BELA BELA, South Africa (AP) — The shantytown called Vingerkraal seems trapped in South Africa's apartheid past. Tin shacks resemble those hurriedly built by blacks evicted from white territory. Women and children are left on their own for most of the year by men working in faraway cities. Poverty lies tucked between game resorts.

NEW YORK (AP) — The massive earthquake that devastated Haiti two years ago prompted an outpouring of charitable donations and propelled a new way of giving — through text messages — into the public eye.

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — Tens of thousands of chanting and dancing revelers waved the green and gold colors of the African National Congress as Africa's oldest liberation movement celebrated its 100th anniversary Sunday, though many South Africans say the party hasn't delivered on its promises since taking power in 1994.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Terror attacks across Nigeria by a radical Muslim sect killed at least 39 people, with the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Even as the world changed around him, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il remained firmly in control, ruling absolutely at home and keeping the rest of the world on edge through a nuclear weapons program.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan started a five-day trip to Haiti on Sunday, arriving just ahead of fellow Chicagoan Oprah Winfrey as they make separate trips to the poor Caribbean country.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Three women who fought injustice, dictatorship and sexual violence in Liberia and Yemen accepted the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday, calling on repressed women worldwide to rise up against male supremacy.

HENLEY-ON-KLIP, South Africa (AP) — Mpumi Nobiva was raised by her grandmother in a neighborhood beset by poverty and crime after her mother died of AIDS. Now one of the first to graduate from Oprah Winfrey's school, she is headed to college in North Carolina.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Drawdown plans announced by the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations will shrink the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan by 40,000 troops at the close of next year, leaving Afghan forces increasingly on the frontlines of the decade-long war.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The youth leader of the governing African National Congress led thousands of young South Africans through the country's economic hub and on to the capital Thursday in a protest against poverty and joblessness, seizing an issue that transcends his political troubles with his party.