Crikey readers have their say.
Africa
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Saving the Murray-Darling
UNHCR data reveals the shifting burden of asylum seekers
It’s easy to be misled by asylum claim figures. The global numbers don’t matter as much as where asylum seekers are coming from.
Surrounded by famine, Kenya gets a finger lickin’ option
The news from East Africa is focused on the dire famine, but a story at the other end of the food spectrum is quietly unfolding, with the opening of East Africa’s first KFC. Kirsten Drysdale went down for a burger.
The hush-hush oil syndicate between China and Africa
Over the last seven years the ‘Chinese International Fund’ has, while shrouded in secrecy, signed contracts worth billions of dollars for oil and minerals from Africa, says The Economist.
PHOTO GALLERY 
Skeletal, scared and dying: Somalian refugees flee to Kenya
A truly eye-opening photo gallery examining the malnutrition and starvation currently being experienced — by predominantly young children and the elderly — in the Horn of Africa.
Horn of Africa hunger crisis affects 12 million
An extremely severe drought and rising global food prices means a famine is likely to be declared across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. More than a quarter of children in parts of Kenya are malnourished, says aid agencies.
Dictator Watch: Ethiopian despot hides behind snakes, dogs and guns
Behind the gates of this ‘luxury villa’ in Harare lives another member of the World’s Worst Dictator club — or so says our special Zimbabwe correspondent, who wasn’t mad enough to brave the snakes, dogs and guns and knock on the door to say G’day.
travel 
A touch of cricket in the Maasai Mara
Imagine playing a cricket match with wildcats prowling the edges of the field and 600kg antelopes trying to nuzzle up to you. Rafiq Copeland indulges in some colonial cricket in the Masaai Mara Reserve, Kenya.
Letter from...: Letter from: Togo, a forgotten nation trying to forget its past
Liberation Day in the forgotten African nation of Togo celebrates a coup led by a solider who four years earlier was involved in the assassination of the nation’s first democratically-elected president. Clair MacDougall reports from Lomé on the simmering tensions.
Al-Bashir is just a big, bad, black bogeyman for the West
Sudan president Omar al-Bashir may be accused of international war crimes and genocide in Darfur, but isn’t as evil as progressives like to claim, declares Simon Tisdall, as he explains al-Bashir’s role in the Sudanese elections.
Letter from...: Letter from: Nairobi, where crimes against humanity set the mood
It is understandable that the mood in Nairobi was tense. It is not every day that a country’s political elite is accused of crimes against humanity, writes Rafiq Copeland from Nairobi.
travel Karaoke + $412 in bar tabs = missed flights
The fact that Rafiq Copeland was at a karaoke bar singing Africa by Toto will testify to his drunkness. Yet it came as a shock to wake up and realise he’d missed his flight to Johannesburg. God bless Ian from the Qantas customer call centre.
How millions of older people in Africa have HIV/AIDS
Older adults’ access to HIV-related services and information in Africa is limited and data suggests they have low levels of condom use. It’s time to address this and the broader HIV/AIDS epidemic, writes Joel Negin.
Congo: still the rape capital
The mass rape of 300 women, men and children in a village in Congo has sparked a UN investigation into the incident. Even government troops sent to protect the victims have been accused of raping and looting.
A Saharan crossing
It was the “Mauritanie” scrolling across the bottom of the screen that caught my eye. I then spotted the word “touriste” and finally “mort”. My grasp of the language was far from being fluent, but I knew enough for it to send an alarm bell ringing, writes Dave Keetch.
How to sell Africa
Africa isn’t just shacks, poverty and hungry children. Now the best of Africa’s marketing brains are coming together to figure out how to rebrand the continent, from .africa domain names to focusing on a fun MTV-style music and beautiful women image.
Should Sudan split?
The split of Sudan into two different states is inevitable, says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But should the US encourage the divisions? Atlantic Wire examines the different coverage.
leaked 
Bombshell UN report: ‘crimes of genocide’ against Hutus
A massive UN report, detailing war crimes in the Congo between 1993-2003, has finally been leaked to the press. The most controversial claim: that the massacres and attacks by Rwandan and Congolese troops against Hutus were an act of genocide.
Letter from...: Zimbabwe: chance in a lifetime goes begging
All is not beautiful as spring arrives and our chance in a lifetime constitution making process has turned into a shambles, writes Cathy Buckle, from Zimbabwe.
US oil spill a disaster — but more oil is spilt in Nigeria every year
One small positive that may come out of the Deepwater Horizon spill is the slender beam of reflected light cast on the fascinating, tragic story of oil drilling in the Niger Delta, writes Rafiq Copeland.
Letter from...: Zimbabwe: ongoing illegal evictions of farmers
Farmers with legal rights to their land are being moved on at gunpoint, writes C.M. Jarrett, chairman of the South African Commercial Farmers Alliance, in Zimbabwe.
Corruption, scandals and the best president Liberia’s ever had
Thanks to President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — known as the Iron Lady — it seemed like the former African basket case was finally stable. But corruption has crept back into politics. Has the Iron Lady gone a bit rusty?
How China is colonising Africa
China is now likely the biggest investor in China, constructing new skyscrapers, resorts, factories, brothels, train-lines and farms, while buying up the continent’s raw commodities. Is the Middle Empire expanding?
Welcome back to the Hotel Rwanda
In many ways it’s now good days at the infamous Hotel Rwanda, but, says Jon Rosen the horrific events of the Rwandan genocide still hang over the country thanks to its revisionist history government.
Zimbabwe’s diamonds: bloody as ever
Despite international outrage over deaths in Zimbabwe’s lucrative diamond trade in 2008, very little has changed: The Sunday Times has uncovered a smuggling ring that goes all the way to the top of the Mugabe government — with Chinese, Israeli and South African backing.
