From CNN, but secrets buried in Djenne could be lost forever as antiquities are being plundered and sold to international art dealers.

From The Christian Science Monitor, villagers enlisted as informants maintain watch in markets and their hamlets.

From BBC, heavy rains in Mali destroy almost 200 old mud buildings in the desert city of Timbuktu amid fears of more flooding.

Archeological project in Jenné-jeno, Mali.

African rice (Oryza glaberrima) was an important staple for peoples across much of West Africa. Favoured for its resistance to drought, disease, and pests, its cultivation has spread during the past 1000 years and more, over broad regions of western Africa.

In Mali, on the cliffs inhabited by the Dogon, an ethnoarchaeologist and a cameraman participated in the reduction of iron ore.