• From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of Tabloids:

    Mercy Nwokocha
    I beg, what is this fuss about breast enlargement? After all it is part of beauty technology. Ladies do it because men like you. You people push them into doing it, isn’t it? When you can’t seem to take your eyes off ladies with big boobs, isn’t that a way of encouraging others to go pump up theirs? No, no no! Don’t photograph me. I just sneaked into Lagos from school. I don’t want to appear in the newspaper. I even regret giving you my surname.

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  • From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    Jokingly, the three cleaned your chair, making exaggerated motions. You ordered booze. As the booze, a mixture of Gulder, Star beer, and Small Stout, began to roll out, the gist of their sex life began to flow. Other dwarfs sensed what was afoot and quickly joined.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    Shiite Muslim militias pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq, having killed more people in recent months than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, and will likely present the most daunting and critical challenge for Iraq’s new government, U.S. military and diplomatic officials say.

    Assassinations, many carried out by Shiite gunmen against Sunni Arabs in Baghdad and elsewhere, accounted for more than four times as many deaths in March as bombings and other mass-casualty attacks, according to military data. And most officials agree that only a small percentage of shooting deaths are ever reported.

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  • From PhotoArts:

    Lucia Guanaes’ photographs, Frontières de la mer

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  • From The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?:

    Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”
    Another European official told me that he was aware that many in Washington wanted action. “It’s always the same guys,” he said, with a resigned shrug. “There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The timetable is short.”

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  • Here is why you come to this blog.

    From Cocorioko, Sierra Leone’s biggest and most widely read newspaper online:

    Foday Sankoh’s Ex-Press Secretary , Sylvia Blyden , just would not leave COCORIOKO alone. Just when we have forgotten that she exists, she will attack us again. For those appealing to us to leave her alone in her mire, what do you say ? This psychotic woman really wants attention . She will always find a way to get at us. Why is she so envious of COCORIOKO ? WHY WON’T SHE JUST LEAVE US ALONE ?

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  • From Wired:

    “Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA’s spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA,” Klein’s wrote. “And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals’ phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens.”

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  • From the Vancouver Sun:

    One bride is Lorraine Johnson, an American, sent by her family to “marry” Blackmore, who was then the powerful bishop. She was his 18th wife. It’s not clear whether Johnson immigrated legally to Canada or simply came across the border and stayed.

    The other bride is Shelina Palmer, a Canadian born into a polygamous family in Bountiful and assigned to Blackmore. She is wife number 22.

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  • From the BBC:

    He said one assailant had entered the mosque through the women’s security checkpoint and had blown themselves up first, while a second had rushed into the mosque’s courtyard and a third to his office before detonating themselves.

    Shias were being targeted “as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently,” he was reported as saying.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    Mr. Abercrombie dived with Jacques Cousteau, which he said was “like swimming with a fish.” While suffering from typhoid in the Himalayas, he amputated the frozen toes of a pilgrim as gangrene set in. He slipped off his yak in Afghanistan and narrowly escaped plunging into a 1,000-foot chasm. In Venezuela, he was knocked off the top of a mountain-climbing cable car and bore the scar to the end of his life.

    In 1965, while traveling through Saudi Arabia’s “Empty Quarter,” his sport-utility vehicle broke down, forcing him to repair the radiator hose with items from his first-aid kit and patch another leak with a poultice of camel dung and barley paste.

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  • From The Salt Lake Tribune:

    “Go back and repent,” Jane said Jeffs told her. “You go give yourself mind, body and soul to your husband like you’re supposed to. He will take you into the heavenly kingdom. Go back and do what he tells you to do.” Jane said she did as instructed by Jeffs and continued to have sexual relations with John despite her objections. In a later meeting, Jeffs told Jane that in time she would grow to love John and that having a baby by him would change everything.
    In another meeting, Jeffs told Jane that, “No matter what happens you cannot fight with the priesthood because if you do you’ll lose your salvation.” Those remarks frightened her enough that she stayed in the marriage, Jane said. 

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  • From the Moscow Times:

    A cult leader who promised to resurrect children killed in the Beslan school attack has been detained on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining money from parents of the victims, Moscow prosecutors said Thursday.

    Police detained Grigory Grabovoi during a seance Wednesday evening at the Kosmos Hotel in northeast Moscow. Around 30 followers tried to prevent the police from taking him away, but police were able to take him out through a back entrance, NTV reported.

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  • From Magnum Photos, gallery of work by Alex Majoli:

    With the recent victory of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the President of Liberia, it is clear that women in Africa are starting to take charge. Johnson-Sirleaf is the first elected female leader in Africa’s history. She and several other powerful female leaders are pushing to make new laws, change old attitudes and inspire others to follow their lead. Across Africa, women are often deprived of education, job opportunities, and the choice of a marital partner. Polygamy is widespread and rape is seldom punished. As a result HIV is skyrocketing. Most African women have no right to own property. These new female politicians are facing these issues that have not been touched by their male counterparts.

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  • From the Mail & Guardian:

    The shooting death of British cameraman James Miller by an Israeli soldier in Gaza was murder, an inquest jury found on Thursday. The jury also said Israeli authorities had “not been forthcoming” about how and why Miller (34) was killed by a single shot fired by the soldier.
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  • From the Mail & Guardian:

    “I can personally say that $400 000 would be acceptable, a fine offer on both sides,” said the elder, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is not a ransom but a fine for illegally fishing in Somalia.”

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  • Videos

    from

    Banksy.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    “I’m not going to rule it out,” US Attorney General Gonzales said.

    In the past, Gonzales and other officials refused to say whether they had the legal authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on domestic calls, and have stressed that the NSA eavesdropping program is focused only on international communications.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    More than 200,000 Chinese filed through the remains of Japan’s notorious Unit 731 here last year, visiting the ghosts of World War II. In exhibits mounted throughout the bleak headquarters building, they saw wrenching descriptions of biological warfare experiments carried out on thousands of Chinese prisoners from 1939 to 1945.

    The phrase “Do not forget us” has been inscribed on the wall of one room, where visitors can see the names and photos of some of those who received botulism injections, were made to suffer frostbite or had their internal organs removed by Japanese military doctors.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    During the years when he commanded 30 men and killed more enemy soldiers than he can recall, Tyrese Nyekar said he was known as “War Face.” But in the newly democratic and largely peaceful Liberia, he has traded his machine gun for a shovel. And for $2 a day, he is working to rebuild this battered capital on a road repair crew.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    Bush has been a major critic of leaks of classified information, and his aides have repeatedly said they want to “get to the bottom” of who leaked the name of Wilson’s wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media, which touched off Fitzgerald’s investigation . But in the past 33 months the White House has never disclosed Bush’s apparent involvement in the deliberate disclosure of information meant to undermine Wilson.

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