Pambazuka News 488: Africa: Youth and resistance
Pambazuka News 488: Africa: Youth and resistance
Two leading HIV researchers say that countries worst affected by HIV should test whether promoting a national month of sex abstinence could slow the spread of HIV, by interrupting the chain of transmission during the primary, highly infectious stage of HIV infection. Professor Alan Whiteside of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at the University of Kwazulu-Natal and Dr Justin Parkhurst of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) say that if mathematical modelling shows the idea to have possibilities, national campaigns to test the hypothesis should follow.
Squealing with delight, young Elvis rushes off to greet his mother as she wends her way towards the family's hut in north-eastern Botswana's Dukwi refugee camp. The Zimbabwean infant, aged almost three, is a picture of health. But one year ago, carrying the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), he was near death's door. Elvis could barely sit up. His body was wracked with opportunistic infections, including tuberculosis, and he was constantly in hospital for treatment.
Madagascan female activists are asking that the right of women to participate directly in politics be included in a new draft of the country’s Constitution, so that there can be 30 percent of female politicians in parliament by 2012 and 50 percent by 2015.
The Western Sahara conflict, notes analyst Yahia Zoubir, is now in the 35th year, with no sign of resolution. While the United Nations is ostensibly responsible for its resolution, France and the United States provide implicit support for Moroccan occupation of the territory, failing to support a referendum which might include the option of independence. The issue continues to poison relations between Algeria and Morocco, blocking hopes of regional economic integration in the Maghrib.
Zimbabwean researchers in HIV&AIDS are afraid of including the homosexual and intarvenous drug using communities in the national HIV&AIDS priority research document they are working on because of the criminalization of these areas by the country’s government. These two areas among other minority groups are key drivers of HIV&AIDS and researchers said there was need for the nation to prioritize them and have national campaign programs targeted at them.
The food crisis in Niger is deteriorating faster than expected and could cost the lives of a generation, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) said. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the organisation, said the brains and bodies of children under five will be damaged for life if they don't have adequate nutrition. The drought-stricken Sahel region in West Africa - encompassing Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Mali - is facing dwindling food supplies and high prices at market.
Agathon Rwasa, the leader of Burundi's main opposition party, has said he has gone into hiding after learning that the government wanted to arrest him on charges that he planned to mount a new insurgency. In a tape recording sent to media agencies on Wednesday, Rwasa, a former rebel leader, said that he had also been threatened for rejecting the results of last month's district elections.
A major report that reveals how vulnerable the internet as we know it is, has just been published in French and Spanish by two global civil society organisations. The annual report, called Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch), was in November by the Association for Progressive Communications and Dutch-funder Hivos. GISWatch 2009 is entitled Access to online information and knowledge – advancing human rights and democracy.
As part of its Network of networks project for a free and open internet, the APC is conducting a survey to examine how funding is changing within the ICT for social change arena. The survey will also examine the possibilities for creating an annual civil society summit on ICT public policy. The survey only takes about ten minutes and results will be shared with the community.
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti says his government so far has been unable to do anything to fight the endemic corruption in the country. Corruption had become part of culture, he complains. Minister Biti, representing the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in government, says he is close to powerless when it comes to fight corruption in Zimbabwe.
Tens of thousands of Congolese Tutsi refugees living in Rwanda for more than a decade are preparing to return to North Kivu province. But longstanding and unresolved tensions over land threaten to upset their homecoming. More than 53,000 registered refugees have been living across the border since the chaos surrounding the 1997 ousting of President Mobutu Sese Seko by Rwanda- and Uganda-backed rebels.
Binti Omar waits anxiously for her HIV test in a tent erected as part of a testing drive being conducted by the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) in the coastal city of Mombasa; Omar is accompanied by her fiancé, Abubakar Ismael, and his two wives. "I'm about to be part of Abu's larger family, so we found it necessary to come here and get ourselves tested so that we can plan our future much better," Omar said. "Life nowadays is so risky... It would be good for us all to get to know each other's HIV status."
New laws should be in place in Europe by the end of this year obliging timber importers to ensure the wood they buy has been legally produced - and Ghana will become the first exporting country to be able to offer such a guarantee. The timber trade is a huge business. In Cameroon, where timber exports rank second only to oil in value, it is worth more than US$700 million a year. Indonesia earns nearly $3 billion a year from wood and wood products, but Greenpeace says that as much of 80 percent of the logging in Indonesia is illegal.
Without a major breakthrough in preventing and treating diabetes, the number of cases in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double, reaching 24 million by 2030, according to the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF). A recent study, Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa, led by the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, said inadequate donor attention and national prevention programmes were creating a global "public health and socioeconomic time bomb".
Ongoing clashes between various armed groups in western Sudan have intensified since May, displacing 725 households from Jebel Mara to Hassa Hissa camp in Zalingei, West Darfur, aid workers said. An inter-agency verification exercise, conducted on 27 June, followed an appeal by the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) to the parties in the conflict to cease hostilities. On 24 June, UNAMID reported casualties in clashes between the Rizeigat and Misseriya communities in Bugulay and Tereij villages, 28km southeast of Zalingei.
When Sabah Ismail Ali, a social worker in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland, first started working with children, truancy and aggression were common, especially among children from families with problems such as extreme poverty and displacement. "I started off as a child protection officer, then I later trained as a psycho-social worker, qualifying by December 2007. I realized right from the start that many children who showed aggression were being caned by teachers who had no idea of the social problems such children were dealing with."
Small-holder farmers, who make up almost all of Africa’s agriculture sector, need more support to reduce over-dependence on increasingly costly food imports, states a new report. Policymakers should “strengthen the competitiveness of small-holder farmers, thus avoiding a rural exodus that would put pressure on the cities and lead to more food imports”, according to the 2010 technology and innovation report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Reform of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is becoming more urgent as controversy over Zimbabwe's diamond sales pushes the international initiative designed to stem the flow of conflict diamonds towards paralysis. At the KPCS meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 21-24 June, Zimbabwe dominated proceedings, and delegates were given a rude reminder of the growing disillusionment when diamond business magnate Martin Rapaport embarked on a three-day hunger strike to protest against "corrupt governments [that] have turned the KP on its head; instead of eliminating human rights violations the KP is legitimizing them".
Pambazuka News 487: Racketeering: Jamaica, Angola, EPAs and Fifa
Pambazuka News 487: Racketeering: Jamaica, Angola, EPAs and Fifa
I was once a fighter,
A fighter of great prowess,
A fighter of great calibre.
"I am a fighter!" I shouted,
And before I had realised it,
I had won the fight.
My opponents gave way
And surrendered with fear
"You have won," they said,
And grim faced, they left.
Without another glance at me, they saw the fighter,
Carried shoulder high by cheering supporters.
"I am a fighter!" I shouted
But there was nobody to fight,
So I had to relax.
But how can a fighter relax
Except by fighting?
How can a killer repose
Except by killing?
How can a dancer recreate
Except by dancing?
I had to relax too,
I had to repose,
I had to recreate.
"I am a fighter!" I shouted
But my enemies were no longer there,
They had long joined the mocking audience
Looking at me with nobody to fight.
So
I turned grimly to my supporters
Holding me high in worship:
"I am a fighter!" I declared to them.
Amir Demeke reviews , a book he regards as an essential read for Africans 'fighting for the real liberation of your community'.
As the World Cup gathers momentum in South Africa, so do its critics. Explo Nani-Kofi investigates the real impact of this tournament on a nation still recovering from apartheid oppression. Nani-Kofi insists that poor South Africans ‘pay a big price’ for this monumental sporting extravaganza.
The 2010 Africa Oyé festival took place in Liverpool on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June. Alex Free reflects back on the ‘UK’s biggest Africa-based music festival’, which boasted ‘an eclectic selection of accomplished musicians from across the pan-African world’.
Following the widely contested result of the Ethiopian elections in May, Alemayehu G. Mariam urges Ethiopian intellectuals to rise and become the ‘tip of the spear of social change’ in the country. Mariam persists to contend Meles Zenawi’s right to the presidency, whilst calling on fellow intellectuals to become advocates of peaceful change and democracy in their homeland through a focus of the intellectual ‘eye’.
With the 2010 World Cup at the halfway point, the blogosphere is starting to take stock of the performance of the six teams representing the continent, and of South Africa as the host country, writes Dibussi Tande.
The East African Community has accelerated negotiations with Europe for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). The race is on for negotiators and lobbyists to either let Europe in or keep it out. And so far, influential EPA advocates are in the lead, according to Yash Tandon, former head of the South Centre and critic of African EPAs with Europe. As corporate proponents advance the trade deal, negotiations threaten East African unity at a critical time in its still early development.
Once seen as an essential part of South Africa’s liberation struggle, today striking workers and their trade unions are more likely to be perceived as unpatriotic for ‘chasing away foreign economic investment’, writes Mxolisi Makinana. Although the ANC (African National Congress) presents itself as the government of the people, Makinana argues that legislation to regulate strikes is designed to ‘institutionalise the class struggle that continues in the post-apartheid period’.
Our hope of changing the world has to transcend conventional methods, writes Amira Ali, if we want to create a world for our children in which they are able to live, to grow and ‘become their best possible selves’. This will not happen, muses Ali, ‘unless, we are transformed, re-developed and renewed’. The alternative is to turn ‘our backs on atrocities and malaise, contributing to the cataclysms of the world and succumb to the spiritual hollowness of our lives.’
Chair of the board and CEO of Angolan parastatal Sonangol, Manuel Vicente's 25 per cent shareholding in Grinaker LTA Angola – a company that was awarded two multi-million dollar construction contracts by Sonangol – involves ‘passive corruption and conflict of interest’, writes Rafael Marques de Morais. De Morais takes a look at Vicente's role in the murky relationship between the two organisations and the Banco Africano de Investimentos (BAI) in light of national and international anti-corruption legislation.
Inspired by the atmosphere both at the World Cup in South Africa and at the Cup of Cultures in Berlin, Mphutlane wa Bofelo sees ‘the possibilities for the development of national, continental and international identities, rooted in the acknowledgement and the celebration of diversity as well as the interconnectedness of humanity and the universality of human experiences.’ But, says wa Bofelo, ‘we cannot expect a one-off event like the World Cup to work like a magic wand and spontaneously heal the divisions and tensions of the past and the present.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is pleased to announce that David Cote, head of the strategic litigation unit at the leading human rights organisation Lawyers for Human Rights, South Africa will observe the bail application in the matter of The State versus Farai Maguwu in the High Court of Zimbabwe from 16-17th June 2010. Mr Farai Maguwu, a respected human rights defender was arrested soon after a confidential meeting held on 25 May 2010 with the Kimberley Process Monitor for Zimbabwe, Mr Abbey Chikane, to discuss human rights abuses and the rampant smuggling of Marange diamonds. The ICJ is gravely concerned at the strong link being made between Farai Maguwu’s meeting with Mr Chikane and the subsequent and ongoing persecution of the respected human rights defender and his immediate family.
Fahamu and Syracuse University recently co-hosted an international conference ‘to assess and deliberate on the nature and future of the pre-eminent phase of Sino-African relations’. Micheal Otieno and Hayley Herman witnessed the discussions, which furthered the ‘important debate on the emerging role of China in global politics and international development’.
The family, friends and well wishers of former member of parliament for Nyakach and eminent trade unionist Hon. James Dennis Akumu,
Cordially invite you to a Harambee
on Saturday 3 July 2010
at the United Kenya Club from 5:00pm–8:00pm
Hon. Akumu has been unwell over the past five years due to kidney complications. The Harambee is organised to raise funds for kidney transplant in India at the end of July 2010.
If you cannot make it to the Harambee, you may send your kind donation to:
J.D. Akumu
Standard Chartered Bank Ltd
Yaya Centre
Account No: 01501-9736-9300
Nairobi
You may also contribute via M-Pesa to Mrs Grace Akumu, Tel: 0725-808.292.
Those in Kisumu may also get in touch with his sister Mrs Asenath Bole Odaga on
Tel: 0733-959.681 / 0724-690.137
Thanking you in anticipation of your gracious support.
Pambazuka reader Christiane Ströh de Martínez is looking for information about insurance for migrants. Let us know if you can help.
The world seems to be paying more attention to genocide deniers in North America and Europe than the facts on the ground about Rwanda, writes Chizzy Mswahili.
A civic education session attracts women from Kabete, Nairobi, who listen to educators and MPs deconstruct Kenya's proposed constitution ahead of the 4 August referendum. The event is one of many organised by Warembo ni Yes, a movement conceived by the women's arm of community group Bunge la Mwananchi and created to educate and prompt women to vote yes. Event organiser and Warembo ni Yes sister Grace Ngugi explains why her group reaches out to women, and why women are responding.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide was a tragedy that the rest of the world overlooked, writes Alice Gatebuke, and sixteen years later the international community is still turning a blind eye to Rwanda. Recent human rights abuses – the maltreatment of a presidential candidate and the suspension of rights of an American lawyer – and Rwanda’s actions in neighbouring Congo have not been condemned by the international community. Gatebuke, a genocide survivor, argues that present-day violations of universal rights and norms must not be ignored, nor can they be excused by consideration of past acts of evil against Rwandanese people. Rwanda too, she says, must be held to a universal standard.
A global conversation about the rights of sex workers is happening without African voices, writes Chi Mgbako. While activists on other continents have successfully organised to engage governments in dialogue, the criminalisation of the trade in Africa has pushed sex workers to the fringe, compromising more than economic protection in the industry as health, safety and legal rights are sidelined. Until African voices can be heard in the struggle, African sex workers will continue being denied their core rights as stigma and discrimination plague their ‘illegal’ livelihoods, argues Mgbako.
Uncertainty reigns around who was responsible for the grenade blasts that killed six people and injured several others at a constitutional meeting in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. What is clear, however, says Wanyeki, is that the stakes of the 4 August Kenyan referendum are critically high for the perpetrators. Rightfully, Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission has focused on hate speech in the aftermath of the attacks, but can the crime be addressed with an ever-expanding electronic platform that remains unchecked?
The recent arrest of two Dutch women for ‘ambush marketing’ at South Africa’s World Cup Soccer City stadium has revealed the legislative influence Fifa has exerted on its host, writes Alex Free. Pointing out that Fifa has acquired the nickname ‘Thiefa’ among some quarters, Free takes a look at who is really doing the ‘ambushing’.
As the World Cup focuses attention on South Africa, J. Mogwe is unimpressed by Fifa and the international media’s presentation of the global soccer event, the first ever to be held in Africa, as a turning point in the destiny of the country and of the continent, that will transform the lives of ordinary people for the better.
Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, alleged drug lord and leader of Jamaican gang, the Shower Posse, was arrested on 22 June. Coke’s arrest, writes Horace Campbell, opens up the possibility to ‘reveal the full extent of the corruption of the politics of Jamaica and the Caribbean by their rulers in collaboration with the intelligence, commercial and banking infrastructures of the United States’. Noting that 'political retrogression, gangsterism and violence have now reached the proportions that were similar to the period of enslavement', Campbell says the 'struggle against the cocaine business in the Caribbean is a struggle for a new form of society.'
Long before he learned to dunk on warped wooden backboards, Awet Eyob nursed a dream: to play basketball in America. He is 6-foot-8, built like an oak tree, and seems to have mastered a behind-the-back dribble and crisp passes from the corner of his eye. But one big problem stood between him and his dream: his homeland, Eritrea, an isolated, secretive nation in the Horn of Africa that is refusing to let its young people leave.
This one week course gives an introduction to Project Cycle Management emphasising project formulation. Crucial in proper project planning is a thorough analysis of objectives that the project intends to achieve. This course enables participants to employ clear, sequential planning methods such as the logical framework.
As criticisms of President Obama’s war and economic policies mount, the group that first questioned his intentions regarding the concerns of the black community is holding a national Congress to define a black agenda to serve the interests of black people.
Do you want an insight into the investment opportunities in Ghana right now? Have you been trying to locate means of finance for your enterprise in Ghana? Would speaking to a knowledgeable experienced and well connected business person from Ghana be of use to you? Then this event is where you should definitely be to get some answers!
Kenya Homeless Street Soccer Association (KHSSA) is glad to take this opportunity to invite member organizations to the grand finals of our selection tournament for Kenya national street soccer team to the Homeless World Cup 2010 in Rio, Brazil from 19th -26th of September, 2010 at the Jericho Sports Ground on the 20th June, 2010 from 10am to 2pm.
The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) and the Refugee Law Project have the pleasure in announcing the launch of a paper on the current situation of Rwandan refugees in Uganda entitled "A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda". The launch will be held on Monday 28th June 2010 at Hotel Africana starting at 3pm - 5pm.
With World Cup security stewards complaining of poor working conditions and unpaid wages, a labor dispute threatens to overshadow the action on the pitch in South Africa. SPIEGEL spoke to union head Evan Abrahamse about the workers' complaints.
Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) calls upon visiting Zambian President Rupiah Bwezani Banda to help establish the fate or whereabouts of several Namibian freedom fighters who had disappeared without a trace to date on Zambian soil between 1976 and 1978. The Zambian security forces, presumably acting on the instructions of then SWAPO President Sam Nujoma, rounded them up after they were accused of being “radicals” and or “rebels”.
On October 10th, 2010, thousands of people from every nation around the world will film their perspective and contribute their voice to the largest participatory media event in history. The event will result in a feature documentary and dynamic video archive. Through an open forum of diverse perspectives, our community will reveal the basic human struggles and triumphs that unite us. We anticipate that this new understanding of the shared human condition will foster a greater sense of global empathy and interconnectedness, and ultimately, action towards a more sustainable and equitable planet.
One of the most important vehicles by which CODESRIA has sought to mobilise national-level research capacities and to channel these into organised reflections has been the National Working Groups (NWGs) which it has encouraged African researchers to organise autonomously on priority themes of their choice. NWGs have been supported by the Council in over forty African countries and have resulted in some of the most interesting studies on politics, economy and society in contemporary Africa.
After seven years of devastating effects of Access to information and protection of privacy act (AIPPA), the media and the population at large have welcomed the registration of four newspapers in Zimbabwe, which are Newsday, Daily News, Daily Gazette and The Mail. The latest is News Day, the new private daily newspaper that descended on the streets of Zimbabwe on 4 June 2010.
Swaziland's death rate more than doubled in a decade, proof of the toll of AIDS, statisticians in this southern African kingdom has said. Nombulelo Dlamini of the Central Statistical Office discussed a new study comparing censuses in 1997 and 2007 in an interview on Wednesday. The study shows that in 1997, the death rate was 7.6 people in 1,000. By 2007, it was 18.03 per 1,000 people. Life expectancy over the period decreased from 60 to 43 years.
When Samuel Mwangi’s one-year-old HIV-positive son died five years ago, he thought the death of his child also meant the death of his family’s legacy. "I wept. And to the bottom of my heart, I knew that that was the end of my generation," said HIV-positive Mwangi. The baby’s death had been a big blow to Mwangi and his partner, Miriam Wanjiru, because their child had been on an ARV treatment program at a health centre. They had hoped he would survive.
Louis Michel, the Belgian former EU development commissioner and current prominent Liberal MEP has shocked his home nation and its one-time central African subjects by calling King Leopold II, the Congo's colonial master responsible for between 3 million and 10 million deaths, a "visionary hero."
This latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines Cameroon’s situation after 28 years under President Paul Biya. The ruling party is weakened by intense internal rivalries over control of resources and positioning for the post-Biya period. Having done away with the constitutional limitation on the number of presidential terms, Biya, who is at the same time feared and opposed within his own party, is deliberately maintaining uncertainty over whether he will stand again.
The UN and humanitarian partners are very concerned at the increasingly insecure environment in Darfur in which the humanitarian community serves the people of Sudan. The steady deterioration of security conditions, particularly in the past two months, is not only affecting the population but directly targets the humanitarian community.
Perhaps Africa's World Cup began in earnest on Jun. 16, when a despondent green and gold-clad crowd began leaving the Loftus Versfeld stadium even before the end of South Africa's heavy defeat to Uruguay. Migrant African fans felt the first touch of cold post-tournament reality. In their final game on Jun. 22, Bafana Bafana, as the country's national team is known, went on to shine brightly for an hour against a pathetic France, but despite taking a two-goal lead, faded at the finish to make an unwelcome mark in the record books as the first host in the World Cup's 80-year history to fail to make through to the second round.
Three days of tense deliberations by members of the Kimberley Process have failed to reach consensus on whether diamonds from Zimbabwe's Marange fields should be certified as conflict-free. Zimbabwe has already announced that it intends to resume exports of the precious stones immediately.
Participants at the Annual Conference on African Women in Politics held on the 7th – 9th June 2010, organized by the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)have called on governments to, among other things, strengthen legal and policy frameworks in their countries by aligning them with international and regional principles and standards of democracy in particular those supporting equal participation and representation of men and women in political leadership.
The Intersessional Meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP), presided over by Israel as Chair of the KP, concluded on June 24th. On the agenda of the meeting were a number of initiatives relating to the on-going work of the KP and to the consolidation of the process such the creation of an office for administration and support and the establishment of a Working Group on Trade Facilitation. The center of attention, however, was the KP minimum standards implementation in the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe.
Four hundred sixty-five refugees from different nationalities are detained in various police stations at Sinai. Within the framework of the EFRR’s follow up on the cases of detained refugees in Sinai police stations, a committee was formed by the foundation. The committee is made of 4 lawyers who have visited north Sinai governor.
The European Union is facing shortages of 14 critical raw materials needed for mobile phones and emerging technologies like solar panels and synthetic fuels, according to a study by the European Commission. The commission is ringing the alarm bell on raw materials as China again plans to tighten its control over its rare earth minerals by allowing just a handful of state companies to oversee the mining of the scarce elements that are vital to some of the world’s greenest technologies.
The Rift Valley Institute Great Lakes Course will now take place in Entebbe, Uganda, from 17 to 23 July. Due to security concerns surrounding the elections in Burundi, the course has been moved from the previously announced location in Bujumbura. The syllabus and dates remain unchanged. The Great Lakes course is a residential programme designed for aid workers, peace-keepers, researchers and diplomats.
In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, India’s complacency leads to Chinese takeover of huge Ethiopian rail project, Airtel Enters into Strategic Partnership with Oglivy Africa, UNCTAD’s Economic Development in Africa Report 2010 “South-South Cooperation is launched, and Chinese tuition offers solutions for Africans.
"Africa is now facing the same type of long-term food deficit problem that India faced in the early 1960s", says a paper by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank. In the early 1960s India faced a major food crisis. African countries are not spending enough on agriculture and the overall productivity of the continent has dropped since the mid-1980s, said the paper which looked at trends in public spending on agriculture in Africa.
Souréba, 3, is as light as a bird. Resting on her mother’s knee, the little girl seems indifferent to the noises and movements around her. When her mother, Habsatou, tries to give her some therapeutic food on her finger, the child turns away from the brown milky mixture. She is emaciated and has lost her appetite.
A new laboratory has been set up in the Ivorian port city of Abidjan to improve the monitoring of hazardous materials under a project backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that aims to prevent a repeat of a notorious incident in which thousands of people were sickened by toxic waste.
In the far south of Mali, one of the country’s main agricultural areas, the Sikasso region, is rich in fertile soil. But despite the region’s capacity to feed its people, the children of Sikasso are suffering from alarmingly high rates of undernutrition.
The United Nations is prepared to support Niger to organise free and transparent elections next year, a UN delegation to the country said. Mr. Abderahamane Niang, who has just led a UN mission to Niger to evaluate its electoral needs, met with all the political stakeholders during the visit.
At least 12 people either died in landslides or drowned in rising waters following the torrential rains that fell in Abidjan, the Ivorian economic capital, Thursday, according to the National Civil Protection Office.
International business leaders, mostly heads of leading multinational firms, are meeting in Nairobi to discuss new strategies of increasing their business dealings within Africa. The meeting of some 40 senior international and regional business leaders, convened by the Economist Corporate Network's, a division of the leading Economist Magazine, opened this week. The first Africa Business Group meeting in Nairobi focused on changing market dynamics in East Africa.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set up a high-level Millennium Development Group (MDG) Advocacy Group, comprising 17 current and former political leaders, business people and thinkers from around the world to galvanise support for achieving the goals. Ban named Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as co-chairs of the group.
The International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed grave concern over the recent death threat against Gambian journalist, Abdoulie John, and called for an immediate and thorough investigation into the matter. "We are gravely concerned about reports of threats against Gambian journalist Ab doulie John," said IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills, adding: "particularly since journalists in Gambia operate under fear of death, harassment and physical harm.
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has reshuffled cabinet ministers, dropping four and re-assigning several others to new portfolios. The changes affected only ministers from his party, which formed a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe last year to end years of bitter wrangling.
The discovery of oil in western Uganda has prompted a land grab around the oil fields, dispossessing impoverished local communities and providing a potential trigger for conflict, members of parliament from the area have said.