Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa. 
Features
RSS FeedA mother's fears for her lesbian daughter
Akinyi M. Ocholla
2012-03-15, Issue 576
cc T MA mother is not easily convinced that her daughter is okay in the head when she admits to being gay. She thinks that there must be some underlying psychological and emotional problems.
The Ethiopian LGBT community
Elyas Mulu Kiros
2012-03-15, Issue 576
cc F MIt has been reported frequently that clandestine homosexual groups exist in Addis Abeba, many of whom lead double lives, since being openly gay or lesbian could cost them their lives.
President Obiang and kleptocrats in Africa
Uche Igwe
2012-03-14, Issue 576
cc E E GAfrica’s greedy rulers have looted the immense resources of their own countries, leaving the people poor and desperate. The continent’s people must rise up and hold the rulers to account through proper governance mechanisms that will ensure transparent management of national resources.
Lamu Port may slow down sustainable development
Erick Komolo
2012-03-15, Issue 576
cc C MThe notion that modern day development is achievable purely through mega projects is perhaps misplaced as it ignores the place of technology and, for Africa, the contribution of ‘small’ industries at this stage in achieving sustainable industrialisation.
Remembering General Ojukwu
Conversation with my stream of consciousness
Cameron Duodu
2012-03-15, Issue 576
© Wikipedia‘We’ve agreed to so many things before – but it’s always in the implementation that we get bogged down.’
Ojukwu: Did they notice his simplicity?
Uchenna Osigwe
2012-03-15, Issue 576
cc E PBiafra secessionist leader Odumegwu Ochuku has left a legacy for a new generation of Nigerians who must now see personal sacrifice as a prerequisite for public service.
The downside of the Kony 2012 video
What Jason did not tell Gavin and his army of invisible children
Mahmood Mamdani
2012-03-13, Issue 575
cc K-IA 30-minute documentary about Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony has been watched by tens of millions online. But will this mobilization of millions be subverted into yet another weapon in the hands of those who want to militarize the region further?
Pan Africanists and the International Criminal Court
What lessons for the future of peace and justice?
Horace Campbell
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc IRIN PhotosPan Africanists must take the lead to ensure that those who commit genocidal violence and crimes against humanity are tried in the court of public opinion and isolated in every way.
Angola: Diamond extraction and crimes against humanity
Rafael Marques de Morais
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc Wikimedia'How can profitable diamond mining, in a peaceful country with such a fast-growing economy, become the source of so much violence?'
Would Obasanjo recognise peace if he saw it?
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc WikimediaFormer Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo was a poor choice to mediate the Senegalese election crisis and the voters wasted no time in throwing him out.
Sweatshop Sugar
Labour exploitation in South Africa’s cane fields
Jason Hickel
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc S N MThe 74,000 agricultural workers who plant, weed and harvest hundreds of thousands of acres of cane are mostly not unionised. They work in extremely dangerous conditions with very little by way of rights and protections. Until recently, they didn’t even enjoy a minimum wage.
The politics of language in Cameroon
Peter Wuteh Vakunta
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc WikimediaIs Cameroon's language policy integrating the nation, as it was intended to do? Or is the approach to language threatening to tear the country apart?
Back to the Future? Securitising the South African State
Dale T. McKinley
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc ER24 EMSBy merging domestic and foreign intelligence, the new Bill raises the unenviable spectre of the all-powerful apartheid-era Bureau of State Security – and not without good reason.
Kenyan sex workers cause a stir in Nairobi
Denis Nzioka
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc S RA key message the marchers wanted to pass across was the problem of stigma and discrimination they face in their lives and work. These include challenges in accessing health, legal, medical and social services.
RIP Jean Ristil Jean-Baptiste
The people’s journalist of Haiti: 12.12.1981 - 25.2.2012
Sokari Ekine
2012-03-08, Issue 574
© The Haitian BloggerThe young journalist was not only devoted to his work but also to the community and the whole nation of Haiti. Those who were close to him remember Jean Ristil as courageous, humble and socially conscious.
Uganda: Acholi face second genocide with U.S. troops in
Ann Garrison
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc US ArmyA vicious land grab is being carried out in Uganda, pairing the country’s dictator with an ‘investor,’ and the targets are the Acholi, genocide survivors who live on abundant, fertile and mineral-rich land.
The challenges of building a caring society
Douglas Mthukwane
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc M OIs the liberation struggle over? If not, what are we fighting? And how can we build a caring society?
The lessons of 2011
Transcending the old, fostering the new, and settling accounts
Kali Akuno
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc B N FAs the power struggle between capital and the working class intensifies over whom and how the economic crisis will be resolved, the working class would do well to recall the lessons of 2011 and build on them.
Stratfor: And it gets worse
Khadija Sharife
2012-03-08, Issue 574
cc E IStratfor - as evidenced by their own content - is neither a politically nor ideologically neutral intelligence agency.
Why the Africa UNiTE campaign?
Muhanji Alexandriah
2012-03-07, Issue 573
cc E VThe Africa UNiTE Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Girls aims to create a favorable and supportive environment for governments, in partnership with civil society experts, to be able to fulfill existing policy commitments.
Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink
Helplessness and hope in using the law to combat violence against women
Osai Ojigho
2012-03-07, Issue 573
cc H IIt is necessary to implement legislation to address violence against women in Africa. Yet women must tread the fine line between cultural expectations and legal systems that often deny them justice.
What way forward for African Protocol for Women’s Rights?
Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
2012-03-07, Issue 573
cc UN PhotoEnding gender-based violence will mean changing cultural concepts about masculinity. This includes recognition of the importance of active engagement of men and women at all levels, whether they are policy makers, parents, spouses or young boys and girls.
International Day for Women: Women as peacemakers
Rene Wadlow
2012-03-07, Issue 573
cc J HIt is only when women start to organise in large numbers that we become a political force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society in which every human being can be brave, responsible, thinking, and diligent in the struggle to live at once freely and unselfishly.
Economic governance: African Women's Engagement in Trade Agreements
FEMNET
2012-03-07, Issue 573
The Economic Governance documentary was produced by FEMNET with support from Trust Africa. It highlights some of the challenges African women traders experience (especially Kenya, Egypt, Zambia, Rwanda & Uganda). It also captures some the best practices that gender lobby groups or governments at regional and national levels are using to successfully mainstream gender in trade arrangements as well as the gaps that hinder mainstreaming of gender in trade agreements.
Daring to Invent the Future: The Friends of Pambazuka are Gathering!
Firoze Manji
2012-03-01, Issue 572
What do Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Japan, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA have in common?
Drumbeats of war: Israel’s dangerous brinkmanship
Horace Campbell
2012-03-01, Issue 572
cc I D FThe Obama administration has been complicit in the support for the expansionist policies of Israel. In this current economic and financial crisis a war with Iran will not only be about Iran: It will have global implications.
Solidarity and its discontents
Raha Iranian Feminist Collective
2012-02-29, Issue 572
cc M PActs of solidarity across borders must be based on building relationships with activists in disparate locations, understanding the different issues and conditions of struggle various movements face, and on exchanges of support among grassroots activists rather than governments.
How mediator sidetracked the opposition in Senegal
On the Obasanjo-led AU-ECOWAS election observer mission
Hawa Ba
2012-02-29, Issue 572
cc F EIt can be argued that the opposition was the main looser in the so-called mediation initiative by former Nigerian President Obasanjo. Obasanjo also kept M23 busy enough to abandon street demonstrations that had become a daily occurrence.
London Conference strips Somalian sovereignty
Mohamud M. Uluso
2012-02-29, Issue 572
cc F C ODonor nations and regional partners gathered in London last week for a British-sponsored conference. The results are unlikely to solve the Somalian quagmire.
Kenya: Outlawed group calls for secession
Kisiangani Emmanuel and Lulu Saida
2012-02-29, Issue 572
cc WikimediaThe whole issue mirrors the contradictory relationship between the right to self-determination as enshrined in international law and the principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity.