{NYUNZU, Democratic Republic of Congo — Deep in the forest, miles from any major city, lies an abandoned cotton factory full of the dispossessed.} There is no police force guarding it. No electricity or running water inside. No sense of urgency or deep concern by the national authorities to do much about it. Instead, as […]

{International prosecutors on Tuesday laid out charges in their first case involving Islamic extremism, accusing a jihadist from Mali of destroying historic Muslim shrines in Timbuktu that were protected as a World Heritage Site.} They said that the accused, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, was part of a Qaeda-linked group that seized the north of Mali in […]

{ZOMBA, Malawi — Old, overcrowded and unsanitary, the maximum-security Zomba prison holds murderers, robbers, rapists — and Grammy-nominated singers.} In a makeshift studio near a carpentry workshop, 14 prisoners and two guards recorded an unusual album of lessons and loss, sin and forgiveness. Now it is going up against the works of well-known performers in […]