Ivory Coast

The most wanted soccer coach in the world -- sorry, Jose Mourinho , it's not you -- could set a record of sorts this summer by coaching no fewer than three national teams in the space of three months. Dutchman Guus Hiddink , who led the Netherlands to the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup and South Korea to the semifinals of the 2002 tournament, apparently is considering becoming coach of Africa's strongest team, the Ivory Coast, in time for the 2010 World Cup. This news comes only days after Hiddink announced that he had agreed to take over as Turkey's coach in August and only two weeks after he agreed to step down as Russia's coach at the end of June.

Samuel Kanwea showed up for what should have been his freshman year in high school illiterate, malnourished and exhausted from years of living in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast. His family had never been able to afford the luxury of education, so he spent his early teenage years collecting firewood and selling fish. When the Liberian refugee started school in Oakland at the age of 17, it was the first time he had stepped foot in a classroom. "Everyone was speaking English and it confused me," said Kanwea, a lanky student with a wide smile.

Herbert Hischemoeller, honorary consul general of the Ivory Coast and the senior member of the Los Angeles diplomatic corps with that title, died Friday, his office announced Monday. Hischemoeller was 82 and died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was being treated for a heart ailment. Born Herbert Hischemoeller van Kamphuyzen to Dutch nobility, Hischemoeller was educated at Eton in England.

A U.N. inquiry has found Ivory Coast's paramilitary police responsible for the massacre of about 60 young men during turmoil in October that broke out as the president took office. Eight officers are scheduled to go on trial in Abidjan today for their alleged involvement in the killings. The bodies of about 60 young men were found in a field on the outskirts of Abidjan days after President Laurent Gbagbo was swept to power in a popular uprising after chaotic elections.

United States embassy officials and Ivory Coast authorities are investigating the killing of a Santa Monica missionary earlier this month in that west African nation. Adele Atchley, 65, was killed Aug. 3 in her apartment in the town of Yamoussoukro during an apparent robbery attempt, said Dale Bills, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It already is being called one of the new wonders of Africa or, conversely, a monumental folly. What "it" is is the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, the largest church ever built and the object of much debate in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, where it rises above the surrounding forest like some unearthly transplant.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO hasn't yet turned up in a movie about Blood Chocolate, but as valentines from coast to coast open heart-shaped boxes of bonbons today, they might give some thought to an industry that is nearly as harmful to human rights in Africa today as the diamond trade was a decade ago. About 70% of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa, with Ivory Coast accounting for about 40%.

The bittersweet scent of raw cocoa awaiting shipment overseas still permeates the huge lagoon-side port district here, a reminder that this is the commodity that created Africa's most stunning economic success story. But a few miles away in the business district known as "The Plateau," the windows of a top-floor office are sealed shut and the air conditioning is on full blast, the better to obliterate the chocolaty smell that symbolizes how reliance on a single major crop also came close to destroying the country.

On Valentine's Day, there will be no chocolate gifts for young Aly Diabate. "I don't know what chocolate is," said Aly, who was forced into slavery at age 11 to harvest cocoa beans in Ivory Coast. Aly's ignorance of chocolate is forgivable. Like tens of thousands of other child slaves on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, he subsists on a diet of corn paste and bananas. Less forgivable is the fact that chocolate lovers in the West have been kept in the dark about these harsh realities.

Far from home, sweat streaming down his face, a 14-year-old hacks with a machete at the tangled weeds and bushes in a cocoa plantation. His young hands are blistered and his skinny legs crisscrossed with scars. The surrounding fields in the tropical countryside on Ivory Coast's southeastern border are full of boys like Amadou Kourago.

The most wanted soccer coach in the world -- sorry, Jose Mourinho , it's not you -- could set a record of sorts this summer by coaching no fewer than three national teams in the space of three months. Dutchman Guus Hiddink , who led the Netherlands to the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup and South Korea to the semifinals of the 2002 tournament, apparently is considering becoming coach of Africa's strongest team, the Ivory Coast, in time for the 2010 World Cup. This news comes only days after Hiddink announced that he had agreed to take over as Turkey's coach in August and only two weeks after he agreed to step down as Russia's coach at the end of June.

Samuel Kanwea showed up for what should have been his freshman year in high school illiterate, malnourished and exhausted from years of living in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast. His family had never been able to afford the luxury of education, so he spent his early teenage years collecting firewood and selling fish. When the Liberian refugee started school in Oakland at the age of 17, it was the first time he had stepped foot in a classroom. "Everyone was speaking English and it confused me," said Kanwea, a lanky student with a wide smile.

A stampede Sunday at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in the Ivory Coast killed at least 22 people and wounded 132, authorities said. Fans at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny arena pushed against one another shortly before the game between Ivory Coast and Malawi, setting off a panic that led to the stampede, Interior Minister Desire Tagro said on state television. "They started pushing to get in because the match was about to start and each and every one of them wanted to get in," Tagro said.

Movie and TV piracy in Africa is so rampant that some production houses are refusing to distribute in their home countries, preferring to sell their shows only to diaspora Africans in better regulated markets. Thus West Africans in Paris lap up plot lines thick with polygamy, sorcery and secret love potions set in a claustrophobic courtyard in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, while their relatives back home miss out. "We noticed there is a huge market for TV sitcoms but it was mostly from Nigeria, the U.S. or Brazil.

Nearly 700 Ivory Coast farmworkers alleging that they became sterile from exposure to a U.S.-made pesticide can't claim to be victims of genocide because the producers didn't intend harm, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The pesticide, known as DBCP for dibromochloropropane, has been banned in the United States since 1979. The Africans' suit against Amvac Chemical Corp. of Newport Beach, Dole Food Co. of Westlake Village, Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Oil Co.

The United Nations is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse by hundreds of Moroccan peacekeepers serving in Ivory Coast and has summoned Rabat's diplomats to respond, U.N. officials said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the investigation involved Moroccan soldiers having sex with a large number of underage girls. The world body took the highly unusual step of confining the entire battalion of 800 troops to barracks in the rebel stronghold of Bouake.

Ivory Coast's Prime Minister Guillaume Soro escaped unhurt when his plane was hit by a rocket after landing in Bouake, but four people were killed, witnesses said. Several arrests were reported.

A rebel leader who has controlled northern Ivory Coast for four years took office as the country's prime minister. "The first part of this challenge is the consolidation of trust among all Ivorians and the return of a durable peace," Guillaume Soro told an audience of dignitaries and journalists in Abidjan. Nearly five years ago, Soro led a failed coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo.

Ivory Coast's president signed a decree naming a rebel leader as the new prime minister as part of a power-sharing peace plan, a government spokesman said. With the signature of President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel chief Guillaume Soro officially stepped into his new role under the plan to unite a country split between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south.

Ivory Coast's president signed a peace accord with the country's main rebel leader, calling for a new government to hold elections by year's end, and for the dismantling of a vast buffer zone separating the two sides. President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro agreed to form a unity government within five weeks and create a military command that would include rebel and army officials.