Pambazuka News 544: Stealing the commons and looting the streets
Pambazuka News 544: Stealing the commons and looting the streets
Nineteen people died in Malawi's recent protests. Public service union UNISON are asking for your support for a petition to President Bingu wa Mutharika.
Forced to survive on wild fruits in the face of drought and food insecurity, hungry Kenyans could soon face the dilemma of eating genetically modified food. The verdict among the scientific community is that the poor are paying the price for runaway graft that precipitated theft and illegal sale of strategic national food reserves to foreigners. Between 2008 and 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture, then under the watch of suspended minister William Ruto, came under criticism for irregular sale of three million bags of maize reserves and the sale of fertiliser to central African countries. After it announced it would allow millers to import GM maize, the Government faces accusations of mortgaging the lives of more than 10 million hungry Kenyans to multinational companies.
The Institute for Race Relations in the United Kingdom reports on prisoner transfer agreements between the UK and other countries. 'For the past few years, under pressure from right-wing Tories, the government has made strenuous attempts to reach agreements with countries such as Nigeria to enable prisoners serving sentences here to be compulsorily repatriated to complete their sentences in their home countries, so as to save costs, reduce the foreign national prisoner (FNP) population and make space for British prisoners.'
Blogger Scarlett Lion spent a weekend snapping photos of the same sex weddings that took place recently with the passing of New York’s Marriage Equality Act, an experience she describes as 'amazing'. You can view the pictures on her blog.
About 80 demonstrators wearing gas masks and lab coats to emulate scientists from oil company Shell have protested in Cape Town against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale gas in the Karoo. Shell SA is punting shale gas as an affordable alternative to coal, nuclear and renewable energy industries, and wants to explore 90,000km² of the Karoo. The march was initiated by photographer Kian Erikson in partnership with the Climate Justice Campaign and Earthlife Africa CT.
reports that residents of Ohwim-Amanfrom near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana are protesting the siting and operations of a factory in the area. According to them, paper manufacturer, T &Y Company, is polluting their environment, which exposes them to health risks and also destroys aquatic life. The Chinese factory started operating in the community about two years ago. The company recycles plastic waste and produces toilet rolls and other plastic products.
The New York Times profiles the use of private US military contractors in the war in Somalia, introducing the story with Richard Rouget, whom they describe as 'a gun for hire over two decades of bloody African conflict'. The story goes on: 'Rouget, 51, commanded a group of foreign fighters during Ivory Coast’s civil war in 2003, was convicted by a South African court of selling his military services and did a stint in the presidential guard of the Comoros Islands, an archipelago plagued by political tumult and coup attempts. Now Mr. Rouget works for Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops who have fought a pitched urban battle in the ruins of this city against the Shabab, the Somali militant group allied with Al Qaeda.'
In a statement issued 10 August, Amnesty International urged NATO to conduct a full investigation of a recent attack near Zlitan, which the Libyan government reported killed 85 civilians. NATO denied seeing any evidence of civilian casualties. But did it look? asks this article on 'Its not clear. Officials reported the attack and independent journalists confirmed seeing large numbers of dead civilian bodies in the morgue, including a number of civilians.'
The thrust of this brief report by the International Commission on Eritrean Refugees is to bring to the attention of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Council (UNOHCHR) the problem of Eritrean refugees all over the world, in particular those found in North Africa. 'Professor Tricia R. Redeker reports that, in 2008 refugees seeking asylum from Eritrea surpassed that of Iraq and the number is increasing. It is reported that an estimated 2,000 Eritreans per month leave clandestinely to Ethiopia and Sudan. There are also those who crossed the Red Sea to request asylum in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.'
The Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom reports on how the United Nations and the Kenyan government have come in for a fresh round of criticism for the continued closure of a multimillion-pound refugee camp that has been left empty despite the deepening humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. 'The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been accused of misdirecting the media by renaming scrubland adjacent to empty facilities, rather than sealing a deal with Kenya to open up a camp that cost international donors $60m (£37m) to build and has been left locked since November last year.'
Only it's not bombs they are dropping!
A sign of cordial relations between Rwanda and Uganda?
NATO is agreed that Gaddafi must go, but...
Yash Tandon takes a deeper look at the mass killings in Norway on 22 July. The event, he writes, 'gives us a moment to comprehend the deeper meaning of human existence'.
The 'downgrade of the US credit rating is part of the forward planning by the top capitalists to guarantee the political and military hegemony of the richest one per cent of the US population,’ writes Horace Campbell.
Leaders in the regional grouping SADC have been called upon to urgently deal with the 'worrying' human rights situations in several member countries, and to strengthen the mandate of the regional tribunal in Namibia instead of weakening it. Writing to SADC’s executive secretary, Dr. Tomaz Salomao, of the global rights group Human Rights Watch said the leaders should address the situations in Malawi, Swaziland, Angola and Zimbabwe, when they meet at a summit in Luanda, Angola.
Reuters reports that South Africa's proposed National Health Insurance programme, aimed at giving greater access to healthcare for the country's poor, will require 125 billion rand in 2012 and 214 billion rand by 2020, according to a government source. The NHI, currently being discussed by the government and other parties in South Africa's healthcare system, will require 255 billion rand by 2025, the source said citing the document.
This video posted on Youtube provides a simple explanation of the US debt crisis and why it spells disaster for the global economy. What the world is facing, says the video, is complete global economic collapse, something that has never happened before. And it's not a matter of if it will happen, but when.
With nearly two months to go before constituent assembly elections, Tunisia confronts a long list of challenges to the creation of a democratic system, begins this policy brief from Freedom House. 'Expectations for swift and wide-ranging reforms are very high among a population hungry for change after decades of harsh authoritarian rule. Ordinary citizens are eager to enjoy the benefits of meaningful political freedom and economic prosperity, having endured unrelenting repression, mismanagement, and the plundering of resources by a small circle around the family of former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.'
South Africa now has a website offering where broadband customers can enter their phone numbers and find the cheapest broadband offering in their area.
The United Nations Human Rights Council should accept responsibility, on behalf of the world forum, for the famine spreading through eastern Africa, and should call for member countries' cooperation to overcome the desperate food crisis there, experts said. One of the 18 independent experts on the advisory committee to the Council, Chilean academic José Antonio Bengoa, set forth the idea of asking for an urgent special session, in an attempt to draw the attention of the international community to the gravity of the crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The Mawingu camp for internally displaced persons affected by Kenya’s 2007- 2008 post-election violence is a desolate place. Located in the Rift Valley, the camp is a collection of tattered, sagging and forlorn tents. Save for the 120 children crammed in a room shouting in unison during an English lesson, there is no other sign of life. Many of those who live here left early in the morning to look for menial jobs. If they are lucky they will earn Shs 100 (one dollar) for a day’s work.
The situation for women and children in Somalia remains precarious, humanitarian workers warn. According to Janusz Czerniejewski, head of Intersos at the Kenya and Somalia Mission, conflict over scarce resources increases during drought, putting women and children at higher risk of experiencing sexual violence. 'As they flee Somalia to safety, women and children are passing through areas where armed groups and bandits roam, only to arrive in crowded and potentially dangerous camps. The protection aspects of this crisis are acute and life-threatening. Gender-based violence (GBV) like rape, domestic violence and female genital mutilation is a significant issue in all parts of Somalia,' he told IPS.
The West African coastline has seen increasing attacks on chemical and oil tankers. London-based Lloyd's Market Association, an umbrella group of insurers, recently listed Nigeria, Benin and surrounding waters in the same category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy have allowed piracy to flourish.
HIV-positive civil servants in Malawi are unhappy with the government's announcement that it would stop providing a cash grant to help improve their diet. In June, the government said the scheme would be stopped and replaced with food packages. According to Mary Shawa, principal secretary in the office of the President and Cabinet responsible for HIV/AIDS and nutrition programmes, the cash grant programme 'was grossly abused, with hundreds of workers claiming to have HIV in order to cash in on the payment'.
Authorities in Kano, Nigeria, recently announced people would be jailed or fined for refusing to immunize their children against polio, as cases increase in the northern state, but it is unclear whether this approach is working. Nigeria, one of four countries that remain polio-endemic, has historically been 'a global epicentre of transmission', according to Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesman for the World Health Organisation’s polio eradication group. Twenty-four polio cases were reported in Nigeria between 1 January and 27 July 2011, compared to six during the same period last year.
Africa’s ‘tale of treasures at one end and tragedies at the other cannot be understood’ without ‘locating it in the trajectory of worldwide capitalist accumulation,’ argues Issa Shivji.
An ‘ambitious and brilliant book by one of Africa’s leading diaspora intellectuals’, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza’s ‘In Search of African Diasporas’ is ‘filled with analytical insights, captivating stories, and intriguing observations on the complex histories and experiences of African diasporas, their triumphs and tragedies, perils and possibilities, and their enduring struggles for belonging, for their humanity.’
WHO WOULD DARE BELIEVE IN THE WITHDRAWAL OF FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS FROM CHAD?
Ley-Ngardigal Djimadoum
When Idriss Déby was being installed for a fourth term of five as president, France's vague attempts to put an end to its military presence in Chad sounded like a mere bluff. The context of regional geopolitical issues do not favour such an eventuality, not for Paris or the Chadian president. In this regard, Ley-Ngardigal Djimadoum underlines that the requirements of francophone Africa as well as the ‘culture of colonial serfdom’ are still perennial occurrences on both sides.
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JUSTICE FOR SANKARA: HOMAGE AND TRIBUTE
On 10 June 2011, some 21 French parliamentarians lodged an inquiry into the assassination of Thomas Sankara. Twenty-four years after the assassination of the former president of Burkina Faso, this move in search of truth fosters a long-lived symbol in the minds of resistance fighters in Africa and in the world. On 1 July, a dinner with the theme ‘Justice for Sankara, Justice for Africa’ was organised in Paris. Pambazuka brings to you a few short speeches that were made on the occasion of this ceremony which brought together more than a hundred personalities, celebrities, trade unionists, intellectuals and politicians.
SENEGAL: THE ORIGINS OF IRRENDENTISM IN CASAMANCE
Amady Aly Dieng
Here is a book which immerses the reader into the heart of the Casamance drama. In this publication, which is a result of several years of investigations and research, Oumar Diatta, a specialist educationalist and journalist, tackles the Casamance question on the triple plan – political, institutional and administrative – since the colonial era and in the light of the conflict borne of the freedom fighter demands of the Movement of Democratic Forces in Casamance (Mfdc).
SEEING SOCIAL MEDIA PROCESSES AS A MEDIUM FOR COMMUNICATION
Pierre Georges
This contribution relates to the connection between the alternatives, media citizens and the process of social forums which have developed during the last ten last years all over the planet. Pierre Georges presents the worldwide social forum as a ‘potentially powerful medium’ and presents the articulations which can help make it a ‘collective media’.
Sign TANY's petition calling on the Madagascan government to stop the eviction of families from their land to make way for land grabs.
This week the international news has been dominated by two distinct yet not unrelated events – the international financial crisis and the eruption of young people onto the streets of Britain. Two features of these events are worth pointing out, observes Firoze Manji.
Four of the authors of will be speaking at Rhodes University on Thursday 11 August and at an event at Duna Library in Joza Township with the Unemployed People’s Movement on Friday 12 August. Don’t miss the chance to hear them speak in person!
With all the current talk in the media about the riots on the streets of the UK, Alex Free argues that the focus should be on the real looters in the country and global economy at large.
‘Britain has an enduring problem of racial and class inequality and exclusion, out of which riots occasionally explode,’ observes Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, following four days and nights of unrest across the UK that have ‘left this declining post-imperial country deeply shaken and searching for answers, for redress, for culprits.’
South Africa and Lesotho have signed an implementation agreement for the second phase of the R15-billion Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) and committed to building a hydropower station with an installed capacity of between 1,000 MW and 1,200 MW. The hydropower plant would be operational in 2018, and would see some 200 MW supplied for Lesotho’s power needs, with the remaining power transmitted to South Africa.
Southern Africa, including Namibia, stands to loose a lot should the euro collapse, a local economist said. 'No one will be unscathed, not least Southern Africa,' said Rowland Brown, economist at Capricorn Investment Holdings (CIH). The region’s exports will be particularly hard hit, he said. Central in the unfolding financial drama is how much longer Germany will be willing to cover debt for others with little chance of being completely refunded, he said.
A new white paper on international relations reaffirms that SA’s foreign policy should be based on human rights and development in Africa but also warns that SA’s regional leadership position could soon be challenged. In the past SA has been criticised for having lost its focus on human rights, particularly when it supported positions that failed to take strong action on the crisis in Zimbabwe. A decision to deny a visitor’s visa to the Dalai Lama for fear of alienating China was also strongly criticised.
Cabinet has noted the national position for the negotiations on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), spokesperson Jimmy Manyi said. Previously, South Africa said it would commit to lowering greenhouse-gas emission by 34 per cent below business as usual trajectories by 2020, and by 42 per cent by 2025, on condition of financial and technological assistance from developed nations. The Africa Group Negotiators (AGN) - a negotiating bloc under the UNFCCC - has started developing the ‘African Climate Platform for Durban’, which would articulate the African position at COP 17.
South Sudanese civil society organisations met in Juba, from 26 to 29 of July 2011 to discuss social, political and economic issues in the new country. Resolutions to citizens included embracing unity in diversity and overtly rejecting ethnicity, nepotism and corruption. The new government should enhance and promote social justice and declare zero tolerance for sexual and gender based violence - and develop a national strategy to address gender concerns, says a communique from the meeting.
The Executive Director administers the CSO by defining and implementing corporate and financial strategy, by overseeing policy programs or projects, and by reporting on the Institute’s activities to the Board of Directors. In addition, he/she has an advocacy role with national and international institutions.
Thomas Kwoyelo, former middle-ranking Lord's Resistance Army commander and allegedly captured in March 2009, was charged with war crimes and became the first person to be committed to the International Crimes Division. As part of their International Crimes Division monitoring initiative, the Refugee Law Project will update you with detailed newsletters and video documentaries based on the proceedings related to Kwoyelo's trial.
Somalia’s in flames again, but what’s new? asks this paper from the Enough Project. 'The answer is that much is new this time, and it would be a dangerous error of judgment to brush off Somalia’s current crisis as more of the same. It would be equally dangerous to call for the same tired formulas for UN peacekeeping, state-building, and counterterrorism operations that have achieved little since 1990. Seismic political, social, and security changes are occurring in the country, and none bode well for the people of Somalia or the international community.'
Guest editor David Anderson Hooker, Director of Research and Training for 'Coming to the Table: Taking America (USA) Beyond the Legacy of Enslavement', and the editorial staff of 'Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts', invite submissions for the first issue of its fifth volume, entitled '500 Years Later: Reverberations of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.'
La Via Campesina have released a film on land rights. As the organisation notes: 'Watch this 20 minutes film and show it to your neighbours, friends, community, local organisation, in a cultural center, a film festival, a demonstration...You can organise a film screening followed by a discussion where you can invite local farmers, local authorities and anyone interested.'
'The 7th session of UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee is commencing from 8 to 12 August 2011. Among the participants are delegations from La Via Campesina, who are fighting for an initiative towards an international convention of the rights of peasants.'
Race/Ethnicity publishes key information and insights about the challenges and opportunities presented by race and ethnicity in the 21st century, with particular attention to dynamics shaping the experiences of racially marginalized people and communities. We welcome contributions from advocates, activists, and practitioners of all kinds, as well as from researchers inside and outside the academy.
'Johannesburg’s international airport was put on red alert after its National Key Point status was activated this morning due to the expected arrival of a delegation from Israel. Plans of the delegation’s local host, the South African Union of Jewish Students, to welcome their Israeli 'Hasbara' delegation were thwarted, with the Israeli delegation arriving at OR Tambo International Airport amidst much controversy.'
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...
An estimated 18 million children worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes because of conflict; a third of those are refugees whose families have fled across international borders, research shows. To explain the consequences on their mental health, the authors of a study published in the UK journal, The Lancet, undertook a review of all the work on this subject, to see what lessons can be learned for the best way to support refugee and displaced children and their families.
About a third of Madagascar’s 20 million people do not have access to water for washing and most of the rest share unsanitary toilet facilities, according to a July 2011 World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) report. The threat of diarrhoea and other diseases is particularly acute in some of the poorer suburbs of the capital Antananarivo. A network of canals, storm water drains and channels criss-crossing the city are choked with rubbish, causing flooding in low-lying areas during the March to November rainy season. In April 2011, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported a worrying rise in pneumonic plague.
A new government study has found that more than half of workers in Swaziland’s garment industry are living with HIV, and officials are realising that the once-hailed promise of manufacturing employment has become a financial and medical nightmare for tens of thousands of Swazi women. 'HIV prevalence among factory workers is 50.3 per cent,' said Nhlanhla Nhlabatsi, an epidemiologist with the Ministry of Health. Nhlabatsi presented the data last week as preliminary findings for Swaziland’s first Behaviour Sentinel Surveillance Report to be released in its entirety later in the year.
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has begun long-awaited compensation payments to families over a 1996 drug trial blamed for the deaths of 11 children and disabilities in dozens of others. But the payments were initially distributed only to four families, while some 200 children participated in the trial of meningitis drug, Trovan. Parents of four of the children who died as a result of the trial received cheques of $175,000 each at a reception in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, where the trial took place.
Morocco's government has proposed that a parliamentary election take place early in November instead of the scheduled date of September next year. During long overnight negotiations with the interior ministry, officials from some 20 political parties agreed in principle for the election to be held in mid-November.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has urged his supporters to fight for the country 'inch by inch' as opposition forces launched a two-pronged offensive in western Libya that threatens to isolate the capital of Tripoli. Facing the sternest challenge of his decades-long rule, Gaddafi on Monday called on Libyans to arm themselves to liberate the country from 'traitors and from NATO' in a broadcast on state television. The speech, which was broadcast in audio only with no images, was the first time Gaddafi had spoken in public since rebel fighters launched their biggest offensive in months.
Although there is a female presidential candidate contesting Zambia's 20 September general elections, her prospects are not strong. And in fact, fewer women overall are likely to be elected into public office this year, analysts say. Zambia is a signatory of the Southern Africa Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development, which commits member countries to have 50/50 representation of women in all decision-making positions, including the political arena, by 2015. But Zambia's political parties have not reflected this in their adoption of female candidates.
Conservationists in Uganda have vowed to tackle President Yoweri Museveni head-on over his renewed plan to push through a proposal to give away part of Mabira Forest for sugar cane growing. Addressing district leaders and agriculturalists at Entebbe State House on Saturday, President Museveni said failure to give away the forest in 2007, is partly to blame for the current sugar crisis in the country. However, in what might lead to a repeat of the 2007 protests against the proposed give-away in which three people were killed, activists and politicians have condemned the President’s latest move and vowed to fight to save the forest.
Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has urged rights groups to call off nationwide vigils planned for Wednesday 17 August in order to 'save lives and destruction of property'. Civil society groups announced the vigils, to be held across the country, after Mutharika’s government failed to immediately address their concerns over the economy. Last month 19 people were killed in the poor southern African country when police opened fire on those taking part in anti-government protests that lasted for two days.
The world is pleading for two Gambian journalists who could face capital punishment for distributing T-shirts that call for an end to dictatorship in their country. Last month the high court in Gambia charged Ms Ndey Tapha Sosseh and Mr Matthew K. Jallow with treason in a country where the death penalty is very much alive. The pair are presently in exile in two different West African countries. If the regime succeeds in roping the two journalists back home, they are most likely to be killed by a firing squad or by hanging, analysts say.
The former Gambian minister of Information who went missing in June has been found in one of the country’s jails after the police had denied knowledge of his whereabouts. A French news agency quoted Gambia’s police spokesperson Yerro Mballow of not being aware of the minister’s arrest and 'no idea where former he could be'. However, Justice Ministry officials confirmed that Mr Amadou Scattred Jannenh was being held in jail awaiting trial for treason and sedition.
In 'Climate loan sharks', the World Development Movement and the Jubilee Debt Campaign reveal that the UK is pushing $1.1 billion of climate loans, via the World Bank, on some of the poorest countries in the world. For example Grenada’s debt is already 90 per cent of GDP, yet it is to be lent a further $22 million, over 3 per cent of the country’s GDP. Lending to such debt burdened country is at best irresponsible and at worst willfully dangerous.
The National Archives and Records Service were ill-equipped to deal with the deluge of declassified information likely to ensue once the Protection of Information Bill becomes law, the Nelson Mandela Foundation warned. With over-classification believed to have been the norm since the Minimum Information Security Standards became policy in 1996, MPs have been grappling with the question of what to do with secret files from the recent past, as well as those from the apartheid era.
Guinea's first democratically elected President survived an assassination attempt on 19 July after gunmen surrounded his home and pummeled it with heavy artillery. Three people were killed during two separate attacks. But President Alpha Condé immediately clamped down on any media coverage of the attack, a censorship that IFEX members report is emblematic of his contempt for the media, despite promises for positive change.
A summit of Southern African leaders this week was unlikely to affect the political crisis in Zimbabwe given the lack of regional consensus on the issue, analysts said. The fragile power-sharing government between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and rival Morgan Tsvangirai was expected to feature prominently when leaders from the Southern African Development Community meet on Wednesday and Thursday in Luanda, Angola.
At least 145,000 South African municipal workers will walk off the job on Monday in a strike aimed at shutting down services including rubbish collection, in the latest dispute to disrupt Africa's biggest economy. 'Our demand of an 18% increase across the board, or R2 000, whichever is greater, is very necessary to meet the economic hardships that municipal workers suffer,' the South African Municipal Workers' Union said in its strike pamphlet.
A chase for votes has kicked off for the much-anticipated 20 September Zambia elections. At least 10 presidential hopefuls are in the race after seven of their colleagues pulled out. Over 500 candidates are vying for the 150 seats in the National Assembly. Aspirants and their campaigners are crisscrossing the breadth and length of the country, hoping to get their lion’s share of votes.
Pambazuka News 543: Resisting imperialism: Sites of struggle
Pambazuka News 543: Resisting imperialism: Sites of struggle
Human Rights Watch is seeking a part-time (24 hours per week) Office Administrator to be responsible for providing a high level of professional day-to-day support to ensure the smooth and efficient running of HRW’s South Africa office. The position reports mainly to the NY-based Associate Director of Financial Operations, and will also have a dotted line to the South Africa Director.
Côte d’Ivoire remains fragile and unstable, says this report from the International Crisis Group. 'The atrocities after the second round of the presidential elections on 28 November 2010 and Laurent Gbagbo’s attempt to retain power by all means despite losing exacerbated already acute tensions. The next months are crucial. The new government must not underestimate the threats that will long jeopardise peace and must avoid the narcotic of power that has caused so many disastrous decisions over recent decades.'
A wave of mysterious poisonings has hit hundreds over the last two days in Angolan schools, but police have yet to identify the toxin that has sown panic in the country, officials said on Friday. About 300 students from both public and private schools have been hit by symptoms that include vomiting, headaches, sore throats and sometimes suffocation, said Renato Paulata, director of a public hospital in Luanda.
The ANC Youth league and its leader, Julius Malema, have been publicly rebuked by the ANC for calling for 'regime change' in Botswana and describing its president as 'a puppet'. In a harsh statement issued by ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu, the ANC said: 'This insult and disrespect to the President [Ian Khama], the government and the people of Botswana, and a threat to destabilise and effect regime change in Botswana, is a clear demonstration that the ANCYL's ill-discipline has clearly crossed the political line.'
In many countries women’s rights have been abused for so long that many women long ago stopped fighting for them. Not so Unity Dow, a lawyer who challenged the unequal citizenship rights in her native Botswana and won. Her 1992 lawsuit was recognised last month as a landmark case in the fight for women’s rights when UN Women published its flagship report: 'Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice'. Dow succeeded in overturning the section of Botswana’s Citizenship Act that prohibited Botswanan women who married foreigners from passing on their Botswanan nationality to their children.
A report by US-Africa Command (AFRICOM) says despite the Botswana government's significant achievements since 1966, Botswana's prosperity and political stability are more fragile than is frequently recognised. Dated June 2011, the report says three current realities form the core of this fragility: a population that is highly-dependent on social welfare programmes provided by the state; a state that is heavily reliant on a single commodity (diamonds) that is highly sensitive to fluctuations in the global economy; and a narrow economic base that leaves the country deeply tied to that of neighbouring South Africa.
Zambia's President Rupiah Banda launched his re-election campaign on 1 August with scathing attacks on his main challenger Michael Sata, describing him as a 'crook' that 'behaves like a punch-drunk boxer'. The president also pledged to sustain the country's economic growth if given another chance to lead the southern Africa country.
Civil society organisations in Malawi have appealed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika for crimes against humanity following the violent deaths at the hands of police of at least 19 people during the 20 July anti-government demonstrations. In a statement issued in the capital, Lilongwe, Monday, the eight organisations that organised the demonstration also asked the Hague-based court to prosecute Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister Aaron Sangala, and the Inspector General Of Police, Peter Mukhitho, alongside the president.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has expressed concern over the volatile political atmosphere in the country as incidents of politically motivated human rights violations shot up to 1,014 in June from 994 recorded in May. In its summary on political and food-related violations, ZPP said Midlands province recorded the highest number of incidents, pegged at 214, up from 201 in May. The province witnessed an increase in assault, harassment and intimidation cases while Mashonaland East recorded a drop from 188 to 172 reported cases.
While millions in East Africa are caught in the cobweb of a devastating drought that has spread its tentacles across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the government in Addis Ababa is snatching some of Ethiopia's most productive farmland from local tribes and leasing it to foreign companies to grow and export food. A Survival International investigation has uncovered shocking evidence that vast blocks of fertile land in the Omo River area in south west Ethiopia are being leased out to Malaysian, Italian and Korean companies. Vast stretches of land are also being cleared for huge state-run plantations producing export crops, even though 90,000 tribal people in the area depend on the land to survive.
Mandera town, on the border between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, is the hub for aid operations in the drought-affected Mandera district in Kenya. It could have been a possible logistics base for sending help by road to the famine-affected areas in south-central Somalia, but the security risk is high. About four months ago, Al-Shabab militia took over Bulo Hawo on the Somali side, and continue to mount sporadic attacks in the area even though it has been retaken by the authorities.
Many people believed that land reform would address the problem of land shortages, reports Farm Radio Weekly. Gifford Moyo is a social commentator and member of an advocacy group in Bulawayo which fights for the rights of the Ndebele people. He warned that if the land issue was not handled properly, it might erupt into a serious conflict. He says, 'The primary objective of going to war was to get back our land which was taken by the colonial regime. Now, if this government is failing to properly address the issue of land, the question is "Why did we go to war?"'
South Africa’s young democracy may have been a shining example to the rest of the world for a while, but dreams of real freedom of expression and of the media seem to be nearing the end of their usefulness to SA's ruling party says this article, which focuses on the province of Mpumalanga. 'There’s a shadowy force that threatens, arrests, assaults and otherwise intimidates reporters who ask inconvenient questions and publish uncomfortable truths. As Jacob Zuma’s fight to retain another term in office intensifies, the malevolence is spreading.'
The blog Rantings of a Sand Monkey reflects on what it means to be an activist in Tahrir Square. '...what intrigued me and got me moving around, doing things and staying there,' he writes, 'was the fascinating social experiment that the sit-in was creating. In essence, Tahrir was very quickly becoming a miniature-size Egypt, with all of its problems, but without a centralized government. And the parallels are uncanny.'
Burkina Faso installed Monday 1 August a new election commission after the previous one was dismissed amid criticism over November elections that handed President Blaise Compaore a large victory. The newly composed Independent National Electoral Commission will have to organise next year's municipal and legislative elections amid unprecedented tensions which have seen military mutinies and other unrest this year.