Micel Helps To Expand Mobile Service In Mexico, Serves As Intermediary Between Customers And Telecom Carriers

Editor?s note:?Maria Rocio Paniagua currently works as a project manager at?Innku, one of the top mobile and web workshops in Mexico. Mobile penetration in the Mexican market is currently at 90+ percent, according to research firm Our Mobile Planet. They made some wild forecasts about how they expect it to rise to 70 percent by 2015 -- wild because the issue in Mexico and Latin America goes beyond mere access and connectivity.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/zvoBScCxtSY/

HGTV Dream Home 2013 eric cantor eric cantor HGTV Sugar Bowl 2013 chick fil a chick fil a

Pop Star Shaves Head in Shame, Films Apology For Spending Night With Boyfriend

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/pop-star-shaves-head-in-shame-films-apology-for-spending-night-w/

broncos broncos lehigh walking dead season finale matt flynn denver news frozen planet

New Orleans: A tale of 2 cities since Katrina

An abandoned housing project in New Orleans' Ninth Ward is pictured Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Some parts of the Big Easy, such as the Ninth Ward and Treme, don't look a whole lot different than they did the day after Hurricane Katrina came ashore more than seven years ago. (AP Photo/Paul Newberry)

An abandoned housing project in New Orleans' Ninth Ward is pictured Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Some parts of the Big Easy, such as the Ninth Ward and Treme, don't look a whole lot different than they did the day after Hurricane Katrina came ashore more than seven years ago. (AP Photo/Paul Newberry)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? While a blimp hovers not too far in the distance, circling over tens of thousands of Super Bowl revelers, Christopher Weaver looks around at the neighborhood where he was born and raised and almost died.

He loves this place, probably more now than he did back in 2005, before Hurricane Katrina tried to wash it all away.

But it's not much to look at, that's for sure.

"You can see it for yourself," Weaver moaned to a reporter, staring Friday at all the vacant lots, overrun with weeds that are taller than he is, at all the abandoned shells of former homes, many of them still marked with the spray-painted "X'' that became the grim symbol of a great American city nearly wiped off the map.

"I'm going to be honest with you," he went on. "It sucks here. Just look across the street. Nothing. Look over there. Nothing."

In many ways, New Orleans has come back stronger than ever since Katrina. The restaurant scene is thriving. The hotels are packed. The Superdome has received a glamorous makeover. The French Quarter rocks into the wee hours night after night.

But, as the Big Easy prepares to host the party-slash-national holiday it does like no other, Super Bowl Sunday, it's worth remembering that life has not yet returned to normal for everyone here.

Not even close.

"It's like a tale of two cities," said Mike Miller, who works with the homeless group Unity of Greater New Orleans. "It's hard to believe that seven years later, it still looks like this."

Just a short ride from the French Quarter, in historic neighborhoods such as Treme and the Ninth Ward, it's not hard to find a virtual time capsule from the days when Katrina roared ashore. On block after block, there are structures that look pretty much the same as they did after the water receded.

There are the telltale markings that show just how high it climbed when the levees cracked ? 3 feet on this crumbling house, 5 feet on those remains of a shopping mall, 7 feet on that ghostly apartment complex. Those Xs still mark the date many of them were searched, who did the searching and how many bodies, if any, were found inside.

Where kids once played and neighbors used to hang out together, now all that remains could easily pass for a former war zone.

"It's just hard to believe that every abandoned house, every abandoned apartment, represents a family that never came back," Miller said, shaking his head.

Even after all these years, it all looks so familiar to anyone who remembers those horrific images of people clinging to rooftops and huddled on bridges, waiting desperately for help to arrive.

"You can still see," said Travers Kurr, also with Unity of Greater New Orleans, pointing toward the roof of a boarded-up house, "where people busted out of their attics so they could be rescued."

Weaver was one of those who barely got out alive.

When Katrina struck, he was looking out a window toward the levee about a block away, the one that was supposed to keep him safe. Instead, he watched it tear apart right before his eyes ? and the water come rushing through.

He tried to escape the conventional way, but the pressure from winds howling at well over 100 mph prevented him from opening the door. He busted a window and climbed out, only to get pinned against the wall of his house by the rapidly rising waters. Finally, he went under, sure he was going to die. He held his breath and remembered what his grandmother told him, to always pray to God to forgive his sins.

"Suddenly, something shot me away from that house," Weaver said, convinced beyond any doubt that he's still alive today only because of a higher power.

A neighbor pulled him to safety using a strand of Christmas lights. After 2? days on a rooftop, they were finally rescued. Weaver still has a nasty scar of his right leg from a cut he got while being tossed about in the turbulent waters.

Despite the unthinkable carnage in the Lower Ninth Ward, Weaver never had any doubt he would return and rebuild, even if it's now clear that so many of his former neighbors and fellow survivors won't be following his lead.

"I was born and raised right here," he said. "If Katrina comes back again, I'm still not leaving."

Miller estimates there are more than 10,000 ? and maybe as many as 15,000 ? abandoned structures in the New Orleans metro area. Many of them have been commandeered by the city's large homeless population, who slip away in the light of day but leave behind evidence of their existence ? dirty clothes scattered about, a bedroll where they slept, empty cans and plastic foam containers from what passed for a meal.

As he drives around the areas that won't be found in any tourism brochures, another member of his team, New Orleans native Clarence White, rattles off what used to be here, what used to be there.

"That was a popular bar room over there," White said, turning to his left. "There used to be a drug store over there," he said, shifting his gaze to the right.

The NFL, as it now does in all Super Bowl cities, has set aside Saturday as a day of service, in which volunteers will take part in the renovation of five local playgrounds and their surrounding communities. That gesture will surely be more poignant in New Orleans than any other place where the championship game is held.

But Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed, a native of nearby St. Rose, is keenly aware that it will take far more than a few hours to get this city ? this entire city ? back on its feet.

"When I get home, I drive around the city, go to some of my old spots, just hang out with people," he said. "You see the city is rebuilding, but we've still got a long way to go. It's just different, man. You have so many people that were lost. The spirit was kind of broken for a second. But New Orleans people, we've been through a lot. We love our city, man. We love to have a good time. We love for people to come have a great time with us."

Even amid the lingering devastation, there are hopeful signs of progress. In the Lower Ninth Ward, for instance, construction workers were on the scene Friday at several odd-shaped, energy-efficient homes going up with funding from a group led by actor Brad Pitt.

"I appreciate everything he's doing," Weaver said, though he quickly added that the remnants of Katrina are far, far more prevalent in this part of New Orleans.

Through all the hardship, Weaver doesn't seem the least bit bitter about his plight. He's proud the Super Bowl has returned to his hometown for the first time since Katrina, and he'll be pulling hard for the Ravens to beat the San Francisco 49ers. This being New Orleans, the occasion will be marked with adult beverages and plenty of food ? gumbo, red beans and rice, a big pot of crawfish.

But, for all those Super Bowl revelers who might think everything has returned to normal in the Big Easy, Weaver has this message:

"Come on over here where I'm at."

It's not far away at all.

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/super-bowl-watch and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-01-Super%20Bowl-Still%20Rebuilding/id-3f3ad69e504b400ab076ff9f11cb5f5c

how to cook a turkey emma stone Frys tryptophan BestBuy.com Kohls Black Friday www.walmart.com

'Voice of New York' Mayor Ed Koch dead at 88

Ed Koch, the brash, colorful and often confrontational mayor who helped to lead New York City out of its brush with bankruptcy in the 1970s, launching an astonishing municipal turnaround that continues to this day, has died. He was 88.

Koch was recently readmitted to the hospital after being treated for water in his lungs, The Associated Press reported. A spokesman confirmed the news of Koch's death early this morning.

In December, Koch recently battled pneumonia and was being treated with antibotics and in September, he was hospitalized and was treated for anemia.

Koch took office on Jan 1, 1978 with New York City all but broke. Thousands of cops, firemen, sanitation workers and teachers had been laid off. Bridges were crumbling, the subways were caked in grime and graffiti, and crime was taking off.

Koch helped to restore the city's credit with budget cuts, and he revived the city's spirits with his unflagging enthusiasm for all things New York ? and an unflinching willingness to stand up to opponents.

By the time he left office at the end of 1989, New York was far from problem- free, but Gotham's future no longer was in doubt. "He went at it with a sense of joy, a sense of combat, a sense that made us all know, "That's the voice of New York, that's what we are," the writer Pete Hamill once said.

That voice never held back. Koch was forever dispensing opinions -- and forever asking New Yorkers, "How 'm I doing?" He attacked opponents as "crazy," "wackos" or "radicals." To critics who said he had drifted too far from his liberal roots, Koch said he was "a liberal with sanity."

"Part of the thing that was most refreshing and most appalling about Koch is that he will stand for what he believes in," the Rev. Al Sharpton, who repeatedly jousted with Koch in the 1980s, said in 2005. "He will not say what you want him to. And he will not be intimidated either way."

Koch put it this way: "I'm the sort of person who will never get ulcers. Why? Because I say exactly what I think. I am the sort of person who might give other people ulcers."

When the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in January 1987, Koch refused to allow a ticker-tape parade for the champs because the Giants had left New York for New Jersey's Meadowlands more than a decade earlier.

"If they want a parade, let them parade in front of the oil drums in Moonachie," Koch said, referring to a community near the Meadowlands.

While such outspokenness endeared Koch to constituents, his sharp tongue contributed to his biggest political defeats.

In 1982, while running for governor, Koch gave an interview to Playboy magazine in which he called living in rural areas "a joke" and described suburban living as "wasting your life." To top it off, he called living in the state capital, Albany, "a fate worse than death."

The comments alienated suburban and upstate voters, and Koch lost the Democratic primary to a New York City lawyer named Mario Cuomo, who went on to serve three terms as governor. Koch later called his remarks "the dumbest" he ever made.

Six years later, during the fiercely contested New York Democratic primary for president, Koch said Jewish voters would be "crazy" to support the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The remark infuriated and energized African-American voters, propelling Jackson to a surprising second-place finish behind Michael Dukakis.

The following year, the city's black voters got their revenge, helping Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins beat Koch in the 1989 Democratic primary. Dinkins went on to defeat former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani to become the city's first black mayor.

Arguably, Koch became even more popular after leaving City Hall. He hosted a radio show, wrote books, reviewed movies and even dispensed justice for a while on television's "The People's Court," succeeding Judge Marvin Wapner.

For years he teamed up with his close friend, former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY), offering opinions and political analysis on the New York cable news station, NY1.

Koch also remained a political force. His endorsements were crucial in helping to elect two Republicans -- Giuliani as mayor of New York, in 1993, and George Pataki, as governor of New York, in 1994. And his backing of then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, eased the concerns of some older Jewish voters, helping her win a U.S. Senate seat in New York in 2000.

Edward I. Koch was born in the Bronx on Dec. 12, 1924 and reared in Newark, N.J. He served in the Army in World War II, landing in Cherbourg, France in September 1944 and earning two Battle Stars as a combat infantryman.

A graduate of the City College of New York and the New York University School of Law, Koch was a practicing attorney when he entered politics.

"I had no goals at that time, other than to meet people. Make friends," Koch told New York's Paper magazine. "I'm an achiever. I'm a good organizer, and I became a street spokesman for the Village Independent Democrats club. I was out every night on a soapbox."

Inspired by the speeches of presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, Koch aligned himself with insurgents who opposed Tammany Hall, the long-running but decaying New York Democratic machine. Koch defeated the last Tammany boss, Carmine DeSapio, in a race for Democratic district leader in Greenwich Village in 1963.

The victory propelled Koch to the City Council, and then to Congress, where he served for nine years before winning a four-way Democratic primary for mayor in 1977 by shrewdly tacking to the political center ? a shift that mirrored the political migration of white ethnic Democrats in the 1970s and '80s.

Koch cemented his popularity in 1980 when he acted as a kind of municipal cheerleader when a transit workers strike halted the subways and buses. Day after day, Koch stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, applauding New Yorkers walking to work.

"As I got on the bridge I began to yell, 'Walk over the bridge, walk over the bridge, we're not going to let these bastards bring us to our knees!' And people began to applaud. I knew I was onto something," he recalled in 2011.

During his administration, the go-go years on Wall Street in the 1980s led the city to new economic prosperity. He created a housing program which, over a ten year period, provided more than 150,000 units of affordable housing financed by city funds.

But Koch's brand of governing was not without dissenters. Koch had a troubled relationship with black voters. The relationship began its downward slide in 1978 with the death of a black businessman while he was in police custody. Other alleged cases of police brutality followed.

Racial unrest, his comments about Jesse Jackson, a municipal corruption scandal and soaring crime and homelessness doomed Koch's bid for an unprecedented fourth term.

Although Koch's endorsement helped Giuliani win 1993 mayoral race, the two had a falling out over what Koch saw as Giuliani's combative and authoritarian ways. Koch went on to write a book about it, Giuliani: Nasty Man.

Koch also wrote Citizen Koch; Ed Koch on Everything; I'm Not Done Yet: Remaining Relevant; and Eddie, Harold's Little Brother, a children's book which he co-authored with his sister, Pat Koch Thaler. He also teamed up with his good friend, John Cardinal O'Connor, who led the Archdiocese of New York, in writing, His Eminence and Hizzoner, which traced Koch's shift to more centrist and conservative positions.

Koch will spend eternity in his beloved Manhattan. He announced in 2008 that he had purchased a plot at the Trinity Church cemetery, after learning that the church permits Jews to be buried there. It is the only active cemetery left in Manhattan.

"I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone. This is my home," Koch explained. "The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ed-koch--the-mayor-who-kept-nyc-from-going-broke--dies-at-88-130516500.html

Giovanna Plowman martin luther king jr quotes Jim Harbaugh Inauguration 2013 Super Bowl 2013 Tony Gonzalez Richard Blanco

Is MOOC an Opportunistic Education? | Learner Weblog

Is MOOC becoming an opportunistic education? ?Is the learning experience opening windows of opportunities for conversation, sharing and discourse for global educators, researchers, and learners in a wider context and a global community?

Photo credit: Elearning Google image

Here are four opportunities and challenges that I have identified relating to MOOC as a game changer in Higher Education. ?There are assumptions behind each of the opportunities, including :

the revolutionary opportunities available in MOOC?s. But, reflecting the magazine?s focus, its cover story is less interested in how the online courses transform learning for students than how they offer investment opportunities for venture capitalists. Higher education of the MOOC variety is touted as the Next Big Profitable Thing, what?Forbes?calls ?The $1-Trillion Opportunity.?

Opportunity 1

(a) to shift the education and business model from the notion that a professor lectures students, to a more collaborative, interactive model where global network of practice and community of practice emerges.

Here in a?post?relating to MOOCs, Don says:

?From my perspective, we should eliminate all lectures as a method of instruction. Universities must shift their business model from the centuries-old notion that a professor lectures students, to a more collaborative, interactive model.

Any subject where students need to absorb fact-based material ? that is, where there is a right or wrong answer ? should be taught using computer-based learning. Instead of being the ?sage on the stage,? teachers should be the co-pilot for students as they explore and collaborate online to acquire knowledge. Without changing the model of pedagogy, the physical campus will not survive.

One can easily see a day when students treat all the universities as one big ?-la-carte menu that can lead to something we could call a ?MOOC degree.? Take some law courses at Harvard, economic courses at McGill, some engineering courses at MIT, and round out the degree with courses from Queen?s, Yale and the London School of Economics. The result will be students acquiring a better education by shopping around then they could have acquired at just the one institution. And it won?t take long before employers recognize this.

Should we eliminate all lectures as a model of instruction? ?I have shared my views on lectures here?and here. There may be certain needs for lectures, for certain categories of learners, under certain context. ?It could however be contested as the most effective way of ?transmission of knowledge?, given the whole range of choices from the education media such as TED or Education web sites. ?Besides, why can?t we re-use and re-mix the educational resources (especially the media, artifacts) that could more effectively be used as a model of instruction?

Opportunity 2

(b) to shift the pedagogy from teacher-centric design in an online education, to a cooperative and collaborative teacher-learners centric design, with an ultimate pedagogy to support human beings and a?transformative?pedagogy.

Transformative pedagogy (from 3 types of education (McGregor, 2008)):

• Place the student at the centre of learning
• Help learners find their own inner voice and power, therefore they feel empowered to effect social change, bring about justice, peace, freedom, and other components of human condition
• Teachers have to respect and have compassion for co-learners
• All ways of knowing are interconnected and enriched by each other
• The desired outcome is to change ? to transfer learning into social action outside the classroom

The epistemology: where student needs to create knowledge.

We are now at a stage where MOOC providers are exploring and experimenting with different pedagogies over a range of MOOCs.

There are many good questions raised?here?on whether MOOC will work for freshman composition:

Even without outside intrusions, we struggle with new challenges, some anticipated, some not. How can we keep students engaged, especially when we do not have traditional contact with them? How can we recreate and encourage extra-classroom support mechanisms like study groups, office hours, or tutoring?? How do we protect students? privacy and intellectual property without the firewalls of closed learning platforms? How do we address plagiarism? And, of course, the biggest question of all: How do we evaluate writing assignments in a course with potentially thousands of enrolled students? Because this MOOC is being designed for an open audience and will not award course credit, it is impossible to know who might enroll, or how many.

There are no easy answers to these questions, in particular the engagement of students, the openness issues and assessment challenges often associated with open-closed learning platforms.

Opportunity 3

(c) to?innovate based on technology and media affordance?-?The use of different media also allows for more individualization and personalization of the learning, better suiting learners with different learning styles and needs.

Tony addresses this well as he?says:

Online learning can incorporate a range of different media: text, graphics, audio, video, animation, simulations. We need to understand better their affordances, and use them differentially so as to develop deeper knowledge, and a wider range of learning outcomes and skills.

The use of different media also allows for more individualization and personalization of the learning, better suiting learners with different learning styles and needs.

Another post?here

A report on the study,??Technological Change and Professional Control in the Professoriate,??includes interviews with more than 40 professors at three universities. It suggests that professors often use such technologies for logistical purposes rather than to improve learning.

This further reinforces the need to gain a deeper insights as to how technology could be used to improve learning, and to provide continuous support and development for educators and professors in teaching and learning under a changing technological learning environment.

Opportunity 4

(d) to?re-bundle?the value propositions from non-credit to credit bearing courses, with degree granting from institutions. ?This would also challenge institutions to re-think about their roles in the Higher Education ecology:

In this ?How about the?institutions goals and vision??

He sees three roles in the current?MOOC?ecosystem: course provider, testing service, and credit granter. Any institution looking to experiment with?MOOCs?needs to decide which role it wants to play, he said, and then determine its goals for the first year and its intentions for growth five years out.

He acknowledges that setting five-year goals might be difficult, given the rapid evolution of?MOOCs?over the past year. Still, he said, institutions must try to think that far ahead, beyond any immediate benefits.

Read more:?http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/29/yale-takes-time-reflect-evaluate-jumping-moocs#ixzz2JMtVXrB7
Inside Higher Ed

Here in a?paper?on MOOCs:

• A turning point?will occur in the higher education model when a?MOOC-based program?of study leads to a?degree from an accredited institution?? a trend that has already begun to develop.
• Addressing the?quality of the learning experience?that MOOCs provide is therefore of paramount importance to their?credibility and acceptance.
• MOOCs represent a postindustrial model of teaching and learning that has the potential to?undermine and replace?the business model?of institutions that?depend on recruiting and retaining students?for location-bound, proprietary forms of?campus-based learning.

There are further opportunities in building education models where quality of education and learning experience are co-constructed and co-created by multiple networks of institutions and communities and networks, with a consortium of MOOCs like edX, Udacity, Coursera or the UK Open Learn initiative.

In summary, MOOC could be an opportunistic education model and platform where the four opportunities are identified ? through the shifting into new and emergent education and business model, pedagogy, innovation in media and technology, and the re-bundling of value propositions. ?Would this be the visions of?the future of education?

What do you envision?

Source: http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/is-mooc-an-opportunistic-education/

carmen whitney houston last performance cpac straw poll i will always love you whitney cummings maine caucus whitney houston has died

Counterfeit NFL Goods Seized Before Super Bowl - Business Insider

US law enforcement officials have seized a record $13.6 million in fake goods and arrested more than 20 people in a nationwide crackdown on the selling of counterfeit NFL merchandise.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), US Customs and Border Protection, US Postal Inspection Service and state and city police departments targeted warehouses, flea markets, online websites, shipping ports and retail stores, John Morton, director of ICE, said Thursday as the league's championship showcase the Super Bowl approached.

"The Super Bowl is one of the nation's most exciting events. Organized criminals are preying on that excitement, ripping consumers off with counterfeit merchandise and stealing from the American businesses who have worked hard to build a trusted brand," Morton said at a news conference at the New Orleans Convention Center.

"The sale of counterfeit jerseys and other sports items undermines the legitimate economy, takes jobs away from Americans and fuels crime overseas," he said.

Officials also seized a record 313 websites and arrested a total of 23 people in the operation which is ongoing ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl 47, in which the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Baltimore Ravens at the Superdome.

Fake jerseys, ball caps, T-shirts, jackets and other souvenirs are among the counterfeit merchandise and clothing seized.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/counterfeit-nfl-goods-seized-before-super-bowl-2013-1

robert griffin iii dontari poe space shuttle nyc monkeypox nick perry 30 rock live nfl draft picks 2012

Arabs, Tuaregs in Mali face hostility amid war

MOPTI, Mali (AP) ? Bawba Mint Baba Ahmed's sewing teacher singled her out in front of the class, telling her: "You look like a rebel." Others threatened to slit her throat, she says, drawing a finger across her neck.

Now the 29-year-old has dropped out of school and spends her days hiding inside her mud-walled home with her mother and two sisters, fearing retaliation from those who accuse her of being an Islamist simply because she is Arab.

"We are truly afraid," she says, tugging at the azure-colored scarf that covers her head and hides her light skin as she sat cross-legged in the shade on a woven mat. "They say 'You're the same color as the ones who have attacked us.'"

As the French and Malian forces oust al-Qaida-linked militants from the towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, ethnic tensions exacerbated by months of political upheaval are putting Mali's minorities in danger.

Most members of the Islamic groups that took over last year are from Tuareg and Arab ethnic groups. Northerners living in the central and southern parts of Mali say they have faced discrimination and fear of reprisals by those who blame the country's problems on anyone who looks Tuareg or Arab.

Less than 15 percent of Mali's population of some 16 million are Tuareg or Arab, and the vast majority live across northern Mali.

Activists also fear that as tens of thousands return home to the north, there may be more such attacks against those suspected of links to Ansar Dine or NMLA ? a secular Tuareg rebel group.

"Given its history and this high level of ethnic tension, we're really concerned that as local populations who suffered tremendously under the NMLA and the Islamists return to their towns and villages in the north that the incidents of reprisals could dramatically increase," said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Already in the town of Gao, she said, there have reports that people have targeted the homes of individuals who either housed Islamist fighters or are accused of collaborating with them, notably Arab traders.

And in the market of Timbuktu, over a dozen shops owned by the city's Arab population have been gutted, pillaged by the population because the town's Arab citizens were suspected of having been allied with the Islamists.

Malian military forces are also facing accusations of targeting Tuaregs and Arabs especially in the last month.

International human rights group have expressed concerns about soldiers attacking civilians, including violence directed toward Tuaregs and those suspected of links to the Islamists. One witness told The Associated Press last month that he saw soldiers kill three men in Sevare, including an older man with a beard who had been reading the Quran at a bus stop.

The country's current chaos began a year ago when Tuaregs from the north who have long sought autonomy launched another rebellion.

Backlash against Tuaregs and other light-skinned northerners soon began, and only intensified after radical Islamists took advantage of the chaos to seize northern Mali and implement a harsh version of Islamic law known as Shariah.

While most of Mali's Arab community lives in the north, the family of Bawba Ahmed, the woman who dropped out of her class, has lived in the central town of Mopti since 1963 ? almost as long as Mali has been an independent nation.

Last year, Bawba fled to neighboring Burkina Faso with her mother and sisters 21-year-old Aguida and 33-year-old Mounaicha out of concern for their safety in Mopti.

They rented an apartment there for about a month, but decided to come back as money ran low and those in Mopti reassured them things were getting better back home.

Now they rarely venture outside, fearing attacks from unruly Malian soldiers patrolling the area or neighbors who view them with suspicion.

"There are certain neighbors who are kind and have protected us and others who have not," says Fatouma Arby, the 72-year-old matriarch of the family, dressed in a black robe and headscarf.

The four unmarried women survive off only their small herd of livestock ? including two sheep tied to trees out front and a pile of baby goats sleeping in the shade that they can sell one by one for cash.

"I just want people to know I have nothing to do with the Islamists," Bawba says softly as her sister Aguida prepares tea. "I just want to live in peace."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arabs-tuaregs-mali-face-hostility-amid-war-143551441.html

all star game oscar red carpet daytona 500 start time ryan zimmerman oscars red carpet jennifer lopez wardrobe malfunction hugo