Pambazuka News 517: Egypt after Mubarak: Where to next?
Pambazuka News 517: Egypt after Mubarak: Where to next?
Morocco will address labour concerns and unemployment by providing 'solutions as quickly as possible', according to Communications Minister Khalid Naciri. 'The labour situation is worrying. Wages are still frozen at a time when prices are skyrocketing. Unemployment is rising. We must enter into serious discussions. As unions, our role is to prevent the country from getting into difficult situations,' said Abdelhak Azzouzi, General Secretary of the Democratic Labour Federation.
There is growing interest in the role that restorative justice can play in addressing mass atrocities. This UNICEF paper describes the associated principles and practices within juvenile justice systems and in societies emerging from mass violence. It also examines the meaning, opportunities and limitations of restorative justice in transitional societies, particularly in relation to the needs of young victims and offenders.
Twenty four per cent of adults living in urban centres are now using the internet, according to the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products and Services Survey (ZAMPS). The figure represents a two per cent increase in the last three months alone.
South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team is due to travel to Harare, to meet with representatives from Zimbabwe’s three main political parties. Zuma’s international advisor, Lindiwe Zulu confirmed the trip, saying the parties had given her 'people to work with'. She explained that her team would meet with the parties separately, and collectively, to draw up a framework and discuss what is to be included in the roadmap for elections.
Ivorian security forces killed at least three civilians when they opened fire to disperse gatherings in an Abidjan district on Sunday, and African leaders ended meetings to resolve a three-month post-election stand-off. There were no organised protests, but security forces fired bursts of live rounds to prevent groups from forming.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, one of Africa's longest serving leaders, won election to a fourth term in office by a huge margin on Sunday but the opposition rejected the outcome. Electoral commission results handed Museveni 68 per cent of the vote against challenger Kizza Besigye's 26 per cent.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed calls for reform of the media law in Rwanda following the ruling of the High Court in Kigali which sentenced the editor and a journalist of the private newspaper, Umurabyo, to lengthy jail terms for 'ethnic discrimination, genocide ideology, defamation and inciting civil disobedience'. 'The need for reforming the Rwandan media law to decriminalize press offences is urgent in the light of this harsh ruling against the two journalists,' said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office.
In a a sign that the first cracks are starting to show in the Libyan regime, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son warned in a lengthy and rambling address broadcast live last night that the overthrow of the regime would lead to civil war and the break-up of the country, reports the UK's Independent. The address by Saif Gaddafi, who is viewed as reform-minded in the West, came as the first major anti-government protests spread to the capital, Tripoli, striking at the heart of the regime and making Colonel Gaddafi's 42-year hold on power appear increasingly precarious.
The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has found major IMF lapses in judgement before the financial crisis, including the promotion of 'light-touch regulation', casting doubt on the Fund's ability to contribute to taming global finance. As the banking crisis has been transformed into crises of public finance, and while the financial sector returns to business as usual, the IMF has grown increasingly vocal about the insufficient attention being paid to regulation and reform.
IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) travelling to Southern Sudan before and after the recent referendum on independence have faced difficulties during and after their journey. Between November 2010 and January 2011, around 200,000 Southern Sudanese IDPs living in the north returned to the south. There have been various reports of convoys of returning southerners being attacked in the disputed region of Abyei during and in the weeks following the January referendum, according to some reports by Misseriya tribal militias loyal to the government in Khartoum.
Closing arguments in a civil case initiated by foreign nationals seeking compensation from the state for damages suffered during the May 2008 xenophobic attacks were heard in the Western Cape High Court last Thursday. A group of 11 Somali, Ethiopian and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) nationals are suing the Safety and Security Ministry, claiming police did not protect them during the 2008 attacks.
Over 100 European and international organisations are calling on the G20 Finance Ministers to rein in speculation on food prices by banks, hedge funds and pension funds. The finance ministers will be discussing responses to the record food prices which are at ‘dangerous’ levels according to the World Bank with 44 million more people pushed into poverty since last June.
Recently released global data by UNAids points to enormous progress in preventing and treating HIV. More people than ever before now live with HIV as a chronic disease, rather than dying from it, because they are getting antiretroviral treatment. Kenya is a good example. Over the past year, the number of people taking the drugs has risen by 25 per cent. But a central issue has been absent from the debate. The optimistic ?gures gloss over the enormous pain su?ered by millions of HIV patients - needless su?ering that can be prevented.
Across Morocco, peaceful protests have emerged, with thousands taking to the streets from Tangier to Fes. In the southern city of Marrakech, however, reports that the protests turned into chaos emerged, with claims of vandalism and attempts by protesters to storm police headquarters.
The ANC is a 'complete mess' and its young cadres have no interest in history, but simply want access to jobs and personal enrichment, according to a United States embassy cable obtained by City Press through the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. According to the cable, the ANC's Gauteng spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli told a US diplomat that crippling divisions were plaguing the ruling party.
A suicide car bomber has attacked a police training camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, killing at least six people, officials say. The blast is reported to have happened near the Darwish Camp, which is next to a police academy. There are fears the death toll will rise.
Despite opposition from Ethiopia's president and environmental authorities, a rainforest area providing livelihood to an indigenous people has been leased out to make tea plantations. In a rare move, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) has been able to acquire government documents describing the struggle of the Mazenger and other indigenous people to protect their ancient forest-covered lands along tributaries to the White Nile.
Taranga FM, a privately-owned local language radio station which was shut down on 13 January 2011, has reopened after the Gambian authorities issued a warning to the station’s management to stop reviewing what they described as 'opposition' newspapers. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s sources reported that the station is now back on air without its popular 'Xibari besbi', news and current affairs programme that reviewed newspapers in the Wolof language for most uneducated Gambians.
'Since the beginning of this year, we have been aware of several online ‘corrective rape’ petitions and campaigns. We have made a deliberate decision not to sign or endorse these petitions. Our position and core concerns regarding these campaigns are as follows. The public exposure of bruised and battered faces and bodies of survivors is unethical and sensationalist. Many seem to assume that these petitions have been driven at least in part by survivors themselves. If you read carefully through the online petitions and the articles associated with these campaigns, you will find that the voices of survivors are largely absent. Once again black women in Africa are being cast as voiceless victims, as voiceless faces. No consideration seems to be given to the wide-ranging emotional and social impact that this kind of global and local exposure might have on survivors. The harm that this kind of sensationalist exposure is likely to have on survivors, their families and extended networks seems to have been overlooked.'
Orchestrated violence following hotly contested presidential election results in December 2007 led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Many are still struggling to rebuild their lives in their new homes, despite a government compensation scheme.
Women writers are coming into their own in African contemporary literature, dominating the shortlist - with nine out of 12 - for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2011 for best book and best first book from Africa. According to South Africa-based editor and writer Helen Moffet, a new generation of African women writers is dabbling in a gamut of subjects like chick lit for the educated working women, thrillers, crime, humour, women's issues and social realities.
Carol Gor, 36, thought her chances of obtaining a secondary education ended 11 years ago when her parents, who rely on fishing along Lake Victoria, failed to raise the fees. She stayed at home for a few years, got pregnant and was soon married. But in 2009, Gor sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) alongside her second-eldest son. Her oldest son was completing secondary school then. She has since joined an NGO-sponsored, girls-only secondary school in Muhuru Bay, where students are on full scholarship.
While aesthetic standards are slowly shifting and some women refuse the destructive practice of forcing weight gain, traditionally in Mauritania a plump figure on a woman signifies wealth and well-being. For generations families force-fed their daughters litres of cow’s or camel’s milk daily in part to improve their marriage prospects. But in recent years, despite health warnings, some girls and women are voluntarily turning to other methods, like taking cortisone products - including one designed to make cattle gain weight; appetite-inducing syrups; and psychotropic medicines.
Graca Machel, president of the Foundation for Community Development of South Africa has said the most important revolution that African women have to get involved in is the economic one. Machel also said women have to be agents and builders of peace in their respective countries.
Murdered gay rights activist David Kato was mocked at a UN-backed debate on Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill, according to a US diplomat in Kampala in a leaked American embassy cable. The diplomat said Kato, who was bludgeoned to death near his home in the capital, Kampala, last month, delivered a well-written speech against the bill, but his words were almost inaudible due to 'his evident nervousness'. Throughout his talk a member of the Ugandan Human Rights Commission 'openly joked and snickered' with supporters of the bill, the diplomat claimed in the cable.
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...
When disaster strikes as it has recently in Southern Africa, everyone is affected. Last week the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that during the next two or three months parts of Southern Africa will likely experience some of the worst flooding seen in more than 20 years. But for women, the impact can be far greater, and have longer-lasting consequences. Natural disasters are often considered a ‘gender neutral’ topic – that is, something which affects everyone equally. However, according to Indian author and activist Ammu Joseph, ‘every issue has a different impact on different sections of the population, this includes women.’
Issue one of the 2011 Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Southern Africa newsletter is now available. Visit their page to read the newsletter and to sign up for forthcoming editions.
'We the undersigned condemn in the strongest possible terms the murder of Mr David Kato, the Ugandan gay rights campaigner. We wish to state emphatically that homosexuality is neither a sin nor a social or cultural construct. It is a biological given. Homosexuals are human beings like everybody else. Scientific research has been helpful in clearing the fog of ignorance entrenched by some religious texts in regards to homosexuality. Our opinions of homosexuality must change for the better, just as our opinion of slavery has changed, even though it was endorsed by those same religious texts. All violence against gays and people deemed to be gay in Africa must cease forthwith.'
'The institutions and organisations below have signed this statement in disapproval of the criteria and formation of the Constitutional Committee, whereby the committee does not include a single female expert. Advancing with a committee like this, triggers fears and suspicions with regards to the future of Egypt and the transitional phase.'
A study has found that about 55 per cent of HIV patients in South Africa who are not eligible for treatment at the time of diagnosis will disappear from clinics within a year of initial monitoring, leaving a serious gap in HIV care and prevention, say researchers. Most patients in South Africa must have a CD4 count - a measure of the immune system’s strength - of 200 or less to be eligible for antiretrovirals (ARVs), but previous research has shown that about two-thirds of people will not meet ARV treatment criteria at diagnosis.
Wesley Kipkoech*, 21, may be illiterate and speak only his native Ndorobo tongue, but he understands all too well that if he does not have regular access to his HIV medication, he is likely to die. Kipkoech is one of hundreds of internally displaced people living on the edges of the Mau Forest Complex in Kenya's Rift Valley Province after the government began evicting them in 2009, in a bid to rehabilitate the forest after decades of farming, charcoal burning and other harmful activities.
President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2012 includes sizable increases in funding for development, health, military and anti-narcotics initiatives in East Africa, reports The East African. The contrast between overall austerity and proposed funding increases for Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda highlights the priority the White House assigns to a sub-region deemed of strategic importance to the United States. All the East African countries are in line for significant increases in health programmes that include anti-Aids efforts.
The Transformation Audit, which annually tracks matters of social justice in the South African economy, will be launched in Cape Town later that evening, with Auditor-General, Terence Nombembe, as keynote speaker. Titled 'Vision or Vacuum?', this edited volume focuses on the quality of economic and political governance in South Africa and how they impact on the achievement of shared prosperity for all South Africans.
'On 18 and 19 February 2011, the National Steering Committee of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) held its first meeting after the historic DLF’s founding conference held last month at Wits University. This committee meeting was held in eThekwini as part of initiating the launch and growth of the DLF process, campaigns and structures in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The meeting was held in the immediate aftermath of the people’s revolutions for democracy and wealth redistribution in the countries of the Maghreb and the Arab world, President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address, the forthcoming municipal elections and the current wave of worker and community protests as we have seen with the recently-ended truck driver’s strike, the Equal Education Campaign’s protest outside parliament concerning the crisis in the Eastern Cape education system, and the community protests in Grahamstown, Ermelo and others bubbling elsewhere.'
Unconfirmed reports from sources in Libya - where reliable information is notoriously difficult to come by - suggested more than 60 people died in violence in the capital on 21 February. Network Al-Jazeera also claimed at least one government building had been torched in Tripoli, a report that also could not be independently verified. Unconfirmed reports from sources in Libya suggested more than 60 people died in violence in the capital on 21 February. Network Al-Jazeera also claimed at least one government building had been torched in Tripoli, a report that also could not be independently verified.
Pambazuka News 516: Voices from Dakar WSF | Egyptian people's power persists
Pambazuka News 516: Voices from Dakar WSF | Egyptian people's power persists
To call the ongoing people’s revolts in Tunisia and Egypt Facebook revolutions is certainly overstating the case. In both countries, the time was ripe for revolution and social upheaval. Poverty, repression and hopelessness were enforced by greedy US-supported despots who were deaf to the needs of their people. But there is little doubt that the recent street-protest revolts in Tunis and Cairo were assisted by new social media: Facebookers, tweeters and a new generation of Internet bloggers.
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo who was held by the military outside Tahrir (Liberation) Square, has spoken to the network about the experience following his release. Mohyeldin describes how he was taken to a separate holding area, where he was handcuffed with plastic strips, had his equipment taken off him and was interrogated.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on 7 February that it was concerned about the well-being of two Ivorian journalists who have been detained without charge for 10 days amid reports that they have been tortured in custody. Aboubacar Sanogo and Yayoro Charles Lopez Kangbé have been held by the Ivorian military police in Abidjan since 28 January, according to local journalists and news reports. The journalists have been described as 'rebels' by newspapers supporting Laurent Gbagbo.
A low-cost maternal ultrasound system that began as a class project by a group of college students at the University of Washington in Seattle is to be tested by midwives in Uganda, a country with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. Around 10 Ugandan midwives will be selected to participate in the field test project. The experiment will evaluate whether the device matches the midwives' needs and skills. The device is designed to enable midwives to detect conditions that can complicate pregnancies and birth.
Sonke's Policy, Advocacy and Research Unit and the WHO's Department of Women, Gender and Health invites applications for a 2-day training on Engaging men and boys to achieve gender equality and health equity, taking place from 24-25 February 2011 in Pretoria.
Oxfam has added its voice to a growing chorus of concern about Britain’s system for deciding on asylum claims, and the suffering it causes, in a report on destitute asylum seekers, who are forbidden to work but cannot claim state benefits. These men and women, who told their stories anonymously in 'Coping with Destitution: Survival strategies of asylum seekers in the UK', live in the shadows, penniless and dependent on the charity of others.
The Tanzanian government has embarked on a large-scale voluntary male circumcision programme aimed at reducing the HIV risk of men and boys in areas of the country with low levels of male circumcision. 'We have already completed a pilot project and we are now scaling up male circumcision,' said Bennet Fimbo, HIV/AIDS adviser to the Tanzania Ministry of Health. 'The target group in the campaign will be men and boys aged 10-34.'
In parts of Madagascar's drought-prone south people have resorted to eating cattle-feed, as successive years of crop failures and the current lean season give food insecurity a firmer grip on the region. 'For some time now people have been changing their eating habits, with many eating red cactus that is usually given to cattle, or tamarind mixed with water and earth,' said Harinesy Rajeriharineranio, southern Madagascar coordinator for Actions Socio-Sanitaire et Organisation Secours (ASOS), an NGO focused on health and sanitation, based in the southeastern city of Fort Dauphin.
South Africa is preparing to take HIV testing into the classroom as part of its national voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT) campaign, but testing kids is controversial and implementing the programme is fraught with challenges – just ask those already doing it. Government departments, together with the South African National AIDS Council, are holding nationwide consultative meetings with members of the education, children's rights and HIV sectors to formulate a national policy for school-based HIV testing, as well as guidelines and recommendations for the country’s nine provinces.
Google executive Wael Ghonim said after his release that he was kept blindfolded for two weeks while being detained by Egyptian state security. Activists said Ghonim had been involved in founding 'We are all Khaled Said', an anti-torture Facebook group named after an activist who rights groups said was beaten to death by police in the port city of Alexandria.
Egypt's new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, has long sought to demonise the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with skeptical US officials, leaked diplomatic cables show, raising questions whether he can act as an honest broker in the country's political crisis. US Embassy messages from the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks cache of 250 000 State Department documents, which Reuters independently reviewed, also report that the former intelligence chief accused the Brotherhood of spawning armed extremists and warned in 2008 that if Iran ever backed the banned Islamist group, Tehran would become 'our enemy'.
A radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across northeastern Nigeria demanded on Monday (6 February) that troops withdraw from the troubled region and that the government rebuild destroyed mosques. A spokesperson for the sect, known locally as Boko Haram, issued the demand after the group recently claimed responsibility for killing seven people, including the dominant gubernatorial candidate in Borno state.
The Nigerian government refused to discuss a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain unless the Crown Prosecution Service dropped corruption charges against a favoured member of the ruling party, leaked documents disclose. Britain is keen to secure an agreement allowing the transfer of more than 400 prisoners back to Nigeria. But talks over the agreement stalled after Britain refused to drop charges against James Ibori, a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, who is accused of stealing more than £196m of state funds and channelling 'dirty money' to Britain, report the Daily Telegraph.
Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir officially accepted the final results of Southern Sudan Referendum paving the way for the proclamation of an independent state in the region. President Al-Bashir on Monday (07 February) issued a Republican Decree accepting the final result of the referendum which supports the separation of the South, after the official promulgation of the results in Khartoum on Monday.
Six people were remanded at Buwama police prison in the outskirts of Ugandan capital Kampala for booing President Yoweri Museveni, police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said. Speaking to the local Daily Monitor Monday (07 February), Ms Nabakooba said the matter was before court. Early reports, however, published by allege that 20 people were arrested for booing the President while on a campaign trail at Buwama market.
The US has followed Germany's footsteps to withhold about $350 million that was supposed to be disbursed to Malawi this month through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Last month, US Government announced that Malawi had qualified for the $350 million grant to improve the energy sector. The signing of the same was supposed to take place mid February in Washington. However, Washington has put a plug to the whole process citing Malawi’s failure to observe governance and human rights issues.
The true scale of the theft of overseas aid money by corrupt foreign regimes is disclosed in leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been pocketed by their ministers and officials, much of it used to buy luxury goods. In one of the worst cases, £1.2million given to Sierra Leone by the Department for International Development (DfID) to 'support peacekeeping' was stolen by the country’s 'top brass' and spent on plasma television sets, hunting rifles and other consumer items.
Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta has termed his pending case at The Hague as a 'political strategy' by his detractors to lock him out of the 2012 General Election. Kenyatta also dismissed International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s application that the six Kenyans he suspects to be the key perpetrators should not meet with each other.
The Black Sash has accepted a settlement offer after taking the government to court on behalf of tens of thousands of people waiting to have their social grant appeals heard. The human rights organisation and 24 disabled people from the Eastern Cape launched a legal application in June last year following persistent attempts to persuade the Department of Social Development to clear the huge appeals backlog and deal with excessive delays. According to the Department's own figures, more than 65,000 people across the country are trapped in a systemic appeals backlog in the office of its Minister and at the tribunal appointed to hear the appeals of those who've had their grant applications rejected.
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has publicly expressed frustration at the slow pace of the country's land redistribution programme, a process which he urged government to swiftly address. Pohamba told the country's first cabinet session in 2011 that the largely discredited willing buyer willing seller principle had been a failure and implored the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to speedily finalise the Consolidated Draft Land Bill and the implementation of small scale farming projects.
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has recommended a drastic restructuring of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in order to ensure greater transparency and credibility of certain oil sector payments and receipts in the national oil and gas behemoth. NEITI's recommendation was made in its latest reconciliation report, which covered the period of 2006 to 2008 and published on the website of the extractive industries watch-dog.
'If David’s murder stimulates discussion about the violence and discrimination facing people because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity, then his death will not have been completely in vain. That discussion must inevitably address the question of decriminalizing homosexuality. Criminal sanctions for homosexuality remain on the statute books in more than 70 countries, including Uganda. Such laws are an anachronism, in most cases a hangover from the old days of colonial rule.'
The United Nations (UN) has expressed concern over the rising insecurity in Somalia, saying it would worsen the humanitarian crisis created by the ongoing drought in the region. UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, said at the weekend that insecurity made it difficult to reach and assist internal refugees in need of assistance. She noted that one in every four children in the country was extremely malnourished while at the same time asking Kenya not to send any Somali refugees back.
Journalists, broadcasters and media entrepreneurs on Monday raised a red flag over the proposed changes to the set of laws governing the operations of the media industry. Speaking at a consultative meeting at Nairobi's Sarova Panafric Hotel, the industry players said the government's draft Media Bill, 2010, was taking the industry 'many steps back'. According to the Media Council chairman, Dr Levi Obonyo, the proposal to limit the aspect of self-regulation in the new draft Bill is 'retrogressive'.
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara refused to resign, defying a directive from his party to step down and accept a ministerial position after he lost the party’s leadership. Mutambara was replaced by Industry Minister Welshman Ncube as head of the faction of the Movement for Democratic Change at its congress in January, after which the party said he would move to the Minister of International Co-operation and Regional Integration.
South Africa is gearing up for its third local government election. In an attempt to break with the authoritarianism of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, President Jacob Zuma has promised a new approach to these elections, where more responsive candidates are selected that genuinely represent the will of the people. But, asks Jane Duncan, Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University, will the promise of these elections be realised? And will the ANC respect the will of the people if it clashes with the will of the party?
Political leaders have committed to ramping up restoration of the world's forests and tackling poverty in forest communities as part of pledges made at the ninth session Forum on Forests. Rwanda, in central eastern Africa, led the way with promises to launch a 25-year plan to tackle ecosystem degradation and improve rural livelihoods, a move hailed by environmental groups including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press are the big gains of Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine Revolution, according to a top Tunisian economist, writer and opposition figure. But he warns that dark days still lie ahead. 'Not even political scientists could have imagined people’s deep hunger for democracy,' says Mahmoud Ben Romdhane, author of the just published ‘Tunisie: Etat, économie et société’ and one of the keynote speakers at the 17th Maghreb Literary Fair (Maghreb des Livres).
Apart from the looming job losses in Swaziland’s public sector, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have also warned of retrenchments following the government’s decision to suspend procurement from small businesses. The government of the southern African autocratic monarchy has been forced to cut expenditure after its receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) shrunk with 60 per cent.
Black smoke billowed across morning rush hour traffic as angry backyarders in Nyanga blockaded Lansdowne road with burning tyres on Tuesday, forcing commuters to find alternative routes to work.The Backyarders from Nyanga’s Mau-Mau, Old Location and White City areas were protesting over the lack of housing for them and demanding the provincial government allocate houses to backyarders in housing projects in the area.
A lack of community support and persistent discrimination is being blamed for the re-recruitment of former child soldiers by the army and militias in Masisi territory, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. Former child soldiers are being especially targeted in Kitchanga, 80 kilometres north-west of Goma. The town used to be a stronghold of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP, a rebel group which has now been officially integrated into the armed forces.
Greater action is needed by United Nations peacekeeping missions – working with local women, national authorities and UN Member States – to increase the limited participation of women in peace negotiations, national security institutions and governance in post-conflict situations, says a UN study. The impact study – conducted a decade after the adoption of landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, the first to address the specific impacts of conflict on women and call for women's engagement in peace processes – reports a mixed record on the overall contribution of UN peacekeeping to the implementation of the resolution.
The chairperson of West Africa's regional bloc on Tuesday (08 February) criticised South Africa for sending a warship to the region amid Côte d'Ivoire's political crisis, but the South African government maintained it had sent the vessel as a negotiating venue. The dispute comes amid a growing rift between African nations on how to resolve the political stalemate in Côte d'Ivoire. Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede power more than two months after the UN said he lost the election.
Fear of infection and mass social change have driven a huge decline in HIV rates in Zimbabwe, offering important lessons on how to fight the Aids pandemic in the rest of Africa, scientists said on Tuesday (08 February). In a study in the journal PLoS Medicine, British researchers said Zimbabwe's pandemic was one of the biggest in the world until the rate of people infected with HIV almost halved, from 29 per cent of the population in 1997 to 16 per cent in 2007.
Côte d’Ivoire has been in a political impasse since the declaration of contested results of a second round of presidential elections held in November 2010. Since both candidates claimed victory and have been sworn in, the country has two presidents and two governments. In order to understand the impact of this situation on women and women’s rights organisations, AWID spoke with two women’s rights defenders, Mata Coulibaly President of SOS EXCLUSION and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, President of Génération Femmes du troisième Millénaire (GFM3), as well as with an Ivorian politician who prefers to remain anonymous and to whom we have given the pseudonym of Sophie.
In the aftermath of post-election violence here, almost 18 thousand people - 70 per cent of them women, children and older persons – have been temporarily re-settled in the Western part of the country, fleeing from clashes between communities in the city of Duékoué. In the wake of the crisis, and in the absence of supplies, maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity increased, according to the local health authorities. 'We had to run here and there to perform a childbirth or a Caesarean section and there were no drugs available,' said Dr. Moïse Tetchi, gynaecologist at the General Hospital of Duékoué, recalling the situation in the early stages of the crises.
A Libyan writer and political commentator arrested and accused of a driving offence appears to have been targeted for calling for peaceful protests in the country, Amnesty International has said. Jamal al-Hajji, a former prisoner of conscience who has dual Libyan and Danish nationality, was detained on 1 February in Tripoli by plain clothes security officers. They accused him of hitting a man with his car, which he denies.
United Nations peacekeepers have positioned armoured personnel carriers and are patrolling an area in Sudan where units made up of Northern and Southern Sudanese troops clashed last week, killing 54 soldiers and wounding 85 others. 'The United Nations urges the parties to remain calm and exercise caution,' spokesman Martin Nesirky told a news briefing in New York, referring to the outbreak of violence in Malakal in Sudan’s Upper Nile State between 3 and 5 February.
The International Federation of Journalists has mourned the loss of the first journalist to die in the social unrest in Egypt. Journalist Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud died in hospital in Cairo from injuries sustained after he was shot in the eye by a sniper. The journalist, aged 39, worked for the A’wada newspaper, a part of the Al Ahram media group. His death comes after a week of continuing unrest that has seen journalists and media staff among those targeted by groups loyal to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
A new food assessment report says that close to two million Zimbabweans will still need food aid in the coming months, despite 'better economic conditions'. The US-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) reported this month that about 1.7 million Zimbabweans will be in need of food aid during the next two months. Both FEWSNET and the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) last year estimated that about 1.3 million rural households will be food insecure between January and March.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor snubbed his war crimes trial for a second day on Wednesday (09 February), prompting judges to adjourn the case as they consider whether to allow a defence appeal over key documentation. Taylor, the first African ruler to stand trial for war crimes, has denied 11 charges of instigating murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscription of child soldiers during a civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
In 2009, this paper from the Centre for International Media Assistance says, the Arab region had 35,000 active blogs and 40,000 by late 2010. Although Egypt’s interior ministry maintains a department of 45 people to monitor Facebook, nearly five million Egyptians use the social networking site among 17 million people in the region, including journalists, political leaders, political opposition figures, human rights activists, social activists, entertainers, and royalty who are engaging online in Arabic, English, and French. This paper was commissioned and largely reported in the period leading up to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region in early 2011. It is published as a stage-setter for the events that are rapidly unfolding in the Arab world.
The paper presents a wide range of data on Mozambique and examines what this shows about changes to poverty and income levels over the past decade. The authors point to the lack of changes in farming practice which is contributing to the persistence of poverty and consider cash income and the poverty trap in Mozambique. The paper goes on to discuss the failure of donor-led development models.
Algeria needs to invest up to 120 billion dollars in renewable energy between now and 2030 to meet the goals of a new energy policy adopted by the council of ministers on Friday (February 4th), experts said. The investment needs to come from both the public and private sector, in addition to contributions by foreign partners, energy consultant Khaled Boukhlifa explained at an El Moudjahid forum on Sunday (6 February).