The News Review:

- Lead for car batteries poisons an African town
- Senegal says Hamas chief ready to sign Gaza truce
- SENEGAL: Scores flee town after riot over living conditions
- A tale of two rallies
- Senegal leader backs Guinea coup
- SENEGAL: Fighting nature one drop at a time
- Senegal peacekeeper shot in Sudan’s Darfur dies

Lead for car batteries poisons an African town
The Associated Press 
Some said the houses were cursed. thers said the families were cursed. The mysterious illness killed 18 children in this town on the fringes of Dakar Senegal’s capital before anyone in the outside world noticed. When they did — when the TV news aired parents’ angry pleas for an investigation when the doctors ordered more tests when the West sent health experts — they did not find malaria or polio or AIDS or any of the diseases that kill the poor of Africa. The dirt here is laced with lead left over from years of extracting it from old car batteries. So when the price of lead quadrupled over five years residents started digging up the earth to get at it.

Senegal says Hamas chief ready to sign Gaza truce
AFP 
“The Hamas leader said he was ready to sign such a deal in a place chosen by the parties by mutual consent” in a phone call to Senegalese President Abdoullaye Wade late Sunday the ministry said. According to the ministry Wade offered a proposal for an “immediate way out of the crisis. “”It is about getting a definite truce between Hamas and Israel by signing an accord that would oblige Hamas to observe an immediate ceasefire in exchange for an Israeli immediate ceasefire accompanied by a total lifting of the blockade of the Gaza strip” it said. n Saturday Israel unleashed a massive bombardment on Hamas targets in Gaza that has reportedly killed more than 310 Palestinians and wounded more than 1400 others.
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SENEGAL: Scores flee town after riot over living conditions
IRINnews.org NY 
?Many many youths are still hiding in the bush living and sleeping under the trees? said a man in Kédougou who did not want to be named. He said he spent two days among the displaced. ?They are afraid to return. ? A Senegal-based human rights group RADDH has said security forces wrongfully arrested and ?tortured? citizens after protests over poor living conditions in the mining region turned violent.

A tale of two rallies
Radio Netherlands Netherlands 
However the race will not end up in Dakar the capital of Senegal but in Buenos Aires in Argentina. Its new rival the Africa Race has the opportunity of selling itself as the traditional rally. A race is still a race but for enthusiasts 2009 is different: the Paris-Dakar rally is exchanging the Sahara for Argentina. Last year the world-famous rally had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the terrorist threat in Mauritania.

Senegal leader backs Guinea coup
BBC News UK 
A meeting between the junta and foreign envoys planned for Saturday has been postponed until next week. The junta which took over in a bloodless coup has said it wishes to “reassure the international community” of its commitment to stamping out corruption and holding elections in 2010. Its seizure of power was condemned internationally but Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has urged the world community to recognise the new leadership. ‘No more looting’Capt Camara addressed hundreds of public representatives including trade unionists politicians and clergy at a meeting in his barracks Camp Alpha Yaya Diallo in what correspondents say was a charm offensive.

SENEGAL: Fighting nature one drop at a time
IRINnews.org NY 
?People told me that if these pipes released water slowly throughout the day it would be better for my plants. It was like magic? Sarr told IRIN. But Ambassador Gideon Behar with the Israeli embassy in Senegal which funds the materials and training for Sarr?s drip-irrigation system told IRIN the system is based not on magic but on science. ?Miracles do not just happen ? we create them. The idea philosophy intention and operations of drip-irrigation technology are sound. The remaining component to make it work is people. ? He said if the system is properly installed and the farmers clean out the filters to prevent the pipes from clogging the system can save up to 50 percent more water than regular irrigation.

Senegal peacekeeper shot in Sudan’s Darfur dies
eTaiwan News Taiwan 
Unidentified gunmen ambushed a peacekeeping convoy Friday night carrying the navy captain in El-Fasher opening fire and carjacking a vehicle Senegal military spokesman Col. usmane Sar said Wednesday. The captain was shot in the thigh and transferred to a medical facility in Sudan’s capital Khartoum but he died Monday of his wounds he said.