• Overcrowded ferry sinks off coast of Tanzania, killing scores

    msnbc.com news services report:

    "They normally pack us in like sardines in a can. And for that I really fear this could be a very big disaster," said resident Mwnakhamis Juma.

    The government in Zanzibar said last month it planned to invest in bigger, more reliable vessels to ferry passengers between the two islands.

    "We are fearing the greatest calamity in the history of Zanzibar. This is a disaster," said a government official, who declined to be named.

    Read more here.

    Sultan Ali / AP

    Tanzanian police carry bodies of children from the sea in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Sept. 10. An overcrowded ship sank in deep waters off mainland Tanzania with about 600 people aboard, and about 370 people are believed missing or dead. The ferry, M.V. Spice Islanders, was heavily overloaded and some potential passengers had refused to board when it was leaving the mainland port of Dar es Salaam, said survivor Abdullah Saied. It sank in an area with heavy currents between mainland Tanzania and Pemba Island at about 1 a.m. Saturday. Roughly 230 people had been rescued and 40 bodies had been recovered, said Mohamed Aboud, the minister for the vice president's office.


    Emmanuel Kwitema / Reuters

    Residents of Zanzibar gather to view the bodies of their loved ones who perished in a ferry tragedy that occurred on its way to Pemba, Sept. 10.

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  • Employing rats to clear mines in Africa

    By John Brecher

    Here's the full story.

    YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP - Getty Images

    A baby giant African pouch rat is rewarded with a banana by its trainer after accurately finding a dummy mine during a training exercise at the grounds of a pioneering Belgian NGO in Morogoro, Tanzania on October 27, 2010. Light, with an acute sense of smell and easily motivated by food rewards, these kind of rats have been found to be highly effective in mine detection. It takes two human deminers a day to clear a 200 square-metre (2,150 square-feet) minefield, but if they work with two rats they can sweep it in 1.5 hours. So far they have helped re-open almost two million square metres of land

     

    YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP - Getty Images

    A baby giant African pouch rat is is watched by its trainer as it learns to correctly identify the scent of tuberculosis in sputum samples during a training exercice at the grounds of a pioneering Belgian NGO in Morogoro, Tanzania on October 27, 2010.

    YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP - Getty Images

    A baby giant African pouch rat is carried in a cage by its trainer at the main grounds of the center.

    YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP - Getty Images

    A baby giant African pouch rat sits on the shoulder of the Bart Weetjens, the founder of APOPO, the Belgian NGO that's teaching the rats to smell out landmines.

     

     

  • Kim Ludbrook / EPA

    Thousands of supporters from both the ruling and victorious CCM party and opposition CUF party celebrate together in the main square in downtown Stone Town after peaceful Tanzania presidential elections on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, Tanzania, on Nov. 2. Zanzibar remained peaceful today, considered a victory after violence marred the 2005 polls.

    When peaceful elections are a reason to celebrate

    There were elections happening around the world today, and in Tanzania both victorious and opposing sides took to the streets to celebrate making it through the process without violence. Regardless of how you feel about the election day returns here in the States, the idea that we can vote and express our feelings without persecution is something to be thankful for.