Pambazuka News 481: Sudan: The elections and beyond
Pambazuka News 481: Sudan: The elections and beyond
Official results of Mauritius's most recent elections released on 6 May 2010 shows a 0.5% decrease in women's representation in parliament, sliding from 17.1% to 16.6%. Unless this situation is corrected with the best loser system, Mauritius will follow the trend of gender losses in two Southern African countries that had elections in 2009, Botswana and Namibia.
A 23 year old Congolese woman told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers “raped us and dragged us to their camp which was not far away. I stayed there for one month, under constant supervision. Even when I went to fetch water, he came with me to ensure that I did not run away.... There was no conversation between us, he had sex with me at any moment, when he felt like it, and with a lot of violence. I spent my days crying. I begged God to free me from this hell.”
Not only do women experience a higher rate of unemployment compared to men, but women also make up about two of every three discouraged work seekers. The recent economic crisis has also disproportionately affected women, with the number of females who are no longer economically active rising sharply between 2008 and 2009.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf has called for urgent attention to be directed at Africa’s present food security situation. “In sub-Saharan Africa, since 2009, over 265 million people are malnourished and 30 percent of the population suffers from hunger,” Diouf said in his opening statement for the Ministerial Segment of the 26th session of FAO’s Regional Conference for Africa in Luanda, Angola.
The month of May started with a great number of activities in support of the Cuban 5. On May 1st hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched on International Workers Day in Havana and other cities. They were joined by hundreds of internationalists in defense of the achievements Cuba has made in the last 52 years and to demand the freedom of the Cuban 5 imprisoned in the United States for 12 years.
US lawmakers called on President Barack Obama Thursday to quickly sign legislation mandating his administration develop a strategy for battling Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "Congress is committed to ending the LRA's reign of terror," said Democratic Senator Russell Feingold, a key author of the measure, which cleared the House of Representatives late Wednesday.
On May 21, Burundi begins a four-month election season , the country's first elections following the end of a nearly 16-year civil war in 2009. Five distinct elections—municipal (communal), presidential, parliamentary, senatorial and local (collinaire) —are slated to take place by September 7, with the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie, CNDD-FDD) seeking to maintain its hold on power.
In the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, many families have been battered by war, rape, poverty and a lack of education. However, a humanitarian group says there’s a way to help families not only deal with the issues, but rise above them. The eastern DRC has become synonymous with war and rape. In recent years, various rebel groups have attacked and looted villages, driving civilians into the bush to escape. Attempts by government forces and U.N. troops to defeat them have often made matters worse for civilians, as militias launch retaliatory strikes against villagers.
Trade unionists are furious after "the suspicious death" and alleged "killing" in custody of Sipho Jele, an activist of the Swaziland Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU). Unions are the core of opposition in Swaziland. According to South Africa's powerful trade union COSATU, Swazi unionist Sipho Stephen Jele has died in prison in Mbabane under "suspicious" conditions.
President Jacob Zuma continues to express optimism about the negotiation process in Zimbabwe, telling Parliament this week that ''some achievements have been registered''. Zuma, the Southern African Development Community's chief mediator on Zimbabwe, said that country's political rivals had agreed to establish a human rights commission, an electoral commission and a media commission, and that the commissioners - who were respected by most Zimbabweans - had been sworn in.
Zimbabwean Attorney General Johannes Tomana has appealed a High Court decision earlier this week acquitting Roy Bennett, a senior official of the Movement for Democratic Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, of charges that he conspired in 2006 to assassinate President Robert Mugabe and overthrow his government.
The number of reported rapes and sexual assaults of Zimbabwean migrants to South Africa is increasing, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said. "From March 1 to May the number of cases treated was 71," MSF nurse Mashudu Nelufule said from Musina in Limpopo. Of these victims, 45 were female and 26 were male. Fifteen were children. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Nelufule. Many victims who were attacked had not sought treatment to prevent the contraction of HIV.
“Everything we owned got smashed. We lost everything.”... Getro Nelio was not referring to the devastating earthquake of January 12. The unemployed, 24-year-old Haitian was speaking about losing his home a second time in three months, on this occasion due to the government. Since late March, armed Haitian police have been closing camps and destroying the shelters that quake victims created out of whatever supplies they could scavenge, from cardboard to small strips of tin. U.N. troops sometimes aid in the evictions.
Preparations are already underway for the next Common Agricultural Policy set to coincide with the EU’s long term budget in 2014. Calls for a greener approach will likely encounter strong support given the 2004 reform of the payment scheme that put strict limits on the amount of harmful fertilisers that can be used in certain areas.
Pensioner Makena Makanga slowly savours a piece of manketti fruit unaware that the tree it came from will soon be chopped down and mulched along with the rest of her forest to make way for a massive agribusiness project.
Co-organized and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 6-8 April 2011. The Journal of Peasant Studies, in collaboration with the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) is organizing an international academic workshop on ‘Global Land Grabbing’ to be held on 6-8 April 2011 at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
The reputation of South African mining companies operating in southern Africa is no better than that of western or Asian multinationals in the region, many of which have long been accused of unbridled exploitation, says a new report by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa). The report — the latest to question South African companies’ social responsibility obligations — says concrete strategies and training are needed to counter negative perceptions of South African miners with regional operations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for “effective collaboration" globally to fight the menace of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as other diseases saying, "We either win this fight or we lose it". Ban made the call in his message in a new video spotlighting the progress made by the United Nations-backed Global Fund in combating AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
The mining and port city of Nouadhibou, 465 kilometres from Nouakchott, on Saturday afternoon was to host rallies planned by both the ruling party and the opposition. The Coordination of Democratic Opposition (COD), an umbrella of a dozen political parties, announced it would hold a big rally on Saturday in Nouadhibou, the economic capital of Mauritania.
Protesting dock workers in Mauritania Thursday clashed with the riot police in Nouakchott, the nation's capital, leaving many workers injured. The Police used teargas and batons to disperse the workers, who in turn retaliated by throwing sticks and stones.
UN agency Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has unveiled a major online petition calling on people to get angry at the fact that around a billion people suffer from hunger. ''The 1billionhungry project" uses strong images to illustrate hunger at its worst. Bold language and typography grab attention saying that enough is enough. A yellow whistle works as an icon encouraging people to blow t he whistle against hunger, FAO said in a statement.
A fresh controversy is brewing ahead of a 4 August referendum on a proposed new constitution for Kenya, following the illegal alteration of the draft document to empower the country’s spy agency to curtail person freedoms. Kenya’s Attorney-General Amos Wako has admitted that the country’s spy body, the National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS), had approached his office to insert a new clause, empowering the agency to curtail personal freedoms on national security interests.
Ethiopia’s prominent newspaper, Addis Neger, whose editors fled to Europe months back, citing government harassment, will soon be back in circulation following the launch of the paper’s online edition in Europe. The Ethiopian publication said it would begin news coverage of Ethiopia, focusing on religious and political affairs for its Ethiopian readers.
Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chair Vincent Ogbulafor has resigned, a few days after he and three others were arraigned on a 16-count fraud charge, the local press reported. The report said Ogbulafor would present his letter of resignation Friday, after addressing the party's National Working Committee in the capital city of Abuja.
In the face of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, the United Nations refugee agency has called for increased funding to help those displaced both inside and outside Somalia. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), made the appeals on Wednesday, as the UN Security Council was meeting in an open session at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss the current situation in Somalia.
Heavy shelling rocked Somalia’s capital today, killing 15 people and wounding dozens, as rebels fired mortars at the country’s lawmakers meeting for the first time this year, medics said amid a chaotic session that saw the Speaker ousted.
Sudanese security agents detained opposition party leader Hassan al-Turabi and seized a print-run of the movement’s newspaper, supporters and family members said. Turabi, who was close to Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al- Bashir before a bitter power struggle and split in 1999-2000, was arrested in his house late Saturday, a month after his Popular Congress Party (PCP) contested national elections
The statutory Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is set to receive applications for registration by media houses with effect from 4 May 2010 in a development that raises hope for the return of the banned The Daily News and other new publications.
Nigeria's state-run oil firm NNPC and China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) have signed a $23bn (£16bn; 18bn euros) deal. The two will jointly seek financing and credits from Chinese authorities and banks to build three refineries and a fuel complex in Nigeria.
Madagascar's leader Andry Rajoelina has said he will not stand in elections to be held later this year, in an attempt to end the country's political crisis. Mr Rajoelina, 35, who seized power in March 2009, has been facing pressure to find a solution to the deadlock.
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has said his case against perpetrators of Kenya's post-election violence is "unstoppable". Luis Moreno Ocampo said his investigation would last about six months and he intended to prosecute up to six suspects in two separate trials.
There has been fresh fighting in south Sudan between the Southern army and forces loyal to the former general George Athor. The army has denied claims by Mr Athor that dozens of its soldiers were killed in the clashes in Jonglei state.
After 13 years on Zimbabwe's death row, George Manyonga is still waiting to see his lawyer. He saw him once, briefly, the day before his trial, but since then he has been left on his own. He has lost his lawyer and now he is losing hope. "I'm paying a price for something I never committed," Manyonga says.
Niger's military government has started an unprecedented drive to distribute free food to one million of the nearly 10 million of its population facing hunger due to failed rains last year, it has announced. The United Nations said late last month donors had only covered a third of the $190 million aid needed to stave off a possible famine in the West African state, which consistently ranks among the poorest nations in the world.
As the World Bank reviews its energy strategy and the deadlines for its clean energy targets approach, this paper questions what the World Bank counts as clean energy and whether it reports on its energy lending in an accountable way. The concerns set out below demonstrate the need for a far more rigorous and transparent approach, subject to independent monitoring.
Every minute, another woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Every minute, the loss of a mother shatters a family and threatens the well-being of surviving children. Evidence shows that infants whose mothers die are more likely to die before reaching their second birthday than infants whose mothers survive. And for every woman who dies, 20 or more experience serious complications.
President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has pledged to promote the emergence an AIDS-Free Generation, to ensure safer motherhood and to eliminate mother-child-transmission of HIV in his country. “These are priorities for the women and children of my country,” President Kabila said as he received a joint mission to his nation by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA’s Executive Director, and Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS’ Executive Director.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has accused Ethiopian politicians of resorting to threats and intimidation against many Ethiopian journalists in lead up to forthcoming next general elections envisaged for 23 May 2010. “Election times are always a risky period for journalists in many African countries at a time where media have a crucial role for the consolidation of democracy,” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office. “Ethiopian political leaders must respect media as an independent watchdog of the democratic process with the sole duty to inform the citizens,” he added
The date for Kenya's referendum on whether to adopt the proposed constitution is set for August 4th. Interim Independent Electoral commission Chairman (IIEC), Ahmed Issack, announced the date during a breakfast meeting organized by UNDP on Friday.
Disgruntled mobile phone customers in West African nation Ghana are planning a day to switch off their phones for six hours to register their grievances to network operators. Customers have not had quality for their money over the years and are hoping to get heard with the "Ghana Off Phone Day."
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party was expected to convene a crisis meeting of its National Council over the weekend, to deliberate on the continued persecution of Treasurer General Roy Bennett, amongst other issues. On Monday the High Court acquitted Bennett of the cooked-up terrorism charges filed against him. The Attorney General initially said he would not appeal the acquittal in the Supreme Court but after some discussion with various ZANU PF big-wigs, he changed his mind.
The semi-autonomous African archipelago of Zanzibar will hold a July vote on whether to change its constitution to allow rival parties to form coalition governments, after a decade of bitter party politics.
Almost half a million (419 144) children in South Africa are growing up without both parents, a Human Science Research Council study has revealed. This is one of the findings from a study, “The Health of our Children in South Africa: Results from a national HIV prevalence population survey”, released in Cape Town on 13 May.
UNICEF has welcomed the results of a study by the Human Sciences Research Council suggesting that HIV prevalence has dropped by more than half in children ages 2-14. According to the survey, HIV prevalence dropped from 5.6% in 2002 to 2.5% in 2008.
On Friday 14 May, a deputation from London Coalition Against Poverty visited the South African High Commission to deliver a message in solidarity with their sister group in Durban, the shackdwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Even with the world’s attention focused on their city, the group is experiencing massive repression and its leaders have been driven into hiding.
Donorland has been littered with pilot projects over the last ten years that took interesting technology and ideas and sought to make them work in the unforgiving African context. All too often they had little idea of what potential users actually wanted and once the funding ended, the water closed over them and that was that. There is now a second generation of ICT4D projects that seem to have learnt the lessons of these early failures.
A group of Ugandan human rights organizations called on the Ugandan authorities to commit to improvements to protect human rights as part of their campaign for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. In a letter sent to the Ugandan government yesterday, the organizations, as part of a wider international coalition working around the Council elections, called for national legislation to comply with core human rights treaties.
South Africa has achieved near universal access to health services for pregnant women and their children, but maternal and infant mortality rates have continued to rise making the chances of reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on maternal and child health increasingly remote.
Ugandan AIDS activists have expressed concern over a decision by the Ministry of Health to back an HIV/AIDS bill that would criminalize the deliberate transmission of HIV. Last week, State Minister for Health in charge of General Duties, Richard Nduhura, appeared before the parliamentary committee on HIV to explain the government's position on the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill (2009). Nduhura backtracked on his earlier position that portions of the bill would lead to discrimination and undermine the rights of people living with HIV.
Governors of Central Banks in the East African Community (EAC) have commended the growth rate of regional economies, saying this has played a major role in keeping the countries stable despite the global financial crisis. The Governors from all five EAC partner states were speaking on Monday during the 13th meeting of the Monetary Affairs Committee (MAC), held in Arusha, Tanzania.
The People Living with HIV Stigma Index provides a tool that will measure and detect changing trends in relation to stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV. In the initiative, the process is just as important as the product. It aims to address stigma relating to HIV while also advocating on the key barriers and issues perpetuating stigma - a key obstacle to HIV treatment, prevention, care and support.
The UN refugee agency is alarmed at reports of a dramatic rise in the frequency and brutality of attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from Uganda against civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Prompted by a rapidly deteriorating situation and growing displacement in Somalia UNHCR is seeking additional funds to ease the plight of Somali refugees in neighbouring Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti and those forcibly displaced inside their country. The two supplementary appeals being launched in Geneva address the increasing needs in Somalia and four neighbouring countries as well as the extension of the Ifo camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Including an additional US$ 60 million being sought today, UNHCR's overall budgetary needs in Somalia and its four neighbouring countries in 2010 presently amount to US$ 424.7 million. So far this year, UNHCR has received 36 percent of its global comprehensive needs budget.
Survival has urged the World Travel and Tourism Council to withdraw Wilderness Safaris from the list of nominees for its annual awards. Wilderness Safaris has been nominated for the Council’s annual Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, to be announced on the 26th May, in the ‘Global Tourism Business’ category which recognizes ‘best practices in sustainable tourism’.
Human rights groups are expressing outrage over a decision to proceed with the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, named after and funded by the controversial president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Obiang first suggested the award to the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation's executive board in a speech in 2007, promising three million dollars to UNESCO over the next five years, which would come from the Obiang Nguema Foundation for the Preservation of Life. It was approved by UNESCO's executive board in 2008.
Mayuge district has 31,000 farming families served by just nine agricultural extension workers. In Wainha village, an internet centre run by the Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative is more than filling the gap in assisting farmers. Joseph Wangolo is still mesmerised by the computers, six years after he first saw one. "That thing is so clever it will give you information about anything. It knows even our village, can you imagine?" he says.
Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to halt the forced eviction of 200 families in the north-east of the country as part of a road widening project. Without prior notice, bulldozers arrived to demolish the homes in Zerzara slums in Port Said on Tuesday, 4 May 2010, leaving fifteen families homeless and another 200 at risk.
Amid growing concerns over the impact of the economic downturn, the International Labour Office (ILO) warned in a new study that efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour are slowing down and called for a “re-energized” global campaign to end the practice.
Disaster risk and climate change – two of the greatest challenges currently facing humankind – adversely reinforce each other. In the coming decades, climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as droughts and floods. Climate change is also likely to increase people’s vulnerability to already existing hazards in developing countries.
The Malawi Law Society (MLS), a constitutionally-recognised body that represents the interests of lawyers and the legal profession in Malawi, has called for the immediate release on bail of Malawi's incarcerated first openly gay couple, saying the society does not pose a danger to them and vice versa. In a statement published in the local media, MLS Secretary Jabber Alide was quoted as saying the two - like all accused persons in Malawi - should be presumed innocent until proved otherwise by the court of law.
Africa's lake Tanganyika has heated up sharply over the past 90 years and is now warmer than at any time for at least 1,500 years, a scientific paper said on Sunday, adding that fish and wildlife are threatened.The lake, which straddles the border between Tanzania in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's second largest by volume and its second deepest, the paper says.
World Press Photo, an independent, non-profit organization, together with Canon, TNT and IFAD are sponsoring a project that builds on the capacity of French-speaking photojournalists in sub-Saharan Africa. Photojournalists from the region will be selected through a competition and their work will contribute to increasing global awareness on the challenges and opportunities facing the African continent.
Ethiopia’s Gibe 3 Dam is one of the most destructive hydropower projects being built today. If completed, it would destroy fragile ecosystems on which 500,000 poor indigenous people depend for their survival. A worldwide civil society campaign has held international financial institutions at bay for several years. Yesterday, however, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) offered to step in with a $500 million loan. If the loan is confirmed, China’s biggest bank will become responsible for a massive social and environmental disaster.
Karanja Macharia is the founder and CEO of Mobile Planet, a mobile company in Kenya that provides third party services to both the main mobile providers and other corporate clients. Fritz Ekwoge is the founder of iYam.mobi, he too comes from a professional background, though as a programmer and developer, not pure business.
For four days from March 31, fifteen women gathered at the Feminist Tech Exchange in the Brazzaville (Congo) Digital Campus. Participants and trainers alike came from human and women’s rights organisations, the media and politics to learn more about how to use technology to end violence against women and girls.
Under-developed public accountability systems are hindering efforts to combat corruption in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine, according to a new report by Transparency International (TI) anti-corruption organisation. The report points to major gaps in legal anti-corruption provisions and a worrying lack of resolve to introduce effective practices to curb the problem, which pose a risk for sustainable development, social cohesion and economic growth.
Sustainable development demands that people participate in the debates and decisions that affect their lives. They need to be able to receive information, but also to make their voices heard. But the poor are often excluded from these processes by geography and lack of resources or skills. The video explores what can happen when poor and marginalised people are listened to, and given access to the information they need.
Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda have signed a controversial deal to regulate and share the waters of River Nile, despite protests from downstream nations Sudan and Egypt. Ethiopia at the same time opened its first major dam on the Nile.
The government of Lesotho has enacted the Education Act 2010, legalising the right to free and compulsory education. The act is hailed as "a historic landmark for the children of Lesotho" and will boost school enrollment. In Lesotho, free primary education was introduced in the year 2000 as a major strategy towards achieving the "Education for All" goals. This initially led to rapid increase in the net enrolment rate, which currently stands at an impressive 82 percent of primary school aged children - 80 percent of boys and 84 of percent girls.
Mozambique is rapidly improving its road and rail connections with neighbouring countries, most of which have higher HIV prevalence. Government now wishes to halt the expected boost in HIV infections along these inroads. Improved road and rail infrastructure in Mozambique, including the establishment of the Maputo, Beira and Nacala corridors and new bridges connecting to Malawi and Tanzania, is rapidly expanding the transport sector and increasingly linking the country with its neighbours.
Investment in information technology can help Africa to improve governance, overcome poverty and deal with critical infrastructure gaps, taking India as an example, the co-chair of the World Economic Forum on Africa 2010 (WEF) said. “There is no need to reinvent the wheel,” Ajai Chowdhry, also chairman and chief executive officer of HCL Infosystems in India, told IRIN on the sidelines of a recent WEF conference in Tanzania.
After more than a decade of volunteer work in Angola's rural Matala district in the southern province of Huila, a Finnish doctor is seeing maternal mortality rates gradually come down in a country where about one in every 70 women dies in childbirth. Since 1998 Birgitta Long has spent three months each year working as a volunteer in a run-down clinic handicapped by staff and skills shortages, and which battles to source emergency medicines, but she sees the growing queue of women coming for medical help as a step in the right direction.
A South African government agency has become the first to join the world's leading patent pool for neglected diseases, a move that could bolster home-grown innovations in the fight against diseases including tuberculosis (TB). The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), a government body, recently announced that it had joined a patent pool established by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to spur research into 16 neglected tropical diseases.
Mobile clinics for HIV patients have been benefiting entire communities in rural Swaziland, but tight budgets have scuppered plans to expand the project, or even sustain a fleet of just two vehicles. "Whatever financial problems we have are temporary, I am sure, because the people have responded so well to the mobile clinics," said Siphiwe Hlope, founder and director of Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL), an NGO that supports those living with HIV, especially in rural communities, which started the project.
Somali media took another heartbreaking blow with the murder of a Radio Mogadishu journalist last week, report the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), the Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA) and other IFEX members. Just one day after World Press Freedom Day, on 4 May, gunmen abducted and killed the journalist; he had worked for a station managed by the Transitional Federal Government.
In this weeks roundup of emerging actors in Africa news, South-South biotech collaborations flourish, China pledges economic aid for $6 million to Seychelles, Kenya reaps handsome rewards from its robust 'Look East' policy, India pushes for more cultural, educational ties with Africa, and Vedanta to Buy Anglo American Mines for $1.34 Billion.
FEMNET and Reality of Aid Africa Network will undertake country - based studies to review and assess the changes that are taking place in the countries mentioned above as a result of consistent implementation of the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) and how this is translating into development effectiveness. The studies will give voice to the views of the citizens of these countries on the progress made in achieving the aid effectiveness agenda in relation to the development priorities of each country.
An additional police unit and more troops should be added to the UN Office in Côte d’Ivoire’s peacekeeping presence of 8,500 troops, to keep the peace in the west, say the International Crisis Group (ICG) and aid officials. There is broad support for the call among aid workers IRIN spoke to, and the general public.
Toxic and carcinogenic metals, able to produce genetic mutations, have been found in the tissues of people wounded in Gaza during Israeli military operations of 2006 and 2009. The research has been carried out on biopsies from wounds provoked by weapons that do not leave fragments, a peculiarity of weapons utilized in Gaza that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors and that shows that weapons whose long term effects are still to be assessed were used.
Moremi Initiative proudly announces the 2010 MILEAD Fellows. The MILEAD Fellows were chosen through a highly competitive selection process and criteria, including their outstanding leadership promise, community service accomplishments and commitment to the advancement of women in Africa. The 25 selected fellows are some of Africa’s most extra-ordinary young women leaders with the courage and commitment to lead and shape the future of their communities and Africa as a whole.