Bad Day at the Magic Charm School

Abidjan, Ivory Coast - Pascal Gbah,49, a colonel and electronics engineer in the Ivory Coast army, was fatally wounded by gunfire on 24 August as he tested a "magic" belt supposedly with powers to protect him from bullets. He died on the spot near the western town of Aboisso after being hit by a bullet fired from his own service pistol by a 20-year-old son of the magic belt's maker. Gbah's cousin Andre Gondo, who made the belt, insisted that its protective powers were real, provided one abstained from sex while wearing it. Gbah is survived by a wife and six children. An army spokesman said Gondo had been arrested, but that his son was on the run.