Pambazuka News 499: New technologies and the threat to sovereignty in Africa
Pambazuka News 499: New technologies and the threat to sovereignty in Africa
Gado's latest cartoon captures the contrast between the United Nation's response to Rwanda's genocide and its recent report on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The mature maize stalk with a golden tuft full like a fine beret
took fullest responsibility for starting the mutiny of the plants…
Neighbour of mine, I see your pain is growing. I think to cook today would be too much for you. Come sister, share mbebe and nshima with me.
is a great article and has great questions. South Africa is an elite world driven by pure capitalist motives largely advanced by whites and a growing number of blacks. The poor will remain relegated to the dustbins of economic and social growth. Unfortunately this will remain like this for a while. The poor need to continue fighting.
Pemberai Zambezi
Research & Knowledge Management
Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT)
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Mutare, Zimbabwe
Following the 1 October bombs in Abuja, suggestions have been made that northern interests in Nigeria were attempting to convey a message to President Goodluck Jonathan in response to his 2011 presidential ambitions, writes Cameron Duodu. While political declarations around responsibility for the bombing confuse the public, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ‘elders’ are in discussions over whom to endorse as the 2011 party candidate.
Google is working on a new service called 'Baraza', which will enable Africans to interact and share knowledge by asking and answering questions, reports the White African Blog. Baraza is the term used for meeting place in Swahili, with Google's interest in developing the service being in seeing more African content coming online.
Ugandan researchers will carry out a series of field trials on some of the major food crops that have been genetically modified (GM), following several recent approvals by the Uganda National Biosafety Committee, despite a lack of clear legislation on commercialising any such products within the country. They will seek to develop both transgenic and conventional maize varieties tolerant to climate change-induced drought; GM cassava resistant to virulent cassava brown streak virus ravaging the starchy root crop across eastern and central Africa; GM bananas with engineered resistance to Xanthomonas bacterial infections; and cotton plants containing both Bt and 'roundup-ready' genes.
Rwanda, home to Africa's largest solar power plant, is eager to harness renewable energy to ensure economic development. But its grand ambitions face many challenges. The US$1.3 million plant, known as Jali, is covered in 4,000 solar panels covering 2,880 square metres. It produces 325,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year - but this is still just 0.1 per cent of Rwanda's total electricity production.
This report on the electoral commission of Ghana is part of a broader project on 'Modelling Success: Governance and Institution-building in West Africa', being implemented by the Consortium for Development Partnerships (CDP). This report demonstrates that there are governance institutions in Africa that perform creditably well, referring to Ghana's electoral commission as an example.
Women in Nigeria remain victims of gender discrimination, especially in politics. This monograph examines the possibility of utilising the First Lady’s institution to achieve gender mainstreaming and consequently terminate the sustained feminine marginality in Nigerian politics. The study finds that the First Lady’s office is self-serving as successive First Ladies since the Babangida military era are merely utilising their positions to mobilise and rally support for their husbands in power.
School is back in session for post-secondary students in Ghana, but Ramatu Sidic has been hitting the books for weeks. She's getting ready for the biggest test of her life - becoming a voice for Ghanaian youth and a global ambassador for peace. The Accra native recently took the crown at the 2010 Miss ECOWAS Ghana Peace Pageant.
The former leader of Nigeria's armed group has said he was arrested because he refused to tell the group to retract a statement claiming responsibility for last week's deadly attacks in the capital, Abuja. Henry Okah, currently being held in jail in South Africa, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that he received a phone call from a 'close associate' of Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president, telling him to urge the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) to withdraw its claim for the bombings, which killed at least 10 people and left 36 others injured on the 50th anniversay of Nigeria's independence.
The UN has reportedly toned down a document detailing 10 years of gruesome attacks by Rwandan and Ugandan troops against civilians in the Democractic Republic of Congo (DRC) after both countries angrily protested a draft version describing the slaughter of tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus during the 1990s. But according to the Associated Press, the report continues to suggest that Rwandan troops and others may have engaged in genocide and crimes against humanity.
The South African University of Johannesburg (UJ) senate has threatened to end its relationship with the Israeli university, Ben-Gurion (BGU), unless certain conditions are met. In a statement released on Wednesday, the South African university's highest academic body said Ben-Gurion University would have to work with Palestinian universities on research projects and stop its 'direct and indirect support for the Israeli military and the occupation'.
Guinea will hold the delayed second round of its presidential election on October 24, a spokesman for the president of the military ruled West African minerals producer has said. The election is intended to return Guinea to civilian rule and, if it passes off smoothly, it will be its first properly democratic election since 1958 independence from France.
Sudan has announced November 14 as the start date for voter registration for a referendum on independence for the south, amid fears over the amount of time left to organise the vote. Under a 2005 peace agreement that ended Africa's longest-running civil war, the south is to vote on January 9 on whether to become independent or to remain part of a united Sudan.
As the UN General Assembly prepares for the June 2012 environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, the global response to the current set of crises around ‘food, fuel, finance and Fahrenheit’ are giving rise to even greater commoditisation of our lives, writes Pat Mooney. In the face of new ‘shock doctrines’ around agricultural erosion, ecosystem collapse, cultural extinctions and gender ‘disappeareds’, Mooney discusses the supposed therapies and ultimate pay-offs.
Uganda has taken the lead in the fight against the Islamist militants, with more than 4,000 so-called peacekeepers in the African Union force in Mogadishu. More than 90 trainers from 14 European Union countries are currently giving the Somali army a boost at a Ugandan training base.
Kenya’s agriculture has a history of producing for lucrative exports while the government upholds the marginalisation of dispossessed groups and reports of famines, writes Khadija Sharife. Resources that should be sustainably used to tackle Kenya’s famines are depleted, Sharife argues, as part of a disturbing, broader trend which sees land completely dominated by elite interests and in which ‘[o]wnership that could be allocated to those requiring land for food production is instead shifted to those with capital (foreign) or political access.’
In his latest partisan move on Zimbabwe, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma told EU Foreign Affairs Committee MEPs on Wednesday 29 September that 'the international community should lift sanctions against Zimbabwe', and claimed credit for giving leadership 'before anybody else did and the current power sharing deal was facilitated by South Africa'. Before the EU lifts targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle, they should note that the whole of Zimbabwe is 'a giant crime scene' based on what happened before and after the 2008 elections as well as what is happening on the ground now.
The impact of internet governance on Africa was discussed on 16 September 2010, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Discussions included the need to solve the language issue and to create global applications from Africa instead of just thinking local and to put forward the continent's uniqueness to create things that others can’t.
Thousands of freshly molded reddish-brown bricks lie baking under the hot Malawian sun. Residents of Manase, like too many other villages in Malawi, have seen members of their communities die while travelling to faraway medical clinics. But the Manase residents are determined to see themselves into better health, even if it means building their own hospital from scratch.
Prime Minister Guillaume Soro has stressed the importance of all presidential candidates having fair access to media coverage. Soro called on media representatives to ensure strict compliance with article 30 of the election law, which states that candidates must have fair and impartial access to the state - owned media. 'The success of this presidential election, due to be held on 31 October after several years of delays, will require fair and equitable media coverage of the campaign,' Reporters Without Borders said in response.
In their latest report on 'Global Trends of Youth Employment' the International Labour Organisation (ILO) found evidence of an increasing gender disparity in unemployment rates in developing countries. The agency expresses concern that policies against gender discrimination are being neglected in efforts to encourage the global economic recovery.
Ethiopia released the country's most prominent opposition leader from jail on Wednesday, four months after the government's landslide win in elections criticised by Western powers. Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge, is the leader of Ethiopia's biggest opposition party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.
Yaounde's Briketteri neighbourhood, home to Muslim traders in textiles and beef, is seeing a surge of climate migrants - farmers and fishermen fleeing fast - drying Lake Chad to the north. Lake Chad, a large shallow freshwater lake that borders Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, has shrunk in size by as much as 90 per cent over the last four decades, forcing a growing number of farmers, fishermen and herders who depend on it to seek new livelihoods elsewhere.
A Kenyan minister who expressed her opinion in support for HIV and Aids mitigation programmes for gays and lesbians has come under sharp criticism from church and Muslim leaders who said her remarks we 'satanic' and 'contrary to African culture'. Esther Murugi, the special programmes minister in the Kenyan government, challenged the government to help the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community efforts in the war against the scourge.
Gay rights groups and human rights activists will hold a public meeting at J Dumani Community Hall in Vosloorus on 9 October 2010 to develop a plan of action to deal with the 'growing homophobia at the hands of the police', following the arrest and verbal harassment of 12 people at a house party attended by gay people in Vooslorus after the Joburg Gay Pride event on 4 October 2010.
Jamaica: 70 killed in street fighting in May 2010. Nigeria: an estimated 1,000 people killed in the country’s oil region in 2008. Kenya: 140 lives lost in post-election riots in 2007. Mexico: 28,000 people dead from drug-related violence since 2006. Troubling as such figures are, they are but a small part of a much larger picture: there are up to 490,000 deaths annually that result from homicidal and non-conflict violence – a quarter of a million more than those who die in war zones.
Links on biofuels, land rights in Africa and global land grabbing
With raised consumer awareness about green issues, forestry companies have
scrambled to acquire environmental certification. But as Khadija Sharife
investigates, the credentials of those who keep an eye on the process is often
murky.
Geoengineering is playing an increasingly more prominent role in northern-led approaches to tackling climate change, writes Diana Bronson, with proponents dismissively oblivious to the social and environmental consequences for populations around the world.
African countries suffer the most from the rapid trend towards the privatisation of African plants, writes Oduor Ong’wen. Even though the patented plant materials often originate in Africa, once they are patented by multinational corporations it becomes virtually impossible to access them for the public good.
Violence in Cape Town’s Hout Bay over housing has raised a broader debate about housing policy and how a segregated city can transform itself. Ardiel Soeker and Kailash Bhana argue for an alternative way of managing urban housing needs – one that will ensure access for low-income families.
Despite supposedly self-evident claims to its ability to solve social and health problems in Africa, developments in nanotechnology should be met with serious critical reflection, writes Kathy Jo Wetter. In a discussion of what nanotechnology is and the risks associated with it, Wetter underlines that the technology offers new opportunities of monopoly control ‘over both animate and inanimate matter’, while government regulations worldwide remain completely inadequate to address its unique risks.
Twenty-five years ago the idea that would become the Rural Advancement Foundation International (and then, in 2001, ETC Group) began with a conversation about seeds. A quarter of a century later, ETC Group is still talking about seeds, but the world has grown more complex: new technologies have developed; economies have globalised; multinational companies have expanded their reach; and wealth and capital are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer giant corporations. Life itself has been manipulated, picked apart, reassembled – and then patented.
Aid organisations say a small handheld computer will allow them to more rapidly assess where food aid is needed most urgently. As a result, fewer Burundians will suffer hunger this year.
The 11.7 billion dollars pledged Tuesday to replenish the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the coming three years falls significantly short of the 20 billion dollars hoped for, threatening to undo the progress made in the fight against these diseases - the three largest infectious killers in the world.
The UN children's agency UNICEF is taking the lead in an intense global campaign to provide schooling to some 69 million children who are unable to go to school - or don't have any schools to go to. A new report, titled 'Back to School?' by the Global Campaign for Education, says that two of the worst places to be a school child in 2010 are Somalia, long described as a failed state, and earthquake-devastated Haiti.
The UN refugee agency has appealed for faster efforts to help the world's estimated 12 million stateless people, including through stepped up accessions to two key international legal instruments – the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The appeal was made by UNHCR's director of international protection, Volker Türk, in a meeting held in Geneva on the sidelines of UNHCR's annual executive committee gathering.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/499/67531_kathulumbi_tmb.jpgRes... in the village of Kathulumbi in Kenya are building a seed bank to help strengthen biodiversity and access to uncontaminated seed varieties. Traditional staples like cassava and millet have been largely replaced by more cheaply available genetically modified varieties of maize. By preserving traditional seed varieties, villagers in Kathulumbi want to make seeds affordable, sustainable and more nutritious than their genetically modified counterparts.
‘The funding of climate change adaptation and mitigation-oriented programmes in Africa has opened up new forms of resource imperialism, extractive investment and land grabbing opportunities, in particular for European and Chinese companies,’ writes Blessing Karumbidza. Land-intensive projects negatively affect the livelihoods of people who rely on land for food and other resources. The case of Idete village in Tanzania, the site of a plantation by Norway-based Green Resources AS, is an example of how supposedly ‘clean development’ projects don’t always benefit the community.
Using Norway-based Green Resources Ltd’s plantations as a case study, Khadija Sharife looks at whether clean development mechanism projects like those undertaken by Green Resources in East Africa can actually bring benefits to people on the ground.
Watch out for the new biomass economy driven by large biotech, chemical, forestry and agribusiness companies, says Jim Thomas. The new biomassters are on a global looting spree of the world’s natural resources to feed the consumption and capital accumulation of the industrialised North.
New mapping technologies make it easier to collect data on biodiversity, making biopiracy easier and taking intellectual property out of the hands of indigenous communities. ‘New forms of biopiracy and new strategies for biomass control may mean that the realisation of rights, benefits and justice for indigenous peoples are receding,’ Pat Mooney writes.
Synthetic biology – the design and engineering of biological components that can be used to construct a variety of biological systems – is a hot scientific topic. But with enormous implications for human health, Gareth Jones and Mariam Mayet ask when the very real ethical concerns associated with the technology will be debated.
Silvia Ribeiro summarises the outcomes of the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held in Bolivia this past April. The Accord of the Peoples, the product of the meeting, highlights the destructive nature of industrial agriculture, agrofuels and new technologies such as transgenics, ‘terminator technologies’ and nanotechnology.
The 2010 Ibrahim Index, released this week, shows recent gains in many countries in human and economic development but declines in political rights, personal safety and the rule of law. The Ibrahim Index, launched in four cities across the continent, is published by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organisation committed to supporting good governance and great leadership in Africa. The Index assesses the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by governments and non-state actors across 88 indicators.
The European Union has signed a voluntary partnership agreement with Cameroon, the largest African exporter of timber products to the EU. By July 2012, all shipments of wood products from Cameroon to the EU will be required to carry a license showing that they contain timber and wood products from a legal origin. This agreement expresses a strong joint commitment to eradicate illegal logging.
Attajdid Movement secretary Ahmed Ibrahim went on trial for an article published by his party newspaper, the editor of Progressive Democratic Party newspaper Al Mawkif went on a hunger strike, and jailed Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukadous left a prison cell for a Sousse hospital, all in the course of a week.
Produced in collaboration with the ETC Group, this special issue presents a range of articles discussing the staggering developments in bio- and nanotechnology and the alarming implications for the African continent and the global South at large. Firoze Manji and Molly Kane outline the sheer scale of this 'technological tsunami', the immense challenges for Africa’s self-determination and the action by activists to challenge the corporate assault on bio-sovereignty.
'Zimbabwe’s Exodus: Crisis, Migration, Survival' is written by leading migration scholars, many from the Zimbabwean diaspora. The book explores the relationship between Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis and migration as a survival strategy. It includes the personal stories of ordinary Zimbabweans living and working in other countries, and reports the hostility and xenophobia they experience.
'During the last week of October we want everything to stand still in Cape Town, and possibly through out the country. And we are calling upon all people who are living in informal settlements to support the call by taking to the streets and making sure that everything goes to a standstill.'
A team of technical experts has been instructed to draft terms of reference acceptable to all five member states of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), local media reported on Wednesday. South African President Jacob Zuma said this was being done in order to resolve the contentious issue of an economic partnership agreement with the European Union. Zuma was speaking on Tuesday at Pretoria's Union Buildings, where he hosted Botswana's President Ian Khama on a two-day official visit.
Freedom House recently joined Global Witness, The Center for Economic and Social Rights, EG Justice, Human Rights Watch, The Open Society Justice Initiative, and Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España in calling on UNESCO to cancel the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences. The prize is named for, and funded by, President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, whose highly corrupt regime led Freedom House to list the country as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers.
Universal health coverage, or National Health Insurance, is affordable and would have the greatest spin off for the vast majority of South Africans who do and will increasingly rely on the state health sector, a University of Cape Town modeling initiative has revealed. The Strategies for Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed Countries (SHIELD) project critically evaluated existing inequities in health care in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania and the extent to which changes in health care financing mechanisms could address equity challenges. The final phase was completed this week with the release of the findings.
Around the world, more than 200 million women lack access to basic contraception. Often, these women must travel far from their communities to reach a health facility, only to return home empty handed due to shortages and stock-outs. Family planning is an effective strategy to reduce maternal mortality. The film available through the link provided shows that ongoing challenges in obtaining reproductive health supplies can have devastating consequences for family size, abortion, spacing and delaying pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other STIs.
If you are an African journalist or aspirant journalist under 30 and would relish the chance to study on the continent’s premier Journalism Programme and then join the Reuters news team for 6 months work experience, read on. With the FitzGerald Prize, Thomson Reuters is offering a scholarship to do a post graduate BA hons degree at the University of The Witwatersrand ’s Journalism Programme in Johannesburg followed by a stint in a newsroom in Africa.
Development models that harness the potential of specific areas can help solve the problem of regional disparities in social advancement in the world’s poorest countries, according to experts attending a United Nations - convened forum on local development. Participants at the three - day First Global Forum on Local Development, which opened in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, yesterday, stressed the importance of taking a regional or even district or commune - level approach to local development in developing countries.
Burundian security forces have arrested an opposition official and his wife, his party said. Deo Nshimirimana, a former lawmaker and a Union for Peace and Development (UPD) party official was detained alongside his wife and a businessman. A security official who asked not to be named said the UPD official and even the party are linked to a terrorist group bent on destabilising Burundi, according to AFP.
An important new report from Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), 'A nice judge on a good day: immigration bail and the right to liberty', reveals the systemic failures within the UK legal system which consigns detainees to oblivion for months or years, reports this article on the website of the Institute of Race Relations.
If there is one group that faces special challenges in Southern Sudan, it is women. Principal among them is gender-based violence, which is under-reported and spreading given the long history of conflict, certain traditional practices and weak judicial systems, say specialists. Concerns include inadequate data, lack of security, transport and education.
Poor education among women and lack of access to health facilities in many rural areas of war-torn Somalia have increased risks surrounding child birth, according to health officials. 'Home delivery and hospital maternity is not the same; when women deliver at home, some traditional midwives use unclean knives, increasing the risk of death even in cases where the process gets completed successfully,' said Habiba Isack Adan Hurmo, a doctor in Galkayo, Mudug Region, central Somalia.
Following the participation of a diverse range of people at the 2 October One Nation march in Washington DC, Horace Campbell discusses the need for resurgent solidarity, effective challenges to a politics unrepresentative of the needs of the majority and building a new social movement in the US.
Rampant corruption in the provision of life - prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and other HIV services is threatening Zimbabwe's national AIDS response according to a recently released report by a local human rights group. Commissioned by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) in March 2010, the report - 'Corruption Burns Universal Access to Treatment' - found that 73 per cent of HIV-positive respondents had been asked to pay bribes by health workers. Most of those unwilling or unable to pay were turned away or given inadequate services.
A new report by Oil Change International dispels the myth that World Bank support for coal and oil projects increases access to energy for the world’s poorest. This finding stands in contrast to government, Bank, and industry claims that ongoing taxpayer support for these large coal and oil projects is necessary to alleviate energy poverty.
The Bank Information Centre (BIC) has made available a new toolkit for civil society on how to access information at the World Bank. The resource is available for download as a .PDF from BIC's website.
As the Senior Program Specialist, you will identify critical research issues; assist in developing the research strategy; and take the lead in developing, managing, monitoring and evaluating a portfolio of research projects. In particular, you will develop programs related to health information systems and primary health care focusing on Africa.
The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) has expressed its condemnation on the closing of the transmission of El Badr channel by the Egyptian government. It considers this act to be a violation of the right to freedom of expression and opinion, which is guaranteed by the Egyptian Constitution and International Convention of Human Rights. On 1 October 2010, the Egyptian satellite company Nilesat shut down the transmission of El Badr channel and thus violated the previously agreed-upon terms and conditions.
The United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) has announced US$10 million in grants to 13 initiatives in 18 countries. The grants complete the UN Trust Fund’s 14th grant - making cycle of 2009, delivering a total of US$20.5 million for 26 projects in 33 countries and territories.
With India's role as 'pharmacy to the developing world' seriously threatened by a free trade agreement to be signed with the European Union in December, the fate of cheap or free antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS hangs in balance. At the next EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, due to be held 6 -8 October in the Indian capital, Europe is expected to push for TRIPS-plus provisions that major non-government organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have warned will put the lives of those on antiretrovirals at risk.
Amid accusations that most UN peacekeepers turned a blind eye to the recent 'mass rape' of more than 300 civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that the mounting problems in the sprawling, crisis-stricken country are virtually beyond the capacity of the world body. 'We must be realistic,' Ban told reporters Wednesday, 'Bluntly put, the sheer geography is too large, the number of peacekeepers too small, our resources too limited.'
Gender Training Institute (GTI) is a centre for feminist leadership under the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP). Since 1993, the institute under Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) has been providing transformative gender training and capacity development services based on animation/participatory approaches. The core purpose of GTI is to provide learning and capacity development in support for transformative feminist movement building, policy engagement and social transformation at all levels within the country and beyond. The organisation’s vision is to become the epicenter for feminism transformation through effective capacity building. The course is being conducted in the context that there still exists unequal global, regional and national economic and social relations and limited focus of pro-poor and gender considerations in macro- economic policies and budget.
The Centre for Internet and Society and Hivos, in collaboration with The African Commons Project, is calling out to young technology users to join a global conversation. This will be a 3-day workshop entitled 'My bubble, My space, My Voice’? and will focus on how young people use the tools and platforms at their disposal; mobile, internet and other, in order to create social change in their environments. The workshop will involve participants from around Africa, who will be guided by facilitators in an interactive and engaging dialogue. Results from the workshop will be used to establish a network of collaboration and support for digital natives.
AFLA’s “ flagship journal”, the Africa Legal Aid Quarterly, highlights the often marginalised voices of Africa in human rights discourse. Since its launch in 1996, the AFLA Quarterly has produced a wealth of information from African legal scholars, judges, gender advocates, legal practitioners and opinion leaders, on human rights and justice developments relating to Africa. Due to its affordability at €100 for four issues, the only major journal addressing human rights and justice developments in Africa in popular legal discourse is accessible to all. So if you believe there is a need to mainstream African Voices in popular legal discourse, a need for a comprehensive analysis of the most pertinent issues at the heart of the African continent, and a need to make African issues visible on the International Agenda, then the Africa Legal Aid Quarterly is for you. Confirm your subscription today at [email][email protected]
For more information on AFLA Publications and a free sample of the AFLA Quarterly, visit www.africalegalaid.com
In this week's emerging powers news, a call for applications to attend a Fahamu study tour to India, US and China interests compete in Sudan, China - Africa trade ‘to top US$100bn’, India and Mozambique sign three partnership pacts and Chinese investment corporation wants to bid for Russian assets.
At the end of September WalMart made a formal but conditional offer for the South African based retail giant Massmart, of R32 billion. While the South African business fraternity has lauded the possible arrival of WalMart on our shores, labour, social and environmental insiders have expressed serious disquiet about the arrival of this giant at the gateway to Africa. It is eminently clear that Wal-Mart views the acquisition of Massmart as just that - an entry point into Africa and a bridgehead to build trade into the continent.
More than 1,000 teachers have been sacked in Kenya for sexually abusing girls over the past two years, the authorities say. Senior government official Ahmed Hussein told the BBC that most of the victims were aged between 12 and 15. He said a nationwide confidential helpline set up to help victims had revealed that the problem was much more widespread than previously thought.
The Mandela Park Back-yarders, a social movement in Cape Town, describes the aftermath of the situation in Hout Bay in Cape Town, where the City of Cape Town attempted to demolish shacks they claimed where illegally built.