It is a test of manhood from another time and place, with a modern twist: For 15-year-old Jackson Ntirkana to earn a chance to go to high school, he had to become a warrior first -- by killing a lion. Although born into a traditional nomadic Maasai family that tended livestock on the savannah, Ntirkana dreamed of going to school and becoming a politician, building bridges between his people and the rest of Kenya. Now Ntirkana and his friend are touring Canada promoting their joint autobiography, The Last Maasai Warriors.

The rhino has been around for 50-million years. It has only taken the past 40 years to eradicate 90 per cent of them. It's hard to believe an elephant tusk or rhino's horn can fetch as much as $1-million USD on the black market, but soon there won't be any ivory left to harvest.

Kenyan military forces have moved into southern Somalia to pursue suspected Islamist militants after a series of kidnappings along the bo...

Fatumo's childhood was contained in the world's largest refugee camp; a place we worry carries a stigma for harbouring victims who await handouts. She fought against a bleak fate that seems sealed by outside media: images of desperate people who refuse to help themselves. Instead she chased a dream to study abroad.

Why are student volunteers in Africa being tasked to do physically exhausting and challenging labour when there really wasn't a purpose to it -- except as some kind of "hardship lesson" for "spoiled youth?" I also began to wonder if we weren't taking work away from locals.

Journalists predicted that the rains would come in October, implying that this would end the crisis. But by then, the planting season will have passed. The rains, if they come, will likely bring flooding and disease. The famine may peak in early December, as we are preparing to celebrate our winter holidays.

I awoke this morning to the stories of Kenyan parents trying frantically to douse the flames burning their children after yet another pipeline explosion. As I looked at those images, I thought about how this week is the 40th anniversary of Greenpeace and began to wonder how much of our work in the coming years will be rapid response to these disasters.

Beyond the urgency of filling empty stomachs is the legacy of torture and trauma that so many of these refugees have endured. The soul can become just as empty.

The head of an international medical charity has called on aid agencies to stop presenting a misleading picture of the famine in Somalia and admit tha...

David Arap Kilel nearly stumbles up the hill of his slanted farm in pinstripe pants tucked into knee-high gum boots, wet despite the neighbouring dry fields. "I'm the first home in my community with irrigation!" he shouts breathlessly, waving calloused hands.

The World Food Program says it is expanding food distribution efforts in famine-ravaged Somalia, where the UN has estimated that only 20 ...

The celebrities' call to action on the famine in Somalia is welcome, but the bottom line is that these countries need sustained economic growth. Such strategies are not without risks, however. Businesses must not be permitted to abuse human rights. Foreign investment must not undermine sovereignty.

THE CANADIAN PRESS -- OTTAWA - As she sees images coming out of drought-stricken Africa this week, Rosemary McCarney is struck by a single thought. ...