Pambazuka News 464: Angola: Public office, private business
Pambazuka News 464: Angola: Public office, private business
A Ugandan government minister has said that a proposed law which includes the death penalty for some homosexual acts is "not necessary".
China says it will give a $7m (£4.4m) grant to help fund infrastructure development projects in Kenya. The announcement came at the start of the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's latest Africa tour.
The French government has announced that it will set up a new panel to try cases of genocide and war crimes committed in France or abroad. The new court would speed up the way genocide cases are tried where the suspect is on French territory but the process involves several jurisdictions.
January marks the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended a bitter north-south civil war in Sudan. With important elections scheduled for April, women are debating and fighting for an expanded role in the new institutions of government.
Children cannot consent to their own exploitation, making the use of children in warfare "particularly abusive," a top United Nations official has said at the trial of a Congolese warlord accused of enlisting child soldiers.
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.
United Nations agencies and Ethiopian health officials have developed a comprehensive two-year work plan to boost maternal and newborn health and survival in the Horn of Africa nation, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced.
The United Nations is sending health care kits and other supplies for 30,000 victims of massive flooding in Kenya, where thousands of others are feared to be at risk if heavy rains persist.
A controversial United Nations-backed Government offensive against rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), during which Congolese soldiers are alleged to have committed massacres and gang-rape, has been replaced by a new UN-supported operation with a central focus on protecting civilians.
A growing understanding of the role of family planning and the spread of contraception use resulting from greater access to reproductive healthcare is helping to save lives in Guinea-Bissau, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Angola is to use the first quarter of 2010 to adopt a new constitution for the country, announced the president of the National Assembly, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos.
A top UN official has revealed the world body's intention to boost its missions in Africa and beyond as a result of an unexpected increase in its budget for this year.
Three human rights workers involved in the defense of the famous Malawi gay couple have been arrested, according to a release from the UK-based Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) equality group, OutRage! The couple are in police custody and face a maximum imprisonment of 14 years.
At least 20 civilians were killed on Thursday evening and 40 others wounded after mortars and artillery shells hit the capital Mogadishu, according to eye witnesses' account. The deadly clashes erupted after Islamist insurgents fired at the presidency building, residents told AfricaNews.
Zimbabwe hopes to improve on its technological sector in the next five years. Technology Minister, Nelson Chamisa, said the country is embarking on a technological revolution path and drastic changes would soon be realized.
Malawian authorities have arrested Charles Bandora an ex- senior official of the former Rwandan ruling party, MRND, indicted by the Prosecution for Genocide. Bandora, a former businessman in Ngenda, Kigali, faces charges that include; Genocide, complicity in Genocide, conspiracy to commit Genocide, extermination, murder as a crime against humanity and organized crime.
The President of Cote d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo has signed a pardon decree to free about 100 female prisoners in the West African country.
Teachers have threatened to go on strike if their salaries are not raised to US$600 per month from the current US$150. The President of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) Takavafira Zhou said their members would not turn up for work next week if they received no clarification on how much they will be earning. Ever since Finance Minister Tendai Biti presented his budget in December last year, there has been no word on how much teachers would earn.
The appointment of the former chief immigration officer, Elasto Mugwadi, to the new Human Rights Commission has come under fire, following revelations of a spate of injustices he perpetrated during his time in government.
South Africa has expressed frustration over the slow pace of talks aimed at ensuring a definitive solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. Lindiwe Zulu, the international relations advisor to President Jacob Zuma, told Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg they were not happy with the slow pace of the talks.
Thousands of immigrants protested against racism in a southern Italian town on Friday, after a night of rioting that was sparked by an attack on African farm workers by a gang of white youths.
Climate change, associated with a four-fold increase in natural disasters in the last decade, and the growth of world population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, pose new challenges for aid initiatives like those of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
The University of Dar es Salaam Computing Centre (UCC) has launched a two-year project on capacity building on the effective use and management of information and communication technology in the public sector.
United Nations human rights teams are warning of increased weapon trafficking in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as armed villagers form units in response to killings, rapes and kidnappings carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for more action from governments and the United Nations to protect media as it announced a grim total of 137 journalists and media personnel killed during 2009.
Starting treatment earlier, at a higher CD4 count, and being in care six months or longer before starting ART, is associated with lower treatment costs during the first months of antiretroviral tretament, according to an analysis of the direct health care costs of treating over 10,000 HIV-infected adults in a private HIV care programme in southern Africa, published in the December 1 edition of PLoS Medicine.
This week, Libyan blogs addressed several thorny issues including racial discrimination, corruption and the responsibilities and freedom of bloggers.
As Tunisian lawmakers mull the 2010 budget, many politicians, labour leaders, and ordinary people are calling for the creation of a national fund to help the unemployed.
This publication from WIDE reviews the current debates about development, as well as the background for this new aid architecture, and analyses the international frameworks for financing for development and women rights, as well as governments´ commitments for resources. It also summarises and analyses all the contributions to the aid effectiveness agenda from a gender perspective.
In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto's GM maize.
The Zimbabwean government has been working hard to attract international investors to revive the country’s failing economy. Success on this front in 2010 may hinge on the coalition government convincing investors their capital will be secure.
HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a key concern in South Africa, despite the multitude of HIV awareness campaigns that have been launched by government and civil society organisations throughout the years, health experts say.
An experience which Belita Simpokolwe went through in December last year remains deeply etched in her memory. "Sometimes I fail to concentrate in class when these things come back to my mind," laments 13-year-old Simpokolwe, a grade six pupil at Kawale Primary School, in the northern Malawi district of Chitipa.
Nearly one-third of all water-related disasters occur in Africa. The second issue of Joto Afrika considers the relationship between climate change, the greater incidence of extreme weather events, such as drought and flooding, and the increasing scarcity of water on the African continent.
"The illicit exploitation of natural resources is not a new phenomenon in eastern DRC. It has characterised the conflict since it first erupted in 1996 and has been well documented by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the United Nations Panel of Experts and Group of Experts, journalists and others. Twelve years on, the patterns remain the same, and despite abundant evidence of these activities, no effective action has been taken to stop this murderous trade." - Global Witness
UNESCO is suspending a life sciences prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea, and is to review procedures for prizes it endorses, following bitter protests about the US$3 million endowment. The UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences was agreed by the organisation's member states in November 2008 "in recognition of scientific achievements that improve the quality of human life".
Solar-powered irrigation systems can boost food and income levels in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, researchers have found. Irrigation is known to reduce poverty in Asia, they wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (5 January), but the success of the technique is not well-documented in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Cameroon is reversing its scientific brain drain by boosting the salaries of university academics. The early signs are that a government fund of 4.2 billion Central African francs (almost US$9.5 million), created in early 2009, has increased the number of scientists and stabilised the research environment.
Access to knowledge (A2K) is about designing intellectual property laws, telecommunication policies, and technical architectures that encourage broader participation in cultural, civic, and educational affairs; expand the benefits of scientific and technological advancement; and promote innovation, development, and social progress across the globe.
In 1995, Cameroon initiated a restructuring process in the telecommunications sector. Placed among the least-connected countries in Africa (ranked 179th out of 206 countries classified by the International Telecommunication Union), the Telecommunications Regulation Agency (ART) was established to ensure healthy competition between operators at the time of this restructuring.
Several heavy goods vehicle workers have been injured during a clash with riot police in the capital Algiers while holding a protest to demand better wages and benefits
Publishing scientific findings and accessing the research of others is an essential part of the academic process, particularly to encourage debate and foster innovation. But many research institutions in Africa cannot afford to subscribe to many scientific journals, making it hard for scientists to keep up with research, writes Joseph Musakali.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Chad is identifying pregnant women in refugee camps who have had their genitalia cut, in order to better prepare for potential complications, according to UNHCR and its medical partners. The exercise is part of efforts in the camps to tackle the health fallout of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) as well as prevent new cutting.
More than half of Chad’s nine million people live near sites potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO) or landmines, according to the national demining centre. The government says more than 100 people are killed or wounded every year by landmines or UXO; aid organizations cover the bulk of medical care and rehabilitation for mine victims, according to NGO Handicap International.
School enrolment has risen sharply in Somalia's self-declared independent region of Somaliland since 1991, raising the literacy rate from 20 percent to 45 percent, education officials have said.
In November 2008, Kenya launched an ambitious national voluntary male circumcision drive, which aims to have more than one million men circumcised by 2013 The government's effort is largely concentrated on Nyanza Province, where fewer than 50 percent of men are circumcised and the HIV prevalence is 15.4 percent, about twice the national average. A recent rapid results initiative saw more than 35,000 Nyanza men circumcised within a six-week period. The circumcision programme provides voluntary counselling and testing for HIV and routine STI tests to all men who seek the services.
Pambazuka News 463: System change not climate change
Pambazuka News 463: System change not climate change
In the face of sustained prejudice, Audrey Mbugua argues for the right of transsexual people to decide what is best for themselves. Having witnessed misplaced opposition to transsexual people's desire to access gender-reassignment therapy, Mbugua stresses that the decisions a person makes about their body are first and foremost their own.
Lucy Corkin reviews 'China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Investment', edited by Robert I. Rotberg, a book which she regards as 'a very interesting read' despite its deficiencies in certain areas.
Despite earlier combative language involving 'walking out' of the Copenhagen climate conference, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's heading of the 'African delegation' in Copenhagen resulted in nothing more than mere 'servile on-looking', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Roundly criticised by representatives from organisations such as the G-77 and the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, Zenawi's 'leadership' simply facilitated developed nations in discarding Africa's needs in the battle to tackle climate change, Mariam stresses.
S'bu Zikode, the elected president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, has been honoured with the Order of the Holy Nativity by the Diocese of Natal Anglican Church of southern Africa in recognition of his leadership skills.
Having anticipated a predictable status quo of suits-and-presentations from the Copenhagen climate change conference, Rahul Goswami stresses the ultimate strength of local producers and their 'focus on food for people'.
’Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centres on whether human society will survive.’ In this week’s Pambazuka News, Fidel Castro writes on the experiences of the Cuban delegation at last week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
‘What constitutes an intellectual in the South African context?’ asks Leslie Dikeni in this week’s Pambazuka News, ‘Who is an intellectual and who isn’t?’ In an extract from a new book of essays, ‘The Poverty of Ideas’, Dikeni separates the ‘real intellectuals’ from a new breed of ‘pseudo-intellectuals’ that have emerged in recent years: The ‘celebrity intellectual’, the ‘commercial intellectual’, the ‘policy analyst’ and the ‘new gender activist’.
A capitalist economic system dependent on fossil fuels and the exploitation of natural resources to generate profit has left people and ecosystems across large parts of the planet – including swathes of Africa – vulnerable to climate change, Ama Biney writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The ‘derisory’ funding developed nations have offered to ‘assist developing countries to adapt to climate change’ is not enough to solve the problem, Biney argues. The real focus, says Biney, should be on ‘transforming the exploitative, unsustainable, profit-driven ethos that underpins the current system of wealth accumulation that simultaneously damages the environment’.
Tujuane interviews Muthoni Garland, managing director of Storymoja, a Kenya-based company formed with the ‘dream of publishing contemporary East African writing of world-class standard’. Storymoja’s mission, says Garland, is to grow East Africa's reading culture and to improve writing standards.
Annual campaign ‘16 Days of Violence Against Women’ has raised the profile of violence against women through Tanzania’s local media, Salma Maoulidi writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, but there’s no guarantee that greater visibility of the issues will change attitudes and spark political to stop violence against women. Raising alarm over the ‘intolerable multi-dimensional culture of violence’ that women experience, Maoulidi makes a series of sixteen demands ‘to underscore fundamentals in changing an ideology and deeply seated culture of violence against women’.
As Muslim leaders across Kenya meet to discuss the status of Kadhi’s (Islamic) courts in the country’s draft constitution, Salma Maoulidi looks at the challenges of securing legal and human rights compliance within a religious framework in Tanzania, where debate has been raging over the introduction of the Kadhi’s courts in the legal and judicial system.
Immigration from Libya to Italy in 2009 has decreased by 90 per cent, compared to 2008. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Emanuela Paoletti looks at explanations for the dramatic decline in “illegal” migration between the two countries, in particular ‘Libya’s selective enforcement of restrictive immigration policies as a means of gaining foreign policy concessions from Italy.’
Samir Amin
Pambazuka News 462: From Belém to Copenhagen
Pambazuka News 462: From Belém to Copenhagen
Following the forced closure of the Addis Neger newspaper, Alemayehu G. Mariam condemns the concerted assault on Ethiopia's free press perpetrated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government. Saluting the commitment and success of the publication's staff and those working in the country's independent media as a whole, Mariam stresses that Ethiopians owe their compatriots in the free press a debt of eternal gratitude.
The controversial re-arrest of Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (UDJP) opposition chair Birtukan Midheksa exposes the efforts of Meles Zenawi's government to crush its political opponents, writes Etyopian Simbiro. As Ethiopia's 2010 elections draw ever closer, Midheksa's role as 'the darling of the pro-democracy movement' has seen further damage inflicted on the position of the government. While it remains to be seen whether Midheksa's inspirational experience can translate into concrete political action, in the meantime, Simbiro contends, it is in everybody's interests that she be set free by the country's government.
Looking back on the September attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo members in Kennedy Road, Durban, Raj Patel profiles the views of key Abahlali activists including S’bu Zikode, Zodwa Nsibande and Mazwi Nzimande. Though strongly disrupted by the African National Congress-led (ANC) attack in September, Abahlali has continued to meet, while the absence of its leaders from the Kennedy Road settlement has illustrated the deficiencies of the ANC.
Matteo Fraschini Koffi writes of his experiences of racism in Italy, the brutal treatment of fellow individuals of African ancestry in the country, and how the problem should be overcome.
Corruption in Kenya has been a challenge since colonial times and the enthusiasm to fight it seems to be diminishing if Kenya’s poor score on the 2009 TI Corruption Perception Index is anything to go by. Kenya now ranks with Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone and well below Nigeria. This publication is an extract form a forthcoming report which reviews the effectiveness of the KACC after five years of it existence. (AFRICOG)
The Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network is providing financial and scientific support to teams of developing country researchers studying poverty issue. The deadline to apply is January 6, 2010.
The Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) Youth Essay Contest, “We can change...” s for young people between the ages of 18-25 to share their ideas about what is the most important issues affecting women’s lives in their countries and what solutions they propose. The deadline for entries is January 31, 2010.
Burkina Faso’s first plastic recycling centre is paving the way for a new kind of development project. It provides a money earner to the poor while tackling environmental pollution. Local industry also benefits – the recycled plastic granules cost half the price of importing new plastic from abroad.
Burkina Faso is one of continent’s main producers with cotton making up about 60 per cent of its export revenues. Yet Africa’s textile producers still prefer to buy their cotton from America or Asia instead.
In December 2009 the British newspaper The Guardian, China Dialogue, the billingual environmental website and the School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University jointly established the China Environmental Journalism Prize to recognize the best Chinese reporting on environment and climate change.
The weekly newspaper KOLL ENNASS, published in Arabic in Tunis, has three times lashed out at Tunisian human rights defenders and journalists. Kamel JENDOUBI, Sihem BENSEDRINE and Slim BAGGA have been accused of being Israeli agents allegedly pursued by some ‘Palestinian factions’. (OMCT)
Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the alleged scheming to assassinate a number of ruling party critics. Those targeted for physical elimination include NSHR executive director Phil ya Nangoloh and Max Hamata, one the country’s top investigative reporters.
The United Nations Democracy Fund is now accepting applications from civil society organizations to apply for funding for projects to advance and support democracy. Project proposals should be submitted on-line before December 31, 2009.
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) recently released a 2010 wall calendar. With a theme of democracy and elections, the calendar features photos from IFES' photography competition held this year that represent efforts to strengthen civil society and democratic governance around the world
Following the recent Namibian elections, Henning Melber discusses the results of the National Assembly and presidential votes. With President Hifikepunye Pohamba achieving re-election, long-time dominant political force Swapo (South West Africa People's Organisation) has retained the reins of power, a power that it will need to exercise in the interests of peace and stability, Melber cautions.
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‘Active and engaged public intellectuals play a crucial role in the ongoing life of democratic societies’, perhaps even more so in new democracies like South Africa, William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni write in this week’s Pambazuka News. In an extract from their new book, ‘The Poverty of Ideas’, Gumede and Dikeni make the case for opening up the ‘space for debate, dissent and public dialogue’ and reversing a culture of intolerance that flourished under the Mbeki administration.
A recent round of brutality against civilians by Camara’s junta has left Guinea on the brink of civil war, Jeggan Grey-Johnson writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The international community must intervene, Grey-Johnson argues, as left unchecked the instability could have grave consequences, not just for Guinea but also for its neighbouring countries, many of which are ‘still recovering from the horrors of war and brutality’.
Moves to create a new leftist platform focused on addressing issues that affect people and on building socialism from the ground up rather than through state power are noble and worthy of support, Mphutlane wa Bofelo writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. But, says wa Bofelo, for the ‘soul-searching efforts to find and build a new platform for building power from below to yield a united socialist front’, they must be informed by and acknowledge the ‘multiplicity, plurality and diversity of traditions within the so-called “old left”, instead of lumping all past and present leftist and socialist/communist platforms with soviet-style communism.’