Pambazuka News 436: Climate colonialism and the new scramble for Africa
Pambazuka News 436: Climate colonialism and the new scramble for Africa
What is the media’s role in development and how can they take a more meaningful part in helping rural communities in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to achieve the millennium development goals? These are the core issues to be addressed in Brussels, Belgium from 12 to 16 October, when the ACP/EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), together with its partners, will host an international seminar on the "Role of the media in agricultural development in ACP countries".
The Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. These fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community at large.
En route to the twin summits at the end of the year— the food crisis summit in Rome in November, and the climate crisis summit to be held in Copenhagen in December— the meeting of the FAO Seed Treaty (ITPGRFA) is at the critical nexus of the international community’s ability to respond to the food and climate crises.
This series of seven 8-page briefs, all with the title "Revitalizing Underutilized FP Methods", looks at how the ACQUIRE Project (which stands for Access, Quality, and Use in Reproductive Health) integrated various communication strategies to stimulate authentic community demand for the intrauterine device (IUD) and vasectomy in seven countries – Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Honduras, Kenya, and Uganda.
The Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC) is working in partnership with the National Community Radio forum (NCRF) to produce a quarterly Amandla! News Diary. The Diary aims to support community media projects in South Africa to set a progressive news agenda and plan for their current affairs programing/ editorial - supporting them to develop a practice of 'peoples media' rather than aping the commercial and public media (following their stories, angles, and sources).
GRAIN has launched a new website that offers the most comprehensive information tool on the global land grab for outsourced food production:
This new site is an improved version of the site initiated by GRAIN last year, which provides an open, up-to-date and easy to search library of over 800 articles, interviews and reports on farm land grabs around the world published since the outbreak of the food crisis in 2008.
In line with its mandate of developing, promoting, consolidating, and disseminating the highest quality of research on and about Africa, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) will hold a Gender Symposium from November 23rd to 25th in Cairo, Egypt. The Gender Symposium is an annual event that provides a platform for gender-focused debates. The theme for the 2009 symposium is Gender and Sports in Africa’s Development.
The Head of Policy and Advocacy is responsible for providing strategic leadership, planning, delivery and reporting on ACORD’s thematic work. S/he will coordinate strategic analysis and monitoring of policy issues and provide leadership in the development and implementation of ACORD’s external advocacy and alliance building strategy. S/he shall promote a sound media relations strategy designed to influence internal and external processes and link national to Pan-African initiatives. Closing date for completed applications is: June 19th 2009
The HIV & AIDS Thematic Manager is responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of ACORD’s HIV & AIDS thematic work. S/he will provide technical support to ACORD country and Area Programmes across Africa in relation to HIV & AIDS work. S/he shall actively contribute to define strategies advancing HIV & AIDS work at Pan-African level through research, partnership, alliance building and advocacy initiatives. Closing date for completed applications is: June 19th 2009.
Chinadialogue.net, the bilingual Chinese-English website on environment and climate, is delighted to welcome Linden Ellis as United States project director. Linden Ellis will be based in San Francisco and will guide China Dialogue’s future US operations and development. Linden Ellis will be building on the achievements of Kate Cheney-Davidson, China Dialogue’s first US editor.
Africa Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), a UK-based refugee rights organization assisting refugees who seek asylum in Egypt, is seeking a dynamic team-builder with a background in social or community-based work to serve as Psychosocial Team Leader. AMERA requires an intelligent, hard-working person with a commitment to service for vulnerable people, and an interest in finding innovative ways to integrate psychosocial, community and legal aid approached to improving refugees' access to human rights.
The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) on June 2, 2009, officially denied any involvement of its members in the recent vandalisation of privately-owned Techiman-based Classic FM in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. The regional chairman of NDC, John Owusu Agyeman, told Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in a telephone interview that no party member took part in the alleged attack on the radio station and therefore called for police investigations into the matter.
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has won the Amnesty 2009 New Media Award for work exposing hundreds of recent extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya. The award was presented last night at a ceremony in London. Four people associated with investigating the killings have themselves been murdered, including noted human rights lawyers Oscar Kingara and John Paul Oulo, who were assassinated driving to an afternoon meeting at the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights in March.
Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs has handed down judgment in the Biowatch case. Calling the case “a matter of great interest to thelegal profession, the general public, and bodies concerned with public interest litigation”, Justice Sachs set aside the costs order awarded against Biowatch in favour of Monsanto and further awarded legal costs in the High Court hearings in favour of Biowatch and against the state. The bench of eleven judges was unanimous in its decision.
ZADHR is proud to announce that its Chairperson, Dr Douglas Gwatidzo, is the winner of the 2009 Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights. The Global Health Council selected Dr. Gwatidzo as the winner from the nominees for 2009 in recognition of his and ZADHR's work to advocate for health rights and freedom from torture in Zimbabwe.
Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.
Within the framework of its strategy for building comparative knowledge on Africa produced from within the African continent, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites proposals from researchers based in African universities and centres of research for the constitution of Comparative Research Networks (CRNs) to undertake studies on or around a variety of themes identified as priority research themes within the framework of the CODESRIA strategic plan for the period 2007 - 2011.
The global food crisis and how to stop hunger from escalating in the midst of the current economic crisis will be the subject of a recent G8 meeting of Agricultural ministers in Treviso, Italy. For now, the G8 and the United States continue to advocate the same disastrous policies that got us into the current mess where 1 billion people lack access to adequate food.
Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argues that stopping most aid to Africa would spur economic growth. Even in the middle of this financial crisis, President Obama and other world leaders still find money in their budgets for foreign aid. In fact, some would argue it’s vital to continue giving financial aid to poor countries at a time such as this. Dambisa Moyo goes the other way.
Almost a fifth of the oil imported by the U.S. comes from Africa, and in the decade to come this percentage will rise. The eastern part of Nigeria, from which Big Oil has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of black gold since the 1960s, remains the poorest part of the country, and one of the most ravaged and polluted on earth. Thousands of gas flares have burned for decades, generating acid rains that have poisoned fisheries and crops.
The official signing ceremony of the Mauritania peace pact, brokered by African Union Facilitator and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday to give time for the Facilitator to witness the signing, official sources told PANA.
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has told the BBC the "acrimony is over" between him and President Robert Mugabe. He made the remarks ahead of a tour of Europe and the US to garner support for his country's four-month-old power-sharing government. He is to meet UK PM Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama, among others.
Africa's COMESA trade bloc is preparing a financial rescue package for Zimbabwe to help the southern African nation to rebuild its shattered economy, a senior official has said. Finance ministers from Africa's largest trading bloc met to discuss the package ahead of a heads of state summit this weekend in the Zimbabwean resort town of Victoria Falls, said Chungu Mwila, COMESA's director of investment promotion.
There has been another delay in the Wiwa v. Shell trial, causing teeth-gnashing by journalists who have dedicated resources to cover the trial, hand-wringing by Ogoni people and human rights & environmental justice supporters worldwide, and head-scratching by nearly everyone else following along.
The security forces in Guinea-Bissau have shot dead a minister and candidate in this month's presidential elections. The authorities say Baciro Dabo died in an exchange of fire when he resisted arrest over an alleged coup plot. But his supporters say he was asleep next to his wife when men in uniform burst into his house at 0400 local time (and GMT) and shot him several times.
A US-based international Christian relief organisation says it believes more than 90% of its aid to Liberia went missing in a massive fraud scam. World Vision's Vice-President Geoff Ward told the BBC the losses came to more than $1m and pledged to make "every effort" to avoid a repeat. A former senior World Vision official in Liberia and two other workers have been charged over the alleged fraud.
Heavy fighting has erupted in central Somalia between a pro-government Sufi Muslim group and Islamist hardliners. At least 10 people have been killed in fighting near the town of Webho. The clashes come after the Sufi Ahlu Sunna Waljamea sect pledged to defend President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed at a meeting of moderate Islamic leaders.
The Kenyan government should rapidly fulfill its February 2009 pledge to provide more land for its mushrooming Somali refugee population, and donors should step up their financial support for the refugee camps, Human Rights Watch has said. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced four months ago that Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya had made a commitment to provide land to help relieve congestion in three chronically overcrowded camps near Dadaab in northeastern Kenya. But the Kenyan government has yet to make any land available.
How does intimate-partner violence affect Kenyan women's rights? How can the government, NGOs, and the legal and healthcare systems support abused women? This paper from the Institute of Development Studies explores links between intimate-partner violence and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights in Nairobi. Significant gaps exist between formal legal rights and the realities experienced by individuals. Legal reform, improved services for affected women and better coordination among service providers are required.
The South African government's removal of visa requirements for Zimbabweans in April was aimed at easing entry for people still reeling from the crisis in Zimbabwe. But, for Alice Kakwindi, Grace Chimhosva and other cross-border traders, entering South Africa has subsequently turned into a nightmare. On the two occasions that they have visited South Africa's border town of Musina since the relaxation of visa requirements, they spent on average 16 hours trying to clear their goods at the Beitbridge border post.
The very survival of women and children in Africa may depend on the newly-launched Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA). According to latest estimates by the African Union (AU), over the next ten years there will be 2.5 million maternal deaths, another 2.5 million child deaths and 49 million maternal disabilities in Africa alone if urgent actions are not taken.
This week’s [mp3] includes the growing tension between South Africa’s unions and the new Zuma-led administration, and the Zimbabwean labour backlash against the recent visit by an ILO delegation to the country. Also in focus is a campaign by Ghana’s gender activists for maternity protection, labour unrest in Nigeria, as well as news from beyond the continent. This series of weekly bulletins is part of a partnership between Worker’s World Media Productions and Pambazuka News that seeks to highlight labour issues affecting Africa’s workers.
The number of Somalis forced from their homes in Mogadishu has now topped 96,000 since the start of fighting between government forces and armed opposition groups on May 8. Out of this latest total of displaced, an estimated 35,000 are still in the city, looking for shelter in more secure areas because they have no means to leave.
World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Commemorated yearly on 5 June, WED is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the kidnapping of Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, also known as Jeekey, the director of Universal television channel based in Garasbaley, Somalia. “We firmly condemn this act of violence which confirms our concern for the safety of our colleagues in Somalia. This climate of terror against the journalists is unacceptable,” declared Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office. “Remedial measures are needed urgently to address the situation in this country where journalists continue to pay a heavy price only for doing their work”.
An independent United Nations expert has called on the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to protect human rights workers and prosecute those who threaten or attack them. Human rights defenders, including lawyers and members of non-governmental organizations, “face illegitimate restrictions of their right to core freedoms, i.e. freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association,” said Margaret Sekaggya, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights.
Some 110,000 Sudanese refugees over the age of 18 in eastern Chad will receive identity cards under a new programme launched with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “The ID cards are the equivalent of a ‘refugee passport’ allowing free movement within the host country and providing access to some basic services in line with the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention,” agency spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.
Zimbabwe's minister of finance, Tendai Biti, has announced that the fragile government of that country is considering the idea of using the South African rand as it's permanent official currency. "We are looking at various avenues and the adoption of the rand is likelihood," he said.
The British Embassy has responded to an article published by the state controlled Herald Newspaper, which claimed the UK government had to ‘airlift’ destitute British pensioners from Zimbabwe because western sanctions had destroyed the economy. The Embassy said it was disappointed that The Herald continues to ‘peddle gross distortions and misinformation’.
Madagascar's former leader Marc Ravalomanana rejected on Friday the jail sentence against him for abuse of office and accused the country's army-backed government of flouting rule of law. Exiled in South Africa, Ravalomanana called on the Malagasy people to unite in rejecting the leadership of new incumbent Andry Rajoelina, who led weeks of popular protests against him earlier this year and seized power with military
A three-year-old girl has died after being raped by a rebel fighter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where armed forces are committing increasing numbers of sexual attacks, a United Nations spokeswoman said on Friday.
The World Health Organisation has called for governments to require all tobacco packets to have pictures showing the dangers of tobacco use. According to the WHO website tobacco is the only legalised product that kills when consumed as the manufacture intended. Tobacco has lead to more than five million preventable deaths every year – making tobacco a far worse killer than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Rwanda is set to become home to the pilot learning centre for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project in Africa due to its outstanding progress in promoting the child user friendly computer on the continent. The centre to be located at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) to be known as the OLPC Learning Centre will be launched on June 9 and it is aimed at supporting Rwanda achieve its objectives of promoting ICT in Education but also act as a reach out centre for the whole of Africa.
Implementing a policy of routine opt-out HIV testing led to the diagnosis of 3000 HIV infections in children admitted to hospital in Lusaka over an 18-month period, investigators report in a study published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
The Libyan government's decision to nationalise a number of private-owned media outlets a few weeks ago continues to stir reactions in Libya and abroad. The decision, some observers say, deals a blow to the country's attempts to reform. The nationalisation decree included Al Libiya satellite TV channel and Al Libiya and Eman radio stations, as well as Quryna and Oea newspapers, all belonging to Al Ghad Foundation, which is owned by Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi.
South Africa was prepared to set up trade barriers with Botswana, Lesotho Mozambique and Swaziland to stop a flood of cheap imports entering the country. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies sounded the warning after SA’s neighbours broke ranks and signed trade deals in the form of an interim economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU).
The hunter-gatherer Ogiek tribe of Kenya could become the latest in the world’s growing tide of ‘conservation refugees’ if Kenya’s government acts on its threat to evict them from their land in the name of conservation. The Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have said that their government plans to remove the Ogiek from their ancestral land in the Mau forest.
In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbours, friends, and family members across Rwanda. Nine years later the killers came home from prison to live side by side again with their victims. The complexities of this homecoming are explored in director Anne Aghion’s emotionally powerful film "My Neighbour, My Killer", where, amongst the green hills and tiled roofs of the village of Gafunda, the memories of those horrors resurface as widows shell beans and peel vegetables.
After 500 young women in Uganda endured genital mutilations in the most recent season for the initiation rite, a physician lawmaker here is optimistic about outlawing the practice this year and finding new income for traditional surgeons.
The period from 1998 to 2003 is known in the Democratic Republic of Congo as The Great War of Africa, Africa's World War and the Second Congo War. Militias and armies from eight neighboring nations plundered the country's eastern provinces in a quest to control copper, gold, diamonds, tin and other high-value minerals to supply India and China's booming markets.
"Our first demand in our new campaign ["Demand Dignity"] is to the G-2 leaders, USA and China. The United States does not accept the notion of economic, social and cultural rights while China does not respect civil and political rights. We call on both governments to sign up to all human rights for all." - Irene Khan, Amnesty International. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains Ms. Khan's speech at the report launch on May 27, and excerpts from her foreword to the report, which elaborates on the same themes.
Amnesty International's report, released in late May, covers economic, social, and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights, stressing the ways in which the global economic recession has exacerbated previously existing patterns of human rights violations. As noted in the launch speech by Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan, this marks a new level of emphasis on economic rights for the organization, and is the basis of Amnesty's new global campaign "Demand Dignity."
The fight against gay church leaders is on in Uganda, led by top anti-gay Pastors Martin Sempa, Solomon Male and Michael Kyazze. According to media reports these Pastors say they have received about 150 complaints from alleged sodomy victims who claim to have been abused by a number of church leaders.
President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia has once again denounced homosexuality at a recent tour in Banjul, suggesting that the practice will not be tolerated in that country. The Gambian President made these remarks at the end of his People’s Tour held in Banjul at the Arch 22nd, an arch built to mark the rise of President Jammeh and his victory which put an end to the democratically elected government in Gambia in 1996.
Trial for a rape case of a gay man known only as Luanda will be heard on 22 June this year following its postponement on Friday 29 May as two of the three accused did not pitch up. On Friday members of the Western Cape End Hate Alliance gathered outside the Blue Downs Magistrate Court to protest against this homophobic attack and to offer support to the victim. Luanda was allegedly raped and left in the ditch of his eMfuleni township home on 26 April last year.
The "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) scheme, which has sent over a million US$100 laptops to children in the developing world, has been criticised by researchers who found that, unless they are introduced with care, they become little more than distracting toys in the classroom. The study, conducted in Ethiopia, revealed that students wanted more content on the laptops and teachers were not adequately trained on how to make use of them.
As a response to the global crisis and an increased capital basis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already more than doubled its lending to Africa this year compared to the record year of 2008. The Fund accepts less security, larger budget deficits but also demands shorter repayment terms. At a 'Lending for Africa' seminar at IMF headquarters in Washington this week, the Fund's Senior Advisor Roger Nord revealed that record lending programmes had already been initiated. IMF funding for Africa was on a steep rise since the global crisis had started.
Southern Africa's food security has "greatly improved", according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET), and unofficial estimates predict a better cereal harvest than last year. "The total regional deficit for the 2009/10 marketing year is projected to be much lower [two million metric tons] than last year [2008], due to improved harvests, especially of maize, particularly in Malawi and Zambia," said the May issue of the FEWS-NET bulletin.
“The crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is deeper than elections,” according to Patrick N’Gouan, national coordinator of a civil society coalition. “Too many people do not eat their fill, cannot educate their children and cannot access health care. All the social and economic indicators have plummeted… We cannot solve all of Côte d’Ivoire’s problems with just politics – and yet this has been the focus of everyone’s energy and resources for the past few years. Meanwhile the people have been sacrificed,” N’Gouan told IRIN on 2 June.
Talk openly about rape. That is the gist of a new campaign in Cameroon, where according to a study an estimated 432,000 women and girls have been raped in the past 20 years. Some 200 rape survivors gathered on 28 May in the capital Yaoundé, several of the women and girls telling their stories during the campaign’s opening ceremony.
A new trial to test the efficacy of a tuberculosis (TB) booster shot for babies is about to start in South Africa, but when your subjects are too young to eat solids, the challenge rises to a new level. Almost 2,800 infants will participate in the two-year trial, in which researchers from the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) hope to prove that a new vaccine can act as a booster shot to improve the efficacy of the only existing inoculation against TB, the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, in use for nearly 90 years.
Sudan's draft press law will seriously impede journalists' ability to access and disseminate information if passed, say Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). ARTICLE 19 and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have also expressed concern about the repressive provisions of the draft.
The Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Mr. Edetaen Ojo, has been elected Convenor of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), the largest network of freedom of expression organizations in the world. As Convenor, he chairs the 13-member IFEX Council, the governing body of the Network elected by the general membership.
Pambazuka News 435: Celebrating Tajudeen: Tributes to a fallen giant
Pambazuka News 435: Celebrating Tajudeen: Tributes to a fallen giant
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/435/56583_TAR's_final_journey_11_tmb.jpgIn tribute to the passing of a giant of Pan-Africanism, Pambazuka News devotes this edition to the life and inspirational work of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. Following Tajudeen's tragic death in a car accident on 25 May, Pambazuka has seen a huge response from those wishing to pay their respects and salute a true colossus of African liberation. In inspired remembrance, Pambazuka's editor in chief Firoze Manji rounds up the overwhelming wave of tributes we have received in the wake of Tajudeen's sad passing.
I feel the intensity of the pressure crushing me
In this ocean of a world, I remain confused
Am I the gushing waves or the solid rocks?
However the perspective, I am crushed
Left wishing I were the sand, inconsequential
Indifferent observer in the war of futility
As the tide subsides
I wait impatiently for the wind of fortune
To carry the grains of my persona
With the unfulfilled aspirations of my father’s mother
I pray for the salty waters of perspiration
To soak in my negative-ism and negative-ity
I see a thousand different ways I could have chosen to go down
Ignorance, Poverty, Vainglory
I choose the bullet of idealism
That should the world not hear my scream, they’d feel the thud
Of aspirations ignored, of dreams deferred, of dead passion
Ideological death that will resurrect into curiosity for those to come
Let the scarlet pigmentation soak into the soils
Let it be impossible to wash it away in wishful thought
Let it seep into the essence that was humanity
Let it be the cause of delirium
Let it ring
Hollow
In the morning
Let them whisper in murmuring tremors
Of the lies written in historical epithets
Let them confess for deprivation of an identity
Of a rich heritage that would shame their lack of culture
Let them name me after my forefathers and not theirs
For I am of them that history corrupted their story
With this year's now announced, Mildred Kiconco Barya interviews Helon Habila, the 2001 winner of the prize.
With this year's now announced, Mildred Kiconco Barya interviews Leila Aboulela, the 2000 winner of the prize.
Capturing the spirit of his inimitable public-speaking style, this [mp3] of Tajudeen's comments at a debate on the union government at the 2007 African Union summit in Accra is a fitting testament to his ability to combine quick-thinking and humour when delivering a critical message.
Dibussi reviews the following blogs:
Edirisa
Rafiki Kenya
OoTheNigerian
Agendia Aloysius
Scribbles from the Den
In an interview with Mahmood Mamdani, questions the author about his views on the Darfur conflict and his latest book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. Contending that children and teenagers in the US mobilised under the Save Darfur campaign should be considered as 'child soldiers' supporting a military effort, Mamdani argues that what essentially represents a form of political mobilisation for war has been effectively promoted as a moral crusade. Mamdani will be speaking at an event organised by Pambazuka News in Oxford, UK, on
Gender Links (www.genderlinks.org.za) is commissioning research on the impact of the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2010 on the advancement of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. The successful research will form the basis of deliberations on interventions and strategies at the Symposium on Gender and World Cup 2010 scheduled for August (Women’s Month) 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Successful researchers will be required to present their submission at the Symposium on FIFA Soccer World Cup 2010.
UNRISD is now accepting applications for a two to three-month internship position to begin in July 2009 (preferred starting date: 2 July) in the Gender and Development Programme (GAD). Eligible candidates must be currently enrolled in a master’s or PhD degree programme (as per UN Secretariat rules regarding interns) in economics, sociology, political science or a related field from an accredited university and have academic and professional experience in issues related to gender and social development. Written and spoken fluency in English is essential.
Defence ministers on 18 May discussed a French proposal to enhance the EU naval operation fighting piracy off the Somali coasts with a police training mission in the African country that could start in September. "There was a French proposal discussed today on a police training mission in Somalia, but no decision was taken yet," Czech minister of defence Martin Bartak told a press conference after the meeting.
The Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) has opened its 2009 Fellowship Programme. It encourages all journalists in developing countries who report on climate change to apply. This programme comes during a critical year of negotiations that ends in December with the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen where a new global deal could be struck.
Brian Chikwava's comedic new novel and An Elegy for Easterly, Petina Gappah's courageous collection of short stories, confirm that Zimbabwe is still a literary powerhouse, writes Tendai Marima.
Pambazuka News has published Tajudeen’s weekly Pan-African Postcard regularly since 2004. While we joke that Tajudeen’s writing was ‘an editor’s nightmare’, it was first and foremost a source of penetrating, incisive insight into pan-African affairs, expressed with humour and an underlying sense of optimism and belief that, however great the challenges the continent faces, by uniting and organising, we can build Africa into a great place for all its citizens. In celebration of Tajudeen’s commitment and contribution to Pan-Africanism – and to the Pambazuka community – we have picked a few of our favourite postcards to share with you. These postcards, listed in chronological order, demonstrate Tajudeen’s uncanny ability to see to the heart of the matter, to understand the workings of the human heart, to clarify complex and controversial issues and to inspire people to work for change.
African countries are giving away vast tracts of farmland to other countries and investors almost for free, with the only benefits consisting of vague promises of jobs and infrastructure, according to a report published on Monday. “Most of the land deals documented by this study involved no or minimal land fees,” it says. Although the deals promise jobs and infrastructure development, it warns that “these commitments tend to lack teeth” on the contracts.
Even by Africa’s grim standards, it was a horrendous statistic: 5.4m people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo from “war-related causes since 1998”, claimed the International Rescue Committee in January last year. The figure, based on a series of house-to-house visits across the country conducted by the New York-based agency, won widespread acceptance. It was used by the IRC and other relief bodies in their appeals for funds, cited by diplomats in their efforts to restore peace to the region and reported by journalists seeking a statistical shorthand for an African catastrophe.
The Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre Ltd.(HKRAC) is assisting a male, Muslim asylum claimant from central Cote d'Ivoire with family origins in northern Cote d'Ivoire. The claimant was involved in the local branch of the Rassemblement des Republicains (“RDR”), and became the head local mobilizer for a town of 40,000 people. He experienced police harassment, intimidation and threats on account of his political activities.