows days of violence which left 89 dead and hundreds wounded.
Two foreign journalists – one Canadian and one Australian – in addition to a Somali journalist and the driver that was with them, were all kidnapped in Somalia on Saturday, reports CNN. Journalists Amanda Lindhout of Canada and Nigel Brenan of Australia, had only been in Somali for three days before being abducted by members of a militia outside of Mogadishu, the National Union of Somali Journalists announced Sunday. Somali photojournalist Abdifathah Mohammed Elmi also acted as a translator for the group, which was traveling after talking to refugees at a refugee camp. Officials aren’t yet clear about the motive of the kidnapping. “No formal claim of responsibility was made. As well, there have been no demands,” the journalist group said. This weekend’s kidnappings cap off a violent week in Somalia, which saw 89 people dead, 207 people wounded and 5,500 people displaced due to fighting in Kismayo. After three days of violence, an Islamic group, Al Shabab, took over the town on Friday. The country has been in turmoil since 1991 when the government was overthrown by militants. Ethiopian troops entered the nation in 2006 to drive militants out of Mogadishu and help install a transitional government. However, their involvement has led to increased fighting between militants and Ethiopian troops, leaving thousands of Somalis homeless.

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.