Mauritania Feature: A Country Shackled by Slavery? (Mark)

A CNN report from March 2012

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In 1981 Mauritania became the last country to abolish slavery, although it was only criminalised in 2007. Officials repeatedly denied it existed and refused to talk to the Guardian about slavery. But activists and former slaves speak of a centuries-old practice, a relic of the trans-Sahara slave trade when Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, flourishing in remote outposts of this vast desert country.

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Nigeria Feature: How Subsidy Cuts Led to Strike, Protests, and Deaths (Mark)

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Every previous government's attempt to remove the subsidy, which funnels a quarter of the £15.5bn annual government budget to a well-connected cartel of fuel importers, has floundered amid mass protests. Many see the subsidy as a rare opportunity to share in the nation's oil riches, whose 2m barrels per day industry has failed to lift the vast majority of citizens out of extreme poverty. In 2003, there were eight days of strikes when the government attempted to increase fuel prices.

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