Pambazuka News 744: Dreams of cures: SDGs, oil and ICTs
Pambazuka News 744: Dreams of cures: SDGs, oil and ICTs
Kenya’s newly discovered oil is located in a part of the country marked by extreme poverty, high levels of illiteracy and insecurity primarily arising from years of neglect by successive governments. With the discovery of large water reserves as well, hopes in the region are high that life is set to improve for the people. But how can these dreams be realised?
The hugely unpopular failed coup in the land of Thomas Sankara represents a clash between retrogressive forces supporting the status quo and the popular struggles of determined citizens demanding an end to imperialist dominance of the country's public life by France and its allies. For more, watch Pambazuka's new video blog
Criticism of The Hague-based court as targeting African leaders at the behest of Western powers, and the relentless efforts by the Big Men to escape accountability for alleged crimes, seem to frustrate international justice. The ICC might appear to be weak but it still has the teeth to bite.
‘Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System’ is the must-read book for any person who cares about farmers and food. It is a book that must be read by all people who defend the rights of farmers and food sovereignty in Africa and around the globe.
September 25 marked the 4th anniversary of the death of Kenya's celebrated environmentalist and Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai. A tribute.
Pambazuka News 745: Celebrating the joys and costs of resistance
Pambazuka News 745: Celebrating the joys and costs of resistance
The South African Research Chair initiative (SARChI) in Applied Poverty Reduction Assessment is pleased to announce two new 2015 TrustAfrica / UKZN Post Doctoral Fellowships.
The theme for this year’s World Teachers Day is “Empowering teachers, building sustainable societies.” It is such a gratifying, highly motivating theme, demonstrating the seriousness with which the teaching profession needs to be taken. Without urgent attention to the state of this key profession in Africa – and globally – the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the just launched Sustainable Development Goals will not be achieved.
A committed revolutionary from his youth, Risquet led the Cuban delegation in the talks that resulted in the withdrawal of the apartheid army from southern Angola and the liberation of neighboring Namibia under settler-colonial occupation for a century. His last visit to Africa was in 2012 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Kwame Nkrumah’s death.
Although GMOs are widely grown in many parts of the world, the topic is fraught with contention in Europe. Many of EU countries have strict laws against GMOs out of public health and environmental concerns.
In May the ruling party claimed to have won an incredible 100 per cent of the seats in a country that has nearly 80 political parties that contested the elections. And the regime’s allies around the world keep churning out reports of rapid economic development – while turning a blind eye to the widespread repression by the dictatorship.
The report, drawing on a number of case studies, faults the criminal justice process at all stages: from lack of initial police follow up, inadequate investigation by prosecutors, to judges not enforcing proper procedure or sentencing in compliance with the law.
A lot has been achieved through the principled stand of the members of the shack-dwellers movement, with some of them paying the ultimate price for justice and freedom. Several other individuals and partner organisations have been an important part of the journey. The struggle continues.
When viewed in the overall historical context of the 300 years of free labour building Britain during the slavery and colonial period, the 400 million pounds UK is offering the Caribbean as presumably an alternative payment for reparations is simply laughable. There remains a case for reparatory justice.
The ANC has morphed from its earlier transition days as a ‘modern’ bourgeois political party designed to consolidate a class-based system of power overlaid with narrow racial interests to an inveterately factionalised, patronage-centred, corrupt, rent seeking and increasingly undemocratic ex-liberation movement.
South Africa’s shack dwellers movement was founded ten years ago by citizens frustrated by the ruling ANC’s failure to deliver the promises of democracy in the “new” nation. It has been a worthwhile struggle against a neo-liberal state that pays scant attention to needs of the majority poor Black people.
The ‘gurus’ of South Africa’s business education sector need to learn to be increasingly adaptable – making sense of uncertainty and managing complexity. The qualities of openness, empathy, integrity and self-awareness should replace harmful elitist posturing.
The October 2015 issue of the International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter (formerly the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter) is out. Find the full newsletter .
Israel has implemented a two-step plan to reduce the number “infiltrators” from Africa. The first step has been to stop the flow of asylum seekers into the country by constructing an expansive fence on the Egyptian border. Second, an old law has been updated to keep asylum seekers in detention without trial for a year. Additionally, refugees are being repatriated to third countries without consent.
Kenya is building huge infrastructural projects such as the Thika Highway and the Lamu Port. These have been accompanied by malpractice in construction, land grabs, displacements, environmental degradation with no or insufficient information to the public. The environmental impact assessments that should prevent such malpractices are ineffective.
Carter was an iconic black revolutionary from Los Angeles who made a notable contribution to Africa, Africans and oppressed humanity. We should remember him every October 12.
This November marks 40 years since Morocco invaded and colonized Western Sahara, today Africa’s last colony. Abba Malainin was only a child when he had to flee the war on foot through the desert to Algeria, to refugee camps where his family and thousands of other refugees still live today.
Despite happy noises made by the World Bank, status quo economists and other commentators, South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. A policy of growth-through-redistribution is certainly needed.
All well-meaning Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora must now rise up and join to return looted wealth that is stashed away abroad, and to fight grand corruption at home. It is time bring back decency in government and restore human dignity to the people.
As China’s growth begins to slow following decades of fast development, what are the impacts on the resource-rich countries whose economies recorded impressive growth thanks to high levels of export to China?
Pambazuka News 741: A deal with the Devil: Kiir, Kagame and Mandela
Pambazuka News 741: A deal with the Devil: Kiir, Kagame and Mandela
The South Sudan state is dysfunctional. Public institutions are weak, while the nation’s oil wealth benefits regional power brokers and local elites. Scavenging foreign profiteers and NGO types retained by the government have dug deep to protect their interests. Peace deals are not enough to heal the troubled young nation.
Aylan Kurdi is dead. Many other Aylan Kurdis remain. Our outrage at this callous death should drive us deeper into a politics that calls for a drawdown of the violence in Syria and for a serious peace process in Libya, that forces us to be resolute in our fight against IMF and NATO destruction of societies and states.
Many efforts to restore Somalia to stability have proved disastrous precisely because solutions are imposed from outside and do not reflect the realities of the country. Usually there are no mechanisms to involve the Somali people – only warlords, some elites and neighbouring nations are consulted.
Ghana has won the Africa Cup of Nations four times. Gyamfi, himself a very successful player, was coach of the national side in three of those wins. He is a legend.
An intelligence document has surfaced claiming that the white establishment through the private sector has a huge influence in the running of the National Treasury and that the history of this influence dates back to the early 1990s when the ANC and the white, apartheid-founding National Party were in negotiations. The white establishment felt it was too risky to leave the running of the government solely in the hands of the ANC.
Unlike the US or France, Canada is not a leading military force in Africa. But Ottawa exerts influence through a variety of means including training initiatives.
In Swaziland you can rarely find a company or government parastatal whose board of directors does not include a prince, princess, chief or the king’s business associate. It is an absolute monarchy where one’s opportunities and place in society are almost fully dependent on connections and willingness to comply with the decrees of King Mswati III.
The British Home Secretary seems to be working hard to end police brutality against Black people and other people of colour. But in reality, this is a political ploy that barely conceals her own deep hatred for Black people.
Carl Dix will be leading the #RiseUpOctober - STOP Police Terror & Murder, a mass mobilization in New York City, October 24, 2015. He has played a major role in exposing state-sponsored murder and mass incarceration of Black folks. Carl does not approach these issues from a theoretical perspective. He has experienced, first hand, the violence of occupation and the American empire.
By recovering and uncovering the links in theory and practice between democracy, human rights, and social justice, Professor Gould’s book opens a gateway into these connections in a way that reclaims democracy by refreshing its emancipatory promises.
Burkina Faso has a numerous laws, including a constitution, family and penal codes, and is party to international treaties, which protect the rights of women and girls. But enforcement of the law is a completely different story. A local organisation and its German partner are working hard to end FGM and other forms of violence against Burkinabe women and girls.
More than half a million objects are to be moved to a massive German museum now under construction. Many of these items were looted from Africa and now the argument justifying their continued holding in Germany is that they are shared global heritage. It is unacceptable.
The images of hundreds of thousands dislocated African Americans in public areas, buses and on warships awaiting removal illustrated the national oppressive and class contradictions within the world’s leading capitalist and imperialist state.
The renewed anti-corruption war in Nigeria will receive a big boost if the Buhari Administration considers examination malpractice as another battle to be won.
Drug trafficking is a global issue, and those responsible for it should be punished, but should those who use drugs for recreational purposes be punished? Does sending hundreds of small-time users to prison really help deal with the wider problem?
The final irony is that the regime’s oppression in Rwanda has proven so successful that the victims of the prevailing tyranny are the ones who call for its perpetuation.
The announcement by the government of Ontario, Canada, that it would introduce regulations to stop the much-maligned stop and search practices by the police is deceptive. No regulations will protect the rights and dignity of Black people and other people of colour who are often targeted. The practice should be stopped.
Sexual violence continues to increase in Somalia following the recent impeachment against the president, which caused political instability and a crackdown on IDPs around the capital city.
African civil society groups have expressed disappointed at the sudden, unexpected and unexplained cancellation of the Summit that was scheduled for Nairobi this week. They say Africa had high hopes and expectations that this Summit would have reinvigorated the APRM’s purpose, institutions and processes, and addressed the critical challenges facing APRM.
The power of ongoing peaceful student protests at Rhodes University is a reminder of the importance of rebuilding the African university by dismantling colonial legacies through acts of protest that provide an education counter to oppressive traditions.
President Salva Kiir eventually appended his signature on 26 August to the peace deal with his rival Riek Machar. The agreement is set to be debated and ratified by parliament. Will it bring an end to the complex crisis that has plagued Africa’s youngest nation for nearly two years?
The incumbent will be primarily responsible for the leadership, management, research programmes, fund-raising and networking responsibilities of the Centre for Civil Society.
Pambazuka News 742: #PunchBack: Resisting empire's war machine
Pambazuka News 742: #PunchBack: Resisting empire's war machine
Contributors should indicate their interest and focus of the selected piece by 15 September 2015. All full articles should be submitted by 15 October 2015.
The mass abuse of female university students in Nigeria is fueled by the lack of a consistent and clear policy by university governing bodies and school authorities concerning sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape of female students.
As a spokesperson for the South African Police Serivce, Colonel Naicker is expected to disseminate factually accurate information. But he he has conspicuously failed to do in his comments about the Glebelands violence. How on earth does SAPS expect anyone to take anything he says seriously given the disinformation he has disseminated about an extremely serious and tragic situation?
The extraordinary and still amazing bravery of the European explorers, facing unknown seas and geography with just scarce scientific tools for orientation and survival has been celebrated. It is an extraordinary demonstration of human determination. That same bravery is displayed by today’s migrants to Europe.
The numbers of unarmed Black youth murdered with impunity by state security agents in the US continue to rise. These killings demand a pan-African response. The African Union, which officially counts the Diaspora as its sixth region, ought to come out clearly and demand an end to these murders.
Jecinta Isei, aged 20, talks about the difficulties of refusing circumcision in her Maasai community, the implications of this harmful practice deeply rooted in various communities in Kenya and her fight to end it.
Large billboards at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport welcomed delegates with the beaming face of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the newly-elected Chairperson of the African Peer Review Mechanism Forum. Other costly marketing and logistical activities had already taken place. And then the Kenyan government announced it had cancelled the event.
The current situation involving massive deaths in the Mediterranean of those seeking refuge in Europe and the social restrictions and racist repression they are subjected to in the EU member-states warrants a response from the anti-war and social justice movements.
Is humanity predisposed to violence? We’ve allowed ourselves to be deceived by not only the military industrial complex, which profits from war, but also by all the major pillars of society: government, schools, media, and even churches, which tell us that violence is human nature.
Explosions from Agip pipelines and resultant deaths have been recorded since 1995 and have escalated in the last three years.
A binding international treaty that imposes human rights obligations on businesses would be a monumental step towards protecting peaceful assembly and association rights.
Two months before the talks in Paris begin, people across the globe will gather to make connections, plan mobilisations and fight climate change together.
Uganda is heading to presidential elections in March. The country seems to have hardly matured as its politicians are pre-occupied with their own interest and not that of the country and its people. Whether President Museveni retains power next year or the opposition unseats him, there is no hope that this state of affairs will change for the better.
Political succession remains a thorny issue especially in Africa, where presidents are reluctant to step down, and more so prevent the grooming of qualified successors. To understand why peaceful and democratic transition is often elusive in many countries, it is useful to explore the reasons underlying the reluctance of leaders to hand over power.
The World Trade Organisation, controlled by a new empire that still disfavors the Global South, broadens the gap between influential and developing nations. With a neocolonial system implicitly in place, if small and middle-sized countries do not 'follow the rules' as dictated by the Big and Powerful nations, then they are subjected to sanctions. Sanctions are acts of war.
Any Left-wing party that comes to power in Namibia, Zimbabwe or any peripheral country today would be in the exact same position as Syriza: It would lack the political and economic power to bring about radical changes. The reality of a global system policed by imperialism makes it impossible for poor countries to break with capitalism and to begin to build socialism.
South African politicians have promised better housing and the sinister-sounding “slum eradication” for years. Undocumented, unreliable and famously corrupt, these promises have failed to pull slum populations into legal, decent government-provided housing. The landless have no option but to occupy public land.
Pambazuka News Team is pleased to announce to its readers and supporters the launch of a new video blog called #PunchBack.
#PunchBack provides comment and analysis of current affairs from a pan-Africanist perspective.
We invite our readers to watch #PunchBack, share the vlog, engage with the issues raised and share your views with us.
A new post of #PunchBack will appear every two weeks in the Comments & Analysis section of your newsletter.
Welcome!
Guyana’s new government has refused to allow the Commission a final two weeks to finalise the investigation for clearly political reasons. Guyanese and people around the world need and deserve a completed inquiry into this atrocity.
The September 2015 issue of the International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter (formerly the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter) is out. Find the full newsletter .
Pambazuka News 740: 'Africa rising' as refugees die fleeing to Europe
Pambazuka News 740: 'Africa rising' as refugees die fleeing to Europe
A global committee of activists campaigning for justice for the acclaimed South American intellectual has raised questions about the commitment of the Government of Guyana to let a commission of inquiry set up for the purpose run its course. The committee is concerned that there could be a sinister plot to derail the inquiry.
Haiti’s 9 August election was a sham. Although the popular Fanmi Lavalas party of ousted President Jean Betrand Aristide was allowed to contest after 11 years, the ruling party of the Western-backed despot Martelly hired armed goons who disrupted the election throughout the country. There are fears about what will happen during presidential elections next month.
Having successfully advocated for US-led NATO wars in Libya and Syria "to stop the next Rwanda," Power has her sights set on the tiny, impoverished East African nation of Burundi, which has a highly geostrategic border with the resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Three years after the arbitrary executions of nine prisoners in The Gambia, there is still no response for the families. No one knows where the bodies are, whether they were buried or the motive for the extra-judicial killings that shocked the world.
Governments across Africa are obsessed with foreign direct investment. Yet every year the continent losses billions of dollars through illegal financial outflows connected with FDI. More money is lost through legal transfers of super-profits and foreign investors are responsible for distorting national economies.
Isn’t it a strange paradox that the death of a lion in Zimbabwe galvanizes global solidarity, whereas poor human beings fleeing misery and death are viewed with utter contempt? What is yet to enter the public discourse is the West’s complicity for the circumstances that generate refugees in the first place.
Canadian policy in Africa can be summed up in nine words: Do what is good for Canadian-owned mining companies.
The Mangrove Association, bringing together over 100 communities in El Salvador, has sought to create an egalitarian society where local democracy and environmental stewardship are key principles.
There is little doubt that Africa’s fortunes have improved considerably in recent years, although poverty, inequality and resource theft remain widespread. Leaders like Obama who have pledged to support Africa should openly fight the entrenched marginalisation of the continent at global decision-making fora.
The local organizing committee for the August national congress was driven by private gain, abuse of rules set by the global Pan African Movement secretariat and proceeded contrary to the legitimate and moral expectations of Pan African ideals.
President Buhari seems to have embarked on the war against endemic corruption with gusto. His recent appointment of a special advisory anti-graft team of respected Nigerians has met with approval. To truly lead from the front, the president ought to publicly declare his wealth and make other top officials in his administration do the same.
Across South Africa today, women are still often the victims of human rights violations, despite their rich historical and present contributions to public life. Clearly, democracy’s unconscious choices has not radically altered Apartheid’s conscious policy choices.
The people of Mozambique are resisting the controversial agricultural development programme ProSavana, fearing it will cause environmental degradation and social displacement. Protest is targeting the neoliberal model of development that fails to spread benefits beyond elites and investors and instead deepens poverty and exploitation.