Pambazuka News 462: From Belém to Copenhagen
Pambazuka News 462: From Belém to Copenhagen
Following the forced closure of the Addis Neger newspaper, Alemayehu G. Mariam condemns the concerted assault on Ethiopia's free press perpetrated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government. Saluting the commitment and success of the publication's staff and those working in the country's independent media as a whole, Mariam stresses that Ethiopians owe their compatriots in the free press a debt of eternal gratitude.
The controversial re-arrest of Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (UDJP) opposition chair Birtukan Midheksa exposes the efforts of Meles Zenawi's government to crush its political opponents, writes Etyopian Simbiro. As Ethiopia's 2010 elections draw ever closer, Midheksa's role as 'the darling of the pro-democracy movement' has seen further damage inflicted on the position of the government. While it remains to be seen whether Midheksa's inspirational experience can translate into concrete political action, in the meantime, Simbiro contends, it is in everybody's interests that she be set free by the country's government.
Looking back on the September attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo members in Kennedy Road, Durban, Raj Patel profiles the views of key Abahlali activists including S’bu Zikode, Zodwa Nsibande and Mazwi Nzimande. Though strongly disrupted by the African National Congress-led (ANC) attack in September, Abahlali has continued to meet, while the absence of its leaders from the Kennedy Road settlement has illustrated the deficiencies of the ANC.
Matteo Fraschini Koffi writes of his experiences of racism in Italy, the brutal treatment of fellow individuals of African ancestry in the country, and how the problem should be overcome.
Pambazuka News 461: Obama, oil and AFRICOM
Pambazuka News 461: Obama, oil and AFRICOM
Crisis Action is an independent, non-profit organisation that works with others to ensure civilians are protected both from and during armed conflict. We are now looking for a creative, effective and dynamic person to head up a new office in Nairobi, Kenya to lead our work towards the African Union.
On behalf of the Pan Africa ILGA part of the global Pan Africa International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). We write to express our concern about THE UGANDA ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY BILL, NO 18, 2009.
Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, is once again on the offensive against homosexuality, describing the practice as an act of 'indecency' which has no place in the country's military.
Guinea's military junta has pulled out of crisis talks with opposition groups to wait for the recovery and return of its leader, Captain Dadis Camara, who is receiving treatment in Morocco following an assassination bid.
One year after receiving the Rafto Prize, pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué, right, is still fighting to establish a dialogue between the rebel soldiers, government and international forces, and civilians in the Congolese Kivu region.
Few are more aware of the devastating legacy failure will leave than the teams of African negotiators in the Danish capital to hammer out a final position. As talks began on Dec. 7, the Africa Group had put numbers to the hard line taken at a preparatory conference in Barcelona last month.
Zimbabwe’s ruling political party has been accused of launching a "widespread and systematic campaign of rape and sexual terror" aimed at intimidating opponents and voters in the troubled African nation, according to a new report released here.
In the last three decades, changes in the global economy have led to debt and balance of payments crises in many African countries. They desperately needed foreign exchange which they could only get from the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions used this opportunity to expand their influence over the recipients' national policies. This paper discusses country ownership which is a central issue of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
Mauritanian authorities detained three top businessmen charged with embezzling millions of euros of public funds late on Wednesday in a case that has sparked new political tensions in the desert state.
The time that Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak has spent in a jail in Eritrea, without a trial and without any visits from his family or lawyers, today reached 3,000 days.
Countries taking part in Africa's most detailed survey of research and innovation to date have been given a three-month extension to gather the required data. The extension was granted at a workshop for the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative that took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last week (30 November – 3 December).
China is continuing to show an interest in developing African research capacity with the announcement of a cooperation programme in science and technology.
A United States couple has been indicted on charges of conspiracy, forced labour, document servitude, which is confiscating someone's passport and visa, and harbouring an alien for financial gain, the Justice Department announced.
This month's deadly bombing of a medical school's graduation ceremony in Somalia will likely reduce the popularity of the country's main Islamist insurgency, despite the group's denial of involvement, say analysts. A civilian uprising against Al-Shabab seems to be under way, with street demonstrations in Mogadishu on 7 December, and in camps for the internally displaced (IDPs) on 8 December.
Sierra Leone has made a strong start in compensating war victims but these are early days: Long-term government commitment and funding is needed, says an NGO which monitors progress in this area.
Aid agencies have been unable to fully meet the needs of tens of thousands of people who have fled inter-communal clashes over natural resources in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The percentage of HIV-positive mothers who pass the virus to their newborn babies in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province has dropped by nearly two-thirds since dual antiretroviral (ARV) therapy was introduced for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).
When an aid vehicle is stolen in the eastern Chad town of Abéché, some people cheer and say the aid organization got what it deserved, according to the French think-tank Emergency Rehabilitation Development (URD), which is preparing a report on the impact of international aid groups on Abéché residents.
Eastern Sudan hosts more than 66,000 registered Eritrean refugees, the first of whom arrived in 1968 during the early years of Eritrea’s war of independence against Ethiopia. These days, Eritrea’s policy of indefinite military conscription, coupled with drought and poor economic opportunities, prompt some 1,800 people to cross into Sudan every month, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
Every December, the village of Kangete, in eastern Kenya's Nyambene District, gears up for yet another season of festivities - not Christmas, however, but the initiation of hundreds of young men into manhood through circumcision
The role of blood-borne HIV infections from unsanitary healthcare procedures has been underestimated in sub-Saharan Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to several researchers and epidemiologists.
Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo has banned its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, from speaking to the press. According to a report issue on 2 December 2009 in the local independent daily "O Pais", Renamo has threatened violence against any reporters who try to visit Dhlakama at his residence in the northern city of Nampula.
Permanent secretary for Media, Information and Publicity George Charamba, has conceded that the state has always had a controlling monopoly of radio services. He admitted to this in an interview with the Herald newspaper where he sharply criticized the continued operation of Voice of America's (VOA) Studio 7 amid allegations by his office that there was a government-to-government agreement between the United States and Botswana.
Stephen Marks compiles a roundup of emerging players in Africa News.
A group of senior officials from China, Africa, and from international organizations involved in health assistance in Africa met in Beijing on December 4-5, 2009 to review China's health assistance to Africa and to discuss opportunities for international cooperation in achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals in Africa.
Amongst the topics that Dibussi Tande covers in this week's review of African blogs are the link between conservative American evangelism and the growth of homophobia on the continent, the release of the film 'Invictus' and the trend of casting African Americans for African roles, and tips on how Africa can profit from hosting the upcoming World Cup.
The African Union (AU) Wednesday expressed deep concerns over the lack of progress on key talks aimed at ending the political deadlock in Madagascar, following a coup in the Indian Ocean island in March 2009.
Non-governmental organisations attending the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Tuesday slammed the leaked draft Copenhagen Climate Change agreement proposed by the Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen.
African experts and ministers responsible for hydrocarbons are gathering in Ethiopia to craft key documents in the energy sector, the AU has disclosed.
Several participants attending a forum on migration in the Arab and African regions have deplored the conditions in which migrants who are either in transit or in residence are treated.
GAMCOTRAP, an NGO that promotes women's social, political, economic and cultural rights and focuses on sexual and reproductive health rights has marked the symbolic abandonment of the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practice.
A top UN official has praised "great progress" in easing Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis, but urged donors to continue supporting the country's recovery from a decade of economic freefall. "It has been refreshing to see great progress in so many aspects that worried us in February. I trust this positive trend will continue," UN assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs Catherine Bragg told a news conference.
On the 30th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the regional Coalition for 'Equality without reservation' launched a call to heads of state of Arab countries to promote the equality and citizenship of Arab women.
The battle over who will eventually succeed 85-year-old President Robert Mugabe as party leader threatens the future of his long-ruling Zanu PF but analysts say an immediate split is unlikely at a congress which began this week.
Six Zimbabwean men were in a serious condition in hospital after they were attacked by residents in the Westenburg area of Polokwane, South Africa, on Monday night, Limpopo police said.
WOZA leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, appeared in the Bulawayo Magistrate's Court this week as instructed only to be informed that their court record file, which apparently is kept separate for security reasons, was not accessible.
Nigerian anti-corruption officials have raided a meeting of opposition leaders and arrested Attahiru Bafarawa, who ran for president in 2007. The EFCC accuses him of involvement in a 6bn naira ($40m) fraud from his time as governor of Sokoto State.
Alleged plotters who tried to kill Guinea's junta leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara are being "hunted down" and arrested, the military government says. Junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif told the BBC more than 60 people had been held over last week's assassination attempt.
Protesters set alight the office of Sudan President Omar al-Bashir's party in a southern town after three southern politicians were arrested in Khartoum. There were no reports of casualties at the National Congress Party (NCP) building in Wau, and police later freed the three politicians.
South African health care professionals are endangering the health of the country's large foreign population by routinely denying health care and treatment to thousands of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.
This paper summarises the key issues that need to be resolved if the Copenhagen Climate Conference is to succeed. They include the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the global climate regime, the emission cuts of developed countries, the attempts to shift responsibiity to developing countries, finance and technology for developing countries, and the danger of climate trade protectionism.
A landmark UN treaty on women’s rights, which will be 30 years old next week, is in danger of being politically undermined by a slew of reservations by 22 countries seeking exemptions from some of the convention’s legal obligations.
Opposition parties are troubled by what they say is government’s strategy to keep them out of the general elections in May 2010. They accuse the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of harassment. This includes arrests, obstruction of public meetings, and even murder.
A reform programme designed to formalise customary land rights in Côte d’Ivoire may compromise durable solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs) if their specific needs are not taken into account, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC.
Some 4.8 million Ethiopians will require emergency food and related aid costing $270 million for the first six months of 2010 in a country already plagued by prolonged drought and crop failure, according to newly released United Nations estimates.
Global food prices are on the ascent again with the FAO Food Price Index – a food basket composed of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar – registering four straight monthly rises.
The safe house for victims of gender-based violence hides behind tall, grey walls in a nondescript neighbourhood of the capital. Run by Tsotawi Tekat Tekelakay Mahiber (TTTM) – the Organization Against Gender-based Violence -- is known only to the police.
Amnesty International exposed the shocking level of unlawful police killings in Nigeria in a new report. “The Nigerian police are responsible for hundreds of unlawful killings every year,” said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.
The United Nations official leading efforts to tackle malaria is visiting Nigeria and Kenya, the two nations which together account for one third of the estimated 1 million deaths worldwide from the deadly disease.
Progress in bringing stability to the war-wracked east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is mixed, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report, noting the heavy humanitarian toll wrought by a military operation to flush out a notorious ethnic Hutu militia.
The UN Security Council has called for the holding of credible presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire at the earliest date possible, after the much-delayed polls were recently postponed again.
There has been renewed outrage over the unity government’s expenditure after it was revealed last week that it is spending more of the country’s money on travel than on healthcare.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was re-elected head of Angola's ruling MPLA party on Wednesday, a move that signals the 67-year old leader plans to extend his three-decade long rule of one of Africa's top oil producers.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can be delivered safely in the first year without routine laboratory monitoring for toxic effects, according to an article in The Lancet.
Some 36 million people have been cured of tuberculosis (TB) over the past 15 years through a rigorous approach to treatment, according to the World Health Organisation. However, last year 1.8 million people died from TB including half a million deaths associated with HIV - many of them because they did not access antiretrovirals.
Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), a shack dwellers’ movement in Durban has contributed tremendously to the protection of the right to adequate housing by mobilising shack dwellers to resist and challenge forced evictions and insist on in-situ upgrading of their areas as the only acceptable solution.
Multimedia company, Wananchi Group, moved to slash the cost of its internet offering by half, saying it was keen to cash in on its investment in fibre optic technology as it passed on savings to its customers.
In this week's emerging powers watch, Stephen Marks reports back on the proceedings of Fahamu's two-day CSO FOCAC workshop in Nairobi on 26 and 27 November, 2009.
An initiative by a mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung, and three non-governmental organisations to train youth from poor backgrounds in Nairobi in ICT and entrepreneurship is beginning to bear fruits.
HIV-exposed but uninfected children grew as well as children of HIV-uninfected mothers, no matter how they were fed in the first two years of life in a non-randomised cohort study in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa from 2001-2004, Deven Patel and colleagues reported in a study published in advance online by the journal AIDS.
The effectiveness of one year of antiretroviral treatment in treatment-naive children in resource-limited settings is comparable to that of children in resource-rich settings, report Andrea Ciaranello and colleagues in a study published in the December 15 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Arab and Muslim countries must review their development strategies to benefit from transformative policies, innovative projects, and plans for renewal linked to shifting to a knowledge-based economy, according to a declaration issued December 3rd by participants in a Tunis conference.
The Moroccan government is taking fresh steps to support beleaguered local businesses, which are a key part of the national economy. Two new programmes by the National Agency for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (ANPME) are intended to boost competitiveness in the struggling sector.
Civil servants will receive a long-awaited pay rise and back wages dating from January 2008, the Algerian government announced after talks with labour leaders.
One of Botswana’s senior officials has argued that the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), the ancestral home of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen, ‘should be reserved for wildlife’, despite the fact that the country’s High Court has ruled that the Bushmen have the right to live there.
Corruption is preventing the world from reducing extreme poverty, from averting child deaths and even from fighting epidemics like HIV/AIDS. And it will have a devastating effect on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals if not tackled directly by each national government.
Gerald Caplan reviews Linda Melvern's 'A People Betrayed: the Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide', praising its success in dispelling Western governments' claims of ignorance of developments in Rwanda leading up to the genocide.
Vicensia Shule gives an appreciative review of Francis Nyamnjoh's 'Married but Available'.
With Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma seeking to respond to the recent upsurge in armed robberies in the country's capital Freetown, Roland Bankole Marke discusses efforts at crime prevention in the country.
Politics under Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has come to represent a depressingly familiar picture of elite dominance and broad social inequality, writes Amy Niang. With no clear succession plan in place and the state's legitimacy continuing to erode, the absence of an institutionalised effort to achieve stability in the political system remains a salient obstacle to democratic change, argues Niang.
Concerned over the supply of oil to the US and a supposed need to continue the global 'War on Terror', President Barack Obama has essentially maintained the militarised approach to Africa that was the hallmark of his immediate predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, writes Daniel Volman. The escalation of AFRICOM (United States African Command) activities, argues Volman, underlines a troubling commitment to an approach based on might and dominance, one entirely at the expense of promoting sustainable economic development and democracy.
The World Bank withdrew from the social welfare side of the Chad–Cameroon Petroleum Development Project (CCPDP) over a year ago. Identifying four broad approaches to assessing the project, Nicholas Jackson scrutinises the conclusions of several organisations, asking how it is that the project could fall apart so quickly while oil production continues 'as normal' in the midst of civil war in Chad.
African Research Institute Christmas party at St Stephen's Club, Tuesday 15 December, 34 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AB
Live Congolese music from Grupo Lokito
Wine and canapés will be served
RSVP essential
[email][email protected] or 020 7222 4006
Mphutlane wa Bofelo reviews 'Bantu Ghost: A stream of (black) unconsciousness', by Lesego Rampolokeng and finds that the South African writer, playwright and performance poet ‘is to literature and theatre what Fanon and Biko are to sociopolitical analysis and activism’.
If the South African state is a democracy, Michael Neocosmos asks in Pambazuka News, how has it condoned the deployment of violence and murder on the shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, an organisation of the poor that has ‘engaged in peaceful protests’ and ‘advocated peaceful alternatives to the dominant politics’? At the root of the problem of the state reaction to Abahlali, Neocosmos argues, is ‘not simply a failure of democracy, but a systematic failure of citizenship and of the nation.’
Conversations with Writers speaks to Zimbabwean writer Jennifer Armstrong about the influences on her work, from immigration and identity, to Dambudzo Marechera and philosophical theory.
‘I am an angry African,’ Assefa Bequele writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, challenging the continent’s failure to meet its collective responsibilities to children. ‘I will tell you why and what, I hope, we can do to build an Africa fit for children and help nurture an African man and woman that can walk with pride on the world stage’, says Bequele, calling on fellow Africans to ‘have the courage and be the first to speak out and engage in the defence of the inherent rights of all human beings including children’.
Sudan’s oil deposits have made it one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, yet ‘violence, disease and malnutrition’ continue to kill its people, Khadija Sharife writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. With access to natural resources from water to grazing land already at tipping point and cited as a root cause of the country’s conflict, Sharife assesses the role played by the Khartoum government and multinational interests in diverting much needed oil wealth from the Sudanese people.
Dictatorship presents 'a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change', Alemayehu G. Mariam writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. But with the widespread acknowledgement that global warming ‘could affect Africa disproportionately’, and that the continent is ‘entitled to assistance to overcome the effects of greenhouse emissions caused by the industrialised countries’, Mariam argues that its dictators ‘are using global warming as their new preferred ideology behind which they can hide and ply their trade of corruption'.
As delegates from 192 countries meet in Copenhagen to discuss a climate deal, Percy F. Makombe says the talks should be about implementing the Kyoto Protocol rather than negotiating a new agreement. But will developed countries commit to adequate reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions?
‘Whatever our culture, we must treat animals in a humane way,’ William Gumede writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, following the recent approval of South African courts for the sacrifice of a bull as part of a traditional thanksgiving ritual. ‘African culture has a long tradition of democratic practices,’ writes Gumede, but it also ‘has some very autocratic practices’ and it isn’t wrong to admit this or to say ‘let’s discard such aspects’.
When, as we speak, it is been discussed in Copenhagen how to reorganize human activities that accelerate climate change in global scale, threatening the life of a large number of people living in this planet, it is impossible to leave aside the issue of hunger, which since 2005 it has once again started to spread in the world.
The community of Thiénaba is located in western Senegal. Here, as in other Senegalese communities, most of the farmland is controlled by men. But there are five acres under the control of women. A women’s group called Fass Jom (which means “make do” in the local language of Wolof) has secured this land for its members.
For centuries, farmers like Berhanu Gudina have tended tiny plots of maize, wheat, and barley amid the lush green plains of Ethiopia’s central lowlands. But now, Mr. Gudina says he sees people from India and China farming these lands. He says before, it was just locals. “What do they want here?,” he asks. “To steal everything? Our government is selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for themselves.”
Homophobia, hate crimes, and the fear of violence, are part of the daily experience of gay men, lesbian and bi women and trans diverse communities in Southern Africa.
The Agricultural Innovation in Africa (AIA) Project is inviting input on good practices for consideration for inclusion in the forthcoming study, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa.
This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group examines what stalled democratisation could mean. It concludes that politicians must finally uphold the constitution, abide by electoral laws and adhere to inter-party agreements if the region, which seeks independence from Somalia, is to hold genuinely free and fair elections in 2010.
Industrial agriculture is the skeleton in the closet of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). If we consider production, processing and transportation, the whole food chain could be responsible for up to half of all global greenhouse gas emissions (1).
The Journal of Media And Communication Studies (Jmcs) is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published that will be monthly by Academic Journals (www.academicjournals.org/JMCS, JMCS is dedicated to increasing the depth of the subject across disciplines with the ultimate aim of expanding knowledge of the subject.
JED is calling on the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) National Intelligence Agency (ANR) to put an end to the abuse of authority by officials at its Kasindi and Béni offices after radio reporter Maurice Lutendero was detained in Kasindi on 30 November 2009.
Three editors of independent Amharic-language weekly Addis Neger have fled Ethiopia, saying that the government intends to prosecute them under Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009, promulgated on 28 August 2009. The last edition of the newspaper, which has been closed down, appeared on Saturday, 28 November.
Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ found a total of 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, an increase of 11 from the 2008 tally.
Your support can make a difference at a crucial time in the campaign to save the life of Aminatou Haidar known as the ‘Saharawi Ghandi’. Aminatou is a prominent human rights activist and former political prisoner and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. She is known for her non-violent resistance to the illegal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco.
The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession (ACIJLP) expresses its deep concern about the practices of the Sudanese government towards the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, which represents explicitly violation of international instruments and commitments in particular Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.