JOHANNESBURG (AP)—Africa is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market and soon poised to have 735 million people using their phones for everything from transferring money to tracking animals for wildlife studies, an industry group said Wednesday.

Mobile penetration in Africa is now second only to Asia, according to the report by the industry group  Groupe Speciale Mobile Association. Its report found that subscriber levels have grown by almost 20 percent for each of the past five years, and the total is expected to hit 735 million by the end of 2012.

by Bjoern Amland

OSLO, Norway (AP)—The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three champions of women’s rights in Africa and the Middle East on Friday in an attempt to bolster the role of women in struggles to bring democracy to nations suffering from autocratic rule and civil strife.

RIGHTS CHAMPIONS—Africa’s first democratically elected female president, a Liberian peace activist and a woman who stood up to Yemen’s authoritarian regime won the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 7, for their work to secure women’s rights. Seen from left: Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (AP Photo)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee split the prize between Tawakkul Karman, a leader of anti-government protests in Yemen; Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to win a free presidential election in Africa; and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, who campaigned against the use of rape as a weapon in her country’s brutal civil war.

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP)—Human skulls taken from Namibia by German colonizers returned home Oct. 4 after more than 100 years, but the reconciliatory gesture instead has ignited anger and renewed demands that Germany pay for its sins in this corner of Africa where more than 60,000 people were killed.

Tuesday’s return of 20 skulls taken to Germany more than a century ago for racist experiments also has fueled anger about current injustices by a people decimated when they rebelled against German colonizers.

HOLOCAUST REMINDER—A skull from Germany on display in the city of Windhoek, Namibia, Oct 4. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)—Kenya's former president called her a mad woman. Seen as a threat to the rich and powerful, Wangari Maathai was beaten, arrested and vilified for the simple act of planting a tree, a natural wonder Maathai believed could reduce poverty and conflict.

WORKING FOR PEACE—In this Aug. 28, 2006 photo, Wangari Maathai, Noble Peace Laureate and conservation heroine, right, is seen with then-Sen. Barrack Obama in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo/Sayyid Abdul Azim, File)