Nigeria captured former Liberian leader and warlord Charles Taylor on Wednesday and deported him towards Monrovia, where United Nations peacekeepers were waiting to arrest him on charges of crimes against humanity. West Africa’s most notorious fugitive was flown out of the northern city of Maiduguri on board a Nigerian presidential jet.
Former United States president Bill Clinton this week said he supports mandatory HIV testing in countries with high prevalence.
Huddled in a draughty football stadium, about 2Â 000 Rwandans braved hours of torrential rain to watch the screening of the latest movie on their country’s 1994 genocide, Shooting Dogs. Survivors were in the audience at the film’s Rwanda premiere, braving their own memories more than a decade after hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in a 100-day bloodbath.
Six-year-old Shino Katagiri does not start primary school until April, but her mother is already putting her into classes — on how to defend herself against violent attackers. As an adult self-defence instructor plays the bad guy, the terrified little girl huddles into a chair and refuses to take part in the lesson her mother has brought her to.
Paralysed rats who received transplants of adult mouse brain stem cells were able to partially restore limb movement, researchers said in Wednesday’s issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Called neuronal precursors, the stem cells from the brains of adult mice are able to transform themselves into cells of the central nervous system and other tissues.
Welsh singer Tom Jones is getting used to meeting Queen Elizabeth II — but on Wednesday was something special as she dubbed him, ”Sir Tom.” The 65-year-old singer, a coal miner’s son from the Welsh town of Pontypridd, received the honour from the queen at Buckingham Palace.
Marine scientists from around the world met in Australia on Wednesday to set up a digital sensor network that can monitor endangered coral reefs around the globe. The meeting in the northeastern city of Townsville is due to launch a pilot monitoring system that will cover 400km of the nearby Great Barrier Reef, organisers said.
Greenpeace on Wednesday called on the leaders of Indonesia and Britain to adopt laws to help halt the destruction of Indonesia’s last ancient forests, ahead of the arrival of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a one-day visit. The environmental watchdog said the forests, part of the so-called Paradise Forests of the Asia-Pacific, were disappearing faster than any others on Earth.
Sweden’s acting foreign minister, Carin Jamtin, has been barred from visiting Sudan’s western region of Darfur, Swedish media reported on Wednesday. Jamtin said she was notified of the decision on her arrival to Sudan late on Tuesday, and was told that the decision was linked to security concerns over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Shouts of ”Allah Akbar!” (God is greatest) rent the air in parts of Kaduna, northern Nigeria on Wednesday as a four-minute eclipse turned daylight into darkness. Many residents ran indoors before the eclipse started. Some did so for fear of looking at the phenomenon directly and damaging their eyes.