* Some are looking to the recent and fairly abrupt change of power in Guinea--from military dictator to civilian promising democracy and free elections--to see whether it works out, and if similar changes can happen in other West African countries. As recently as late September, the No. 1 person in power in the country was Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. The country made news around the world when Camara's regime was responsible for a massacre of more than 150 opposition demonstrators in the capital city's main stadium. During the massacre, a U.N. panel found, there were also more than 100 women raped or sexually abused. One of the protesters was Jean-Marie Dore--beaten during the massacre, he is now the country's prime minister and promises free elections within the year. The power handover occurred after Camara was severely wounded in December, and his second-in-command, General Sekouba Konate, acquiesced to handing power over to More--following harsh words from the U.S. and France and, most significantly, travel bans and aid cut-backs, deeply felt for a country that depends on foreign aid for more than half its budget.
* In Haiti, the U.N.'s new food distribution program involves paper coupons for food--one coupon is good for 55 pounds of rice--that have become more valuable in Haiti than the country's currency. Aid workers count and sort them furtively in the backs of SUVs, and counterfeits are already circulating. Previously, food was often tossed football-style from the backs of trucks--with only the strongest and most aggressive men able to make away with it. The new U.N. program focuses on giving the coupons to women. There are 2 million people in need of food and other aid in Haiti. Aid workers have said that the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been more challenging to deal with than famine in Africa or the tsunami in Asia.
* A woman identified in court documents only as "Amy" was forced by her uncle to pose in photographs and videos when she was a child. The pornography, which became known as "the Misty series," attained some notoriety and has often been found in the homes of people arrested for possessing child pornography. Now she is looking to sue anyone who has ever had even one of the images, until she reaches the $3.4 million mark specified in her claim. A judge in Connecticut awarded her some of these damages, but Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote on his blog that he thought the judge's decision was "questionable" and that such a precedent "stretches personal accountability to a breaking point."
* General Colin L. Powell instituted the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in 1993, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he opposed homosexuals openly serving in the military.
* In New York City's Upper East Side, a dog named Nestle had his vocal cords cut by a veterinary surgeon after his owners' neighbor threatened to complain about barking to the co-op board. Now, instead of a bark, Nestle makes more of a raspy wheeze. "Debarking" procedures are often performed on dogs in the show circuit, as well as on those of drug dealers, who prefer their attack dogs to be silent.