Tanzania

By Kristen Saloomey in Americas on November 10th, 2010
Photo from EPA

The New York jury deliberating in the trial of accused embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has more than the defendant's fate in its hands. A guilty verdict, should there be one, is likely to revive the Obama administration's plans to try other Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts.

The US government contends Ghailani played a key role in the al-Qaeda plot to blow up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, the vast majority of whom were in Kenya's capital Nairobi, and injured thousands.

Ghailani was indicted shortly after the bombings, but it wasn't until 2004 – after the September 11th attacks - that US authorities caught up with him in Pakistan.

By Steve Chao in Americas on April 2nd, 2010
Al Jazeera photo

The wait was over. Four days. Five nights. A total whiteout blizzard.

Seemingly unending high winds, and finally, a perfect day for flying in the Arctic.

"Okay guys, let's go, I'll drive you," said Ozzie, short for The Wizard of Oz, as many call him in the northern town of Resolute Bay. 

His real name is Aziz Kheraj.

Kheraj is a business baron and the epitome of the Russian proverb, "who doesn’t risk, doesn’t drink champagne".

Following in the far north's tradition of people who've braved the extreme conditions to find fortune, he came to Canada from Tanzania in 1974 with only fifty dollars to his name, and worked his way northwards to Resolute.

Polar entrepreneur

The hotel, the South Camp Inn, where we had spent our last week trying to kill time, was his - along with several other ventures.

The cost for one night's stay? Two hundred and fifty dollars.

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