THE expected issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court tomorrow presents a stark choice for African leaders — are they on the side of justice or on the side of injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice is clear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.
Because the victims in Sudan are African, African leaders should be the staunchest supporters of efforts to see perpetrators brought to account. Yet rather than stand by those who have suffered in Darfur, African leaders have so far rallied behind the man responsible for turning that corner of Africa into a graveyard.
In response to news last July that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court’s chief prosecutor, was seeking an arrest warrant for President Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the African Union issued a communiqué to the United Nations Security Council asking it to suspend the court’s proceedings. Rather than condemn the genocide in Darfur, the organization chose to underscore its concern that African leaders are being unfairly singled out and to support President Bashir’s effort to delay court proceedings.
More recently, the Group of 77, an influential organization at the United Nations consisting of 130 developing states and including nearly every African country, gave Sudan its chairmanship. The victory came after African members endorsed Sudan’s candidacy in spite of the imminent criminal charges against its president.
I regret that the charges against President Bashir are being used to stir up the sentiment that the justice system — and in particular, the international court — is biased against Africa. Justice is in the interest of victims, and the victims of these crimes are African. To imply that the prosecution is a plot by the West is demeaning to Africans and understates the commitment to justice we have seen across the continent.
It’s worth remembering that more than 20 African countries were among the founders of the International Criminal Court, and of the 108 nations that joined the court, 30 are in Africa. That the court’s four active investigations are all in Africa is not because of prosecutorial prejudice — it is because three of the countries involved (Central African Republic, Congo and Uganda) themselves requested that the prosecutor intervene. Only the Darfur case was referred to the prosecutor by the Security Council. The prosecutor on his own initiative is considering investigations in Afghanistan, Colombia and Georgia.
African leaders argue that the court’s action will impede efforts to promote peace in Darfur. However, there can be no real peace and security until justice is enjoyed by the inhabitants of the land. There is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative — allowing accountability to fall by the wayside — is worse.
The issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir would be an extraordinary moment for the people of Sudan — and for those around the world who have come to doubt that powerful people and governments can be called to account for inhumane acts. African leaders should support this historic occasion, not work to subvert it.
(Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.)
“Justice is like a train that is nearly always late”, but it did arrive just in the nick of time for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, President of the Sudan. Al-Bashir is now a fugitive from justice, a wanted man by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In his application for an arrest warrant last year, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo alleged that over the preceding five years, al-Bashir had “masterminded with absolute control” and “appointed key personnel to implement” a criminal a plan “to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups as such. Forces and agents controlled by Al-Bashir attacked civilians in towns and villages inhabited by the target groups, committing killings, rapes, torture and destroying means of livelihood.” Al-Bashir was further accused of causing the deaths of 35,000 people “outright”. U.N. officials estimate as many as 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur region since 2003, and 2.7 million displaced.
Last July, in one of my weekly commentaries I wrote, “For as long as there are determined and unrelenting prosecutors like Moreno-Ocampo, the likes of al-Bashir, Zenawi and Mengistu can be sure that one day the long arm of international law will catch them and bring them to kneel down before the altar of justice. Our question: ‘Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when the ICC (International Criminal Court) catches you!’” [1] Today, with a deep sigh of relief and a loud shriek of ecstasy, we can all say, “One down…!”
“Eat it! You Are Under My Shoe!”
Al-Bashir has long belittled the ICC and ridiculed the criminal allegations against him as a “Western conspiracy”, a “neo-colonial plot” and a trick to “steal Sudan’s oil.” A day before the arrest warrant was issued, a defiant al-Bashir taunted the ICC: “They will issue their decision tomorrow … this coming decision, they can prepare right now: they can eat it [the warrant].” In his special message, he said: “Tell them all, the ICC prosecutor, the members of the court and every one who supports this court that they are under my shoe.” His spokesman, Mahjoub Fadul, added: “It is a flawed decision. We do not recognize it, nor the court that issued it and we do not care about it at all.” Mutrif Siddiq, Sudan’s under-secretary of foreign affairs, dismissively told reporters that not only will al-Bashir disregard the arrest warrant, he will be attending “all Arab summits and all African summits” scheduled for the year. Three days after the arrest warrant was issued, al-Bashir kicked out all of the major international aid groups providing displaced Darfurians and others victims food and medicine, including Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and several others. The reason: They gave evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity to the ICC prosecutor. (Others simply pass heavy-handed “laws” to bottle NGOs for fear they may turn out to be ICC “snitches”.) In doing so, Al-Bashir continued his criminal enterprise by committing new war crimes (“deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population” is a violation of Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.) The U.N. estimates that in the Darfur region 1.1 million people will be without food, 1.5 million without health care, and more than 1 million without drinking water. In the end, it may be Al-Bashir who will be “eating” a life sentence.
Execution of Arrest Warrant
To issue an arrest warrant is one thing. To apprehend and deliver the criminal suspect for trial at the ICC is another matter. The ICC does not have its own police force, and must necessarily rely on the cooperation of governments wherein the fugitive from justice is located. There is no expectation of cooperation from the Sudanese government. Al-Bashir has already rejected extradition requests by the ICC to hand over Ali Kushayb, (“janjaweed butcher of Darfur”) and Ahmed Aroun (former Interior Minister and later Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs and chief architect of the janjaweed campaign of violence against civilians), accused of torture, mass rape and the forced displacement of entire villages in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. At the time, al-Bashir intoned: “I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God we will not hand over any Sudanese to the International Court.” The U.N. peacekeepers stationed in the Sudan do not have authority to arrest or detain war crimes suspects. But it is highly likely that the ICC has registered its arrest warrant with Interpol and al-Bashir’s name is now listed on Interpol’s Red Notice. Unless he is caught in transit in one of the 108 countries that have accepted ICC jurisdiction, chances of his arrest in the short-term are fairly low. The fact of the matter is that al-Bashir will be looking over his shoulder until he is collared and brought to justice.
The Prosecution’s Case in the Inevitable Trial of Omar Hassan al-Bashir
Despite the worldwide publicity surrounding the arrest warrant, it is important to emphasize that al-Bashir is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That is why Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo carries the entire burden of proof in showing al-Bashir committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and other offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Al-Bashir is also entitled to a fair trial complete with procedural protections guaranteed under the Rome Statute and other international conventions. Having said that, it is as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that al-Bashir will be held to account for the crimes he is accused of committing whether it takes 1 year, 10 years or more; and he will be convicted. There is no question about that!
But there may be a question as to what legal theory Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo will likely use to prove his case. He has many options, including a theory of personal culpability as to crimes specifically enumerated in Articles 6 (Genocide), 7 (Crimes Against Humanity) and 8 (War Crimes) of the Rome Statute. More likely, Moreno-Ocampo will prosecute al-Bashir using the legal doctrine of command responsibility (that is, a superior in the chain of command is responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates or other combatants under his direct or indirect control, and for failing to prevent or punish the violators after discovering the criminal acts under Article 28 of the Rome Statute.
Under Article 28, “A military commander or person effectively acting as a military commander shall be criminally responsible… if [s/he] either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes; and … failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.” Similar prosecutorial authority is found in the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, Protocol I (Article 86 (2) – Failure to Act “breach of the Conventions or of this Protocol …by a subordinate does not absolve his superiors from penal or disciplinary responsibility… if they knew, or should have known [of the crime]”), and Article 87 (Duty of Commanders- “military commanders [have a duty] to suppress and to report to competent authorities breaches of the Conventions and of this Protocol [and] to initiate such steps as are necessary to prevent such violations.. [and take] disciplinary or penal action against violators…”
What Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo Must Prove to Obtain a Conviction
If Prosecutor Moreno–Ocampo uses the legal doctrine of command responsibility to prove his case, he must show beyond a reasonable doubt al-Bashir acted or failed to act with respect to the alleged crimes at least under one or more of the following circumstances. Al-Bashir, at the time of the alleged offenses, had 1) as a “civilian” president legal authority to command and control Sudanese soldiers and their commanders; 2) actual legal authority (de jure) over the Sudanese military and/or the janjaweed militia such that he can issue orders to them not to commit illegal acts, and punish them if they violate his orders; 3) operational power of command over military troops stationed in Darfur combined with the actual ability to control the conduct of these troops and their commanders; 4) de facto powers of command and control or other informal or indirect command and control over the janjaweed militia and their leaders; 5) de jure authority, command and control of such nonmilitary organizations as the Ministry of the Interior and other police and security agencies involved in actions against civilians in the Darfur region; 6) actual or constructive knowledge of crimes committed or about to be committed in Darfur, or acted or failed to act in willful disregard of available information indicating that crimes were committed or about to be committed in Darfur; 7) been negligent in gathering and processing information on crimes committed or about to be committed in Darfur and 8) known or should have known of crimes committed in the Darfur by the Sudanese military or the janjaweed and failed to punish the perpetrators or failed to take preventive action.
For purposes of Article 28 (a) (command responsibility) of the Rome Statute, and relying upon the Yamashita standard (WW II trial of Japanese war criminals on the basis of command responsibility) al-Bashir will have a very difficult time defending against the ICC charges. The facts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur were so notoriously known, so extensive and widespread both as to time (2003-present), area and victim populations, that the only reasonable conclusion by a fact-finder is that al-Bashir, as president of the Sudan and commander-in-chief of the Sudanese armed forces, must either have willfully permitted the commission of the crimes by members of the armed forces or the janjaweed who coordinated with the regular army units, or secretly ordered the commission of the alleged crimes.
Those who have some familiarity with the evidence against al-Bashir will likely agree that Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo will be able to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt by showing that al-Bashir:
Was president of the Sudan when the crimes began taking place in Darfur in 2003 and continue to the present day.
As Sudan’s president was (and is) responsible for national security; and that as a commander-in-chief of the Sudanese military directed and maintained close contacts with field commanders in the Darfur region who reported to him directly, and that he had full authority to supervise and administer Sudan’s military.
Himself a former army general, was (and is) the chief architect of military policies and actions in the Darfur region with ultimate authority over military and civilian government organizations and operations involved in that region.
Has been informed of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur through direct and indirect means. In September, 2004 President George W. Bush took the extraordinary step to inform him of crimes committed in Darfur when he declared, “The world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide.” International human rights organizations have put al-Bashir on alert for years concerning violations of international human rights law, and has taken vindictive actions against them after an arrest warrant was issued against him because they performed their duty of reporting war crimes and crimes against humanity as required by international law.
Had direct communication with janjaweed militia leaders, or indirectly through his ministers, and was well informed of their criminal activities in Darfur.
Has and continues to have de facto command and control and authority over the janjaweed militias and their leaders directly or through Sudanese military officers, the interior ministry and other government agencies; that he has provided the militias arms, training, tactical and logistical support in their criminal activities against civilians in Darfur.
Has directed or caused Sudanese military commanders to order and/or instruct the janjaweed to “mop up” and eliminate “insurgents” in the camps, and determined the details of such operations.
Was made aware of certain information concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, (including an extraordinary statement by the President of the United States in 2004 and other international human rights organizations), and presented with such alerting information was under a legal duty to investigate further, and to take all necessary measures to prevent the crimes from taking place.
Had the power to impose disciplinary or criminal sanctions against soldiers and commanders and janjaweed forces involved in crimes against civilians in Darfur. No commanders or janjaweed criminal perpetrators have ever been punished for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo has dozens of eyewitnesses to testify about the atrocities that took place in Darfur. He has substantial forensic, physical, documentary, photographic, videographic and a variety of circumstantial evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. Based on the totality of the evidence, the ICC could reasonably and effortlessly conclude or infer that 1) al-Bashir knew or should have known of large scale atrocities committed against civilians for years in Darfur, 2) that he possessed sufficient knowledge of the Darfur atrocities to enable him to anticipate the eventual course of events that occurred between 2003 and the present, including the repeated commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other offenses; 3) that in those cases where he did not have actual knowledge of the crime, he remained willfully ignorant and failed to stay adequately informed of the circumstances in Darfur with gross criminal negligence, 4) that as president and commander in chief, he willfully refused to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity and punish those who committed atrocities implicitly acquiescing to the crimes (or effectively ratifying the criminal conduct after the fact thereby encouraging the commission of additional atrocities in the future); and 5) that he was one of the few individuals who actually could have prevented atrocities in Darfur by providing for proper precautionary measures. Therefore, the ICC will likely determine that al-Bashir bears heavy attribution of personal and command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur beginning in 2003.
For whom the Bell Tolls
To al-Bashir’s soulmates who have “been saddened” by the arrest warrant issued against him, we offer them a verse from John Donne:
Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
SANA’A – Yemeni police in Haradh border region has seized four Ethiopians, aged 34-39 years, who have sneaked into Yemeni lands illegally through the Saudi border in Haradh.
The security officials in Haradh border said that the four Ethiopians crossed Saudi border in an attempt to enter into Yemen, pointing out that it arrested them and referred them to migration authorities to deport them to their country.
It is worth mentioning that the Yemeni security agencies arrested last February about 500 Ethiopians who attempted to enter via the sea to Yemen and deported them back to their country.
BURKINA FASO (Reuters) – A film set in Ethiopia about a bloodthirsty regime under which political dissidents and village children alike were ruthlessly killed has won best movie award at Africa’s top film festival.
“Teza,” a feature by award-winning director Haile Gerima set during Mengistu Haile Mariam’s 1974-1991 rule, won the top prize late on Saturday at this year’s 40th pan-African FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso.
Judges praised the film, 14 years in the making, for its strength, depth and poetry conveying the dashed hopes of a returning intellectual elite. Stunning village vistas and shoulder-dancing amid ululations in bars capture an expressive, vital Ethiopian culture.
“The message of the film is peace,” Selome Gerima, associate producer of the film and sister of the United States-based, Ethiopian-born director, told Reuters while beaming and clutching her Etalon d’Or de Yennenga (Golden Stallion of Yennenga), Africa’s equivalent of an Oscar.
The plot follows a series of horrific experiences endured by hero Anberber, who trains as a medical research scientist in Europe. On his return to Ethiopia full of hope and eager to contribute to his country, he and his friends are violently and cruelly rejected at home and again back in Germany.
Shot in the Gerimas’ hometown of Gondar in northwest Ethiopia, the village cast was drawn from locals during three months of filming, many of whom had experienced the brutalities of the regime firsthand.
“Some had experienced the Red Terror. One mother started crying bitterly because it reminded her of when they took her daughter,” Selome Gerima told Reuters during the festival, referring to the violent purges that marked Mengistu’s rule.
Several entries among this year’s competition have raised a critical voice and urged change on the continent.
In the South African film “Nothing But The Truth,” which won second prize, director and lead actor John Kani plays a librarian denied promotion, and who believes post-apartheid freedom’s dividends have not been realized. In real life Kani’s brother was shot dead in a church by police while reading a poem at the grave of a nine-year old girl killed during an anti-apartheid riot.
HOPES FOR CINEMA HALLS
Since Teza premiered in Ethiopia at the start of 2009, Gerima says cinema halls showing the film, which has also won awards at the Venice Film Festival, are still sold out two months later.
On Saturday night, the winning film was screened in cinema halls across Burkina Faso’s hot, dusty capital Ouagadougou, where more than 300 films have shown in the past week.
At Cine Burkina, the country’s premier movie theater, three long queues formed in the dark in all directions, streaming back from any entry point local cinema-lovers could find.
“If it’s won the Etalon that means it’s a film we all need to see,” said Mamadou Boro, 26, a former economics student looking for work, who was still queuing at close to midnight for Saturday’s second screening. “We are really suffering to see this film, but we want to make sure we see it now because tomorrow we won’t be able to.”
Distribution woes have taken the spotlight at this year’s festival. As increasing numbers of cinema halls close down, African films are squeezed out by Hollywood action blockbusters and Bollywood musicals.
More directors are turning to mass-market digital movies such as the $450 million market in Nigeria.
“We need to establish an African filmmakers’ bank,” Selome Gerima told Reuters on winning the award. She is building four new 35mm cinemas for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and hopes it will help African cinema to go it alone. “Just like a construction bank or any other bank, we need to be there to keep African films going.”
(AFP) – The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) claimed it killed 24 Ethiopian {www:Woyanne} soldiers in the Ogaden’s eastern region of Degah Bur and added that the fighting was ongoing.
“24 Woyanne troops have been killed in this latest round of fighting since March 4, with dozens wounded,” it said in a statement.
The {www:ONLF} said the troops it was combating had recently been redeployed inside {www:Ethiopia} from southern Somalia, where they were part of the occupation forces the Woyanne regime finished withdrawing earlier this year.
It also said it captured an army weapons depot near Degah Bur.
The {www:Woyanne} military denied the ONLF’s claim and insisted it was not involved in fighting in that region.
“It is not true. We have seen what they said, but according to the information we got from Somali region officials, there is fighting between local people and their militias and local terrorists,” state secretary for information Ermias Legesse told AFP.
“Among these terrorists, one leader and two members of the ONLF have been killed by the militias. The Ethiopian Woyanne army is not involved,” he added.
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is one of the fastest-evolving entities known. That’s why no one has yet been able to come up with a vaccine: The virus mutates so rapidly that what works today in one person may not work tomorrow or in others.
A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature confirms that dizzying pace of evolution on a global scale.
“It’s very clear there’s a battle going on between humans and this virus, and the virus is evolving to become unrecognized by the immune system,” said Dr. Bruce Walker, one of the researchers and director of the Ragon Institute, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “It does make clear what a huge challenge making a vaccine is.”
HIV evolves to escape the immune system, much in the same way that bacteria mutate under pressure by antibiotics, Walker said.
Researchers looked at HIV genetic sequences in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Botswana, Australia, Canada and Japan to see how they evolved in response to a key set of molecules in the human immune system, called human leukocyte antigens. These molecules direct the immune system to recognize and kill HIV and other infectious diseases.
Genes that encode human leukocyte antigens vary among humans, and even small differences can dramatically affect a person’s response to HIV infection. For example, an adult infected with HIV will survive on average about 10 years without anti-HIV drugs before developing acquired immune deficiency syndrome. But some people will progress to AIDS within a year, and others can survive without treatment for 20 years.
The study published online Wednesday found that mutations occurred not just in individuals but on a population level. That is, if a particular genetic immune sequence was common in a population, the HIV mutation that evolved to escape it became the most common strain of HIV, even in those without that particular human leukocyte antigen gene.
“What this study does is give an explanation for why there are different HIV strains in different parts of the world,” Walker said. “The genetic makeup of people in different regions is influencing the virus in specific ways.”
This would appear to be bad news for the director of the newly opened Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, which was founded to develop vaccines for HIV and other infectious diseases.
But Walker saw the results as hopeful. He said that mutations can actually make the virus less fit — that is, unable to replicate as quickly or do as much damage. His challenge is to find what kind of pressure results in this kind of mutation.
Researchers from the Ragon Institute, Oxford University in England, Kumamoto University in Japan, and Royal Perth Hospital and Murdoch University in Australia analyzed the genetic sequences of HIV and human leukocyte antigen genes in 2,800 people total.
Faced with the continued failure of HIV-targeting microbicides, scientists have devised a radically different approach to preventing transmission of the killer virus: ignoring it.
Instead of aiming at the virus itself, they’re focusing on the body’s response to HIV’s initial attack. By muting distress signals sent by HIV’s first cellular victims, researchers hope to prevent the white blood cells on which HIV preys from responding and becoming infected themselves.
This cutting-fuel-to-the-fire approach is highly experimental, and has only been tried with a single compound. But it prevented infection in four of five macaque monkeys exposed to a close relative of HIV, signifying a potentially new direction in the fruitless search for a microbicide.
“If you can break one of the links in that chain, you can break the influx of target cells the virus needs,” said University of Minnesota microbiologist Ashley Haase, co-developer of the new microbicide, described Wednesday in Nature.
The science is still uncertain, but so is the entire field of anti-HIV microbicides. Hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of researchers have yet to produce a substance that, when applied before sex, can reliably prevent transmission of a virus that kills nearly 3 million people every year.
A growing number of scientists think the progression of the disease is driven by inflammation. Previous research showed that exposure to SIV — the simian equivalent of HIV — prompts the immune system to summon specialized white blood cells, which are the primary victims of both HIV and SIV. Once under attack, they call in more white blood cells. These also fall prey. The cycle repeats until infection is firmly entrenched.
“We’re trying to interfere with the host response on which the virus depends to establish infection,” Haase said.
His team previously found that glycerol monolaurate, an FDA-approved antimicrobial compound normally used in soaps and other household products, dampened the inflammatory response in cell cultures. Now they’ve shown the same effect in monkeys.
Whether human immune response to HIV parallels the monkeys’ response to SIV is unproven, but there are hints that it does: The same mechanisms can be observed in laboratory cultures of human cells, and high levels of vaginal inflammation are linked to higher HIV infection risks.
“Whether this particular drug would work in humans, nobody knows,” said Leonid Margolis, a National Institutes of Health HIV researcher who was not involved in the study. But its significance, he said, resides less in these early tests than in signaling a conceptually new approach to microbicides.
Haase’s team made its microbicide from a mix of glycerol monolaurate and K-Y lubricating gel. After testing its basic safety on macaques, they treated five monkeys who were then exposed to SIV. Over the next two weeks, only one of the monkeys became infected. In an unprotected control group, all five monkeys became infected.
The microbicide didn’t appear to otherwise affect the monkeys, and left their vaginal bacterial flora — important to maintaining an environment hostile to infection — fully intact.
The macaques used by Haase’s are far from a perfect model for studying HIV treatments, but are considered useful for modeling the disease’s transmission. Still, said Haase, more and longer-term research is needed in monkeys before glycerol monolaurate can be tested in humans.
If it has even a small protective effect, “you could combine it with other approaches into a microbicide that targets several things the virus needs,” said Haase. “Such an approach might be very effective — more effective than the components themselves might be.”
Should glycerol monolaurate itself not work, some other inflammation-dampening compound might do the trick. “Inflammation is, in my mind, the engine that drives HIV infection,” said Margolis.
Other scientists, however, warn against premature optimism.
Glycerol monolaurate also has surface-tension lowering properties in liquid, which could have directly inactivated the virus independent of any anti-inflammatory effects, said Robin Shattock, an HIV transmission specialist at St. George’s University of London and chair of the International Partnership for Microbicides.
Another surfactant microbicide candidate, nonoxynol-9, showed promise in monkeys but actually increased HIV transmission risk during clinical trials.
Even if glycerol monolaurate worked by reducing inflammation, said Shattock, it’s unclear whether it could sufficiently reduce real-world inflammation, which is often caused by multiple, sexually transmitted infections, of which HIV is only one.
“Only time will tell whether this is a major breakthrough, or if it is just another flash in the pan,” he said.
(Citation: “Glycerol monolaurate prevents mucosal SIV transmission.” By Qingsheng Li, Jacob D. Estes, Patrick M. Schlievert, Lijie Duan, Amanda J. Brosnahan, Peter J. Southern, Cavan S. Reilly, Marnie L. Peterson, Nancy Schultz-Darken, Kevin G. Brunner, Karla R. Nephew, Stefan Pambuccian, Jeffrey D. Lifson, John V. Carlis & Ashley T. Haase. Nature, Vol. 457 No. 7233, March 4, 2009.)
THE expected issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court tomorrow presents a stark choice for African leaders — are they on the side of justice or on the side of injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice is clear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.
SANA’A – Yemeni police in Haradh border region has seized four Ethiopians, aged 34-39 years, who have sneaked into Yemeni lands illegally through the Saudi border in Haradh.
BURKINA FASO (Reuters) – A film set in Ethiopia about a bloodthirsty regime under which political dissidents and village children alike were ruthlessly killed has won best movie award at Africa’s top film festival.
(AFP) – The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) claimed it killed 24 
A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature confirms that dizzying pace of evolution on a global scale.