Pambazuka News 454: Let us return to the source
Pambazuka News 454: Let us return to the source
As African leaders meet in Ethiopia to discuss the devastating impacts of climate change, the United Nations has released a report warning that the economically-troubled continent will be one of the hardest hit by the ravages of global warming.
In the debate on international policies towards Sudan, analysts as Alex de Waal and Mahmood Mamdani have convincingly critiqued Save Darfur movement and the International Criminal Court for counterproductive "humanitarian fundamentalism."
Following the tabling of the Anti-Homosexual Bill in the Ugandan parliament, a new Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law has been formed, set to respond to the draconian bill which, according to the coalition undermines basic human rights and the Constitution of Uganda.
Well known gay rights activist, Zanele Muholi, has been awarded a Fanny Ann Eddy accolade, by the International Resource Network in Africa (IRN-Africa), for her outstanding contributions in the study of sexuality in Africa, at the recent Genders & Sexualities in Africa Conference held in Syracuse, New York.
Burkina NTIC has launched a social network platform to prepare West Africa’s first regional forum on marketing agricultural products through ICT. The event will take place 23-25 November in Ouagadougou, and the platform will help deepen the discussions and share the outcomes with a wider international audience. Burkina NTIC is the national ICT for development network.
Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents said they would strike the capitals of Burundi and Uganda in revenge for rocket attacks by peacekeepers from those countries that killed at least 30 people in Mogadishu. "We shall make their people cry," Sheikh Ali Mohamed Hussein, al Shabaab's self-styled governor of Banadir region, which includes Mogadishu, told reporters late on Thursday.
People living in a slum district of the Algerian capital have taken to the streets for a second day to protest against job and housing shortages. Residents of the Diar Echams area, frustrated over high unemployment and inadequate housing, clashed with police on Wednesday having started their protest on Monday night.
Transparency International, the leading civil society organisation fighting corruption worldwide, will release its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) on 17 November 2009. The index ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. Released annually since 1995, the CPI helps to highlight the propensity of domestic corruption and its damaging influence.
Immigration officials in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have expressed concern over the increase in the number of illegal Ethiopian migrants entering the region, with claims that up to 90 people are arriving daily, against 50 in 2008.
Yellow fever is a “ticking time bomb”, while measles has been eliminated three years ahead of schedule in parts of Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. These are among the highlights of the most recent World Health Organization (WHO) report, State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization:
Julia Nyaberi's* "clinic" in Majengo, a slum in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, caters to one type of client only - pregnant women seeking abortions. Young women writhe in pain on the floor of the poorly lit house; the neighbours all know what happens here and have become immune to the moans and wails.
The human rights record of the Zambian military is being tested in court by two former air force officers who allege they were fired for being HIV positive. Stanley Kingaipe and Charles Chookole claim they were tested and treated for HIV without their knowledge, and then discharged for being medically unfit a year later.
Private radio stations have cancelled political programmes in Guinea as journalists continue to be harassed by opposition supporters and the military after last month's massacre at an opposition rally, says the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
On 22 October 2009, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) expressed its growing concern over the organized campaign against journalists and activists in Tunisia.
MISA-Swaziland notes with great concern that the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT), with due respect, seems to be playing double standards in that it has unilaterally decided to go ahead and propose a statutory media council when it initially endorsed voluntary self-regulation and has been in the forefront of this process with previous Ministers leading it.
In this week’s [mp3] The Kennedy Thirteen, members of the embattled shackdwellers’ movememt Abahlali baseMjondolo are arraigned in court, miners stage a sit-in at a Mpumalanga mine, and Tanzanian workers push for salary review implementation. This bulletin is part of a partnership between Worker’s World Media Productions and Pambazuka News that seeks to highlight labour issues affecting Africa’s workers.
The number of Ethiopians needing emergency food aid has climbed by over one million from last year's figure, the government has announced. According to the revised 2009 humanitarian appeal for October and December, issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), the number of people in need of emergency assistance has now reached 6.2 million from 4.9 million last year.
The Guinean Prime Minister, Kabine Komara, has hailed the decision of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate the 28 Sept massacre of protesters in Conakry by elements of the Guinean military. In a broadcast to the nation Wednesday, the Prime Minister said the decision would make it possible to identify all those involved in the killing of civilians who were protesting an alleged plan by mili tary leader Moussa Dadis Camara to transmute to a civilian leader by participating in the forthcoming presidential election.
The Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) convened a 5 day Human Rights Summer Course for Human Rights Defenders in the Great Lakes region from 4th -9th October 2009 at Nile Resort Hotel Jinja, Uganda.
The Poverty Related Diseases College coordinated by the University of Yaounde I is pleased to announce its first call for the International advanced Training Programme in Biomedicine and Development. The programme bridges the gap between the biological sciences, health and development in Africa by training scientists to perform research on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and applying it to sustainable development. The deadline for applications is November 15th, 2009.
While U.S. attention is fixed on Afghanistan’s contested elections and the need to insure a democratic process, in another part of the world, democracy has been under siege at the ballot box with terrible consequences. African elections have devolved into rituals of absurdity. In the last five years we have witnessed attacks on democracy in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
On 22 October, only moments before the funeral service of the late Eunice Nothemba Boyseen, a group of police officers arrived at Mrs Boyseen's house and attempted to illegally evict her daughter Dora Boyseen and the rest of her family. Luckily, residents were able to prevent this eviction from taking place.
How can civil society most effectively work for peacebuilding? This working paper from the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding presents the findings of a comparative research project which analysed the performance of civil society in regards to protection, monitoring, advocacy, socialisation, social cohesion, facilitation, and service delivery in situations of war and armed conflict.
The security situation in Burundi improved markedly after the last rebel group in the country laid down its arms at the end of 2008, and no new conflict-induced displacement was reported in 2009. However, up to 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) remain in sites in northern and central Burundi.
Climate change will lead to ever greater numbers of people being uprooted in Africa, the top United Nations humanitarian official said today, calling for enhanced and swift actions to reduce disaster risk and step up mitigation.
The top United Nations envoy to the Côte d’Ivoire today called on the West African nation to build on momentum towards holding its much-delayed presidential elections, slated for the end of next month.
Peacekeepers serving with the joint United Nations-African Union mission in Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region have intervened in deadly tribal clashes, bringing the situation under control. The fighting between the Zaghawa and Birgid tribes near Shangil Tobaya in North Darfur state killed two people, with six people from both sides sustaining injuries. Four people who were critically wounded were taken by helicopter to El Fasher by the mission, known as UNAMID, for treatment at a Government hospital.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has pledged full United Nations support to help Africa address the needs of some 14 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) driven from their homes by fighting and prevent the conflicts that caused their plight.
Children in the Central African Republic (CAR) are paying a heavy price for the troubles faced by the country, and their plight could worsen without urgent international support, said a senior official with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
A new United Nations report calls for the lifting of restrictions and costly fees imposed on the $40 billion that migrant workers send home to Africa each year, the world body’s agency tasked with eradicating rural poverty has said. “Supporting this people-to-people money flow to rural areas of Africa is especially vital now because of the recession,” said International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Assistant President, Kevin Cleaver.
Boosting energy efficiency in South African industry in the face of economy-threatening energy shortages and promoting environmentally-friendly production in Tunisia are the focus of two new United Nations projects. The Swiss Government will help fund the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) projects under the accord signed in Bern, the Swiss capital.
Religious leaders have softened up their decision against general condom use in Malawi. Government officials see it as positive news in the fight against HIV/AID. Media reports say condom use in the southern African country remains below the levels needed to halt the spread of the disease.
The international community is failing over 1.5 million internally displaced persons in Somalia at a time when the humanitarian crisis is deepening, Walter Kaelin, the Representative of the UN Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, said at the end of his mission to Somalia in Nairobi, Kenya.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has urged Robert Mugabe to ‘relinquish power’ saying the ZANU PF leader alone was ‘responsible for the political stalemate’ in Zimbabwe. Speaking in France during a joint press conference with the French Foreign Affairs Minister, Odinga did not mince his words, bluntly saying; ‘In Zimbabwe Mr. Mugabe is not part of the solution to the political problem; he himself, is the problem.’
At least a dozen people have been murdered in Guinea over the past month in what police suspect is a flare up in revenge attacks for last month's bloody government crackdown on protesters. The attacks come amid increasing international condemnation of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara's ruling military junta after gunmen opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in a stadium on Sept 28.
The priority for AIDS virologists in coming months is to find out exactly how the Thailand vaccine, which gave 30 percent protection against HIV, worked. This was the urging of one of the world’s greatest AIDS researchers, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), at the close of the Paris AIDS Vaccine Conference.
In Kenya two international cables – Seacom and TEAMS – have arrived but a fierce row has broken out over pricing. On the Government-backed TEAMS cable, Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo has said loudly and publicly that rates should come down to nearer US$200 per mbps. The cable’s owners say they have to recoup their money and that there will plenty of time later for prices to come down.
Video footage collected from YouTube leaves little doubt that the riots in Kampala last month were met with excessive use of force by the Ugandan police and military forces. An unestablished number of demonstrators and ordinary civilians, most likely in excess of 20, were killed, and many more injured by stray bullets and through heavy baton beatings.
Leaders of the Southern African Development Community have urged Member States to implement the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security to boost production and improve access to food in the region. SADC Heads of State and Government noted at their annual Summit that the region is lagging behind in implementing the plan.
Algeria is acting to reduce the high unemployment rate that afflicts young people, with steps that include new social benefits and government funding for public sector job creation. One key step involves a monthly government payment of 6,000 dinars to unemployed people, especially youth, as part of wider efforts to tackle an unemployment rate officially estimated at 11%.
Key players in the global trade arena have not shown the kind of flexibility to indicate that a Doha deal could be reached in the next year or so, International Trade and Economic Development Deputy Director General Xavier Carim has said.
A recent UN report documents the humanitarian impact of the blockade imposed by Israel since June 2007 on the 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip. It focuses on the effects of the import and export restrictions and the travel ban to and from Gaza on livelihoods, food security, education, health, shelter, energy and water and sanitation
In an Italian city a room full of people rose to their feet and applauded for five long minutes. No, it wasn’t the opening of the “La Scala” operatic season. It was the closing session of the heretofore unremarkable Committee on World Food Security (CFS) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)
It has been confirmed that the Ogiek tribe will be evicted from their ancestral land in Kenya’s Mau Forest before the end of the year. The Kenyan government’s ‘Mau Forest Interim Co-ordination Secretariat’ has announced that the Mau Forest will be cleared of all people in five phases.
More than 1,000 American and East African troops are to be deployed in northern Uganda next week as the United States carries out its biggest military exercise in Africa this year. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are each sending up to 150 soldiers to join 450 US military personnel in Kitgum for the October 16-25 exercise known as Natural Fire 10.
Barriers to migration should be reduced to enable migrants to play a positive role in both industrialised and developing countries, says a leading DFID-funded research group. The findings, produced by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty (Migration DRC), are published in a research brief launched in advance of the Global Forum on Migration and Development 2009.
In contrast to 1999 and 2004, with just 10 days to go before the election, the campaign is slowing down. The Bulletin’s 120 journalists spread across the country all report the same thing: “everything is calm”. In the first days the parties had caravans of cars racing around countryside, but this has dropped off considerably. And there has been a similar drop in public involvement in party parades and rallies.
With the ruling OPDO/EPDRF (Oromo People's Democratic Organization/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) presiding over an extensive security and media network entirely in its own interests, Ethiopia's 2010 elections appear likely to be far from 'free and fair', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam in this week's Pambazuka News. Commenting on a recent report composed by Dr Negasso Gidada following a visit to Dembi Dollo in the Oromia region, Mariam stresses that while there is no reason why Ethiopia could not hold open elections, political realities on the ground will ensure the exact opposite is true.
With Nigeria's ruling elites seemingly intent on continuing to rob their country blind, Kola Ibrahim stresses the need for a nationalised economy rooted in a genuine workers' democracy.
While encouraging of speaker of the Nigerian House of Assembly Oladimeji Bankole's capacity to 'tell it as it is' with regard to the Niger Delta, Sabella Ogbobode Abidde finds the Nigerian government's lack of support for the area to be utterly deplorable. If the speaker, as a government representative, has in effect confessed to the 'long-suspected national crime' of the persistent exploitation of the Niger Delta, it is incumbent upon the state to usher in a genuine 'Marshall Plan' to begin to compensate the area's inhabitants, Abidde contends.
Henry Kyambalesa suggests potential initiatives for Zambia's President Rupiah Banda.
Adeyemi Demola stresses the importance of freedom of the press as a democratic right in Nigeria.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has issued a statement calling on the African Union to, among other things, intervene with immediate effect to ensure that H.E. President Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh withdraws the threats made angainst human rights defenders, and to ensure that the Republic of The Gambia guarantees the safety and security of the members and staff of the African Commission, human rights defenders, including journalists in The Gambia, and all participants in the activities of the African Commission taking place in The Gambia.
Taking issue with suggestions that Uganda's 2009 riots can be compared with the country's 1966 constitutional crisis, Kintu Nyago argues that the two scenarios are like 'chalk and cheese'.
Governor Timipre Sylva of Nigeria's Bayelsa state is notable solely for his 'profligacy, perfidiousness, aloofness and incompetence', writes Sabella Ogbobode Abidde in this week's Pambazuka News. With Sylva content to pursue an apparently never-ending programme of foolish and money-gulping schemes, Abidde stresses that Bayelsans and the Ijaw group as a whole need to demonstrate the same willingness to challenge their own elites as they do the federal government and exploitative oil companies.
Drawing on fascinating personal correspondence with a variety of individuals, Barbara Harlow looks back on the experiences of Ruth First during her short time as an economics lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam. First spent an autumn semester at the university in 1975, a time which coincided with the visits and debates of such prominent intellectuals as Walter Rodney, Mahmood Mamdani, Terence Ranger and Issa G. Shivji.
The Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Intersex, Queer and Bisexual persons of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, has expressed support and solidarity with the LGBTIQ community of Uganda and Sexual Minorities Uganda as they face uncertainty following the tabling in Parliament of the Anti-Homosexuality bill no 18.on the 14th of October 2009.
In an interview with Pambazuka News, Yash Tandon discusses the problems of 'development aid', his differences with Dambisa Moyo's arguments in 'Dead Aid', the importance of Southern countries' right to autonomy and his own book,
Nigeria plans to offer inhabitants of its oil-producing Niger Delta region ten percent of oil and gas ventures in a bid to end a rebellion that has hampered output for years, a report said. The Financial Times said the initiative, if approved by parliament, would signal a new phase in the government's efforts to forge a lasting peace in the delta, the key production area in the world's eighth largest oil exporter.
Beijing's Foreign Ministry officials are energetically distancing themselves from a US$7 billion minerals deal announced on 9 October by the increasingly isolated military regime in Guinea with the Hong-Kong based China International Fund. Without some fast diplomatic footwork, China could again face excoriation for helping to finance a murderous regime, five years after an international campaign began pressuring Beijing over military and financial links to the Sudanese regime and massacres in Darfur.
The Guebuza campaign is making intensive use of four helicopters, and the Bulletin estimates that the cost will be nearly $1 million. This means that Frelimo is spending more just on helicopters than the total amount ($750,000) being given to it this year as state funding. (Total funding to all parties is $1.85 million). This shows that Frelimo has much more money to spend on this election than any other party.
Kareem is a young Egyptian blogger who was only 22 years old when he was sentenced to 4 years in prison by the Egyptian government for criticizing Islam and the President of Egypt on a personal blog. Kareem was threatened and harassed consistently for his writing, and was previously arrested prior to his sentence, all of which were attempts to silence his opinions which he should be free to express.
A mission was launched on this week off the Italian coast to investigate what anti-Mafia investigators have long suspected was a conspiracy between organised crime, industrialists and government agencies to dump nuclear and other toxic waste in the Mediterranean and off Africa. An Italian marine survey ship under police protection started tests 12 miles off Calabria’s coast on the wreck of a cargo ship 500 metres below.
Over the years, The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children - GAMCOTRAP has been engaged in consistent grassroots activism and social mobilisation through training and sensitization activities to raise consciousness of men and women on the Effects of FGM on the reproductive health rights of women and girl-children.
Roland Bankole Marke reviews 'The Candy Girl' by Marcella Camara-Macauley, a book he would recommend 'to every child around the world, and adults too'.
African women’s organizations at the national level have been mobilized to form National Working Groups to review their country’s progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action. We hope that in preparing for the Africa Regional meeting on Beijing +15 for Member States in November 2009, and for the NGO Forum and CSW 54 in 2010, each National Working Group will have a document identifying 12 key accomplishments that have been made since Beijing + 10 Review process in 2004, and 12 key areas where critical gaps remain that governments must commit to address.
More than 30,000 Angolans are stranded in transit camps after being abruptly deported from the Democratic Republic of Congo and there are growing fears of a cholera outbreak as the rainy season begins.?? The families - around two thirds of whom had official refugee status in DRC - were booted out earlier this month in retaliation for Angola expelling thousands of Congolese migrants in recent years.
In Ghana as in other countries on the continent, the Chinese are here, very visible and very busy, writes Elizabeth Ohene for the BBC. The relationship between Africa and China is a love-hate one - the love is more on the side of the governments and the hate on the side of business, civil society and the unions.
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong reviews and praises the scholarly work 'Reforming Leadership in Africa', by J. William Addai.
Reports that China is financing investments to the tune of $7bn in military-ruled Guinea in exchange for access to its resources have re-ignited western fears about Chinese activities in Africa. Portrayed as a callous grab for resources that ignores the recent killing of Guinean opposition protesters by government troops, closer analysis of the situation reveals as much about foreign perceptions of China in Africa as its does about one of the continent's most significant economic relationships.
Kenya’s government is in talks with Beijing over development of a multi-billion dollar port and transport corridor that could provide a new export route for Chinese oil in southern Sudan. The cash-strapped Kenyan government opened negotiations with Qatar over a potential $3.5bn investment in the port project late last year in return for a lease on 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops.
Activist Sipho Maseko’s total commitment to the total liberation of South Africa and the continent as a whole was driven by the values of freedom, equality, solidarity and democracy, Neville Alexander writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. Reflecting on the path South Africa has travelled post-apartheid at a memorial event for the late Maseko, Alexander exhorts the country’s citizens to put these values back at the centre of its vision, plans and behaviour as the basis of a non-racial, democratic republic.
In this week’s Pambazuka News, E.J. Minja looks at the implications of the global financial crisis for Tanzania, what could be done to minimise its negative effects and capitalise on any positive effects, and how the country needs to deal with the crisis.
Returning from a country mission in Brazil, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, presented in New York his report on the relationships between intellectual property (IP) rights and the right to food. Summarizing his analysis and recommendations, he called Members of the U.N. General Assembly to go towards seed policies that encourage innovation, promote food security and enhance agrobiodiversity at the same time.
Tradition is not an adequate justification for maintaining the practice of female circumcision in Sierra Leone – or anywhere in Africa, Joseph Kaifala writes in Pambazuka News. Both ‘obsolete’ and ‘unnecessary’, the practice runs counter to progress and the upholding of human rights, says Kaifala.
The first victims of the change in global precipitation patterns will not be people from rich, polluting nations who engage in ruinous consumption, but the poorest of the poor – such as African pastoralists who exist ‘precariously at the periphery’, Aaron Tesfaye writes in Pambazuka News. As world leaders prepare for the UN Climate Change Conference in December, Tesfaye looks at why the summit’s agenda has ‘produced serious divisions between developed and developing nations’, with one side seeking to maintain a way of life, and the other struggling to meet basic needs.
Two Somali 'pirates' captured after they attacked a Spanish fishing boat are likely to spend a long time behind bars, Agustín Velloso Santisteban writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, given that they are also poor, black and Muslim. Highlighting the struggle for survival and hardships so many Somalis face, Santisteban suggests that there are other more dangerous ‘pirates’ out there that ought to be pursued and brought to book for far worse crimes.
Jacana Media announces the publication of 'Becoming Zimbabwe', a new book edited by Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo. The book 'tracks the idea of national belonging and citizenship and explores the nature of state rule, the changing contours of the political economy, and the regional and international dimensions of the country’s history.'
South Africans must be vigilant that elements of their democratic state – especially the state security apparatus – do not return to the ‘strong-arm tactics, dirty-tricks and law-unto-themselves behaviour’ of the apartheid-era, William Gumede writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. ‘Our democratic state is supposed to be a caring one; not one that terrorises ordinary citizens, or uses the state for personal and factional gain,’ Gumede says.
Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Bill – and how you can help stop this legislation from being passed, national elections in Niger, violence in Guinea and the impact of rising sea levels on African cities are among the topics in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere.
Since 1992, the has issued policy statements, guidelines, and manuals, which help to set the normative frameworks, common standards and good practice for humanitarian community.
The IASC is now reviewing a selection of IASC products to find out:
- Are these products known?
- Are they used?
- How can they be made more accessible?
All humanitarian workers are invited to give their views on IASC products using short on-line surveys, available in English, French and Spanish. The surveys are available
This is an invitation to join the , an online initiative to bring together organisations, professionals, academics and students working in peacebuilding, development, international affairs and related fields.
The network fosters interaction between individuals and organizations around the world and currently has over 9700 members. The site is a terrific networking tool where members can find local and international partners and practitioners, share resources, read guides to careers, scholarships, internships, funding, and IT resources in the field, and exchange best practices. Discussion topics and personal blogs can be posted. The site also has a video section where members can access and view videos related to the field.
Becoming a member is fast, easy and free. Please, take a minute to visit and explore the network.
Uganda has lots of pending legislations shelved for so many years. is intended to hoodwink many Ugandans and put unrelated items before the house. There is a pressing item like ELECTORAL REFORMS which are very crucial before the general elections of 2011. Please help us as legislators to put the REAL issues on the table.
Tumaini Andrew writes to Pambazuka News on the plight of Burundian refugees in Tanzania.
Hesperian is the nonprofit publisher of , change the underlying causes of poor health. Visit our website to download our books for free.
The lack of confidence in global markets has driven some countries to push ahead with alternative food security strategies built around direct investment and bilateral relationships. State-backed investments in foreign land for food production have attracted considerable attention over the past year.
South Africa has signed a deal with the Republic of Congo that will give South African farmers access to up to 10 million hectares of farmland, the country's biggest farmers' union said. The deal, potentially one of the largest land agreements on the continent and part of Congo's plan to improve food security, will allow South African farmers to lease land for maize, soy beans, poultry and dairy cattle among other produce.
The rift between Zimbabwe’s coalition parties has spilled into the country’s polarised parliament after legislators from President Robert Mugabe’s party walked out protesting against critics of the veteran leader. Zimbabwe was plunged into a fresh crisis last week after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change started boycotting cabinet and council of ministers meetings.
The Ethiopian government has asked the international community for emergency food aid for 6.2 million people. The request came at a meeting of donors to discuss the impact of a prolonged drought affecting parts of East Africa.
The US is preparing to give Mali's army millions of dollars worth of military hardware to help them fight al-Qaeda's North African branch. Trucks, powerful communication devices and clothing are among $5m (£3m) of equipment being handed over.
Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party keeps a tight grip on power by ensuring that its political opponents stay weak but recently opposition forces have shown fresh signs of life.
On 08 October 2009, the Constitutional Court handed down its first water rights judgment. The case – Mazibuko & Others v City of Johannesburg & Others – was brought by five impoverished residents in Phiri, Soweto, on behalf of themselves, all similarly-situated residents and everyone in the public interest. The applicants challenged the City’s free basic water policy for being insufficient to meet the basic needs of large, poor, multi-dwelling households. T
Pambazuka News 453: Gay rights in Uganda: Hatred not a traditional African value
Pambazuka News 453: Gay rights in Uganda: Hatred not a traditional African value
Nearly 35 participants from UNFPA country offices in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Asia and Europe, along with partners from governments and the civil society, met here this week to reflect on the most appropriate and efficient strategies to fully engage men and boys in the promotion of gender equality and in the prevention of HIV. This consultation will inform UNFPA strategy for engaging men and boys in gender equality and HIV.
Unidentified gunmen shot and wounded three peacekeepers, two critically, from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in an attack on Saturday in the war-ravaged region on the western flank of the Sudan. The police unit came under fire near Zalingei, West Darfur, while escorting a UNAMID garbage truck. The armed men stole the police vehicle and escaped.
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said his Movement of Democratic Congress (MDC) party has "disengaged" from the unity government over the treatment of his senior aide. He said all outstanding issues of a power-sharing deal had to be dealt with before the MDC would work with Zanu-PF.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will chair a weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday without members from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party, which boycotted the unity government last week, state media reported on Sunday. Tsvangirai announced on Friday that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party would disengage from Mugabe's "dishonest and unreliable" ZANU-PF party in the country's coalition cabinet set up in February.
Almost unnoticed African universities have come together to sort out their bandwidth problems in the new era of fibre. In April 2010, European NREN Dante will start to implement with eastern Africa’s UbuntuNet Alliance, a continental network to link up African universities with plentiful bandwidth to their colleagues across the globe. On 1 November West and Central Africa will set up its own network organisation to join the process. African universities currently spend an estimated US$1.4 million and are destined to become important players in network development.
The World Bank has announced a 10-year US$215 million fund to support the countries of the Central African region in developing their high-speed telecommunications backbone infrastructure to increase the availability of high-speed Internet and reduce end-user prices. Three countries - Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) - are participating in the initial US$26.2 million phase of the Program. A further eight countries are also eligible to participate in the Program - Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé and Principe, and Sudan.
On 8 October, seven Sahrawi advocates from Western Sahara were arrested by Moroccan police at the Mohamed V Airport in Casablanca, Morocco and remain in an undisclosed location. The advocates were returning from a trip to Algeria where they visited Sahrawi refugee camps in the southwest of the country.
Incorrect use in routine practice of a World Health Organization (WHO)/UNICEF HIV screening tool for children at primary health care clinics in Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal provinces, South Africa leads to the failure of life saving interventions, Christiane Horwood and colleagues reported in a study in the September 22 2009 edition of BMC Pediatrics.