Clipmarks | invictus's Africa collection

Little arrow that rewrites history books

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:25:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Two researchers from Wits University believe that what they have discovered is a 60 000-year-old arrow that was fired from the earliest known bow. Their discovery has pushed back the origins of bow-and-arrow technology by 20 000 years.

The bow, probably made of wood and long since decayed, was used at a time when Neanderthals in Europe were using large spears in duels with woolly mammoths and other large prehistoric game.

The bone arrow, just 5cm long, was excavated by Wadley at the Sibudu cave, near the coastal town of Ballito in KwaZulu Natal, two years ago.

It's mystery who the people were who fashioned the arrow.

Also at this time, humankind was leaving an ever-increasing archaeological record of the first inklings of modern human behaviour. They were burying the dead, using coloured pigments and wearing jewellery.

"This at a time a few thousand years before they walked out of Africa, to become the ancestors of all humans," said Backwell.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, south africa, prehistory, arrow, science

'Witches' burnt to death in Kenya

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:01:31 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Eleven elderly people accused of being witches have been burned to death by a mob in the west of Kenya, police say.

A security operation has been launched to hunt down villagers suspected of killing them in Kisii District.

The BBC's Muliro Telewa in the region says the gang had a list of the victims and picked them out individually.

The area has witnessed similar attacks in the past when people suspected of engaging in witchcraft have been killed or ostracised.

But our reporter says that this is a surprisingly large number of people to be attacked at the same time.

Tags: africa, kenya, witch hunt, terror, lynch, bigotry

Congo Diary: Deforestation

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:32:17 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: africa, congo, environment, deforestation

Major Ebola outbreak in DR Congo

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:43:36 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

More than 200 people died in a previous outbreak in Kikwit

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been confirmed by the World Health Organization in Kasai province.

At least 166 people have died and WHO says it is aware of 372 other cases.

Specialist laboratories in Gabon and Atlanta in the US confirmed Ebola from blood samples, saying they also showed the presence of Shigella dysentery.

Ebola is highly contagious. People contracting the disease suffer severe stomach pain and internal bleeding.

The fatality rate for Ebola, which has no known cure, is as high as 90%.

WHO and Medecins sans Frontieres have despatched medical personnel to help the Congolese contain the outbreak.

An emergency response team of clinicians, water and sanitation experts and logisticians is on the way to organise clinical care and establish appropriate isolation facilities.

Tags: africa, health, congo, ebola

Rastafarianism: Essence of Reggae

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:55:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Re-clipping my old stuff as promised.

Clip Source: religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu

Rastafarianism

The original Rastas drew their inspiration from the philosphies of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940), who promoted the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s. The organization's main goal was to unite black people with their rightful homeland, Africa. Garvey believed that all black people in the western world should return to Africa since they were all descended from Africans. He preached that the European colonizers, having fragmented the African continent, unfairly spread the African population throughout the world.

After spending nearly a decade in the United States and Great Britain, Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927, where he spread his political views among the black working class.

In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the new Emperor of Ethiopia.

This announcement was a monumental event that many blacks in Africa and the Americas saw as the fulfillment of Garvey's prophecy years before.

Tags: religion, rastafarianism, culture, reggae, africa, ethiopia, jamaica

Up in Smoke: The African Apocalypse

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:17:43 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Up in Smoke: The African Apocalypse

The continent burning into a desert Nowhere is the effect of global warming more dangerous than in Somalia, where the worst drought in 40 years is affecting the lives of 1.8 million people.

"I am 70 years old now, and the temperatures are getting hotter and hotter as the years go by," says Habiba Hassan, standing in a field of ruined crops near her village of Beniday in Somalia.

The winters where she lives, 200 miles northwest of Mogadishu, used to be "very hot during the day and cold at night", she adds. But now "we have to sleep outside at night, it is so hot."

Somalia's harvest, brought in last month, is almost 30 per cent lower than normal, the result of the worst drought in at least 40 years. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says that the situation is "alarming," with a "severe food crisis," affecting 1.8 million people, persisting throughout the country for at least the rest of the year.

Tags: climate change, somali, africa, drought, famine