President Obama announced Friday that about 100 U.S. troops have been deployed to the West African country of Niger, where defense officials said they are setting up a drone base to spy on al-Qaeda fighters in the Sahara.
(from washingtonpost.com )

…,  brother of famed R&B great Bobby Womack has died on the 1.2.2013 in South Africa. Womack was part of the famed group Womack and Womack. Cecil, 65  was married to Sam Cook’s daughter Linda. They moved to Africa in the 90s.  Cecil and Linda released a successful album, Love Wars, and continued to make albums until 1993. The duo continued to work with their seven children as The House of Zekkariyas, releasing   the album Sub Conscience in 2002.

A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell was partly responsible for oil pollution in the Niger Delta, but said the company was not liable for four of the five charges brought against it. (from ft.com)

The hearing over the Port Said disaster in February follows unrest on Friday that killed five people and injured more than 330 during anti-government protests on the second anniversary of the uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

The court had been due to rule on Saturday in the cases brought against 73 people, 61 of whom are charged with murder in what was Egypt’s worst stadium disaster.

Another 12 defendants, including nine police officers, are accused of helping to cause the February 1, 2012, disaster at the end of a match between Cairo’s Al Ahly and al-Masri, the local side.

Expecting a verdict, hardcore Al Ahly fans, known as ultras, have protested in Cairo over the last week, obstructing the transport network. The Port Said disaster triggered days of street battles near the Interior Ministry in Cairo last year.

The ultras have blamed the deaths on the military council that was governing Egypt at the time of the disaster a year ago, accusing it of planning the incident for political reasons.

Saturday would be “a decisive day for many”, the Al Ahly ultras declared on their Facebook page on Friday. “Beware of our anger: justice or blood”, they wrote.

Many fans accused security forces of causing the disaster to punish them for taking a frontline role in the street revolt that toppled Mubarak in 2011. A parliamentary inquiry last year blamed fans and shoddy policing for the deaths.

The ultras consider their dead as martyrs of Egypt’s revolution – a status officially conferred on them this week by President Mohamed Mursi, who assumed power from the military council after winning an election in June.

The focus of protester rage during Friday’s demonstrations, Mursi faces discontent on many levels, including frustration at the perceived failure to secure justice for those killed in the anti-Mubarak uprising and the following period of military rule.

Protesters accuse Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood of seeking to dominate the country and betraying the revolution. The Brotherhood dismisses such accusations as part of a smear campaign by its rivals.

Street battles erupted in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Port Said and elsewhere. Arsonists attacked at least two state-owned buildings as symbols of government were targeted. An office used by the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party was also torched.

Johannesburg court convicts Nigerian Henry Okah of 13 charges, including car bombings that killed 12 people in Abuja. (from aljazeera.com)

A South African court has convicted Nigerian national Henry Okah of charges related to “terrorism”, including bombings that killed 12 people in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on independence day 2010.

“I have come to the conclusion that the state proved beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused,” said Judge Neels Claassen, handing down the verdict in the South Gauteng High Court on Monday.

Okah was found guilty of masterminding attacks including twin car bombings that killed 12 people in Abuja on October 1, 2010 and two explosions in March 2010 in the southern Nigerian city of Warri, a major hub of the oil-rich Delta
region.

He faces a life term at minimum when the court hands him the sentence between January 31 and February 1.

The armed Nigerian group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which in 2010 was a well-equipped group fighting for a greater share of the Delta oil wealth, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Although Okah has denied leading MEND, saying he just sympathised with their goals, court documents referred to him as its leader.

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has been known in the past to blow up or disrupt oil installations and pipelines in the oil rich Niger delta area,” Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reporting from Johannesburg, said.

“They are also known to take a lot of foreign hostages and ask for ransom,” she added.

Documentary evidence of his role in the group included handwritten notes by his wife.

MEND has a history of staging fierce attacks on oil facilities and kidnapped oil expatriate workers in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern Delta.

He holds permanent residence in South Africa, but is known to have travelled back and forth between the two countries.

In 2009 he was freed from a jail in the central Nigerian city of Jos where he was being held for treason and gun-running.

His liberation came in the wake of an amnesty deal offered by the government to thousands of Delta fighters.

The court said he then left for South Africa, but returned to Nigeria in early 2010, sponsoring the purchase of cars which were modified to allow the fitting of explosive devices.

Eight months later the cars were used to bomb independence day festivities that were attended by several foreign heads of state, including South African President Jacob Zuma.

Okah have denied involvement in the Abuja blasts, saying the charges were politically motivated. He was also accused of being one of the spokesmen for MEND.