Pambazuka News 484: Israel and the Flotilla: Piracy on the high seas
Pambazuka News 484: Israel and the Flotilla: Piracy on the high seas
For six families living in derelict changing rooms next to one of South Africa's official training venues in Cape Town, the prospect of the football World Cup has turned from a dream to a nightmare. The families who comprise 24 people, half of them children, are facing eviction to make space for the parking area next to the Athlone Stadium which has been upgraded to the tune of 406m rand ($53m, £36m) to bring it up to Fifa standards.
Civil Society organizations, including Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, and Partnership Africa Canada, have condemned the state-sponsored harassment and intimidation of a Zimbabwean nongovernmental organization, the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). The group has been instrumental in exposing ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe's notorious Marange diamond fields.
How can donors contribute to governance reform in Kenya? What role can they play in strengthening state-society relations in particular? This report, published by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), makes recommendations for Norway’s strategic approach to governance in Kenya based on a political economy analysis of the country. More focus on state-society relations is needed, particularly at local government level. For example, donors could support CSOs that represent the interests of local groups. Systematic learning, analysis and social dialogue should also be emphasised.
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said on 3 June the ICC was assessing information accusing the Ugandan military of war crimes and atrocities committed in the 20-year civil war in the north of the country.
On the heels of winning a $3.75 million loan from the World Bank, South African utility Eskom is now seeking carbon credits from the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Environmentalists are outraged that one of the largest coal plants in the world could receive public funds from both the World Bank and the CDM.
Activists have staged a protest at the Energy Strategy consultation in Brussels The protestors, led by Friends of the Earth Europe, gathered peacefully outside of the meeting where they demanded an end to the World Bank's financing of fossil fuel projects. Outside the building, the protestors held signs, chanted, and put on several acts of street theater, including handing out mock contracts for coal and a "black comedy" representation of the World Bank's continued financing of dirty energy
Amnesty International has warned that a Malawian couple given a presidential pardon following their conviction of “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts” could face further harassment unless the law is changed. Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were released from prison on 29 May 2010 after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them on humanitarian grounds.
The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have welcomed the conclusions and outcome of the 27th World Congress of the IFJ, held from 24th - 28th May, in Cadiz, Spain.
The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) is giving $646,000 to immunize hundreds of thousands of children in Lesotho, the Southern African country which since January has been grappling with a deadly outbreak of the disease.
Nearly 1.9 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – half of them children – continue to live away from their homes after having been displaced by armed conflict, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported, adding that a lack of funds was hindering efforts to continue assisting them.
African health ministers and representatives of international agencies have gathered today in Marrakesh, Morocco, at a meeting organized by the United Nations and its partners to discuss the impact of influenza on the continent. “We know that influenza has a significant impact on morbidity and mortality throughout Africa, but unfortunately, we don’t have a great deal of data that shows this,” said Keiji Fukuda, Special Adviser on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
A 12-year-old Ghanaian student Kwabena Asumadu has been crowned the national winner of the Doodle 4 Google 'Love Football' competition. The competition was for students to design a Google Doodle - the interpretation of the Google logo, around the theme 'Love Football'. Asumadu is now one step closer to being a global winner and will have his logo uploaded on the Google Ghana homepage - - for a day. For his prize he would receive a laptop, dongle, printer and a framed copy of his winning doodle.
At least 19 people including five soldiers killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east after the Hutu rebels attacked an army post, the army reported. About 150 fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group staged a pre-dawn attack Wednesday on a military position in Nord-Kivu province, Vianney Kazarama, the army spokesman in the region said.
The MDC and ZANU PF parties in the coalition government are reported to be divided over how to respond to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposal for a ‘staff monitored program’ that will allow the institution to directly monitor projects that it is funding. A Voice of America report says ZANU PF is opposed to the concept, arguing it would erode the country’s independence, while those in the MDC are embracing the idea.
Leading policymakers expressed concern on Friday about the health of the world economy even as they closed ranks behind the euro zone's efforts to tackle a debt crisis that has rattled global markets. Speaking before two days of talks bringing together the world's top 20 developed and emerging economies, South African Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said he could not think of a more challenging time than the present for the Group of 20.
Giving developing countries a bigger say in global economic governance could help the world economy recover more quickly from the crisis, the World Bank said on Friday. The Group of 20, bringing together the world's top developed and emerging economies has emerged as the leading global forum, representing over 80 percent of the world's economic activity, but over 170 poorer countries feel left out.
Nigeria's parliament approved a constitutional amendment on Thursday on transferring presidential powers, aimed at avoiding a repeat of a crisis when the late President Umaru Yar'Adua fell seriously ill last year. Under the amendment, when the president is absent or unable to discharge his duties, he must inform parliament that he is handing over power to the vice president. If the president fails to send a letter within 21 days, parliament can designate the vice president as acting president by a majority vote.
The EU will extend next week the suspension of 600 million euros of development aid to Madagascar for 12 more months for failing to return to democracy after a March 2009 coup, a draft statement showed. The European Union, the island's largest donor, suspended the aid last year in response to the army-backed overthrow of Marc Ravalomanana's government.
An amendment to the Health Act allowing counselors to draw blood for HIV testing will see more people being tested. Head of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, Dr Francois Venter said unclear policy on whether counselors could test for HIV meant there were less people allowed to conduct the testing and less people being tested.
On the night of 3rd June 2010, the police went from door to door with an informer in the shacks of Protea South, Soweto. They arrested five members of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM). Three of the people that they arrested are children of Maureen Mnisi, chairperson of the LPM in Gauteng. The other two are her neighbours. Since the current wave of repression began when the LPM was attacked in Protea South by the Homeowner’s Association on 23 May 2010 two people have been killed. One was shot dead by the Homeowner’s Association in Protea South and one was shot dead by the police in eTwatwa. Other people have been beaten, shot, arrested and threatened with having their homes burnt down. Two people have had their homes burnt down in eTwatwa. There are now seven LPM members in jail in Protea South and thee LPM members in jail in eTwatwa.
Maina Kiai, former Chair of the National Human Rights Commission of Kenya, will succeed Robert Archer as Executive Director of the International Council as of 15 July. Kiai will bring to the Council a tremendous reputation as an advocate of human rights in Kenya, and formidable communication skills. He will contribute a new voice and fresh energy to the Council's direction.
During the 1960s, when decolonization movements were sweeping the world, it was joked that after achieving independence a country had to do three things: design a flag, launch an airline and found a film festival. Western Sahara has a flag but no airline and despite a 35 year struggle has yet to achieve independence. The closest it comes to its own film festival is the Festival Internacional de Cine del Sahara (known as FiSahara), the world's most remote film festival, which had its seventh annual gathering this week in a refugee camp deep in the Algerian desert.
On January 8, while Angola was hosting the African Cup of Nations, the country made worldwide headlines after a deadly attack on the Togolese national soccer team, which left a coach and a journalist dead. With international attention turning to the story, a shroud of state censorship and self-censorship by the Angolan media obscured the factual circumstances of the attack and its aftermath
We have seen great tragedy these days where around 80 Eritrean asylum seekers who departed to claim asylum in Italy, perished in the sea. Only five of them survived to tell the tragedy. They floated on the deep seas for more than 20 days on 12- meter rubber boat with no rescue.
CIDA funding to the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC), Canada’s pre-eminent coalition to end global poverty, is in doubt. A critical and well-respected voice for the world’s poor risks being silenced if funding to CCIC is cut off. CCIC’s three-year contract with CIDA ended on March 31, 2010. Two months into a three-month temporary extension of CCIC’s contract and no word yet from CIDA on the contract’s renewal. In July, CCIC will start operating with no CIDA funds.
The application for the 2011 session of the annual Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is now available. We would like to ask you to disseminate this announcement to eligible human rights activists and organizations. The application is available . This web-based format is the only version of the 2011 application.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades
Five years ago, the Commission for Africa argued that supporting the continent’s quest for growth and development was not only a moral imperative but also enlightened self-interest. As the finance ministers of the Group of 20 leading nations meet this week, Nicholas Stern argues for the need to recognise that the futures of the rich world and Africa are ever more closely intertwined.
This report is the number "80" of series of economic and social rights that addresses some of the manifestations of violence against women in legislation and the Egyptian laws, which takes place as a result of the gap between law making and enforcement. The report contains an analysis of this gap and the reasons that led to the occurrence.
The NEW PATH: AFRICAN FORUM FOR INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT is published quarterly by the African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) and provides a forum for innovative thinking about our common future and about how we need to tackle the most intractable problems facing Africa today – focusing on Eastern Africa. The editor invites your articles (opinion and analysis) for the June 2010 edition. This edition of 'New Path' will cover Elections management in EAC Member States: Focus on upcoming elections in Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania
HIV-positive individuals who are obese or overweight are less likely to die or develop tuberculosis than people with HIV who are of normal weight, South African investigators report in the online edition of AIDS. “Our findings show a clear protective effect…of increasing BMI [body mass index] on both all-cause mortality and incident TB [tuberculosis] in a South African cohort”, comment the investigators, “person with obese and overweight BMI have a significantly decreased risk of both mortality and TB.”
France’s international public service radio station RFI (Radio France Internationale) has launched this year’s Prix Découverte RFI (RFI Discoveries Award). Since 1981 RFI has organised this award for singers and musicians which is open to entrants living in Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean islands
Laboratory monitoring to determine when to switch to second-line treatment may be cost-effective for many countries and could substantially improve life expectancy, April Kimmel and colleagues reported in a modelling study using 1999 to 2008 data from the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) published in the advance online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
The presence of a large mining sector in African countries is a strong influence on the severity of a country’s TB epidemic, especially in countries with a high HIV prevalence, and more needs to be done in the mining industry to control TB, a new Oxford University-led study has found.
African countries are not doing enough to address the infrastructure backlogs hampering trade and regional economic integration World Bank chief economist for Africa Shantayanan Devarajan said. Devarajan is in South Africa to consult with policy makers and civil society organisations on a new World Bank strategy for Africa.
Rich countries need to change the way they deal with Africa, shifting from aid to trade if they are to avoid losing ground to the emerging economic players of Asia and South America, a top think-tank has said. In a report by the Royal Institute of International Affairs at London’s Chatham House analysing Africa’s small but evolving influence, the Western perception of Africa as a hopeless case was challenged, painting the continent rather as home to a billion people and up to 40 percent of the world’s natural resources.
Kalahari Bushmen are taking the government of Botswana to court over its refusal to allow them access to a water borehole on their land. The case is due to be heard at Botswana’s High Court in Lobatse on 9 June 2010.
The first in a series of elections has brought simmering discontent with Burundi's electoral commission to the boil. Just over a week after the May 24 communal elections, five opposition presidential candidates have demanded the resignation of members of the National Electoral Commission and announced that they will boycott the presidential poll scheduled for June 28.
The government's decision to renew Egypt's longstanding Emergency Law has drawn furious reactions from opposition figures and rights advocates. While government spokesmen say the law will only be used against terrorism and drug trafficking, critics say it is aimed primarily at stifling political dissent. Egypt voted in elections to the upper house of its parliament Tuesday with many denied the right to contest because of the Emergency Law.
With the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under way in the Ugandan capital Kampala, women are crying out for justice for gender-based violence inflicted upon them during the civil conflict in the country’s north. "Women who were raped, those who were once abducted and have since come back with children, as well as those who have lost property during this conflict are all crying out for some form of justice," says Jane Adong, Legal Officer of the Hague-based Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice (WIGJ).
South Africa, where the FIFA Football World Cup is to kick off Jun. 11, has introduced cleaner transportation, while Brazil is planning ecological stadiums for the championship it will host in 2014. But these and other initiatives clash with the countries' overall environmental performance. The first FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) World Cup to take place on the African continent will leave a carbon footprint more than eight times greater than the 2006 World Cup in Germany, according to a study conducted in February 2009 at the request of the South African government and the Norwegian embassy in that country.
"Polakow-Suransky puts Israel's annual military exports to South Africa between 1974 and 1993 at $600 million, which made South Africa Israel's second or third largest trading partner after the United States and Britain. ... He puts the total military trade between the countries at well above $10 billion over the two decades." - Glenn Frankel in review of new book "The Unspoken Alliance". Polakow-Suransky's book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa (http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0375425462), is hardly the first to outline the open secret of Israel's military relationship with apartheid South Africa (see books listed below). But it is certainly the most well-documented and will arguably be the most influential.
While the two Malawian gay men Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga have been granted a presidential pardon on “humanitarian grounds”, annulling a 14 year sentence for “gross indecency and unnatural acts”, speculation is mounting on the exact conditions of their release.
President Museveni has said Ugandans are opposed to homosexuality because it is not part of African culture. Speaking to Christians who gathered to mark the Uganda Martyrs Day at the Anglican shrine in Nakiyanja, President Museveni castigated Europeans for imposing what he called western culture onto African countries.
Religious leaders and organisations have greatly fuelled homophobia in Burundi. These are the findings of a report titled Religion and homophobia, released recently by the Movement for Individual Freedoms (MOLI), a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisation in Burundi.
At least 17 civilians have been killed after Somali government forces, supported by African Union peacekeepers, launched attacks against fighters from al-Shabab, the armed anti-government group, in Mogadishu. Among the dead are six women and a family of five whose home was destroyed by shelling, Ali Muse, the head of the city's ambulance service, said on Thursday.
The Sudanese government has said it will no longer engage in peace talks with the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), Darfur's main anti-government group, saying instead its leaders will be prosecuted. Ghazi Atabani, chief negotiator of the talks, said mediators had been notified of the government's decision.
World Environment Day, commemorated on 5 June since 1972, is one of the ways in which the United Nations focuses world attention on the environment and encourages political action. Since its inception, hundreds of thousands of people from countries all over the world have mobilized for individual and organized environmental action. Activities involve all sectors of society – governments, non- and inter-governmental organizations, businesses, industries, civil society, media and schools.
Africa's indigenous rice varieties are to be granted 'elite' status by scientists in the hope that they will play a central role in making farmers' crops more resilient. Elite rice varieties are recognised to be high-yielding and include Asian rice, which has sometimes been improved with individual traits taken from lower-yielding African rice. Now scientists have shown that African varieties are resilient and high-yielding in their own right.
Aid analysts have welcomed some of the international development priorities of Britain’s new coalition government, particularly the commitment to stick to the previous government’s pledge to boost aid spending to 0.7 percent of national income by 2013. But they also worry that the independence and impartiality of aid may be eroded under a new “coherence” push.
In Hopley Farm, a resettlement camp about 10km south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Simon Dhewa's chicken coup has been converted into a bedroom for his three daughters, the eldest of which also uses it as a venue for her commercial sex activities. The 20-year-old is the sole bread winner for her 45-year-old widowed father, her two sisters and two brothers. The residents of Hopley Farm have nicknamed her "chicken".
A Ugandan draft policy recommending that HIV-positive children be informed of their status by the age of 10 has drawn mixed reactions from health workers. The previous policy required parental consent to tell children under the age of 12, but the new policy allows health workers - with the support of parents and guardians - to disclose HIV status after the child has been prepared and an assessment of their ability to understand and deal with the condition has been made.
Stocks of millet and sorghum in northern Nigeria's markets are dwindling as traders buy them up to export across the border to Niger, where some 10 million people face food insecurity. Grain merchants from Niger head to Dawanau market in Kano - West Africa's largest grain market – to buy truck-loads of millet and sorghum, locally known as Guinea corn, to bolster declining food stocks.
Progress on a "Zero Tolerance" national campaign in Côte d'Ivoire to eliminate female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) by the end of 2010, has been slowed down by health and education infrastructure, aid groups said. Since the campaign began, 180 villages in Marandallah prefecture, in the north-central Worodougou region, no longer practise FGM/C and the aim is to double this by the end of the year
Migration in search of work has long been common in Sourou Province, northern Burkina Faso, but the trend is increasingly for younger girls to join the exodus, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO Terre des hommes (Tdh). “Migration is after all a method of survival,” Herman Zoungrana, head of Tdh’s protection programme in Burkina Faso, told IRIN. He said traditionally after the harvest people would fill up their granaries then set out to find work until the next planting season.
The excitement over the FIFA World Cup is not just about football, it's also about the party. Large quantities of alcohol are sure to be consumed as foreign football fans rub shoulders with locals, and inhibitions are likely to fall away. The World Cup has long been associated with boom times for the sex trade, but in a country where one in five adults is living with HIV, the price of throwing caution to the wind and having unprotected sex with a local, let alone a sex worker, could be extremely high.
Last week's Ethiopian presidential election result was no surprise, with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's governing party winning nearly every seat. Harassment and intimidation of voters and journalists, and the absence of a free, independent media was behind this smooth victory, report Human Rights Watch and the International Press Institute (IPI).
On 3 June 2010, The Post newspapers and its editor in chief, Fred M’membe were found guilty of one count of contempt of court, a charge arising from an opinion article authored by United States of America-based Zambian Law Professor, Muna Ndulo and published by the newspaper on 27 August 2009. However, presiding Magistrate Simausamba reserved sentence to 4 June 2010. Meanwhile, M’membe’s lawyer, Remmy Mainza said the case in which his clients were convicted of was a misdemeanor which attracted a sentence of six months or a fine. He prayed to the court to give his clients a non- custodial or suspended sentence because the two were first offenders who had no track of a criminal record.
Pambazuka News 483: AFRICOM and the ICC: Enforcing international justice in Africa?
Pambazuka News 483: AFRICOM and the ICC: Enforcing international justice in Africa?
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/483/taju.jpgAs part of a Spotlight Africa radio programme broadcast last Saturday 22 May, Assumpta Oturu introduces excerpts of Tajudeen's thoughts on Pan-Africanism, African history and his wishes for Africa in the new millennium. The audio programme is available at [mp3].
Walter Turner speaks to Horace Campbell about Tajudeen's immense contribution and the challenges for a revolutionary world. Campbell is the author of the foreword to the new Pambazuka Press book
30 years ago we walked free
Liberated from Rhodesia, we claimed Zimbabwe
Said goodbye to Ian Smith
Welcomed Robert Mugabe and hope
Ha! Would it not be the joke of the century?
One once said a bitter heart beats to a vindictive heart
The heart of this now malnourished beast
Is the war veteran – Mr Mugabe
Come to save the Zim natives from the white man
As it were – until he lost the plot
You point one finger but
My friend there’s three pointing back
Blame Blair once and we will triple your sentence
How does such a man sleep?
With the pain inside so deep
You can almost forget it;
Suffocate it with arrogance and the over used
My oh so favourite “it was Cecil Rhodes’ fault”
But look into a Zimbabwean child’s eyes and you will remember
That it is not his fault he was born to an AIDS positive teenage mother
And a father she can’t put a finger on
Because she was just another girl on the path of destruction
Used and thrown away
Maybe one day he will forgive you
But today he has to live with the fact that
There is no food on the table
But on Mugabe Avenue – they are feasting
How do you sit next to your mortal enemy?
Share a presidency that was corrupt from the start
How?
How do you share a rotting cake?
Where is new the side when they are both charred?
We will all be tarred with the same brush
All painted damaged goods
Because of one man’s thirst for power
When will it be enough?
Today -when we hoisted the flag I knew it was done;
Today -when we sung the freedom song;
And raised our banners high;
I knew Uhuru was now!
As my soul rests tonight,
My thoughts run in sight,
I think of the blood they shed;
The years they lost;
I look at you;
And look at me;
My soul needs rest,
Rest from the whirlwind
Rest from the noises
And Rest from the unrests
I am old they say;
Yet spent my youth and days for you;
As my soul rests tonight
My thoughts run in sight,
Looking at the ray in the way
A sight of hope?
A sight of grief?
Who knows?
My sight fails they say;
Women in gowns and sacks;
Men in suits and tatters;
The hunger stricken children with bowls;
Their sullen sunken eyes popping out;
As they hurriedly take images of whom they have become;
I pity our struggle,
I pity their struggle;
They have fought;
They have survived
Others have died
And others hope;
Quantified pain they pay,
Weighty tears they shed
Africa! Africa!
They sigh mournfully
Africa! Africa!
The Land they own
Africa !
Is this the freedom we fought?
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/483/taju4.jpgIn the week of the anniversary of the first year of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's passing, Amir Demeke reviews , a compilation of Tajudeen's weekly Pan-African Postcards. Describing the book as 'a well-balanced meal', Demeke stresses: 'For those who read for enlightenment, find a copy of the book and turn on the light.'
Reviewing Kopano Matlwa's 'Spilt Milk', Litheko Modisane has little time for an apparently rushed publication. In its misplaced reflections on post-apartheid South Africa, Modisane maintains, 'Spilt Milk' errs in focusing on bitterness in and of itself at the expense of an honest assessment of 'enduring racialised contradictions'.
Following the 14 May death of Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, Isabella Matambanadzo pays tribute to a man who 'believed in human agency and worked tirelessly for it'.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/483/reading_draft_constitution.... this , a team from the grassroots organisation
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/483/taju_speaks.jpgWith 25 May 2010 marking the first year of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's passing, the Pambazuka News team would like to draw our readers' attention to the wave of tributes we received in the wake of his tragic accident. These tributes feature as comments on an article entitled , as well as responses to Tajudeen's final Pan-African Postcard,
Some say "African Unity Day"
Some, just "Africa day"
Whatever your choice,
here's to a freer, safer
united Africa of our dreams!
And, let's re-member
our dear Taju. The broda who chose
this day. He spoke words with spirits
that grew and stayed longer
than the baobab, inflamed our passion
for this land, spoke truth to power,
unveiled leaders who are dealers
in dream-trade, made history.
The broda who said NO
when a fake yes was a sure path
to our woes, wane and wail…
Here's another, to Taju!
Two employees of Gay and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) – Ellen Chademana and Ignatius Mhambi – were arrested by police on the evening of 21 May. Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Department raided the offices after GALZ posted a letter in their office from former Mayor Willie Lewis Brown of San Francisco, criticising President Mugabe’s resistance to homosexuality. The police confiscated the letter, which they said 'undermines the authority of the president', and took several documents and computers. Chademana and Mhambi were arrested on allegations under Zimbabwe's censorship laws.
**STOP PRESS**
Chademana and Mhambi have been released on bail (Thursday 27 May). The Zimbabwe NGO forum said that Chademana and Mhambi, who were detained for seven days, were 'severely' assaulted by state security agents after their arrests and were threatened with further beatings.
SAMWU has become increasingly concerned by the homophobic utterances of several national leaders on the continent over the last few years. Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Museveni in Uganda and a few others have made intolerable comments about the rights of consenting adults to engage in a same sex relationship. One has to ask what is it exactly that irks these ‘revolutionary’ leaders? What are they afraid of? However recent events in Malawi have surpassed even these levels of ignorance and prejudice.
While it was as good as a foregone conclusion that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi would remain in power after the latest Ethiopian 'election', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, those prone to being dejected should not give up on the struggle for freedom and democracy in the country.
The death of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem one year ago was marked on Tuesday 25 May in Nairobi with the launch of , a collection of his Pan-African Postcards. His legacy was manifest amidst Africa Day celebration and debate. Images from the day accompany this article.
With this year's African Day having just passed on 25 May, the Nation of Afreeka has drafted its petition to the Kenyan government to recognise the day as a national holiday.
South Africa’s ANC has spent hundreds of billions of rand in preparation for the World Cup, writes Nicholas Tucker, with ‘almost none of it’ improving the lives of the millions of citizens struggling with unemployment, reduced wages, poor housing, lowered education outcomes and failing health systems. Will ‘the hard-pressed working class of this country realise how they have been short-changed by the ruling party’, asks Tucker, and if so, how will they ‘express their displeasure'? It ‘may well be too late’ for the ANC ‘to do anything other than to apply force in quelling the rising dissent’, Tucker warns.
Everything is ‘up for dialogue’ but ‘few things can actually be negotiated’, says Eric Holt-Giménez, reporting back on last week’s Dublin Dialogue, a consultation with civil society organisations hosted by the UN High Level Task Force on the global food security crisis. Lacking budgetary or decision-making power, the task force cannot stray far from the mandates of purse-holder the World Bank in the design of its Comprehensive Framework for Action to end hunger, which presents the global market as ‘the solution rather than the cause of hunger’, and prioritises ‘the private sector rather than public institutions’. ‘Without organised pressure from civil society, there is little likelihood of advancing food sovereignty at the UN or anywhere else,’ says Holt-Giménez.
Fifty years on from the beginnings of liberation in Africa, John S. Saul finds there is still much work to be done, especially in southern Africa where the final triumph over colonial and racial domination occurred. In each of the five sites of the overt struggle against domination – Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa – there are clear signs of recolonisation, this time by capital.
Challenges to the claim that homosexuality is contrary to African values, saying ‘No to xenophobia’, dismissing the prejudices of an American journalist, and calls for the continent’s musicians to be fairly remunerated for the commercial use of their intellectual property are among the inspiring stories presented by Dibussi Tande in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere.
Malawian gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza have been sentenced to 14 years of hard labour, after a court found them guilty of sodomy, under criminal code provisions originating from the UK, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. ‘The law as it stands may criminalise sodomy and whatever the powers determine to be indecent’, writes Wanyeki, but ‘it is not the business of any state to determine how consenting adults derive sexual pleasure.’ What’s more, Wanykei notes, sodomy is not ‘a sexual practice unique to gay men’, and the right to privacy that heterosexuals currently enjoy should apply equally to homosexuals.
Home-bound money transfers from the African diaspora in Europe and the US are increasing in terms of their developmental contribution to African economies, writes Sanou Mbaye. Mbaye affirms 'the social, economic and financial importance of migrant remittances in recipient countries' and calls for a more advanced facilitation of money transfers.