Pambazuka News 569: The on-going challenge of self dermination
Pambazuka News 569: The on-going challenge of self dermination
The bill prohibits any kind of community or political organising around sexuality in Uganda, criminalises advocacy and support for the rights of homosexual Ugandans and prohibits any public discussion of homosexuality.
Former Liberian rebel leader George Boley is to be deported from the US over his role in the West African country's civil war in the 1990s. A US judge said evidence that the ex-Liberian Peace Council leader had been involved in killings and recruited children was grounds for his removal. Mr Boley, who has been in custody for two years, denies the accusations.
The collection of spirited essays issues a trenchant and timely challenge to the widespread assumption that the Arab Spring can be understood in splendid isolation from the rest of Africa.
People are beginning to search beyond political parties for solutions. The youth are doubtful even of old style community organisations and are now exploring new forms of activism and new vehicles for change.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has deployed its workers to assist some 20,000 people forced to flee fighting between government troops and rebel Tuareg groups in Mali. In a statement, made available to PANA in New York, it said that, 'most of those uprooted by the violence in the Azawad region of northern Mali that began in mid-January have fled to Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania'.
Thousands of children in Nigeria's northern Zamfara state need immediate medical treatment, while dozens of villages remain contaminated two years into the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. According to official estimates, 400 children have died, yet environmental cleanup efforts have not even begun in numerous affected villages. Artisanal gold mines are found throughout Zamfara State, and high levels of lead in the earth and the use of rudimentary mining methods have resulted in an epidemic of lead poisoning among children, HRW said.
Human Rights Watch has hailed Mali's plan to probe child labour in gold mines. 'Our research found that children in Mali start working as young as six years old. Many child laborers are denied an education or drop out of school. Some children come to the mines without their parents and suffer economic or sexual exploitation,' HRW said in a letter to the Minister of Mines, Amadou Cisse.
Nigeria’s military has harassed and obstructed journalists trying to report on unrest in recent days, according to local journalists and news reports. On Sunday in the city of Jos, in Nigeria’s north central region, soldiers detained Jeremie Drieu, a videographer with French television station TF1, and local journalist Ahmad Salkida after they sought permission to film in the area, The Associated Press reported. The Nigerian federal government has been enforcing a state of emergency in Jos following bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians that have claimed the lives of at least two journalists, according to CPJ research.
Solange Lusiku Nsimire is editor-in-chief and publisher of the independent newspaper Le Souverain in her hometown Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province in eastern Congo, one of the most troubled regions of the DRC. It is a small and crusading newspaper devoted to promotion of democracy and women in a country where abuses against democracy and against women are too often the norm. On 2 February Lusiku had been awarded a prestigious honorary doctorate degree at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), a tribute to her courage as a journalist and women's rights defender.
Burundi, one of Africa's most corrupt countries, has arrested a prominent anti-graft activist after he alleged judges were forced to pay bribes before being appointed, the campaigner's lawyer said. Faustin Ndikumana, head of the Burundi advocacy group PARCEM, told a news conference last week he had written to Justice Minister Pascal Barandagiye alleging that newly-appointed judges had told his organisation they were asked to pay between $1,000 and $1,500 in return for employment.
Nineteen people were killed in the country’s cholera outbreak last year. More than 300 people cases were reported, and an epidemic was declared on 30 September 2011. Though neighbouring countries, including Cameroon, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have experienced outbreaks over the past decade, the Central African Republic had not seen a cholera case in as many as a dozen years. Today, the cholera outbreak is finally on the decline.
The charcoal trade, referred to as 'black gold' by Kampala traders, has become more profitable than the forests where trees are being indiscriminately cut down for charcoal-burning. For the rural population, charcoal trade is an opportunity to earn an income. According to the National Forest Authority (NFA), more than 73,000 hectares of private forest are cleared every year across the country and over 7,000ha of protected forest reserves are destroyed annually for timber and charcoal.
Côte d’Ivoire’s leprosy programme was consistently under-funded during the civil war (2002-2007) and last year’s political turmoil, say health practitioners, leading to a loss of expertise in terms of detecting or treating the disease. Not considered a public health priority, the government and donors de-prioritized the leprosy fight over the past decade, with funding dropping to 30 per cent of the original total, according to Alain de Kersabiec, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin representative for French NGO the Follereau Foundation (FRF), which helps treat existing and new leprosy patients around the country.
With global funding for HIV/AIDS on the decline, Zimbabwe's innovative AIDS levy - a 3 percent tax on income - has become a promising source of funding for the country, with a dramatic increase in revenue collected in the past two years. The levy was introduced in 1999 to compensate for declining donor support, but low salaries and the poor performance of industry meant not enough money had been collected - until recently. According to recently published audited financial statements for the year ending 31 December 2010, a total of US$20.5 million was collected in 2010 against $5.7 million the previous year.
A tribute
This Amnesty International briefing shows that the governments whose exported military equipment have over the years turned up at the site of serious human rights violations in Darfur - including Belarus, the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation - continue to supply those kinds of equipment to Sudan on a regular basis. The main ‘suite’ of arms used in Darfur by all parties to the conflict has been supplied to Sudan by this key group of state suppliers almost every year since the UN Security Council (UN SC) imposed an UN arms embargo on Darfur on 30 July 2004.
The local authorities in Namacurra in Zambezia Province, Mozambique are appealing for urgent humanitarian assistance following the tropical cyclone Funso which hit the coastal areas of the province in the districts of Nicoadala, Pebane, Maganja da Costa, Namacurra, Quelimane and Chinde last month. Pedro Fazenda Sapange, the administrator for Namacurra district Red Cross, said that the slow response may lead to starvation and disease outbreaks. 'There is a serious need for food assistance, as most families lost their crops to the cyclone and floods. So far we have seen people prematurely harvesting their cassava which they normally harvest in June and July.'
The 2012 World Development Report (WDR) is a watershed moment: it is the first time that the World Bank, the world’s largest and most influential development institution, has devoted its flagship publication to gender. Kate Bedford of the University of Kent argues that the report leaves the Bank failing to face up to its role in perpetuating policies that harm women, and is seriously limited in its approach to women’s movements, markets, and households.
Since 2001, the Bank has led an expansive programme to increase transparency and stimulate economic growth in the DRC’s mining sector. However, opaque sales of mining assets by state-owned mining companies led the Bank to suspend all new programmes in the DRC in late 2010. The Bank resumed lending in June last year when it judged the government to be in compliance. However, only a month later it came to light that state-owned mining companies had again been secretly selling stakes in mining operations, in one case at a sixteenth of their market price.
A Guinean court has filed charges against a top army officer over the killing of scores of protesters and mass rape of women during a 2009 demonstration against military rule, rights groups said. Colonel Moussa Tiegboro Camara, secretary of state in charge of fighting organised crime, is the highest-level official yet to be charged over the massacre, one of bloodiest events in the West African state's history.
South African recipients of money from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) have pleaded with the health minister to intervene as they continue to wait for overdue funds. Failure to do so will see several programmes closing and people losing their jobs. The groups, including Soul City and the Treatment Action Campaign, were due to receive payments from the Global Fund in July 2011 and January 2012 as part of Round 6. None have materialised.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) says it’s ready to litigate against the Gauteng Health Department should it not clear its outstanding debt to suppliers. The TAC adds that the closure of health laboratories in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal has severely impacted on people who are HIV-positive and those with TB. Chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign, Nonkosi Khumalo says the closure of health laboratory services impacts on patients on Anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) and those who need to be tested for TB. Blood tests are not being done due to the closures. Khumalo says some health care facilities are unable to initiate new patients on ARV treatment because they can’t get their blood tests to laboratories.
Mining companies' branding of themselves as bringers of development needs to be critically examined against the burgeoning 'resource curse' literature that links mining to deepening national impoverishment in mining-dependent developing countries
This is a brief narrative of the power struggles between the president and his own party since the establishment of a multiparty system in 1991. It features deployment of constitutional coups, patronage and legal measures to address such internal rifts, as well as the consequences that reverberate today.
Greenpeace announced in Brussels recently that annual industry figures to be released early next week are expected to confirm the commercial failure of genetically modified (GM) food in Europe. Widespread public opposition and environmental concerns expressed by several European governments, scientists and farmers have made GM food a commercial flop in Europe, said Greenpeace. Only Spain saw a noticeable rise in cultivation in 2012, slightly increasing overall figures for Europe after three consecutive years of decline.
According to a recent report by the Oakland Institute, 'Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa: South Sudan', a large influx of one-sided foreign investment has flooded into South Sudan. These unfair land deals undermine the land rights of rural communities, increase food insecurity, further entrench poverty, and might result in skewed development patterns in South Sudan. One case studied by the report involves an Egyptian equity firm, Citadel Capital.
Stereotyping can become the only reference point or source of knowledge about the other people. The prejudice we hold against someone else can end up limiting our ability to know more about the stranger.
The exhibit provides the opportunity to rethink Afro-Indian diasporic cultural heritage through the symbolic quilting together of these identities and their markers in the patchwork fabric.
In a multi racial society like Kenya is it really necessary to collect data on one’s tribal background? Has such data ever helped the country? No! Those without recognized tribes or descent have always had problems proving their right to citizenship.
The event entices filmmakers to enhance skills, develop collaborations and interface with the dynamic future of the film industry in Africa and the world.
Some are arrested after successfully ‘Occupying’ Salander Bridge
It is time that the society at large recognised sex work as legitimate work: 'his body, his choice.'
Recurrent street battles between police and protesters have led the interior ministry to literally wall itself in; website Ahram Online maps the growth of these concrete curtains and the transformation of Cairo into a city of walls.
Twitter has announced a new partnership with major satellite providers to give their subscribers access to Twitter SMS, the original text-based Twitter service. According to a statement, the company has partnered with Iridium and Thuraya, the world’s two largest satellite providers, to increase the number of people that can use Twitter SMS worldwide. The company said the new partnership will help guarantee greater global access to the microblogging network.
Libya’s foreign minister says the interim government cannot stop Libyans from joining the Syrian uprising, as Tripoli takes the hardest line in the Arab world against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. On Thursday 8 February, Libya’s transitional government gave Syrian diplomats 72 hours to leave the country, just days after it handed the Syrian embassy in Tripoli to the opposition Syrian National Council – the first country to take this step.
Competing mobile operators MTN and Turkcell were silent this week on the latter's claims that MTN bribed its way into Iran six years ago. But circumstances surrounding MTN's audacious entry into Iran, and the South African government's concurrent diplomatic efforts there, provide a compelling context for the claims. MTN could also face increasing international pressure because the Iranian military owns one of MTN's two state-linked partners there, Iran Electronics Industries (IEI).
The intensifying competition for commercial access to the world’s remaining deposits of oil, gas and minerals brings with it a serious risk of exacerbating corruption and violent conflict. A new Global Witness report shows that in Angola and Nigeria there is a risk that complex deals struck between governments and corporations for access to natural resources could be used corruptly to benefit vested interests in these countries, rather than the citizens. The report also points to major concerns over opaque sales of mining assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo to offshore companies.
The Goethe-Institut, in co-operation with the Cape Town Book Fair and APNET, is once again offering an invitation programme for publishers from sub-Saharan African countries. The aim of this initiative is to support the participation of publishing houses from sub-Saharan African countries at the Cape Town Book Fair 2012 and to provide training and networking opportunities for publishers from this region. The grant comprises of travel costs to Cape Town, participation in a workshop on 14 June 2012, a small stand at the Cape Town Book Fair (15 – 17 June 2012) and accommodation during the workshop and the Book Fair. Costs for the transportation of books and other materials to be exhibited are not covered.
The workshop took place around three main conversations namely: peer learning from the 2011 experiences, learning on innovative strategies to employ in the future from various experts and developing a common plan for the next implementation phase. Various experts provoked conversations around various topics including building people’s power to engage governments (Firoze Manji/Pambazuka), campaigning using digital media for social advocacy (John Kipchumbah/Huduma), play for the union (Valerie Traore/NIYEL), moving from ratification to implementation (Alexandria Muhanji/SOAWR), monitoring and evaluation (Kimberley Bowman/Oxfam and Gavin Steadman/Pamoja), evidence based policy research (Marie LaBerge), how governments navigate policy through to implementation (Dr Michael Chege/Ministry of Finance, Government of Kenya) among others. Click on the link to read the full briefing.
The Institute of African Studies journal Nokoko, Volume 2, is available. It includes:
- Editorial Note: The Front Lines and the Margins of a Global Anti-Poverty Movement
Toby Moorsom
- Economics of Afro-Pessimism: The Economics of Perception in African Foreign Direct Investment
Victoria Schorr
- Beyond an Epistemology of Bread, Butter, Culture and Power: Mapping the African Feminist Movement
Sinmi Akin-Aina
- Designed Disempowerment and Hegemonic Benevolence: A critical analysis of individual behavior change HIV/AIDS prevention programming in Sub-Saharan Africa
Imara Ajani Rolston
- “Something Ironic Happened on the Way to the Black Revolution”: The Politics and Power of Definition and Identity Construction within the Historiography of the African Diaspora
Leslie Wells
- Indian Hair, the After-Temple-Life: Class, Gender and Race Representations of the African American Woman in the Human Hair Industry
W. R. Nadège Compaoré
- Two Cities: Guangzhou / Lagos
Wendy Thompson Taiwo
Africa may be an Eldorado for corporates and businessmen outside the continent. Even foreign governments are buying land heavily in several African countries. Indian corporate houses too, have joined the fray. 'There is land grabbing in Burkina Faso and farmers are fighting against this. It is not clear at this time if Indian concerns are involved in this because of the limited information available in the public place,' said Ms Bernadette P. Ouattara, managing director of Inades-Formation Burkina. She is among a team from Africa that visited Hyderabad and Medak for a week to attend Bt Cotton and Beyond – Status and implication of genetically engineered crops and post-GE technologies for small farmers in Asia and Asia.
Fishermen, under the aegis of Famous Fishing Organisation (FFO), have said the recent bonga oil spill had negatively affected the economy of coastal settlements in Akwa Ibom. Mr Umoekeyo Eno, legal adviser of the organisation in Oron, said that the fishermen would be compelled to seek legal redress if the oil firm responsible for the spill failed to compensate the victims. He said that he had written to Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) on the impact of the spill on members of the organisation in Akwa Ibom.
'In an Open Letter to Kenneth Roth, we express our concern that the director of Human Rights Watch has used his introductory essay in the 2012 Human Rights Watch World Report to urge support for newly elected governments of the Islamic right in the Middle East and North Africa. Our letter points out that he does not need to urge engagement where there is no threat of a boycott; that he mirrors security discourses relating to Muslim contexts where the choice is between 'autocrats' or 'moderate Islamists'; and that he is dismissive of the threats to sexual rights and to religious minorities and silent on the struggles of labor, secularists and others who initiated and sustained the mobilizations and movements against oppressive regimes.'
Topics linked to migration, such as remittances and brain drains, have attracted increasing attention in discussions of development. But such specific issues should be considered in the wider context of the goal of reducing the grossly unjust levels of inequality between nations. The brain drain of medical personnel, for example, cannot be solved simply by looking at migration flows, but by focusing on how to provide the human and financial resources needed for equitably assuring the right of health to all. The latest AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an excerpt on migration and development from a longer study by the AfricaFocus editor published in 2011 by the Nordic Africa Institute, 'African Migration, Global Inequalities, and Human Rights: Connecting the Dots.'
Interface journal is seeking additional book reviewers for its upcoming publication. Our list of 'books offered for review' are here:
We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements - in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form.
If interested in reviewing a book feel free to write to Mandisi Majavu: [email][email protected]
Thirteen leaders of national and grassroots activist organisations in Tanzania were detained 10 February 2012 by the government in the Oyster Bay Police Station, Dar es Salaam, in a government clamp down on protests by women/feminist and human rights activists against the failure of the government to resolve the health crisis arising from a two week doctors strike in Tanzania. The leaders come from LHRC, TGNP, TAMWA, NEDPHA and several other grassroots organisations.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing for the year 2012. The grants serve as part of the Council’s contribution to the development of the social sciences in Africa, and the continuous renewal and strengthening of research capacities in African universities, through the funding of primary research conducted by postgraduate students and professionals.
In November last year CODESERIA held its annual Gender Symposium in Cairo, Egypt on the theme 'Gender and the Media in Africa', opening up a much needed platform on which gender and media scholars could renew reflection on the multi-faceted connection between media and gender in Africa. This special issue of Africa Media Review seeks to continue the dialogue by examining how political and social transformations on the continent resulting from re-democratisation, neo-liberalism and globalisation are implicating the nature of the relationship between media and gender.
The UN recognises the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) civilians during conflict, and this philosophy has quickly become embedded in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, but a new report questions some basic humanitarian assumptions. The reality - reinforced by a new study from the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) entitled 'Local to Global Protection in Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe' - is that in conflicts and crisis people almost always have to provide their own protection, for themselves, their families and their villages.
Thousands of Zimbabwean households are feeling the effects of lost remittances from family members forcibly returned from neighbouring South Africa since that country resumed deportations of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in October 2011. Makaita Gwati, 60, from rural Chirumhanzi, about 90km from the provincial capital of Masvingo in southeastern Zimbabwe, relied on the income her son and daughter sent from South Africa to support the rest of the family, until both were deported in November last year. 'I counted on them for money to buy food and other essential items, but now that they are here and they can’t find jobs, I don’t know how we will survive,' Gwati told IRIN.
At a waterlogged gold mine in western Kenya’s Migori District, 14-year-old Jacob*, one of 15,000 children toiling in the region’s pits, scours the water for glistering flakes, a job he says beats going to school on an empty stomach. An estimated 15,000 children are working in gold mines in the districts of Nyatike and Migori in western Kenya’s Nyanza province, either in actual extraction or in ancillary services such as selling food, according to the local Children’s Welfare Office. This number rises significantly at weekends and during school holidays.
Libya has demanded Niger hand over one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons who is under house arrest in the neighbouring nation after he warned in a television interview that his homeland was facing a new uprising. Mohammed Hareizi, spokesman for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), said on Saturday that Niger must extradite Saadi Gaddafi and other ex-regime officials to 'preserve its relationship and interests' in Libya. Saadi Gaddafi and more than 30 other loyalists fled to Niger after Tripoli fell to rebels in September.
Sudan and South Sudan have signed a 'non-aggression' pact over their disputed border following talks in Addis Ababa where African Union-led negotiations between the two sides are being held. Al Jazeera's Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said that one of the mediators told her there were no expectation of immediate change on the ground, but that the agreement would be a 'means of calling [both countries] to account because they have signed up to the deal'.
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, has revealed an ambitious set of infrastructure projects designed to rescue South Africa from the effects of a global recession that has hit the nation harder than most on the continent. 'We have chosen five major geographically-focused programmes, as well as projects focusing on health and basic education infrastructure, information and communication technologies and regional integration,' Zuma said in his annual televised state of the nation address to parliament in Cape Town. Zuma's focus on infrastructure development was applauded by opposition politicians, but they questioned whether he could or would follow through on his pledges.
Deadly clashes between police and youth in the Northeastern town of Taza suggest that, far from bringing change and stability, Morocco’s new government is simply repeating mistakes of the past, stoking tensions and fuelling a spate of protests against the regime. In an effort to keep its population in check during the Arab Spring, the regime launched a process of reforms last February and brandished what it called ‘the Moroccan exception’, boasting of relative calm during a period of intense regional turmoil.
It is a topic more likely to be whispered about than discussed openly, but could Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi, now closing in on his 17th year as Prime Minister (after four earlier as President), be thinking of calling it a day? It is for many familiar with Ethiopian politics an almost unimaginable prospect, while skeptics will point out that Meles has repeatedly promised to step down. But early this month, senior officials of the ruling EPRDF party (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) hinted at a succession plan to replace its 56-year-old leader at the end of his current term in 2015.
More than 5,000 of the 25,000 young school leavers who were recently recruited into the public service have failed to show up to sign their employment contracts. 'I am a university graduate and they are offering me a monthly salary of $200 plus the equivalent of $40 as rents allowance. There is no way I can accept that kind of salary. Since graduating from the university, I have been farming in the village and what I earn from the farm is triple what they are offering me so I cannot accept that,' one of the recruits who sought anonymity told Africa Review.
In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...
Moscow has accused the west of stirring up tensions in the Arab world by calling for the overthrow of the Syrian regime. Russia says calls from certain states for the Syrian opposition to avoid dialogue with the government, are only provoking further violence. Author and journalist Webster Tarpley, who's in Damascus, says, it's very simple, western powers are behind the violence in Syria, according to this video and report from RT, the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news.
22 February is the third anniversary of a raid on Radio Bana in central Asmara in which about 50 journalists were arrested. Most were released but at least 11 are still held and are in solitary confinement. Reporters Without Borders is continuing to campaign for them and other journalists who are imprisoned in Eritrea, some since September 2001.
Zimbabwe must hold elections before the end of June 2013, but the reforms needed to ensure appropriate conditions are critically wanting, says the International Crisis Group. 'Opportunity for a calibrated, full removal of sanctions before the next elections, geared to broad progress on reform, such as perhaps existed three years ago when the Global Political Agreement (GPA) was fresh and the Inclusive Government formed, has probably passed. But a chance to promote progress and break the current deadlock still exists through a coordinated approach that distinguishes types of sanctions and focuses on specific reforms needed for those elections. It should be seized.'
In this broadcast of Africa Today, host Walter Turner speaks to Dr Adam Hanieh, a lecturer from the School of Oriental and African Studies about developments in North Africa and the gulf states and Tidiane Kasse, editor of the French edition of Pambazuka News, about developments in West Africa. The broadcast also profiles African Awakenings, a new publication from Pambazuka Press.
Malawi’s maize-growing central and southern regions have not had good rains, prompting concerns about possible shortages of the staple in the coming months. 'I think it could be one of the worst shortages we have seen in recent times,' said an early warning official who preferred anonymity. 'The rains have never been so erratic. In some parts of Malawi small farmers have gone in for a second round of planting after the crops failed; and the seed they have used is not of good quality so it will not give good yields.'
The January 2011 revolution in Tunisia brought an end to Internet filtering and control of online content but old habits seem to be resurfacing and Reporters Without Borders urges the Tunisian courts not to take any decision that could lead to the restoration of filtering. A court order requiring the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to block access to pornographic websites, upheld by a Tunis appeal court in August 2011, revived the debate about censorship. If the order is confirmed, the ATI will be forced to censor online content in accordance with a complaint brought by a group of lawyers calling for the blocking of pornographic content that poses a threat to minors and Muslim values.
From conflict and natural disasters to progressive laws and the ascension of women into key political posts, 2011 brought progress and setbacks to women's rights. The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) has put together a visual overview of the year through a women's rights lens.
In January 2012, International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) staff traveled to Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria, known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), to assess the state of the news media and examine the prospects for developing a journalistic information network. They have posted a photo gallery which shows the state of media and life in the camps more generally.
Sudan's armed forces said on Saturday 11 February they had seized an area held by rebels after a battle lasting two days in the border state of Blue Nile where fighting has been raging for five months. Clashes spread to Blue Nile in September after violence broke out in June in the nearby oil-producing state of South Kordofan between the army and rebels from the SPLM-North, which wants to topple the Khartoum government.
A Ugandan cabinet minister has said the government does not support the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 which was re-tabled for debate in Parliament. However, he was quick to add that the debate on homosexuality was good for Uganda. Ethics and integrity minister, Lokodo Simon who is also a Catholic priest said, 'Whilst the government of Uganda does not support this bill, it is required under our constitution to facilitate this debate. The facilitation of this debate should not be confused for the government’s support for this bill.'
On the occasion of the first anniversary of Mubarak’s resignation on 11 February 2011, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has released a position paper which shows that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), the de-facto ruler of Egypt has not upheld the basic human rights of Egyptians during the transitional period over the last year. 'Since the fall of Former President Mubarak and after the army took over power, we have been documenting and reporting dangerous developments that question the Supreme Council of Armed Forces’ ability to conduct a peaceful transition. At a time where the protection of basic fundamental rights, such as freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of association should not be compromised, we are worried that red lines have regularly been crossed which constitutes a major step-back for the demands of the Egyptian revolution,' says Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.
Hopes have risen of fresh investigations into the Anglo-Leasing scandal after the government finally secured a mutual legal assistance agreement with Switzerland. The Anglo-Leasing scandal dates back to 2002 when the Kenyan government sought to get new generation passports with advanced security features. The investigations involved two contracts which started during former President Daniel arap Moi regime, but were inherited when the Narc government, under President Kibaki, took over in 2003.
South Africa is to build a R1,6bn pharmaceutical plant to produce the ingredients for antiretroviral medicines, used in the treatment of HIV and Aids, government announced. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said South Africa consumed R25bn-worth of medicines each year, the 'majority' of this imported.
Pambazuka News 568: Ruptures and changes in 2012
Pambazuka News 568: Ruptures and changes in 2012
Police in Swaziland fired teargas on Monday 30 January at students protesting their university's failure to open for the semester, injuring several people, a student leader said. Police arrested at least four demonstrators after students of the University of Swaziland vowed to occupy the labour ministry and clashed with peers from a teachers college who refused to join their protest. The university announced last week it would not be able to open as scheduled, the second time in two semesters it has postponed its opening.
The trial of murdered rightwing leader Eugene Terre'Blanche resumed in the Ventersdorp Magistrate's Court on 30 January. Just before lunch there was a standoff between AWB supporters attending the trial and black residents over the singing of Bobbejaan klim die berg by the AWB to which the residents responded with Awuleth' Umshini wami. Chris Mahlangu and a minor are accused of beating and hacking 69-year-old Terre'Blanche to death with a panga and metal pipe in his farmhouse on April 3 2010. Both have pleaded not guilty to murder, housebreaking and robbery with aggravating circumstances. Mahlangu claims he acted in self defence. The teenager has denied involvement in the crime.
Angola's state-controlled oil company Sonangol - the largest single shareholder in Portugal's Millennium bcp - wants the bank to gain global scale in a restructuring that involves a management shakeup, Expresso weekly said. The lender - Portugal's largest by assets - is hampered at home by the country's debt crisis and deep austerity imposed by a 78-billion-euro bailout. It needs to find fresh capital in the next few months to comply with new European rules, with cash from rapidly-growing Angola seen as one possible solution.
Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties walked out of parliament in protest as the election commission members were sworn in earlier on Wednesday, the state news agency Angop reported.
Namibia is estimated to have lost US$750 million (over N$5.8 billion) between 2000 and 2009 in illicit dealings such as trade mis-pricing, tax evasions, corruption, bribery and kickbacks. The syndicate - reports research and advocacy group Global Financial Integrity (GFI) - involves foreign companies that are doing business in Namibia, most of which are headquartered in the West. GFI reports that these companies are bedfellows of corrupt local officials, with whom they struck ill-fated cordial relations meant to ease the flow of money from Namibia to foreign destinations.
Libya will do all it can to protect its 75 per cent stake in Zamtel, the fixed-line telecoms firm in Zambia, whose government announced plans last week to seize Libya's stake in the firm, Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said Monday. 'The Zambian government has taken a unilateral action by nationalizing this company,' Khayyal said, adding he had spoken to his Zambian counterpart about the issue at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital. The previous Zambian government had sold the 75 percent stake to LAP Green Networks for $257 million in 2010. Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said: 'Definitely this money is Libyan money, and owned by the Libyan people. We will exercise all our efforts to protect this money.'
A close aide to former Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha has been sentenced to hang for killing the wife of politician Moshood Abiola in 1996. Major Hamza al-Mustapha has been in detention since 1999 over the killing. Abiola is widely believed to have won the 1993 election, which was annulled by Nigeria's junta. His wife Kudirat was shot dead in 1996.
Malawi has dropped 67 places on the 2011/2012 press freedom index as a result of the 'totalitarian tendencies' of President Bingu wa Mutharika, French based media watchdog Reporters Without Boarders (RWB) has said. Malawi is now at position 146 alongside Indonesia out of 225 assessed countries.
About 40 people have died and more than 100,000 are affected by twin storms that struck Mozambique 18-26 January, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Tropical Cyclone Funso struck northern Mozambique, 'affecting about 64,663 people and causing floods and damage of houses, schools and health centres. In southern Mozambique, high river flows from upstream countries… combined with heavy rainfall due to tropical storm Dando, affected about 51,670 people,' it said on 27 January.