Pambazuka News 503: Seize the time: Daring to invent the future
Pambazuka News 503: Seize the time: Daring to invent the future
A parliamentary select committee has begun compiling comments on a new constitution, gathered at 4,000 meetings held across Zimbabwe over the past three months. Gender activists are confident that women's views have been expressed; it will be up to the eventual drafters of the new constitution to ensure they are reflected. Over 700,000 people attended public meetings on Zimbabwe's draft constitution.
As global attention switches to the next climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, ETC Group releases that lifts the lid on the emerging global grab on plants, lands, ecosystems, and traditional cultures.
How are we to understand Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to power? What does the movement which propelled him to power represent? And why has he not fulfilled the promises of his election campaign? Wazir Mohamed reviews a new book by Horace Campbell that seeks to answer these questions.
Reporters Without Borders has written to Angolan interior minister Sebastiao José Antonio Martins voicing concern about the recent wave of threats and violence against journalists. One has been murdered, two have been physically attacked and injured, and a fourth has been the target of intimidation. 'We are concerned by the fact that the victims all work for critical or opposition news media,' Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said in the letter, sent on 28 October. 'The level of violence is very disturbing. The physical safety of journalists is in danger. We are alarmed by the gravity of these attacks.'
The Lindela Detention Centre in South Africa is a holding facility for the temporary detention of 'illegal foreigners' while they await deportation. This report from The Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand argues that despite the authority's efforts to improve operations at the facility, there continue to be systematic violations of the law at Lindela. The paper uncovers several lapses in correct procedures for detention in the center.
Researchers have attempted to link foreign aid to conflict with some suggesting that aid exacerbates existing ethnic cleavages while others say it presents an opportunity to payoff rebels who start civil war. Yet others argue that aid decreases the risk of civil war by promoting economic growth and strengthening state capabilities. This study delves into the confusion over foreign aid and its effects on armed conflict. It argues that aid shocks or sudden decreases in aid revenues, may shift the domestic balance of power and potentially induce violence because potential rebels gain bargaining strength with the government.
As Egypt assumed its year-long chairmanship of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees executive committee in Geneva last month, its policy of shooting unarmed migrants along its 'death zone' border with Israel has come into stark relief. Last week a Sudanese man was shot and killed by Egyptian security guards as he attempted to sneak through a portion of the 160-mile barbed wire fence running through the barren Sinai desert. At least 25 African migrants have been killed this year alone, adding to the scores since 2007.
The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance (WGEID) has adopted two new General Comments on the crime of enforced disappearance. Phil ya Nangoloh, the Executive Director of NAMRIGHTS, states that in Namibia this effectively means, for example, that the perpetrators of the enforced disappearances of thousands of Namibians should be held responsible for the said disappearances starting before June 25 2002 when Namibia ratified the Rome Statute (RS) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and continuing after such ratification.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the leading independent network on elections in Zimbabwe, convened a conference in Vumba – Leopard Rock Hotel which brought together various organisations and partners working on elections to deliberate on electoral issues in light of the possible referendum on the new constitution and elections in 2011. The conference was held under the theme: 'Enhancing Mutual Cooperation and Interaction on election Related activities amongst CSOs.'
Entries for the UNEP Young Environmental Journalist Award Africa are now open. The competition, which is made possible through funding support from the Government of the United States of America, is open to African journalists between 25 and 35 years old, working for African news and media organisations.
'The Civil Society Conference held on 27-28 October 2010 will hopefully come to be seen as a historic turning point in South Africa. It may mark the revival of co-ordinated community based activism that aims to achieve social justice and better the lives of the poor in South Africa. It was attended by more than 50 independent organisations that believe in social justice and that fight for it every day. Civil society is therefore taken aback by attacks on the motives of the conference emanating from the ANC’s National Working Committee (NWC) on 1 November 2010. We are surprised by the insinuations that the conference is part of a plot against the ANC. We expect better of the post-Polokwane ANC. This is conduct reminiscent of the paranoia of the Mbeki era. It is a conduct that suggests the ANC, or some of the people who hide under its flag, have something to fear.'
The Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa (EISA) deployed a observer mission to the Zanzibar General Elections of 31 October 2010 and has issued preliminary findings and recommendations. The mission noted that there has been a significant improvement in levels of political tolerance since the last elections held in Zanzibar in 2005. The agreement between President Amane Abeid Karume, leader of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Zanzibar and Seif Sharif Hamad, leader of Civic United Front (CUF) contributed significantly to this observable change in political tolerance.
AFRODAD will in 2010 produce three reports on ecological debt, binding together debt, climate change and extractive industries. The objective of the research is to deepen the understanding of the concept of ecological debt. The research will help to define a conceptual framework that can help develop policy recommendations to be used in advocacy activities. Specifically the research will seek to establish the magnitude of ecological debt in Africa and recommend key policy areas for advocacy.
A judge has temporarily ordered a tabloid in Uganda to stop publishing lists identifying people it claims are gay after an advocacy organisation filed a lawsuit. The order came a day after Rolling Stone - which has no relation to the iconic US music magazine - published a list of people it said were gay, urging readers to report them to police. Last month the tabloid published names, photos and address of 100 people that it called the country’s top gays and lesbians, alongside a yellow banner reading, 'hang them'.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights organisations and activists have expressed concerns over the the Sexual Practices Against Nature Bill presented before the national parliament of the Democratic Republic of aiming to criminalise homosexuality and zoophilia as sexual practices against nature. Jean Bedel Kaniki, President of Groupe Hirondelles Bukavu, an LGBTI organisation in the DRC confirmed that on the 22 October 'the bill was judged admissible by the majority of the parliament and was sent to the socio-cultural committee that will discuss its permissibility in terms of the provisions and principles of the constitution before its promulgation'.
The Home Affairs office in Cape Town is facing a court interdict for refusing to renew asylum seeker permits and refugee status documents for foreign nationals who originally obtained their documentation in another province. As many of these foreign nationals whose documentation has expired cannot afford to travel back to the province where they originally received documents, they face the possibility of arrest and deportation, or, if they have a job, may lose it.
Somalians in Khayelitsha say they are wondering which one of their countrymen in the township will be killed next after Somalian shopkeeper Cyrix Man was shot on Tuesday night. Man, 23, was shot twice in the head outside his shop on Endlovini Street, in Khayelitsha C-Section at about 11pm last Tuesday, and died in hospital at about 3.30am on Wednesday morning. Khayelitsha’s Somalia Retailers Association chairperson Abbi Ahmed said more than 22 Somalian’s had been killed in the past three months.
Since the workers from Vale, Brazil’s giant mining company, started to drink at his bar, fortune has favoured Mario Sálimo. With business growing week by week, the 47-year-old has opened extra rooms, added a restaurant and installed a dance floor. At weekends Mario’s Bar, near the clogged and dusty centre of Tete, is open until five or six o’clock in the morning. And the bar is not the only thing booming in this remote Mozambican town, which grew up as a trading post on the Zambezi river. Tete sits directly above one of the world’s largest reserves of high-quality coal.
When a place in the Middle East is labelled as ‘gay friendly’, does this simply open it up to a new host of demands from the West, asks blogger A of Arabia.
‘Being queer in Nairobi means you have to man-up - or be a woman and a half - to admit, embrace, and live your life with no regrets,’ writes J. Blessol Jr, in an exploration of both the positive and the many negative aspects of queer life in the city.
‘In order to go beyond age as a defining feature, there needs to be a framework which accommodates other associated elements that cannot be taken for granted and vary across different situations,’ writes Eyob Balcha. In this piece, Balcha explores how youth is conceptualised, with a focus on the African Youth Charter.
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.
In the aftermath of elections in Ekiti State, Uche Igwe looks at what the rest of Nigeria can learn from the experience. Noting civil society and the judiciary's key role in enabling the restoration of John Olukayode Fayemi as executive governor, Igwe argues that a ‘transparent political space’ and a ‘vibrant and mobilised civil society' is all the people need to 'gird their loins’ and vote.
As election fever sweeps across the continent, Dibussi Tande presents a selection of blog posts on the situation in Cote D’Ivoire, Tanzania and Cameroon, along with a view from Africa on Obama’s US presidency.
Nine days after the general elections in Tanzania a panel of experts will discuss the scene on the ground leading up to the elections, the election process itself and the what next for Tanzania.
'We, the undersigned journalists and freedom of expression organisations, express to you and your administration our deepest concern at the worsening media freedom situation in the north-eastern regions of Somalia that are controlled by Puntland. Since you assumed the office of Puntland President on 11 January 2009, journalists have been arrested, physically assaulted, suspended, censored and even killed, and the operations of news media organisations have been threatened, closed or restricted.'
The Harvard Africa Policy Journal is the leading scholarly journal in the United States dedicated to African policy. A call for papers has been issued for this year's theme, 'From the Heart of Africa'.
‘Without mass power, we must all forget about liberating ourselves from the shackles of capitalism and apartheid,’ writes Zwelinzima Vavi, in a memorial lecture for Chris Hani, the South African activist assassinated in 1993.
Faced by high unemployment South Africans are ‘queuing up to be exploited’, writes Mashumi ‘Lindela’ Figlan. But there’s no reason why ‘each and every person cannot have their dignity.’
The country's economy is ‘a poverty machine’ perpetuating and deepening inequalities that ‘threaten the basis of social stability and growth’, writes Andries du Toit. But in re-imagining South Africa’s future, we need to focus on 'the quality of social relations' and not just ‘material issues’.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's call for the Cape Town Opera not to perform in Tel Aviv should be listened to, write members of the Gaza community. 'Do the Cape Town Opera members completely ignore the fact that instead of showing solidarity with us the voiceless and imprisoned, they will instead be performing to war-makers and Israeli soldiers and reservists?'
The excessive use of pretrial detention leads to overcrowded environments where unconvicted detainees are at risk of contracting disease, writes Kersty McCourt. But as disease outbreaks quickly spread to the general public, pretrial detention is not just a human rights problem but also a looming public health crisis.
For more than a decade, a host of young footballers, overwhelmingly under the age of 18 (more than 3,000 since 2000), have left the African continent to try their luck in Europe and Asia, according to the website of Association foot solidaire, a non-governmental organisation based in Paris, which fights against mistreatment of young African footballers. The mafia-type characters who extract money from parents, most of them poor, take young Africans to Asia or Europe with the promise of a trial at a big club. In the end, many of them are abandoned in the street, with no means to support themselves.
Children of South Africa (CHOSA) is a small funding NGO that is looking for a full-time Programs Coordinator with progressive politics who speaks fluent isiXhosa. This person should understand grassroots and community-led development as well as be anti-authoritarian in his/her socio-political outlook.
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake joined the Kenya Government and other partners on Friday to roll out an innovative approach to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies (PMTCT). The initiative includes a combination of interventions and supplies such as a 'Mother-Baby-Pack' of antiretroviral drugs and antibiotics, which women can easily administer at home. Without treatment, around half of all children born with HIV will die before their second birthday.
Projections of the impact of circumcision on the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa based on clinical trials may underestimate the number of infections that can be averted by around 40 per cent, according to an international group of epidemiological modellers. The findings, published in advance online by the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, come from new epidemiological modelling work that incorporates findings from a pooled analysis of two recent studies that evaluated the impact of circumcision on HIV transmission from men to women.
Despite efforts by civil society and the government, violence against women remains an ever-present problem in Morocco, a women's rights NGO announced on 27 October. To reach its conclusions, the Chama Centre for Refuge, Counselling and Legal Advice documented 302 cases of gender abuse over the period 2009-2010.
The Algerian government has been implementing an array of pro-reading measures. In 2008, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia issued a decree covering the import and sale of books through festivals, fairs and trade shows. Last August, the Council of Ministers decided to introduce a VAT exemption on paper for book printing.
Morocco exercises secret detention and ill-treatment of detainees under counter-terrorism laws, Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged in a provocative new report titled 'Stop looking for your son: Illegal detentions under the counterterrorism law in Morocco'. 'While Morocco has demonstrated the political will to adopt enlightened human rights legislation, it lacks the political will to enforce it when it comes to terrorism suspects,' said Leah Whitson, head of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division.
South Africa is set to create a US-style development aid agency as it seeks to play a more prominent role as a major donor country in Africa, says International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. She made the announcement at a regional heads of mission conference in Nairobi, Kenya during a three-day foreign policy session, Business Day reported on Wednesday.
Ghana has lifted its ban on a business caught smuggling cocoa out of the country, after lobbying by Britain at the request of the company’s owner. As long as African countries are dependent on aid, they will find it hard to refuse the demands of potential donors, muses Cameron Duodu.
Sudan policemen and Darfur rebel militias clashed in Sudan's western region of Darfur, government and rebels said. It was reported that both sides are claiming a crushing victory. The Sudan government said its forces had killed many rebel fighters while rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) claimed to have killed about 50 policemen. The interior ministry said the fighting begun when Jem rebels ambushed a government fuel and food supplies convoy in southern Darfur.
Attending the NEPAD Forum in Abuja last week, Okello Oculi is disappointed by a lack of enthusiasm for the most interesting ideas raised. Meanwhile, the last-minute trade fair running in parallel to the forum is ‘a success by the mere fact of its taking place’.
Developed by Jidaw Systems Limited, a ICT training, consulting and web content provision firm in Nigeria, the Nigeria Computers blog is a public online resource for Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) in Nigeria. With an aim to promote ICT4D in Nigeria, the blog will provide information, insights and opportunities to network. The blog’s focus on ICT4D content is geared towards ICT for job creation, business development, entrepreneurship, youth empowerment and poverty alleviation.
'We hereby recognize the resignation of Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat from the Chairmanship of the Truth Justice & Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). On behalf of all those Kenyans who wish to see a successful truth, justice and reconciliation process in Kenya, we applaud the former Chairman for taking what has certainly being a difficult option for him.'
For a place to be deemed a health facility, there are things that are considered to be necessities such as human resources and medicinal drugs, among many others. However, we find so many health facilities in this country failing to meet these standards thereby being reduced to nothing but white elephants. Recently, it was reported that Dar es Salaam municipal hospitals are facing serious shortages of medicines and medical staff such as nurses and doctors, something that cripples the operations of these health facilities, aggravating the suffering of the general public as they fail to provide quality services to patients.
A deadly animal virus which broke out earlier this year in Tanzania could spread to Southern Africa, threatening the lives of more than 50 million sheep and goats in 15 countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. Known as Peste des Petits Ruminants, or small ruminants’ plague (PPR), it is considered the most destructive viral disease affecting small flocks, on par with rinderpest, a deadly cattle plague that has wreaked havoc on agriculture for millennia, resulting in famine and economic destruction.
Fears that antiretroviral therapy might lead healthier-feeling HIV-positive people to have more sex and potentially infect others may be unfounded, according to a new South African study, which recorded patients having significantly less sex as well as safer sex after starting treatment. The study followed 2,332 HIV-positive patients enrolled in care who eventually started treatment at a large urban clinic in Soweto, Johannesburg's largest township, and a rural clinic in Mpumalanga province between 2003 and 2009.
A three-year project to increase forest cover and help local communities in eastern Uganda adapt to climate change has been launched. 'The planting of one million trees has started to sustain an area of tropical forest in Africa the size of Wales,' said John Griffiths, counsel-general of the Welsh Assembly, which is supporting the project. 'These trees will not only absorb carbon but provide shade for crops.'
A second Tanzanian opposition party criticised the country's presidential and parliamentary electoral process on Thursday as authorities continued releasing results at a snail's pace. Tanzania's National Electoral Commission (NEC) admitted on Wednesday that there could have been irregularities in the vote tallying but said any errors would not influence the final result and rejected calls for a fresh poll.
Nigeria still aims to pass a bill this year that will overhaul its energy industry, but the timing of its next oil licensing round is uncertain, a senior government official said on Thursday. The Petroleum Industry Bill will re-write Nigeria's decades-old relationship with its foreign oil partners, altering everything from the fiscal framework for offshore oil projects to the involvement of indigenous firms in the sector.
The Liberian president has dismissed her cabinet in a move officials say will provide a 'fresh slate' for the government. No other reason was given for Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's announcement on Wednesday but it comes amid a crackdown on corruption in the West African state that has led to investigations of some public officials a year ahead of presidential elections.
An explosion rocked a government guest house in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta on Wednesday, a month after twin car bombings in the capital Abuja, a local government official said. The explosion damaged two upstairs rooms of the guest house in Asaba, the capital of Delta state, but there were no injuries, Sunny Ogefere, spokesman for the state governor said.
A diplomatic row is brewing between Nigeria and Iran over the shipment of 13 containers of arms and ammunition into the country. Although the arms-laden ship came from the Indian port in Mumbai, it was alleged that the ship originated from Iran. It was also alleged that Nigeria might have been a routing point for the arms, which are believed to be on the way to Gaza Strip in the Middle East, with the consignment belonging to the Hamas Militant Group.
Reporters Without Borders has written to Angolan interior minister Sebastiao José Antonio Martins voicing concern about the recent wave of threats and violence against journalists. One has been murdered, two have been physically attacked and injured, and a fourth has been the target of intimidation.
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The Asian University for Women is seeking to appoint candidates to the following positions:
- Full-time faculty position in Asian Religion and Philosophy
- Chinese Language Instructor
- Full-time faculty position in World History
- Full-time faculty member in Media/Journalism.
The government's contentious draft Protection of Information Bill will threaten whistleblowers trying to root out corruption, says Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. 'Cosatu is committed to free expression... I believe that the Protection of Information Bill as currently drafted clearly breaches these laws,' he told a gathering hosted by The Daily Maverick in Sandton, Johannesburg.
As the US rounds up its mid-term elections, Horace Campbell stresses that there must be renewed efforts to organise in response to the country’s right-wing oligarchy and educate people that ‘fighting wars overseas cannot be the basis for economic reconstruction’.
Pambazuka News 502: Twilight of regimes or dawn of new eras?
Pambazuka News 502: Twilight of regimes or dawn of new eras?
Zimbabwe’s civil society has urged Southern African leaders to ensure the country’s next elections comply with regional benchmarks for democratic polls requiring an independent body to run polls and that the military not to interfere with voting. In submissions to South African President Jacob Zuma - the regional SADC bloc’s official mediator in Zimbabwe - the groups said President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s coalition government has failed to end tensions in Zimbabwe and that the country’s political environment remains 'poisoned with violence, intimidation and fear'.
Civil society groups have warned that the proposed new constitution could turn out to be damp squib, reflecting the short-term interests of political parties instead of a truly democratic charter that Zimbabweans have long hoped could safeguard basic rights and ensure accountability from the government. According to the report on the constitution outreach programme jointly published by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Zimbabwe Peace Project and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the process to draft Zimbabwe’s new governance charter was 'remained entirely a de facto contest between ZANU PF and MDC-T, a scenario that appear to have sidelined the views of other stakeholders'.
An international Monetary Fund team arrives in Zimbabwe today to assess the state of the economy under its Article IV consultation mission, ahead of the country's national budget next month. The IMF's visit is, however, likely to cause serious political tensions in the divided inclusive government as Mugabe and his ministers remain at least sceptical, and at most hostile, and opposed to the international fund's involvement in the Zimbabwean economy.
Angola has deported nearly 200 Congolese citizens, according to humanitarian reports, prompting fears of a new wave of mass expulsions that saw tens of thousands displaced last year. Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo were allies during the latter's 1998-2003 war, but relations have been strained in recent years due to rows over border demarcation and oil rights.
Tanzania is facing a new debt crisis as budget crunches in rich countries are bringing cuts in aid spending, forcing the government to seek loans to meet budget deficits. During the year ending July 2010, the national debt stock soared by more than $1.185 billion to a staggering $10.1 billion, according to Bank of Tanzania figures.
Seven football fans died at the Nyayo National Stadium Saturday when a stampede broke out during an entertaining Kenyan Premier League soccer match between popular clubs, AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia. Among those who died during the tragedy after heavy rains pounded Nairobi and its environs, was a young woman. At least 66 others were treated and discharged at the Kenyatta National Hospital. Most of the victims broke or dislocated their limbs, ribs, legs and hands.
Senior officials of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) have in the past two days sought to strike a business-as-usual note in the wake of the resignation on Thursday of Ronald Slye, one of the three foreign commissioners. In an interview with the Sunday Nation on Friday, Patricia Nyaundi, TJRC’s chief executive officer, used the analogy of a football team that has had one of its players leave the pitch due to an injury or by being shown the red card to describe what she felt Prof Slye’s departure meant.
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni was nominated today to run for presidential elections that may extend his rule for over 30 years. Mr Museveni is a flag bearer of the National Resistance Movement, the ruling party. Museveni, in power since 1986, is being challenged by Forum for Democratic Change’s Dr Kizza Besigye, his former physician and long time rival.
Nairobi Mayor Geophrey Majiwa was on Monday arrested by anti-corruption agents over the controversial purchase of a piece of land for use as a cemetery. Officials from the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (Kacc) went to the mayor's residence in Nairobi's South 'C' at 7am while accompanied by police officers and took him away to the their headquarters where he is currently being held.
Opposition politician Ingabire Victoire Umuhoza, who was banned to contest in the recent presidential elections in Rwanda, has urged the country’s development partners to build institutional capacity, not President Kagame’s political capacity for continued stay in power. In a wide-ranging policy paper titled: 'Development partners need to support lasting solution', dated 20 September 2010 and accessed by the Newsline, the fiery politician notes that whereas aid and political conditions attached to it had obliged some dictatorships to open up the political space and level the playing field, in the case of Rwanda, it has allowed the regime in power to put in place a controlled ‘democratisation’ process with no opposition or elections with no competitors.
Officials have called on residents of Masindi to take their children to school. This followed a survey that revealed that about 850 pupils of school going age in the remote village of Nyalyanika II are not accessing education. The area councilor, Ms Gladys Matwarwa, said residents had shunned the government’s universal primary and secondary education.
Jason Hickel attends a speech delivered by US ambassador to the AU Michael Battle and discovers a disturbing new rhetoric about Africa.
Cheikh Anta Diop was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician famous for his theory that the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. Okello Oculi remembers a series of meetings he had with Anta Diop in the 1980s.
For over 24 hours on October 15, bloggers blogged about water in a global Blog Action Day. The final count for Blog Action Day stands at over 5,600 bloggers from 143 countries, reaching more than 40 million readers, according to the organisers. 'It was a remarkable display of support for an issue that gets woefully little coverage in the mainstream media.'
Delayed test results often mean HIV patients in Mozambique fail to get timely treatment, but new technology is reducing the need to send tests to far away laboratories, and speeding up test results and HIV treatment. Mozambique’s Ministry of Health has increasingly begun experimenting with new technology to make diagnosing and monitoring HIV patients quicker and easier. After a successful 2009 pilot the country has nationally rolled out SMS or text message printers, which transmit the results of infant HIV tests electronically from two central reference laboratories in Maputo and the northern provincial capital, Nampula, to more than 275 health centres.
Civil society and local officials in Somalia's Afgoye Corridor - home to an estimated 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) - are worried about the deteriorating situation, especially for women and children. 'The situation...is worse today than a year ago; there are more of them [IDPs], the needs are greater and there is no help in terms of aid agencies,' said Amina Aden Mahamed, a doctor and director of Hawo Abdi Foundation, one of the most active groups helping IDPs in the camps outside the capital, Mogadishu.
As the number of children known to have been poisoned by lead continues to mount, a UN team has recommended the government help communities clean up the informal gold-mining sector, rather than quash it altogether. Some 400 children have died of lead poisoning over the past six months, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but many thousands more are suspected to have been poisoned. Official figures will be released only once the US Center for Disease Control has finished its two-month survey.
The Republic of Congo has launched a 'farming village' project to boost food self-sufficiency, with the first one inaugurated in Nkouo, about 80km north of Brazzaville, the capital, on 8 October. It houses 40 families from different regions of the country. 'Forty hen-houses, a warehouse, a sorting centre and refrigerated storage space have been made available. Each family received 792 laying hens and 2ha for cultivation,' said project director Jean-Jacques Bouya.
Somalis from south-central Somalia and those in the diaspora have taken advantage of the stable environment in the self-declared republic of Somaliland to put their children through school there, boosting enrolment in private and public education institutions in the region, officials said. 'About 10 percent of 200,000 primary-school children are from south-central Somalia,' Ali Mohamed Ali, the director-general of Somaliland's Education Ministry, told IRIN.
Africa is hungry - 240 million people are undernourished. Now, for the first-time, small African farmers have been properly consulted on how to solve the problem of feeding sub-Saharan Africa. Their answers appear to directly repudiate a massive international effort to launch an African Green Revolution funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Instead of new hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, family farmers in West Africa said they want to use local seeds, avoid spending precious cash on chemicals and most importantly to direct public agricultural research to meet their needs, according to a multi-media publication released on World Food Day.
Carl Blidt, the current foreign minister of Sweden, admitted in 2001 that oil was part of the conflict in Sudan. But he has also been a member of the board of directors of Lundin Petroleum, points out this article on The Current Analyst website. 'Now, as a prominent politician in Sweden he seems to be interested in human rights and justice in Africa,' says the article.