Pambazuka News 468: The new American imperialism in Africa
Pambazuka News 468: The new American imperialism in Africa
A documentary reflecting the issues of ‘Being gay in Kenya’ is in the pipeline and with it, producers say they want to break the myth that gays and lesbians do not exist in the country, as believed by some members of society. Comprising of first hand experiences of gay Kenyans, the documentary reveals issues of homophobia, stereotyping and stigma in a society in which the majority feel that homosexuality is unAfrican and unbiblical.
All eyes are on the February 5 court appearance of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, where the Malawian constitutional court is expected to consider the legality of the country’s anti-gay laws and the validity of their prosecution. Meanwhile gay rights groups are appealing against the human rights violations and laws criminalising homosexuality, to be repealed in Malawi and Uganda.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around one-third of cancer deaths are preventable, through education programmes, better detection and treatment. As a result, the disease hits hardest in developing countries, where such programmes are rudimentary, if they exist at all.
The president of Malawi has been chosen to assume the rotating presidency of the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader and the body's outgoing chairman, has said.
Women of Uganda Network with support from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP – EU (CTA), holds a bi-annual event called the Lango Forum on e-agriculture. This event is held twice a year in Apac District, Northern Uganda. This year the third Lango forum on e–agriculture will be held on the 18th February 2010.
Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) invites young women aged between 21 - 25 years who completed their university or any tertiary institution and are interested in Leadership to apply for a Leadership Training Camp scheduled for March 2010. The camp runs for three weeks and is residential.
Join Ashoka's Changemakers, ExxonMobil, and The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in this global Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power challenge! Share your innovations which enable women to access and use the power of tools and technology to expand their opportunities for economic advancement. For more information, visit also ICRW's Bridging the Gender Divide in Technology.
The Gibe 3 Dam, now under construction on the Omo River in Ethiopia, is already fanning tensions over natural resources, all the way downstream to Kenya. By dramatically changing water flows in the river, the dam will wreak ecological and social havoc for half a million people living downstream of it, including Kenyan communities around Lake Turkana, which gets virtually all of its water flow from the Omo.
Communicating why biodiversity loss matters for people is essential for reversing it. The failed UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December could hardly have been a less promising prelude to the International Year of Biodiversity, which opened last month (January).
Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations: A Handbook of Good Practices is a timely, practical guide to help aid organisations deal with corruption in day-to-day operations. When people donate money to aid agencies they expect it to reach people in need.
The spirit in which Parliamentary Service Commissions in democratic countries exist is that of providing parliamentarians with the requisite support and resources to undertake their duty to citizens. The history of the Parliamentary Service Commission in Kenya is replete with impropriety in resource utilisation, reports Transparency International.
Net capital flows to developing countries fell to $780 billion in 2008, reversing an upward trend that began in 2003 and peaked at $1,222 billion in 2007, according to a new report from the World Bank. The report states that particularly hard hit were private capital flows, which fell by almost 40 percent, adding that all developing regions were affected, with emerging market economies in Europe and Central Asia experiencing the sharpest downturn.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has completed the second review of Mali’s economic performance under a programme supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The decision also allows the government to request a further disbursement amounting to about US$3.1 million, which would bring total disbursements to Mali to SDR 21.99 million (about US$34.1 million).
Human Rights Watch has urged the Libyan authorities to stop blocking the internet sites. The country has blocked access to YouTube and at least seven independent websites claiming it was a disturbing step away from press freedom.
By age 15, Annonciata Nduwimana was an accomplished fighter for Burundi's opposition Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) and knew how to kill in battle. "My father was killed, accused of sheltering rebels. We [her mother and two elder brothers] then fled to Bujumbura to seek safe haven," she said.
Kenya's coastal and southeastern regions will harvest a bumper maize crop from mid-February following El Nino-enhanced rains that fell in December, according to experts. "The most likely situation between January and March points to significant improvements in food security, especially in the southeastern marginal agricultural livelihood areas," the Kenya Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) said in a report.
The fight against fake medicines requires a united public-private front to overcome people's resistance to health warnings and to dismantle increasingly sophisticated trafficking networks, medical professionals said at a meeting in the Togolese capital Lomé.
Too many obstacles still stand between women and safe childbirth in Burkina Faso, with discrimination against women at the heart of the problem, Amnesty International says. Females' low social status fuels maternal deaths, with early marriage and women's lack of control over family planning major contributors, Amnesty says in a report released on 27 January.
Rival ethnic communities in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have clashed many times over the years, but most recently over fish, observers say. More than 200 people have died and another 150,000 have fled to the neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) since October 2009, when fighting erupted between the Lobala and Boba clans in Dongo, Equateur Province.
Scientists have finally discovered the structure of a key enzyme found in HIV and similar viruses, a breakthrough that has crucial implications for HIV treatment.
Pambazuka News 467: Haiti: Microcosm of the crisis of development
Pambazuka News 467: Haiti: Microcosm of the crisis of development
Indigenous Fisher Peoples Network (IFP) with support of Minority Rights Group International (MRGI) will from January 2010 implement a 3 year EU funded Investing in People - Access to local culture, protection and promotion of cultural diversity project in Kenya. The Artistic Director will have the overall responsibility for the management of the drama production process. S/He will report to, and work very closely with the Governance Programme Officer at IFP, who will be in charge of project implementation. Deadline for submissions is 5th February 2010.
MDF-ESA designs and delivers courses in the sphere of Project and Programme Management, Organisational Development, Human Resource Development, Resource Mobilisation, Facilitating Processes, Dealing with Contextual Changes and Rapid Skills Development.
This is a petition to reiterate the necessity for donors, European Governments and European NGOs not to give in to current trends of aid concentration that very clearly contribute to further marginalizing countries such as Guinea-Bissau, and to reconsider their present relationship with Guinea-Bissau.
The World Social Forum (WSF) is only "a tool" and must not be confused with the global movement for another world, says Chico Whitaker, one of the founders of this meeting which is celebrating its tenth year with a seminar to assess its track record Jan. 25-29, in its southern Brazilian place of origin, Porto Alegre.
Google has sponsored a contest to encourage students in Tanzania and Kenya to create articles for the Swahili version of Wikipedia, mainly by translating them from the English Wikipedia, according to an article appearing in the . Swahili, because it is a second language for as many as 100 million people in East Africa, is thought to be one of the only ways to reach a mass audience of readers and contributors in the region.
At noon, January 25, a delegation of 200 women and men marched to Mhlahlandlela Government complex to deliver WOZA’s report on the education system in Zimbabwe entitled - Looking Back to look Forward. Once the Ministry of Education official had attended and received the report, members began to disperse. As they dispersed seven riot police officers ran out of the Police Drill hall, which is opposite the complex and started to beat the peacefully dispersing activists and innocent bystanders and vendors.
The Public Interest Law Institute (PILI) is pleased to invite applications for its Public Interest Law Fellows Program for 2010-2011. The program will select qualified lawyers from West Africa for ten months of study and practical experience in New York and Budapest. We will be accepting applicants from the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The program endeavors to target future leaders in various fields of public interest advocacy.
Despite the financial crisis that has wrecked global economies, the volume of trade between Namibia and China has grown, resulting in commerce between the two countries exceeding US$550 million in 2009, writes Chrispin Inambao.
Top Documentary Films offers direct or indirect access to hundreds of documentaries - many of them socially critical - with reviews from trusted sources. The content here is created with a passion for documentary films, the site is in open form and allows readers to add comments about documentary films they like or dislike. This is a useful resource for educators, the socially critical and, indeed, anyone bored out of their minds by the inanity and poverty of mainstream TV and commercial cinema.
Vicensia Shule reviews Laura Edmondson's 'Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage', a book which she regards as decidedly limited in its analysis of the evolution of Tanzanian theatre.
Following the arranged departure from Kenya of the Muslim preacher Abdullah al-Faisal back to Jamaica, L. Muthoni Wanyeki reflects on the curious circumstances behind the preacher's transportation out of the country.
Final declaration of the extraordinary meeting of the political council of the ALBA, 25 January 2010
The following is the full text of the final declaration of last Monday's meeting at the Miraflores Palace between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit and the foreign ministers of the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).
Alemayehu G. Mariam attacks the common concept that economic democracy must be achieved before abstract political rights. Mariam holds that this ‘democracy before democracy’ notion is rooted in Kwame Nkrumah’s dangerous legacy of one-man, one-party rule designed to ‘avoid genuine multiparty democracy’ and buffer personal power. Mariam warns African rulers following Nkrumah’s ‘political formula’ that ‘Africans want Africa no longer to be the world’s cesspool of corruption, criminality and cruelty.’ Ghana is today, Mariam argues, ironically the best model of democracy in Africa. He concludes that in contrast to beliefs that economic needs precede political rights, Africa wants genuine multiparty democracy now.
The following is joint statement by the International Association of Health Policy and the Federación de Asociaciones para la Defensa de la Sanidad Pública calling on international health organisations to ethically establish proper social and healthcare systems for the people of Haiti.
Dear most honorable MP,
When will it ever end?
When will it stop, people are crying, dying,
Hunger,
Disease,
Ignorance,
When will it stop?
It’s been called disgusting,
Immoral,
Uncouth,
Cold,
Corrupt,
Yet it still continues,
When will it stop?
It’s hard to imagine,
It can be justified,
With all these problems,
Disgusting,
Stop it,
Stop now,
Stop the slaps on the face,
The vomiting on the shoes,
The cold heartedness,
To the hungry, sick, poor,
Of our nation,
By constantly increasing your pay packages,
And failing to pay tax,
We are FED UP,
And on a day soon to come,
We will show you how much.
The International Monetary Fund believes growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be 1 percentage point above the global average, and puts eight African countries in its top 20 fastest-expanding economies in 2010, write Ed Cropley and Ben Hirschler. Oil-rich Angola and Congo Republic will lead the charge with growth rates of more than 9 and 12 percent respectively, both beating China, according to the IMF's most recent projections.
The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) with support from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has launched a book titled: Freedom of Information and Women’s Rights in Africa. The book is compilation of five case studies from five African countries namely; Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia, will help women’s organisations as they organise around freedom of information in their respective countries.
If Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill becomes law, it will be little short of state-sponsored "genocide" against the gay community. So, the ambassadorial appointment of Jon Qwelane, well-know for his homophobic and derogatory statements against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and intersex (LGBTI) community, was a shock to human rights and gay activists.
David Coetzee, the founder of the alternative information bulletin SouthScan, for a number of years the most significant source of independent, uncensored information about what was going on in apartheid South Africa, passed away on 24 January 2010 at the age of 66.
‘Towards Food Sovereignty’ is an online book with full color photo illustrations and linked video and audio files. It describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems.
Under the guidance of the Team Leader for the Horn of Africa/Kenya, the Researcher will support the work of HRW staff in implementing a human rights research and advocacy agenda focusing on the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia) and Kenya. Deadline for applications: January 31, 2010.
South African CIVICUS [the World Alliance for Citizen Participation], and its partners have announced the launch of the ‘Africa for Haiti’ campaign aimed at rebuilding Haiti in solidarity. The press statement, issued on 22 January 2010, states that ‘The objective of this campaign is not to provide immediate relief but rather to contribute toward the medium to long-term reconstruction of communities in Haiti.’ The press statement is accompanied by supporting statements for the campaign from Archbishops Desmond Tutu, Njongonkulu Ndungane, Malusi Mpumlwana, Thabo Makgoba, and businessman Stanley Subramony.
The 'failure of development' is to blame for the devastating effects of the recent earthquake in Haiti, writes Yash Tandon. Calling for democratic institutions accountable to the country's people to be put in place, Tandon argues that Haiti is ‘a microcosm of the disastrous outcome' of ‘development’ policies and the 'destructive effects of foreign interventionist policies’ in the affairs of the South.
Media and communication activists and organizations in South Africa have united into the strongest since the collapse of formal apartheid: the SOS Support Public Broadcasting coalition. The coalition formed first in response to the governance and financial crisis at the SABC and then broadened to engage the Department of Communication's (DOC) bold steps to review Broadcasting legislation.
‘Haiti did not fail,’ writes Hilary Beckles, ‘it was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.' Buried 'beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda', says Beckle, is 'the evidence which shows that Haiti's independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly emerging democracy.’
There is something dismally familiar about the tide of news concerning Africa's increased suffering in the face of the recent global financial crisis. But there is another side to the story. African countries locked out of international capital markets for most of the past five decades have largely been spared the financial turmoil and economic downturn.
Haiti’s earthquake has provided the first opportunity since slavery for slavery descendants in the Afro-Americas to alter and recreate the country’s socio-economic structures and physical infrastructure, writes Marian Douglas-Ungaro. But will former slave-owners and colonial masters hinder or assist with the process, Douglas-Ungaro asks, and will continental Africa notice or care?
We the citizens of Kenya wish to issue this statement in support of the decision by the United States Government to withhold funds that had been earmarked towards Kenya’s Free Primary Education programme. As aggrieved citizens we agree and demand that those responsible for the misappropriation of free education funds not only be dismissed from office but be held accountable to the full extent of the law.
From whichever angle you look at, it is simply wrong for a governing political party to own shares in a commercial company, let alone when such a company bids for government tenders, writes William Gumede.
This is compilation by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights & Constitutional Law of recent articles, opinions and press statements related to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently before Uganda's Parliament.
A fortnight after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, the initial phase of the US-led relief operation has conformed to three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island's recent history, writes Peter Hallward – the adoption of military priorities and strategies, the sidelining Haiti's own leaders and government, and disregard for the needs of the majority of its people. These same mutually reinforcing tendencies will continue to govern the imminent reconstruction effort too, Hallward cautions, unless determined political action is taken to counteract them.
UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School will host an international conference on adolescent girls in April 2010. With an emphasis on reviewing existing evidence and policies, the conference will focus on the role and potential agency of adolescent girls in meeting emerging global challenges.
In this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, Sokari Ekine is disappointed to find little commentary from Africa on the recent Haiti earthquake. She looks to bloggers in the diaspora instead, to shed light on events and to investigate the historical connections between Haiti and Africa.
Mozambique is continuing to see a steady stream of changes when it come to upping the gender mix in the country's political landscape. The most recent victory was the unanimous election of Veronica Macamo, a member of the ruling Frelimo party, who made history when she became the first woman speaker of parliament at a swearing in ceremony in the capital Maputo on 12 January.
From the opinion pages of the world's most influential newspapers to the hallways of high schools in Oregon and beyond, globally people are taking a fresh look at an old problem - the persistent and pervasive discrimination faced by the world's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.
Relief agencies are struggling to help the some 18,000 displaced people in 17 makeshift camps in and around the central Nigerian city of Jos. Most of the displaced do not have enough food and they lack access to toilet facilities and safe drinking water, Nigeria Red Cross (NRC) head Auwalu Mohammed told IRIN.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia Chapter has observed that Zambia is running out of time to prepare for the mandatory migration of broadcasting services from analogue to a digital platform.
The West wants to direct billions toward protecting forest lands, but the lack of any standardized rules and enforcement methods could lead to disaster. Experts warn that the wrong people might benefit from the money and argue indiginous peoples, not bureaucrats, should watch over the rainforests.
As the Kenya Parliamentary Select Committee conducts its review of a revised draft of the country’s constitution, Yash Ghai reminds the committee that its role is to ‘resolve contentious issues’ in the document, not to determine them.
In only two weeks, four Afro-Colombian leaders have been murdered, and several subjected to death threats. Fumigations have caused the internal displacement of more than 100 Afro-Colombians. The violation of Afro-Colombian fundamental rights continues to escalate. Effective and structural measurements must be taken by Colombian government in order to guarantee the safety and integrity of Afro-Colombians, and promote the respect and observance of their rights.
Under the overall guidance of the Country Director, and programmatic oversight of the Deputy Country Director (Programme), the Peace and Development Advisor will be a part of the Strategic Advisory Unit under the direct supervision of the Senior Economist. Deadline is February 1, 2010.
One year after President Obama was sworn in to office, and less than a week before his State of the Union address, Africa Action has released its Africa Policy Outlook 2010, also published by Foreign Policy in Focus. The Outlook is an annual publication forecasts the key issues and developments in Africa policy, such as climate change, the global economic crisis, HIV/AIDS, foreign aid and other country topics, and it analyzes trends in U.S. relations with Africa under the current administration.
The development challenges African countries face stem from their use of an inappropriate governance structure, the nation-state, writes Amira Kheir. The nation-state is an inherited system that does not match the continent’s needs and potential, says Kheir, arguing instead for a state that functions as an administrative centre for legislation and organisation but that remains free from ‘fictitious affiliations’ to a larger identity.
Anyone familiar with the basic provisions of the Arusha accords of 18 August 1992 is impelled to call into question , writes René Lemarchand.
Given Rwanda's history of the elite manipulation of the past for political
gain, Gerald Caplan's analysis of the Mutsinzi Report is dangerous and thoughtless, writes Susan Thomson.
Gerald Caplan responds to Professor René Lemarchand's criticism of his article on the Mutsinzi Report into the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana in 1994.
Against the backdrop of the fundraising 'Hope for Haiti Now’ concert, Amanda Huerta reflects on the impact that it will have. She believes that it will at least draw the attention of 'those who, by commission or by omission, never cast their eyes on the "third world" because they got lost losing the "second" one'. Haiti has two potential paths, Huerta argues, to become even more quashed by the 'military boot’ or to be rebuilt in solidarity whereby 'We will construct among us the morning … that forever ends the night of the boar.’
Norman Girvan writes to the Honourable P.J. Patterson, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat’s representative to the Conference of Foreign Ministers on Haitian Relief, which was held in Montreal on Monday 25 January 2010. Girvan makes recommendations for a response which ‘should be based on the principles of solidarity, respect for [Haitians’] rights and respect for their country’s sovereignty'.
What is happening in Haiti is, Cynthia McKinney observes, 'shades of Hurricane Katrina all over again’. McKinney depicts, step by step, the US response to Haiti’s crisis and lays bare its unashamedly military nature. McKinney explores the reasons for the US’s militarised rescue operation. She believes it is not only a consequence of US material and oil interests in Haiti, but also the ideological threat that Haiti poses to the Western world: 'Haiti is a light.' In defeating its colonisers, it inspired millions to follow in its footsteps. But McKinney concludes with a warning: 'Every plane of humanitarian assistance that is turned away by the US military … and the … arrival … of up to 10,000 US troops, are lasting reminders of the existential threat that now looms over the valiant, proud people and the Republic of Haiti.’
Eric Toussaint and Sophie Perchellet criticise mainstream commentary on Haiti for failing to look beyond the earthquake and to ask where Haiti's poverty is rooted. They depict the historical passage of political and economic exploitation and individual greed that has led Haiti into a hole of crippling debt. Haiti, they argue, 'needs to be rebuilt because it has been stripped of its means to rebuild itself'. Toussaint and Perchellet note that 'All current financial aid announced following the earthquake is already lost to the debt repayment!' They conclude that those most responsible for systematically exploiting Haiti, namely France and the US, must pay their compensation through a fund for the country's reconstruction.
The modern global economy doesn’t just run on fossil fuels, writes Bob Hughes, it primarily driven by social and economic inequality. But as a growing number of studies suggests that this inequality also has a heavy environmental cost, Hughes argues that ‘a world without inequality is not just desirable, it is necessary, and urgently’.
The current football fervour resulting from the Africa Cup of Nations is just a small sample of what is to come when South Africa hosts the World Cup this coming June. Young footballers across the continent are watching and cheering on their local heroes. Some of the regions’ young women players are among the fans, even though they are often left out on the pitch.
OLPCorps is OLPC’s official field volunteer program. It is a worldwide community dedicated to transforming education for children who have had little or no access to modern information technology. OLPCorps gives young people the opportunity to contribute their minds, bodies, time and skills to delivering better education for children living in some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities.
A new guide to the African Union launched by the Africa Governance and Monitoring Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Institute and Oxfam International aims to ensure that Africa’s citizens can contribute more fully to the work of the
inter-governmental organisation.
In a large market in Juba, the regional capital of Southern Sudan, young women spend long afternoons lounging on beds in sweltering iron sheet rooms, waiting for men. One girl, no more than 17, wearing a tight tee-shirt with the words "I love beer" emblazoned on it, points us in the direction of a different set of rooms, with the really young girls.
As sports fans gear up for the NFL Super Bowl next week, the Halftime show sponsor, Bridgestone/Firestone, continues to exploit workers on its rubber plantation in Liberia. The majority of workers who labor as “rubber tappers” must carry two heavy buckets of raw latex weighing 75 pounds each on both ends of a stick on their back for miles.
The same kind of worldwide solidarity that helped bring down apartheid is necessary to free the global South from economic domination. "Global solidarity has proved to be the only sustainable mode of confronting global apartheid, as exemplified by the liberation struggles that were fought in the 20th century," says Dakarayi Matanga.
The Aquino de Bragança Social Studies Centre (CESAB) and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) co-organizes this International Conference in collaboration with DANIDA and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. It will bring together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to engage in an open debate of the current state of justice provision and public safety in Mozambique.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the eighteenth competition under its Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing. The grants are designed to contribute to the development of the social sciences in Africa, and the continuous renewal and strengthening of research capacities in African universities through the funding of primary research conducted by post-graduate students and professionals.