Pambazuka News 466: Obama one year on: Dashed hopes?
Pambazuka News 466: Obama one year on: Dashed hopes?
Human rights campaigners who have been struggling for years to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) in West Africa got a boost this week as news emerged that a group of Muslim clerics and scholars in Mauritania had declared a fatwa, or religious decree, against the practice.
Mobile Monday, the global community of mobile industry professionals and innovators, has now launched its newest chapter in Uganda. The Kampala Chapter was founded by representatives from Uganda’s telecom companies: Orange Uganda, MTN Uganda, I-telecom, Mara Telecoms, Universities, media and ICT firms.
Feminist Practice of Technology is a growing idea that gives perspectives on technology. It poses questions and defines issues relating to technology from feminist perspectives, taking into account various women's realities, women's relationships with technologies, women's participation in technology development and policy-making, power dynamics in technologies and feminist analysis of the social effects of technologies.
In collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communication Women’s Network Support Programme (APC WNSP), Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) organized a national strategy workshop on 22nd and 23rd September 2009 at NobView Hotel, Ntinda. The main objective of the workshop was to enable key stakeholders in the area of VAW and ICT to explore and understand the connections between violence against women and ICT.
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) would like to recruit a Program Coordinator to work at the Secretariat based in Kampala, Uganda. Applications which should include a letter of motivation and a C.V. with details of education background, working experience, human rights activities and three references should be sent to; [email][email protected] by the 31st January 2010.
A US$20 million loan to the Republic of Zambia from IFAD will directly benefit 30,000 small-scale farming households, many headed by women. The loan agreement for the Smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme was signed today in Rome by Lucy Mungoma, Ambassador to Italy for the Republic of Zambia, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.
Kenya's planned development path will more than double its carbon emissions unless efforts are taken to pursue low carbon development, according to an environmental think tank.
People in developing countries often lack information that could transform their economic circumstances. Those in remote parts of Africa, in particular, could benefit from knowledge that would help them move up from subsistence farming to become successful, commercial smallholders.
Improving nutrition in the developing world has never been more important. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than a billion people — one sixth of the global population — have a diet so poor they may be severely underweight, have stunted growth, or lack the vitamins and minerals they need for good health (all are aspects of severe malnutrition, or undernutrition).
The African Union Chair Jean Ping has hailed the Governments of Chad and Sudan’s agreement to normalise the once soured relations between the two neighbours. The remarks followed the peace agreement signed on 15 January 2010 in N’Djamena.
The global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, with a knock-on effect on future economic growth, poverty reduction and progress in health and other areas, according to a United Nations report.
An ambitious state plan that will almost double the number of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of 2010 has drawn mixed reactions from AIDS activists, but increased donor funding has made the government quietly confident.
The Kenyan government has created the first ever tribunal to handle legal issues relating to HIV, including discrimination against people living with HIV and protecting the confidentiality of medical records.
More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response.
January 12 at 5 p.m. local time, a powerful magnitude-7 earthquake struck in Haiti. It was centered near the capital city Port-au-Prince and has caused massive destruction. We have word that School Director Réa Dol is okay and has converted her house and the school (which suprisingly survived the quake) into a makeshift hospital and shelter . There are 30 to 40 people at her home and 60 to 70 at the school.Unfortunately, we now know that some of the teachers and students were killed.
Dwa Fanm has activated an emergency response through our connection with the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Tabernacle doctors, nurses and community health workers are working to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit with the first delegation expected to be Haiti as early as tomorrow. Other delegations will continue to go to Haiti during these next few days of crisis.
Pambazuka News 465: French nuclear energy: Powered by Niger / Haiti in crisis
Pambazuka News 465: French nuclear energy: Powered by Niger / Haiti in crisis
Over 800 members of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise took to the streets of Bulawayo on 13 January to peacefully protest about the state of education in Zimbabwe. Five groups started separately and converged on Mhlahlandlela Government complex to hand over the WOZA report on the education system in Zimbabwe entitled 'Looking Back to look Forward'.
China is now the world's largest producer of, hydropower, with Chinese firms now building 19 of the 24 largest hydropower plants currently under construction worldwide, and roughly half of all the world's large dams are within its borders, writes Jacqui Dixon.
The geopolitics of African countries such as Algeria, a country in North Africa that has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and whose strategic importance and regional profile have increased markedly of late, is key to grasping the dynamics that shape contemporary Sino-Algerian ties and China’s Africa strategy overall, writes Chris Zambelis.
Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) is gravely appalled by what appears to be an escalating spate of misguided and, sometimes, punitive attacks on the independence of judges in the country.
The Namibian Police and or the Office of Prosecutor General as well as the Lower Criminal Division of the Namibian Judiciary are making themselves vulnerable to charges of discrimination and political bias, owing to the inconsistency with which they are handling certain criminal cases.
is an authoritative analytical web site which assesses, analyzes and documents conflict situations so as to keep up Africa regional issues in focus internationally. It's goals are to improve overall availability of political, security and defense related information in policy circles and the public domain through research, analysis and development of policy options.
Some elements within the Kenyan government are not sincere on the constitutional review process and are using the media gagging law, and some politicians, to scuttle the just released Harmonised Draft Constitution. The Release Political Prisoners (RPP) castigates such a move and implores upon the two principals (His Excellency Mwai Kibaki and the Honourable Raila Odinga) to show leadership on the constitutional review process.
‘If we want to turn around black education in South Africa, we must start by changing prevailing anti-learning attitudes’, argues William Gumede. ‘Anti-learning attitudes’, says Gumede, are compounded by a ‘lack of political will from leaders to do something beyond mouthing off rhetoric, wrong official priorities and absentee black parents’.
Dale McKinley looks at what the new decade holds for South Africa, as politicians, corporate mandarins and the media attempt to gloss over the “dirty” realities of the country's ‘grinding poverty, homelessness and mass inequality’ ahead of the World Cup.
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill would, if enacted into law, violate international human rights law and lead to further human rights violations, a report from Amnesty International has said. This extract from the report offers a human rights analysis of the bill.
Isaac Newton Kinity asks if a ‘political, secret shadow examination board’ is ‘still alive in Kenya’.
Bill Sutherland, unofficial ambassador between the peoples of Africa and the Americas for over fifty years, died peacefully on the evening of 2 January 2010. He was 91.
L. Muthoni Wanyeki shares anecdotes from a friend working for a UN mission in a post-conflict African country. While the stories are amusing, says Wanyeki, what they really show is how hard it is ‘to re-construct even a semblance of normalcy following a war’.
Ugandan-born lecturer John Otim recounts his experience of an attempt to assassinate him at his home on the campus of Nigeria’s Ahmadu Bello University in December.
Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 50 per cent of the latter’s electricity supply, writes Khadija Sharife. But ordinary Nigeriens reap little benefit from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources, with over three-fifths of the population living below the poverty line and reports of radioactive contamination of water, air and soil by multinational mining operations.
Muslim marriages have no legal recognition in South Africa, writes Waheeda Amien, but the use of written marriage contracts – the terms of which are enforceable in a secular court – offers a form of protection for parties, both within marriage and upon divorce.
Challenging Ugandan MP David Bahati’s assertion that homosexuality poses a grave threat to the ‘traditional African family’, Sylvia Tamale looks at the social meaning and legal implications of the country’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill.
The ‘Nigerian bomber’, the attacks on the Togolese football team, LGBTI politics in Africa, the mafia and migrant workers in Italy and a murder in London are among the topics in Sokari Ekine’s roundup of the African blogosphere.
‘Our deepest sympathies to the entire Haitian population’, writes Jacques Depelchin, ’and in particular to those who, prior to the earthquake were already suffering too much, simply because they were continuing a struggle started more than two centuries ago.’
Since the onset of violence in Casamance back in 1982, the Senegalese government and the Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) have not been able to negotiate a lasting peace. Periods of relative calm have been regularly punctuated by violent flare-ups that lead to fresh negotiations. In recent months, the region has once again been plunged into violent conflict. The women of Casamance make this call for an immediate end to the violence.
A recent outbreak of violence between migrant workers from Africa and the townspeople of Rosarno in southern Italy higlights the country's uneasy relationship with illegal immigrants, many of whom are trafficked into Italy by the mafia to provide cheap labour during the fruit-picking season, writes Annar Cassam.
As famine and hunger envelop Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam asks why the alarm is not being sounded. Instead, with Ethiopia’s leaders flatly denying the existence of famine and the international community hiding behind the jargon of ‘food insecurity’, Mariam sees a predictable pattern to Ethiopia’s history of responses over the last four decades: ‘Always too little, too late’.
Haiti is caught in tragedy once again. The country has been hit by its strongest earthquake for two centuries. While world leaders, institutions, NGOs, and individuals make their pledges, thousands are trapped beneath the rubble and unknown death tolls mount. The struggle to save lives is hampered by an obliterated infrastructure.
The Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) began in 1999 and has received an enthusiastic response from Zimbabwean audiences, participating artists as well as local/regional and international media. The event celebrates the finest Zimbabwean and international music, theatre, spoken word, dance and visual and applied arts.
This manual is designed to help NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who may be interested in the field of Human Rights but feel that they do not know enough about it or where to start.
This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the impact of the Inclusive Political Dialogue and the current challenges to a state that has lacked meaningful institutional capacity for some three decades. I
The 31st Durban International Film Festival (22 July - 2 August 2010) is proud to announce the 3rd edition of Talent Campus Durban from 23 - 27 July 2010, an intensive 5-day programme of workshops and seminars delivered by film professionals to enhance both theoretical and practical approaches to filmmaking.
'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping.
In this research programme an interpretation will be offered of the relationship between the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), social space, mobility and marginality in Sub-Saharan Africa. In six case-studies (Central Chad, West-Cameroon, Central Mali, Senegal, North Angola and South-East Angola), the programme seeks to arrive at an interdisciplinary analysis of the dynamics of mobility, social relations and communication technologies.
The seminar is aimed at generating policy-oriented research on the impact of the rising strategic and economic role of China on Africa's development prospects and its economic and political governance. The seminar will be held in Tunis, Tunisia, on 25-26 March 2010.
The Center for African Studies (ISCTE / Lisbon University Institute) and the Center for African Studies of the University of Porto are organizing the 7th Iberian Congress of African Studies which will be hosted by ISCTE / Lisbon University Institute between 9 and 11 September 2010.
The Music Crossroads program was initiated in 1995 by Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI), the world's largest youth-music network. Music Crossroads is going to lead a research on the creative sector as well as a feasibility study/search for partnership for Music Crossroads International in Mali, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Cape Vert.
The Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD/AFARD) is looking for a suitable candidate to fill the position of the Gender and Economic Justice Program Manager for a fixed term contract. This position offers possibility of gaining experience working for a leading Africa women regional organization in a stimulating, multicultural and dynamic environment. This position will involve travel within Africa and other part of the world.
This call for proposals set out the conditions for accessing the sixth edition (2010) of ERNWACA Research Grants Programme.
The Refugee Law Project announces the following vacancies: Karamoja Research and Advocacy Officer, Transitional Justice Lawyer, ATJRN Research and Advocacy Officer Deportation Researcher, Administration & Human Resource Assistant, Pool Research Assistant,Functional Adult Literacy - Volunteer English Teacher, and Video Advocacy Volunteer.
Interested candidates must submit an application letter, curriculum vitae, copies of relevant academic documents to:
The Head of Finance, Administration & Human Resources
Refugee Law Project, Faculty of Law, MUK
Plot No. 9 Perryman Gardens (Opp. Old Kampala Primary School) Old Kampala
P. O. Box 33903,Kampala
Email applications should be sent to: [email][email protected]
Deadline for receipt of applications is 22nd January 2010 at 5.00pm
Addis Ababa is selling vast fertile swaths to international companies in effort to introduce large-scale commercial agriculture.
Sub-Saharan focused private equity fund Agri-Vie will reach its $100 million target for investment in agricultural projects by March, and could triple this amount in a second fund, a top official has said. Agri-Vie funds food and agricultural projects in Africa seeking to make equity investments across the agribusiness spectrum, including processing and product distribution.
Ethiopia's first and biggest hydroelectric power generating plant that does not have its own dam was inaugurated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and a senior official from the project financier, Italy. The 281 million euro (US$ 407 million) plant, Gilgel-Gibe II (GII), uses water from another dam constructed more than 26 kilometres from GII for an earlier comm i ssioned power plant, called Gilgel-Gibe I (GI), has an installed capacity of 420
Egyptian experts have completed a mission in Kinshas a aimed at evaluating the construction of an ultra-modern hospital and hydro-electric power in DR Congo by Egypt.These projects are efforts to contribute to the accessibility of quality care and provision of electric power supply in DR Congo.
Two months after being re-elected for a fifth five-year term, president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has reshuffled his cabinet with the departure of several known figures.
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga appeared headed for a fresh round of wrangling after the President pulled out of a tree-planting exercise in Mau Forest.
Gambia's Assistant Superintendent of Police Yahya Fadera has declared there will be zero tolerance for gender-based violence, in particular rape and sexual assault against women and girls, warning that perpetrators will have no place to hide.
Grasslands have vast untapped potential to mitigate climate change by absorbing and storing Carbon Dioxide (CO2), according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Namibia's national broadcaster's Director-General (DG) Mathew Gowaseb has quit his job, becoming the third DG to leave the public broadcaster in one year. Media reports said that Gowaseb, who was appointed in acting capacity at the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) last year, had thrown in the towel citing political interference.
There is only one year left for Sudanese parties to salvage a 2005 peace agreement that ended more than 20 years of war and requires a pivotal referendum next January on unity or secession for Southern Sudan.
Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, Guinea’s wounded junta leader, feels he was tricked into taking a flight to Burkina Faso instead of going back to Guinea and is determined to get home, officials have said.
South Sudan leader Salva Kiir is to seek re-election in that post rather than tackling Omar al-Bashir for the national presidency, his party says. The SPLM will instead field a northern Muslim, Yassir Arman, in the national elections due in April.
Cote d'Ivoire's government has ordered an investigation into allegations of fraud by the electoral commission. Last weekend, President Laurent Gbagbo accused the commission of trying to register hundreds of thousands of ineligible people.
Six Sudanese men have been executed for their part in a riot at a refugee camp in Khartoum in 2005. The men were held responsible for killing 13 policemen during the riots in which five civilians also died.
A UN programme to combat child deaths from disease in West Africa has failed, a Johns Hopkins University study says. Unicef spent $27m (£17m) rolling out vaccinations, vitamin A pills and bed nets to protect against malaria from 2001 to 2005 in areas of 11 countries.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from a bill proposing execution for some gay people. He stressed that the MP who proposed the bill, who is a member of the ruling party, did so as an individual and was not following government policy.
The controversial Copenhagen Accord, secretly drafted by countries of the Global North with the approval of a few handpicked emerging economies, including South Africa, is green washed capitalism with thinly veiled energy security at its heart, writes Michael Pressend.
Malawi's government should drop all criminal charges against a same-sex couple who are facing up to 14 years in prison, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to high-level justice and home affairs officials.
Kenya’s government faces internal wrangling over the allocation of 1.4 billion shillings ($19 million) to buy land for IDPs. The Standard newspaper has reported that government officials have taken millions of shillings meant for resettling IDPs and then claimed that they had been disbursed to beneficiaries.
Fighting between pro-government militias and the Al-Shabaab rebel group has caused continuing death and displacement in central Somalia. Clashes concentrated in the areas of Wabho, Warhole, and Beladweyne killed 27 civilians and displaced some 250 pastoralist families, according to rights groups in Somalia cited by Reuters on 12 January.
An Egyptian court has sentenced two journalists to one year in prison after finding them guilty of printing a report in their newspaper about the alleged homosexuality of three celebrities.
The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), is calling on the Zambian authorities to immediately end attacks on Zambian media as they work to establish self-regulatory mechanism.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the unlawful, arbitrary and unjustified detention of Hannevy Ould Dehah, Director of Taqadoumy website in Dar Nahim prison in Nouakchott, after he had served his term.
A massive influx of 125,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) into neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) and Central African Republic (CAR) after deadly ethnic clashes is severely stretching the meagre resources of the impoverished region, the United Nations refugee agency has reported.
The United Nations refugee agency has warned that many parts of central Somalia are witnessing a surge in fighting, sparking growing displacement and worsening the plight of an already beleaguered population.
Leaders from the southern African region have urged the international community to reject plans by Madagascar's military-backed Andry Rajoelina to ignore power-sharing talks and hold an election.
More than 107,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fled to the Republic of Congo since early November of last year. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, another 17,000 refugees have crossed into the Central African Republic (CAR).
Twenty-five students were arrested at Bindura University on Thursday, after a demonstration over exorbitant tuition fees which have resulted in at least 40 percent of students being denied access to write their exams.