The unrest was sparked off Wednesday night when a brawl after a soccer match in Port Said left 74 people dead.

Violence has spread to Cairo and other cities, where protesters have clashed with police and hundreds have been wounded.

Two deaths were reported in Suez on Thursday.

The crisis has turned political, with protesters blaming the military and the police for failing to protect fans at the soccer match.

That year, political tensions in the East African nation degenerated into deadly ethnic clashes.

Now, four Kenyan officials stand accused of orchestrating the violence.

The four are facing trial before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, on charges of crimes against humanity.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to the BBC’s Will Ross, who is in Nairobi, about the events that triggered the indictments.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Kenya is not known for political violence or at least it wasn’t until 2007. That year political tension in the east African nation degenerated into deadly ethnic clashes. Now, four Kenyan officials stand accused of orchestrating the violence. The four are facing trial before the international criminal court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity. The BBC’s Will Ross is Nairobi, Kenya, and he takes us back now to 2007 and the events that triggered today’s indictments.

Will Ross: Frankly, Kenya was pretty much on the brink of civil war. There was a disputed election at the end of 2007, and the splits along ethnic lines across the country became so dangerous and violent, communities were attacking each other, and it was all about really this election that was bungled. It ended up with the communities picking up machetes, bows and arrows, and taking it out on each other following the dispute. Now, the prominent politicians, including Uhuru Kenyatta, who is the current deputy prime minister, and William Ruto, a former minister, they are accused of being involved in instigating some of this violence, organizing it so that you know, communities at the village level went around carrying out these terrible atrocities that killed well over a thousand people and displaced about half a million.

Mullins: Well, we’re used to hearing about election violence in various countries, but I wonder how the violence that happened in Kenya then escalated to the extent that the ICC is issuing these charges of crimes against humanity. How did it get quite so bad?

Ross: Yes, well, Kenya had had a series of fairly violent elections, but the politicians have always tended to just brush that under the carpet once it comes to the results times they’re more focused on getting into power and then staying in power. But this time it got so bad four years ago that the only way to stop it was to bring in mediators. And you may remember the former secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan, was called in and it was his mediation that managed to get the country to calm down, and for the weapons to be put down. And there was an inquiry done by the Kenyans, which produced a list of people accused of instigating the violence, and then Kofi Annan handed that list over to the ICC. I think many of the politicians thought oh, let’s just send it off to The Hague; it’ll take years, we won’t even be around by the time they’ve gotten around to this case. And to some of the Kenyan politicians’ surprise, here we are with four men now about to stand trial at the ICC, although I must add there could be a few delays with appeals.

Mullins: With appeals and also these men are still running for president, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta, by the way, being the son of the founding father of Kenya. I wonder if there is kind of a serious political dynasty that you think is being challenged here by the ICC?

Ross: Well, certainly the rulings from the ICC are sending huge shock waves through the political system here because you know, we’ve known for some months that these particular men were facing these charges, but now it’s confirmed that they are gonna be on trial. It does you know, change things dramatically, but Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are both saying we’re still going to run for president, which your listeners may find that extraordinary that you can be heading to the ICC, to The Hague, where you’re going to be in the dock facing charges against humanity, including murder, forceable transfer of people, persecution, rape, and at the same time you’ll be trying to run around the country saying vote for me, I’m the best leader for the country.

Mullins: If they do face the charges they will have to show up at The Hague. Do Kenyans themselves have the will to extradite these two major political or high-profile political leaders? Is it likely to happen that they ever will show up?

Ross: Well, it’ll be interesting to see if they continue to cooperate with the ICC because so far, they’ve turned out for the pre-trial hearings. Publicly they’re both saying we’re determined to go and clear our names. And the fact that they’ve cooperated has meant that they haven’t had any warrants of arrest issued. They haven’t been locked up in The Hague, they’re free here in Kenya. That may change depending how the trial continues. And efforts by the Kenyan government may continue to get the trial delayed. So you’ve got you know, the Kenyan political elite who for years have built up this culture of impunity. And some Kenyans today think well, maybe this ICC trial is just gonna chip away a little bit of that culture of impunity.

Mullins: All right, thank you. The BBC’s Will Ross in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks.

Ross: Pleasure.

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Cartoon: Yasser Abu Hamed

There’s anger, sadness and downright fury over the continued violence in Syria. Much of the vitriol is directed against Arab League observers who arrived in Syria in late December to monitor the situation. There’s widespread feeling — which you’ll see in these cartoons — that the observers are ignoring the violence all around them.

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Delly Mawazo Sesete is from the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo where armed militias vying to control mines with minerals central to the making of smart phones are waging a campaign of violence against local communities.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Sesete to get more details.

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Marco Werman: On the other side of Lake Kivu is another controversy in the Democractic Republic of Congo. Many of the minerals that make our mobile phones smart are mined in Congo and that’s where the controversy begins. Armed groups fighting for control of those mines in Congo have wreaked havoc on the local populations. Among their practices, using children as slave labor and raping women to intimidate communities. Delly Mawazo Sesete is a Congolese activist, an attorney. He’s asking Apple to commit to making its iPhone with conflict-free minerals by 2013. He’s in Geneva at the moment. Why just Apple and the iPhone, Delly, why not ask all electronics manufacturers to make only conflict-free products?

Delly Mawazo Sesete: I chose Apple because it is the biggest company with good reputation, and I know if they do, once they can make change they can make a difference. That’s why I chose them. You know, I didn’t choose some companies based in China, for example, because you know, China has no traditional human rights. But in US you have a very good tradition of liberty and human rights.

Werman: Delly, I understand your from North Kivu where a lot of mining operations are happening. Is it also personal for you, this issue, in that way?

Sesete: Yeah, it’s personal because you know, I come from Kivu and many of my family’s members have been displaced because of that contest between armed groups. And I think of course, underground people have been through it, people have been killed. My own large family has been impacted by this and I think my people need more. They need peace, they need the government, they need roads, they need schools, they need hospital instead of great killings and so on. It’s not for Apple to say we’re going to stop from Congo. It’s not Congo-free exploitation, Congo-free business. We are looking for conflict-free business. That’s our concern. We need that money. We know that our economy needs money, but the problem is we need conflict-free business, that’s what we need.

Werman: Delly, I have to ask you, do you own a smartphone?

Sesete: No, no, I don’t own because I think that smartphone is part of problem and I cannot afford contributing to final thing[?2:28]. I think that buying a smartphone is like buying a bullet and I think we should try to understand how it’s better for the whole human kind to contribute to cutting the link between the armed groups and the mineral exploration in eastern Congo.

Werman: Delly Mawazo Sesete is from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has asked Apple to commit to making a conflict-free iPhone by 2013. Delly, thank you very much for speaking with us.

Sesete: You’re welcome. Bye.

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But an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state.

Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Will Ross, who is in neighboring Kenya, about the inter-ethnic violence in South Sudan.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. When South Sudan became an independent nation in July there was concern that violence could break out along the new international border that separates the two Sudans, but an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Announcer: ¨Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state. Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Werman: The BBC’s Will Ross is in neighboring Kenya.

Will Ross: We’re hearing reports from the areas outside the town of Pibor, where people have fled, that several massacres have taken place. It’s very difficult to get an idea of the scale, but I spoke to one Murle woman who told me she received a phone call fom her mother who had heard that all 20 of their relatives had been killed. They had left the town a few days ago on foot. They walked for about three hours to what they thought was a safe place, and the entire family was killed. I’ve spoken to other people who have told me about killings in far flung places outside Pibor, and basically the tens of thousands, we think somewhere between 20 and 40 thousand people on the move and they’re getting absolutely no assistance or protection whatsoever.

Werman: So is it being described as ethnic violence because as you also pointed out, this conflict began as cattle raids, which sounds very economic.

Ross: Certainly cattle are a trigger for the violence and historically that’s been the source for the conflict. I think there are many more guns in the hands of people now because of the years of war between the north and the south, and also the borders around there are fairly porous, but you can’t really overestimate the importance of the cattle to these people. They are the bank. They’re how they store their money. When somebody gets married for instance, a vast number of cattle are handed over. So when these raids take place they principally are to get cattle. And one of them I think in August last year, approximately 40,000 head of cattle were stolen. So that’s the sort of scale we’re talking about. But when those attacks happen at the same time as stealing the cattle, people are killed and also children have been abducted, especially by the Murle people. And that’s what’s angered the Lou Nuer people so much. They say we’ve gotta get our children back.

Werman: I’m wondering what people in South Sudan make of all this because I mean their country was one of the apparent success stories in 2011, became the continent’s newest independent nation. Can if live at peace within its own borders and with its neighbors? Are people there even thinking about that heady moment last summer?

Ross: Some of the problems of the south have been sort of glossed over during the celebrations, even in the lead up to those independence celebrations in July there were some terrible attacks in the south that people didn’t really talk about much because the international community was sort of building up to this momentous occasion of the south breaking away from Sudan. So obviously there’s a lot of hope, especially you know if you talk to people in towns, in the capital, like Juba. Then you go out into the villages and nothing has changed, and you get a sense that some communities might not be very aware of what the independence really is all about because their daily struggles are so immense that a celebration one day in July doesn’t really make any difference when you’re facing frequent battles with neighbors.

Werman: Will, one thing that we haven’t talked about is vast oil reserves on the disputed border region between South Sudan and Sudan, and lately South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, has accused Sudan’s government in the north of trying to grab that oil. I’m wondering if these two nations could cut some sort of deal to try and share the oil wealth that they both need?

Ross: Well, they’re obviously are a lot of things that weren’t sorted out when the south broke away and that is the source of a lot of tension. And the border wasn’t even demarcated properly, so there’s still a lot of tension on the border. The oil revenues weren’t worked out how they would share it all out, so it’s not surprising at this state, you know, six months down the line, accusations flying back and forth about the oil money and you know, the suggestion that some of the conflict on the border is being fueled in order to try and grab the oil fields. These two countries had a very messy divorce. Many predicted it wouldn’t even happen at all. And now they’re living with the aftermath of that messy divorce, which includes these unresolved issues. And unless they sort out the oil you know, that is very likely because obviously of the huge economic importance, it’s very likely to trigger more violence. But it’s clear if the government to the south of it really wants to have any chance of keeping the peace within the country, let alone between the north and the south, it’s gonna have to work to build the bridges between these ethnic groups because the violence is on such a scale that you don’t really know how the authority is gonna be able to stop it.

Werman: The BBC’s East Africa correspondent, Will Ross, in Nairobi talking about the roots of interethnic violence in neighboring South Sudan. Will, thanks a lot.

Ross: You’re welcome.

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More than a dozen people have died in four days of violence now and more than hundreds have been injured.

One shocking image from the clashes this weekend stands out. It shows a woman wearing an Islamic robe being dragged, semi-clothed and unconscious, by soldiers.

Video footage shows her being beaten too.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to New York-based journalist Mona Eltahawy who was recently attacked while covering the unrest in Egypt.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. At least two people were killed today in fresh clashed between Egypt’s military and protestors demanding an end to military rule. About a dozen people have died in four days of violence now, hundreds more have been injured. One shocking image from the clashes this weekend stands out. It shows a woman wearing an Islamic robe being dragged semi-clothed and unconscious by soldiers. The video footage shows her being beaten too. New York based journalist, Mona Eltahawy, was recently attacked while covering the unrest in Egypt. She says the image proves that violence against women by officials there is widespread.

Mona Eltahawy: What we see from that image is a clear and systematic use of sexual violence by the armed forces in Egypt that is perfectly in line with the systematic use of sexual violence that goes all the way back to the Mubarak regime. In 2005 the Mubarak regime began using this sexual violence against women. In March the military used it when it conducted the so-called virginity tests against women. I myself experienced it in Egypt last month. And that image clearly shows that they can’t deny that the use of sexual violence against women.

Werman: What happened in your case? Can you tell us about that?

Eltahawy: Well, in my case, this was in November. I was on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, which is one of the side streets off Tahrir Square that had become a site of confrontation between protestors, police and the military. And I was beaten by riot police. My left arm was broken and my right hand was broken. I was sexually assaulted by those same riot police, and then I was detained for 12 hours, 6 by the police and 6 by the military, and I was blindfolded during some of the interrogation during the interrogation.

Werman: I’m curious you know, how widespread this is because the image of this woman who we were speaking about earlier was on the front page of one of Egypt’s newspapers under the headline Liars, because the military said protestors wouldn’t be harmed. But now we’re hearing your story and you’ve campaigned about the use of sexual violence in Egypt and these protests. How wide is it?

Eltahawy: It is extremely widespread. It’s very disturbing how widespread it’s become because since the Mubarak regime began to use this system of sexual violence against female protestors and journalists in 2005, what it has essentially done is it has given a green light. It says that women are fair game because if the state can do it then anyone can do it. And if the state can do it then when I’m then sexually assaulted by an Egyptian civilian, how then can I expect the state to defend me or to hold that civilian accountable if the state itself has violated and abused my body? And when the state, whether it’s the military or the regime under Mubarak, can drag a woman through the streets of Cairo, strip her down to her bra and kick and violate her in that way, it clearly says that your body belongs to me. And our revolution is to clearly separate the two. My body is mine. My mind is mine and this is part of the campaign. We’re fighting many, many campaigns here. But unless we fight that personal revolution that separates my body from the state, our political revolution will not succeed.

Werman: Well, Mona, the state right now in Egypt is an interim military state. Is the military part of the problem rather than the solution?

Eltahawy: The military is completely the problem. The military is front and central the problem, and it’s time to talk about holding the military responsible. Field Marshal Tantawi must stand trial for crimes against humanity. The soldiers who are beating and violating people, including that woman, and others — they have killed children, they have killed unarmed civilians — why are they arresting 9-year-old children over the past four days in Egypt? These are not terrorists, these are children. We must hold the military accountable. They must stand trial for crimes against humanity. And the police must also stand trial. We haven’t seen one single security person stand trial for the martyrs that were killed during the revolution. So the military is front and central the problem and we need civilian leadership in Egypt sooner than later.

Werman: Mona, do you see any encouraging signs that Egypt can ultimately be a safe place for women?

Eltahawy: I definitely do because I’m seeing so many young Egyptian women and men, and it gives me great comfort to see the men take part in this, organizing protests and marches in Egypt against sexual violence. They’re organizing protests from Al-Azhar, which is the main seat of Sunni Muslim learning, to Tahrir Square on Friday to say very clearly to Field Marshal Tantawi who’s head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, that you will not undress my sisters and I will not be silent as you do that. So I think together there is a sense in Egypt of men and women coming together to fight this because this is a very special turning point in Egyptian history.

Werman: Journalist Mona Eltahawy, thank you very much for joining us.

Eltahawy: Thanks for having me.

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Anchor Marco Werman talks to Kinshasa-based reporter Michael Kavanagh.

He says the country’s leading opposition figure claims he won the disputed presidential poll and Congolese are girding for violence.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The scenario is all to familiar in Africa. An election is held but neither front runner wants to admit defeat. It happened in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ivory Coast. Now it’s happening in the Democratic Pubic of Congo. The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, has claimed victory in last month’s election. Official results announced last week back him up. Kabila is rejecting accusations that the vote was rigged in his favor. Several international observers, including the Georgia based Carter Center, have questioned the votes legitimacy. Opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi continues to insist that he was the elections real winner. Reporter Michael Kavanagh is based in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.

Michael Kavanagh: In Kinshasa it’s very tense. Basically the opposition is waiting to see how this process unfolds. They’ve taken the vote to the Supreme Court. They’ve challenged the vote at the supreme court. We’re expecting a decision on the 17th so I think that people are concerned thought that there could be mass protests in the streets if the election doesn’t go the way that the opposition wants.

Werman: Then tension right now has to be heightened in a certain way by the fact that the main opposition party led by Etienne Tshisekedi apparently it sounds like they’re gearing up for something.

Kavanagh: Right, and we’ve known this for awhile. I think the reality of this situation is that Tshisekedi has been an opposition leader for several decades here in Congo and he frankly has been a relatively peaceful one. He hasn’t joined militias, he hasn’t been a rebel, and his supporters for the most part don’t have weapons. So that means that they’re going to need to take to the streets. He keeps talking about the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt and that’s what his followers are prepared to do is go to the streets without weapons knowing that they’re going to face a quite powerful security surface who basically supports the president and thinks that he won the election and feel like this is a major disturbance to public order and a challenge to the government of the country.

Werman: To an extent we saw the same sort of scenario a year ago in Ivory Coast where two powerful leaders dug in their heels over election results and then that resulted in massive violence for four months until the situation got settled. It sounds like you’re concerned about a similar scenario shaping up for Congo. Are others worried about that?

Kavanagh: That is definitely the biggest concern and the worst case scenario that we have. The situation in [?] was a little bit different in that you had two national institutions who basically had come up with two different results for the election. That’s not going to be true here. The Supreme Court supports Kabila just as they electoral has supported Kabila. It means that the international community is much less apt to back Tshisekedi and the opposition in this fight. They’re going to be much less patient with him when his supporters go out into the street.

Werman: Now, incumbent President Joseph Kabila says he won the election fair and square. Tshisekedi says no, so does the European Union Mission, the Atlanta based Carter Center, and the Catholic Church all there who are watching this. They say last months election wasn’t credible. What is the starkest evidence right now of fraud? Is there widespread agreement that fraud happened?

Kavanagh: Yes, these elections looked like the counting was done in a very untransparent manner. There are some very suspicious results from parts of the country where Kabila is popular where they had over 100% turnout and 100% of the voters voting for Kabila. That kind of thing never happens in an election and so these are the sorts of things that observers are worried about. Their votes, thousands, perhaps at one point 6 million votes have gone missing. Again, will that change the results? We just don’t know.

Werman: There had been such hope in recent years that this presidential election in Congo would be key to helping stabilize a country and reduce the violence actually in several theaters of conflict in Congo. Is there now a sense among Congolese that these elections are in fact the wrong direction, maybe they’re even destabilizing further their country?

Kavanagh: I think that is a worry that you hear, especially here in the capital of Kinshasa, they feel like their vote was stolen and they feel like Kabila has lost legitimacy. They feel like this democratic process which was promised to them as the thing that would change Congo and bring development and bring peace, it’s not all that it was supposed to be. Of course, the thing to remember is that Kabila was elected with quite a lot of votes in parts of the country. So it’s not as if this election is under question from the entire population of Congo. I think the question is just does he have enough support to remain legitimate? Will the international still support him? Can he find ways to build bridges to the opposition so that this country which is so rich and yet on the other hand so poor in terms of what the people actually have, can it develop to a point where it’s more stable in the next few years? For the moment, I think the jury is still out.

Werman: We’ll stay on top of it as things unfold. Reporter Michael Kavanagh, based in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. Thanks very much indeed.

Kavanagh: Thanks, Marco.

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He went to Saudi Arabia in June for treatment following a rocket attack on the grounds of the presidential palace. President Saleh, who has been in power for more than 30 years, has faced months of protests urging him to quit.

Lisa Mullins talks to Mohammed Qubati, Spokesperson for the Yemeni National Council, about the surprise return of President Saleh.

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Lisa Mullins: The embattled President of Yemen made a surprise return to his country today. Ali Abdullah Saleh spent the last three months in Saudi Arabia. He was there to get treatment for injuries that he suffered in an assassination attempt back in June. President Saleh has resisted months of protests and violence aimed at forcing him to give up power. His return today was followed by loud explosions and fighting in the Capital of Sana. Mohammed Qubati is a spokesperson for the Yemeni National Counsel. That is an umbrella organization that represents opposition groups in Yemen. Qubati is also a former advisor inside President Saleh’s government. He says Saleh is not backing down.

Mohammed Qubati: He wants to let his family stay by any means, and he’s speaking about conducting elections. What sort of elections? All elections have been rigged since 2006, and he’s speaking about elections. We don’t mind the rest of the ruling group just stay there, just only he and his family leave and then we are intending to convene a national dialogue conference whereby we come out with a new constitution to build a new democratic and federal Yemen. Without federalism, the south and the north of the north are going just to be not convinced to play a part in the coming arrangements.

Mullins: On the condition that he and his family leave?

Qubati: Yes.

Mullins: And do you expect that that would happen. I mean, this is a man, as you say, who has come back to a certain amount of chaos in order to make sure his family stays in power. Do you have any hope that he really would leave?

Qubati: Lisa, what he was offered is a lot. Nobody has got that offer. He was going to be given immunity from prosecution. And he was going to keep all the fancy he has embezzled the country. The arrangements were so on his side, you know? All of them, all of the conditions he has put at one time, the [??] countries has convinced the opposition to accept them. And they were accepted. All those things were given to him. Those chances were not given to Mubarak or the dictator in Libya, or in Syria or in Tunisia. He had that chance. And…

Mullins: But he didn’t take it.

Qubati: He didn’t take it, unfortunately.

Mullins: So why would he now?

Qubati: Well, he thinks that he has got the power to force his family and to rule the country by hook or crook. Unfortunately, our friends in the west, they have trained some units for him, and they have also armed those units. Instead of using them against the terrorists, he has been using them against our people who are demonstrating unarmed and peacefully in the streets.

Mullins: Unarmed and peacefully as opposed to those who have been beating on them as part of the government. Do you think that there could be even more violence as a result of President Salah’s return, even though he’s calling for a cease-fire?

Qubati: That is what we are worried about. We think the country, with his return, is sliding relentlessly towards anarchy and civil war.

Mullins: So what do you want, for instance, Washington to do?

Qubati: OK. Let me read just, if you don’t mind, one sentence from a letter directed by the National Counsel to the Chairman or the President of the Human Right Counsel. It says, ‘Without international intervention, Yemen will explode and disintegrate. This explosion will spill over into the neighboring region and international trade rules. Action must be taken now to prevent the crisis from spreading and becoming far beyond repair. We’d expect the international community to shoulder it’s responsibilities towards what’s happening in Yemen and to respect the choices of our people in democracy and freedom.’

Mullins: Dr. Mohammed Qubati is spokesperson for the Yemeni National Counsel. He talked to us from London. Thank you.

Qubati: Thank you, Lisa.

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Security in Johannesburg, South Africa (Photo: Jeff Attaway/Flickr)

There’ll be lots to say here and on the radio about South Africa and race, and race and religion, and religion and sexuality, and sexuality and HIV/AIDS. (I’m acutely aware that even a five-week trip to a country offers only the skimpiest opportunity to grapple with subjects like these. If I can avoid the worst kind of superficiality and over-simplification even in the service of simply told stories, I’ll be relieved.)

But for now, a few thoughts on public safety in Johannesburg. It’s a strange thing—this isn’t a war zone, not remotely, nor is it a place engulfed in violent political turmoil (fellow Fellows are handling that kind of thing). But a low note of threat hums underneath everything here, even in the fancy-schmancy hipster suburb of Melville where I’m staying. I have a room at a small B&B favored by journalists and academics passing through the city and, while it’s thoroughly pleasant, it sets the tone. Locked external door. High walls. Bars on all windows. Security guard outside until 11pm. There’s a pizza joint on the other side of the road, seemingly deposited there so as to remove any need for guests to walk alone at night in search of grub.

At dinner with friends of friends a couple nights ago I was treated to The Briefing, a quick chat outlining standard operating procedures for living in this city. Get your keys ready in advance of arriving at your door. Don’t walk alone in the dark, even in this neighborhood. I was served a cautionary tale, a horror story about a visiting American PhD whose car was stolen soon after he arrived in Johannesburg, and not long before he was thwacked over the back of his head with a handgun and mugged. So don’t go wandering. Gas stations and banks are places of refuge, if you need one.

The Briefing was tempered by the lived experience of my hosts: this suburb isn’t so bad, actually. You’ll be fine during the day, especially in this or that direction. But habits of self-preservation develop. On arriving home by car, one doesn’t hesitate to drive around the block an extra time if you see a guy loitering nearby. If there’s a group of guys together—and there’s no woman with them—best cross to the other side.

This is all sound advice, and I’m not foolhardy enough to ignore it. But it’s made me wonder that if you’re not careful—or, perhaps, if you’re too careful—you could find yourself interacting with precisely no-one outside your sphere of work or friends, bar a trip to the Pick and Pay supermarket or a local restaurant. The fear is real, the threat is avoided and so the fear is not countered but re-enforced. Not a desperately insightful thought, but one that matters when you remember that the guys we’re talking about, when we’re talking about the fear of street crime in Johannesburg, are black guys.

That’s not to say that crime here is an exclusively black problem any more than HIV/AIDS in Africa is an exclusively black disease (although, one local academic tells me, you could be forgiven for believing that given the reach of most AIDS research here.) White South Africans commit crimes and white South Africans live with HIV/AIDS. But the threat and fear of crime in Johannesburg, expressed to me by whites and blacks alike, just can’t be divorced from the country’s extraordinarily complicated racial politics (like, er, duh). Seventeen years after Mandela’s election to the South African presidency, most blacks remain disenfranchised and disillusioned, a small black middle class and a smaller black elite notwithstanding. The much-vaunted Rainbow Nation exists, I’m repeatedly told, only at times of national—and that generally means sporting—unity. Right now the Springboks are trampling all comers in the Rugby World Cup (pity poor Namibia today), and so the Bokke green and gold is worn by black and white and Indian and colored alike (the last two both standard racial distinctions in South Africa).

But many white South Africans choose to support the Boks from abroad, emigrating to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK. In a play I saw last night at Jo’burg’s Market Theatre, Death of a Colonialist, a white history teacher berates his adult children for doing exactly that. His kids argue that they left because it simply wasn’t safe to stay. And the teacher replies that for things like that to change, South Africa will need all its children to pitch in together and lend a hand. What are the chances? And, when you think about it—emigration apart—is the United States so very different?

A few more interviews between now and Sunday. Then overland to Swaziland on a minibus promisingly named the TransMagnific.

Alex Gallafent is reporting from South Africa and Swaziland on a Fellowship from the International Reporting Project (IRP).

Government forces also shelled areas held by troops loyal to the protesters. The opposition has promised to carry on its campaign to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Lisa Mullins gets details from New York Times reporter Laura Kasinof in Yemen.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  The protests of the Arab Spring are turning into the Arab Fall.  There was heavy fighting in the capital of Yemen today.  It was the second day of deadly clashes there.  Yemeni security forces turned on anti-government protestors and they’re turning on each other as well. We spoke earlier today to Laura Kasinof of the New York Times who’s in the capital of Sana’a.  She says it’s some of the worst violence there since March.

Laura Kasinof: I’m hearing gruesome scenes coming from the hospital, and bodies everywhere, blood everywhere, very bad.  So I think you know, we’re hearing heavy artillery use, we’re hearing machine gun fire, and it doesn’t show signs of stopping right now.

Mullins: So, just very briefly tell us, what did spark this latest violence?

Kasinof: Yesterday what happened is the anti-government protestors here in Sanaa who maintain a sit-in here in the capital and has done so for months, marched outside of the perceptive sit-in area.  As soon as they did so they were attacked by security forces and by snipers.  And some of the security forces attacked them using heavy caliber machine guns.  And so we saw, it was very, very brutal violence used against them.  And somewhere around 25 protestors were killed yesterday. However, what is also very important is the violence against protestors yesterday ignited clashes and conflicts between Yemen’s surviving military.  Yemen has armed forces who support the protestors and Yemen has armed forces who are still loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has refused to step down after all these months of protests. And throughout the afternoon today we’re hearing artillery fire, heavy machine gun fire and RPGs across the capital.

Mullins: The protestors you say remain peaceful, but in many cases they’re being shot at.  Are there no weapons among the protestors, are they not firing back?

Kasinof: That is true, because actually they don’t have any weapons among the protestors, which is particularly significant when it comes to Yemen because here the population is highly armed and actually the Yemeni culture, revenge killings are part of the Yemeni culture.  However, these protestors made the deliberate choice to remain peaceful throughout this and that’s what happened here in Sanaa.

Mullins: What are government authorities saying about what’s transpiring now?

Kasinof: I’m not exactly sure what they government authorities are saying today.  What they said yesterday about the violence is that it was actually the defected military that was shooting at the protestors, not pro-government people.  It was a conflict within the process itself.  This you know, blatantly conflicted with what the protestors were saying and doesn’t really make any sense given the circumstances. I mean today, there has been violence going back and forth between the two sides of the divided armed forces, but still the protestors, they remain peaceful.

Mullins: There has been violence.  There have been ceasefires.  Where are we now with this latest violence that’s been going on?  Where does this bring Yemen?

Kasinof: The problem is in that we were actually very close, Yemen was very close to a political agreement or at least that seemed to be the case, between the ruling party and leaders in the opposition.  Now, these people are working sort of on political reconciliation and political agreements apart from the protest agreement, apart from the military.  This is its own thing that is working toward official transfer of presidential power from the president to the vice president and to work toward early elections.  It seemed like we were coming close to an agreement on that, however, we’re unsure, unclear on how today’s violence is going to affect any sort of political agreement now and it seems it will be much harder for that to happen.

Mullins: Laura Kasinof of the New York Times speaking to us from Sanaa in Yemen.  Thank you, Laura, stay safe.

Kasinof: Great, thanks for having me.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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The concept of multiculturalism means different things in different places. And it has been under scrutiny in many of them, especially around Europe.

For countries like the UK, Germany and the Netherlands multiculturalism has meant allowing different cultures to co-exist and flourish within the national framework.

But the French have never promoted that idea. Instead it has sought to assimilate new arrivals.

Since Norway’s July 24th attacks by a right-wing anti-Muslim extremist, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has sought to assure the world that Norway will not sacrifice its liberal attitude, even toward immigrants.

He said Norway has conflicts and extreme people, and the country has seen violence before, but never on the scale of what Breivik perpetrated.

“And of course, we will learn, we will in some ways change,” Stoltenberg said. “But I will do whatever I can to make sure that we do not change in a way which undermines our core values of openness, democracy and participation.”

No doubt any elected leader would make the same stand under the same circumstances. But the fact is that for months now European heads-of-state have been openly questioning the wisdom of multiculturalism, a mainstay of European social policy for decades.

Several months ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron both declared multiculturalism a failure. French President Nicolas Sarkozy followed suit.

“We worry way too much about the identities of those who’ve arrived here,” Sarkozy said, “rather than about the identity of the very country taking them in.”

But here’s the weird thing about Sarkozy’s criticism, said French journalist Pierre Haski. Sarkozy can’t really call French multiculturalism a failure, because in France multiculturalism has never existed, at least not officially.

“In the UK, for example, the fact that you would have Pakistani or Indian ghettos was part of the system, in a way,” said Haski. “They were allowed to prosper and develop with their own core identity. Within the British society. This was never the French approach.”

What is the French approach? That if you’re born in France, you are French. Full stop.

Jonathan Laurence is a professor at Boston College and author of the book, “The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims.”

He said unlike France, most of Western Europe, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK for example, didn’t demand that minorities assimilate.

“In parts of western Europe, there was less concern about whether these communities were fitting in with national identity. This was in part out of a desire to avoid imposing any nationalist template over them,” Laurence said. “We have to remember that nationalism really was a dirty word for the second half of the twentieth century since it was seen as the prime aggravator and cause of the world wars that tore Europe asunder.”

France, on the other hand, has held up the national identity of liberty, fraternity, and equality as an ideal for centuries. Its policy of assimilation continues today, and in some sense it is working.

Take Kadija Tighanimine, a twenty-something French blogger of Moroccan descent. She was born in France, but her family came over a century ago. She’s Muslim, wears a headscarf, but said people like her feel far removed from the current debate over multiculturalism.

“Because we just feel naturally French. We don’t even pose the question of identity, Tighanimine said. “We’re not just people from Africa, we’re French of several generations. I don’t think the people like me are schizophrenic about their identities. People know very well that they are Western, European.”

Tighanimine may feel as French as anyone else. But the fact remains that she is a member of France’s largest minority, Muslims of North African origin. And for more than half a century most of them have lived isolated from mainstream French society. Living in the suburbs around major cities. The result: a sort of accidental multiculturalism.

One of those suburbs is Bondy, north of Paris.

Frenchman Nordine Nabili runs a popular online journalism project there for young people, called the Bondy Blog. He said when president Sarkozy disparages multiculturalism, what he hears is an official rejection of Muslims.

“France wants other cultures; say from Eastern Europe, because there’s this common link: Christianity. So the problem here is religious,” Nabili declared.

What he meant is religious intolerance. Nabili said Muslims are unfairly accused of not accepting the core French values. He said that’s just plain false.

“Do I treat people equally, in terms of my family, the education of my sons and daughters, the young people I work with here?” Nabili asked. “Yes. Am I fraternal? Yes. I run the Bondy Blog on my own time, and I don’t ask anyone for money for it. If France itself really embraced these values, you and I wouldn’t have to sit here and talk about discrimination.”

Nabili said politicians stoke people’s fears of Islam every election cycle.

European polls, and voting patterns, show there is a rightward trend underway in France and across Europe. Christine Tasin is founder of the grassroots, Republican Defense party. Her blog has some 90,000 subscribers. She said Islam is simply incompatible with democratic traditions such as the separation of church and state.

“We’re asking of the Muslims what Napoleon asked of the Jews,” she said. “To abolish any religious norms that are not compatible with the laws of and values of the Republic. And the Jews did it. So did the protestants, in 1791. But actually this is impossible with Islam, she said, because Islam states that the Koran is the word of God and therefore it cannot be altered.”

While Tasin doesn’t condone violence, her kind of rhetoric is being used by extremists like Norwegian attacker Anders Behring Breivik to justify their actions.

Whether or not this kind of talk is leading to violence, Muslims say it’s just flat out wrong. And they complain that this way of thinking backs them into a corner, leaving them no way to prove their allegiance to the countries where they live.

Twenty-four teams, including Mali, North Korea and Brazil will play in the three-week tournament. The United States didn’t qualify.

Compared to the main World Cup, the U-20 is small potatoes. There’s no bidding war to host the event, which is played every two years. There is also no media frenzy. At the Colombian team practice for its opening match against France, I’m confined to a large holding pen for journalists. But for most of the session I’m the only one there.

Still, it’s a chance for Colombia to show off. The matches will be played in Bogota and seven other cities. 500 million people around the world will watch them on TV. They’ll learn about Colombia’s natural beauty, booming economy and improved security, even as a drug-fuelled guerrilla war grinds on. Cristian Bonilla, the Colombian team’s goalkeeper, said they’re proud that so many countries are participating and so many tourists are coming.

“Perhaps they will come away with a different image from what foreigners normally think about Colombia,” he said.
Bonilla and his teammates will be playing for more than national pride. The U-20 is a showcase for young talent, according to Johanna Palacios, a reporter who covers soccer for Colombian TV.

“Messi of Argentina and Kaka and Ronaldinho of Brazil all burnished their credentials in U-20 games,” Palacios said.
The U-20 can also serve as a dress rehearsal. Successful tournaments in Japan, the former Soviet Union and Qatar helped persuade soccer’s governing body, FIFA, to award the main World Cup to those nations.

In Colombia, it was the other way around.

Juan Felipe Mejia, press officer for the Colombian Soccer Federation, said that FIFA selected Colombia to host the main World Cup in 1986, but due to economic problems and the huge cost of building new stadiums, Colombia embarrassed itself by backing out of its commitment.

“By a decision of the government, they finally decided not to play it here. So it went to Mexico,” Mejia said.

FIFA was not pleased. It took 25 years for the organization to give Colombia a second chance with the Under-20 World Cup.

“It was like a big challenge because FIFA didn’t trust at the beginning in us. These guys are crazy. Why are they demanding a World Cup when they rejected one in 1986?’,” Mejia said.

This time around, Colombia seems prepared to host its biggest-ever international sports event. Most of the tickets have been sold. The government and private sector have spent $100 million to upgrade soccer stadiums. Thousands of fans showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Bogota’s renovated El Campin stadium, where the championship game will be played on August 20th.

Colombia expects 35,000 foreign visitors. They will be snapping up t-shirts and souvenirs stamped with the U-20 logo featuring, what else? – a cup of coffee. At the opening ceremony, Colombian vallenato singer Jorge Celedon will perform the U-20 theme song.

The song is called Nuestra Fiesta, Spanish for “Our Party.” It’s an apt title, Mejia said, because the U-20 is Colombia’s coming-out party.

“People are gonna see ‘Oh, this is Colombia. These are people that are really nice. The stadiums are packed.’ It’s fantastic for nations like us,” Mejia said. “We really want to show the world that we can do good things here.”