Pambazuka News 430: Denouncing global casino economics
Pambazuka News 430: Denouncing global casino economics
Mobiles in-a-box from the Tactical Technology Collective is a collection of tools, tactics, how-to guides and case studies designed to help advocacy and activist organisations use mobile technology in their work. Mobiles in-a-box is designed to inspire you, to present possibilities for the use of mobile telephony in your work and to introduce you to some tools which may help you. After reading the material in this toolkit you can expect to be able to design and implement a mobile advocacy strategy for your organisation. >>
Security in-a-box is a collaborative effort of the Tactical Technology Collective and Front Line. It was created to meet the digital security and privacy needs of advocates and human rights defenders. Security in-a-box includes a How-to Booklet, which addresses a number of important digital security issues.
This guide presents advocates with a collection of popular online services that can be used for advocacy quickly with little to no technical support. There are services for publishing photographs and video, for setting up a campaign blog or for using mobiles to communicate in a group. An amazing amount of functionality and tools are available simply by connecting to the Internet and opening up a web-browser. You don't need to have a lot of technical expertise to try some of these. You also don't need much money, these services are offered at low- to no-cost.
Made possible through a generous grant from the Fred J. Hansen Foundation, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice's (IPJ) Women PeaceMakers Program invites four women from around the world who have been locally involved in human rights and peacemaking efforts. Women accepted into this program are seeking ways to further their peacemaking efforts in their home countries.
Researchers in Africa fear they may not be able to identify swine flu cases swiftly enough to prevent the spread of infection because there are so many diseases around with similar symptoms. Although swine flu has spread from Mexico to several other continents it has not yet been reported in Africa and in some respects the continent is well prepared, say researchers. Rapid response teams are accustomed to reacting to diseases such as meningitis and Rift Valley fever, as well as completely unknown new infections.
For 15% of the cost of a normal 160 character SMS message in Kenya you can now send one with 1000 characters in it. Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s a way for East Africans to connect with each other via short messaging, cheaper than normal SMS messages (much like it’s counterpart Mxit in South Africa). It’s a new release by Symbiotic, a Kenyan firm that specializes in making mobile phone related applications.
Four Southern African states will be covered in the new financing decision by the European Commission, under the food facility package for developing countries. Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique and Zambia will be among the 23 developing countries that will benefit from a support valued at € 194 million to projects and programmes aimed at boosting agriculture and improving the food security situation in the selected countries.
The World Bank has announced it was doubling its education financing this year in low- and middle-income countries to $4.09 billion to help poor countries battle threats to their education systems during the global economic crisis. The announcement came as the Bank released a new report that describes how developing countries are increasingly using private education organizations - such as faith-based organisations, local communities, NGOs, private for-profit institutions, and not-for profit schools - to help deliver education services.
A Mozambican green community project and a Kenyan forest project have today been named as winners in the climate grants awards. Together with a third winner from Peru, the Nhambita Community Carbon Project, Mozambique and the Kakamega Forest Again Project, Kenya would each get a US$ 35,000 grant that will help them spur the forest-based carbon offset projects.
In every country, bank notes carry unique serial numbers which are never reapeated, except, it seems, in Zimbabwe. Dealers in the USA, Germany and South Africa who sell pristine-quality paper money to collectors are turning up Zimbabwe dollar notes with duplicate numbers, especially on the $100bn "Agro-cheques" that were released last year.
The three principals in the unity government, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, have met five times recently to discuss the controversies surrounding the implementation of the Global Political Agreement, but they have still failed to come up with a solution. Observers say this ‘dilly-dallying’ has been part of Zanu PF's strategy to wear the MDC down while not addressing the fundamental issues.
After months of speculation about how the global economic downturn might affect HIV/AIDS programmes, a new World Bank report details the projected aftermath of the crisis and how it could place the treatment of more than 1.7 million at risk by year's end. Drug shortages, treatment interruptions and higher burdens of AIDS-related diseases are just some of the grim predictions for developing countries, laid out in a recently released report, Averting a Human Crisis During the Global Downturn: Policy Options from the World Bank's Human Development Network.
On 27 April 2009, Nigeria's broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), fined private radio station Adaba FM 500,000 Naira (approx. US$3,350) for allegedly transmitting on 25 April "materials that were capable of inciting members of the public to violence and consequently leading to breakdown of law and order", while covering the re-run of the governorship elections in Ekiti State in the southwest.
On 15 April 2009, MISA-Mozambique denounced the intimidation of two radio journalists in the northern province of Niassa, one of whom was illegally detained by the police. Felismino Jamissone is a producer for a community radio station in the Niassa district of Mecanhelas. He produces a programme on human rights, which has frequently interviewed Mecanhelas citizens who are severely critical of the police.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) expressed its strong condemnation and dismay at the continued detention since 3 October 2008 of the Christian blogger, Hani Nazeer, by state security. His arrest was carried out in coordination with the Church in Naga Hammadi, his hometown in Qena Governorate. Nazeer is the author of the .
cc Zionism is the root cause of suffering, bloodshed and the rift between Arabs and Jews, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesperson for Neturei Karta International – an organisation that represents anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews – has said. In Durban Review Conference, Weiss said that Zionist movement transformed Judaism into ‘a materialistic, political, nationalistic goal’, which presented its critics as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘self-hating Jews.’ Speaking of his hopes too see the Palestine question addressed, he added that the Holocaust should not be used to further Zionist goals or to justify the oppression of another people.
cc Africans and Africa suffer from planned underdevelopment, with colonialism and slavery providing economic benefits to one group at the expense of another, the International Association Against Torture’s Roger Wareham tells Riaz K. Tayob in Durban Review Conference. But the West won’t pay Africans reparations instead of aid, because then it couldn’t benefit from its ‘charity’, he adds. Wareham, ‘a black man who grew up in a racist country’, speaks about his lifelong commitment to the liberation of African people. International public opinion is important for influencing what happens on the ground as it isn’t possible to change a system from within, when its beneficiaries are also its gatekeepers.
I wish to say a few words about Bantu. Specifically on Bantu's, Ndungi Githuku's and their dedicated team's role in drama therapy at Langata womens prison. Bantu and team embraced the open door policy of the prisons by pioneering the use of drama therapy to bring the prisoners and staff to a level where they could live together by accepting that in addressing their pasts and presents they could see in each other not just prisoners and prison officers but women whose only difference was the colour of the uniform they wore.
Support Gaddafi's good intentions: Christine Kaluma
Fully aware most Congolese want to remain Congolese: Herman J. Cohen
New book on Joseph Kony and the LRA: Peter Eichstaedt
Migingo is a way of avoiding more serious issues: Devapriyo Das
Cameroonians shamed by corruption: Mckingsley
The heads of state of the East African Community (EAC) met in Arusha to discuss the reports from national consultations on the rapid formation of the East African federation in Rwanda and Burundi, the common market protocol and is expected to come up with a joint position on the proposed African Union Government. Prior to the heads of state summit, Tanzanian negotiators had differed with their peers from other EAC country members on three issues included in the draft protocol, namely: national ID documents, access to and use of land as well as permanent residence. Furthermore, airlines in the region have expressed their impatience over delays in instituting a single EAC visa, a move that would boost tourism in the community.
African foreign ministers met for an extraordinary session in Sirte, Libya to deliberate on the process of transforming the African Union Commission (AUC) into a Union Authority, focusing on the key ministries that would constitute the new authority. The ministers adopted a report on the creation of an AU Authority to replace the existing AUC and agreed on the structures, the plan of action for the Authority and on the number of Authority ministries, but decided to present to the heads of state and government issues regarding foreign affairs, security and defence. However, research from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) argues that the transformation should offer an opportunity to institute some of the recommendations called for by the Audit Report, in particular those concerning the Commission’s independence and capacity.
Elsewhere, the chairperson of the AUC Jean Ping, appealed to all member states of the pan-African organisation and its partners to ‘refrain from any action likely to endorse illegality in Madagascar’ and urged them to support the AU position as expressed by the peace and security council of suspending the country from the AU. During a seminar hosted by the African security analysis programme, lssaka K. Souaré ‘noted that to date the AU has been consistent in its application of its policy’ towards unconstitutional changes in government by way of a military coup d’état but that there appeared to be no coherent position with regards to the other forms such as those seen in Zimbabwe and Kenya. He further suggested that ‘the AU should not only be reactionary but should also begin with the condemnation of undemocratic governments or those abusing the democratic process’.
The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie organised ‘The Commonwealth Ministerial Debt Sustainability Forum’ at the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C. for finance ministers from some 53 African and Caribbean countries to compare notes on how to deal with the global financial turmoil in developing countries. Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20), acknowledging that the global financial crisis has a top-heavy impact on poor countries, had earlier promised to avail hundreds of billions of United States dollars to those countries as part of a $1.1 trillion plan to rescue the world economy. African leaders who met the United Kingdom Prime Minister, the host of the G20 summit, delivered a strong message that the international community had to honour their commitments ‘to increase aid, improve trade access and agree to a fairer, more flexible system of managing international financial affairs’ to help the continent protect the development gains of recent years. The AU ministers in charge of commerce, during their fifth ordinary session on the global economic and financial crisis on trade and development in Africa, highlighted the need to place African economic development at the centre of international efforts to stabilise the ailing financial sector and to build strategies towards the recovery of the global economy. The AUC, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa organised a two-day workshop at the AUC headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to analyse trends and difficulties encountered by countries with the aim of seeking solutions and accelerating the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.
In other news, a Pan African delegation of farming leaders, national parliamentarians and civil society organisation representatives travelled to Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Paris and London to engage their European peers regarding the Economic Partnership Agreements and the European Common Agricultural Policy, instruments that risk having disastrous consequences on African small scale farmers. Also, African trade ministers have reiterated their position that all development-oriented partnerships between Africa and the European Union (EU) should be geared towards the attainment of the objectives of eradication of poverty, achievement of sustainable growth and deepening of Africa’s integration into the global trading and economic systems. The AU and the EU have jointly launched a new ten million Euro initiative called ‘Better training for safer food in Africa’ to help African states improve their food safety systems for the benefit of their populations and economies. Agriculture ministers of the G8 and G5 met for a two-day conference in Italy to discuss the global food crisis and develop concrete proposals to address food security. Finally, African journalists are invited to join the Twenty Ten project, which is inspired by the 2010 FIFA World Cup and being organised on the African continent for the first time.
Pambazuka News 428: South Africa’s 2009 National election: Waiting to exhale
Pambazuka News 428: South Africa’s 2009 National election: Waiting to exhale
cc Despite a sense of euphoria among significant sections of South Africa’s poor and working class that a Jacob Zuma presidency will usher in the long awaited better life for all, write John Appolis and Dale McKinley, socialists know that Zuma will not dismantle the alignment of class forces consolidated by the ANC since the early 1990s, but rather further entrench them. Since social movements are not in a position to present an alternative parliamentary option to the masses, the
Ivor Hartman speaks to about StoryTime, his online ezine to showcase new African writing, and his desire to tell the world about the Zimbabwean situation through writing.
cc Despite studies which suggest that as many as one in two women in some parts of South Africa are affected by domestic violence, political parties in South Africa lack concrete, practical strategies to address violence against women, a debate organised by Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, Women’sNet and the department of political studies at Wits University has revealed. Party manifestos failed to adopt a multi-dimensional response to violence against women that go beyond the parameters of the criminal justice system, responses to the societal, economic and material dimensions are almost entirely absent, and no party recognises the unique circumstances and needs of marginalised groups of women who experience violence, write Lisa Vetten and Sally Shackleton.
cc Amid fears that Polokwane and the split in the ANC, and the uncertainty that these have generated, will unravel South Africa’s national potential for a rosier future, Adam Habib writes that ‘Economic development, service delivery, and poverty alleviation are dependent on a legitimated and capacitated state’. As the country’s national elections approach, Habib cautions that behaviour that ‘undermines the legitimacy and capacity of state institutions will compromise the new political elite’s own long-term goals’. Exploring the reasons behind former ANC leader Thabo Mbeki’s loss of support and what a Zuma presidency might mean for South Africa, Habib argues that the ‘substantive uncertainty’ introduced into South African politics by COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the SACP’s (South African Communist Party) mobilisation against Mbeki has opened up political space and created debate on a range of policy issues, that would otherwise not have taken place. But for this ‘substantive uncertainty’ to be sustainable, it must be institutionalised within the political system as a whole.
cc As South Africa nears its fourth election since 1994, Andile Mngxitama laments the country's overall lack of progress toward genuine black liberation in the post-1994 era. Highlighting Steve Biko's emphasis on 'conscientisation' to counter the normalisation of black people's material and mental subjugation to the entrenched white power structure, Mngxitama decries the continued suffering of the poor black majority in post-1994 South Africa, arguing that the race-based understanding of impoverishment once used to describe marginalisation has now been effectively eradicated under the anti-racialist hegemony dominant in national discourse. With the state still essentially rooted in its apartheid-era model of white capitalist accumulation and exploitation – albeit with a new black leadership at the helm – Mngxitama contends that the country has simply moved into a neo-apartheid phase of little discernible distinction from its past, stating that to vote within such a system would merely be to grant it legitimacy.
I congratulate your efforts in Pambazuka News to celebrate and promote the Pan-African symbols like Nyerere and Nkrumah.
You may not know that I listened to Kwame Nkrumah's speech in 1960, as member of Egypt's Nasser delegation, at that time headed by his assistant on African Affairs.
We really felt the revival of Pan-Africanism after the independence of Ghana 1957.
I remember all that now, when reading on your innovated celebration of these spiritual events. Best wishes for all.
cc Surveying the range of manifestoes and political stances offered by South Africa's political parties, Liepollo Lebohang Pheko exposes a common paternalistic thread underpinning parties' approaches to women's representation and rights. With many women legitimately concerned about politics being a 'dirty' game in the country – as elsewhere across the world – Pheko writes that those championing women's greater involvement face considerable obstacles, not least of which is the lack of space for critical thinking around how a dominant, masculined state fails to provide for women's citizenship. Female political candidates are at once excluded from their parties' strong backing through prejudice and the persistence of a self-serving 'old boys' club' behind the selection of candidates, the author notes. Attaining true liberation for women, Pheko argues, requires tackling injustice at each and every level it is encountered, a strategy that will ultimately necessitate an effective challenge to the state's ghettoisation of women's issues.
cc With South Africa's election fast approaching, Roger Southall predicts a triumphant yet problematic victory for Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC). Southall examines the shifting electoral terrain within South Africa, indicating that younger voters are changing the political demographic. Despite the ANC’s respected economic record, increasing concern surrounds government policy, with injustice and inequality still prevalent across the country some 15 years after 1994's 'liberation' election. The author argues that regardless of the ANC’s predictable success in the April 2009 election, the party’s sanctity has been shattered as a result of its corruption and role in worsening the livelihoods of ordinary South Africans. The ANC’s dominance in the electoral arena is subsiding, Southall contends, a reality which will prove key in shaping the future development of South Africa's democracy.
cc In this special edition of Pambazuka News, Sanusha Naidu sets out the background to the upcoming South African election and introduces the wide array of perspectives informing this week's articles. While some commentators have chosen to emphasise the changing nature of the ANC's (African National Congress) political dominance and the party's current difficulties, others have focused on the ultimate absence of genuine liberation for South Africa's poor majority some 15 years after the historic 1994 election. With some calling for the 2009 election to be boycotted entirely, the contributors to this issue share a common desire to offer piercing analysis and powerful insights into South Africa's political landscape as the country approaches voting day on 22 April.
Dibussi Tande reviews the following blogs:
The Spear in Arabia
Marvin Tumbo
Startups Nigeria
Scribbles from the Den
I stumbled into your site while searching for something else. I was interested in . Obviously your position is based on 'patriotism', i.e. we must support our people even in the face of obvious fabrications. As a Nigerian, I know that it is not possible to do the kind of thing Pfizer came to do without our government's permission. How was the equipment for the trials imported? I work for an NGO and our investigations revealed that Pfizer was permitted to carry out the trials by the federal government, NAFDAC and the Kano State government. We have been in the forefront of those clamouring for an out-of-court settlement because we have seen that the case against Pfizer is not as tight as we had thought.
You seem to be convinced that because a company is rich, it should be blackmailed to part with a large slice of its profit. I can't really confirm the total amount involved in the settlement aside from the figures carried in the newspapers. US$75 million is a lot of money. That is about 13 billion Nigerian Naira – almost three times the health budget of Kano state for the whole year. Who do we blame for the meningitis epidemic killing people in the northern parts of the country this year?
As a mother and a social activist, I have seen the misery our people are exposed to every year. Our governments should wake up. The World Health Organisation came to our rescue this year but their assistance fell short of our requirements. I don't want potential helpers to have the impression that we are just a bunch of blackmailers. If there hadn't been court cases over the Trovan trials who knows, maybe we would have called on Pfizer again this year to come to our aid. I am all for the settlement. I get your point about the litigation against Shell. But there is no parallel between that and the Pfizer case.
Yash Tandon's are well articulated and sober. However, he makes a sweeping criticism about the absence of East Africans and the EAC at the Geneva Conference. In fairness, he should ask the conference organisers why, as he aptly puts it himself, ‘were there so many people from Europe and so few from East Africa apart from Kenyans themselves’?
Recently I was in Darfur for fieldwork research. The situation of violence is complex. However, for a sociologist, it would be impossible to resist the reality that the state authority organises an intent discrimination of specific ethnic groups in the region of Darfur to be killed inclusively at their villages. For instance, Tingo, a small village in the Southern Darfur State of Nyala was attacked on Friday by an armed force, which the victim called Janjaweed. The owners of the village are Fur from African origin and even though they were in a public prayer in the mosque of the village, the attackers whom they believe to be of the same faith – Islam – could not spare them in the mosque. In that particular assault, more than 263 people were killed in the mosque and the market.
In conclusion, when a killing is racialised to the extent of searching for the particular group, then that is genocide. But who says this? The UN Security Council is incompetent to act at least to stop the killing, even if it refuses to categorise it as a genocide. China, as a giant state with a moral obligation to respect of humanity, is badly enslaved by economic interest hence, it blocks all possible attempts to force President Bashir to stop the war.
Thank you for . I've been following what is going on in Guinea for some time now, but as often is the case with Africa and its countries, there are so many hidden pages, and this article enlightened me a bit more on Guinea.
My long trip started on the 20th January 2009 when I traveled from Cape Town to Durban by bus. I spent 26 hours on a City to City bus, moving from Cape Town via PE, East London and Umtata and then to Durban. As much as it was a long journey I must say it I really enjoyed it. I think it was nice touring my own country, getting the opportunity to be exposed to different corners of South Africa from Cities and Townships to Rural areas where the poorest of the poor are located as a result of the past.
A Libode community rejoiced when land, from a settlement claim worth R93 million, was handed over to it by South Africa's minister of Land Affairs. The claimant community is made up of five villages – Magcakini, Tyarha, Mamfengwini, Mdlankomo and Moyeni – which, when the claim was made, had a total of 907 households, the members of which are the direct descendants of the originally dispossessed individuals.
A referendum on the revision of Comoros' constitution will be held on 17 May, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi announced in a message broadcast on national radio and television stations, stressing that the referendum campaign would be held from 26 April to 15 May. “Those who do not want the revision of the constitution are free to campaign against it but they do not have the right to prevent the referendum from being held; a constitutional prerogative devolved on the head of state is a right of the people to exercise its sovereignty,” Sambi declared.
The Burindi Minister of National Defence Forces (FDN), Lieutenant General Germain Niyoyankana, announced on Thursday a new agreement aimed at demobilizing, disarming and reintegrating 8,500 ex-combatants of the National Forces of Liberation (FNL). The agreement was signed in Pretoria under the South African mediation and aims at reintegrating 3,500 ex-rebels into the different defence and security departments -- 60 per cent in the regular army and 40 per cent in the national police for mula, Niyoyankana said.
Any initiative to resolve the crisis in Mauritan ia must ensure that the coup of 6 August 2008 fails by stopping the execution of the electoral agenda of the junta, the National Front for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) said on Thursday. Reacting to a proposal by Senegal to organise, in Dakar, a round table to find solutions to the Mauritanian political crisis, FNDD demanded an end to the electoral process that would lead to the presidential polls planned for 6 June and the r elease of former Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghef.
The World Bank is willing to help Zimbabwe recover from a devastating economic crisis, but it is critical for the country's institutions to restore democracy and human rights, the bank has said. World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, would attend the the Spring meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund next week.
Botswana has offered a US$70 million credit line to help revive struggling Zimbabwean industries, a senior Zimbabwean official said on Thursday. “Botswana is proposing to provide US$70 million in credit support for some industries, all that is left is to tie up the agreement,” the official said.
Multinationals accused of human rights abuses can no longer feel safe now that the oil giant is facing allegations of complicity in the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Could this be the beginning of the end of the age of impunity? Fourteen years after the judicial murder of the Nigerian novelist, environmentalist and human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Shell is about to go on trial in New York, accused of complicity in his execution.
Kenya's coalition government has held fresh crisis talks a day after the premier said he would boycott cabinet meetings in a letter to the president. Prime Minister Raila Odinga still feels his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is being sidelined by President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU).
The main opposition parties in Ethiopia have held a march in Addis Ababa to call for the release of their imprisoned leader, Birtukan Medeksa. The demonstrators handed in a petition to the authorities about Ms Birtukan. She is serving a life sentence, after officials revoked a pardon which had previously seen her set free.
The Eritrean government is turning its country into a giant prison, according to Human Rights Watch. The Horn of Africa nation is widely using military conscription without end, as well as arbitrary detention of its citizens, says HRW. Hundreds of Eritrean refugees forcibly repatriated from countries like Libya, Egypt and Malta face arrest and torture upon their return, says the group.
Guinea's military leader has said he has the right to contest elections promised this year, despite previously pledging to stand down. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara angrily accused politicians of thwarting his government's efforts and of failing to respect its authority. He also accused businesses of sabotaging his government and ordered them to reverse recent price hikes.
The Burundian authorities should ensure a speedy, independent, and thorough investigation into the killing on April 9 of prominent anti-corruption activist Ernest Manirumva, Human Rights Watch has said. The investigation should lead to the prosecution of those suspected of responsibility for the murder.
Eritrea's extensive detention and torture of its citizens and its policy of prolonged military conscription are creating a human rights crisis and prompting increasing numbers of Eritreans to flee the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Kenyan authorities should clearly instruct all officials to protect refugees and asylum seekers in accordance with international law, Human Rights Watch has said. A senior Kenyan refugee official recently admitted that security forces might cause problems for asylum seekers arriving from Somalia because those forces “do not understand the implications of such actions.”
The most potent question in public debate right now is whether or not to send “moribund President and ineffective Prime Minister” et al packing through fresh elections. The coalition government stands accused of failed leadership - their accuser, the discontented 70% of Kenyans per recent opinion polls and now the clerics. The prayers before the public court are that an urgent decision be reached on whether or not fresh elections should be held right away.
The killing of Oscar Foundation Director Kamau King'ara and his deputy, Paul Oulu, brings nearer the surface a war on Mungiki that has gone on in the underground for many months and now opens a new, dangerous front with the targeting of civil society leadership. Kamau and Oulu were gunned down by unknown people near the University of Nairobi hostels in broad daylight on March 6, 2009. On that day, Kamau had led a demonstration against extra-judicial executions.
Human rights abuses on a massive scale continue to afflict the lives of millions of people across the continent of Africa. As in other parts of the world, the obstacles in pursuing justice are currently insurmountable for most victims. Against this troubling backdrop, the African Union (AU) has decided to add a human rights section to its new court which has been agreed upon but not yet set up. This court is called the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
On paper rebels and the military in Chad are in agreement: a child should not be part of any armed forces. But renewed insecurity over the last few months has triggered an increase in child recruitment, humanitarian workers say. In May 2007, during a return to calm following a peace accord between the government of Chad and various rebel groups, the government signed an agreement with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to remove children working from armed forces and rebel groups and assist them.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Gambian authorities to enforce the ruling of the Community Court on the disappearance of the journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh more than three years ago after the Attorney General and Minister of Justice declared before the parliament last Monday that “Chief Ebrima Manneh is not in State custody”.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Government of Niger to put an end to the intimidation and harassment of journalists allegedly accused of broadcasting “false reports” since April 1, 2009. “This is more nor less a deliberate attempt of harassing and intimidating the Dounia media group and Le Courier newspaper whose only wrong is to have organized a debate about the visit of French President, Nicholas Sarkozy and published articles considered to be defamatory”, declared Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office.
Schoolchildren in the war-torn western flank of the Sudan are set to benefit from a cash injection aimed at breathing new life into their educational system, the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has announced. The UNAMID office in the West Darfur town of Zalingie has approved funds for some 19 projects that will attempt to rapidly rehabilitate and construct schools in and around camps where people uprooted by violent conflict in the area are seeking safety.
The joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region has reported that the security situation remains calm as scheduled troop rotations begin among some units. The hybrid operation, which is known as UNAMID and is tasked with quelling violence and protecting civilians, had reported over the past month a rise in attacks on peacekeeping staff, armed banditry, the burning of shelters in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and harassment of civilians
The United Nations refugee agency has voiced concern that some 60,000 people uprooted by violence in Somalia have returned to its volatile capital since the beginning of the year. The High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is not encouraging the return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to Mogadishu due to an unstable security situation and a lack of basic services.
The United Nations human rights envoy tasked with protecting the rights of children in armed conflict is set to arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for talks to ensure greater protection for children amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis engulfing the country’s east.
The Security Council has welcomed the convening of presidential polls in Guinea-Bissau this June, following last month’s assassination of the West African nation’s leader, calling for continued international support for the election process. In a presidential statement read out by Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, which holds the rotating Council presidency for the month, the 15-member body also welcomed the swearing-in of M. Raimundo Pereira, the Interim President, and the commitment of the new authorities to uphold the country’s constitutional order.
Since the formation of the coalition government the MDC has been running around trying to put out fires created by ZANU PF, but Robert Mugabe has been consistent from the very beginning in making unilateral decisions such as the appointment of permanent secretaries and governors. He has also refused to budge on the issue of the appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, despite the two MDC formations insisting that the appointments were irregular.
While SADC countries have made progress in addressing some aspects of HIV/AIDS and human rights laws, most countries are selectively applying international guidelines on HIV/AIDS and human rights. This is according to a report published recently by AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA). The report, which was unveiled at the SA AIDS conference, describes the extent to which SADC countries have implemented the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights
Satcom is the African satellite industry’s annual get-together and this year’s was held this week. On the second day of the conference the West African Cable System announced the signing of an over-subscribed fundraising. And this is only one of half a dozen international fibre projects that will be built. At the conference itself, new satellite entrants announced services that were both innovative and cheaper.
Task-shifting is the key to helping to reach South Africa’s goal of treating at least 80% of those in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by 2011, according to a joint statement by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Reproductive Health and Research Unit (RHRU) of University of the Witwatersrand, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), released at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.
Paediatric antiretroviral therapy is feasible in decentralised, nurse- and counsellor-led programmes in public health clinics in rural areas in South Africa, according to research presented at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.
Transport unions in Morocco are stepping up their protests over provisions of traffic laws currently under discussion in the Chamber of Councillors. Workers held a strike on Monday (April 6th), disrupting everyday life for the third time in recent weeks, after a stoppage on March 12th and a sit-in on March 16th outside the parliament building.
In an ambitious plan to educate women in the Maghreb about married life, activists from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia drafted a new marriage contract that, if certified, will provide better protection for women's rights. The idea was presented April 11th in Tunis at a meeting organised by the Global Rights Maghreb organisation and attended by human rights activists, members of women's organisations and legal experts.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24% of the vote to secure his third mandate on Thursday (April 9th). The participation rate is 74.54%, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced Friday morning. Although voting was held under tight security and Zerhouni affirmed that the poll was conducted in "good conditions", several attacks were reported. A bomb exploded at a polling station in Imeghenine, near (Boumerdes) and a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Tebessa.
Burundi, an important host country for refugees over the past four decades, has just established a specialized office for asylum with help from the UN refugee agency. The development comes a year after the country passed its first asylum law. "The refugee agency welcomes these important steps towards improving refugee protection in Africa's Great Lakes region," said Bo Schack, the UNHCR representative in Burundi. "The government will now be clearly in the driver's seat," he added.
Farmers' and peasants' organisations, landless workers, rural women and youth are mobilising on April 17th for the International Day of Peasant's Struggle. This year, more than 100 actions including demonstrations, street theater, video screenings, direct action, conferences, art shows, local food markets, publications and exchanges... are being organised *by the international farmers' movement Via Campesina, its friends and allies.
In May 2008, South Africa was rocked by the worst xenophobic attacks that the country has ever seen. Less than a year later, the issue is almost invisible from the national election campaign. South Africa has long been troubled by xenophobia, but the 2008 attacks were the a significant escalation. Sixty-two foreigners were killed and tens of thousands of others fled their homes. The attacks which started in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra spread like fire throughout the country.
The economic partnerships agreements (EPAs) will push African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries ''deeper'' into poverty and negatively affect the livelihoods of people living in ACP countries. These trade deals ''will prevent'' African countries from achieving the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs). Several speakers at a two-day workshop on EPAs in Johannesburg, South Africa, were in agreement that the EPAs will do more harm than good to ACP countries.
The Parliament of Uganda strongly condemned homosexuality during its session on Wednesday 15 April where Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo presented a hard-hitting statement that the country should not compromise on the values it stands for. Following Buturo’s statement, several MPs also condemned homosexuality and called for stern action.
Moroccan government has vowed to clamp down on homosexuals in a statement released by the Interior Ministry last month, citing that any practice that is a degradation of moral and religious values upheld in that region will not be tolerated. The latest attack has been sparked by the media in that country who have put pressure on government to allow homosexual voices to be heard.
For the first time in Ethiopia, gay people are meeting and making concrete connections despite religious leaders in that country calling on government to, in addition to the penal code, ban homosexuality on the constitution as well. Members of Ethioglbt are meeting and working to effect positive change, something that they admit, will take time.
U.S. Senator John Kerry said after talks with senior Sudanese officials on Thursday Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but that it was not sufficient. "Time is of the essence to avert a humanitarian catastrophe," said Kerry, who heads the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and is leading a congressional delegation to Sudan.
Ethiopia's plans to build Gibe 3 Dam now threaten the food security and local economies that support more than half a million people in southwest Ethiopia and along the shores of Lake Turkana. Construction began in 2006 with flagrant violations of Ethiopia’s own laws on environmental protection and procurement practices, and the national constitution.
Five developing countries have received US$18 million in funding to plan how to implement a proposed scheme to reward countries that protect forests and reduce deforestation. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Vietnam will share the funds, which will enable them to prepare national action plans to take part in the proposed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism — likely to be agreed upon at climate talks in Copenhagen in December this year.
A pilot initiative to provide rural community health workers, nurses and doctors with advice on diagnosis and treatment via mobile phones is to launch in Ghana later this year. The project will enable rural health workers to call specially-trained doctors at a call centre, providing the daily support that health workers in richer countries take for granted.
“Training in ICT skills gets the community to start thinking differently and to consider the sources of income available to them more clearly. From a commercial standpoint, they become aware of the fact that their products have to meet certain standards of quality in order to be sold at higher prices,” says Aura Elena Plaza from Villa Paz, an Afro-Colombian community in the Cali region. Dafne Plou reports for APCNews on her first-hand experience of the impact access to information has had on the lives of people in remote villages in Mali, Africa and Cali, Colombia.