Pambazuka News 469: How Yar'Adua has improved Nigerian democracy
Pambazuka News 469: How Yar'Adua has improved Nigerian democracy
The Ministry of Trade has moved to allay fears that Kenya may break ranks with the East African Community because of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) trade deal with Europe.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the aim of enhancing private sector development in the two regions.
On 12 February 2010, the world celebrates the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers in commemoration of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
Hundreds of Bushmen were left angry and frustrated after the Botswana president refused to enter into discussions with them during a meeting on Thursday. President Khama, accompanied by four government ministers, met with Bushmen at the New Xade resettlement camp where they were dumped after being evicted from their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002.
After 18 years of successful multi-party democracy, Ghanaians are bracing themselves to review the Fourth Republican Constitution. Following cabinet’s approval of a memorandum on the consultative review, government has established an independent body to spearhead the process.
Women's movements have played a critical role in creating political space for female participation in politics around the world. In fact, there are more women in government today than ever before. According to UNIFEM's Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009 report "Who Answers to Women? Gender & Accountability", women now hold an average of 18.4 percent of seats in national assemblies, though the rate of increase is still very slow.
Ethiopia is building a 240-metre high dam on the Omo River that is intended to end the country's electricity shortage and supply power to neighbouring countries. Not everyone's happy.
One of Senegal's leading lawyers has mediated labor strikes and defused election violence. Her name is Amsatou Sow Sidibe and Malena Amusa thinks she's a major reason why Senegal is relatively peaceful compared to neighboring Guinea.
Corruption is not a solitary activity, and the networks that promote corruption are rarely confined to one country or one continent. For corruption in Africa, countries outside the continent enter the picture not only when foreign companies pay bribes for access. They are also a preferred location for stolen wealth.
While South Africa remains one of the countries with highest HIV prevalence rates, gay rights organizations are doing their bit to curb the spread of the syndrome and to ensure that people know their statuses.
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the harsh, two-year jail sentence which a court passed yesterday on Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, at the end of an incomprehensible and arbitrary trial.
Support is growing for a bid to persuade the G8+5 nations to fund 1,000 senior research positions in African universities. The Academic Chairs for Africa initiative would require the rich G8 countries and the emerging economies that now attend the group's gatherings — Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Mexico — to commit US$100m per year over a five-year period.
The cause of a measles outbreak sweeping South Africa has not as yet been determined, but initial suspicions point to religious objections and unfounded fears that immunizations against the disease increase the risk of autism in children.
Tensions following clashes in N’zérékoré, southeastern Guinea, are hampering the movement of some humanitarian workers and supplies, according to the UN.
Kenya's failure to put in place a comprehensive disaster preparedness policy means its response to high-risk events such as droughts, floods, epidemics and major accidents tends to be slow, poorly coordinated and unnecessarily expensive, say specialists.
Younger teachers in South Africa are taking the lead in talking to students about HIV but are not practicing what they preach, according to new research.
Major routes in Sudan have been cleared of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXOs) but there are still areas where the devices threaten civilians, as well as affecting aid and development efforts, say officials.
Pambazuka News 471: History through a hundred looted objects
Pambazuka News 471: History through a hundred looted objects
Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa is a research project initiated by FAHAMU, the network for social justice issues. China’s deepening engagement with Africa is receiving increased attention from the global media, public- and private sectors as well as academic research. This should however not overshadow the activities of other emerging powers in Africa, including India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. This call therefore seeks to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the discourse surrounding the engagement between Africa and these emerging powers.
Khadija Sharife investigates how the tax havens that prop small island economies up do so to detrimental effect. She argues that ‘as the G20 spends its time creating a carbon trade market that does little to reduce carbon emissions, multinationals continue to expand their extractive enterprises, dictators continue to siphon off capital, financial firms continue to cash in on pollution and this illicit capital continues to be laundered through offshore locations that are themselves threatened by the rising waters associated with global warming.’
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/471/i-neda-agha-sultani.gif
As part of a series of testimonies from the Antanosy people in Madagascar, this week Pambazuka listens to Sambo. Sambo, 46, tells a twisted story: While the mining companies have brought better dwellings and healthcare, his people struggle with everyday survival. He explains that the key reason is because access to fishing grounds has been taken away.
There shall be no change
In these lines,
In open mic rhymes,
In comfort that hides,
In freedom that lies,
In cool compromise.
There shall be no change.
It shall be no surprise.
A cynical age
A critical stage
A lost generation
A meaningless rage
There shall be no change
In this passionate page.
All the world’s not a stage.
All the world’s not a stage.
No.
It is passion, but pain;
It is often mundane;
It is struggle for gain;
It is trying in vain,
Then trying
And trying
And trying again.
It’s the youth on the street in ’76.
It’s the how why and when –
The questions that kick
For equality, freedom –
The answers that stick.
So today is the future of our history,
And what shall we say? Where,
Where were we?
Were we sleeping,
Or dancing,
Or watching TV?
While we wore noble wristbands,
With self-absorbed glee?
There shall be no change
In this passionate page.
All the world’s not a stage.
All the world’s not a stage.
There shall be no change
For this age
At this stage,
Unless there is change
Unless
There is change
In you and me.
Ruth Mumbi – of Bunge la Mwananchi and Kiamaiko Young Women in Kenya – writes of Lillian, who died while giving birth. She was, Mumbi holds, ‘a young, promising sister who could have had a brighter future if she had an opportunity to pursue her education’. Mumbi asks why her government can find 40 million shillings of taxpayers’ money to send ‘Al Faisal, who was disowned by other countries, back to Jamaica instead of providing for citizens, especially women who badly need reproductive health services.’ She asserts that many deaths as a result of childbirth in Kenya ‘are preventable if correct measures are taken and services brought closer to the people’.
cc E C KColleen Lowe Morna states that Zuma’s behaviour is a reminder that ‘there is still a long walk to freedom for South African women’. She argues that Zuma’s polygamy and promiscuity go against strides towards gender equality and asks: ‘How … are we to square polygamy, promiscuity and the progressive values of the ANC that Mandela gave his life for and that Zuma agrees he must uphold? If we are to push our democracy to greater heights, how now are we to emerge from this quagmire?'
Roland Bankole Marke reviews 'Weh Dehn Say? Dehn Say Kapu Sehns Nor Kapu Word', a collection of Sierra Leonean literature which he regards as 'a priceless addition to any library'.
As questions abound over a crisis at the heart of Kenya's grand coalition government, L. Muthoni Wanyeki argues that the coalition will hold, if only because of the absence of political alternatives.
Tragedy struck the opening of the Africa Cup of Nations and Vancouver Winter Olympics alike writes Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, but the contrast in the responses of the respective organisers towards the victims could not have been more pronounced.
Ethiopia is the site of a scandalous trade in child trafficking, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, in which agencies and the Ethiopian authorities conspire to permit the 'harvesting' of local children for adoption abroad. The Ethiopian government must honour its commitments under international law, Mariam stresses, and put the protection of its children first.
With Ghana on the verge of an oil 'boom' in 2010, Mawuli Dake considers the steps and measures needed to ensure the country derives full and equitable benefit from the resource. While Ghana's mining industry has historically been characterised by a lack of transparency and the dominance of foreign multinational interests, Dake stresses that the burgeoning oil industry must not be allowed to go the same way.
Nigeria's new presidential motorcade, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's birthday cake, Sarkozy's Rwanda visit and the East African Community's proposals for the creation of a regional electoral commission all feature in Gado's
Lennox Odiemo-Munara provides us with a taste of ‘Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing’, which revisits the winning short stories and those by other renowned writers of African literature. Odiemo-Munara concludes that as the Caine Prize enters its second decade, ‘we are certainly sure of marvelling the more at the grounding of a… literary tradition of a continent. It is a tradition that… “will bring many unsuspected gifts and wonderful surprises to the world in the fullness of time”.’
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/471/israel_palestine_apartheid....'s iniquitous treatment of Palestinian people has clear parallels with the discrimination suffered by 'non-white' people under apartheid South Africa, argues the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. The Israeli state has continued to flout international law in its efforts to annex further territory and marginalise Palestinian people, the coalition argues, calling for the maintenance of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its occupation.
Bharti has entered exclusive talks with Kuwait based Zain, in a deal that would give Bharti a presence in 15 other African countries.
India has issued a moratorium on Bt Bringal, which is genetically modified to produce a toxin that protects the crop from pests including stalkborers. Trevor Wells warns that following the introduction of the similarly modified Bt maize in South Africa, pests appear to have developed resistance to the previously widely used and effective natural pesticide Bacillis thurengiensis, which could have significant ecological and economic consequences.
The ‘tide of history is moving against the illegitimate detention of the cultural objects of others’, writes Kwame Opuku, putting the future of the ‘universal museums’ in jeopardy. Although it appears to serve a global audience, ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’, a new programme produced by The British Museum and the BBC, is part of ‘frantic efforts’ to impress ‘the masses about the alleged indispensable role of the major museums’ and to gather support for their continued possession of looted artefacts, argues Opuku.
A former leader of liberation movement, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, Ndeh Ntumuzah was a freedom fighter who devoted his life to the struggle for African independence and emancipation. Horace Campbell pays tribute to a ‘remarkable Pan-African spirit’.
The encouragement of homophobia by religious groups in Kenya and Uganda, Jacob Zuma’s 'polygamy drama' and the misuse of mobile phones to fuel violence in Nigeria’s Jos conflicts are among the stories covered in Sokari Ekine’s round-up of the African blogosphere.
Foreign investors looking for a way into Angolan markets need to follow two fundamental rules, writes Rafael Marques de Morais – partner with powerful figures from the regime, and ignore the relevant legislation. Marques de Morais looks at the route taken by leading Portuguese beverage manufacturer, Unicer.
The handling of Tibetan and Uighur protests, as well as concerns over environmental damage, and curbs on information and opposition have dented China’s image, raising questions about its role as a global power and how this will affect Asia and the world.
*The Right to Know: The Fight for Open Democracy in South Africa*
- A Short Film Showing and Discussion -
*7pm - Wednesday 3rd March*
*Room 4418 (4th Floor, SOAS Main Building)*
Ng'ana'a Thiong'o, Kenyan social activist and legal adviser for the people, sadly passed away on 7 February 2010. ‘It is not easy to write a tribute for a true comrade, a revolutionary, an environmentalist, a peoples’ advocate, a principled politician, a global citizen, an intellectual and creative thinker like Ng’ang’a Thiong’o’, writes Stephen Musau.
James Kilgore discusses the background to his new novel,'We Are All Zimbabweans Now', the story of an American graduate history student who travels to Zimbabwe in the 1980s with an 'idealised picture of Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwean notion of racial reconciliation'. The book attempts to provide a more 'nuanced' view of the country's history, says Kilgore, and invites readers, as its protagonist does, to interrogate their 'own assumptions and theories'.
Lisa Vives, Joan Nimarkoh and Vikas Nath respond to Samir Amin's critique of Dambisa Moyo's 'Dead Aid'.
'Shell was held accountable, but can this really be considered justice?' asks UCT GSB.
A new land deal allowing South African farmers to produce livestock, milk and fruit in Libya has been put on hold pending the finalisation of an investment protection agreement between the two countries. Theo de Jager, Deputy President of South Africa’s largest farmers’ union Agri SA said a protection agreement between the two countries had been drafted.
The Third Meeting, Third Session of the Second East African Legislative Assembly sitting at the Chambers of the Parliament of Uganda in Kampala has today adopted a common strategy for food security in the region. In a lively plenary session chaired by the Speaker of EALA, Hon. Abdirahin Haithar Abdi, Members adopted the Report on common strategy for food security in the EAC as presented by the Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Tourism and Natural Resources, Hon. Dr. George Francis Nangale (Tanzania).
A three-day seminar to discuss ways to strength en cross-border co-operation for the protection of children at risk and to better regulate inter-country adoption has opened in Pretoria, South Africa. South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation and the Hag ue Conference on Private International Law based in the Netherlands are co-hosting the seminar, which opened Tuesday.
Nigeria's ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua has returned home after spending 92 days in Saudi Arabia, where he has been undergoing medical treatment, but no one has yet confirmed seeing him. A text message sent to the telephone handsets of several State House correspondents in Abuja in the early hours of Wednesday alerted them to the President's arrival.
Angolan women, particularly in government, want to achieve equal representation in the number of decision makers in the coming years, the Minister of Familiy and Women Promotion, Genoveva Lino has said.
Nigeria's much-bashed electoral umpire Maurice Iwu is under fire again, after the country's main opposition party Sunday demanded his sack over a series of allegations. Iwu heads Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and has been widely vilified for organising what local and foreign observers consider to be the worst elections in the country's history in 2007.
South Africa's land reform minister said on Friday it would be impossible for the government to meet its own target of acquiring farm land to restore to blacks after it was taken from them during apartheid.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged that France made mistakes during the 1994 genocide, paid homage to the victims but stopped short of apologising during his landmark visit to Kigali on Thursday. “What happened here is unacceptable, but what happened here compels the international community, including France, to reflect on the mistakes that stopped it from preventing and halting this abominable crime,” he said.
Some donors would be willing to cancel Zimbabwe's 5.4 billion dollar foreign debt, if the strained unity government presents a united proposal to settle it, the finance minister said Thursday.
SADC tribunal rulings against the seizure of farmers land in Zimbabwe should be registered, recognised and enforceable by the South African government, the High Court in Pretoria has ordered. Judge Garth Rabie ruled in favour of white farmers - represented by AfriForum - who have argued that the seizure of their land without compensation was a human rights abuse.
The process of drafting a new Zimbabwean constitution has been further delayed, meaning the country’s new charter is now running seven months behind schedule. A co-leader of parliament’s constitutional committee Munyaradzi- Paul Mangwana told journalists in Harare this week that Zimbabwe would not have a new constitution before February 2011 at the earliest.
Malcolm X was assassinated 45 years ago this weekend. Earlier this year, WNYC Radio unearthed a 1960s interview between the civil rights leader and a reporter named Eleanor Fischer. On this somber anniversary, we consider Malcolm X’s legacy through the rediscovered tape, which has not been heard since the 1960s. We also speak to two people whose lives were profoundly affected by his leadership.
Some Zanu PF PF youths on Wednesday detained freelance photo-journalist Andrison Manyere for filming a demonstration held in the capital, Harare. Manyere was seized at the corner of Fourth Street and Jason Moyo Avenue whilst covering the demonstration organized by the Zanu PF youths to protest against the imposition and maintenance of targeted travel sanctions on the party’s leaders.
Ivory Coast authorities have announced a new election commission, key to ending disputes that have threatened the country's peace process. The crisis began two weeks ago, when President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved the previous body, accusing it of fraud and being controlled by the opposition.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced the former head of legal affairs at the Ministry of Defence to 25 years in prison. Lieut-Col Eprem Setako was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
He was convicted of ordering the killing of at least 30 people at a military camp in 1994.
Sudan has freed 57 prisoners from a key Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), officials say. President Omar al-Bashir announced the releases during a speech in Darfur's capital El Fasher, and declared: "The war is over."
Four white students accused of making a racist video in South Africa will face trial, after attempts failed to resolve the matter out of court. The video, which caused a racial storm in 2008 allegedly shows the four forcing five black cleaners to eat meat soaked in urine
South African trade unions are threatening strikes after the country's government allowed state-owned power firm Eskom to raise prices by 24.8%. Both consumers and businesses will struggle with significantly higher electricity bills, unions argue. The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry said firms were already struggling to cope with the fallout of recession and slow economic recovery.
Members of Niger's military junta and the interim administration it is setting up will not be allowed to run future democratic elections. Junta spokesman Abdoul Karim Goukoye reiterated that the coup leaders' priorities were to hold transparent polls and restore democracy.
Renewed fighting is reported to have broken out in Darfur despite Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir declaring the war in the western region was over. French aid group Medecins du Monde said it has had to suspend its operations in central Darfur's Jebel Marra.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to restore Zimbabwe's voting rights after a seven-year suspension for unpaid debts. But the fund said the country was still ineligible for loans until it had paid off more of the $1.3bn (£841m) it owes to creditors. In the meantime, Zimbabwe can take part in IMF decision-making.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the West moved quickly to crack down on the money laundering and secret banking systems that fund much of the terrorism in the world. But as evidence in both the U.S. and Europe suggests, illicit finances continue to circulate around the globe — and quite often the money has nothing to do with violence, but plain greed.
The Angolan government should promptly release three human rights defenders who were arrested on apparently political grounds following the January 8, 2010 attack on Togolese footballers in Cabinda, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the continued detention without charge of five other people.
South Africa’s children, the country’s most vulnerable population group, will benefit through the increase in social grants recently outlined in the national budget. South Africa’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan’s national budget speech on Feb. 17 has largely been met with approval by development experts for the social grant increases.
Fighting between militia groups and Congolese armed forces supported by the UN, as well as attacks and violence against civilians, caused the displacement of around a million people in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2009. As a result of these and earlier episodes, over 2.1 million people were displaced in North and South Kivu and Orientale Province as of the end of 2009.
The World Bank’s private investment arm, the International Finance Corp., won’t make new commitments in Democratic Republic of Congo until a dispute over a canceled mining contract is resolved, an IFC spokesman said. The IFC owns 7.5% of a $553 million copper and cobalt project led by Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Ltd. that Congo canceled in August after a review of mining contracts. The case is now before an international arbitration court in Paris.
The Secretary General of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) is back in hiding this week after police raided the union’s offices on Wednesday. Gertrude Hambira fled to safety after five men and one woman, who identified themselves as officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, raided the union’s office in Harare apparently looking for her. Hambira, who wasn’t in the office at the time, is now in hiding fearing for her safety.
Madagascar's President Andy Rajoelina has called a meeting next week with leading opposition groups to try to resolve a year-long political crisis before the African Union imposes sanctions. While one opposition party cautiously welcomed the move, it was unclear whether Rajoelina would be able to rally enough cross-party support to strike a deal and head off the punitive measures.
Nearly a fifth of the population in Chad will suffer food shortages this year, part of a broader hunger problem looming in the Sahel region, the United Nations said on Thursday. "Two million Chadians, or 18 percent of the population, are in a situation of food insecurity," said Michele Flavigna, the U.N.'s representative in Chad told a news conference.
Unions representing Algeria's teachers on Sunday (February 21st) rejected a proposed pay increase and called for a general strike, prompting student and parent fears that the school year will be lost entirely. CNAPEST and UNPEF will begin a prolonged strike on February 24th to protest what they are calling an unsatisfactory offer.
"While much of Africa has avoided the worst effects of the recession, we face significant risks and uncertainty”, writes Dr Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB). “The impact of the global turbulence, though varying from region to region, has been a major setback and a threat to our common achievement to date.” However, “at the same time, much of Africa has demonstrated remarkable resilience,” he says.
2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women. In recognition of this anniversary, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, NY is organizing an NGO Global Women’s Forum to consider implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA).
Many tribal people in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia are starving as the region is in the grip of a drought and the river’s annual flood has failed. The Kwegu, a small hunter-gatherer tribe, have been badly hit. Survival has received reports that two Kwegu children and four adults died from hunger in November.
Margot Wallström starts March 1 her two-year stint as special U.N. representative on ending conflict-zone sexual violence. She says she'll be going right away to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a global epicenter of mass rape.
Poor governance and management are jeopardising efforts to provide quality basic education in seven African countries according to a new report published today by Transparency International (TI). The report, Africa Education Watch: Good governance lessons for primary education, shows that despite ten years of efforts to increase school enrolment through the Education for All initiative and the Millennium Development Goals, deficient or non-existent governance systems and practices are limiting progress.