Three plainclothes Kenyan police officers, lightly armed and wearing no bulletproof vests, helmets or other protective gear, worked their way to the roof of Nairobi's Westgate Mall and led a group of frightened shoppers to safety.

An unknown number of hostages are still being held by gunmen at a Kenyan mall, after an attack that killed 39 and injured dozens, including a New Zealander.

Terrified shoppers, including one reported New Zealander, huddled in back hallways and prayed the militant gunmen lobbing grenades and firing assault rifles inside Nairobi's top mall would not find them.

Last May, with considerable trepidation, I wrote an article about what seemed to be extraordinarily high rates of rape in Africa.

Childhood death rates have halved since 1990 but an estimated 6.6 million children under the age of five died last year, the U.N. children's agency said.