On 1 March 2010, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) expressed extreme shock at the decision of the military prosecutor to try blogger and student Ahmed Mostafa, 20, in a military court for allegedly publishing false information about the military establishment, after an unusually quick investigation, according to ANHRI lawyers of the Legal Aid Unit who attended the interrogation sessions.

ARTICLE 19 has released its analysis of the Kenya Communications (Broadcasting) Regulations, which came into force in January 2010, and recommends several changes to bring the Law in line with international standards.

Dialo Diop

Marcio Luis Paim

Firoze Manji praises Adam Parsons’ style and his powerful descriptions of the lives, experiences and aspirations of the shackdwellers of Kibera, but argues that ‘Mega-slumming’ is very much written from a vantage point that serves to reinforce Western prejudices of Africa. Parsons portrays Africans ‘as objects of pity, for whom charity is needed’ and Manji argues that he does so because he has chosen only one lens to view the lives of these people through. Manji asserts that ‘A little bit of research would… have revealed to him that residents of Kibera have organised politically, have given voice to their demands, fought battles to have the right to organise, organised meetings, demonstrations, produced plays, music, poetry and writings of protest.’ He concludes that the writings of these people reveal a very different world to the one that Parsons portrays: A world of change.

With the death of both Rashid Kawawa of Tanzania and Akena Adoko of Uganda in January this year, Kintu Nyago compares their legacies. Of Kawawa he says: ' If Nyerere… was the grand architect of Tanzanian nation building, regional liberation and security, then Kawawa was his trusted, skilled, implementing mason.' Of Adoko, however, Nyago is not so praiseworthy. He argues that Adoko's actions were 'selfishly and politically calculated:… intended to retain power… against the wishes of the people of Uganda.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/472/62731_diego_garcia_tmb.jpgM... socialist party Lalit de Klas has written to environmental NGO Greenpeace UK, asking it to reconsider its support for plans by the British government to create a marine protected area on the Indian Ocean island of Chagos, where Britain also maintains ‘a polluting nuclear base’ in Diego Garcia. The Chagossians were forcibly removed by Britain and the US and decolonisation of the island should be the first priority ‘for all concerned people’, says Lalit de Klas. ‘After decolonisation, the people whose land and sea it is can decide on how to protect and nurture it best, how to affect a clean-up of the base once it was closed down, and how to re-generate it into the beautiful atoll it once was.’

My mother said they found oil
Somewhere in western Uganda.
I am not excited, she said.
She sounded pained, but resigned.
Stoic, perhaps.
She has seen a lot, my mother.
‘Me, I’m not excited,’ she said,
And shook her head slowly.
‘Oil is trouble.’
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
We said nothing.
She shrugged and turned back to the counter.

You see,

Money’s mad temptations tug.
History’s heavy shoulders shrug.
Rewind, Repeat. Rewind, Repeat.
Rewind, Repeat. Rewind, Repeat.

Waheeda Amien argues that while recognising polygyny – the practice entitling a man to more than one spouse – respects cultural and religious rights, this is done to the detriment of individual rights. Not only does polygyny discriminate against women in African and Muslim communities in equality terms, but wives, children and husbands are financially and emotionally affected. Amien, however, does not necessarily advocate monogamy, rather she holds that the aim should be ‘to work toward an egalitarian society where intimate and family relationships are based on an understanding of substantive equality for all involved.’

In this week's review of the African blogosphere, a new report on the recent crises in Niger and Nigeria, Africa's tendency to deify its leaders, Sarkozy's visit to Gabon, and calls for a new approach to advocating for gender equality the use of ICTs.

American televangelist Pat Robertson was 'partially right' in saying that 'black people’s souls were compromised by evil', Charo Mina Rojas writes from Haiti. But it's not because people of African ancestry sold their souls to evil, it's that the evil of colonialism took their souls and 'traded with them'.

Hayley Herman reviews a blog entitled 'China in Africa: The Real Story', by Professor Deborah Bräutigam, author of the highly acclaimed book, 'The Dragon’s Gift'. This blog deals with the myths and realities of Chinese aid and economic engagement in Africa.

With Nigeria locked in a constitutional crisis, Funmi Feyide-John discusses the role of the US government's interference. While praising the Nigerian government for its ability to calmly transfer power to Vice-President Goodluck Johnson following President Umaru Yar'Adua's absence due to poor health, Feyide-John writes, the US's alleged favouritism towards particular political players risks severely undermining democracy in Nigeria through casting whoever ultimately ends up as president as a foreign puppet. In meeting former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida in Yar'Adua's absence, Feyide-John stresses, the US's actions give credence to suggestions of its intent to secure a Nigerian base for its AFRICOM (Africa Command) initiative and bolster its access to oil, as part of political dabbling which will doubtless have a lasting impact on Nigerian politics.

The purchase and creation of private land by external interests feature in Gado's cartoon this week.

The University of Sussex Students’ Union has called for global resistance to the United States' plans to establish and consolidate AFRICOM on the African continent.

In accordance with its vision of “promoting credible elections and democratic governance in Africa”, EISA plans to deploy a 3 member pre election assessment mission to the Central African Republic (CAR). This forms part of EISA’s election related activities in the CAR which will include the deployment of a continental observer mission to the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections scheduled for April 2010.

Plans to transform the east African oil sector by building a pipeline from south Sudan to the Kenyan coast were boosted this week when a Japanese company expressed interest in joining the project.

Zimbabwean activist Tichaona Masiyambiri narrowly escaped death with the help of local police, after a gang of armed youths attacked him following his address to villagers as part of a civic education programme at Nhakiwa Shopping centre in Uzumba.

Ethiopia is one of the main targets in the current global farmland grab. The government has stated publicly that it wants to provide 3 million hectares of farmland in the country to foreign investors and around 1 million hectares have apparently already been signed away. Much of the land that these investors have acquired is in the province of Gambella, a fertile area that is home to the Anuak Nation.

president sexmachine
runs out of semen
calls in juju magic
to foster a son like
father like pornstar
overzealous the heir
strips in public
it is not the clothes
that are off but the mind
the naked head gives
another meaning to nudity
groupies throw not their undies in the air
but their brains out of their heads
the hearts are locked
in the wallets
the bluenotes woke up everybody
the blandnotes sends everyone
to endless slumber
the business chamber
is a torture chamber
on the road to damascus
marx the dessident
transfiguers to max the pet
on the johannesburg stock exchange
socialist tongues are strangled
the new booby traps
are the equity shares
sophisticated snares (to) turn
revolutionary firebrands
into business brands
former guerillas into gluttonous
consumerist gorillas
from the khaki
to the gucci
we whistle vivaldi
where we once
chanted amandla
we shout armani

The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) at King’s College London together with the Africa Leadership Centre (ALC), is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women for 2010/2011. These Fellowships are intellectual and financial awards for personal, professional and academic achievements, as well as the recognition of future potential.

'The story of Lillian is very sad and its just one example of the thousands of women who die at child birth,' writes Caroline, while Susan says that it 'is sad that our people die out of preventable circumstances'.

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, analyses the situation resulting from the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that broke the stalemate following failed 2008 presidential elections and led to formation of the unity government in February 2009. It concludes that all domestic signatories of the GPA, as well as the South African mediation, must embrace democratic transformation as the vital objective of the transition.

Every Tuesday you will find 70-year-old Precious Dlamini under a tree, weighing children and babies from her local community as she monitors their health and nutrition. Though she may not have any official qualifications to do so, Dlamini is a retired teacher, she devotes much of her time to caring for the orphaned children in her community and educating people about a healthy lifestyle.

As Burundi approaches elections designed to cap the country’s democratic transition after years of civil conflict, there is growing concern about worsening security and limits to political freedom. “The situation is explosive,” Pierre Clavier Mbonimpa, chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Human and Prisoner Rights (APRODH).

Pan African Devevlopment Education and Advocacy Porgramme (PADEAP) Nigeria is situated in Funtua, Katsina State Nigeria. Northwest Nigeria is currently the focus of our work. With an estimated 36 million people, it is one of the most populated zones, yet one of the most neglected in terms of infrastructure. Consequently, the zone has high rates of maternal and child mortality and poverty, low literacy rates and an abysmally large literacy gap between men and women.

More than 450,000 people have signed an online petition urging Uganda's parliament to drop a bill that would impose the death sentence for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality" - when an HIV-positive person has sex with anyone who is disabled or under the age of 18.

Conservationists are at war over a British plan to create a marine protection zone around a large chunk of surviving empire in the Indian Ocean. The zone, twice the size of Britain, would cover much of the Chagos archipelago, one of the most unspoiled coral reef systems in the world.

During 2009 there was an upsurge in Chinese academic and journalistic writings concerning the question of a "Chinese model". Since last year Chinese intellectuals have been heatedly debating whether there is such a distinct Chinese model for development - and, if so, what are its contents and is it transferable for other countries?

Africa has over 120 carbon market projects up and running or in the pipeline,in areas ranging from wind power to forestry schemes, a new assessment, published by the UN Environment Programme, has shown. However, in comparison to the rest of the world, the continent is still lagging behind, with the potential for clean and green energy largely under- exploited.

The UN Millennium Campaign, Femnet and Oxfam GB have announced the commencement of a series of global conversations to discuss the status of the promises world leaders have made to women in the Millennium Development Goals.

An Ethiopian opposition politician and parliamentary aspirant was stabbed to death Tuesday and a second one seriously wounded when attackers raided their respective homes in Makalle and Axum in Tigray, 783 km north of Addis Ababa, party officials said.

Progress in sustaining high-level and job-creating growth in Africa will remain unsatisfactory unless bold country specific growth and employment strategies are adopted and implemented with the support of committed political leaders, according to a paper jointly prepared by the Africa Union Commission (AUC) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Women are yet to make significant inroads into the media 15 years after the Beijing Platform of Action recognised its centrality in advancing women’s rights. Preliminary findings of the 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project conducted by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) suggests that women constitute less than a quarter of those interviewed, heard, seen or read about in mainstream broadcast and print news.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has accused leaders from across Kenya's political divide and businessmen over their role in the post-election violence. Details of Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s submission to the Pre-Trial Chamber show how the suspects planned and executed what he refers to as a “criminal policy” against civilians.

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government looks unlikely to step down in 2011 as planned because it has failed to draw up the reforms needed to ensure free and fair elections, political analysts say.

The UN has begun talks with Democratic Republic of Congo on withdrawing its peacekeeping mission - the biggest UN operation in the world. UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said his officials would take a month to assess how the pullout of 20,500 personnel could be carried out.

Guinea's new transitional government should take concrete steps to ensure redress for victims of the September 2009 massacre of more than 150 opposition supporters in a stadium in the capital, Conakry, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to the new government.

Fifty Congolese human rights and civil society organizations, along with Human Rights Watch, have lodged a formal complaint against Colonel Innocent Zimurinda, a senior army officer based in North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Uganda’s members of parliament (MPs) are pressurising government to make public details of oil production-sharing agreements it signed with various international oil companies.