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/ 23 February 2007

Africa’s biggest film festival opens in Ouagadougou

Africa’s biggest film festival opens on Saturday in the capital of Burkina Faso hoping for a revival of the continent’s ailing cinema industry. The Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, or Fespaco, which runs from February 24 to March 3, is a two-yearly event gathering more than 3 000 film types from across the continent.

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/ 4 August 2005

Niger’s children may never recover from hunger

Three children played happily on Thursday in the courtyard of an orphanage in the southern Niger town of Maradi. Only a month ago, the three were at death’s door as a result of severe malnutrition. But while they appear to have fully recovered, doctors warned that many other children might be affected for the rest of their lives.

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/ 20 August 2004

‘When I had finished, they didn’t even bleed’

The arrest this week of a 63-year-old woman in Burkina Faso accused of circumcising 16 young girls has brought home to many that genital mutilation is still widespread in the West African state, despite being outlawed. She sliced off parts of the girls’ genitalia under driving rain ”in the backyard, where they usually kill chickens”.