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.

UN launches competition to design memorial to victims of slavery
30 September 2011 – The committee tasked with building a permanent memorial at the United Nations to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade today launched a global competition for the design of the structure to remind the world that millions of Africans were violently removed from their homelands, abused and robbed of their dignity. The UN Educational, Scientific and…

U.S. officials warn of possible retaliation after al Qaeda cleric is killed
The killings Friday of alleged terrorists cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and computer expert Samir Khan could spark retaliatory attacks against the United States, according to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The agencies issued a joint intelligence bulletin late Friday that said supporters might seek to portray al-Awlaki as a martyr in a supposed U.S. war against Islam. It says the deaths…

Gunmen seize French woman in Kenya, take her to Somalia
A French woman seized in northern Kenya was taken to Somalia by her captors after a sea battle to rescue her failed, Kenyan government officials said. Gunmen snatched the woman early Saturday from her holiday home in Manda Island, close to where a Briton was abducted and her husband killed last month. They were “10 heavily armed Somali bandits suspected to be al-Shabaab operatives” from Ras Kamboni…

Two leaders of Women of Zimbabwe Arise in Jail
Two leaders of Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu have now spent nine days at Mlondolozi Prison near Bulawayo after their arrest on September 21. On September 23 they were remanded in custody until October 6, on charges of kidnap and theft, and the following day an urgent application for bail was lodged with the High Court. A week later the Court is yet to set down a date for the…

Amanda Knox Freed After Appeal in Italian Court
A court here overturned the homicide convictions of the American college student Amanda Knox and her Italian co-defendant on Monday and ordered them freed after nearly four years in prison, ending a sensationally lurid trial of murder and rough sex that had made Ms. Knox notorious on both sides of the Atlantic. An appellate court jury of eight Italians, which included two judges, delivered their verdict after…

Apple unveils faster, more powerful iPhone
Apple Inc. unveiled a faster, more powerful iPhone on Tuesday in its first major product event in years without Steve Jobs presiding. New CEO Tim Cook led the show after Jobs, who has been battling health problems, resigned from the post in August. Cook, wearing a navy blue button-down shirt and jeans, opened by calling his nearly 14-year tenure at Apple “the privilege of a lifetime.” Those in the audience clapped…

Guyana president suspends television station
Guyanese president Bharrat Jagdeo has suspended television station CNS6 from broadcasting for four months in the period leading up to the presidential elections, according to local news reports. The suspension stemmed from a May 4 broadcast that aired comments about a local bishop who is a close associate of the president, news reports said. “We are alarmed that President Bharrat Jagdeo has decided…

Three women rights activists share Nobel Peace Prize
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is divided between three women, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, the Nobel committee in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, announced Friday. The women were awarded the prize “for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work,” the committee said. “We cannot achieve…