Africa

In the heart of the Ethiopian community here, a group of friends gathered after work in an office to chew on dried khat leaves before going home to their wives and children. Sweet tea and sodas stood on a circular wooden table between green mounds of the plant, a mild narcotic grown in the Horn of Africa. As the sky grew darker the conversation became increasingly heated, flipping from religion to jobs to local politics. Suddenly, one of the men paused and turned in his chair.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A South African art gallery that displayed a controversial painting showing the country's president with his genitals exposed announced Tuesday that it was closing its doors temporarily because of threats. The decision came after vandals defaced the artwork earlier in the day. Lara Koseff, spokeswoman for the Goodman Gallery, said there had been numerous threats made against the gallery after its display of "The Spear," by Cape Town artist Brett Murray.

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Africa's rapid economic growth has helped change the stereotype of a hopeless continent of starving people waiting to be rescued, but it has also created an intense need for strong managers, according to a report released Tuesday. Poor management is hurting the effectiveness of global multinational corporations, major local companies, governments and charitable foundations in many African countries, says the report by the African Management Initiative, a nonprofit organization focused on training managers to help business development on the continent.

The man grabs a metal bar, raises it and shouts at several boys playing on a see-saw. The boys' faces freeze in fear. They flee. This is a "child-friendly space." The man is a respected community leader. And the iron bar -- or stick, fist or broom handle -- is child discipline here in Andohatapenaka 2, one of the poorest districts of Madagascar's capital. The man, Honore Rakotomanana, 54, doesn't work at the center, funded and run by UNICEF. He just dropped in. But his is a typical attitude.

While people in wealthy suburbs of Africa use water to maintain lush lawns and fill swimming pools, many slum dwellers struggle to obtain the crucial resource and pay much more per gallon for what little of it they can get, according to a United Nations Development Program report calling for an end to "water apartheid." At the same time, dirty water is the second-leading cause of death among children globally, after respiratory infections. It kills 1.

South Africa gained its third first lady on Monday when President Jacob Zuma married Tobeka Madiba, his fifth marriage and third concurrent spouse. With another fiancee in the wings and rumors about a possible future engagement, the country may have five or more first ladies before Zuma's presidency is over. Zuma's polygamy sits uneasily with the ruling party's commitment to gender equality and has been criticized by women's rights and AIDS activists. But despite the disquiet in some quarters, Monday's wedding passed without media controversy.

In Mexico, the story of the country's black population has been largely ignored in favor of an ideology that declares that all Mexicans are "mixed race." But it's the mixture of indigenous and European heritage that most Mexicans embrace; the African legacy is overlooked.

Tossed off a flatbed truck, a 100-pound bale of used panties and bras, worn socks, DKNY suits and Michael Jordan jerseys lands with a thud amid a jostling swarm of shoppers. Okech Anorue slits the plastic wrap on the refrigerator-size bundle he bought for $95 and dives in. There's bound to be a gem in there -- like the faded leather bomber jacket once worn by Tiffany of Costa Mesa High School. That piece now hangs on the premium rack in his 5-foot-by-5-foot stall with a $25 price tag.

It's a lucky day for amphibian enthusiasts at Glen Austin wetlands: The giant bullfrogs of southern Africa are having sex. The mating ritual occurs just one day a year, after the first downpour of the Southern Hemisphere summer. The shallows of the wetlands north of Johannesburg become a splashing commotion as bullfrogs attack and toss each other about like pint-sized wrestling stars. The giant bullfrog is like Kermit on steroids. When it lunges ? and South African frog expert Vincent Carruthers has seen it attack horses ?

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - For a Soweto boy, he had a lot of sneakers. He remembers the joy of that first pair. They had to be red. Walking out of the shop carrying a cardboard box with the sneakers, Sifiso Dlamini, at 12, took the first steps on a long journey in search of the soul of a shoe. "Having a pair of sneakers in Soweto meant a lot. You were cool and every kid on the block wanted to have their pair of sneakers. "I had a lot, because I was obsessed" - a dozen pairs, more than anyone he knew in the township.

World Health Organization officials had hoped to achieve a 90% reduction in measles deaths between 2000 and 2010, but fell short of their goal, achieving just a 74% reduction, researchers said Tuesday. The number of deaths worldwide fell from 535,300 in 2000 to 139,300 in 2010, according to a report in The Lancet . That represented a significant accomplishment, but was not as great a gain as officials had hoped for. The major impediments to the planned reduction were India, which accounted for 47% of measles deaths in 2010, and WHO's African region, which accounted for 36%. There were 222 measles cases in the United States last year, most of them imported, but no deaths.

NEW YORK - A deep report on the fear and violence plaguing urban schools brought the Philadelphia Inquirer the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday, while the New York Times won two awards as Columbia University announced the winners of journalism's top prizes. The two victories by the New York Times -- for reporting on east Africa and for exposing tax avoidance by General Electric Co.-- made it the only double winner. It was a year in which the judges bypassed coverage of some of the most catastrophic news events dominating the headlines in 2011, such as the violent conflict in the Mideast and an earthquake , tsunami  and nuclear meltdown in Japan . The Inquirer's win for “Assault on Learning” was a boon for one of America's oldest newspapers, which recently emerged from bankruptcy and a pair of ownership changes.

NEW YORK - New Yorker drama critic John Lahr set off a social media firestorm in December with a blog comment that called for a moratorium on those "infernal all-black productions of Tennessee Williams plays unless we can have their equal in folly: all-white productions of August Wilson. " The theater community, as viewed from my portal on Facebook, found the comparison not just inept but inflammatory. Emily Mann, who happens to be directing the multiracial Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker that opens later this month at the Broadhurst Theatre, however, refused to take the bait when we spoke during a rehearsal break in March.

"Wanna share Sangria?" his text said. "Sure. Just walked in. Wearing a gold jacket. " "I'm in a white sweat shirt. " I walked into the crowded bar looking for an African man who led a nonprofit promoting social entrepreneurship among people of African descent. That was all I knew about him. I was deeply in love with Africa, having returned from my first trip there eight months before. I had spent two weeks there, teaching primary school children in a Nairobi slum to write their personal stories.

The scimitar-horned oryx was listed as endangered seven years ago, but a special exemption from the federal Endangered Species Act allowed breeders of the rare African antelope to nonetheless sell and hunt the animals -- at $5,500 a head. As a result, herds grew exponentially on exotic hunting ranches nationwide, especially in Texas. That exemption for the oryx and two other African antelopes popular with Texas hunters, the addax and the dama gazelle, could disappear Wednesday unless a federal judge approves a last-minute appeal by ranchers for an injunction.

The crescent moon of the railway track divides the slum, a metal slash in the tumble of rusted tin roofs, stinking channels of sewage and narrow paths where children play with toys made of scraps of wire and rubbish. A band of youths hangs about on the track, perhaps slum hoods and their girls. Closer, you make out the boy among them. He looks tense, surrounded. Closer still: He wipes his hands over his face, as if washing off anxiety. One of the bigger youths totes a grubby supermarket bag. Gently, as if lifting out a loaded gun, Victor Onuoch produces a video camera.

While the media are understandably preoccupied with momentous events in Europe, and with dour and dastardly events in Latin America, I was gratified to read your editorial on the need to face grim facts in Africa ("Facing Facts in Africa," Nov. 27). In essaying to predict the geopolitical structure of the world in the next decade, the temptation is strong to overlook the second largest of the continents--not only because Africa still seems remote and strategically inconsequential to the rest of the world, but because its grave problems and acute suffering appear to be beyond solution and therapy.

Three years ago, Louisville sophomore center Gorgui Dieng couldn't speak English. Last year, he didn't know how the NCAA tournament worked. When Morehead State eliminated Louisville in the first round, Dieng said he asked his coaches, "Why can't we play anymore?" He wasn't kidding. "I had no idea," he said. "I didn't know Sweet 16 last year. Honest. " Louisville has come a long way to reach its first Final Four since 2005, after finishing seventh in the Big East Conference.

LAGOS, Nigeria - Incumbent Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade's move to swiftly concede defeat after Sunday's presidential runoff election is being viewed as a major positive step for democracy in a region better known for military coups and violence-tinged election campaigns. Wade, 85, who faced a massive public backlash after defying a constitutional provision limiting presidential terms to two, was defeated by a former ally, Macky Sall, 50. Wade, who had been in power for 12 years, was seeking a third term despite his age and the fact that he developed the two-term limit.