The Hospital At The Center Of A Muslim-Christian War In Africa

By Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post

Muslim neighborhood in Bangui. Image by William Daniels, Washington Post

BANGUI, Central African Republic —When he awoke after the surgery, the bullets had been removed from his legs, and Saddam Abdul Rahman was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by men from the other side of the war.

He scanned the room and saw the faces of five Christian men in adjacent beds. For a Muslim living in the center of a sectarian conflict, where your throat could be slit if you were of the wrong religion, it was a startling sight.

It was early November, and Abdul Rahman had been taken to the Hôpital Général — one of the last institutions in this city where Muslims and Christians could be found in the same room. Since 2013, at least a fifth of the country’s half-million Muslims had fled their homes. Tens of thousands of Christians had been forced out of the remaining Muslim enclaves. It was one of the most dramatic explosions of religious violence in recent African history, with the United Nations concluding there was "ethnic cleansing" of the country’s Muslim minority.

Before the war began in 2013, Abdul Rahman had married a Christian and counted many Christians as friends. Now, as he lay in Bed 3 of Room 206 in the hospital run by an aid group, the 27-year-old feared that those around him “could be dangerous,” as he later recalled.

There were Christian victims of gunshots and stabbings and car accidents. There were Christian nurses who kept medical records in Justin Bieber binders. There was a Christian patient who kept track of his surgeries on the back page of his Bible. To an outsider, the traits often associated with Muslims in this country were nearly imperceptible — a slightly thinner face, slightly lighter skin.

But Abdul Rahman worried that everyone knew immediately who he was.

Two weeks earlier, in late October, a crowd of Christians had converged at the hospital’s front gate, cursing the doctors for treating their Muslim enemies.

Abdul Rahman’s brothers promised to get him out of the hospital before he was targeted in his bed.

To find Room 206, drive east through the capital of this country at the heart of Africa, past the row of decaying ministries. Find the pale-yellow hospital at the foot of a verdant hill, where visitors are asked to deposit their guns before entering. Climb to the second floor, just below the emergency room, where the screams of newly arrived gunshot victims can be heard through the peeling walls.

Since the Central African Republic declared its independence from France in 1960, it has been plagued by coups and rebellions. Despite its vast mineral resources, it is among the poorest countries in the world, its diamonds and gold plundered by strongmen. Even before the war began, the International Crisis Group described the country as "worse than a failed state." But there was one solace: For centuries, Muslims, Christians and animists lived in relative peace here.

Then, in 2013, a group of mostly Muslim rebels called the Seleka charged into Bangui from the north, unseating President François Bozizé. Within months, a band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-balaka, rose up to counter the Seleka.

Those fighters quickly recast their strategy as a broader crusade against Muslims, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that continues today. More than 450 mosques have been destroyed since the war broke out. Thousands of people have been slain, despite the presence of 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

Abdul Rahman worked as a trader in the market. He believed in God, but he spent more time at the basketball court than in the mosque. After the war broke out, he found himself trapped with his wife in what became the last Muslim neighborhood in Bangui, known as PK-5. On many days, just leaving the area was a death wish.

Every morning, though, Abdul Rahman sneaked out to meet Christian farmers. For a small fee, he would help them smuggle their cows to sell in the PK-5 market. He liked the idea of flouting the new policies of segregation, he said. Then, one morning, as he approached the meeting point with the Christian farmers, a man in a hooded sweatshirt approached him and pulled a gun from his belt.

“You stop there,” the man said.

Abdul Rahman ran. He heard a burst of bullets, and then he fell. When he looked down, he saw blood flowing from his legs and a piece of bone exposed. Then he lost consciousness.

By the time Abdul Rahman arrived, the Hôpital Général already had been enveloped in Bangui’s religious tensions. A rumor had spread that nurses were injecting Muslim patients with poison. From their beds, patients sometimes screamed threats at one another.

Doctors Without Borders the aid group that runs the hospital, tried to explain that it was a neutral institution, that free treatment would be offered to everyone regardless of religion. It didn’t always resonate.

“The level of hate outside Bangui — you can feel it in the hospital,” said Jean Vataux, a senior Doctors Without Borders official in the country.

In the hospital room, as his legs slowly healed, Abdul Rahman examined his roommates from his white, iron-framed bed. He was afraid to say much, he later recounted, and waited for them to volunteer their stories.

There was Ngamafei Marcellin, the thin 60-year-old musician who had been hung from a tree and shot for “sympathizing with Muslims,” as he recounted. There was Guy Patrick Gotoa, 28, the muscular former security guard who said he had been shot because he was suspected of stealing money from a militia.

That was the first thing that surprised Abdul Rahman: His Christian roommates had been shot by Christian militias. In Bangui, the closer you got to the carnage, the harder it became to discern any clear lines. Even Abdul Rahman’s own shooting proved blurry. He thought the man who attacked him was a Christian seeking to punish him for sneaking out of the Muslim neighborhood. But Abdul Rahman’s three brothers suspected the man was a Muslim who targeted him for fraternizing with Christians.

Abdul Rahman grew more comfortable in the yellow-painted room.

“We all have the same God,” he said one day to Marcellin.

“The fighting makes no sense,” he said on another day.

To his astonishment, the other men mostly agreed with him.

“We don’t care that he’s Muslim,” Marcellin said. “Here, we are all in the same position of recovering from our wounds.”

But when the men looked at Gotoa, the former security guard, they were sure he was an anti-balaka fighter, despite his denials. He could be violent, punching the wall when he got angry.

“I can never tolerate a Muslim,” he yelled one day, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Only after vengeance can we have peace,” he said another day.

Room 206 was just miles away from the fighting, which kept creeping up to the hospital gates. In late November, furious that the hospital was still admitting Muslims, a group of Christians blocked the road. A patient died in an ambulance that couldn’t get through, said Mauricette Goddot, director of the hospital.

“One day, the people outside shouted, ‘Bring the Muslims out so we can kill them,’ ” Goddot recalled in an interview. “I don’t know how it’s come to this.”

Still, there were notable examples of people trying to overcome the sectarian divide, and in a few cities, members of the two religions still coexisted in relative peace. The capital’s Catholic archbishop had given shelter to a prominent imam after his house was burned down. In one Bangui neighborhood, Christians helped rebuild a mosque that had been destroyed (though it was later destroyed again).

At the Hôpital Général, there was finally a break in the terrorism.

On Nov. 29, Pope Francis arrived on a much-anticipated, two-day trip to promote reconciliation. The men in Room 206 followed the reports of his activities on a black radio. The pontiff drove through some of the most dangerous parts of Bangui in an open-air truck, and he even spoke at a mosque in PK-5.

Outside the hospital, the city was euphoric. Inside, the men cheered over the static of the radio, even Gotoa.

At one point, the men heard a roar near the hospital. It sounded like another angry mob. But then they heard cheers. The pope had come to the city’s pediatric hospital, less than 100 yards from their room.

After Francis returned to Rome, the glow of his visit seemed to remain. The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid  Ra'ad Al Hussein, spoke of how the papal trip had created “a momentum which could overturn the downward spiral of the past months.”

The mood in Room 206 was transformed.

“We just want peace,” Gotoa said, the day after Francis left. “It’s like the pope said.”

The men didn’t know that the violence would surge in a matter of days. They didn’t know that PK-5 would be targeted again by machine guns and rockets, this time as its residents voted in a national election on a draft constitution. They didn’t know that a Muslim rebel leader would soon proclaim a breakaway state in the country’s north.

They just reveled in a moment of solidarity.

“I hope this changes everything,” Abdul Rahman said. 

Culinary Correctness: How To Prepare Delicious Afang Soup

BY MITCHELLE OKUKU,

 NAIJ, DECEMBER 15, 2015

Afang soup is a delicacy of the Ibibios and the Efiks in Akwa Ibom and Cross River State of Nigeria. It is prepared from shredded afang leaves, “water leaf” (Talinum triangulare ), and an assorted selection of smoked fish, stock fish, meat and crayfish.

Served with fufu, gari, or pounded yam, it is a truly delicious authentic African food.

It is a must in all ceremonies like child’s birth, weddings, even funerals.
The appearance of afang soup might be a little threatening to new comers, but it is a very delicious soup and I am saying this from experience.
In the past, the afang leaves were only collected from the forest but in Nigeria, we now grow them even in our backyards. They are found growing in isolation or amidst of grasses or weeds.
Afang leaves (Gnetum africana ) can also be eaten raw as prepared by the Igbos in the popular African Salad “Ugba”. The people of the republic of Congo also consume the afang leaves which they call “Mfumbwa”.
Afang leaf is so named by the Efiks and Ibibios, Igbos call it “ukazi”, “Eru” by the Cameroonians and “koko” in Congo.
The other leaf used in the afang soup is the water leaf or fame flower (Talinum triangulare ) which is found in many countries in West Africa, Central African, some southern parts of USA but mostly cultivated in Cameroon and Nigeria.

NUTRITIONAL VALUE

The soup, like all other African food soup, is highly nutritious, since it contains a copious blend of vegetables, fish and or meat, along with needed lipids, minerals and vitamins.
The Afang leaf itself serves as a dietary fiber which helps in proper digestion and gives a bulk feeling, vital for a good weight control diet. It also contains Vitamin A, fat, oil, and iron.
Waterleaf has higher levels of nutritionally-important vitamins (such as vitamin C, vitamin E, and Beta-carotene, minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, and soluble fiber known as pectin and purslane, all of which contribute to waterleaf’s highly-elevated antioxidant values and its total biological effect. The combination in one plant species of n-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and pectin that consequently has a positive and beneficial influence in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases in humans. Water leaf contain some substances that reduces harmful blood cholesterol and simultaneously increasing beneficial blood cholesterol and vitamin and mineral levels using such food compositions and of treating and preventing coronary heart disease using such food compositions.

HOW TO COOK AFANG SOUP
Ingredients:
* 1.5 kg of Afang leaves ( Gnetum africana )
* 1 kg of edible Water leaves (Talinum triangulare )
* Half litre of Palm oil
* 2 medium sized dry fish
* 6-8 table spoons full of Crayfish
* 2 cubes seasonings
* 1.5 Kg of assorted Meat – ( goat meat, cow leg or cow tail)
* 1 medium size finely chopped onions
* 5-7 table spoons of grounded Fresh red pepper
* 1 – 2 medium cups of Periwinkle (with shell removed)
* stockfish head
* snails, clam – optional
* salt to taste

Serving : 6
Preparation Time : 2 Hours
Cooking Time : 25 Minutes

Preparation:
* Pluck fresh afang leaves from the stem and wash them

* Dry the leaves under the sun in an open umbrella turned upside down for about 10 – 15 minutes, turning the leaves with your fingers occasionally; this is to allow the water drain from the leaves in preparation for cutting

* While the afang is drying outside, pluck, wash and slice the water leaves using a cutting board and set aside

* Bring in the afang leaves from under the sun

* With the aid of a cutting board, slice afang leaves into tiny pieces, turn into a bowl and set aside. On the other hand, in Nigeria you could buy the already sliced leaves from the market, but you still need to wash and dry them before use.

* Wash assorted meat, snails and clams. snails must be washed with alum and salt to cut off the slime

* Season meat, stockfish head, snails, and clams, with onions, pepper, seasoning and salt.Except the cow leg /tail that is set aside in different bowls.

* Take the cow leg / tail put into a pot fill pot with 1 .5 litres of water to cover the meat and put on fire. Cook for 15 minutes. Do not add salt to cow leg or tail until its soft

* While the cow leg / tail is on fire turn the sliced afang leaves into a mortar and pound with pestle into a paste. The afang leaves are a little tougher than other vegetable leaves so might take at least 10 minutes of constant pounding

* Turn the pounded afang leaves into a bowl and set aside

* After 15 minutes of cooking the cow leg / tail, turn goat meat and stock fish into cow leg/tail stock with 1 litre of water, adding more water intermittently if necessary

* After meat might have cooked for about 15 more minutes, add prepared snails and clams. This is because they do not take long to cook

* when meat is cooked, by then every other thing would have been well-cooked, add palm oil, seasoning cubes, crayfish, dry fish and periwinkle, to meat stock, stir with cooking spoon and allow to boil till oil blends with the stock. That should take about 8mins

* Add water leaves, stir with spoon, cover and allow to steam for about 2 mins

* Add the Afang leaves, stir and cover the pot

* Allow pot to sit on fire for about 5 mins, depending on how fresh you want your veggies

* Bring pot down and serve with fufu Pounded yam or garri e.t.c.

Naij.com contributor – Oluremilekun Osobu-Asubiojo

Opec Crises Meeting Looms As Oil Plunges To $35 And Nerves Begin To Fray

BY AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD, THE TELEGRAPH

The OPEC oil cartel will be forced to call an emergency meeting within weeks to stabilize the market if crude prices fail to rebound after crashing to eight-year lows of $35 a barrel, two member states have warned.

Emmanuel Kachikwu, Nigeria’s oil minister and OPEC president until last week, said the cartel was still hoping the oil market would recover by February as low prices squeeze out excess production from US shale, Russia and the North Sea. But nerves are beginning to fray.

“If it doesn’t, then obviously we’re in for a very urgent meeting,” he said. Indonesia has issued similar warnings over recent days, suggesting the OPEC majority may try to force a meeting if Saudi Arabia’s strategy of flooding the market creates a deeper crisis.

The comments came as Brent oil plunged to US$36.76 on the fall-out from OPEC’s deeply-divided meeting earlier this month. It is now within a whisker of its Lehman-crisis lows in 2008. West Texas crude dropped to US$34.54 before rebounding in late trading.

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday as a slump to near 11-year lows in the previous session whetted investors’ buying appetite but a lingering supply glut kept prices near troughs last seen during the financial crisis.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, had risen 55 cents to $38.47 a barrel by 1253 GMT, having touched an intra-day high of $38.95. U.S. crude was up 31 cents at $36.62.

Lower quality oil is already selling below US$30 on global markets. Basra heavy crude from Iraq is quoted at US$26 on Asia, and poor grades from Western Canada fetch as little as US$22. Iran’s high-sulphur Foroozan is selling at $31.

The oil market is now in the grip of speculative forces as hedge funds take out record short positions and exchange traded funds liquidate paper holdings, making it extremely hard to read the underlying conditions.

Anton Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, said his country was bracing for the worst. “There is no defined policy by the OPEC countries: it is everyone for himself, all trying to recapture markets, and it leads to the dumping that is going on,” he said.

“Everything points to low oil prices next year, and it’s possible that it could be US$30 a barrel, and maybe less. If someone had told us a year ago that oil was going to be under $40, everyone would’ve laughed. You have to prepare for difficult times.”

The rouble fell to 71 against the dollar, helping to cushion the blow for the Kremlin’s budget but further eroding Russian living standards. Elvira Nabiulina, the head of Russia’s central bank, said the authorities were now preparing for an average price of US$35 next year, a drastic cut even from the earlier emergency planning.

Bank of America says OPEC is effectively suspended as Saudi Arabia wages an internal price war against Iran, its bitter rival for geo-strategic dominance in the Middle East.

Mike Wittner from Societe Generale said the Saudis floated a proposal at the OPEC summit for a 1 million b/d output cut if Russia, Iraq, and others join in chiefly in order to demonstrate to critics at home that no such deal can be forged.

He said the strategy to flood the market was not taken lightly and has support from the “highest possible level.” Part of the goal is to discourage energy efficiency and deter investment in renewables.

OPEC is not due to meet again until June, but by then its members could be facing fiscal crises. Even Saudi Arabia is freezing public procurement and drawing up austerity plans to rein in a budget deficit near 20 per cent of GDP. OPEC revenues have collapsed from $1.2 trillion a year in 2012 to nearer $400 billion next year, if prices stay this low. JP Morgan said the latest fall is likely to boost global economic growth by 0.3 percentage points next year.

Yet the situation is fraught with hazard. Saudi Arabia has stopped acting as the “central bank” of the crude markets. Spare capacity has fallen to wafer-thin levels. Any serious political upset in a country like Iraq — or a terrorist pipeline attack in the Gulf — could trigger a violent reversal and a global oil shock. On the other side of the ledger, Chinese oil demand is booming.

The paradox of the oil market is that a glut disguises the tightest balance of supply and demand in modern peace-time history.

Global Grocer Supply Chains Tied To Slave-Peeled Shrimp

 BY MARGIE MASON, ROBIN McDOWELL, MARTHA MENDOZA AND ESTHER HTUSAN 

In this Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015 photo, female workers, wearing a yellow-white cosmetic paste known as thanka on their cheeks, sort shrimp at a seafood market in Mahachai, Thailand. Shrimp is the most-loved seafood in the U.S., with Americans downing 1.3 billion pounds every year, or about 4 pounds per person. Thailand sends nearly half of its supply to the U.S. Image: Gemunu Amarasinghe

SAMUT SAKHON, THAILAND (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Poor migrant workers and children are being sold to factories in Thailand and forced to peel shrimp that ends up in global supply chains, including those of Wal-Mart and Red Lobster, the world's largest retailer and the world's largest seafood restaurant chain, an Associated Press investigation found.

At the Gig Peeling Factory, nearly 100 Burmese laborers were trapped, most working for almost nothing. They spent 16 hours a day with their aching hands in ice water, ripping the guts, heads, tails and shells off shrimp. One girl was so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table. Some workers had been there for months, even years. Always, someone was watching.

"They didn't let us rest," said Eae Hpaw, 16, her arms a patchwork of scars from shrimp-related infections and allergies. "We stopped working around 7 in the evening. We would take a shower and sleep. Then we would start again around 3 in the morning."

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More than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been freed this year as a result of an ongoing Associated Press investigative series into slavery in the Thai seafood industry. The reports also have led to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars' worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.

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Pervasive human trafficking has helped turn Thailand into one of the world's biggest shrimp providers. Despite repeated promises by businesses and government to clean up the country's $7 billion seafood export industry, abuses persist, fueled by corruption and complicity among police and authorities. Arrests and prosecutions are rare. Raids can end up sending migrants without proper paperwork to jail, while owners go unpunished.

"I was shocked after working there a while, and I realized there was no way out," said Tin Nyo Win, 22, another former Gig factory worker, who routinely peeled 175 pounds of shrimp with his wife for just $4 a day.

Hundreds of shrimp-peeling sheds are hidden in plain sight in Samut Sakhon, an hour outside Bangkok, some with slaves locked inside. Last month, AP journalists followed and filmed trucks loaded with freshly peeled shrimp from the abusive Gig shed to major Thai exporting companies. They also traced similar connections from another factory raided six months earlier, and interviewed more than two dozen workers from both sites. In all, several companies received tainted shrimp, including Thai Union, one of the world's biggest seafood companies, and a subsidiary.

The farmed shrimp can mix with different batches of seafood as it is packaged, branded and shipped, making it impossible to determine where any individual piece was peeled. But because at least some of the Thai exporters' shrimp was processed by forced labor, all of it is considered associated with slavery, according to United Nations and U.S. standards.

U.S. customs records show the shrimp made its way into the supply chains of major U.S. food stores and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General and Petco, along with restaurants such as Red Lobster and Olive Garden. It also entered supply chains for some of America's best-known seafood brands and pet foods, including Chicken of the Sea and Fancy Feast. AP reporters went to supermarkets in all 50 states and found shrimp products from supply chains tainted with forced labor.

Import and export records from Europe and Asia are confidential, but the Thai companies receiving shrimp tracked by the AP all say they ship to those continents. AP reporters in England, Germany, Italy and Ireland found several brands sourced from Thailand in supermarkets in those countries.

The businesses that responded to AP's findings condemned the practices that lead to these conditions. Many asked for details and said they were launching investigations.

"I want to eliminate this," said Dirk Leuenberger, CEO of Aqua Star, a leading seafood suppler. "I think it's disgusting that it's even remotely part of my business."

Wal-Mart, Red Lobster and other companies said they strive to ensure the shrimp they receive is not tainted by slavery.

"As the world's largest seafood restaurant, we know the important role we play in setting and ensuring compliance with seafood industry standards, and we're committed to doing our part to make sure the seafood we buy and serve is sourced in a way that is ethical, responsible and sustainable," Red Lobster said in a statement.

Red Lobster, Whole Foods and H-E-B Supermarkets were among the companies that said they were confident — based on assurances from their Thai supplier — that their particular shrimp was not associated with abusive factories. That Thai supplier admits it hadn't known where it was getting all its shrimp and sent a note outlining corrective measures to U.S. businesses demanding answers last week.

Responding to U.S. business demands for answers to AP's findings, Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri acknowledged "that illicitly sourced product may have fraudulently entered its supply chain."

Susan Coppedge, the U.S. State Department's new anti-trafficking ambassador, said problems persist because offenders aren't held accountable — though the U.S. itself hasn't punished Thailand, an important Southeast Asian ally. She said American consumers "can speak through their wallets" by avoiding slave-produced products.

Thailand passed laws this year to crack down on fishing-industry abuses and is working to register undocumented migrant workers, who often are lured from home by brokers with promises of good-paying jobs. They are then sold to shrimp sheds such as the Gig factory, where Tin Nyo Win and his wife learned they would have to work off what was considered their combined worth: $830, an insurmountable debt.

"There have been some flaws in the laws, and we have been closing those gaps," said M.L. Puntarik Smiti, the Thai Labor Ministry's permanent secretary.

Critics argue, however, that changes have been largely cosmetic. Former slaves repeatedly described how police took them into custody and then sold them to agents who trafficked them again. They say police are paid to look the other way and that officers frequently do not understand labor laws.

Tin Nyo Win escaped the Gig factory and was helped by a labor rights group, which pressured authorities to act. On Nov. 9, dozens of officers and military troops burst into the shed. Frightened Burmese workers huddled on the dirty concrete floor. One young mother breast-fed a 5-month-old baby, while children were taken to a corner.

But no one at the shed was arrested for human trafficking. Instead, migrants with papers, including seven children, were sent back there to work. Ten undocumented children were taken from their parents and put into a shelter. Twenty-one other illegal workers were detained, including Tin Nyo Win and his wife, but all have since been moved to government shelters for human-trafficking victims.

Local authorities have been ordered to reinvestigate the factory, which is now closed. Police said workers were moved to another shed linked to the same owners. A Gig owner reached by phone declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the AP informed labor rights investigators who work closely with police about another shed where workers said they were being held against their will. It is being examined.

Associated Press video journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, contributed to this report.

Mendoza reported from Washington. Follow us on Twitter: @MargieMason, @estherhtusan11, @mendozamartha, @robinmcdowell

Poll: Clinton Would Sail To Win Over Trump

By Kyle Balluck, The Hill

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Image: The Hill

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would easily defeat GOP counterpart Donald Trump in a general election matchup, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released early Monday.

Clinton would cruise to a 10-point win over Trump, pollsters found, 50 to 40 percent, with the help of independent and Hispanic voters.

Clinton would also beat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by just 3 points, 48 to 45 percent, within the poll’s margin of error.

But she would lose to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) by 3 points and Ben Carson by 1 point in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.

Pollsters found independent voters would back Rubio over the former secretary of State by a 7-point margin. He would lose the Hispanic vote to Clinton, however, by 23 points. Rubio also takes the highest percentage of female voters among the GOP candidates, but falls short in that demographic to Clinton by 7 points.

Clinton holds a 19-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the new poll. Four percent of respondents backed former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal, conducted December 6-9, has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.

Court To Decide Whether Islam-Education Order Went Too Far

By Denise Lavoie, AP Legal Affairs Writer

BOSTON (AP) - After a landlord was convicted of pushing her Muslim tenant down a flight of stairs, a judge ordered her to respect the rights of all Muslims and to take an introductory course on Islam. Now the highest court in Massachusetts is being asked to decide whether the judge violated the landlord's constitutional rights.

The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments next month in a case that poses interesting legal questions at a time when the country is grappling with anti-Muslim backlash following deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, both allegedly carried out by radical Muslims.

The case centers on Daisy Obi, a 73-year-old ordained minister from Nigeria who is the pastor of the Adonai Bible Center in Somerville, just north of Boston. In April 2012, Obi rented an apartment in her multi-family home to Gihan Suliman, her husband and five young children.

Suliman complained about the heat and electricity not always working, while Obi complained Suliman appeared to have 12 to 15 people living in the apartment at one point.

Suliman testified that about a month after she moved in, Obi stood on the stairs outside Suliman's apartment screaming anti-Muslim insults.

The following month, while Suliman was taking her baby out of the car, she said Obi yelled anti-Muslim sentiments at her other children.

Then, about a month later, Suliman said Obi accused her of ringing her doorbell, shouted at her and pushed her. Suliman said she fell backward down 15 to 20 stairs, hitting her face on the banister, cutting her lip and tearing a ligament in her shoulder.

While sentencing Obi last year, Judge Paul Yee Jr. called Obi "the landlord from hell" after pointing out that she had harassment prevention orders issued against her by two other tenants.

He sentenced her to two years in jail on the assault and battery charge for pushing Suliman but required her to serve only six months, with the remaining 18 months suspended if she complied with certain probation conditions.

"I want you to learn about the Muslim faith," he said. "I want you to enroll and attend an introductory course on Islam.

"I do want you to understand people of the Muslim faith, and they need to be respected. They may worship Allah ... but they need to be respected."

Obi vehemently denied making any anti-Muslim statements to Suliman or pushing her. She testified she was inside her apartment praying when she heard a knock at the door from the police, who arrested her.

Obi said in a phone interview that she believes Suliman had a vendetta against her because she refused to allow her to let more people live in her apartment.

"I've never, ever made a rude remark against her," she said.

"Why would I do that? I have three Muslims living in the house now."

Obi also said she believes Suliman hates her because she is a Christian.

Suliman did not respond to messages left at her home and workplace.

Obi's lawyer argues the probation condition that she learn about the Muslim faith "burdens Dr. Obi's free exercise of religion."

"It is beyond dispute that the Constitution guarantees that the government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise," attorney Kimberly Peterson wrote in a legal brief.

Prosecutors argued in their brief that the order to take a course on Islam is not coercive because it does not require her to adopt a religious practice or to attend a Muslim religious service, but merely to educate herself.

Two legal experts not involved in the case differed on the argument.

New York Law School professor Robert Blecker said the order does not appear to violate Obi's constitutional rights.

"We're not requiring her to embrace any (religious) principles. We're requiring her to learn about them," Blecker said.

Suffolk University law professor Christopher Dearborn disagreed, saying that although Obi's conduct may be considered highly offensive, he believes the judge should have ordered her to attend anger management classes or counseling instead of ordering her to take a course on Islam.

"It's requiring her to participate in something that she would be strongly opposed to on religious grounds," Dearborn said.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments Jan. 8.

At UN Climate Talks African Nations Pledge To Restore Forests In Fight Against Climate Change

By Lynsey Chutel, Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG—Tree by tree, more than a dozen African governments pledged to restore the continent’s natural forests at the United Nations climate talks on Sunday.

The earth has lost more than half its forests over the course of human history, according to the World Resources Institute. The deforestation of the world’s tropical forests has contributed to climate change by producing up to 15 per cent of global carbon emissions, the organization said.

The AFR100 initiative is a pledge by African nations to restore 100 million hectares (about 386,000 square miles) of forest by 2030, according to the organization.

“As the world forges a climate agreement in Paris, African countries—which bear the least historic responsibility for climate change—are showing leadership with ambitious pledges to restore land,” said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute.

Wanjira Mathai, daughter of the late Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, described the AFR100 forest restoration project as unprecedented.

“I have seen restoration in communities both large and small across Africa, but the promise of a continent-wide movement is truly inspiring,” said Mathai, chairwoman of the Green Belt Movement founded by her mother. “Restoring landscapes will empower and enrich rural communities while providing downstream benefits to those in cities. Everybody wins. ”

During the Global Landscapes Forum at the U.N. climate talks, the World Bank and the German government and other partners, set aside more than $1 billion in development funding and $540 million in private funding for the African reforestation.

More than a dozen African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, have pledged millions of acres to the project. West African nations along the Sahara desert have also pledged to plant more trees to stop the ever encroaching desert from destroying more arable land.

“Restoration is not just an environmental strategy, it is an economic and social development strategy as well,” said Bright Msaka, minister of environment and sustainable development in Niger, which has committed 3.2 million hectares (8 million acres) to the project.

Among the pledging countries is Madagascar, where the island forests are home to some of the world’s most unique plants and animals, all under threat from deforestation. Satellite images of the island show forests that have been slashed and burned, according to the World Wildlife Foundation.

To astronauts observing from space, Madagascar seems like an island bleeding into the ocean as its rich red soil, eroded by decades of unregulated logging, runs into the ocean, leaving behind cratered land unfit for farming, according to the foundation.

Some of the countries that are home to the Congo Basin, which conservationists call the earth’s second set of lungs, after the Amazon Basin, have also signed up to the project. The Democratic Republic of Congo has pledged 8 million hectares (20 million acres) to the restoration project.

But these pledges may face challenges from the global timber industry, exacerbated by illegal logging, which is the biggest cause of deforestation, according to environmental protection group Greenpeace. Despite laws to prevent this, it is has never been easier to illegally chop down trees in the Congo Basin, the group said.

Corruption in the Congo Basin region has undermined reforms to the timber industry, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where protected wildlife areas are increasingly disturbed, according to a Greenpeace report published earlier this year.

If this initiative succeeds, it would improve the lives of people living around forests and to the ecosystem as a whole, said Victorine Che Thoener, leader of Greenpeace’s Congo Basin project.

“But many of these African countries make these pledges in the hope that they will receive funding,” said Che Thoener, who is based in Cameroon, one of the Congo Basin countries that have signed the pledge. “There’s a lot of talk, but not a lot of action on the ground.”

Similar conservation efforts have failed because they do not include the right training and tools to monitor the progress, said Che Thoener.

Acknowledging these challenges, the World Research Institute is working on a monitoring project that includes satellite and ground-level observation, said Sean De Witt, director of the organizations global restoration initiative.

Burkina Faso Charges Former Coup Leader Over Murder Of Sankara

By Nadoun Coulibaly, Reuters

OUAGADOUGOU, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Authorities in Burkina Faso have charged a general who led a failed coup in September with complicity in the 1987 assassination of President Thomas Sankara, senior security sources told Reuters.

Sankara's murder is one of the most high-profile killings in Africa's post-independence history and the charge against General Gilbert Diendere appears to represent a breakthrough in a case that has haunted the West African country for decades.

It follows a pledge by the transitional government to investigate the murder and a decision in May to exhume the remains of a body believed to be Sankara's, which was buried at a cemetery on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou.

"General Gilbert Diendere is formally charged in the Thomas Sankara case," said a senior security source with direct knowledge of the case. Diendere was charged last month with complicity in assassination and attack, the source said.

Diendere's lawyer, Mathieu Some, told Reuters on Sunday his client had been charged over Sankara's death and he would prepare his legal defence. The charges are yet to be made public.

Ten others, less senior than Diendere, have already been charged. The senior security official said most were soldiers in the elite presidential guard of former President Blaise Compaore, who was ousted in October 2014.

Diendere was Compaore's intelligence chief and right-hand man. In September, he led the presidential guard in a short-lived coup in which soldiers took transitional President Michel Kafando and the prime minister hostage.

The coup failed and in its aftermath, the presidential guard was disbanded and Diendere sought refuge at the Vatican embassy. He was then arrested and charged with murder and threatening state security. He is still in detention.

"AFRICA'S CHE GUEVARA"

Sankara took power in a coup in 1983 and pursued a philosophy of Marxism and pan-Africanism that led him to be called "Africa's Che Guevara".

Many African intellectuals view him as a visionary on a par with Congo's first prime minister Patrice Lumumba, who was murdered in 1961, or South African anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko, who was killed in 1977.

He nationalized land and mineral wealth, moved to improve health and education, pressed for debt reduction, promoted women into leadership and changed the country's name from Upper Volta. The changes made an impact on Burkina Faso, a landlocked country that produces gold and cotton but remains impoverished.

Sankara was known for his trademark red beret and rejection of the lavish lifestyle typical of African leaders. In October 1987, he was murdered in a coup that brought Compaore to power.

Compaore reversed many of Sankara's policies and established a reputation as one of the region's most powerful men but mystery surrounding the killing dogged him, not least because attempts to mount a judicial investigation during his tenure stalled.

Compaore was toppled by protesters who opposed his bid to change the constitution so that he could extend his rule.

The charges against Diendere come at a critical moment for Burkina Faso as it makes a democratic transition that is seen as an example for other African states.

Voters elected former Prime Minister Roch Marc Kabore as president a week ago and when sworn in he will be the country's first new leader in decades.

Kabore was an ally of Compaore who went into opposition in early 2014. The election was key for a nation ruled by leaders who came to power in coups for most of its history since independence from France in 1960. (Additional reporting by Joe Penney; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Africa Nations Aim To Restore 100m Hectares Of Land By 2030

The AFR100 Scheme Will Be Backed By $1 billion Funds From World Bank

REUTERS, DEC 6, 2015

(PARIS) -- Ten African countries have committed to restore 31 million hectares of degraded and deforested land, under a new push to make 100 million hectares productive again by 2030.

The AFR100 scheme, launched on Sunday in Paris, will be backed by $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) from the World Bank and additional funds from Germany, as well as $545 million in private-sector investment.

“Restoring our landscapes brings prosperity, security and opportunity,” said Rwanda’s Minister of Natural Resources Vincent Biruta.

“With forest landscape restoration, we’ve seen agricultural yields rise and farmers in our rural communities diversify their livelihoods and improve their well-being,” he added in a statement.

The countries taking part so far are Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Togo and Uganda.

“If the Congo Basin is not well managed, the land will become degraded and turn into grassland, and then the desert will take over the whole of Africa,” Henry Djombo, Republic of Congo’s forest economy minister, told the launch of the initiative in Paris.

The new land restoration programme builds on national commitments made by African countries for a UN deal to tackle climate change, due to be agreed in the French capital next week.

So far, 13 of the climate action plans submitted by African governments include restoration, conservation of standing forests or agriculture that adapts to climate shifts and limits greenhouse gas emissions.

Implementing those pledges starting in 2020 would reduce Africa’s annual emissions by 36 per cent, or 0.25 per cent of global emissions, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).

“These countries are well on their way to meeting the goal of restoring 100 million hectares of land, which will help sequester carbon and bring economic benefits to low-income, rural communities,” said WRI president Andrew Steer.

As well as storing carbon, forests and trees can improve soil fertility and food security, increase water supplies, reduce desertification, boost biodiversity and help create green jobs, according to a statement on the AFR100.

With Africa’s population expected to nearly double by 2050, demands are increasing on already scarce soil and water resources, as climate change bites.

Land restoration efforts include planting trees, stopping soil erosion and improving soil health, bringing wide benefits.

Restoration is already happening. For example, in Niger, farmers have increased the number of trees across 5 million hectares of agricultural land, improving food security for 2.5 million people, the AFR100 noted.

The scheme aims to help countries and communities share knowledge and resources to achieve restoration on a bigger scale, it said.

Ebrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development — one of 10 organisations providing technical support to AFR100 — said land restoration had worked well in African countries from Malawi to Ethiopia and Mali.

But efforts should be expanded, as over 700 million hectares of African land could potentially be restored, he added.

Last week, world leaders and international agencies pledged $4 billion over the next five years to step up implementation of the ‘Great Green Wall’, a land restoration programme in the Sahel that was launched in 2007.

Over the next 10 years, it aims to restore more than 50 million hectares of land, in addition to the AFR100 pledges. The Green Wall efforts will also count towards the 100 million-hectare goal, endorsed by the African Union.

The Green Wall plan will help sequester an estimated 250 million tonnes of carbon and provide new income opportunities for millions of young people who might otherwise consider migrating from poverty-stricken areas, a statement said.

On Saturday, governments and financial institutions announced new pledges for a separate $730 million initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean to restore deforested land by 2020.

That initiative was launched a year ago.

The new commitments of just over 9 million hectares bring the total area to be restored in the region to 27.7 million hectares, an area roughly the size of Britain.

German Court Opens Way For Trial Of Auschwitz Paramedic

© Getty Images Oswiecim, Poland - August 25, 2013: Gates to Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp, a former Nazi extermination camp on August 25, 2013 in Oswiecim, Poland.

(REUTERS) -- A German court on Tuesday permitted the trial of a 95-year-old German man accused of being an accessory to the murder of at least 3,681 people at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The higher court of Rostock in northern Germany deemed Hubert Z. fit for trial, overruling a previous decision by a lower court that considered him too fragile for a legal process.

Z., whose last name is confidential due to German privacy laws, was a sergeant in the Nazi SS at Auschwitz from October 1943 to January 1944 and acted as one of the death camp's paramedics from Aug. 15 to Sept. 14, 1944, the indictment said.

During that month, at least 14 deportation trains reached the extermination camp from places as far as Rhodes, Lyon, Vienna and Westerbork in the Netherlands, the local prosecutor's office in Schwerin said.

Although Z. is not accused of having been directly involved in any killings, the prosecution's office holds that he was well aware of the camp's function as a facility for mass murder and by joining its organisational structure consciously participated and even accelerated the deaths of thousands of people.

German court rulings have established a precedent for the conviction of Nazi concentration camp employees for being guilty of accessory to murder.

In July, 94-year-old Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz", was sentenced to four years in prison after he was convicted of the accessory to murder of 300,000 people in Auschwitz. [ID: nL5N0ZV1GV]

Two other cases involving death camp employees are pending trial in German courts.

In the town of Detmold, Reinhold H. is accused of being an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people in Auschwitz, and in the northern city of Kiel, a 91-year-old woman is accused of the same charges in the case of 260,000 people.

In both cases, the defence maintains that the accused are unfit for trial and final court rulings on this are expected later this year and in early 2016.

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, responsible for Nazi war crime investigations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that all these legal cases were happening very late.

"You would expect that considering the age of the accused every effort would be made to expedite these cases but instead they all follow a lengthy process," Zuroff told Reuters over the phone from his office in Jerusalem.

"But better late than never."

 (Reporting by Tina Bellon; Editing by Paul Carrel and Raissa Kasolowsky)