Pambazuka News 476: Between patriarchy, pornography and pleasure
Pambazuka News 476: Between patriarchy, pornography and pleasure
Muslims who condemn women’s rights and gender equity often ignore the validity and legitimacy of the many issues feminism addresses, even though a number of the causes are compatible with the Islamic call towards justice for all, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. The usual message from the pulpit is that ‘Islam provides rights to women, but it is men who dispense these rights’, says wa Bofelo. It seems, however, that for many males ‘modesty and chastity has little to do with God and the integrity of the individual but a lot to do with controlling women’s body, voice and movement’.
Ugandan political economist Yash Tandon has added his voice to the call for a moratorium on the negotiations between African countries and the European Union (EU) on the trade deals known as economic partnership agreements (EPAs). This follows the call by Ablassé Ouedraogo, former minister of foreign affairs of Burkina Faso and former deputy director of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), that the EPA negotiations between West Africa and the EU should be suspended. Patricia Handley speaks to Yash Tandon about ‘the destructive course’ of EPAs.
Pambazuka Press is delighted to announce that Marcelino Dos Santos, Mozambiquan poet, revolutionary and founder of FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front) will launch , edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam, at the Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week (12-15 April 2010).
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, is set to begin an investigation into the 2007-08 post-election violence. He talks to Al Jazeera about how victims and witnesses will be assured given protection.
Nigerian authorities charged 20 people on Thursday over their roles in sectarian clashes that killed hundreds in central Plateau state last month, and some could face the death penalty. Authorities are under growing pressure to prosecute those behind the March 7 attacks on three villages near Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in a bid to prevent future violence.
Kenya will expand Africa's biggest refugee settlement to accommodate an additional 80,000 people, relieving severe overcrowding, a top U.S. official said. Dadaab, a settlement of three camps in northern Kenya, was designed to house 90,000 refugees but now hosts 270,000 people - one of the world's largest concentrations of refugees.
More than £1tn may have flowed out of Africa illegally over the last four decades, most of it to western financial institutions, according to a new report. Even using conservative estimates, the continent lost about $1.8tn (£1.18tn) – meaning Africans living at the end of 2008 had each been deprived of an average of $989 (£649) since 1970, according to the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI).
Trials of a vaccine against the most common cause of pneumonia and meningitis — both leading causes of death in HIV sufferers in Africa — have proved so successful that scientists say it could be a major breakthrough in combating the diseases. The new vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae which causes pneumonia and, when it invades the bloodstream and brain, causes septicaemia and meningitis.
The Nigerian government is pushing its national academies to re-align their priorities following criticisms of their perceived lack of contribution to sustainable development. The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology met with the representatives of the five national academies — the Nigerian Academy of Science, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Social Sciences Academy of Nigeria, Nigerian Academy of Education and Nigerian Academy of Letters — earlier is month (1 March) to address the situation.
More than one billion people in the developing world suffer chronic undernourishment and without radical changes to global agricultural research systems another billion risk going hungry, says Uma Lele, writing in Science. At the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) this week, world leaders in science and society will gather to organise these crucial changes (see Global summit seeks to transform agricultural research).
In meetings with media stakeholders, Niger's transitional Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda is promising full press freedom. Already, prison sentences for journalists are repelled and the Niamey House of the Media is reopened.
The South African office of the Public Protector has more vicious teeth than anyone ever imagined, but what lacks are the resources to expedite the duty without hindrance. This is what the newly appointed public protector in South Africa, Advocate Tuli Madonsela, told the media yesterday following her consultations that took her and her team across the breath and width of the country.
In Senegal women who become pregnant outside of marriage - their husbands living abroad - commonly kill their babies out of fear and shame. Husbands’ absence is one of many factors contributing to infanticide in Senegal, where many young women with unwanted pregnancies see eliminating the child as their only option, authorities and researchers say. Abortion is illegal in Senegal and clandestine abortion is also common.
As more aid groups pull out of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and more people flee Mogadishu to escape the violence, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, says a doctor-turned-relief-worker in Mogadishu. "[Relief] aid is at its lowest and the need is even greater than at any time," Hawa Abdi, who turned her 26ha property into an IDP camp, told IRIN on 29 March.
China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China.
NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies.
A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China. Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).
Despite continuing tensions, Zimbabwe’s year long Inclusive Government has resulted in significant economic and political changes giving great relief to long suffering Zimbabweans. Considerable as these changes are, a lot remains to be done for Zimbabwe to fully transition to a peaceful and democratic order, particularly in terms of critical political reforms and national healing. In addition, to institutionalize irreversible political reforms, key questions must be addressed in relation to how Zimbabwe’s economy long ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs and corruption, among other factors, can be reconstructed in the interest of ordinary people.
The conference theme, ‘Dare to Shape the Future’ emphasizes thinking outside the box and encourages participants to creatively imagine and help construct a different future for Zimbabwe, moving away from destructive polarization and conflict to justice, healing and reconciliation. And from repression, exploitation and poverty to freedom, equity and development. The conference will take place within the context of the yearlong existence of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe and will coincide with Zimbabwe’s 30th independence anniversary. In line with the theme of daring to shape the future – the conference will pioneer a culture of inclusive dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders of different opinions and political stripes to help forge a new culture of tolerance. Speakers from Zimbabwe will help bring a better understanding of civil society struggles on the ground and how the solidarity community can help and will help shape people centered U.S. policies at a crucial time in Zimbabwe’s history.
For more information visit http://www.africaaction.org/conference-home.html or contact Africa Action at 202-546-7961 or [email][email protected]
Pambazuka News 475: Angola: The politics of demolition and eviction
Pambazuka News 475: Angola: The politics of demolition and eviction
Reflecting on Jos, Joseph Kaifala writes: ‘Africa has always received recognition for the compassion and love of its people, in spite of all other negative issues. To fight for tangible things within human control is a different matter altogether, but to murder in the name of God is a vein assumption of demi-godly role that no one should be allowed to proclaim.’
In response to Richard Dowden’s article , Sza Sza Zelleke writes: ‘It is clear that guns, and the men who sell food aid to buy them, are not the solution to Africa’s problems. What Africans needs is more accountability and less arms.’
At the Nation Media Group’s recent Pan-African Conference in Kenya, L. Muthoni Wanyeki watched a distinct animosity between the African private sector and African civil society come to a head. She saw an African private sector rejecting any value of civil society and a civil society believing that the private sector could and should do more. She argues that a way forward needs to be found: 'We cannot work at cross-purposes forever and turn round and round on the same spot while all around us Africans die of hunger.'
The recent US bill aimed at achieving peace in Uganda by militarily eliminating the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is rigorously critiqued by Samar Al-Bulushi. It is a bill, she argues, that will serve to prop up Uganda’s government. Al-Bulushi highlights the questionable origins of the bill: It is a response to the calls of a few US organisations – who coincidently emerged at the same time as AFRICOM – for peace in Uganda rather than the Ugandan people, who advocate non-violent paths to finding peace. She goes on to emphasise the vagueness of the US’s strategy to bring about this peace. And she aptly points out that, in supporting the Ugandan government, the US is buffering a regime that not only has a poor human rights record, but has actively prevented peace in Uganda. Al-Bulushi concludes that ‘Propping up a militaristic regime risks not only exacerbating the conflict, but also deflecting attention away from crucial discussions and demands for internal reform.’
Ashwin Desai’s recent ‘backhanded swipe’ at South African shackdwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo in his eulogy to Fatima Meer is ‘not only uncalled for, it is also completely inaccurate’, writes Jared Sacks.
Why hasn’t Pambazuka News covered the violation of human rights during the recent demolitions and land evictions in Lubango municipality in Angola, Rosario Advirta asks. If there is silence even in the independent media, says Advirta, then ‘injustice and repression will probably grow'.
As important as China’s investment in African manufacturing is, writes Deborah Brautigam, I don't believe I say anywhere in my book ‘that it has been higher than China's investment in mining over the past five years.’
As the Senegalese president’s ‘Monument of the African Renaissance’ nears completion, the 164-foot statue in Dakar demonstrates Abdoulaye Wade’s need ‘to imprint his legacy on a continent that hasn’t fully captured the extent of his genius’, writes Amy Niang. The monument ‘sparked debate in Senegal and internationally, not least because of the colossal financial, political and aesthetic scandal it has proved to be,’ says Niang. But its construction also symbolises the failure of opposition, civil society and other social forces to champion the needs of Senegalese people who would have preferred to ‘see their health, education and basic living problems addressed’.
Freedom songs ‘speak to the pertinent issues of the time, expose the excesses and injustices of the system and the comfortable beneficiaries and supporters of the system, and point to the type of society the people envisage and the means to attain it,’ writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. That is why South Africa’s new political elite is ‘stunting’ the ‘creative imagination and revolutionary rhythm by harping on “yesterday's” songs’, says Bofelo, so that it can deflect the growing anger among the masses about the failings of their leadership back onto the ‘remnants of the old order’.
Pambazuka Press is planning to publish a Pan-African activists' diary for 2011. The diary will be a handbook of key information about Pan-African history, quotations from thinkers and activists (women and men) in Africa and the diaspora, pictures of critical events in our past, information about key events during 2011, and lots more.
EVENTS
If you would like us to include events – meetings, conferences, festivals, actions, courses, publications etc - that your organisation is planning to hold in 2011, please send details to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot] org.
QUOTATIONS
If you would like to suggest quotations for publication in the diary, please send them to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot]org. Make sure you include the source of each quote so that those who want to read more will know where to find it.
SUGGESTIONS
If you have suggestions about information you would like to see in the diary, please send them to panafdiary[at] pambazuka [dot] org.
Help make this diary the essential handbook for all activists in Africa and the diaspora. Make sure you get your recommendations in to us by 14 April 2010. Don’t be left out – let us know what events you are planning for 2011.
We can’t guarantee that we will include everything you suggest, but we’ll do our best!
The 2011 Pan-African Diary: the essential tool for freedom and justice!
The latest in a series of brutal, forced evictions in Angola took place earlier this month when riot police swept through a provincial capital, Lubango, killing seven people, including four children between four and twelve years old.
'How is India’s relationship with Africa different?', asks Sanusha Naidu. She demonstrates that the latest conclave on the India-Africa Project Partnership – during which India emphasised its focus in Africa to be on capacity building, training and private sector development – revealed that African delegates felt that India is more a stakeholder than a shareholder on the continent. But Naidu suggests that Africa needs to critically examine India’s involvement. She concludes that: ‘For there to be an effective partnership, developing a dialogue between civil society, government and business would be a valuable platform to make this engagement different from the others.’
It is curious that natural disasters are unpredictable and governments establish early warning systems and trigger mechanisms to respond quickly when they happen to mitigate its effects, writes Luis Samacumbi. For the demolition of Lubango, one or the other mechanism was implemented but the disaster was caused by a decision without weighing the consequences of such an act. If it were possible such disasters would be avoided. In the case of Angola disasters are created.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/475/63298_demolition_tmb.jpgSeven people are said to have been killed and 2,000 homes destroyed in a new wave of large-scale demolitions in the Angolan city Lubanga, as part of a government clearance programme to make way for public construction or infrastructure projects, writes Sylvia Croese. Local non-governmental organisations report that almost 3,000 families have been evicted and temporarily accommodated in schools and stadiums before being forcibly transferred to Tchavola, an area 9km outside of Lubango city centre, where they are expected to rebuild their lives. So far, only 700 tents have been distributed to provide temporary shelter for the families in Tchavola, where there is no basic sanitation and little access to electricity, food or blankets. A demonstration in solidarity with the victims of the demolitions was planned for 25 March.
Following Muammar al-Gaddafi's suggestion of a break-up of Nigeria in the wake of the crisis around Jos, Horace Campbell unpacks the Libyan leader's claims to operate in the interests of African unity.
International sporting events have become fertile ground for human trafficking. The documented patterns of flagrant trafficking of children and women for sexual and labor exploitation at these events create a dire picture. “More than 500,000 international visitors are expected in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, and more than 500 criminal gangs are estimated to be involved in human trafficking for the sex trade in South Africa.”
The inability of the regional military command in Jos to curtail the recent killings reflects not just a professional problem, but ‘deeper systemic social failure’, writes Kola Ibrahim. Although the armed forces are ‘prepared to undertake foreign military operation in the interests of the capitalist ruling class and imperialist forces under the guise of peace-keeping’, argues Ibrahim, they ‘can hardly defend public safety’. What’s really needed, says Ibrahim, is for security forces to be democratised and made accountable to the masses, but ‘it will take a pro-poor government that emerges from a people’s movement to do this’.
In a tongue-in-cheek reflection, Azad Essa reviews the revelations of a secret dossier on Julius Malema apparently found in the abandoned mines of Diepklip.
With Meles Zenawi comparing the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic radio service with the infamous Radio Mille Collines in operation during the Rwandan genocide, Alemayehu G. Mariam argues that the Ethiopian prime minister should apologise. Such outrageous, nonsensical accusations represent nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the recent aid-for-arms scandal, Mariam stresses.
‘This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy, and development.’ This was the topic of a debate held in the Houses of Parliament in London on 18 March, where Henning Melber was invited to speak against the motion. The opinions in Melber's speech closely reflected those expressed in his article ‘
Fifty years ago, 69 Africans protesting against pass laws were shot in the South African township of Sharpeville. Posts in this week’s round-up of the blogosphere remember the massacre, the life of activist Fatima Meer and bring to mind the continuing struggle for the right to decent housing by shackdwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. They also include musings on migration, Haiti and headscarves.
The , in collaboration with Fahamu Networks for Social Justice, will host ‘Africa and China in the 21st Century: The Search for a Mutually Beneficial Relationship’, a three-day symposium from 8-10 April, in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The symposium will feature progressive intellectuals and scholars from North America, China and Africa, gathering to deliberate on the nature and future of Sino-African relations. The symposium is free and open to the public; a full schedule of events will be posted to the Africa Initiative website in the coming days.
The Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a family of eight asylum seekers who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan, after more than four months in detention and numerous attempts by Home Affairs to illegally return them to Afghanistan. The two parents, their five minor children, and the oldest daughter’s fiancé, also a minor, were arrested separately at the OR Tambo Airport following attempts to join family members in France who were also refugees.
Gujarat-based Sanghi Industries, part of the Rs 4,500-crore Sanghi Group, has bought land in Kenya to build a cement plant, making it the first Indian company to do so in the east African country. Sanghi plans to build a 1.2-million-tonne cement plant, along with local partnership, in a bid to cater to a growing African market and to also serve neighbouring countries, said people connected with the development.
A radio reporter jailed for a week in Kismayo, was released, but he was expelled from the town and told not to come back, according to a statement from the Alshabab authorities. According to The statement journalist Mohamed Salad Abdulle, working for independent broadcaster Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) was released but the Alshabab court has ordered him to leave the town with in 36 hours and told him not to return.
Clashes between government troops and Islamist insurgents have displaced more than 55,000 people from Mogadishu since the beginning of February, with many of them heading out of Somalia to neighbouring Kenya, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Eight-year-old Nana Yaw, who is being treated at Central Region’s Winneba Government Hospital for a severe respiratory infection, was sold by his mother for US$50 in 2008. For nearly two years his owners forced him to dive for several hours a day to collect fishing nets in Lake Volta.
This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the evolution of Tripoli’s policy towards its neighbour from open imperialism to support in peace negotiations with armed rebels and with Sudan. Libya has been the most important country for Chad since Gaddafi came to power in 1969, but its approach has had mixed results.
One minute Halimo Mohamed, 40, was at home with her children, the next she was on the move, fleeing violence in Somalia's capital, after her Karan neighbourhood, in north Mogadishu, was hit by a barrage of shells, killing dozens and destroying homes, including hers. After dodging militia, struggling to find food and sometimes being forced to walk, she and three of her five children finally arrived on 17 March at Dadaab, a refugee camp in northern Kenya.
Several anti-trafficking campaigns have been initiated in South Africa ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. These campaigns intend to prevent individuals from being trafficked by raising awareness about this exploitative practice and providing information about the danger it presents. Anti-trafficking initiatives are important, but it is equally important that the information presented in these campaigns is accurate and based on evidence, rather than merely aiming to instill fear and outrage.
Communities across Southern Africa are fighting an uphill battle against gender violence. Among other challenges, economic inequalities, cultural attitudes, and media stereotypes all hamper turning the tide. However, looking at the approximately 200 participants from ten countries who took part in the first Southern Africa Local Government and Gender Justice Summit and Awards held in Johannesburg 22-24 March, it’s clear that making a difference is more than possible when individuals, communities, and governments put their heads and hands together.
The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines.
The aim of the conference is to increase trade and investment flows into Africa and to encourage a transcontinental exchange of knowledge and expertise.The conference will have as a specific objective, fostering business to business linkages, and in particular encouraging technology transfer, joint ventures, manufacturing contracts, franchising, sub-contracts, financial investments, equipment provision and inter-regional trade
In an important victory in the global struggle for food sovereignty, the United Nations recently issued a preliminary recognition of peasants' rights. The decision was welcomed by rural social movements and activists throughout the world as a powerful addendum to the Human Right to Food (Article 25 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights)-which defines access to food as a human right, but is silent on the issue of access and control over food producing resources.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) a network of 30 nongovernmental organizations promoting democratic elections in Zimbabwe has noted pronouncements by senior politicians on the holding of elections in 2011. These calls for elections come amid the constitutional reform process which has the potential to alter Zimbabwe’s political landscape.
The United Nations has invited a newly established group of independent experts to advise on ways to better protect women in conflict situations, and to ensure that their voices are heard in peace processes and that they are included in post-conflict reconstruction and governance structures.
The Women’s Refugee Commission with support from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is conducting a participatory four-day national-level workshop on operationalizing protection into livelihood and household energy programs for displaced populations in Ethiopia. The workshop is aimed at staff from governments, donor agencies, and NGOs working in Ethiopia.
The first ever gender justice and local government summit closed in Johannesburg on 24 March 2010 with awards to five women and four men whose work on the ground won the highest accolades from judges and participants during presentations made earlier this week.
The summit featured 103 entries from ten countries in a variety of categories including prevention, response, support, individual innovation, institutional good practices, specific GBV campaigns and innovative communication strategies.
Under the banner “score a goal for gender equality, halve gender violence by 2015” the conference brought together journalists, local government authorities, municipalities, NGOs and representatives of ministries of gender and local government.
On the evening of 24 March 2010, Gender Links awarded nine winners and nine runners up awards at a colourful gala dinner that was held at the City of Johannesburg offices, Reception Room. Video footage documenting some of the grassroots initiatives were shown. Footage can be made available on request.
The judges also made their choice and a winner and three runners up were awarded. Annex A provides names of all the winners in the different categories.
Please see for full details of the awards and winners.
Innocent Rokundo, 42, is a Rwandan who has lived in a refugee camp in western Uganda for the past 15 years. He fled his country during the 1994 genocide with his wife. She returned to Rwanda in 1996, but he has had no contact with her since.
The Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York (UK) will be offering a new LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice with the possibility of specialising in refugee law begining in October 2010. The degree aims to combine applied focus (centering around its international human rights clinic) and international breadth (involving, for example field work in Malaysia)
Africa Youth Trust, in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute invites applications for the third Training Program on The Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa (EAHUWO). The program is jointly being undertaken by Africa Youth Trust (Kenya) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden) with sponsorship from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
Perhaps more than anything today, Haiti needs a new macro-economy, one based above all on meeting the needs of its citizens. Post-earthquake economic restructuring could include equitable distribution of resources, high levels of employment with fair compensation, local production, and provision of social services.
In an indication that the global climate justice movement is becoming broader, there is now intense opposition to a climate-destroying energy loan for South Africa. The campaign’s leaders are community activists in black townships allied with environmentalists, trade unionists and international climate activists.
Managing camps for displaced people is usually a complex business involving aid agencies, governments and elaborate coordination mechanisms. Not in Somalia, however, where years of violence have forced hundreds of thousands of people to take refuge in remote camps that are largely inaccessible to agencies or the authorities.
South Africa’s government has drafted a new land policy that proposes limits to land ownership by its own citizens and foreigners, its Rural Development and Land Reform Minister has said.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday in Nairobi met and held talks with Kofi Annan, a member of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities and Chief mediator at the 2008 peace talks which ended the post-election violence in Kenya. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general, also met Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Cote d'lvoire, Choi Young-jin, has appealed for peace this week in the run-up to the country's first presidential elections since 2005.The UN mission chief made the appeal in a statement on Thursday.
Campaign against human trafficking - Africa has launched a new two-pronged campaign to address the challenges of trafficking in persons, particularly women and children, thr o ugh regional workshops and the launching of the African Union's Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) in the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).
Mauritian Prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, on Wednesday inaugurated an underwater fibre optics cable called Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION) in Terre-Rouge, 10 km north of the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis.
An evening of prayers and chants held in the Togolese capital, Lome, by supporters of the umbrella opposition group, Republican Front for Revival and Change (FRAC), was violently dispersed by the security forces using tear gas.
Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, chairperson of the opposition United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) and candidate in Rwanda's August presidential election, was on Wednesday prevented from leaving the country after she was questioned for several hours at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID)for alleged comments likely to stir up hatred and genocide, police sources told PANA in Kigali.
The African Group at the UN has called for the immediate fulfilment of all Official Development Assistance(ODA) commitment to Africa. The group also urged the Group of Eight industrialised countrie (G-8) to redeem its pledge to double by 2010, official assistance to the continent.
Burundi will receive a grant of US$ 135 million over the next five years, under the eighth round of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, official sources said in Bujumbura. The funds will be allocated to the "Intensification and Decentralization Program me for the Fight against HIV/AIDS (PRIDE)," said Burundian first Vice-President in charge of Political, Administrative and Security Affairs, Yves Sahinguvu.
Malawi has said Africa needs to focus on regional infrastructural development, in energy and water resources management if the continent is to realise its true growth potential, PANA reported from here Wednesday.
Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sent the list of the first batch of 25 ministerial-nominees to the upper legislative chamber, the Senate, for clearance. vOut of the 25, three served as Ministers while four were Ministers of State in t he 42-member cabinet which was dissolved 17 March.
Tens of thousands of refugees seeking safety in Kenya’s capital Nairobi are confronted with police harassment, exposure to criminal violence and a severe lack of livelihoods opportunities says a new report by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK).
The World Health Organisation said today it was investigating reports of suspected cases of the previously eradicated disease smallpox in eastern Uganda. Smallpox is an acute contagious disease and was one of the world’s most feared sicknesses until it was officially declared eradicated worldwide in 1979.
South African President Jacob Zuma urged Western nations to lift targeted sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his allies, saying they were undermining the nation’s coalition government. “We don’t need these sanctions now,” Zuma told lawmakers in Parliament in Cape Town.
The police have for the past two weeks arrested scores of MDC supporters across the country on trumped-up charges in a worrying partisan move as cases of Zanu PF-instigated violence against MDC members are on the increase.
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has joined President Robert Mugabe in dismissing calls to enshrine gay rights in the new constitution. "I totally agree with the president," he said, state media report.