[Maman] Abou — who owns Niger's biggest publishing house — has ample reason to be concerned about his safety. He's a free-speech crusader in a young African democracy where freedom of the press is not a guaranteed right. Death threats are not uncommon for him, and visits to jail frequent. Government thugs once shaved his head after he questioned election results. And his press — which prints a dozen opposition publications in addition to his anticorruption-crusading Le Reacute;publicain newspaper — was set afire in 1998. Abou's latest jailing was last year when he was held for four months on charges that he defamed the government and spread false information by suggesting that Niger had turned away from the West and toward Iran. But it's generally believed that his arrest — along with Le Republicain's editor in chief — was because of an expose of the theft of $8 million in European aid for education. (Christian Science Monitor, Tuesday)

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