AFRICA MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION 
World Bank report
10.11.2006

Many African countries, including Senegal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana and Cape Verde, have lifted significant percentages of their citizens above the poverty line, and may be on course to meeting the income poverty Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving poverty by 2010, according to a World Bank report released last week. Launched at World Bank headquarters in Washington and simultaneously in five African countries, African Development Indicators 2006 reveals a broad range of indicators, where some countries made remarkable progress, some stagnated, and others fell seriously behind.  more....

APARTHEID’S WHITE SUPREMACIST DIES
10.11.2006

P.W. Botha, who was the face of white South Africa as president at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, died at his home on Tuesday aged 90, the South African Press Association reported. Botha was toppled in a cabinet rebellion in 1989 and later replaced by F.W. de Klerk, who repudiated almost everything the finger-wagging hardliner had stood for, including the laws that were the foundation of apartheid.  Although Botha's security forces killed more than 2,000 people and an estimated 25,000 people were detained without trial and often tortured, he refused to apologise for apartheid and denied he had known about the torture and assassinations.  more....

NEW ISLAMIC LEADER FOR NIGERIA
10.11.2006

A new Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's 70m Muslims, has been announced.  Colonel Muhammadu Sada Abubakar, 53, is the younger brother of Sultan Mohammadu Maccido, who was killed in a plane crash on Sunday, along with 95 others. Col Abubakar had been serving as Nigeria's military attache to Pakistan.  more....