Pambazuka News 480: Sonangol and the looting of Angola's oil
Pambazuka News 480: Sonangol and the looting of Angola's oil
Government officials, civil society leaders and journalists from across the Maghreb gathered in Nouakchott Monday (May 3rd) for a large regional celebration of World Press Freedom Day, held under the banner, "Freedom of information and right to know, what future for the Maghreb?"
Kepher Otieno, lead reporter in Kenya for the Global Integrity Report: 2009, is concerned with the lack of financial accountability in his country. Yet he doubts that legal reform alone will curb graft in Kenya. Speaking to this impunity, Kepher describes his Mashup Challenge entry as an attempt to "dig into possible solutions" including coupling tax law reform with greater levels of auditing and citizen input in resource allocation decisions.
UNHCR has completed and inaugurated a multi-million dollar water and electrification project that will benefit tens of thousands of people, including Somali refugees and members of the local community, in a semi-arid region of eastern Ethiopia. The US$5 million Jarrar Valley Water Supply scheme in the country's Somali region is using electricity to pump 1.3 million litres of fresh water a day to 51,000 people, including 16,000 refugees.
A report alleging that government troops summarily executed fifty civilians in early April in fighting around Mbandaka, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's northwestern Équateur Province has been rejected by the government. "About fifty Congolese civilians were killed without warning by the Congolese Armed Forces (known by its French acronym, FARDC) in April 2010," says a report by human rights group ASADHO (Association africaine de défense des droits de l’homme), a group based in Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Saeed El-Masry was born poor, raised poor and, unless he can get ‘kosa,’ will probably die poor. Kosa is the Arabic word for zucchini, but it also means someone in a position of power who can open doors to gainful employment. "There are no good jobs unless you know a cabinet minister or pay off a high-ranking official," El-Masry resigns. "That’s the way it’s always been in Egypt."
Zambia is pushing forward with formulating an anti-counterfeit draft law which will include medicines, despite the controversy that has surrounded similar laws in East Africa and despite having existing legislation which has been used to successfully prosecute counterfeiters of medicines
"After two heated debates during the recent African ministers of finance meeting in Malawi, national delegations from South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water in the Common Position on MDGs and the conference report and resolutions. Their action brings into question the extent to which African finance ministers are committed to continental integration, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the declarations and resolutions of their own heads of state." - Geoffrey Njora
Northmead Assemblies of God Bishop Joshua Banda has advised the donor community to channel their funds to development programmes rather than supporting practises such as homosexuality that are alien to the Zambian society. And Bishop Joe Imakando of Bread of Life Church International said homosexuals and lesbians had no room in society because Zambia had been declared a Christian nation.
Samir Bergachi is unstoppable. Barely 23 years old, the young Moroccan is simply not content to live his homosexuality openly in a country where it is considered as a crime. For the past 6 years, Samir has been running the first Moroccan gay association, kif-kif. And only a month ago, he caused a real stir: the launching of Mithly, the first gay magazine in the Arab world. Some find his initiatives inadmissible. Others admire his courage.
About half of South Africa's population is living in poverty, a problem that is not going to be solved overnight, says the Deputy Director-General of Social Development, Selwyn Jehoma. He said the poverty situation in the country was "very significant" and most people believed it would take about a generation to solve.
Governments and charities have spent billions to try to wipe out poverty, but award-winning economist Esther Duflo says we really don't know if that money has been well spent. But as a result of Duflo's pioneering work, we may be getting some answers to that question. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor has led the way in showing how the scientific method can be applied to determining what policies actually work.
Armed men ambushed U.N.-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur on Friday, killing two soldiers and seriously injuring three in Sudan's troubled west, the latest in a wave of attacks on the under-equipped force. Separately Darfur's main rebel group said on Friday it had clashed twice with government troops in the past three days, warning more attacks would mean "all-out war" and the collapse of a fragile peace process.
Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's acting president, has been sworn in as the country's new leader following the death of Umaru Yar'Adua. Jonathan took the oath of office at a ceremony in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday, just hours after officials announced the death of Yar'Adua following a long illness.
Sudan's largest rebel group says it will suspend peace talks with the Sudanese government because of alleged violence in the west of the country. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) accuses the Sudanese government of bombing its positions in West Darfur state, near the Chadian border.
Dozens of people are dead or missing after a boat capsized in a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The boat, carrying 125 people, overturned on Wednesday evening in the Congo River near the city of Kindu, the capital of Congo's eastern Maniema province.
Reporters Without Borders has written to President Paul Biya calling for exceptional measures and bold, deep-seated reforms to improve press freedom in Cameroon. The Cameroonian authorities cannot continue to take no action in response to the death two weeks ago of journalist Ngota Ngota Germain, also known as Bibi Ngota, in Yaoundé’s Kondengui prison, the letter said.
Reporters Without Borders has expressed deep shock at the death in unexplained circumstances of cameraman Jerry Usanga of Channels Television, whose body was found on the roadside by passers-by, on 4 May 2010. The spot where Usanga’s body was found, in Calabar, Cross River state in the south-east of the country, is close to the headquarters of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
The Merowe Dam on the Nile in Northern Sudan is one of the largest and most destructive hydropower projects in Africa. Commissioned in 2009, the project affects up to 70,000 people, many of whom were displaced from the fertile Nile Valley to arid desert locations. Thousands of people were flushed out of their houses by raising waters before they were properly resettled.
Clinical research in South Africa is in serious decline because of two decades of "disinvestment" — leading to an ageing workforce, "chronic underfunding" of its Medical Research Council and "grossly insufficient" funding for research professorships, says a report.
Government indifference threatens to put an end to the Uganda Millennium Science Initiative (MSI) project, says former executive director of the Africa Academy of Sciences, Tom Egwang. The US$30 million MSI programme, financed by the World Bank and launched in 2006, has made great progress in many areas including malaria vaccines, fisheries, climate change and agri-biotechnology, says Egwan.
The human and environmental disruption wreaked by drought in Somaliland, where more than 60 percent of people raise livestock for a living, means the self-declared, but barely recognized, independent state should draw up its own plan for climate change adaptation, according to a new report.
A public disagreement between Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and Finance Minister Tendai Biti over pay increases in public servants' salaries is being seen as evidence of greater divisions between two of the most senior leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Thousands of security personnel have been deployed across northern Kenya to confiscate weapons after a voluntary disarmament exercise netted only a small fraction of the 50,000 guns thought to be in civilian hands. Firearms are widespread among pastoralist communities in east Africa, where police are rare and cattle theft and intercommunal conflict is common. Similar operations are taking place in neighbouring Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. Borders between these countries have been temporarily sealed.
Eight of the bottom 10-ranked countries in Save the Children’s annual Mothers Index, which ranks the best and worst places to be a mother, are in sub-Saharan Africa, says the NGO. Afghanistan, Niger, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea form the bottom 10; while Norway, Australia, Iceland and Sweden come top.
About half of Djibouti’s rural population will need emergency food assistance this year due to the combined effects of drought, livestock losses, unfavourable livestock-to-cereal terms of trade and high staple food prices, according to an assessment by the government and UN agencies.
A decade after the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), a preferential US trade agreement, became law on 18 May 2000, there are questions over the benefits, if any, derived from the initiative. AGOA was touted by the US government as offering "tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets"; in return, selected countries could access US markets without restrictive quotas or import taxes.
Services to prevent the mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV are gaining ground in Malawi but the country continues to battle drug shortages and mothers and infants that disappear to follow-up and treatment. In 2005 only three percent of HIV-positive mothers were using PMTCT services, and mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounted for 30 percent of all new infections nationally.
China recently became the latest country to lift travel restrictions on people living with HIV, following in the footsteps of the United States. "Every individual should have equal access to freedom of movement, regardless of HIV status," UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé commented on China's decision.
With more than half of all Ethiopian adults tested for HIV in the past five years and a campaign for behaviour change in place, specialists are now calling for a more targeted approach. “Most-at-risk populations” (MARPs) have to be targeted through better understanding of how the epidemic is affecting them and in turn, to develop a more specific response.
The People's Republic of China will be among the world's largest investors for a long time to come, writes Derek Scissors. Its official foreign exchange reserves are closing in on $2.5 trillion and its financial institutions hold hundreds of billions more.
China's financial behavior is increasingly important to the United States and the international community. The created by The Heritage Foundation is the only publicly available, comprehensive dataset of large worldwide Chinese investments and contracts beyond Treasury bonds. Details are available on over 200 attempted transactions -- failed and successful -- over $100 million in all major industries, including energy, mining, transportation and banking.
The Trade Unions Confederation of Tanzania has called for a nationwide strike over government’s reluctance to implement a minimum 100 per cent pay hike proposal for workers in the private sector. The government had, after a series of negotiations with sector players and an industry survey settled for a minimum wage of Tsh120,000 ($88.8).
This conference took place on the second anniversary of the first India-Africa Forum held in New Delhi in 2008. Although India and the African continent have been closely linked through long-established trade roots, there has been too little debate and analysis on India in Africa and this conference was an effort to provide a platform for a more balanced and focused debate, away from the existing overemphasis on China and its efforts in Africa.
Pambazuka News 479: Madagascar's hidden crisis: Women's rights and human rights abuses
Pambazuka News 479: Madagascar's hidden crisis: Women's rights and human rights abuses
After decades of failing to address the root causes of poverty and inequality, the aid industry is bigger than ever. Is it time for some serious soul-searching on the value of ‘development’? Anna White reviews Rasna Warah's 'Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits'.
The eighth wonder of the world boasts its banality
Tame wildebeest clogging the clean concrete of Mbagathi
Which arrows smartly past low and high rise tenement
It coerces the zooming traffic to slow down and look
At humanity swarming from Kibera’s troubled slumberland
To uncertain industry in Industrial Area
And the motorist’s camera has long-since seen this jaded parade
Far too often for it to remain a juicy titbit
At tonight’s bush dinner table or on Face book
Or to goad righteous anger when State functionaries
In their pubescent dalliance with 2030 Vision
Seek to herd this wildlife into Nairobi National Park
Faraway from the gaze of well-heeled elites …
The sort of innovative strategic thinking, you
Explain to your inquisitive daughter
Which may compete with the Mara’s majestic beauty
And so your imaginative chic daughter twits
Amazed at this constitutional moment’s flaunted profundity
Perplexed by the nightmare of human wildebeest migrating at sundown –
As they trudge on safari from hungry toil at a Processing Zone
To far-off scenic home that’ll assuage their entitlement to shelter
With monkey and hyena lining the dirt route
To their wretched idyll in the Park.
Concerned by the resurgence of hate speech in Kenya, L. Muthoni Wanyeki decries the negativity directed at the Muslim community in the debate around the Kadhi's courts.
Perched at the very top of an iniquitous global economic pyramid, the world's financial elite are nothing more than parasites leeching off the lifeblood of the world's poor and middle classes, writes Glenn Ashton. While the hold on wealth and resources of the top 20 per cent is deeply concerning, the power of an elite 1 per cent is simply perverse, Ashton stresses.
Within the backdrop of Nigeria's post-colonial history, Richard Ali remembers Dr Bala Mohammed Bauchi, assassinated on 10 July 1981 and a man who 'in the 16 years before his murder … had established himself first on the radio waves and then in academe as the most lucid of the Nigerian leftist theorists'.
Building an inclusive South African-ness rests on recognising diversity as part of a broader commitment to a collective identity, argues William Gumede. Debates around 'African-ness' are misguided, Gumede maintains, and the country's true identity should be built on equality, the distribution of opportunities and an inclusive approach to nation-building.
Kenyan church leaders' opposition to the country's new constitution on the grounds of objecting to abortion is dishonest, argue Beth Maina and Cenya Ciyendi. In the current constitution abortion remains legal purely under circumstances of medical emergency – something that is not set to change in the new draft constitution – Maina and Ciyendi note, but this has not allayed a wave of church-based mobilisation designed to deny women the right to determine what happens to their own bodies.
In the wake of the Sudanese elections, the Sudanese Group for Democracy and Elections (SuGDE) and the Sudanese Network for Democratic Elections (SuNDE) offer their assessment of the electoral process and the problems associated with the election.
With Madagascar's political crisis still far from resolved, economic and social rights have remained outside of the concerns of the country's leadership and mainstream media alike, writes Zo Randriamaro. Incidents of human rights abuses have been much less publicised than developments around political competition, Randriamaro notes, a reality reflective of elite concerns for self-protection and personal enrichment at the expense of ordinary livelihoods.
The escalation of US militarisation in relation to Africa reflects the centrality of counter-insurgency to current White House policy, writes Daniel Volman. The US is keen to avoid direct intervention by building up local capacity to root out terrorist threats, Volman observes. Or, as one senior US military officer put it, '[W]e don't want to see our guys going in and getting wacked … We want Africans to go in.'
As South Africa’s Freedom Day rolls around each year, it has become something of a cliché for pundits and politicians to observe that while the country has political freedom, the majority of its people have yet to attain economic freedom. But this platitude masks an extraordinarily anaemic view of political freedom, writes Richard Pithouse.
South Africa has one of the highest rates in the world of unemployment for comparable middle-income countries, writes Kimani Ndungu, with the latest official statistics showing that by December 2009, around 4.2 million people out of a total labour force of 17 million were officially unemployed. But this figure does not include almost 2 million individuals who have simply lost hope of ever finding a job. For women, says Ndungu, the situation is nothing but drastic.
There’s a difference between carbon emissions in developed and developing countries – that of ‘extravagant’ carbon versus ‘survival carbon’, for the provision of basic services such as electricity. But it is a distinction that market-based responses like carbon trading, driven more by financial interests than a desire for sustainable development, fail to consider. Khadija Sharife takes a closer look at UN carbon trading scheme REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).
Press freedom is now a core value of all humanity, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, but the ‘recent history of the independent press in Ethiopia is a chronicle of brutal crackdowns, arbitrary imprisonments and harassments of local and international journalists, shuttering of newspapers and jamming of external radio transmissions’. The Ethiopian people have the ‘inalienable right to have the information they need to make informed decisions about their form of government, leaders and lives,’ Mariam argues.
Kiswahili's assimilation of words from other languages while retaining its Bantu grammatical and literary structure is 'a sign of cultural resistance', writes Chambi Chacage, rather than evidence that it is 'being bastardised', as recently argued by Makwaia wa Kuhenga. What Makwaia laments as ‘the transformation of Kiswahili to “something that one may call Kiswa-English” is another phase of expanding Kiswahili’s rich vocabulary by incorporating new synonyms,’ Chachage says.
Nigerian writer Lola Shoneyin, author of new novel ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ speaks to Tola Ositelu about poetry, the sexual politics of polygamy, and why she loves men.
Since the dawn of time, Africans have had a conception of the universe in which there was ‘no separation between spirit and matter’ and it was ‘impossible to develop ideas of domination over nature’, writes Horace Campbell. While this world view was considered ‘backward and primitive’ in comparison with Western materialism and the perceived objectivity of enlightenment approaches, ecological crises and new developments in physics suggest that African theories on ‘the relationship between spirit and matter are not backwardness’ after all.
In the wake of a major two-day conference on , hosted by the World Bank to supposedly ‘improve land governance’ and ‘contribute to the well-being of the poorest’, a new report from the Oakland Institute exposes the role of the bank's private sector branch, International Finance Corporation (IFC), in fuelling land grabs, especially in Africa.
Amidst opposition to giving constitutional recognition to Kadhi's courts and Muslim law, Yash Ghai argues that there are ‘few more critical factors to building Kenya as a peaceful and united nation than the way we resolve the controversy … Denying a community its identity as expressed in its most cherished values, and which do no harm to others, is the surest way to conflict and disintegration.’
Tanzania has taken ‘the bold and commendable decision to offer citizenship to 162,000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972’, writes Lucy Hovil. But, warns Hovil, it seems premature to refer to the refugees as ‘citizens’, as recent telephone interviews with them suggest that they are ‘neither allowed freedom of movement, nor the security of having the necessary and vital documentation to prove their new status’.
Vital Kamarhe
‘The oppressive imperialist rationality that has conceived, assembled and systematically perpetrated neocolonialism in Africa must be undressed, diagnosed and treated,’ writes redINK.
African civil society has strongly criticised the World Bank’s new report on 'Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihood and Resources'. The World Bank’s report acknowledges and seeks to address the growing problem of 'land grabbing' by foreign investors in Africa. But civil society groups have condemned the report as an attempt to legitimise the land grabbing.
On 22 April 2010, human rights defender Mr Keneth Kirimi was arrested and detained without charge for over two days, and was reportedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in detention. Much of his interrogation reportedly concerned the work of fellow human rights defender Mr Stephen Musau. Keneth Kirimi works with Release Political Prisoners (RPP) and is an active member of Bunge la Mwananchi, a grassroots movement which aims to fight social injustice and promote accountable leadership at all levels in Kenya. Stephen Musau is the executive coordinator of RPP.
With the official kick-off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup just 42 days away, anticipation is steadily building on the African blogosphere, especially after the recent release of a number of World Cup songs, such as K'Naan's 'Waving flag', Kelly Rowland's 'Everywhere you go' featuring a host of African musicians, and the Shakira/FreshlyGround track, 'Zaminamina Waka Waka (Time For Africa)', which is the tournament's anthem.
Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the continuation attack of our settlements by the City of Cape Town, Law Enforcement, Anti Land Invasion and it’s private agency. On April 22, a house of a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo at UT section at Site B was demolished by the City’s Law Enforcement without any reason.
On April 21, Nnimmo Bassey of Nigeria's Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth International, spoke at the inauguration ceremony of the World People’s Climate Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He was featured on Democracy Now discussing the Cochabamba-Copenhagen divide outside what he dubbed “The Most Important Event in the Struggle Against Climate Change."
They go by different names: IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). These formations all amount to more or less the same thing: The new 'emerging economies' seeking to redefine relations between themselves and the rest of the world. They are widely seen as new symbols of power in the global arena, writes Saliem Fakier.
The event is called “Un-Freedom Day”. We call it “Un-freedom Day” because we feel like we are still oppressed by poverty, underdevelopment and injustices directed to us as marginalized communities living in the rural and farming areas. We say that apartheid used racism to exclude the majority of the South Africans, especially indigenous South Africans from accessing economic resources and from participating in the politics of the country. Today we witness class, gender, race and geographical location to exclude the majority of South Africans from participating fully in our democracy. Those of us who live in the rural areas do not have access to our own ancestors’ land, proper education, water and health facilities.
In celebration of Earth Day's 40th anniversary, the Kingdom of Morocco announced an unprecedented National Charter for Environment and Sustainable Development, the first commitment of its kind in Africa and the first in the Arab World.
Campaigner - Special Focus On Sudan
£31,104 Per Annum + Benefits - London Wc1
Closing date: 23rd May 2010
Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide movement of volunteers and professionals standing up for human rights. Independent of any government, ideology, economic interest or religion, we have more than two million supporters in over 150 countries. Our purpose is to research, campaign and take action to effect change and protect individuals wherever rights, justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied. This position is within The International Secretariat – Amnesty International’s global centre for research, campaigning, legal, lobbying and membership work.
You will be required to conduct and co-ordinate campaigning activities, assessing where we will have an impact and how we can make a difference. You will have proven campaigning skills and knowledge of East Africa and in particular Sudan.
A proven campaigner who’s committed to human rights, you will combine a creative, yet pragmatic approach with excellent communication skills, particularly written and presentational. A team-oriented person with first-hand experience of the region with awareness and understanding of its cultures, you will also have impartial political judgement, excellent communication skills, strong strategic thought and an open and result-oriented approach to your work.
We offer an attractive worldwide relocation package plus other benefits.
For further information about this and our other current vacancies, and to apply online, please visit and quote reference AFR/EAFT/C01. CVs will not be accepted.
The closing date for applications is 23rd May 2010.
In 2008, Zimbabweans welcomed the signing of the Global Political Agreement between the three political parties in Zimbabwe namely MDC (T), MDC (M) and ZANU PF. This agreement has led to considerable peace and stability in Zimbabwe. While the agreement was a positive development, its implementation has been fraught with hiccups and a number of stumbling blocks which has resulted in tensions between the parties to the agreement. This led to the recalling of the SADC Mediator President Jacob Zuma to iron out outstanding issues between the principals to the agreement.
Slowly by slowly and amidst controversy the loop against corruption in Tanzania’s elections is becoming tighter as the new Elections Expenses Act 2009 becomes operational. The Act which was controversially tabled in December 2009 and approved in February 2010 seeks to control the use of funds and curb illegal practices in the nomination process, election campaigns and elections processes.
European Union governments want to develop a global code of conduct for foreign investments in agricultural land in developing countries, according to a draft paper on food security seen by Reuters. Food security concerns, driven by a sharp rise in global food prices in 2008, have prompted major importers such as China and the Gulf states to invest heavily in African farmland to secure supplies.
At 11 p.m. on 2 January 2008, back from Nairobi, Kenya, an exhausted Ory Okolloh — a Johannesburg-based Kenyan lawyer in her thirties — posted the following message on her blog: “For the reconciliation process to occur at the local level the truth of what happened will first have to come out.
It was a departure they never had time to prepare for. Seeking to escape death — sometimes amidst fighting between the Senegalese army and rebels in the southern region of Casamance — thousands fled their homes and abandoned livestock and property. Over the past two decades many have resettled in successive waves in Ziguinchor, a major city in Casamance.
In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, IMF and Africa agree on public investment borrowing modalities, China shifts its Africa investment strategy, Tata Africa to start assembly plant in Nigeria, and Vodacom’s DRC investment turns sour.
It began as a rumour and, having gathered legs, is now about to become viral. Earlier this month, Sani Yerima, the fifty-something year-old, former two-term Governor of Zamfara State and serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria reportedly took a fourth wife. Ordinarily, it should be no news that another African man from Nigeria has married a fourth wife. The circumstances of this reported marriage are extraordinary. According to the story, Senator Sani Yerima first divorced his fourth wife, who, after nearly two years of marriage and a baby, is still a teenager and well below voting age in Nigeria.
World Economic Forum on Africa - The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced that nearly 1,000 participants from 85 countries will take part in the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa in Tanzania's commercial capital city of Dar es Salaam 5-7 May 2010. President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete will host the meeting, which this year explores the theme "Rethinking Africa's Growth Strategy.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that more than 10 million people in developing countries are at risk of new cases of cancer by 2020. The UN nuclear watchdog, in a report released at the UN headquarters in New York, also raised concern over the growing cancer epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.
Participants at the recent 6th Partnership Platform Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, have agreed that Africa needs speedy and effective measures to eradicate poverty and hunger.
To mark the World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has identified 10 symbolic cases worldwide in which journalists have been killed with impunity. For instance, the CPJ says, in the Philippines, political clan members slaughter more than 30 news media workers and dump their bodies in mass graves.
CODESRIA/SEPHIS collaborative programme is pleased to announce the 7th edition of its Extended Workshop on New Theories and Methods in Social History which is scheduled for the 2nd – 12th of November 2010 in Dakar, Senegal. The theme of the workshop is: “Historicizing Gender & Sexuality in the Global South”. The Workshop will be organised around the comparative experiences of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The East African Community (EAC) Thursday partnered with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a US-based non-profit organisation whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education. According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the EAC and OLPC, the two organisations agreed to work together to leverage the advantages of the laptops in transforming primary school education and to promote strategies for better access to laptops and connectivity -- especially for the region's underprivileged children.
Skeletal academic activity enveloped Tanzania's public universities Thursday as lecturers joined a strike to press for better retirement benefits from the government. While the government remained silent about the strike, a meeting of seven public higher learning institutions held here has agreed to go ahead with the strike.
Rwanda has inaugurated its first-ever wind power station as part of efforts to exploit renewable energies. The wind station sits on the Mount Jali, from where it will feed a big FM transmitter of the Rwandan Office of Information (ORINFOR), also installed on the hill overlooking Rwanda's capital city of Kiga
After years of slow growth and outright despair at whether broadband would ever take off on the African continent, research suggests that the market is inching ever closer to a tipping point, according to US-based Reportlinker.com professio nal search engine. 'As submarine cables find their way along Africa's coastlines, the continent is slowly but inevitably emerging from what we have long referred to as the Dark Ages of African bandwidth, an era of bandwidth bondage of sorts, characterized by excessively high prices, near-zero broadband penetration rates and self-defeating regulatory models,' the firm said Tuesday.