Pambazuka News 578: DRC & Senegal: The people's voice unheard
Pambazuka News 578: DRC & Senegal: The people's voice unheard
Political instability, civil strife and humanitarian crises in Africa have over the past decades reversed countless maternal health development gains on the continent, health experts warn. 'African countries with good maternal health statistics are generally those that have long-term political stability. This shows that stability is a fundamental basis for development. If it doesn’t exist, other priorities overtake,' Lucien Kouakou, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) in Africa, told IPS.
This paper argues that the unprecedented acceleration of growth in the developing world in the new millennium in comparison with advanced economies is due not so much to improvements in underlying fundamentals as to exceptionally favourable global economic conditions, shaped mainly by unsustainable policies in advanced economies. For Latin American and African commodity exporters, gaining greater autonomy and achieving rapid and stable growth depend on their success in reducing reliance on capital flows and commodity earnings.
The Oakland Institute, which has been producing some critical reports on land grabs in Africa, reports how the Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia has suspended land allocations to take time for assessment.
The World Water Forum held in Marseille, France was an opportunity for multinational water companies to make money out of nature.
Efforts are being made to remove the human right to water and sanitation from the Rio+20 negotiating text.
Professor Mamdani's on the Kony video is an eye opener for the situation in Rwanda as well. He writes: ‘The solution is not to eliminate the LRA physically…At its core the LRA remains a Ugandan problem calling for a Ugandan political solution.’
By analogy, the solution in Rwanda is not to eliminate the Hutu physically…At its core the Hutu problem remains a Rwandan problem calling for a Rwandan political solution.
We Congolese have had enough to bear the brunt of the Ugandan and Rwandan internal problems which they export into our country.
I’m involved in the Occupy movement, so I absolutely agree that capitalism is the system perpetuating these problems. My question is, what, if anything, can American activists do that will be to Africa’s greatest benefit? Sorry if this question is vague, naïve, or frustrating - it seems your article is suggesting that what the western world needs to do is in fact to stop meddling with Africa - but one thing activists can do is to agitate to stop such meddling, both in the form of exploitation and in the form of creating dependence.
I just got information that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan has agreed with the World Food Programme to export canned fish, including that produced in disaster-affected areas to the following countries: Ghana, Congo, Senegal, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.
Simone, wife of President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire, is a political prisoner. The only reason why she’s in prison today is because her husband was overthrown in a military coup by the forces of the man under whose order she’s currently languishing in jail. Simone didn’t commit any crime. Indeed she won her parliamentary seat handily in the 2010 elections, and unlike the presidential election, that election result wasn’t contested by opposing parties. As women around the world celebrate International Women’s Day, and given that the month of March is dedicated to attracting attention to women’s issues, one needs to ask why there’s silence from all quarters about the ignoble treatment Simone Gbagbo is being subjected to.
Al Jazeera has premiered the first part of a two-part documentary on the Occupy movement. The film was made for Fault Lines, the award-winning public affairs documentary program. Part one of the film can be watched through the link provided.
REDRESS helps torture survivors to obtain justice and reparation.
Will the rhetoric at the London meeting change the reality on the ground in Somalia? Maybe. But the motives of Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders, especially those from eastern Africa, are not above suspicion.
Given the importance of DRC as a land of considerable natural wealth, the major powers prefer leaders with no national constituency who are easy to manipulate like Joseph Kabila to those like Etienne Tshisekedi who are unapologetically nationalist.
Somalia’s transitional administration is mired in corruption. Like other players in the lawless nation, the government has contributed to the suffering of its own people.
Israel is criticised for violating the right to equality in a new report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee underscores its unease at allegations of ongoing discrimination against Ethiopian Jews.
Parliament is supposed to play a key oversight role in budgeting, but that is not the case in Ghana. This is one of the areas of institutional reform that need urgent attention.
The challenge of gender parity in South Sudan is less in the provisions of the constitution but more in implementation of the rights provided for at the state and local levels.
The statistics upon which most poverty elimination strategies are based are extremely misleading and often steer experts toward the wrong solutions.
Bilene Seyoum raises critical points concerning the safety of Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East, suggesting that governments in the region could be institutionalizing a form of modern day slavery.
The deniers of the Nigerian genocide may deny it as much as they like, but their denial will never erase the fact that this heinous crime occurred.
Intersex individuals must be afforded the right to self-determination, dignity, and privacy from childhood through adulthood.
According to international law, it is illegal to trade or dispose of resources in occupied Western Sahara without the consent of Western Sahara’s indigenous population who also have to benefit from any such dealings.
If there is any meaningful change it should be providing condoms, which the government has refused to do.
The electoral campaign has been about interpretation of the constitution, the age of the incumbent, his son’s future, and so on. But the underlying problems of underdevelopment have not been addressed.
Uganda Universal Periodic Review session 19th Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland. 16 March 2012.
Violence has been visited personally on some of the most illustrious sons of the country in recent years.
Much of the energy expended by official ‘world-savers’ – governments, policy wonks, multilateral institutions and the like – is devoted to devising news ways to cash in on the next ‘development’ era.
Even if the London Conference on Somalia hosted by the UK government last month may not have been yet another business opportunity for Western governments and companies, the timing is certainly suspect.
Violence against children is a complex problem that requires a holistic solution. In this article, Uganda-based Raising Voices explains the different elements that are needed to add up to sustainable change.
A Zimbabwean magistrates’ court has given six activists accused of plotting to oust President Robert Mugabe a two year suspended sentence and fined them $500 each. The six who include a university lecturer and former Member of Parliament Munyaradzi Gwisai were on Monday found guilty of a conspiracy to incite violence by a Harare magistrate.
After a fact-finding and advocacy mission on freedom of association and the situation of civil society organisations conducted in Egypt from 11-14 February 2012, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders - a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) - have published the findings of the mission, and noted that one year after the Revolution, the conditions for the enjoyment of freedoms of association and peaceful assembly in Egypt have significantly deteriorated. 'Our organisations are particularly concerned about the direct attacks by the government against Egyptian and international human rights NGOs.'
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to make it her priority to protect the life of Mae Azango, a female reporter of Front Page newspaper who has been threatened for having published last week a story on the Sande society which practices Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Liberia. 'The threats made by the Sande society are unacceptable and a throw-back to dark ages of journalism which have no place in a modern democracy led by a female president for that matter,' said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the IFJ Africa Office. 'The Government of President Sirleaf should warn the Sande society of its direct responsibility for any attack on the journalist’s life.'
A new issue of Race & Class features an article on 'Malcolm X at the Oxford Union' in 1964. Saladin M. Ambar, who examines Malcolm's speech and the context in which it was given, reveals a key change in Malcolm's thinking on nationalism in response to the call for decolonisation in Africa and the extension of human rights to other marginalised groups throughout the world.
‘This Kony2012 video has reinforced my own conviction that demilitarization and peace in Africa is intricately connected to demilitarization and peace in the United States.’
The National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is examining the Same Gender Marriage Prohibition Bill. The draft law foresees three years of prison for those entering a marriage with someone of the same sex, or already in one. The Bill does not exclude tourists or expatriates in Nigeria. Those ‘witnessing, abetting and aiding the solemnization of same gender marriage’ face fines of up to 50,000 Nigerian naira (approximately EUR 230), and imprisonment for up to five years.
Estimates suggest that military-connected enterprises account for 10 per cent to 40 per cent of the Egyptian economy, reports the LA Times. 'It is an opaque realm of foreign investments, inside deals and privilege that has grown quietly for decades, employing thousands of workers and operating parallel to the army's defense industries. The coming weeks will reveal how the military will maneuver to protect its authority and financial holdings as it prepares to hand power to a new president and civilian government in June.'
The European Union has agreed to expand its mission against Somali pirates by allowing military forces to attack land targets as well as those at sea. In a two-year extension of its mission, EU defence ministers agreed warships could target boats and fuel dumps. Up to 10 EU naval ships are currently on patrol off the Horn of Africa.
In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...
A year later and South Africa has still not convinced the world or the creator of Brics why it belongs in the exclusive emerging-giant grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India and China. 'It's just wrong. South Africa doesn't belong in Brics,' said Jim O'Neill, global chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, who coined the term 'Bric' 10 years ago. In an interview with the Mail & Guardian in London this week, O'Neill was highly critical of South Africa's position in this political bloc. 'South Africa has too small an economy. There are not many similarities with the other four countries in terms of the numbers. In fact, South Africa's inclusion has somewhat weakened the group's power.'
Somalia is no stranger to international interventions, having been colonised and invaded throughout its history. On 23 February, an international conference was held in London to plan a roadmap for Somalia’s future, with some arguing that this conference has stripped Somalia of its sovereignty. Following on from Part Two of this SOAS Radio special looks at the conference and what implications it might have for the country’s future with studio guests Quman Jibril, a Somali independent research consultant who has a special interest in international refugee protection and advocacy; Mary Harper, BBC Africa Editor and author of the new book, 'Getting Somalia Wrong?' published by Zed Books; and Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a Somali researcher currently pursuing a Masters degree at the London Metropolitan University.
The March edition of the TaxCast by the Tax Justice Network is available. The 15 minute podcast follows the latest news relating to tax evasion, tax avoidance and the shadow banking system. The March show covers Apple i-tax dodging, reclaiming Arab Spring country assets, the rich country club of the OECD and the ABCs of setting up letterbox companies.
Venda's cultural and ecological diversity are increasingly threatened by land grabbing, development projects, tourism and now mining. Coal of Africa (CoAL), an Australian mining company, has proposed the Makhado Coking Coal Project. If this goes ahead, the community faces severe ecological, social and economic damage to their ancestral homes. The biggest concern is water because this is an area where water is already scarce.
Four American cities are gearing up to host regional meetings of the World Court of Women on Poverty in the US Founded by Tunisian activist Corinne Kumar, the World Courts of Women (WCW) are public hearings featuring testimonies of survival and resistance from people on the margins. Since 1992, there have been 37 Courts in cities around the world, including the International Court of Women on Crimes Related to Population Policies in Cairo, Egypt in 1994; the World Court of Women against War, for Peace in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001; and the World Court of Women on U.S. War Crimes in Mumbai, India in 2004.
'For me the Occupy Wall Street movement expansion is, first, a clear sign of the fact that there are many more people than we can imagine wishing to change the world; and, second, that the tools and institutions we have to make it possible for people to participate in politics are absolutely insufficient and inadequate.' This is according to Chico Whitaker, a Brazilian activist and organizer who helped launch the World Social Forums in 2001, in an interview with US Social Forum news.
As the debate over Helen Zille’s use of the word 'refugees' in relation to the education crisis in the Eastern Cape raged on the social network site Twitter late last week, an ANC provincial coordinator raised eyebrows by calling her a 'racist bitch'. Zille’s remarks on Twitter that Eastern Cape pupils were moving to schools in the Western Cape in order to access better educational resources, and calling them 'education refugees' sparked fierce debate on radio talk-shows and social network sites. Asked why he called Zille a 'racist bitch' on a public site, Mphila said: 'She is racist and is behaving like a bitch.'
Social justice and environmental protection are equally urgent and intrinsically linked universal goals, with coordinated global action needed on both fronts at the UN’s ‘Rio+20’ Conference on Sustainable Development in June, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to an audience of development experts, civil society leaders and government officials at the first Global Human Development Forum in Instanbul.
Thousands of people are celebrating in the streets of Dakar after preliminary results showed Senegalese opposition candidate Macky Sall has won over Abdoulaye Wade, the incumbent president who sought a third term in office. Sall supporters gathered in the streets of the capital on Monday, chanting, dancing and sounding car horns. Wade conceded election defeat and congratulated Sall, as preliminary results gave an overwhelming lead to his runoff rival.
Solidarity with migrants in the city of Calais - a migrant bottleneck in Europe - is not limited to organisations, reports IPS Africa. 'Some local residents have also become involved on an individual basis with the transient foreign population that has passed through the city. Some have put up migrants in their own homes – despite the fact that such activities are punishable by five years imprisonment or a 30,000 euro fine under Article L622-1 of the French Foreigners Law.'
Trade envoys of India, Brazil, and South Africa have warned industrialised countries not to hijack the Doha multilateral trade negotiations by adopting the controversial plurilateral approach to liberalise trade in services. A plurilateral agreement allows member countries to voluntarily agree to new rules. In contrast, in a multilateral agreement all members have to be in agreement. This, they say, could ultimately undermine 'the possibility of resuscitating the Doha Round'. The Doha Development Agenda was launched almost 11 years ago to correct the historical imbalances and asymmetries in the global trading system and was designed to enable poorer countries to integrate into the system.
IRIN's freelance journalist Moulid Iftin Hujale, in this third installment of his account of life in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, describes how since November 2011 there have been a a series of abductions and road-side bombs, which the Kenyan police attribute to people linked to Somalia's insurgent Al-Shabab group. '...the past four months have been quite tough and very scary with unprecedented grenade explosions, killings and rigorous police operations; Dadaab has never been the same again.'
Life in the Malian capital Bamako is slowly returning to normal after mutinous soldiers seized power, toppling the democratically elected government of President Ahmed Toumani Toure. Fuel stations and market stalls reopened on Sunday after a decrease in the gunfire and looting that followed Wednesday's (21 March) overnight coup. The military junta that ousted Toure has ordered all soldiers back to barracks, but rebels in the country's north exploiting the coup have been pushing towards three northern towns, the Reuters news agency reported.
Libyan authorities are struggling to cope with a post-revolution influx of migrants, many of whom are using the Mediterranean country as a stepping stone to Europe, according to this Al Jazeera video. Mustafa Joha, the commanding officer of Tripoli's naval base, says that the country's coastline is too vast to patrol effectively, especially since NATO forces destroyed most of its ships during the country's war.
The African Union has said it will deploy a 5,000-strong military force to hunt down the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The force - with troops from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic - will be led by Uganda where the LRA, headed by Joseph Kony, abducted and massacred civilians in a decades-long armed rebellion. The AU announced the launch of the force after Kony's global profile shot up recently thanks to a celebrity-backed internet campaign to bring him to justice.
In Madagascar's east coast city of Tamatave, a local taboo against having a toilet in your house or on your land has complicated the task of trying to improve the region's dire sanitation situation. Nationwide, more than 10,000 people, of whom two thirds are children under five, die prematurely from diarrhoea annually, according to the World Health Organization, which attributes 88 per cent of these cases to poor quality water and sanitation.
A journalist working with the independent Shabelle broadcaster in Mogadishu, Mr Mohydin Hassan Mohamed alias Husni, was Sunday attacked by two men armed with pistols. The attackers struck as Mr Mohamed was walking along Madina Avenue, near his home in Wadajir District in south Mogadishu. One bullet brazed Mohamed's chest as he fled.
Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been forced to backtrack on alleged comments published by the UK newspaper, The Guardian, which suggested she was opposed to gay rights. While holding a joint interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Monrovia, the president had been asked a question about an anti-gay Bill being debated by Liberian lawmakers. The Guardian reported Mrs Sirleaf as responding: 'We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve...We like ourselves just the way we are.'
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has been hit by a swarm of 11,000 villagers seeking compensation for oil spills which they said have polluted their waters and devastated farmlands. The villagers from Bodo community, a network of 35 villages in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta are set to square off against the oil company in a London Courtroom with Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day & Co. saying the spills devastated a once-thriving fishing community.
The runner-up in Sunday's presidential election in Guinea-Bissau has said he will not participate in a run-off vote. Former president Kumba Yala has claimed the first round of voting was unfair. Provisional results from Sunday's poll gave ex-prime minister Carlos Gomez 49 per cent of the vote out of nine candidates. Kumba Yala came in second with 23 per cent.
An international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the Malawi government's recent arrests and threats against critics reflect its broader crackdown on free speech and other basic rights. Deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch Leslie Lefkow said arresting government critics was the latest sign of increasing repression in Malawi. He asked President Bingu wa Mutharika to take urgent steps to end the harassment and arrests of people seen as opposing the government.
While the future of Mali's hitherto free press is unclear, the Twitter narrative during last week;s coup demonstrated the ways in which traditional media are increasingly less relevant in any case. 'Marking papers, with one ear tuned to RFI. But def got more quality reporting from Twitter today about #Mali than from any other medium,' tweeted Philippe M. Frowd, a MacMaster University doctoral student living in Canada.
Cholera infections are ten times higher than the number of cases reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO), according to new estimates of the global disease burden. Cholera is caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the Vibrio cholera bacterium. The disease causes watery diarrhoea and severe dehydration that can be fatal. In a study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation this month (1 March), researchers from the International Vaccine Institute, in South Korea found a more accurate estimate of the global cholera burden is nearly three million cases a year, and around 93,000 deaths - the majority in children under the age of five.
Reporters Without Borders has condemned the occupation of the headquarters of the state radio and TV broadcaster ORTM by renegade soldiers since yesterday and the interruption of broadcasting by many other radio and TV stations as a result of an apparent military coup against President Amadou Toumani Touré. 'Whether this is a real coup or just a mutiny, we are appalled that soldiers have occupied the state broadcaster and taken control of its broadcasts,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'As it is often the case in such circumstances, control of news and information is primordial and the media are among the mutineers’ first targets.'
Britain’s Kaleidoscope Trust has submitted its recommendations for changes to the Commonwealth Charter and called for an agreed timetable to end the criminalisation of LGBT people. The call came in response to a request by the Royal Commonwealth Society for proposals to amend the new draft Charter of the Commonwealth. Eighteen countries in Africa are currently part of the Commonwealth of Nations (with Zimbabwe having departed in 2003).
The prosecution case against three Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MFL) leaders who are facing treason charges is shaky, their lawyer has said. Defence lawyer Sabelo Sibanda said the prosecution team has failed to produce evidence to prove that MFL leaders Charles Thomas, John Gazi and Paul Siwela, distributed flyers calling for the separation of Matebeleland and other parts from the rest of Zimbabwe.
The global population of farm animals increased 23 per cent between 1980 and 2010, from 3.5 billion to 4.3 billion, according to research by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online publication. These figures continue a trend of rising farm animal populations, with harmful effects on the environment, public health, and global development. Both production and consumption of animal products are increasingly concentrated in developing countries. In contrast, due in part to a growing awareness of the health consequences of high meat consumption, the appetite for animal products is stagnating or declining in many industrial countries.
Health-e news reports on Musa Ernest Nkoko, a 52-year old ex-miner with multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis. He lives in KaShoba in the Lubombo region of Swaziland with his wife and five children aged between 9 and 27 years. Co-infected with HIV, Nkoko says he has been on treatment for MDR-TB for the last four years. The disease has diminished Nkoko’s lung capacity and rendered him too weak to do any work, and he and his family relies on his wife’s income as a part time cleaner.
Hundreds of protestors rallied in Rabat on 17 March to press for a review of the legal exemption allowing a rapist to marry his victim, following the suicide of a Tangier teenage girl. Amina al-Filali, 16, drank rat poison last week in Larache, after being forced to marry her rapist. Under Moroccan law, rape is punishable by several years in prison if the victim is a minor. Marriage to the victim, however, shields the perpetrator from prosecution.
Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki accused the United States of plotting cross-border raids by Ethiopian troops, saying the two allies were out to divert attention from a festering border spat in the volatile Horn of Africa. Addis Ababa, Washington's main ally in the region, said it attacked military bases used by rebels inside Eritrea earlier this month.
Human rights activist John Kapito says there was drama at a hotel in Lilongwe on Saturday afternoon when over 25 police officers swooped on him as he made his way out. Kapito said within minutes, his car was surrounded by the officers, scrambling for it as they opened every door and boot in search of 'harmful' materials. Contrary to police's earlier charge of illegal possession of forex, Kapito said a new charge of alleged possession of materials carrying seditious works emerged.
Simmering tensions between the ANC and its ally Cosatu are expected to come into sharp focus at a high-level meeting. Said to be aimed at thrashing out differences over e-tolling and labour broking, the two issues over which Cosatu called a one-day strike and led well-attended protest marches earlier this month, the meeting is expected to encompass broader underlying issues that are fuelling discord in the alliance.
The Collaborative Tri-continental Program was launched in 2005 by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA) with the purpose of carrying out high quality social science research and enhancing the production of knowledge suitable for fostering southern perspectives on critical issues, and feeding these into global debates. The Program includes an annual South-South summer institute, research conferences, and grants for advanced research. The research grants are intended to promote collaboration among researchers from the South and to stimulate analytical empirical studies on topics of relevance for their regions and for the Global South.
It is the pleasure of the Masters programs at the American University of Paris to host an international and bilingual conference on contemporary critical and experimental engagement with Frantz Fanon’s work, co-organized by Lisa Damon, Sousan Hammad and François Huguet.
The conference will take place at AUP and at the Lavoir Moderne Parisien and is open to everyone.
Pambazuka News 575: The dangers of Kony2012
Pambazuka News 575: The dangers of Kony2012
Pambazuka News 576: The dangers of Kony2012
Pambazuka News 576: The dangers of Kony2012
The 19th African Union Summit will take place from 23rd-30th June 2012 in Lilongwe, Malawi with the theme of ‘Boosting Intra-Africa Trade’ and ‘2012 year of Shared Values’. Fahamu- Networks for Social Justice (www.fahamu.org) through its Emerging Powers in Africa Initiative is pleased to announce a call for applications for its journalist visit to the Summit. Five successful applicants will be chosen to participate in a 4 day visit during the Summit. Media professionals in print, broadcast, radio and online fora from Africa, India, China and Brazil are encouraged to apply before the deadline of 30 March 2012.
The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce - in the framework of the second three-year phase of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program - the call for applications for participation in the Fifth South-South Summer Institute on Rethinking Development: Global and Regional Alternatives for the Development in the South. The Institute will be held in Recife, Brazil, from 21 May to 1 June 2012.
Tanzanian doctors have suspended a nationwide strike after the country's president met union representatives to defuse a row with government, the doctors association said. The more than 1,000-strong Medical Association of Tanzania (MAT) is demanding better pay and conditions and the sacking of Health Minister Hadji Mponda and his deputy, whom they accuse of being 'enemies of doctors and the health sector as a whole'.
At the same time that we increasingly see the advance of new technologies which facilitate communication and information, such as smartphones, tablets, Twitter and Facebook, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, the People's Wall has emerged: an extensive outer wall of the newspaper [email protected], where the population can write letters and direct reflections to the governing leaders. It is an original form of communication, whose effectiveness and accessibility are inherent in its very simplicity. In a way, it acts as an authentic offline Facebook wall.
The country’s Ministry for Coordination of Environmental Affairs (MICOA), has canceled 146 investment projects in various economic activities because they failed to meet the requirements of the country’s environmental laws. The canceled proposals include the activities of some major Western firms. Permanent Secretary Samuel Xirinda told journalists that the 146 projects canceled because of environmental legislation strictures constituted a third of the 437 projects audited by the government in 2011.
On the morning of 12 March, 20 computers were seized from the offices of the outspoken Folha 8, one of Angola’s few remaining private publications that is critical of the government, under a warrant investigating 'crimes of outrage against the state' and violations of press freedom. The effective shut-down of the paper and the questioning of its editor, William Tonet, whose mobile phone battery was also confiscated, comes just 48 hours after attempts by Angolan youths to stage demonstrations in the capital Luanda and southern coastal city of Benguela. Heavily armed police broke up the crowds making several arrests.
The Secretary-General of Angolan opposition party Democratic Bloc (BD), Mr Filomeno Vieira Lopes, said he was brutalised by the police during a weekend protest demonstration. Mr Lopes told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that he had received medical treatment for three fractures on his left arm, a severe blow to the head, which required three stitches and for several bruises all over his body. He accused Angolan police of orchestrating the attack during a demonstration against the appointment of Ms Susan Inglês as the National Electoral Commission boss.