Pambazuka News 505: Exploiting Haiti's disaster / Attacks on press freedom
Pambazuka News 505: Exploiting Haiti's disaster / Attacks on press freedom
Routledge African Studies has announced free downloads of the top five downloaded articles from each of their African Studies journals. Articles include:
- African diaspora and the metropolis: an introduction by Fassil Demissie
- An epidemic waiting to happen? The spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa in social and historical perspective by Shula Marks
- A nation to be reckoned with: The politics of World Cup stadium construction in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa by Peter Alegi.
Nawal el Saadawi is a popular speaker and writer in the UK. For the first time ever she will be facilitating a course on her specialised area, creativity and dissidence. Places are limited and will be offered on a first come first served basis.
Patients are at risk of developing resistance to Tuberculosis medicine due to lack of access to quality treatment, according to a report presented at the 41st Union World Conference on Lung Health. TB patients should ideally receive a six months fixed dose combination regimen at the cost of around US$26 per patient but in some countries this is not the case according to 'Falling Short: Ensuring Access to Simple, Safe and Effective First-Line Medicines for Tuberculosis'.
A new United Nations report shows for the first time how poor health is linked to poverty in cities and calls on policymakers to identify those that need the most help and target measures to improve their well-being. The report, entitled 'Hidden Cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings', was launched in Kobe, Japan, where leaders from governments, academia, media and non-governmental organisations have been meeting for the past three days to examine how to improve the health of city dwellers.
Global food import bills may pass the $1 trillion mark in 2010, a level not seen since food prices peaked in 2008, says a new United Nations report, which warns that harder times could be ahead without a major increase in food production next year. According to the latest edition of the Food Outlook report, released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food import bills for the world's poorest countries are predicted to rise 11 per cent in 2010 and by 20 per cent for low-income food-deficit countries.
The United Nations estimates that 95 per cent of aggressive behaviour, harassment, abusive language and denigrating images in online spaces are aimed at women and come from partners or former male partners. Other surveys show that the victims of cyber-stalking are predominantly female. APC Women and Inter Press Service Africa co-hosted a media roundtable on 17 November entitled ‘Click Against Violence: Taking 16 Days of Activism Online’, to discuss online Gender Based Violence and resources available to cover the issue.
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.
Discussing the works of Maaza Mengiste, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Solomon Gebre-Selassie explores the characters and plots of three African novels by female writers.
Conditions were ripe for cholera because international policy towards Haiti hasn't changed in decades, says this opinion piece in the London Guardian. 'Economic exploitation, political intervention, NGO gifts with chains attached, media misrepresentation, the same mistakes have been made over and over again. Sadly, even an earthquake doesn't seem to have changed that. It's little wonder Haitians are manifesting their anger in increasingly heated protests.'
‘For the last twenty years, the most powerful political and economic interests in and around Haiti have waged a systematic campaign designed to stifle the popular movement and deprive it of its principal weapons, resources and leaders,' writes Peter Hallward. January’s earthquake ‘triggered reactions that carried and that are still carrying such measures to entirely new levels’.
Why don't royal divorces attract the same media fanfare as weddings, wonders Gado.
A damning report confirms critics’ accusation that industrial biofuels are responsible for the world's food and hunger crisis, writes Mae-Wan Ho.
Has Tanzania’s parliament elected Anna Makinda as its first female speaker because she’s the best person for the job, or because it thinks she’s less likely to demand accountability than her predecessor, asks Salma Maoulidi.
The banning of works of art at a national gallery both curtails ‘fundamental rights of freedom of conscience and expression’ and ‘derails attempts’ to grapple with Zimbabwe’s traumatic past in ‘a palatable manner’, argues David Coltart.
Protecting Nigeria’s thriving film industry from piracy, political alliances in Cote D’Ivoire and Guinea’s elections through the eyes of a Peace Corps volunteer are among the posts in this week’s roundup of the African blogosphere, by Dibussi Tande.
‘What may seem to some a progressive and brave government is upon closer examination a tyranny’, which despite ‘rhetoric about land redistribution, is ultimately very hostile to its own society’s poor and working people, women, youth, elderly and ill,’ writes Patrick Bond.
Jacob Odipo’s resilience and resolve for a more equal Kenya was always on full display, writes Raphael Obonyo.
As the two-year lifespan of Zimbabwe’s coalition government draws close to an end, Japhet M. Zwana finds little cause for optimism about the country’s future.
A group of Uganda gay rights activists have protested steps by the government to ‘intentionally delete’ LGBTI from accessing vital health services for Most At Risk Population Groups (MARPS) in a national health policy soon to be launched.
A new generation of activists is being inspired to find creative ways to ‘manage diversity and promote pluralism’, thanks to an annual arts and culture festival aimed at promoting protest, writes Deep Roots.
Reflecting on how the media and war industries often feed off each other for political and commercial ends, Mwaura Kaara considers the prospects for ‘peace journalism’ that ‘captures the truths as they are without bias or favour’.
Petra Diamonds, the largest diamond-mining group listed on the UK's Alternative Investment Market (AIM), may deal in the glittering rocks that bring lovers together in holy matrimony. But the company’s activities behind the scenes may just be tearing people – and societies – apart, writes Khadija Sharife.
'Loyalty to political parties and to those who try to privatise the history of the struggle against apartheid for themselves becomes a very serious threat to the poor in a top-down system of governance,' writes S'bu Zikode, president of South African shackdwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. 'But loyalty has also been the source of our survival. Loyalty is fundamental to the strength that we build in our families and with our friends, our movements and our communities … Our loyalty should start from the bottom of society, where we are, and not from the politicians at the top of society.'
‘The road to controlling the press, however attractive to rulers it may be, must be trodden with extreme wariness. For it is luxuriantly strewn with signposts that read: “Expect unintended consequences!”’, writes Cameron Duodu.
Following concerted efforts to deny the Rwandan genocide from Edward Herman & David Peterson, Adam Jones urges Pambazuka readers to ‘do what they can to spread word of Herman & Peterson's denialist enterprise’.
The College of Arts and Social Science is pleased to announce to all university students a new course onPan African Thought. The course begins this semester, i.e. November 2010.
A new study finds a lack of transparency and corruption are reducing the impact of an initiative in Cameroon that channels a portion of national timber levies to rural forest communities. The study highlights the challenges of using a climate change pact to do something similar in forested regions around the world. In an article published in the peer-reviewed journal International Forestry Review, scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) examined how revenues from a tax paid by logging companies in Cameroon, known as an Area Fee (AF), are distributed to local councils to reduce rural poverty and stimulate local economic growth.
Egypt's ruling party has rejected as 'interference' calls, including by Washington, to allow foreign observers to monitor this month's parliamentary elections, media reports said on Wednesday. The National Democratic Party's secretary general Sawfat al-Sharif said only local groups would be allowed to observe the November 28 poll.
Thousands of women and men, people affected by the destruction of the environment, farmers, landless, Indigenous Peoples and activists from all sectors of society will gather in Cancun to propose thousands of solutions to confront climate change. They will show the world leaders their opposition to the false solutions to climate chaos discussed by the UNFCCC, such as market-based proposals on carbon trading and REDD, agrofuels and geo-engineering.
Renowned radical economist Samir Amin, director of the Third World Forum, chair of the World Forum for Alternatives and one of the best-known thinkers of his generation, visits the UK at the end of the month.
Amin will be speaking at Oxford (29 November), Liverpool (30 November), Edinburgh (1 December) and London (2 December).
For more information, please visit the .
Pambazuka News 504: Biopiracy, biodiversity and food sovereignty
Pambazuka News 504: Biopiracy, biodiversity and food sovereignty
The Angola Monitor covers the politics, economics, development, democracy and human rights of Angola. It is published quarterly by Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA). This issue covers Angola's progress in measures of poverty and governance, forced evictions and housing demolitions, international cooperation and the latest economic developments.
In light of the growing East Africa integration, International Bridges to Justice has embarked on a new project which aims at institutionalizing best defender practices among East African lawyers. IBJ is teaming up with the East Africa Law Society (EALS), the premier regional bar association, to develop an East Africa Legal Defense Manual that will help lawyers improve their skills and knowledge in the area of criminal law and defense.
Event: Transitional Justice, Prophetic Role of the Church and the Challenge of Peace in Kenya
Location: Hekima College off James Kagethe Road,
Date: Tues 16 November 2010, 2.00pm – 4.30pm
Speakers: Tom Kagwe, Kenya Human Rights Commission; Dennis Oricho, Nairobi Peace Initiative; Anne Kiprotich, Regional Coordinator TJRC, Rift Valley Region; Fr. Elias O. Opongo, SJ: AFCAST Member & Conflict Analyst
This forum is organised by the African Forum for Catholic Social Teachings (AFCAST) & Jesuit Hakimani Center: Tel: 3597097
Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa with support from UNIFEM Southern Africa Regional Office will host the second Women in Politics Training of Trainers workshop in Flic en Flac, Mauritius, from 9 to 12 November 2010. Nomcembo Manzini, UNIFEM Southern Africa regional director says 'the capacity building programme will seek to nurture a pool of trainers spanning women in politics support organisations and political parties that have the skills and tools to train women in advocacy around gender, democracy and governance.'
Soon all information on bananas in Africa, including the banana growing areas, yield, socio-economic status of the farmers and spread of pests and diseases, will be available on a scientist-driven online dictionary. The website (http://banana.mappr.info), developed by Philippe Rieffel a student of applied geography at the University of Münster, Germany, under supervision of scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), hopes to make a wide range of reliable spatial information on banana readily available to researchers, policy makers and development workers.
Amnesty International says it is concerned that the government of Uganda has failed to date to ensure thorough, prompt and independent investigations into frequent reports of human rights violations, including possible unlawful killings, by the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF), in the Karamoja region thereby ensuring impunity for the perpetrators. The alleged violations have been committed in the course of an ongoing disarmament process in the area.
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), with financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, announces competitions for:
- Early career postdoctoral fellowships in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Africa
- Dissertation completion fellowships in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda (no dissertation fellowships in South Africa)
Stipends are $9,000 for Dissertation Completion Fellows and $16,000 for Postdoctoral Fellows.
The current turmoil in the world economy has demonstrated once again that the international arrangements lack mechanisms to prevent financial crises with global repercussions, writes Yilmaz Akyüz, the special economic adviser of the South Centre. Not only are effective rules and regulations absent to bring inherently unstable international financial market and capital flows under control, but there is no multilateral discipline over misguided monetary, financial and exchange rate policies in systemically important countries despite their disproportionately large adverse international spillovers.
In an audio-tape released to Al Jazeera on October 27, Osama bin Laden castigated France for its intervention in the affairs of Muslims in North and West Africa. It is likely to have profound implications on the so-called war on al-Qaeda in the Sahara and Sahel, as well as on French and European policies in the region, writes Jeremy Keenan, a professorial research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and author of 'The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa'.
Absence of a formula based approach to budget allocation at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation has led to large inequities for water access in Kenya, with the poor paying more compared to the rich, and millions going without adequate access everyday. This finding is contained in a new analytical brief released by Twaweza titled 'It's Our Water Too! Bringing Greater Equity in Access to Water in Kenya.' Uwazi analysts have aggregated facts from a range of credible sources that demonstrate that persistent inequalities in access to water services in Kenya can be quickly reduced if an approach that links investments and resource allocation to needs rather than political weight is adopted and implemented.
In December of last year, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) hosted a public lecture by Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in Cape Town on 'The State of Zimbabwe’s Economy', as well as a dialogue with members of country’s diaspora. Emerging from that dialogue, diaspora members recently launched the Development Foundation for Zimbabwe – ‘a non-profit, non-partisan organisation created and driven by Zimbabweans’. The Foundation aims to ‘provide a platform for constructive engagement between Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and fellow compatriots in the Zimbabwean government, business, civil society and the general public’.
Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s stranglehold on power received a major knock in the just-concluded elections. CCM candidate Jakaya Kikwete won the presidential race comfortably with some 61 per cent of the vote. But that in Tanzania amounts to a massive setback in a system where the party candidate is routinely guaranteed close to 90 per cent of the vote and the opposition can barely gather a handful of MPs.
Eldoret North MP William Ruto wants the International Criminal Court to indict President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the roles he says they played in the post-election violence. In a statement that could form the core of Mr Ruto’s defence at The Hague, one of the suspended minister’s lawyers says the process of securing justice would have no credibility if Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga are not charged.
Elders in Bukwo and Kapchorwa districts are preparing to circumcise over 200 girls next month despite a new law banning the practice. The practice, commonly referred to as female circumcision, is mostly practiced among the Sabiny, who occupy Bukwo and Kapchorwa districts on the northern slopes of Mt Elgon. The United Nations categorises it as female genital mutilation (FGM) because it damages a woman’s sexuality and leads to various complications. FGM refers to the removal of the external female genitalia.
President Museveni has promised free university education for all science students from northern Uganda. Addressing a campaign rally at Akura in Alebtong on Sunday, Mr Museveni said the programme will include all students who are not on government sponsorship. Education ministry officials, many of whom admitted to being taken by surprise by the President’s campaign promise, were unable to offer any details on how the programme would be funded, how much it would cost, and what services would be sacrificed to fund the free A-level programme. Education is a key campaign plank for the ruling NRM party.
Idasa's executive director Paul Graham has warned that reviving democracy in Africa requires Europe to do the same. At the Netherlands Institute for Multipary Democracy conference held in Brussels earlier this month, Graham spoke of the need to understand the revitalisation of democracy as a global concern, focusing on the challenges that emerge as Europe cooperates with Africa to help us with our democratisation agenda.
Despite mounting concern publicly raised by civil society about the growing phenomenon of land grabbing, very little attention has been drawn so far to the specific role of private equity funds, says a new report. Most of the private equity funds aggressively involved in land grabbing are related to US financial markets However, European financial players haven’t just watched these developments silently and have become actors in the field of land grabbing too.
The two authorised sales of Marange diamonds make clear the Zimbabwe government has no reason to feel threatened by a Western diamond import ban, says this commentary from the International Crisis Group. Emerging powers are challenging the rules and becoming more influential. Buyers, especially from India, have been more than willing to fill the gap resulting from the absence of most Westerners. Chinese buyers could also potentially compete. With world diamond production falling by 24 per cent since 2009 and increased competition, buyers are becoming readier to push human rights and governance standards aside.
A recent decision by the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) summit means an 'effective suspension' of the SADC tribunal, which will deny SADC citizens redress, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) said last week. The challenge by NGOs including the Southern Africa Litigation Centre and the Africa regional office of the International Commission of Jurists, comes after a decision by the Sadc summit in August that the tribunal would not hear new cases. The tribunal hears cases between citizens of SADC member states and the states themselves, when the citizens have exhausted all domestic legal avenues.
The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating up to 80 politicians and top government officials in the intensified war against corruption. Those targeted by detectives include Cabinet ministers, past and present permanent secretaries and parastatal chiefs and several MPs. A list seen by the Sunday Nation details the nature of the charges the politicians and government officials are likely to face if the Attorney-General's office decides to prosecute. The offences range from abuse of office to embezzlement of public funds, fraud, conflict of interest and outright theft.
South African politicians and businessmen who pocketed R1-billion from the arms deal are set to be named in a new investigation by Britain's auditing watchdog. The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB) is to investigate KPMG, which advised BAE Systems on offshore companies that were used to pay 'commissions' to influence the awarding of lucrative contracts in South Africa's R47.4-billion defence procurement package.
The African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) is undertaking research to critically evaluate Zimbabwe’s tax system to determine its role and impact on the development agenda. The move comes against the backdrop of reports that the country is losing billions of United States dollars in corporate tax through evasion and externalisation as institutions seek to evade a punitive tax regime. The Washington-based Global Financial Integrity revealed in February this year that Zimbabwe was among the world’s top five countries with the largest tax revenue losses as a percentage of total government revenue at 21,5 percent.
Although responsible for about 80 per cent of the agricultural production for the supply of households and markets, women own less than two per cent of arable lands in West and Central Africa. This was the finding of a study conducted by the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (WECARD), published in Dakar, Senegal.
The Director of the Banjul-based African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, Hannah Forster, on Sunday emphasised the need for African governments to ratify and implement the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance in order to reinforce the highest principles of democratic governance in Africa. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the forum of the participation of NGOs on the 48th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, in Banjul, the Gambian capital, Forster lamented that impunity has become so entrenched in our countries that much thought should be given to the development of strategies to combat the phenomenon.
The shortage of doctors in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels with the country having only 21 per cent of the required medical practitioners amid other frightening statistics on the worsening health situation, a Parliamentary report has revealed. 'Child health status indicators are worsening with infant mortality and under-five mortality rising from 53 percent to 77 per 1?000 live births in 1994 to 67 and 94 per 1?000 live births respectively in 2009,' a Parliamentary report said.
In 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates committed their foundation to eradicating malaria. It was, said Richard Feachem, director of the Global Health Group, part of the University of California, San Francisco, 'a shock to the system for the malaria community, because for a couple of decades the ‘E’ words, eradication and elimination, were not used in polite company'. That reticence was due to the very public failure of elimination campaigns, but the debate has been re-opened with the publication by the medical journal, The Lancet, of a special series on the subject.
After years of armed conflict, women in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo are playing a leading role in its economic recovery with the help of vocational training centres which keep them fed while they learn new skills. Famiya Omari, a 50-year-old mother of five, once trudged for miles each day to ply fresh cassava. Now, she sells the bread and soap that she has learnt to make at a vocational centre run by a local NGO, the Reflection Committee For Development and Social Promotion (CORDPS).
A senior United Nations official has urged the national authorities in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to investigate reports that women were raped when large numbers of people were expelled from Angola and forced to return to the DRC recently. 'I call upon the authorities of both countries to investigate these allegations and to proceed in compliance with relevant legislation,' said Margot Wallström, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Urging his compatriots to remain grateful to him for his 'numerous developments and the transformation that has taken place in the country', Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh on Monday declared that he would not run for presidency in the 2011 elections, which will mark the end of his third five-year term. Jammeh told local authorities, politicians and other stakeholders drawn from all the regions in the country at the State House in Banjul, that democracy must be respected in the country, PANA reported from here Monday.
The United States will continue its support for efforts by the Malian government in the fight against terrorist threats in the north of the country, said the US envoy with the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), Rashad Hussain, at the end of his 5 to 7 November visit to Mali. 'We support Mali in terms of training and military maneuvers. The process that has been underway for some time will continue,' Hussain said, adding that 'terrorist threats are cross-border threats that claim victims.'
Delegates drawn from African governments, international organisations, parliaments and civil society agreed on Friday, 5 November 2010 in Tunis that the time had come for African countries to rely more on their internal resources, such as taxation, the capital markets and better prices for their valuable commodities, and less on international aid for development. The second Regional Meeting on Aid Effectiveness, jointly organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Union and NEPAD, convened on 4 and 5 February 2010, in preparation for the fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, to be held in Busan, Korea, in November 2011.
The police have reportedly issued a warrant of arrest against Wilf Mbanga the London-based editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper following publication of a story linked to the death of a senior official with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in 2008. Mbanga is accused of publishing a story after the 2008 elections 'which undermined President Robert Mugabe'. According to The Zimbabwean, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) reported that the police want to question Mbanga over an article published in The Zimbabwean following the death of ZEC director for polling, Ignatius Mushangwe.
Gunmen have attacked an off shore oil rig operated by exploration firm, Afren, kidnapping five crew members including foreigners and injuring two others, the company said on Monday. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) made no immediate claim of responsibility but threatened to carry out new attacks on oil infrastructure in the country. A resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta would be an embarrassment for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the first Nigerian President from the region.
The Kenyan government is working to reduce health workers' risk of HIV infection but experts say there is a need for greater focus on providing health workers with proper safety equipment and education. According to government statistics, an estimated 2.5 percent of new HIV infections annually are health-facility related. Poor medical waste disposal, needle stick injuries and unsafe blood transfusions are some of the factors that put medical workers at risk.
Dominicano Mulenga, national coordinator of Zambia's Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit, goes through his to-do list as the rainy season sets in: Industrial pumps to suck water out of the roads serviced. Tick. Enough stocks of tents and mosquito nets. Tick. Mobile phones delivered to communities living along the upper catchment areas of the River Zambezi. Check. 'We do not want a repeat of the situation from last year, when 1,000 people were displaced in Lusaka [the Zambian capital] alone because of poor drainage,' said Mulenga. Mulenga is one of several officials in Southern Africa gearing up for the rainy season which normally goes on until the end of March 2011.
An epidemic akin to polio, which has raged for nearly two weeks in the main commercial city in southern Congo, Pointe-Noire, has already killed eight, and several dozen cases have been reported, say health officials. 'Patients admitted to hospitals have flu-like symptoms. They are also presenting with paralysis starting in the lower limbs which spreads to the upper limbs,' said Director-General of Health Alexis Elira Dockekias.
Every year a noxious black smog hangs over Egypt as the seasonal burning of rice straw by farmers begins, and with it comes a surge in allergic reactions and lung infections. The inky haze lasts from October to November; it is a time when hospitals see a rise in patient numbers, and parents consider keeping their children out of school to avoid the worst of the throat-burning smog. 'Straw burning-induced pollution causes acute health problems,' Mahmud Abdel Meguid, chairman of the state-run Abbasiya Chest Hospital, told IRIN.
Zimbabwe's economy will grow for the second successive year in 2010 due to positive policies and strong commodity prices, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday, while calling for more reforms to sustain the recovery. An IMF team that visited between Oct 25 and Nov 3 for routine discussions with government and the private sector said Zimbabwe would have a budget surplus this year, among other signs of improved economic conditions.
Software piracy is becoming unnecessary. Open source software packages are becoming as user-friendly and adding as many features as proprietary packages - even in scientific circles. Africa should embrace open source scientific software, argues this article.
Firing up the local production of knowledge is crucial to escaping the ‘industry of development’, writes Luca Bussotti.
A group of journalists arrested in Libya have been released on the order of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan media report. Authorities had arrested 19 journalists and a senior media executive, reportedly as part of a power struggle inside the ruling elite.
The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries will carry out an official visit to South Africa from 10 to 19 November 2010 to examine the regulatory and oversight system in place to monitor the activities of private military and security companies. The UN expert body will hold discussions with government authorities, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, representatives of the diplomatic community, as well as representatives of the private military and security industry based in South Africa. In these discussions, the Working Group will focus, among other things, on the content and possible impact of the relevant legislation adopted in 2006.
African academies are still battling to obtain funding and recognition from policymakers despite several efforts to strengthen them. This message came out of the sixth meeting of the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) taking place in Somerset West near Cape Town, South Africa, this week (7–11 November).
Will Africa give birth to a new nation in 2011? Southern Sudan will hold an a referendum on whether or not it should remain as a part of Sudan on 9 January 2011 as part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Khartoum central government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. A simultaneous referendum will be held in Abyei on whether to become part of Southern Sudan. Global Voices carries a roundup of posts that discuss Sudan.
Four of the seven upstream Nile Basin Initiative countries have decided to sign a new Nile deal. Despite strong Egyptian and Sudanese opposition, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia signed a new water-sharing agreement. The other three countries, Kenya, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are expected to sign the new deal within the next 12 months as allowed by the accord. Global Voices presents a wide variety of opinions on the deal.
Women in Uganda’s rural areas will learn about domestic violence against women through the use of different ICT tools to build awareness around the issue, but they will also learn to report and prevent it - and the mobile phone will be playing a big part in their campaigns - from frontline SMS, to around-the-clock hotlines. Other tools being used include web 2.0 and online publishing tools, as well as radio.
The United Nations envoy for children and armed conflict has condemned the increasing number of children being recruited as soldiers by various armed groups in Somalia. Speaking on Monday, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, also highlighted the growing practice of forcing young girls into marriage and other forms of gender-based violence.
France's highest appeals court has authorised judges to proceed with an investigation into assets held in the country by three African leaders. The anti-corruption group Transparency International has accused the three of using African public funds to buy luxury homes and cars in France. The three leaders, one of whom is now dead, had denied wrongdoing. They are Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, as well as the late Gabonese leader, Omar Bongo.