Women and hair color

Do women lighten their hair to compensate for aging?

Related:

NLSY blogging: Eye and hair color of Americans

Seven members of a family belonging to the minority Yazidi community have been murdered in northern Iraq, police say

Officers said a mother and father and their four adult children were shot dead when gunmen burst into their home in the town of Sinjar, west of Mosul. The Yazidis are an ancient, religious sect and there have been a number of attacks on them in Iraq in the past. In August 2007, some 400 people were killed in the Sinjar area in multiple bomb blasts targeting Yazidis. Thought to number about 500,000, the Yazidis are to be found in Iran, Russia and Turkey, but the largest number are in northern Iraq. Their religion is a blend of Zoroastrianism, Islam and other faiths. Some Muslims have accused them of being devil-worshippers, since they revere an angel in the form of a blue peacock. It is a charge the Yazidis reject. A number of attacks against Yazidis in recent years have been blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq which views them as infidels.

Ugandan rebels say a stalled peace process has collapsed completely after a joint attack on its positions by forces from three African countries

Uganda, DR Congo and South Sudan launched a joint offensive against bases of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in north-eastern DR Congo. A rebel negotiator said the offensive signalled an escalation of the war. The Ugandan army has said that several LRA camps have been destroyed, including its main base. Army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said that the operation had been launched because LRA leader Joseph Kony had been unwilling to end the violence in the region. In November 2008 Mr Kony failed to sign a peace deal, despite two years of tortuous negotiations. The LRA has led a rebellion for more than 20 years in northern Uganda, displacing some two million people.

Up to 250 people were killed in clashes in Sudan's Darfur region recently, says the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission (Unamid)

Unamid says 150 people died as hundreds of members of the Fallata and Salamat ethnic groups attacked the Habaniya in South Darfur. About 100 more died in clashes between two groups from the Gimir group. These clashes do not appear to be directly linked to the Darfur conflict between Arabs and black Africans. But UN officials say ethnic relations have not been helped by the Darfur conflict, which started in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the western region. This has seen an increased flow of weapons to the region. Unamid says it also received reports more than 5,000 people fled their homes after a village was burned and looted. Six police officers were among the dead, Unamid said. Activists have accused Khartoum of trying to arm groups from some of the groups involved in the recent fighting, of buying their allegiance and using them as proxies against the rebels. The UN estimates that up to 2.7 million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur and some 300,000 have died during five and a half years of conflict.

An elderly man opened fire on fans at a Senegal rap concert he believed were making fun of him by singing a song about cranky old men, police say

The 70-year-old began shooting with a hunting rifle at Lobaly village in the Matam region. Police say the gunman warned fans to stop singing "Pa' Tang Xol" (Angry Old Men) by popular Senegalese artist Baaba Mal before opening fire. Five people were taken to hospital and two were seriously injured, say police. Concert-goers had been listening to warm-up music before the live act at the gig on the border with Mauritania, 700km (440 miles) from the Senegalese capital Dakar. The man took offense when he heard the Wolof language track's lyrics and told the fans to stop singing it. When they did not, he opened fire four times, said police. "The elderly gentleman felt that these young people were insulting him in their songs," a policeman said. The gunman was reportedly arrested.

Mexicans, children and crime

Even children aren't safe from Mexican criminals.

Diversity and the Chicago way

Steve Sailer explains how diversity makes Chicago more prone to corruption.

Related:

Blagojevich And The Minority Mortgage Meltdown

Team Obamavich

The Heart of Blago

Jewish politician in Israel praises Hitler

A far-right Likud party member has become a thorn in the side of the ultra-hawkish party's leader Benjamin Netanyahu, a frontrunner in the race to become Israel's prime minister, as media reprint comments he made praising the Nazi system and denigrating Arabs. Moshe Feiglin, 46, has a strong chance of winning a parliamentary seat after gaining significant support within Likud, at a time when Netanyahu is seeking to soften the image of the right-wing opposition party. But Likud's governing body pushed Feiglin down to the 36th place on the election slate from the 20th slot following an appeal by a Netanyahu ally citing irregularities in the party primary. The support that Feiglin and other radical Likud members won at a party election to name parliamentary candidates for the legislative elections was a sharp blow for Netanyahu, a former prime minister. To make matters worse for the party leader, the Israeli media has since highlighted comments Feiglin made in a 1995 interview with the Haaretz daily, in which he praised the qualities of Hitler and spoke disparagingly of Arabs. An observant yarmulke-wearing Jew, Feiglin called the man responsible for the Holocaust an unparalleled military genius. "Hitler savored good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals," Feiglin was quoted as saying of the Nazi regime at the time. "Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status. The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order," he said. The mass-selling Yediot Ahronot daily said Feiglin "was not ashamed of considering Hitler a genius." Feiglin, who lives in a Jewish colony in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has made similarly controversial comments on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He insists there is no such thing as a Palestinian people and that they and Palestinian-Israeli Arabs should be cleansed from their lands, media said, citing a text he had posted on the website of his "Jewish leadership" movement that was removed recently. "They will have to seek the right to self-determination in Arab states. Israel will encourage the Arabs to emigrate to their countries and assist any Arab who wishes to do so," Feiglin was quoted as saying. In a 2004 interview with Yediot he spoke of "a voluntary transfer to the 22 neighboring Arab states" of the some 1.4 million Palestinian-Israelis, who make up 20% of Israel's population. "Arabs don't live in the desert, they create it," he was quoted as saying.

Related:

Israeli Radical Considers Hitler to be a Genius

Indifference to Gaza Suffering Chalked Up to Jewish Ethnocentrism

A new ethnic conflict in Bosnia?

Thirteen years after the United States brokered the Dayton peace agreement to end the ferocious ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia, fears are mounting that Bosnia, poor and divided, is again teetering toward crisis. On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox churches still pocked by mortar fire, appears to be enjoying a renaissance. Yet for the first time in years, talk of the prospect of another war is creeping into conversations across the ethnic divide in Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic that the Dayton agreement divided into two entities, a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic. The power-sharing agreement between former foes has always been tense. Now, however, the uneasy peace has been complicated by Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in February, which many here worry could prompt the Serbian Republic to follow suit, tipping the region into a conflict that could fast turn deadly. “It’s time to pay attention to Bosnia again, if we don’t want things to get nasty very quickly,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the Clinton administration official who brokered the Dayton accord, and Paddy Ashdown, formerly the West’s top diplomat in Bosnia, warned recently in an open letter published in several newspapers. “By now, the entire world knows the price of that.” The Dayton peace agreement, brokered by the Clinton administration at a United States Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, accomplished its goal of ending a savage three-and-a-half year war in which about 100,000 people were killed. A million more Muslims, Serbs and Croats were driven from their homes, while much of this rugged country’s infrastructure was destroyed. But the decentralized political system that Dayton engineered has entrenched rather than healed ethnic divisions. Even in communities where Serbs, Muslims and Croats live side by side, some opt to send their children to the same schools, but in different shifts. And the country’s leaders are so busy fighting one another that they have done relatively little to help the nation recover. Locked in an impasse of mutual recrimination are Haris Silajdzic — the Muslim representative of the country’s three-member presidency, who has called for the Serbian Republic to be abolished — and the Bosnian Serb prime minister, Milorad Dodik, who is supported by Russia and Serbia and who has dangled the threat that his republic would secede. Bosnia, which has received more than $18 billion in foreign aid since 1995, remains a ward of the West, its security guaranteed by 2,000 European Union peacekeepers. Sketching a worst-case example, Srecko Latal, a Bosnia specialist at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Sarajevo, warned that if the Serbian Republic declared independence, Croatia would respond by sending in troops, while the Bosnian Muslims would take up arms. If Banja Luka, the capital of the Serbian Republic, were to fall, he continued, Serbia would be provoked into entering the fray, leading to the prospect of a regional war.

The hormone that turns angelic children into foul-tempered teens has been isolated by scientists

Neurokinin B switches on puberty, causing the hormonal surge behind the angst and anger of adolescence, a Cambridge University study has found. More knowledge of the hormone could lead to new contraceptives as well as treatments for diseases fuelled by sex hormones, such as prostate cancer. Researcher Prof Steve O'Rahilly said: "This unexpected finding puts one more important piece in the unfinished jigsaw puzzle that is our understanding of puberty." Analysis of the DNA of Turkish families with members who did not go through puberty, published in Nature Genetics, flagged neurokinin B's key role. Neurokinin B has been linked to puberty in animals, but it had been assumed its main role lay elsewhere. Now it appears it is key to the awkwardness of adolescence. Other research has shown that the teenage brain, not yet fully developed, cannot consider how actions will affect others - leading to teens being perceived as sullen, selfish and thoughtless. They also find it harder to put themselves in others' shoes. Moodiness might be partly explained by differences in biological clocks, which leave them in a permanent state of jetlag.

Related:

Research uncovers puberty genes

Kickstarting puberty

Clint Eastwood and the Hmong

Brenda Walker has an interesting take on Eastwood's new film.

California's Latinos and blacks still lag whites and Asians in university eligibility

Despite recent improvements, Latino and black students continue to lag behind whites and Asians in becoming academically eligible to enter California's two public university systems, according to a state report just released. The study reported that 22.5% of Latino high school graduates were eligible for Cal State in 2007, up from 16% in 2003, when the last such study was done. For black students, Cal State eligibility went up to 24%, from 18.6%. Latino and black eligibility for UC's more rigorous standards were 6.9% and 6.3%,respectively, in 2007, slightly higher than four years ago. White and Asian students did better in meeting requirements for both universities. For Cal State, 37.1% of white high school graduates were eligible in 2007 and 50.9% of Asians, both somewhat higher than in 2003. For UC, 14.6% of white graduates and 29.4% of Asians met course, grade and test score requirements; those rates were both slightly lower than in the previous survey.

Young Muslims go amok at mall in Copenhagen

Police used pepper spray to dispel up to 300 Muslim young people who caused disturbances outside Fisketorvet mall in downtown Copenhagen. The youths had gathered at the shopping centre in connection with the celebration of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha. But several of those present got out of hand, according to police. Bicycles were thrown onto the nearby S-train tracks, shoppers at the mall were harassed and rocks were thrown at police who arrived on the scene. Officers managed to split the group in two and drive them away from the mall. Five youths were eventually arrested as a result of the fracas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has sparked controversy by saying a Palestinian state would provide "a national solution" for Israel's Arabs

Politicians from the minority Arab community have demanded she clarify if it means that Arabs citizens will face loss of rights in Israel or expulsion. Israeli politicians have long grappled with the issue of a growing proportion of ethnic Arabs in the Jewish state. "Transfer" has been mooted explicitly only by far right-wingers in Israel. Ms Livni is hoping to become Israel's next prime minister, and opinion polls suggest she is in a close race with the right-wing Likud party.

Genetic variation in South Indian castes: evidence from Y-chromosome, mitochondrial, and autosomal polymorphisms

For 32 lineage-defining Y-chromosome SNPs, Tamil castes show higher affinity to Europeans than to eastern Asians, and genetic distance estimates to the Europeans are ordered by caste rank. For 32 lineage-defining mitochondrial SNPs and hypervariable sequence (HVS) 1, Tamil castes have higher affinity to eastern Asians than to Europeans. For 45 autosomal STRs, upper and middle rank castes show higher affinity to Europeans than do lower rank castes from either Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh.

Related:

Y chromosomes. mtDNA, and autosomal DNA from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh

Rupert Murdoch and the Jews

From Steve Sailer:

Rupert Murdoch once said in private, I am told on good authority, that the reason he decided to subsidize the neocons (a decision with substantial historical ramifications) was not because of any particular devotion to the tenets of neoconservatism. Instead, funding The Weekly Standard was simply to insure against being defenseless against vendettas by the American media and politicians against his American businesses. As a foreigner of generally conservative political views, he felt he needed to protect his huge investments in America by having at least one set of Jews staunchly on his side.

I doubt if Murdoch cares much about, say, West Bank settlements, but he understands that the small number of people in America who do care about them tend to be passionate, powerful, and rich.

Related:

Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach

Pathogen resistance and auto-immune response

Yann Klimentidis points to some research that may indicate a trade-off between pathogen resistance and auto-immune response particularly in Northern Europeans.

Gene in fruit flies may engage in genetic warfare that causes speciation

A newly identified gene in fruit flies may drive the creation of new species, revealing how internal genetic environments may be just as important as external factors when it comes to speciation. The new work lends evidence to a hotly debated idea in evolutionary biology. “Conventionally, evolutionary biologists thought that speciation involved adaptation to the external environment, but these results suggest that adaptation to the internal genomic environment also sometimes plays a role,” explains study author Nitin Phadnis of the University of Rochester in New York. Phadnis and colleague H. Allen Orr identified a gene — dubbed Overdrive — that prevents two closely related subspecies of fruit flies from mingling genomes. The gene does this in two ways: It forces hybrids of the two subspecies of flies to be predominantly female, and it renders the male hybrids sterile. Both of these genetic tricks could ultimately fracture one species into two, the team reports online December 11 2008 in Science. “I think it’s great,” comments researcher Mohamed Noor of Duke University in Durham, N.C. “It represents a dramatic change in the context of the field.” To many scientists, genome-mingling is what defines a species — members within a single species can swap genetic material frequently and easily. Species can split into two when freewheeling gene exchange is no longer possible, a barrier Overdrive appears to build. An early stop on the road to complete speciation is when two subspecies can still mate, but produce offspring that are incapable of having offspring themselves. In a genetic schoolyard scuffle, the genes of one species don’t play well with the genes of a different species. This hybrid sterility plays out in fruit flies. At the same time, Jiri Forejt of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and colleagues identified an elusive gene that causes hybrid sterility in mice subspecies. The work, published in the same issue of Science as Phadnis’ study, describes the first example of a mammalian gene that may lead to speciation. This fruit fly study used two fruit fly subspecies that, although closely related, don’t encounter each other in the wild. These subspecies, called USA and Bogota after their respective habitats, produce sterile male offspring. Phadnis and Orr first tested which parts of the flies’ DNA were important for causing hybrid sterility. The researchers inserted many different parts of one subspecies’ genome into the other subspecies’ genome, and saw which DNA fragment allowed the hybrid offspring to be fertile. After many painstaking experiments, Phadnis and Orr homed in on a stretch of DNA in both flies that spanned five genes. The researchers concluded that incompatible DNA in this region is responsible for making the hybrid offspring sterile. In this DNA region, one of the genes, Overdrive, showed big differences between the Bogota version and the USA version, leading Phadnis to think that this gene was a “prime suspect” behind hybrid sterility. Usually the offspring of USA and Bogota parents would be sterile. But when Phadnis put the USA form of the Overdrive gene into a Bogota male and bred it with a USA female, the hybrid was fertile. Overdrive, Phadnis and Orr discovered, was in fact responsible for whether the hybrids were fertile or not. Taking the research a step further, Phadnis and Orr showed that when the Bogota Overdrive gene was put into USA flies, a whopping 80% of the hybrid offspring were female. Fruit flies usually produce roughly equal numbers of male and female offspring; males carry an X chromosome and a Y chromosome, and females carry two copies of the X. But, the team concluded, Overdrive, which is located on the X chromosome, was somehow driving its own propagation forward, at the expense of male heirs and, by inference, at the expense of the Y chromosome. This example of genetic warfare, in which a gene cheats the usually fair system of divvying up chromosomes, evokes a hotly debated topic in evolutionary biology. "Genetic conflict was an extremely controversial topic in the 1990s," says Phadnis. “There wasn't much empirical evidence, and the idea didn't latch on." Some researchers were skeptical that genetic conflicts, like the one Overdrive seems to wage on the Y chromosome, can drive subspecies to split. But the new research, along with two recent reports of other cheating genes, makes it more likely that internal genetic tussles can lead to a species split. The mouse study by Forejt and colleagues found no evidence of such genetic warfare. “It's amazing. These theories were proposed on intellectual grounds," says Phadnis. But now, he says, the idea has become much more believable. Phadnis and Orr don’t yet understand how Overdrive might be harming the Y chromosome in a way that ultimately leads to fewer male offspring. “We have genetic proof but very few details at this point,” says Phadnis. Just finding the gene is a big benefit to studies on how species form. Genes that may be involved in speciation have been notoriously difficult to identify, largely because of sterility problems. To date, just a handful of genes that may impact speciation have been found, mostly in fruit flies.

Related:

The first speciation gene in mammals has just been discovered

Sex, race and height

Some interesting research on how height can affect reproductive success depending on gender and race.

Jewish parents want Arabs out of Israeli school

Parents in south Tel Aviv who are seeking to prevent two Arab girls from attending their children's school are denying accusations of racism, saying they're worried about academic standings. The conflict centers around the Hagalil Elementary School in the Hatikva quarter and began when the Tel Aviv school board decided to enroll the girls, both of whom are neighborhood residents. Even in the country's handful of mixed cities, Jews and Arabs generally prefer to live - and learn - apart. Hatikva has long been a low income area suffering from crime and drug-related ills. An influx of immigrants and foreign workers within the past decade has put long-time residents on guard, and the enrollment of many of the foreign workers' children into area schools has added to the tension. Dismissing charges of racism, a core group of Hagalil parents said they're concerned that the academic level of their children's classes may drop if students who are struggling with Hebrew are integrated. "The school board already dumped the African kids here, and now they're bringing in the Arab kids without even telling us," one mother said. "They can't speak Hebrew well, they're having trouble in class and it's hurting the academic level of the school," she said. "Anyone who doesn't understand why we're so upset... should take a look at other schools in the area," the mother added. "It starts with a few students and all of a sudden parents find that there are dozens of refugees in their schools. It's simply bad for the school."

Related:

TA elementary school: No Arabs allowed

Light State, Dark State

Audacious Epigone points out how race affects political support.

A gene mutation which protects the heart against a high-fat diet has been found in the Amish population

Researchers found 5% of the Amish population in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have a mutation in a protein which breaks down fatty particles. Those with the mutation had higher levels of "good" HDL-cholesterol and lower levels of "bad" LDL-cholesterol, the journal Science reported. It is hoped the finding will lead to new therapies to reduce cholesterol.

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"Inbreeding" Not so Bad After All! -- Amish Genes Ward off Stroke

The spread of lactase persistence

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe should be seen as a "21st Century Hitler", a senior South African Anglican bishop has said

Bishop of Pretoria Joe Seoka called on churches to pray for his removal, South African Press Association reports. His comments came as the US ambassador to Zimbabwe warned that the country was turning into a "failed state".

More than 80% of Somalia's soldiers and police - about 15,000 members - have deserted, some taking weapons, uniforms and vehicles, the UN says

The head of the UN monitoring group on Somalia, Dumisani Kumalo, said Islamist insurgents got many of their weapons and ammunition from the deserters. Meanwhile, the African Union wants peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda to stay when Ethiopian troops leave soon. In the UN report, Mr Kumalo, the South African ambassador, also said most of the Somali government's security budget - supposedly 70% of its total budget - disappeared through corruption.

High IQ test scores in early adulthood were associated with a reduced risk of death by homicide

In the developing field of violence epidemiology, a series of studies have shown that social factors are associated with the risk of being a victim of homicide. Thus, persons with higher educational credentials, individuals in the professional social classes, and people with higher income experience lower homicide rates. A further individual characteristic, intelligence (IQ), a correlate of these indices of socio-economic circumstances, has recently been shown to be related to the risk of having experienced violent assault in children who were followed until age 17 years. That is, after adjustment for covariates, individuals in the highest IQ scoring group reported a marked reduction in the prevalence of assault in comparison with the lowest IQ scorers. A corollary of these different strands of evidence is that persons with high IQ will have a decreased risk of death due to homicide.

New research shows significant genetic differences between the Scots and the English

Results may show the varying proportions of continental Germanic and indigenous British ancestry in these populations.

An African-Caribbean teenager has been found guilty of killing a 14-year-old boy who had a knife plunged into his head

Jack Large was stabbed near a shopping precinct in Chigwell, Essex, in November 2007 and died in hospital two days later after having the knife removed. The 16-year-old, who cannot be named, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter at Chelmsford Crown Court. Jurors failed to reach a verdict on another teenager, now aged 14, who was also charged with murder. After the jury was discharged, he pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon. The court was told the convicted teenager, who is African-Caribbean, believed he had been called racist names by Jack Large.

Distance from Africa, not climate explains human variation

The relative importance of ancient demography and climate in determining worldwide patterns of human within-population phenotypic diversity is still open to debate. Several morphometric traits have been argued to be under selection by climatic factors, but it is unclear whether climate affects the global decline in morphological diversity with increasing geographical distance from sub-Saharan Africa. Using a large database of male and female skull measurements, we apply an explicit framework to quantify the relative role of climate and distance from Africa. We show that distance from sub-Saharan Africa is the sole determinant of human within-population phenotypic diversity, while climate plays no role. By selecting the most informative set of traits, it was possible to explain over half of the worldwide variation in phenotypic diversity. These results mirror those previously obtained for genetic markers and show that ‘bones and molecules’ are in perfect agreement for humans.

Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high

Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even health care staff for money. Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana. AIDS patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed. Anti-retrovirals are used to boost the immune system of people with HIV and to suppress the virus in the blood. "I couldn't believe it. I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their school uniforms," said documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo. "They take a pill and grind it, until it is a powder. Some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana," said Ms Nhlapo. "They showed me how they roll it and smoke it."

Related:

Cholera is 'S African disaster'

A fool and his money will get more women

Men who spent more (saved less) and who were more likely to shell out more than they earned reported having more sexual partners in the past five years and desired more future partners than other guys in the study. Specifically, the 25% of men who were most conservative about spending had an average of three partners in the past five years and desired about one partner in the next five years. The 2% of men with the riskiest financial strategies had double those numbers.

Gene-culture co-evolution

In 2007, a team led by anthropologist John Hawks found that natural selection seems to have modified at least 7% of the human genome over the last 40,000 years, i.e., during the period when modern humans spread out of Africa and peopled the other continents. In addition, as they moved into these different physical and cultural environments, the pace of genetic change seems to have speeded up, particularly after the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago. The rate of change may then have been over a hundred times what it had been during most of human evolution (Hawks et al., 2007).

Is diversity good for religion and bad for atheism?

From Science Blogs:

Danish lack of religious intensity is likely aided by a communitarian sense of immediate and implicit belonging indicated by a homogeneous shared ethnicity. The author explicitly suggests this at several points, and observes that perhaps with the rise to the fore of Muslim populations of some size and religiosity in Denmark that orthodox Danish Lutheranism will likely see a renaissance. Diversity is strength! (for god).

Killing spree leaves albinos living in fear

It is a sanctuary on the vast waters of Lake Victoria, a safe haven amid a gathering storm of killings. White-skinned albinos, known here as "ghosts", are being hunted down by their own people, harvested for body parts by those who believe they will add potency to black magic rituals. The remote island of Ukerewe, several hours across Lake Victoria and two days overland from the capital of Tanzania, is the one remaining shelter, a place where albinos can live in relative safety. "Life is better here on the island," says Alphonce Kajanja. Elsewhere, the killing continues. Recently, two more Tanzanian albinos were murdered. Elizabeth Hussein was hacked to pieces by men with machetes in Shinyanga province. She was just 13. Then Ezekiel John, 47, was shot and had his arms and legs cut off near the city of Kigoma on Thursday. Their deaths bring the toll to 35 murders in just more than a year. There is similar violence throughout east and central Africa. And even in west and southern Africa, albinos face persecution and discrimination. The campaign is being orchestrated by witch doctors who claim they can make people rich using limbs and blood from their white-skinned neighbors. In some areas, albino children go to school with bodyguards, others hide at home, and distraught relatives pile rocks on their dead loved ones to deter grave-robbers. Ukerewe is believed to have the highest concentration of albinos in the world. No one here is sure why there are so many zeru, the Swahili word for "ghosts". Some believe an unknown mineral in the fish the islanders live on makes mothers have albino babies. Others say intermarriage has bred an increased minority compelled to stick together. Whatever the cause, among the tin shacks, fishing dhows and tropical fruit trees of Lake Victoria's largest island there are an extraordinary number of people with the distinctive white skin, gingery blond hair and pale eyes. Albinism is an inherited disorder. It derives from a congenital lack of the melanin pigment which protects the skin, eyes and hair from the sun's ultraviolet rays. Some have very poor vision, though not all have red eyes as myth often suggests; most have blue, others have hazel or brown eyes. But all forms of albinism are associated with vision problems and those who have the condition are "legally" blind. What all albinos have in common is that they are rare. In most parts of the world, only one person in 20,000 has some form of albinism. In Denmark, the prevalence is one in 60,000, but in Africa it is thought to be about one in 5,000. In sub-Saharan Africa they are immediately visible; too white to be black. In Tanzania, an east African giant of a country that stretches beneath the equator from the Indian Ocean to the great lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika, people are five times more likely to have some form of albinism. Estimates of the numbers of albinos in the country differ, some are as high as 200,000, all of them complicated by the stigma attached to their condition which in many cases makes their family hide them from the outside world. But the prevalence has led many researchers to consider whether the original genetic variant may be traceable to this region of East Africa, or even to Ukerewe itself. In an already impoverished community, access to the goodwill and charity of the extended family or clan is vital to most peoples' survival. For albinos, a lifetime of social exclusion and abject poverty is all that awaits. Many albino children, uneducated about their condition, are left to a life of harsh labor in the sun: the result is catastrophic skin damage, agonising side-effects and an early death. Skin cancer means a life expectancy of just 30. Beyond the shores of Ukerewe, an even worse fate awaits. The one-time zeru are hearing a different nickname called to them now, "money": they are seen as walking bank notes. Jospehat Torner is attempting to document the horrific killing spree that has left albinos feeling "terrified and hunted". An albino himself, his outfit is designed for maximum protection from the sun. A baseball cap is pulled down tight to shade his face, and a suit and tie defy the soaring temperature. Despite these precautions, he looks much older than his 34 years. Torner is a leading campaigner with the Tanzanian Albino Society, an organization set up to fight discrimination that has found itself fighting for life itself. He says the recent murder of the 13-year-old girl was typical. She had been tempted to leave the safety of her home to see a film about Jesus being shown on a projector near to her village. All the local children went. On the way back is when those he calls the "greedy people" got her. "They chopped off her legs and her arms," he adds, gesturing with a look of pain as if he was losing his own limbs. The question, he says, is, "Who is the consumer of these body parts? When you go to the traditional healers they say it's the fishermen; when you go to the fishermen they say it's the miners. And they blame the traditional healers." In fact, the evidence already points in one direction alone, the healers or witch doctors who have started to market albino bones, skin, hair and blood as ingredients in potions that will make people rich. One man was caught trying to enter DRC with the head of an albino child in his luggage. He said he was taking it to a businessman in Congo who was going to pay for the head according to its weight. The severed limbs of Elizabeth Hussein were found on the premises of a local witch doctor. But he was tipped off and escaped police. Like many members of TAS, Torner has been trying to make himself more visible at just the time where it is most dangerous to do so. Everywhere he goes, he must register with the local police and district commissioner to let them know he is there. His mobile phone, which he must hold inches from his face to see who is calling, so poor is his eye-sight, has been ringing with death threats. "They say to me, 'Where are you? We want to kill you'. And I say, 'fine, let's meet'." The Tanzanian government – appalled to see the country's cherished reputation as a haven of stability and development collapsing – has been scrambling, after an acutely slow start, to look busy. Practising witch doctors have been arrested by the score and death sentences threatened to those found guilty; so far, no one has been successfully prosecuted and the killings continue. The fear has reached Ukerewe. In Masahonga, at the end of a 100km dirt road that connects the nearest paved road with the ferry to Ukerewe, a crowd had gathered recently. The district commissioner used a megaphone to hammer home the message that albino murders must stop. In angry Swahili, she denounces the witch doctors as "liars". But the deadly cocktail of traditional beliefs and modern avarice will not be easily neutralized. Torner has an even darker view. He believes the murders may have been going on unnoticed for many years. Countless numbers of albino babies die in childbirth. "What's to stop a nurse killing an albino baby and saying that it died of natural causes." Nobody knows how many disappeared before people started keeping count. The lives of many albinos have been lived in total seclusion. Inside some homes, albino graves have been dug and marked. People have grown up, he says, being told albinos are ghosts. "We don't die," he says. "We just disappear."

Liberals are starting to turn on Obama

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices. Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left. Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss. “He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America. OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Related:

Obama has no clue on energy efficiency

Diversity Hiccups in the Obama Shape-Up

Obama Expected To Reduce Illegal Alien Round-Ups

Black males were 6 times and Hispanic males a little more than 2 times more likely to be held in custody than white males

Black males represented the largest percentage (35.4%) of inmates held in custody, followed by white males (32.9%) and Hispanic males (17.9%). The custody incarceration rate for black males was 4,618 per 100,000. Hispanic males were incarcerated at a rate of 1,747 per 100,000. At midyear 2007 the estimated incarceration rate of white males was 773 per 100,000. Across all age categories, black males were incarcerated at higher rates than white or Hispanic males. Black males ages 30 to 34 had the highest custody incarceration rate of any race, age, or gender group at midyear 2007.

The brains of children from low-income families process information differently to those of their wealthier counterparts

Normal nine and 10-year-olds from rich and poor backgrounds had differing electrical activity in a part of the brain linked to problem solving. A British researcher said it could shed light on early brain development. The 26 children in the study, conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, were measured using an electroencephalograph (EEG), which measured activity in the "prefrontal cortex" of the brain. Half were from low income homes, and half from high income families. During the test, an image the children had not been briefed to expect was flashed onto a screen, and their brain responses were measured. Those from lower income families showed a lower prefrontal cortex response to it than those from wealthier households. Dr Mark Kishiyama, one of the researchers, said: "The low socioeconomic kids were not detecting or processing the visual stimuli as well - they were not getting that extra boost from the prefrontal cortex."

Related:

Cortex Matures Faster in Youth with Highest IQ

Same Brain Region For IQ And Financial Self Control

Low childhood IQ linked to later psychiatric illness

The Taboo Hypothesis

The Search for Intelligence

Complex traits & evolution

Equality: The Elusive Ideal

Genetic ancestry of African-Americans reveals new insights about gene expression

The amount of proteins produced in cells—a fundamental determinant of biological outcomes collectively known as gene expression—varies in African American individuals depending on their proportion of African or European genetic ancestry according to new research led by Alkes L. Price of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. Gene expression is known to vary among individuals and to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Previous studies have reported gene expression differences among human populations, but it has been suggested that this could be due to non-genetic effects. Populations of recently mixed ancestry such as African Americans, who on average inherit about 80% African and 20% European ancestry, offer a solution to this question, since individuals vary in their proportion of European ancestry while the analysis of a single population minimizes non-genetic factors. In this study, the researchers show that gene expression levels in African Americans vary as a function of each individual's proportion of European ancestry. The differences due to ancestry (i.e. population differences between all Africans and all Europeans) were generally small—much smaller than differences between individuals within the same population; nevertheless, the authors were able to draw a distinction between effects of genetic ancestry at the location of the expressed gene (cis) and genetic ancestry elsewhere in the genome (trans). They conclude that only about 12% of heritable variation in human gene expression is due to cis regulation. First author Alkes Price says, "It was a surprise that these conclusions could be drawn given that the differences due to genetic ancestry are so small."

Related (1):How different are gene expression levels between Europeans and Africans?

Related (2): Human variation proportional to distance from Africa?

The plight of the Pygmies

Pygmies are suffering at the hands of their fellow Africans.

The witch camps of Ghana

In many parts of Africa, traditional beliefs include the existence both of powers to heal and powers to do harm. In northern Ghana, some women, accused of hurting others through witchcraft, are exiled and come to live together in so-called witches camps.

Related: Spiritual leader kills boy, 7, for witchcraft

Geneticists claim that Iberians have Jewish and Muslim ancestry

The genetic signatures of people in Spain and Portugal provide new and explicit evidence of the mass conversions of Sephardic Jews and Muslims to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control, a team of geneticists claims.

Related (1): Major study of Iberian Y-chromosomes (Adams et al.)

Related (2): 500 years on from the Inquisition, DNA is able to show the Moors never went home

Related (3): Past religious diversity and intolerance have profound impact on genetics of Iberian people

A Malaysian man has been stabbed to death for refusing to stop singing and hand over the microphone at a karaoke bar

Abdul Sani Doli, 23, reportedly angered some of the customers when he hogged the stage at the bar in Sandakan town on eastern Borneo island. Witnesses said he was attacked, and the fight spilled out on to the street. He was punched before being stabbed to death with a knife. His body was found a short distance from the bar. Sandakan's police chief ACP Rosli Mohd Isa said two men were in police custody, helping them with their inquiries. Karaoke, in which amateurs can sing along to their favorite songs, first emerged from Japan and became hugely popular across Asia during the 1980s, before spreading to other parts of the world.

Men of higher intelligence tend to produce better quality sperm, British research suggests

A team from the Institute of Psychiatry analysed data from former US soldiers who served during the Vietnam war era. They found that those who performed better on intelligence tests tended to have more - and more mobile - sperm. The study, which appears in the journal Intelligence, appears to support the idea that genes underlying intelligence may have other biological effects too. Therefore, if tiny mutations impair intelligence, they might also harm other characteristics, such as sperm quality. Conversely, people with robust genes might be blessed with a biological "fitness factor" making them fit, healthy and smart. Previously, scientists tended to assume that lifestyle factors were more likely to underlie any relationship between intelligence and health. For instance, brighter people may be less likely to smoke, and more likely to take exercise, both of which are known to impact on mental performance. The latest study tested the gene theory by taking two characteristics that seemed unlikely to be associated with each other - intelligence and sperm quality. They found a small, but statistically significant link, and were able to show that this could not be explained by unhealthy habits, such as smoking or drinking alcohol. The study was based on 425 men who undertook several intelligence tests and provided semen samples. The researchers found that independently of age and lifestyle, intelligence was correlated with all three measures of sperm quality - numbers, concentration, and ability to move.

Racial hatred and Islamic terrorism

Nicholas Stix points out that Muslim terrorists are often just as motivated by racial hatred as they are by religious fanaticism.

Related (1): Some Deaths are More Equal than Others

Related (2): A charity or a front for the Mumbai killers?

Related (3): Mumbai attacks: Behind the fence at 'terror' training camp

The truth about the SPLC

A journalist takes on the intellectually-bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center.

At least 300 girls in south-western Kenya have fled from home and sought refuge in churches in a bid to escape forced female genital mutilation (FGM)

The girls, some as young as nine, are at two rescue centers in rural Nyanza province. Female circumcision is banned in Kenya, but remains common in some areas where it is considered to be part of a girl's initiation into womanhood. The traditional ceremonies take place between November and December. The girls in Kuria District are now in the care of the two churches and Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, a women's organization. Police are providing security at the centers to ensure that the girls are not forcibly removed or harassed. Beatrice Robi, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake's district chairperson and a gender activist, says that at least 200 girls are undergoing circumcision in the district a day. She said she had found a seven-year-old girl who had just been circumcised. The FGM operation involves the partial or total removal of the external genital organs. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says it leads to bleeding, shock, infections and a higher rate of death for new-born babies. In Africa, about three million girls are at risk of FGM each year, according to the UN.

Brazilian authorities are working to identify a mystery illness that killed a 53-year-old South African man visiting Rio de Janeiro

Rio's state health ministry said the man, whose name was not given, succumbed to a hemmorhagic disease after falling ill on November 25, 2008 two days after arriving in Brazil. He was taken to hospital with fever, vomiting, blood in his urine and rashes. Doctors suspected he had contracted an arenavirus, a group of viruses that includes Lassa fever, an infection endemic to west Africa that typically spreads to humans from proximity to rodents. Dengue, malaria and ebola had all been ruled out, the ministry said. While tests were being carried out, hospital staff who had treated him were being observed to see if they showed any symptoms. Officials said the Pan American Health Organization had been informed of the case and the man's body would be sent back to South Africa in a sealed zinc casket.

A Tanzanian MP has warned that ritual killings of albinos are continuing in the country despite a Government crackdown on the practice

At least 30 albinos, including a seven-month-old baby, have been killed in Tanzania since March 2008. They are targeted by killers because of the belief that their body parts can make magic potions more effective. As part of the initiative against the killings, a former airline clerk called Al-Shymaa Kway-Geer was appointed to be Tanzania's first albino MP. Ms Kway-Geer says while the issue had garnered international attention, the killings continue. "For two years the killings are continuing. Before, many years back, when an albino was born, they were killed instantly," she said. "But at the moment they're killing them; they need their body parts. They say they'll get wealth through our body parts, which is very, very rude - it's a rudeness." She says she has been unable to find out who is responsible for the killings. "This person must be very strong because whenever the President speaks about these killings, they kill an albino," she said. "I'm asking myself who is behind this, this rude person, this evil person. Who is killing people every day? Cutting their hands." She says all albinos in Tanzania live with the stress of a "non-future". "Wherever you walk on the road you feel that someone will hunt for you. Someone is hunting behind, that is money moving there, because they say we are money, millions of money in our bodies," she said.

Related (1): Albinos targeted in Tanzania

Related (2): Burundi albinos live in fear of killers

Somalis attack white girl

Adil Mohamed Omer, 22, has pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and one of assault for her role in the swarmings, which occurred about 70 minutes apart at the Rideau Centre and Place d’Orléans shopping malls on Nov. 14, 2006. Court heard that Ms. Omer was among a group of six young women of Somali descent who attacked Chanel Marcotte as she sat on a bench in the mall, punching, kicking and pulling her hair before one of the women stole her cellphone and wallet. The group, which included Ms. Omer, then travelled to Place d’Orléans by bus, where they cornered two more young women near some garbage bins before attempting to steal one of the women’s purses. Court heard that the victim, Jamie Kennedy, was punched and had her hair pulled when she went after the person who stole her purse. Ms. Kennedy, who struck one of her attackers in the head with the handbag, was able to escape when a passerby intervened. According to a summary of the facts read into court, the second robbery was part of a plan hatched by Ms. Omer and the other women to target a “white girl” from Orléans “because they were rich.”

Father absence and early sexual maturity in girls

Peter Frost has some interesting new research on the role of ethnicity in family structure.

Small people in Africa

Steve Sailer reports on Africa's long history of conflict between the tall and the short.

Police have arrested a man in Nigeria who said in a television documentary he had killed 110 children he believed to be possessed by evil spirits

Rights campaigners say witchdoctors in some parts of Nigeria convince parents that their children are possessed and will bring misfortune such as divorce or disease so as to extort money to perform exorcisms. Some accused children fall into the hands of child trafficking networks after being handed over by their parents. Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya, arrested in Mbo close to the Atlantic coast with six other suspects, had claimed in a documentary to have killed 110 children beset by evil spirits. "I am not denying that I am a witchdoctor, but what I killed are witches in my patients with herbs, not children," Ulup-Aya said while in detention. Akwa Ibom is one of Nigeria's top oil-producing states but poverty is pervasive and many are superstitious. The state has the highest incidence of child-trafficking in Africa's most populous nation and belief in witchcraft is widespread.

Related: Nigeria 'child witch killer' held

A 16-year-old girl has been beaten to death by villagers in a suburb of West Bengal in India

The girl had been accused of practising witchcraft and entrancing the son of her former employer to marry her. Police say the girl, Tulu Dolui, 16, was dragged out of her hut in Ghoramara village late at night by at least eight people, who then tied her to a tree and beat her with sticks for over three hours. While police intervened to rescue the girl, she succumbed to her injuries on way to the local health center. She had sustained serious head, abdominal, chest and back injuries. The villagers alleged that Dolui was a witch and had hypnotized the son of a rich grocer, who decided to marry her against his parents' wishes. She was working in the home of the grocer as a maid servant until the grocer came to know of the relationship and fired her. No one has yet been arrested in the incident.

Related (1): Witchcraft on India's school curriculum

Related (2): Witchcraft is given a spell in India's schools to remove curse of deadly superstition

Diversity and loneliness

Vanishing American explains how increased immigration leads to social isolation.

Republican losses

House Republicans who were members of the restrictionist Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC) experienced fewer electroal losses than Republicans who were not part of the IRC.

Racial profiling and terrorism

In the shadow of Mumbai, Koen Rooijmans utters the word from which politicians shy; profiling, meaning sorting people by their racial background. "We don't like to discriminate but we know where the problem is coming from. Profiling (racial profiling) is a dirty word here in Australia, but I would do it," says the CEO of Brisbane Airport Corporation. "There's always ways to plan a terror attack. The only way to avoid it is if you have intelligence. People have guns and they can come to our car parks if they want or go to hotels or stations. You can't prevent that. You say: 'Let's be realistic. Where are these guys coming from? What is their background?'"

The brains of people who undertake serious or sexual crimes seem to differ in a number of ways

A new study from Yale University used MRI scans to compare the brains of pedophiles and those convicted of non-sexual crimes. Paedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" that connects six areas of the brain known to play a role in sexual arousal. The researchers' theory was that the lack of adequate wiring between these centres resulted in pedophiles being unable to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate sexual objects. New brain scanning called Pet (positron emission tomography) also allows the activity of the brain to be examined by measuring the uptake of glucose, the "fuel" of the brain. Pet has demonstrated that a region at the front of the brain – the prefrontal cortex – functions differently in murderers. This area normally controls the behavior that makes us "civilized" – self-control, maturity, judgment, tactfulness and reasoning. Violent crimes have also been associated with less specific abnormalities in the frontal lobe. Hormones are chemical messengers that travel in the bloodstream. Studies show many females imprisoned for aggressive criminal acts commit their crimes during the premenstrual phase of their menstrual cycle. This suggests that fluctuations in female sex hormones levels may regulate impulsive behavior. Further, recent research demonstrated that male adolescents with severe anti-social behavior don't produce as much of the stress hormone cortisol in response to high-tension situations. Fairchild and colleagues, publishing in the journal Biological Psychiatry in November 2008, speculate this may lead to less caution and more anger and impulsiveness during times of stress.

Ann Coulter, blacks and gay marriage

Any one familiar with Ann Coulter's 2005 interview in the New York Observer wouldn't be surprised that African-Americans voted 70% to 30% against gay marriage.

Ben Stein and Darwinism

Did Darwin cause the Holocaust?

Related: How Low Can Ben Stein Go? (To the Maligning of Charles Darwin)

One of Rwanda's most famous singers, Simon Bikindi, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for inciting violence during the 1994 genocide

His conviction stems from a speech he made from a vehicle equipped with a public address system encouraging ethnic Hutus to kill Tutsis. Prosecutors at the UN-backed tribunal based in Tanzania had called for the singer to be given a life sentence. Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in just 100 days. In its judgement, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said that several of Bikindi's songs, which were widely broadcast in Rwanda at the time, had incited hatred against Tutsis. However, the judges said the songs were written before the genocide and there was no evidence to suggest Bikindi had performed or played them in 1994. Bikindi was convicted for a speech he made in June 1994 on the main road between Kivumu and Kayove, in north-western Rwanda. "Simon Bikindi used a public address system to state that the majority population, the Hutu, should rise up to exterminate the minority, the Tutsi," the judgement read. "On his way back, Bikindi used the same system to ask if people had been killing Tutsi, who he referred to as snakes." Bikindi was also a sports ministry official and founded Rwanda's Irindiro Ballet. He was arrested seven years ago in the Netherlands. The most high-profile genocide cases are being tried by ICTR in Arusha. Since 1997, the ICTR has convicted 29 people and acquitted five.

Australian scientists have discovered that a person's genetic makeup can influence how they are affected by illness

The researchers from the University of New South Wales have found people with a genetic vulnerability spend twice as long in bed when they become ill and are significantly more likely to have an intense illness during the acute stage of an infection - when fever, aches and pain first strike signalling the start of the body's immune response. According to the researchers people with certain high risk gene combinations are eight times more likely to suffer from a severe and prolonged illness when they have an infection but other people have a gene combination which makes them particularly hardy, with a less severe illness. The research is the first to explore how genetic makeup determines the severity of an illness and could lead to ways in which people who are particularly vulnerable are identified and to the provision of individualised prevention and treatment programmes for common infectious diseases.

Related: Gene 'may ward off lung cancer'

The deluded expectations of Obama supporters

A reader going under the pseudonym "Vladimir Putin" emailed me this amusing item about the views of Obama supporters when it comes to terrorism.

Related (1): The Jews were tortured

Related (2): 'No regrets': Captured terrorist's account of Mumbai massacre reveals plan was to kill 5,000

Related (3): “Curry King” Skeptical Of UK Immigration

Related (4): The Rationale of Terror

The two villages where mothers killed every baby born a boy for ten years

The Papua New Guinea jungle has given up one of its darkest secrets - the systematic slaughter of every male baby born in two villages to prevent future tribal clashes. By virtually wiping out the 'male stock', tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future. 'Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,' said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special 'peace and reconciliation' meeting in the mountain village of Goroka. 'It's because of the terrible fights that have brought death and destruction to our villages for the past 20 years that all the womenfolk have agreed to have all new-born male babies killed,' said Mrs Luke. 'The women have had enough of men engaging in tribal conflicts and bringing misery to them.' Mrs Luke said that the village women agreed that if they stopped producing males, allowing only female babies to survive, their tribe's stock of boys would go down and there would be no men in future to fight. A resident of Agibu village, Mrs Luke said she did not know how many male babies were killed by being smothered, but it had happened to all males over a 10 year period - and she suggested it was still happening. Choking back tears she added: 'It's a terrible, unbearable crime, but the women had to do it. The women have really being forced into it as it's the only means available to them as women to bring an end to tribal fights.' Confirming the shocking infanticide claims, Mrs Kipiyona Belas from the rival Amosa village, told a newspaper that getting food for their families was difficult because husbands were fighting other tribes with bows-and- arrows and spears. Often the men did not come back, having been killed on the 'battle field', usually a clearing in the jungle. Tribal fighting in the region of Gimi, in the country's Eastern Highlands, has been going on since 1986, many of the clashes arising over claims of sorcery. Papua New Guinea tribes, who dress up in warrior paint and feathered finery for special occasions, are strong believers in sorcery and often blame their enemies for bringing about deaths through witchcraft.

Hat tip, Vladimir!

Power cuts, a murky political climate and widespread violent crime are making people leave South Africa

Professionals, often young and in middle management but increasingly senior executives too, are leaving, adding to a skills shortage that is already acute. Even though the global financial crisis is cutting job opportunities abroad - prompting some South Africans to consider moving home to take them up - at least eight top-level executives at listed companies have resigned this year to emigrate. Clothing retailer Truworths said in October 2008 its financial director Wayne van der Merwe was relocating with his family to Australia, while wealth and asset management group Peregrine Holdings Ltd said in September 2008 its chief executive Keith Betty was moving to Australia. The chief financial officer of chemical and explosives firm AECI emigrated after his 12-year-old daughter was shot in a robbery. And retail giant Massmart has reported a flight of senior management at the firm. A property barometer by First National Bank released in October 2008 showed 18% of people selling their houses in the third quarter were doing so because they were emigrating, up from 9% in the fourth quarter of 2007. For many, the main worry is South Africa's shockingly high crime levels. An average of 50 people are murdered every day, according to the 2008 government crime report, with robberies, break-ins and hold-ups at businesses up almost 50%. "In most instances I think the fundamental reason for leaving is violent crime," said Azar Jammine, chief economist at Econometrix.

Related (1): Migrant women vulnerable to exploitation

Related (2): SA among top 20 most dangerous places

Related (3): South Africa under siege

Blacker states are more likely to vote Republican

Given the overwhelming propensity of blacks to vote Democratic, this suggests that the black population's effect on the white vote in a state is stronger than it is on the entire state's electoral leaning. In fact, in the 2008 election, for each percentage point increase in black representation among a state's electorate, McCain improved his support among whites by three points.

The Indonesian province of Papua is debating whether to introduce a law allowing the government to implant microchips in people living with HIV

The bill proposes tracking the movements of HIV-positive people who behave in what some MPs describe as an irresponsible way. The proposal is the most controversial of a swathe of programs to tackle the spread of HIV in Indonesia. Papua has one of the worse infection rates outside Africa.

A group of masked gunmen have killed eight people at a restaurant in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez

Police said the gunmen arrived at the restaurant in three cars, approached a group of people and opened fire. The city, across the frontier from El Paso in Texas, has seen spiralling violence in 2008, most of it connected with the drug industry. Mexican government figures have shown limited success in a campaign to reduce the murder and kidnapping rates.

Dozens of troops have run amok in the Zimbabwean capital Harare after losing their temper while queuing up to withdraw cash at bank

Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 40 soldiers and a number of civilians who joined the protest. Troops had looted shops and assaulted passers-by, before the authorities managed to restore control. The disorder comes as much of Harare is without water amid a cholera outbreak. The military is seen as one of President Robert Mugabe's core supporters and was accused of taking part in a campaign of violence against the opposition during 2008's elections. Mugabe's grip on power would be severely weakened if the security forces stopped backing him.

Related (1): Zimbabwe vows to defy land ruling

Related (2): 'No water' in cholera-hit Harare

Biohistory

The dogma that human beings are identical blank slates, differing only because of cultural influences will soon be overthrown.

Related: Culturalism or...?

Whites targeted in Bombay terrorist attack

James Fulford reports on a headline that you won’t see in the newspapers.

Minorities got half of the subprime mortgage dollars in 2004-2007

Steve Sailer reports on a federal civil rights complaint filed against two of the three largest Wall Street rating firms.

Lax laws have let radical Muslims flourish in Britain

It is shocking but not altogether surprising that British-born Muslims were involved in the terrible slaughter in Mumbai. For years Britain has been an exporter of Islamist terrorism. The Government has shamefully failed to prevent hardline clerics coming to Britain to pollute young minds with their hate-filled creed. It has also failed to prevent young British Muslims travelling to madrasas in Pakistan for radicalization and terrorist training. Labor’s relaxation of immigrant marriage rules in 1997 left many British-born Muslims exposed to massive family pressure to marry people living in the Indian sub-continent to allow so-called “chain migration” to take place. This has increased the isolation of Muslim communities in Britain, increased the number of households where English is not spoken and fostered a sense of cultural alienation. So this Government’s lax immigration policies have created the conditions in which jihadist views can flourish. The mass murder that took place in London on July 7, 2005, was mainly organized and carried out by British-born Pakistanis. It should have served as a final warning that the failed creed of multiculturalism and the terror trail to Pakistan both needed closing down. The Government has failed to complete either task. India has paid the price for such negligence. Sooner or later Britain will pay the price again.

Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed during religious clashes in the central Nigerian town of Jos

A Muslim charity says it collected more than 300 bodies, and fatalities are also expected from other ethnic groups, mainly Christians. There is no official confirmation yet, and figures are notoriously unreliable in Nigeria. Clashes broke out after a disputed local election which has divided the town on social fault lines. Police have imposed a 24-hour curfew and the army is patrolling the streets of the town of Jos, capital of Plateau State. They have been given orders to shoot on sight in an effort to quell the bloodshed, some of the most serious in Nigeria in recent years. The Nigerian Red Cross says at least 10,000 people have fled their homes. The mostly Christian-backed governing party in Plateau state, the People's Democratic Party, was declared to have won the state elections. The result was contested by the opposition All Nigeria People's Party, which has support from Muslims. Violence started with singing and burning of tyres on the roads by groups of youths over reports of election rigging. Bodies from the Muslim Hausa community were brought into the mosque compound from the streets where they had been killed. The local imam said that their number is "in the hundreds". The Christian casualties are usually taken to the hospital morgues, but no clear figure has emerged for the number of their fatalities. Despite the overnight curfew, groups in some areas took to the streets again, as soon as patrols had passed by. In 2001, more than 1,000 people died in religious clashes in the city. Communal violence in Nigeria is complex, but it often boils down to competition for resources such as land between those that see themselves as indigenous versus the more recent settlers. In Plateau State, Christians are regarded as being indigenous and Hausa-speaking Muslims the settlers.

The genetic differences between the Fulani and other African ethnic groups

Certain ethnic groups contract malaria more seldom than others, even though the disease may be prevalent in the area. The Fulani people in Africa are one example of this. In a dissertation at the Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Elisabeth Israelsson presents some important genetic differences between the Fulani and other peoples that live in the same area that may be of great importance for the development of effective protection against malaria.

A leading South African scientist has warned that gross underinvestment in water management has left it at risk of a cholera outbreak

Five people have died from cholera in South Africa, after crossing from Zimbabwe, where a recent outbreak has killed more than 300 people. Anthony Turton has said that unless South Africa increased its spending on water, it was heading for disaster. In the decades since the 1980s, spending on treatment works, pump stations, reservoirs and other items has fallen sharply. In the 1980s it hit 40,000m rand ($4,080m). By the 1990s this had fallen to around 17,000m rand ($1,734m) and then to about 4,000m rand ($408m) in the 2000s. This fall, says Turton, was matched by a skills shortage. Qualified engineers, most of whom were white, were not replaced by younger, men and women. Many are now close to retirement age, and younger whites, says Turton, have been discouraged by affirmative action and many have simply left the country. As a result, Turton argues, South Africa is faced with increasing problems of water quality.

Related: Cholera kills 412 in Zimbabwe, spreads across borders: UN

British-born Pakistanis were among the terrorists who launched attacks on Mumbai

Indian news channel NDTV said two suspected Islamic militants arrested by commandos were “British citizens of Pakistani origin”. The gunmen were among eight captured after they launched co-ordinated attacks on 10 targets, including an orthodox Jewish center, two hotels and the city's packed railway station. Fresh gunfire and explosions have been reported at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where Indian commandos are attempting to free hostages. And at the headquarters of ultra-orthodox Jewish group, Chabad House, five hostages are dead and two terrorists have been killed.

Alcoholism and genetic variation

Variations in the gene for serotonin transport may affect drinking habits in alcoholics, according to Neurobiology Prof. Ming D. Li’s recent study. Li said he hopes information collected during the study will contribute to the development of better alcoholism treatments in the future. Working with 275 alcoholics, Li and his colleagues studied six single nucleotide polymorphisms, variations in the sequence of DNA, and found that a region on one SNP variant showed a significant association with the volume of drinks that alcoholics consume. The variant may influence serotonin levels in the brain, Li said, noting that scientists believe human bodies use serotonin for emotion and mood regulation, REM sleep and other various brain mechanisms. Researchers have found that alcohol increases serotonin levels in the brain. One hypothesis, Li said, is that if a variant in the gene for serotonin transport deprives alcoholics of serotonin, alcoholics may start drinking to alleviate the deficiency. Li said scientists for years have drawn a correlation between this particular gene, which controls serotonin transport, and alcoholism. Until now, however, no one had discovered a direct connection between variations in the gene and alcoholic behavior. Li said when an SNP changes the expression level of a gene and results in a change in function, it is defined as a “functional variant.” His research demonstrated that a functional variant can affect behavior, he said. “The whole human genetic feud is about trying to find what genetic variant is important,” Li said. The study focused on how the gene for serotonin transport affected the volume of alcohol consumed. “If you take alcoholics, they’re a very heterogeneous group,” research associate Chamindi Seneviratne said. “There are differences in their drinking, so what we wanted to do was to see if we could subgroup them into a higher drinking alcoholic group and a group that’s not drinking so heavily.” Seneviratne said she defined a heavy drinker as a male who consumes more than five alcoholic drinks per day or a female who consumes more than four. All of the test subjects were classified as heavy drinkers, she added. The study found that if an alcoholic has the variant in his or her serotonin-transport gene, he or she has a higher risk of consuming more alcohol than a person without it, Li said, noting that knowing more about these genetic variations will allow researchers to determine how to better treat individuals. Li said anti-depressants could assist in treatment because these drugs make more serotonin for the brain. The study also examined potential differences between men and women. Though previous studies have suggested that estrogen levels in females play a role in the expression of the serotonin-transport gene, Li and his colleagues found no difference in the variant between men and women. The research group does not, however, know whether the functional variant spans ethnic groups. Seneviratne said all of the individuals studied were of European descent. “According to research published in different areas, we have seen that there are different frequencies of different genotypes among different ethnic groups,” Seneviratne said. Li also stressed the importance of further research in the ethnic aspect of the study. “We don’t know if there would be differences,” Li said. “Right now, it is important to see if this variant is functional in other ethnic groups."

Native Canadian on trial for inciting hatred against Jews

Former First Nations leader David Ahenakew insists he's not an anti-Semite, telling his hate crime trial he doesn't "hate the Jews but I hate what they do" - and he still believes Jews started the Second World War. But although he testified he "never" would have used the words he did had he planned out a 2002 speech in which he blames the Jews for the Second World War, he hasn't changed his mind. "I didn't mean to bring the Jews into this thing. It just happened," he testified about the speech. Ahenakew, testifying in his retrial on a charge of inciting hatred, attempted to explain that, while making a speech at a Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations health conference on Dec. 13, 2002, he was trying to express his outrage about the erosion of health-treaty rights and wanted to emphasize the point with an example. In a wide-ranging, profanity-laced, speech at the conference, Ahenakew expressed anger at the federal government for off-loading treaty issues to the provincial government. He also deviated briefly from his main topic to talk about how, when he was in the army as a young man, he was stationed in Germany. "Germans used to tell me . . . 'You guys are blessed. From what we know about the Indians in Canada, they are blessed. But your blessing is being destroyed by your immigrants, especially the Jews,' they say. The Second World War was created by the Jews." Ahenakew said he didn't think before using the Germans and Jews as an example in the speech. Ahenakew is charged in connection with a Dec. 13, 2002, interview with former Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter James Parker, in which Ahenakew said Hitler was "trying to clean up the world" when he "fried" 6 million Jews.

The ethnic gap and the 2008 election

Obama's 52.6% of the total vote was derived from 40.17% of the European-American vote and from 80.26% of the non-European vote. On the other hand, McCain's 46.5% of the total vote consisted of 59.12% of the Euro-American vote and 18.42% of the non-European vote.

The Ukrainian Holocaust

Here is a genocide that you are not likely to hear too much about.

Related: A Question about the Ukrainian Holocaust

Harvard professor promotes white genocide

Apparently the left does not always consider genocide to be a bad thing.

A court in Iran has ruled that a man who blinded a woman with acid after she spurned his marriage proposals will also be blinded with acid

The punishment is legal under the Islamic Sharia code of qias or equivalence, which allows retribution for violent crimes. The court also ordered the attacker, 27-year-old Majid Movahedi, to pay compensation to the victim. The acid attack took place in 2004. The victim, Ameneh Bahrami, went to Spain for surgery to reconstruct her face but efforts to restore her sight failed. The ruling was a response to her plea to the court in the Iranian capital Tehran for retribution. "Ever since I was subject to acid being thrown on my face, I have a constant feeling of being in danger," she told the court. Bahrami also said that Movahedi had also threatened to kill her.

Somalia news

Minnesota Somalis Decamp for Homeland Jihad

Thanksgiving Is Now About Somali “Pilgrims”

Why We Are Pussies About The Pirates?

Black suspect arrested in beating death of anchorwoman

The New York Times ignores the issue of race when the perpetrator is black.

Does paternal investment increase child IQ?

Peter Frost comments on a study showing that the less a father cared for his offspring, the less intelligent they were.

Related: Many genes and one g?

Is the Flynn Effect nonsense?

Half Sigma explains why he doesn't put much stock in the popular belief that people are getting smarter.

Treatment with certain epilepsy drugs may expose some Asian patients to serious skin reactions

The Food and Drug Administration said it is investigating whether medications like Dilantin, Phenytek and Cerebyx, which are used to control epileptic seizures, can lead to severe skin blisters and bleeding for some Asian patients. Patients who test positive for a gene known as HLA-B1502 appear to be at increased risk of developing the skin problems, preliminary data indicate. About 10% to 15% of patients from parts of China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines may carry the gene, as do 2% to 4% of South Asians, including Indians. The FDA urged doctors to monitor patients closely, but said there is not enough information yet to recommend genetic testing. In most cases, patients who develop the skin problems do so in the first few months after starting to take the medications. Because of the problem with skin reactions, the FDA in 2007 recommended genetic testing for Asian patients taking another epilepsy drug, carbamazepine, sold under several brand names including Tegretol and Carbatrol. Doctors should also avoid Dilantin and the other medications for patients who have already tested positive for the gene, the FDA said.

A court in southern China has sentenced eight African drug smugglers to death, with a two-year reprieve

Another was given a life sentence at a mass court hearing in the southern city of Guangzhou. The convicted smugglers are from Uganda, Benin and Zimbabwe. A two-year reprieve means their sentence can be commuted into a life sentence after two years of good behavior. Six of the smugglers had drugs found hidden inside their bodies. The government has admitted it is facing an uphill struggle dealing with a flood of drugs coming across its borders, mainly from Southeast and central Asia.

Women and girls in Cambodia are facing an increasing risk of rape and sexual assault, a government report has said

It says that around a quarter of the female population faces domestic violence. But the study showed many Cambodians think it can be acceptable for a husband to assault his wife. The Ministry of Women's Affairs released its findings to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Long-held prejudices are combining with new forms of anti-social behavior to put young women and girls at particular risk, the report says. It said that the increasing use of drugs and alcohol by men is having a direct impact on the safety of female Cambodians. It suggests that gang rape is being treated as a "sport" in some areas - and that law enforcement agencies need to do more to stop it.

Jamaica's parliament has voted to keep the death penalty, as the Caribbean nation struggles to contain one of the world's highest murder rates

MPs were allowed a free vote, rather than having to vote along party lines. Jamaica has had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1988 but the governing Jamaica Labor Party, elected in 2007, has pushed for its return. Jamaica currently has nine men on death row. There have been 1,200 murders on the island so far in 2008. The vote followed weeks of passionate debate. Thirty-four members of parliament voted in favor of capital punishment, 15 voted against. There were 10 abstentions. Those opposed wanted improvements to Jamaica's heavily criticized police and justice system, while those in favor pointed to the ever-upward rise in violent crime. The Jamaica Labor Party was elected with a call to resume hanging immediately. Concerns had been raised about the risk of sanctions - primarily from the EU - but Prime Minister Bruce Golding said that if due legal process was observed, then the law should take its course.

South Africa's main opposition has accused the state intelligence services of hiring traditional healers to carry out a spiritual cleansing ceremony

The Democratic Alliance allege the ceremony at an office in the capital, Pretoria, will cost more than $70,000. "While we acknowledge the importance of spirituality in people's lives, these costs seem totally disproportionate," the DA's John Moodey said. There has been no comment so far from the intelligence services. According to the DA, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has asked 25 traditional healers - known as sangomas - to perform the ceremony. Each of the sangomas is to be paid 30,000 rand ($3,000, £2,000), the party said. "One wonders why such heavyweight cleansing ceremonies are necessary and whether this means immoral or illegal acts are being carried out there," Mr Moodey is quoted by South Africa's Times newspaper as saying. South Africa has more than 200,000 traditional healers and more than half the population is believed to consult them.

Latin America has the highest murder rates in the world for people aged between 15 and 24, according to a study by a Brazilian research group

Using data from 83 countries, the group found that the probability of a young person being murdered in Latin America is 30 times higher than in Europe. The grimmest figures are for El Salvador, where the murder rate among young people is 92 per 100,000 people. A key factor there is the presence of violent youth gangs, the report says. The study, called Map of Violence: The Young People of Latin America, was compiled by researchers at the Latin American Technological Information Network, Ritla. The Brasilia-based group compared murder rates for 2007 in 83 countries, both for the overall population and for the 15-to-24 age bracket. "The probability of a young Latin American being a murder victim is 30 times higher than for a European, and more than 70 times greater than for young people in countries like Greece, Hungary, England, Austria... or Ireland," the report said. The comparative study found that the murder rate for young people was 36.6 for every 100,000 people in Latin America while in Africa it was 16.1, North America 12, Asia 2.4, Oceania 1.6 and Europe 1.2, although there are variations within a particular region. The report also found that the top four countries for youth murder rates also headed the overall murder rate table: El Salvador (total murders per 100,000 - 48.8), Colombia (43.8), Venezuela (29.5) and Guatemala (28.5). Brazil occupies fifth place for youth murders and sixth for the overall murder rate at 25.2. The lowest youth murder rates in Latin America were in Chile, Cuba and Uruguay, all with around seven killings per 100,000. The Ritla report notes that as well as El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala have also seen what it calls "drastic" increases in murder rates. Part of this is due to the presence of youth gangs, known as maras, which are prevalent in Central America. But the study says the region also has a long history of armed internal and external conflict.

A race crime that is apparently not a race crime

Apparently, when four black guys murder an interracial couple it isn't racially motivated.

The nature of ethnocentrism

Kevin MacDonald explains why we have a natural preference for people like ourselves.

Politically incorrect diseases

Apparently, in Canada, it is wrong to do anything about diseases that primarily affect white people.

The plight of the African Big Man

Steve Sailer explains why it is not so great being successful in Africa.

Americans are biochemically diverse

The new medicine shows that we’re biochemically separate and unequal — and regulators are starting to catch on.

The Disunited States of America?

A Russian political analyst has predicted that the American economy will collapse and that America itself will be torn apart by conflicting regional ambitions.

A man has been jailed for life for the murder, rape and kidnap of 17-year-old Hannah Foster

Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, 41, who denied all the charges, was convicted more than five years after Hannah was found strangled. She had been walking a short distance home after a night out in Southampton when she went missing on 14 March 2003. Her body was found two days later. Her father, Trevor Foster, called Kohli a cold, calculating and ruthless man. "Today we are feeling an overwhelming sense of relief at the verdict in this trial," he added. "We have long realised that Kohli is a cold, calculating and totally ruthless man and has destroyed so many people's life without a second thought." Kohli snatched the teenager from a street yards from her home in Southampton after she had spent an evening with friends. The A-level student called 999 in the hope an operator would hear what was happening, but the call was terminated when she did not speak. Kohli dumped her body next to a road in Allington Lane, West End, and went back home to his wife and two sons. Four days later, he fled to India, where he led a life on the run for 16 months before being arrested. While in custody in India he gave a televised confession which he later retracted. After more than four years of campaigning by Hannah's parents Hilary and Trevor Foster, Kohli was finally extradited back to Britain in 2007 to stand trial. In a victim impact statement read to the court by Hannah's aunt Jill Lewis, Hannah's mother Hilary said she would feel guilt for the rest of her life that she was not there to protect her daughter when she was murdered. "Kohli ripped out my heart and stamped on it," she said.

Forced marriage cases in Britain are up by 80% in 2008

A special Government unit dedicated to stopping teenagers being married off by their families dealt with 300 cases in the first half of this year, up from 168 in the same period of 2007. But the head of the Forced Marriage Unit, based at the Foreign Office, fears this could be just the tip of the iceberg as many victims are too scared to come forward and communities often close up to hide what is going on. Wayne Ives also warned that heads of families are going to extreme lengths to get their children to marry, in some instances posing as officials to kidnap runaway brides or paying people to track them down. His comments came as a new law comes into effect, which will make it easier for courts to stop ceremonies going ahead if it is feared that the bride and groom are being married against their wills. A separate law will see the minimum age at which foreigners can come to Britain to get married being increased. Despite the drive to tackle forced marriages, however, many feel it is still taboo because of fears of criticizing immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are involved in most cases. Schools have refused to discuss so-called honor crimes in case they cause offence to ethnic minorities or religions, while MPs have been accused of failing to highlight forced marriage in case they lose Muslim votes. In a recent speech to a Capita conference, Mr Ives told delegates: "We are talking about endemic abuse of the worst kind against young men and women which is happening right here and right now." He said the mere fact that a teenage girl is seen wearing a short skirt or having a boyfriend can be enough for her relatives to decide she has betrayed the family and must be forced to marry someone they deem acceptable, while others make disabled children get married so they can have a carer in a "warped form of altruism". In total, 90% of cases dealt with in Britain involve Bangladeshi or Pakistani families, but investigators are uncovering growing numbers of forced marriages involving Iranians, Turks, Kurds and Somalis.

Minneapolis city leaders and outreach workers are fighting back against growing violence in Somali communities

He doesn't wear a uniform and carry a gun, but Imam Hassan Mohamud considers himself a peace officer. Like other Somali activists, the spiritual leader is struggling with the dramatic violent crime increase in his community. Since December 2007, 7 Somali men under 30 have been slain in the Twin Cities. The motive in three of the cases may have been retaliation. Deqa Muhidin had been able to distance herself from the crimes until her cousin, a 20-year-old student at Augsburg College, was shot in the head in September 2008 because he allegedly told the killer he couldn't play basketball at his community center. The Somali crime problem has become a high priority for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who said he has spent much time meeting with top city leaders and community outreach workers to discuss how to apply the city's youth violence prevention plan to the Somali community. "Community leaders and police are saying we've reached a point where we need to do things right now," said Police Chief Tim Dolan, who was at the meeting. Muhidin's small piece to the solution was to gather five of her Somali friends at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and put together a youth anti-violence conference being held today in St. Paul. Besides Mohamud, the speaker list includes well-known former rapper Napoleon, who quit the business several years ago and converted to Islam. "I wouldn't want this for my kids or anybody's kids," said Napoleon, who now goes by his birth name Mutah Beale. "The Somalis came to this country to get away from the violence and make a better life, but some are going down the wrong path. It doesn't make sense."