LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Burkina Faso
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Burkina Faso was originally inhabited by the Bobo, Lobi, and Gurunsi peoples, with the Mossi and Gurma peoples immigrating to the region in the 14th century. The lands of the Mossi empire became a French protectorate in 1897, and by 1903 France had subjugated the other ethnic groups. Called Upper Volta by the French, it became a separate colony in 1919, was partitioned among Niger, the Sudan, and Côte d'Ivoire in 1932, and was reconstituted in 1947. An autonomous republic within the French Community, Upper Volta became independent on Aug. 5, 1960.
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The history of Upper Volta (the name of Burkina Faso until 1984) has always been conditioned by the colonial strategies of France, which occupied it militarily at the beginning of the last century. In 1960 it became an independent territory: from then on, for about thirty years, elections and coups d'état followed one another in rapid succession, with the coup d'état led by the revolutionary T. Sankara standing out. He took power in 1982 and initiated a process to improve health and fight illiteracy. Assassinated a few years later, he was replaced by B. Campaoré, who opened up the country to private initiative and foreign capital and began a process of democratization which led to the new constitution of 1991, inaugurating the division of power and a multi-party system. However, these institutional innovations have never corresponded with adequate technological and economic growth, in one of the poorest countries in the world: in Burkina Faso, there are practically no savings, the population uses kerosene for lighting and wood as a source of domestic energy, a need which obviously does not fight the progressive desertification of the territory. The main resources remain farming and livestock raising, whilst the mineral resources remain the prerogative of foreign interests.
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Dakar - A meningitis outbreak that has claimed at least 52 lives in Burkina Faso by mid-month has spread to three other West African countries, the United Nation's disaster relief agency has announced. A spike
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According to the Ethnologue, there are over 60 living languages and dialects spoken in Burkina Faso, though the predominant ones are Mooré, Fulfuldé, and Jula. Despite being one of Burkina Faso's official languages, French is spoken by less than 1% of the population. The national literacy rate averages 19.2%.
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Project Silverback marks another example of the dynamic UNIDO-Microsoft partnership, following the signing of an extension to their memorandum of understanding in June 2007, in Burkina Faso. It builds on work that has so far focused on reducing the cost of access to technology through the use of refurbished PCs and providing digital services in Uganda through District Business Information Centres.
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There are a number of wild animals in Burkina Faso, including elephants, hippopotamuses, buffalo, antelope, monkeys, and crocodiles. Harmful insects include the malaria-carrying mosquito and the tsetse fly, which infects people with sleeping sickness (see Trypanosomiasis) and livestock with a disease called nagana.
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Burkina Faso