A Rick Ross charity event, the aim of which was to provide children with back-to-school items, was disrupted by gunfire as soon as the rapper took the stage. If nothing else, it upped his damaged street cred. [SP]

"Once, albinos used to seek shelter from the sun. Now they have gone into hiding simply to survive, after a series of killings linked to witchcraft. In Tanzania, 25 albinos have been killed in the past year. The latest victim was a seven-month-old baby. He was mutilated on the orders of a witchdoctor peddling the belief that potions made from an albino's legs, hair, hands, and blood can make a person rich."

MUGABE'S MILITIA CONTINUES TERROR CAMPAIGN "The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed. An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window. The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks."

THE 'WHITE = WEAK' STEREOTYPE REARS ITS HEAD "A Jacksonville high school student was recently beaten and battered at school by three students he said he didn't even know. Witnesses to the attack told police Forrest High School sophomore Karl Koch Jr. was targeted because of the color of his skin. 'They started closing in, and all I remember is getting hit,' Koch said. Koch's wrist was shattered and six screws and a plate now hold it together. He also has nine stitches above his right eye. Two 15-year-old students and one 17-year-old student were taken into police custody and charged with aggravated battery in connection to the attack. 'I just seen them around school a few times and never really talked to them,' Koch said. According to the police report, one of the suspects said, 'Look at the white boy, he looks like a victim,' before punching Koch in the eye."

MUGABE'S ZIMBABWE STILL IN TURMOIL "President Robert Mugabe’s party declared today that there would be a runoff between the veteran leader and Morgan Tsvangirai, the head of the opposition - in defiance of the official verification process. … In Johannesburg yesterday, Mr Tsvangirai’s spokesman reiterated that the opposition would not take part in a runoff because it believed only fraudulent results would deny the MDC outright victory. … The MDC said in a statement today that 20 of its activists had been killed in the last month. Independent rights groups in Zimbabwe have given more conservative tolls, but they also have said not all deaths have been reported."

NOOSE BEARER PLEADS GUILTY TO INTIMIDATING JENA PROTESTERS "A teenager pleaded guilty Friday to a federal hate crime of threatening and intimidating civil rights marchers near Jena, Louisiana, last year by displaying hangman's nooses from the back of a pickup truck. Federal authorities announced Friday that Jeremiah Munsen, 18, of Colfax, Louisiana, admitted that he placed two large nooses on his truck on September 20. They said Munsen, along with an unidentified teen passenger, drove repeatedly past a group of marchers gathered at a bus depot in Alexandria — about 35 miles south of Jena, where the marches took place — as they awaited buses to return them to Tennessee. … Munsen, who faces up to a year in prison, will be sentenced at an August 15 hearing."

KILL WHITEY; IF YOU CAN FIND HIM "With his 28-year grip on power slipping, President Robert Mugabe's government has again lashed out at Zimbabwe's white community, calling his black opponents tools of former colonial master Britain and stoking anger against the nation's whites. … But after repeated attacks, the seizure of most white-owned farms and the near collapse of the economy, the white community's size and power have dwindled. It may no longer be effective to use whites as a scapegoat for the nation's ills. … Mugabe's past programs to seize white wealth might have been too effective, [analyst John] Makumbe said, and may have deprived the president of his most valuable tactic. Now, with just a handful of whites left controlling businesses and farms, offering to seize white property may not be seen as a rich prize to the poor blacks suffering the worst of the economic hardships, Makumbe said."

BROTHER KILLING BROTHER KILLING BROTHER " … An FBI analysis of homicide reports from 2005 showed that 45 percent of homicides were white-on-white and 42 percent were black-on-black. At first glance, that statistic seems meaningless until you consider that there are nearly 200 million white people in America and only about 36 million black people."