Mali Heating Up

[MTN Medic]

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/...144251485.html

The president was thought dead (or in hiding). He is alive, but his hold on the reigns is as suspect as his dealing with the Toureg uprisings earlier this month. Should be a good place to watch...

[Wiseman]

My boss is trapped there since the airport is closed.

[Pete]

Mali Tuareg rebels 'surround Timbuktu'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17576725

"Tuareg separatist rebels in Mali say they have surrounded the historic town of Timbuktu after a rapid advance through the north of the country.

Eyewitnesses say they have heard heavy weapons and machine-gun fire, reportedly directed at a military base.

Troops appear to have deserted the base, a resident told BBC News................"

Getting hotter...

[mark46th]

Where's Beau Geste when they need him?

[JSMosby]

I'll see your coup and raise you one of my own... 33rd Para counter-coup

How many civil wars can we have in one country? Well, it is West Africa! Never short of excitement.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Where's Beau Geste when they need him?

OH, they're all still out there...but now they work for the UN, UA, etc....and look more like this...

And so it goes...

Richard

[mark46th]

Glad you put Laurel and Hardy's "The Flying Deuces" up. It was always one of my favorites. FWIW, Charles B. Middleton played the camp Commandant. He was also "Ming the Merciless" in the Flash Gordon serial...

[Stras]

Well it is the Coup Season...

Great way to screw up a four day weekend.

[Richard]

Mali ain't been the same since Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino vacationed there...

Richard

[Airbornelawyer]

Some more developments:

Mali government rejects north's independence

African Union to take Mali to U.N. Security Council: source

"The African Union will go to the Security Council and then it will be up to it to find the right format for a resolution and if it deems military support necessary," said the source close to Thomas Boni Yayi, the Benin president and head of the African Union.

...

Yayi, who met Hollande on Tuesday, was quoted by French media as saying he wanted a UN-backed force to intervene in Mali along the lines of the African Union force in Somalia.

France has previously said it would provide logistical support for an African operation and new Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters on Wednesday that there was a real risk of the region turning into a "West African Afghanistan."

"We can't let this area become a new sanctuary for terrorism," Le Drian told a news conference. "There are real risks. We have to act, but the right players to do that are ECOWAS, the African Union and the Security Council.

Paris has already trained troops in Mauritania and Niger to fight al Qaeda's North African wing in the region.

"It's a difficult, dangerous zone and we are looking at it extremely carefully," Le Drian said, declining to say whether French troops already based in West Africa were being increased or repositioned for an eventual intervention.

And a backgrounder/overview of developments:

Mali: Five months of crisis: Armed rebellion and military coup

[Pete]

Mali: Islamists seize Gao from Tuareg rebels

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18610618

".................In March, the Islamists and MNLA advanced together through northern Mali after the government was overthrown.

Our correspondent says that they proved unable to reach an agreement after they took control of the region.

After weeks of an unlikely alliance between the Tuareg-led fighters seeking a secular independent north and Islamist rebels who want to impose Islamic Sharia law across northern Mali, this latest violence clearly illustrates the balance of power in the region, he adds.................."

Getting warmer. I think the Tuaregs are going to come out on the short end of the stick.

[Richard]

And some of those unintended consequences.

Richard

Clouds of desert locusts have arrived in rebel-held northern Mali, where insecurity has hampered pest control, bringing fears that the insects may devastate a country already struck by drought, conflict, and the displacement of more than 360,000 people.

Swarms of immature locusts have invaded Kidal and Aguelhok in northern Mali, which was taken over by Islamist fighters and other armed rebels after a military coup in the capital, Bamako, ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure in March.

"It is difficult to know exactly how the situation is, as it is not safe to send scientific teams there. We cannot assess and fight locusts anymore," said Manda Sadio Keita, a programme officer of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Mali.

Controlling desert locusts, one of about a dozen species of short-horned grasshoppers, is extremely difficult because they exist in an enormous area of up to 30 million square kilometres, sometimes characterized by insecurity, poor roads and the remoteness of some parts, among other factors, according to the FAO.

The locusts often fly with the wind, travelling at 16km to 19km per hour, and can cover distances of up to 130km per day. "Mali is the most important country in the Sahel in terms of protection [against the spread of locusts, but] it is the weakest link," Keita added.

The insects have spread south from outbreak areas along the Algeria-Libya border, where swarms are declining after control measures, but in early June FAO said northern Niger had also been infested.

In 2004 swarms of locusts up to 20km long and 5km wide devastated pastures, crops and vegetation across the Sahel from Dakar, the capital of Senegal on the Atlantic coast, to Ndjamena, the capital of Chad, half a continent away.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201206270033.html

[mark46th]

Where's the DDT when you need it?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Where's the DDT when you need it?

Another victim of junk science and eco-kook hyperbolic fearmongering in the form of Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring, influencing governmental reasoning.

http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/new...sue_detail.asp

And so it goes...

Richard

[mark46th]

The loss of DDT for use against mosquitos has resulted in thousands if not millions of deaths in Africa alone. DDT when used properly is safe and saved countless lives.