Six In The Morning

U.S. Drug War Expands to Africa, a Newer Hub for Cartels

　

 By CHARLIE SAVAGE and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON – In a significant expansion of the war on drugs, the United States has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya as part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to smuggle cocaine into Europe.

The growing American involvement in Africa follows an earlier escalation of antidrug efforts in Central America, according to documents, Congressional testimony and interviews with a range of officials at the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Pentagon.

In both regions, American officials are responding to fears that crackdowns in more direct staging points for smuggling – like Mexico and Spain – have prompted traffickers to move into smaller and weakly governed states, further corrupting and destabilizing them.

Robert Fisk: Sectarianism bites into Syria’s rebels

The deathwish of fighters in Damascus terrifies many who oppose Assad

ROBERT FISK    SUNDAY 22 JULY 2012

A young Syrian turned up just over a week ago at a smart office block in Beirut with a terrifying message. Without giving his name, he said he wanted to speak to another Syrian who worked in the office, a well-educated man who left his country months ago. The visitor was taken upstairs and introduced himself. “I was sent to you by the shebab,” he said – shebab might be translated as “the youth” or “the guys” and it meant he worked for the armed Syrian opposition – “and we need your help.”

Cars clog Zimbabwe’s streets as economy sputters back to life

As incomes rebound, cars flood back on to Zimbabwe’s streets.

22 JUL 2012 06:41 – FANUEL JONGWE

A cacophony of blaring horns and revving engines drown out every other sound as frustrated motorists battle to negotiate a downtown intersection where the rush-hour traffic converges into gridlock.

In what some say is a sign of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery from a nearly decade-long crisis, cars are jamming the roads, posing a new headache for cities where a few years ago traffic was so thin that Zimbabweans joked you could lie in the middle of the street without getting run over.

Venezuela’s ‘Thomas Crown Affair?’ Stolen Matisse discovered in Miami.

In 2002, a Caracas art museum discovered the Matisse hanging there since 1981 had been swapped with a fake. This week an FBI sting in Miami recovered the original. What happened?

By Miguel Octavio, Guest blogger

An FBI sting operation in Miami led to the recovery of a Matisse painting entitled “Odalisque in Red Pants” owned by the Sofia Imber Museum of Modern Art in Caracas. The FBI agents posed as customers willing to buy the painting from a couple whose name has yet to be disclosed by the FBI.

The story started in 2002 when it was discovered that the Matisse hanging in the museum wall was a fake, after the Chavez administration had changed the board of the museum a couple of years earlier, including Ms. Imber, who had run it from its beginning (and purchased this particular painting for a relatively low price).

Norway massacre survivor tries to revive pre-attack memories

 A year after Oslo and the Norwegian island of Utoya saw deadly attacks, many view the island as a place of deep sadness. But one survivor is striving to revive fond, pre-attack memories of Utoya through photos.

 

A place of joy, debate, laughter and song. That’s what Utoya, a small island in Norway’s Lake Tyri, was for years. The Norwegian Labor Party’s youth movement began holding summer camps there in the 1950s. Many of Norway’s senior politicians, including Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, spent their summers on the island when they were young.

For some, Utoya was even the place where they found the love of their lives. But Anders Behring Breivik’s deadly attack a year ago Monday has made the island synonymous with violence, pain and loss.

Chariots of Fire’s Eric Liddell is Chinese ‘hero’

The story of Scottish athlete Eric Liddell – a devout Christian who refused to take part in an Olympic race because it took place on a Sunday – became famous after being told in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. But almost a century later, why is the athlete regarded as a hero in China?

 By Glenn Campbell

Political correspondent, BBC Scotland

In the corner of a quiet Chinese courtyard, 5,000 miles from Scotland, stands a memorial in Isle of Mull granite.

The stone commemorates Eric Liddell – one of Scotland’s greatest Olympians – who is buried nearby.

The stone was gifted by Edinburgh University after a Scottish engineer, Charles Walker, rediscovered his grave in the Chinese city of Weifang.