This is our new Friday Digest! Every Friday, this weekly news round-up gives us the occasion to share with you news from various topics: politics to arts, entertainment, media, science, sports, fun and less fun news… This digest is a list of news published this week on the Internet (Friday to Friday), selected by the Sama Team, and it is by no means exhaustive.

If you want to suggest a news to be added in the next Friday Digest, contact us.

Hundreds killed as battle for Ivory Coast turns streets into war zones
Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara took control of state-run television and attacked the residence of Laurent Gbagbo on Friday as Ivory Coast’s bloody, four-month battle for political power appeared to enter its final stages. Artillery and mortars joined the cacophony of gunfire Friday in Abidjan, the nation’s commercial center and largest city, witnesses said. French and United Nations troops beefed up their presence…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/01/ivory.coast.unrest/index.html

Cashing in on growing interest in African art
Last year, Osei Kofi, a journalist and an international art dealer, made a pretty return on a piece of painting he had collected from Gallery Watatu some years back when the space was still active. The Tinga Tinga piece auctioned in Paris alongside several others thrust East African art at an international level, attracting attention from dealers who knew little about the artists from the region. This, among other reasons…
http://www.africareview.com/Arts+and+Culture/Demand+for+African+art+
opens+doors+at+Watatu/-/979194/1137160/-/5mn91m/-/

Mission Accomplished, Nonprofits Go Out of Business
A few nonprofit groups have recently announced plans to wind down, not over financial problems but because their missions are nearly finished. Most notable, perhaps, is Malaria No More, a popular nonprofit that supplies bed nets in malaria zones. Its goal is to end deaths from malaria, a target it sees fast approaching. The charity has announced plans to close in 2015, but it is keeping its options open in the unlikely event…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/business/02charity.html

Who is Saif al-Islam Gadhafi?
Once thought to be a leading reformer inside the Libyan government, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi has emerged as one of his father’s most visible defenders. Saif, 38, has never lived a day in which his father Moammar didn’t rule Libya — as its undisputed leader inside the country and an enigmatic, controversial voice for the world. And yet, as the Libyan government faced a stiff popular uprising, it was Moammar Gadhafi’s second-eldest son…
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/01/libya.saif.gadhafi/index.html

Japan Nuclear Leak: Radioactive Water Continues Pouring Into The Sea
Engineers pinned their hopes on chemicals, sawdust and shredded newspaper to stop highly radioactive water pouring into the ocean from Japan’s tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant Sunday as officials said it will take several months to bring the crisis under control, the first time they have provided a timetable. Concrete already failed to stop the tainted water spewing from a crack in a maintenance pit, and the new mixture did not…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/03/japan-nuclear-leak-radioactive-water_n_844184.html

China Takes Dissident Artist Into Custody
 The Chinese authorities on Sunday detained Ai Weiwei, a high-profile artist and stubborn government critic, as he tried to board a plane for Hong Kong, his friends and associates said. Mr. Ai’s wife, his nephew and a number of his employees were also taken into custody during a raid on his studio on the outskirts of the capital. Rights advocates say the detentions are an ominous sign that the Communist Party’s six-week crackdown…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04china.html

President Obama’s Re-election Bid: the $1 Billion Candidate?
President Obama is on the verge of making a very important announcement — one that we all probably could have predicted — that he wants to keep his job as leader of the free world. Obama is expected to send an e-mail message to supporters as early as next week and file his official papers with the Federal Election Commission, effectively announcing his re-election bid, unidentified Democratic officials who are familiar with…
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-set-announce-election-bid/story?id=13283111

Plane crash in Congo takes the life of Dr. Boubacar Toure
The International Rescue Committee is profoundly saddened to confirm that Dr. Boubacar Toure, our senior reproductive health advisor in Congo, was among those who died in a United Nations plane crash today in Kinshasa. Dr. Toure, 63 and a native of Guinea, was an internationally recognized leader in the maternal health field and was deeply committed to reversing high levels of maternal mortality in Congo and other countries…
http://www.rescue.org/news/plane-crash-congo-takes-life-dr-boubacar-toure-10564

Fears hit all things Japanese
In times of crisis, fears run faster than facts. That axiom has never been truer than the aftermath of the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the ongoing drama at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. And every new headline with the words “radioactive” only heighten those fears, like news that crews at the damaged plant are now dumping thousands of tons of radioactive water into the sea. To be sure, the news is troubling…
http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/05/irrational-fear-hits-all-things-japanese

Radioactivity in sea up 7.5 million times
Radioactive iodine-131 readings taken from seawater near the water intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s No. 2 reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit, Tokyo Electric Power Co. admitted Tuesday. The sample that yielded the high reading was taken Saturday, before Tepco announced Monday it would start releasing radioactive water into the sea, and experts fear the contamination may spread well beyond Japan’s…
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110405x1.html

Teen study: 5 or more drinks a day, no biggie
Downing five or more alcoholic drinks nearly every day isn’t seen as a big problem for many of the nation’s teens, says a new report. When asked if they see “great risk” in drinking that much, almost half the teens questioned – 45 percent – didn’t see it as a big deal. The study being released Wednesday by The Partnership at Drugfree.org also showed upward trends in marijuana and Ecstasy use among young people in grades 9…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEENS_ALCOHOL

TweetDeck Launches #NewTwitter Rival
After the success of its Chrome web app, TweetDeck is launching a full-fledged web app, which should pose major competition to both Twitter and Seesmic. According to a blog post, TweetDeck Web is built on the same core as Chrome TweetDeck and features a similar UI and product features. Unfortunately, TweetDeck Web does not include Twitter streaming. The reason why TweetDeck, which makes a massively popular desktop Twitter…
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/tweetdeck-launches-newtwitter-rival/

Hydrogen buildup spurs more concern at Japanese nuclear plant
Engineers began injecting non-flammable nitrogen into the No. 1 reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday to counter a buildup of potentially explosive hydrogen, the plant’s owner reported. The Tokyo Electric Power Company said the danger of another hydrogen explosion, like the one that blew the roof and upper walls off the reactor building in March, was “extremely low.” But it warned that more hydrogen…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html