Tagged: Nigeria

It's hard to keep track of who is fighting who in the west African nation of Mali, but it appears that Islamist rebels have pushed secular Tuareg rebels out of a small town about 50 miles east of the border with Mauritania. As the Associated Press notes, the action comes about a week after militants captured the town of Ménaka, in eastern Mali, about 65 miles from the border with Niger.

It has been a bloody last couple of days in Nigeria: First on Sunday, two car bombs exploded near a church inside a military base. According to the AP, hospital officials said the death toll in that incident has grown to 30.

And today, the AP reports, there is news that gunmen rushed a police station in the nation's capital of Abuja.

Nigeria is the world's epicenter for polio. It's the only place where cases are ticking up, and it's been the source of outbreaks in other countries since 2003.

There was a disappointing update from public health officials Thursday about the polio situation in Nigeria. Despite beefed-up efforts to vaccinate kids and a flood of new resources, Nigeria still hasn't turned the corner on polio.

Gold in general has great PR. It's slick, it's hip, it's bling. But in a remote corner of West Africa, it's killing children.

Lead from illegal gold mines in northwestern Nigeria has sparked what Doctors Without Borders has called the worst case of environmental lead poisoning in years.

The catastrophe is part of the fallout from the collapse of the U.S. housing market.