Ethiopia News Blog @newzblogz.com

LAGOS, Nigeria — Uncle Sam has some African fans.

As first lady Laura Bush tours the world's poorest continent, a new report charting global attitudes shows America's image sagging around the globe — but not in Africa.

"The American society is a model of success that is a dream to Ivorian youth," says Mohamed Diarra, a 30-year-old in Ivory Coast, where some 88 percent of the population holds a favorable view of the United States — the highest in the world according to Pew Global Attitudes report released this week.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

Fighting malaria as well as AIDS is on First lady Laura

Bush's agenda as she tours Africa. While the former doesn't

grab the same headlines, it far outstrips AIDS as the

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

If plants and politics seem to be entwined lately, what with genetically modified food, the payment of coffee-bean pickers, deforestation and drugs, a stroll through ?Paradise in Print? at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is a reminder that plants have long played a major role in the human story. This is particularly true in the Caribbean, where, as an exhibition handout puts it, ?plants grow at such a quick pace that the gardener?s most useful tool can be a machete.?

A selection of watercolors, folio editions, rare books and prints from the 18th through the mid-20th century ? organized by Jane Dorfman, Marie Long and Stephen Sinon of the Botanical Garden ? illuminates a number of historical events through tales about plants.

Consider ?The Breadfruit Story,? a display of late-18th- and early-19th-century French and English engravings of a breadfruit specimen, a wired shipping case and a cross section of a ship that illustrate how the plant could be transported. It turns out that these all relate to William Bligh and the infamous 1789 mutiny on the H.M.S. Bounty. The plan had been to export the breadfruit plant from Tahiti so that a cheap crop could be cultivated in the West Indies to sustain plantation slaves. (The plan was given up after the mutiny in Tahiti.)

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

      PROVO — The mental health of a man who bought high-powered guns illegally and told his roommates he wanted to kill police officers and U.S. soldiers will be reviewed against his wishes.

Kiddus Yohannes

      During an appearance Thursday in 4th District Court, prosecutor Donna Kelly asked Judge Gary Stott to order a mental-competency review for Kiddus Chane Yohannes, 20, who was arrested June 8 after police learned he had purchased guns illegally and was threatening violent attacks if given a chance.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

A former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice" and should be granted a new appeal, a Scottish judicial panel ruled Thursday.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty of murder in the December 1988 bombing, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. He was convicted in 2001 and has been serving a life sentence in a prison near Glasgow, Scotland. At the original trial, three Scottish judges convicted al-Megrahi of planting an unaccompanied suitcase containing a bomb-laden radio-cassette player aboard the flight. His co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.

The independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review considered the reliability of testimony from one witness and doubts relating to clothes al-Megrahi allegedly bought in Malta on Dec. 7, 1988, that were inside a suitcase containing the bomb. The panel said there was insufficient evidence to conclude the purchase took place.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit