So rapper 50 Cent (accompanied by American journalists) was in Somalia and Kenya this week to visit people living in refugee camps displaced by the civil war with Islamic militants. Expect lots of ’50 in Somalia’ reports on US television. 50 Cent, who joins a long line of celebrities helping Africans (he is being touted as the 21st century celebrity humanitarian already) handed out food and danced with the children. He also had enough time to pose for what looks like a movie poster shot with children (above) and a soldier (below), and to promote his energy drink Street King. If his Facebook page receives 1 million “likes” by Sunday, 50 will donate an additional one million meals. And he’ll sell more Street King in the process. We’ve also learned something about Somalia in the process.

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.