Pambazuka News 602: Playing the democracy game without progress
Pambazuka News 602: Playing the democracy game without progress
Welfare Systems are rapidly evolving in Sub-Saharan Africa, with some countries having implemented systems allowing evaluation of measures taken several decades ago. Students and researchers from Cameroon have closely examined social public policies and private sector initiatives in their country, as reports Global Voices.
On Friday 12 October, the Democratic Governance & Rights Unit (DGRU) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Sonke Gender Justice Network, lodged a formal complaint with the office of the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) calling on the CGE to investigate the lack of gender transformation in the judiciary. Research conducted by the DGRU reveals that at the Constitutional Court only two of eleven justices are women and at the Supreme Court of Appeal only seven of 24 judges are women.
As seen over and again during recurrent financial crises in both developing and advanced economies, including the recent global crisis originating in the US and Europe, financial instability and boom-bust cycles undermine all three ingredients of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection. Financial bubbles generate excessive investment which remains unutilized for an extended period even after full recovery from the ensuing financial crisis, argues this South Centre policy brief.
In a major endorsement for investment in women – the bulk of food growers in the developing world – United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food security could not be achieved without women, and that the world’s hungry also needed leaders to prioritise actions. 'Girls and women are society’s best chance to overcome hunger,' Ban told a gathering of world leaders, researchers, farmers and policy-makers at the presentation of the 2012 World Food Prize. Global leaders meeting in the midwest U.S. state of Iowa to discuss strategies to boost food production worldwide say the particularly challenging food security situation in Africa will require mobilising the continent’s best scientific minds, including those of African women.
Ten years after the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened its doors in The Hague, the United Nations Security Council held its first open discussion on the role of the court, with some nations reiterating complaints that its docket is highly politicised and has unfairly singled out African nations for censure. The ICC is the only permanent international court with a mandate to prosecute individuals accused of the most heinous crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Since a spate of attacks on Côte d’Ivoire’s army and police bases in August, several civilians have been rounded up, beaten and detained for ransom, say rights groups and ex-detainees who accuse the Côte d’Ivoire Republican Forces (FRCI – also part of the army) of violation and mistreatment. In recent months, armed gangs the authorities say are suspected supporters of ousted president Laurent Gbagbo have raided military and police bases in and around the commercial capital Abidjan as well as a power station and a border post. The attack on the power station in mid-October was the first non-military target since the ambushes begun.
The imminent return of more than 35,000 Burundians from Tanzania poses major logistical challenges to aid agencies and the densely populated country they fled amid civil war almost 20 years ago. The return could degenerate into a 'humanitarian disaster' if they ignore a 31 December deadline to leave willingly and end up being deported en masse. While Burundi has absorbed more than half a million refugees since 2002, never before has it had to contend with such a large number of returnees in such a short space of time.
A research team at Oxford University in the UK is very close to determining the efficacy of their new tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. If current clinical trials are successful, it will be the first new TB vaccine in almost a century. The urgent need for a new vaccine is emphasised by research showing that extensively drug-resistant (XDR) forms of the disease are rapidly spreading. Today, most babies in the world are immunized with the old Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, first used in 1921. The leader of the Oxford research team, Helen McShane, says it saves children's lives, but beyond infancy its effects are limited.
An outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Uganda has spread to the capital Kampala after an infected woman travelled to the city and the death toll from the disease, a cousin of Ebola, climbed to five, a health official said on Monday. The latest outbreak of another haemorrhagic fever, first confirmed on Friday in Kabale district, 430 km (270 miles) southwest of Kampala, has rattled a country that only two weeks ago declared itself free of Ebola after it claimed at least 16 lives.
Sudanese rebels said they had shelled the main city in the oil-producing South Kordofan state near the border with South Sudan after coming under artillery fire from government troops, the third bout of shelling in the past two weeks. Sudan's army has been fighting SPLM-North rebels in the state since June last year, shortly before South Sudan seceded from Sudan, but the South Kordofan capital Kadugli has been mostly isolated from the fighting.
At least three people have been killed and seven more injured in fighting in the northern Libyan town of Bani Walid. The casualties come as clashes continue in the town of 85,000 residents, a former stronghold of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libyan soldiers have been fighting Gaddafi loyalists in the beseiged town for more than three weeks. But troops blame officials for not providing enough equipment or supplies to win the battle.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and INTERIGHTS have initiated a case against Egypt following its failure to address violations by army personnel against female detainees, in what has come to be known as the 'virginity tests' incident. The case, brought to the African Commission, alleges violations of the African Charter, to which Egypt is a signatory. The Commission, which sits twice a year, is expected to consider the NGOs’ request to hear the case during its upcoming session in October in Côte d’Ivoire.
Police authorities have admitted that they may have been at fault in the Marikana mine shooting, with some officers either overreacting or mistakenly shooting at protesters in response to 'friendly-fire'. In an opening statement to the inquiry into the deaths of 34 workers at South Africa's Marikana mine, police officials said that 'the response of some police officers may have been disproportionate to the danger they faced from the group of more than 200 armed protesters'.
The number of Somali refugees in a series of camps in an arid, harsh area of south-eastern Ethiopia has passed the 170,000 mark, making Dollo Ado the world's second largest refugee complex. 'Dollo Ado is now the world's biggest refugee camp after Dadaab in Kenya,' UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said, adding that although the rate of arrivals at Dollo Ado has slowed this year, people are continuing to flee conflict and insecurity in southern and central parts of Somalia. Many cite fear of harassment and forced recruitment by armed groups who control large rural areas of the country.
A new report points to the extensive violence experienced by girls attending school in Zambia. But victims rarely speak up about the abuse, and a lack of clear policies fuel the cycle of violence. Those are the main findings of a report, 'They are Destroying Our Futures' by Cornell Law School’s Avon Center for Women and Justice, which clearly outlines the extensive sexual violence against Zambian girls attending school.
A response to the HI-Virus in two HIV positive women, which enabled them to make potent antibodies that would kill most of the HIV types from around the world, has provided South African reseachers with potential clues for the development of an AIDS vaccine. The study published on Sunday in the journal, Nature Medicine, describes how a unique change in the outer covering of the virus found in two HIV infected South African women enabled them to make potent antibodies which are able to kill up to 88% of HIV types from around the world. The discovery, described as 'groundbreaking' provides an important new approach that could be useful in making an AIDS vaccine, according to the researchers.
More than a thousand people gathered in Tataouine on Sunday (October 21st) to attend the funeral of an opposition party politician, who died three days earlier in clashes with salafists. Interior Ministry Spokesperson Khaled Tarrouche said that Lotfi Nakdh died of a heart attack and there were no traces of violence on his body. While, the Nidaa Tounes ('Call of Tunisia') party, headed by former Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, insisted that he was beaten to death by pro-government demonstrators.
The 2nd All Stakeholders Conference got off to a dramatic and chaotic start in Harare on Monday, with the MDC-N leader Welshman Ncube walking out of the event, to protest the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. At the heart of his protest is the fact SADC leaders resolved at the last summit in Maputo that Ncube would be the third principal allowed to participate in GPA negotiations. But ZANU PF went against SADC and insisted Mutambara would remain the third principal to participate in government business.
An Egyptian talk-show host faces a four-month jail term after a court convicted him of insulting President Mohammed Morsi, state media reported on Monday. Tawfiq Okasha, whose show appears on his own channel, can appeal the sentence after paying 100 Egyptian pounds ($16.39) bail, a source in the court in southern Egypt said. The substance of the offending insult was not immediately available from court sources.
For decades Nigeria has failed to fix chronic electricity shortages that stifle growth and help keep millions in poverty. That is about to change, the government says, when most of the power sector is privatised by the end of the year. Its target is to increase electricity output tenfold to 40,000 megawatts by 2020, reports Reuters. Turning on the lights in a country where power cuts are a daily ordeal could push Nigeria's growth into double digits and help diversify its economy away from oil, which in 50 years has created a super-rich elite but has done little to reduce mass poverty.
Hundreds of residents of a northeastern Nigerian city were fleeing Sunday after three days of Islamist attacks that left at least 31 dead and many buildings and properties razed, witnesses said. The troubled city of Potiskum had been under security lockdown since Thursday with troops patrolling the streets and residents keeping in-doors for fear of new attacks.
African member states of the United Nations have submitted a draft resolution on ending female genital mutilation (FGM) to the UN General Assembly, in what campaigners have hailed as a landmark step to end a practice that has been inflicted on up to 140 million women and girls. FGM, which is widespread in parts of Africa and pockets of the Middle East and Asia, involves the partial or total removal of the external genitals, and in many cases the closing of the vaginal opening.
Tackling the trafficking of women is being used as an excuse to further crack down on sex work and this is leading to abuses, an activist group said at the launch of a UN report that calls for legal empowerment of sex workers and the decriminalisation of sex work. 'The unspoken purpose of the anti-trafficking movement is to end prostitution globally,' said Tracey Tully from the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW). 'Under the guise of anti-trafficking,' this movement wants to change laws on prostitution by further criminalising sex work and to deny sex workers control over their own lives, Tully told TrustLaw.
'Although the government of Uganda has made significant efforts to put in place fairly elaborate policy, legal and institutional mechanisms to address the environment[al] challenges of the gas and oil sector, the lack of capacity to implement these policies and enforce the corresponding laws has grossly undermined their effectiveness,' according to a recent Capacity Needs Assessment for the Environmental Pillar Institutions in Uganda conducted on behalf of the National Environment Management Authority by an independent consulting company with funding from the US government aid agency, USAID. Inadequate staffing levels, lack of knowledge and skills among existing staff, the absence of appropriate training institutions and chronic shortages of equipment and funds are highlighted as key weaknesses.
A new report by the World Bank's Africa's Pulse records that citizens in some African states are enduring greater extreme poverty than they were before - citing Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon. At the same time, it says, other countries on the continent, such as Guinea, Zambia, DR Congo, Ghana and Mali, are already accounting for a significant proportion of global mineral output. The report claims that, excluding South Africa (a notable exception, since it's historically been Africa's mining 'melting pot'), sub-Saharan growth is forecast soon to rise to 6% from 4.8%.
Ghana's National Coalition on Mining (NCOM) held its annual forum on 3 October 2012 at New Abirim in the country's eastern region. It was attended by an estimated 600 representatives of communities, mainly in the catchment area of the mine but also across the entire length and breadth of mining areas in Ghana. The forum took place just after citizens and farmers in the Chirano mining area presented a protest note to the Minister of Lands And Natural Resources. They demanded immediate payment of delayed compensation by Canada's Kinross Gold Corp, for the destruction of their cocoa trees seven years earlier.
Many Tunisians feel their revolution was hijacked and the current ruling party has not improved their lifestyles. There are many who will not rest until their demands are finally met. From the tenth floor restaurant of the El Hana Hotel overlooking Bourguiba Street, the stage of the Tunisian revolution, some of its intellectuals peer down. 'Don’t be too impressed by the city’s lights,' advises one. 'They’re deceptive. The alleyways aren’t so pretty.'
Two top Muslim Brotherhood officials are being investigated by Egypt’s Attorney General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud over their role in allegedly inciting President Mohamed Morsi supporters to attack female protesters around Tahrir Square. Mohamed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian are under investigation, Mahmoud said. Mahmoud himself had only the day before defied an order to step down from his position after President Morsi attempted to push him out after a court acquitted former top Hosni Mubarak officials of their role in the infamous 'Camel Battle' during the 18 days of protests that ousted his rule.
The Dutch Parliament has voted to suspend the deportation of young asylum seekers who have been in the Netherlands longer than five years at least until a new government is formed. The vote was taken during the first parliamentary sitting since elections. Earlier this year, a bill was put forward that would grant residency to refugees under 18 who had been in the Netherlands for eight years or more. There was insufficient support for the proposal in the previous parliament, but now there would be a majority.
Heavy rains that lashed South Africa's southeast left eight people dead over the weekend and caused extensive damage to property, an official said. Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown were the hardest hit, with a road linking the two towns closed to traffic after a large part of it collapsed. 'Most of the flood victims drowned, other people died in a road accidents,' said John Fobian, a spokesman for regional disaster management.
The 65-year old Yvonne Ntacyobatabara was living quietly with her husband in the southern Dutch province of Limburg when, in 2010, she was arrested on suspicion of genocide. She is accused of leading a group of young men in the mass murder of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. Her trial begins today (22 October) in a court in The Hague.
The Ethiopian government on Friday said its peace talks with the Ogaden National liberation Front (ONLF) rebel group had collapsed. The two sides started negotiations in September and further talks had been scheduled to be held in Kenya. But government representatives at the talks said the ONLF had refused to recognise the Horn of Africa country's constitution, after they demanded the rebels to adhere to Ethiopian rules.
At least six people have been killed in a firefight after gunmen attacked an army barracks in Guinea-Bissau, military sources say. They say the army repelled the pre-dawn attack just outside the capital Bissau, killing six 'rebels'. The raid is likely to further heighten tensions in the West African nation, where the military seized power in a coup in April.
The wife of Ghana's ex-leader Jerry Rawlings is shocked after being barred from contesting the December election, her spokesman has told the BBC. Nana Konadu Rawlings was chosen last weekend as the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP). She defected from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, although Mr Rawlings has not done so. The election commission said her nomination papers had not been completed before the deadline.
A gay Nigerian asylum seeker who was living in Bradford has been deported from the UK. Olamiekan Ayelokun had argued that he could not return to Nigeria because he was at risk of homophobic persecution. He had been trying to stay in the UK ever since his visa expired in 2003.
East African Environment Ministers have ended a meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to discuss a set of radical policy proposals to deal with environmental pollution, including the introduction of a pay-as-you-pollute taxes, according to a statement from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Saturday. The Ministers for Environment and Natural Resources from the IGAD region met to adopt the regional environment policy and strategy as well as the environmental assessment policy framework.
The Second Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA II) ended on Saturday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with participants urging African negotiators and researchers to step up efforts to further strengthen the role of science in the negotiations process. The two-day conference that met ahead of the Doha Climate Change Conference scheduled for December also urged developed countries to raise the level of ambition in order to set the right carbon price which would in turn encourage investment in mitigation activities.
Kenya’s independence heroes and heroines marched on the tarpaulin of a stadium on Saturday, waving the national flag during celebrations to mark Heroes Day, buoyed by a landmark legal victory against Britain for compensation for pre-independence atrocities. The elderly Kenyans pressed for compensation against the British government for illegal detention and torture during the 1952 crackdown against the Mau Mau rebellion, whose leader, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, is still buried at the Kamiti Maximum Prison.
Presidential aspirants have embraced the digital platform as they step up campaigns ahead of the General Election. They are reaching out to voters directly through social media signalling their determination to use digital technology as a new frontier in consolidating their support among voters, reports the Daily Nation.
With newspapers forced to close, journalists banned and reporters persecuted, Sudanese media professionals say that their nation’s press is in a worse state than ever. Sudan’s press has a turbulent history, with periods of rapid development interspersed with stints of harsh official repression. But, according to media professionals, the sector is currently in a dismal state, with rampant censorship and readers who have lost faith in journalists.
Reporters Without Borders has said it is deeply shocked by yesterday (21 October) evening’s attempt to murder Radio Shabelle journalist Mohamed Mohamud Turyare, who was shot four times in the chest and abdomen by two gunmen as he left a Mogadishu mosque. He was rushed to the capital’s Madina Hospital, where he underwent immediate surgery. Doctors said after the operation that his injuries no longer posed a threat to his life.
A week and a half after the station was first shut down, the International Press Institute reiterated its call for the Puntland authorities to allow Horseed FM radio to resume operations, and further called for the Puntland authorities to stop ordering the blocking of Horseed FM’s website. The executive director of Horseed Media, Mahad Mussa, told IPI from the organisation’s offices in the Netherlands that Horseed’s FM station is still off air, more than a week after its Bosaso headquarters were shut down.
A man facing trial for publishing videos critical of religions should be immediately released by the Egyptian authorities and all charges against him dropped, Amnesty International said. Alber Saber Ayad, an activist from the 2011 uprising, is charged with 'defamation of religion'. If convicted he could receive a six-year prison sentence and a fine of 500 Egyptian Pounds (US$82).
Another bombshell is about to be dropped onto South Africa’s raging political and legal battlefield and it involves one of the most contentious and emotive issues in our country - land.
Heavily armed men, believed to be state security agents, abducted two MDC-T officials in Bulawayo recently, torturing and interrogating them. They were released the next day. According to a statement from the party, Emanuel Kambarami and Andrew Vera were abducted from their homes in Mpopoma by five agents. Kambarami is the chairperson for Mpopoma, ward 9 constituency and Vera chairs the ward’s Youth Assembly.
The International Criminal Court pleaded for stronger support from the UN Security Council on to ensure states cooperate with its war crimes inquiries, complaining it had faced problems in cases on Darfur and Libya. International Criminal Court President Judge Sang-Hyun Song said the court's followup to the only two cases referred to it by the Security Council had been problematic and that some countries had refused to cooperate.
Zimbabweans are showing the evidence of having been torn in all directions in the transitional period. They have been scarred by the party political wars since the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from late 2000 onwards first posed an electoral challenge to the Zimbabwe African National Union? Patriotic Front (ZANU?PF). Zimbabweans, as represented in this stratified?random and nationally representative sample from Freedom House, are not sure it seems on what to believe and how to relate to political and economic circumstances.
South African children have equal rights under the Constitution, but the worlds into which they are born and their opportunities in life are very unequal. This was the message Katharine Hall, senior researcher at the Children’s Institute (CI) at the University of Cape Town shared at the launched the South African Child Gauge 2012, an annual review on the state of South Africa's children.
An estimated 20 million people are alive today as a direct result of tuberculosis (TB) care and control, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Report 2012. 'In the space of 17 years, 51 million people have been successfully treated and cared for according to WHO recommendations. Without that treatment, 20 million people would have died,' says Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department. 'This milestone reflects the commitment of governments to transform the fight against TB.'
President Koroma is expected to win a second term in next month's elections, but not because he has transformed the country; he has deployed clever tactics. The legacies of identity politics, violence, corruption, poverty and inequality remain.
A historic court battle is looming that will hopefully clarify for Kenyans the meaning and scope of the fundamental freedoms of expression, the media and access to information as guaranteed in the new constitution and how these rights relate to the fight against corruption.
An Ebola outbreak that has killed several people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appears to be slowing down, but health workers say there is a need for continued vigilance in order to contain the virus. 'Their last confirmed case was admitted in the MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières]/Ministry of Health Ebola ward on October 10, after two weeks with no confirmed cases,' Olimpia de la Rosa, MSF medical emergency coordinator, told IRIN in an email. 'The decrease in the number of admissions in our facility makes us think that we are on the way to contain the outbreak, but containment efforts must continue until no cases are confirmed for at least 21 days.'
Amid rising insecurity, a senior official in Kenya’s North Eastern Province has ordered all refugees and unregistered migrants from neighbouring Somalia to move to the under-resourced Dadaab refugee complex by 20 October or face forced relocation. Garissa County Commissioner Mohamed Maalim, who chairs the county’s security committee, said the order - publicly announced on 6 October - applied to all 'Somali refugees and aliens in towns and trading centres' in the region.
This article on the Transparency International explores the connections between land, corruption and climate change. 'Transparency International Kenya has three Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres, which give free and confidential legal counsel to victims or witnesses of corruption. Around a quarter of the cases received at our centre in Mombasa relate to land, totalling 58 since September 2011.'
Journalist George Borteh, the Acting Vice President of the Judicial Reporters Association of Liberia (JURAL) and a reporter for The New Republic newspaper, was thrown in prison on 12 October, 2012, after taking a photo of Police Director Chris Massaquoi at the Temple of Justice in Monrovia. Borteh was detained for more than three hours. Massaquoi was offended by the action of the journalist. He questioned Borteh as to why he took his photo and the journalist replied by saying: 'You are a public figure on public grounds and I am taking [a] picture for record['s] sake.'
As part of its contribution to issues-based campaigns towards the December polls, the Economic Justice Network (EJN) has stated it is of the view that transforming agriculture and tackling the production and marketing constraints of small scale farmers, men and women, in rural Ghana, where all the problems of poverty are sharply experienced should be one of the topical issues as the country heads towards the December polls.
Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by a recent wave of arrests of journalists in Zimbabwe and urges the authorities to stop trying to intimidate independent privately-owned media and to take measures against those responsible for physical attacks on reporters. 'This sudden wave of lawsuits and incidents involving the police does not bode well for the coming months,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'Journalists must be guaranteed the freedom to cover political stories without fear of abusive criminal prosecutions. We are very worried about the judicial harassment of independent journalists and media in the past few weeks.'
The Makause Creative Youth Brigade (MCYB) and the Makause Community Development Forum (Macodefo) are organising a march on Friday, 19 October 2012 against police brutality at Primrose Police Station (near Germiston in Ekurhuleni). The march forms part of the ‘One Makause, One Community Police Brutality Campaign’ under the Asihambi Land, Housing & Zero Evictions Campaign.
Date: Friday, 19th October 2012
Time: 12h30 pm
Venue: People will congregate at the Makause Sports Ground at the Makause Informal Settlement in Primrose and proceed to the Primrose Police Station to hand over a Memorandum to the Primrose SAPS.
The Makause community is uniting for a better, safer and crime-free kasi and demands:
· an end to police brutality
· an end to forced bribery/corruption
· proper investigation of un-attended to cases of crime
· an end to police politics and support of mob groups
· arrest of the mob group that attacked the Macodefo leadership and
destroyed the community office
· an urgent response to reported crimes.
This march to Primrose Police Station is to say:
* Enough is Enough!
* Never and Never Again!
* An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
* Makause Cannot Be Divided by the Police!
* We Have a Right to Survive/Life!
* We Have the Right to Organize, Gather, Assemble, Picket & Demonstrate!
For more information contact:
General Moyo: 073 430 7006 / [email][email protected]
Michael Dzai: 083 5023863
The latest assessment of governance in Nigeria paints a gloomy picture of the African giant. It is not that Nigerians do not know their own problems; they must now step up and stop national decay.
It took the International Criminal Court ten years to convict and sentence its first offender. As it enters its second decade, is it an impartial court or are some governments manipulating the ICC to investigate cases against rival opposition groups?
The Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno State has disclosed that it killed 24 suspected Boko Haram members in different parts of Maiduguri metropolis on Monday night during series of encounters with its personnel. Similarly, no fewer than 25 persons were killed and properties worth millions of naira destroyed in a renewed attack by Fulani herdsmen against residents of Yogbo in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State on Sunday. Among those killed were children and women.
The UN feeds AMISOM’s troops, the EU pays them and the US and Italy pay Somali troops. The US, though, is the biggest single financial contributor. 'The Americans have supported the training of our troops here, in Uganda and in Burundi, and largely they sponsor it,' said one source in this Washington Post article. The US insists AMISOM is not the West’s proxy. 'AMISOM is an African peacekeeping force responding to an African crisis,' says the top US official on Somalia, James Swan.
With few career options, Sudanese women are increasingly building up their own businesses from scratch - earning themselves financial benefits and freedom. Many women are trying out their chances in the informal economy, which offers them flexible working hours as well as an opportunity to try out their creative new business ideas. Often their customers are women, especially educated or working women.
Rwanda's defense minister is commanding a rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that is being armed by Rwanda and Uganda, both of which sent troops to aid the insurgency in a deadly attack on UN peacekeepers, according to a UN report. The UN Security Council's Group of Experts said in a confidential report that Rwanda and Uganda - despite their strong denials - continued to support M23 rebels in their six-month fight against Congolese government troops in North Kivu province. 'Both Rwanda and Uganda have been supporting M23,' said the 44-page report, which was seen by Reuters.
Nigerian security forces deployed to quell the Boko Haram menace in Maiduguri have denied engaging in extra-judicial killing of unarmed civilians. Local people should expose the militants among them so that the government can withdraw the troops.
A Moroccan court has jailed an activist with the February 20 protest movement for 12 years for taking part in an unauthorised demonstration, a human rights group said, slamming the ruling as an act of vengeance. The charges against Bashir Benshaib, 32, who was sentenced by an appeals court in Al-Hoceima, included blocking a road, theft, aggression and drug dealing, Faisal Ousser of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) told AFP.
A generation of leaders who won their spurs during Algeria's 1954-62 independence war against France remains in power, having defeated a violent challenge by armed Islamists in the 1990s and, at least for now, seen off the rebellious spirit that toppled Arab autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya last year. Among the old guard is President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 75, who has served three terms and is thought unlikely to seek a fourth, if only for undisclosed health reasons. But with a presidential election due in 2014 there is no clarity on who might take over Africa's biggest country, an OPEC oil producer which supplies a fifth of Europe's gas imports and cooperates with the West in combating al Qaeda-style militancy.
Tunisian journalists went on strike on Wednesday, after months of rising tensions with the Islamist-led government, which is accused of curbing press freedom and seeking to control public media groups. The strike was widely observed at those press groups at the heart of the controversy that has gripped Tunisia since the summer, with staff accusing the ruling coalition of manipulating editorial content by appointing loyal directors.
The Swaziland House of Assembly has reversed its vote of no-confidence in the government, amid great controversy. On Monday (15 October 2012) after an eight-hour debate members rescinded a vote that had taken place two weeks earlier. That vote, by a three-fifths majority of members of the House, was enough to force the cabinet to resign, in line with Section 68 (5) of the Swazi Constitution. The first vote had cause a political crisis because the government, led by Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini, refused to resign and King Mswati III did not sack him, as he is required to do under the Constitution.
‘We are victims of an imperialist war to rob our land, belongings and our dignity as a people’.
It is often assumed, erroneously, that fundamentalists represent and defend the ‘real Islam’. Yet in Africa and around the world there are courageous dissenters who stand up to extremists at great personal risk.
Love Mathobela was born in South Africa and has lived most of her life here, but she is not yet recognised as a citizen. 'I had a birth certificate and South African passport which my father had obtained for me using his forged South African identity documents he acquired when he came to South Africa 22 years ago. During the 2010 Special Dispensation for Zimbabwean Nationals, my father gave away his forged identity documents including mine as requested by the law.'
With the first-ever Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) report on the status of the Nile River, the situation between Egypt and Ethiopia and the angst between the two foes finally has some statistics and analysis to deal with. However, it is unlikely to see any changes in the current policies that have both countries eying future water resources along the world’s longest river. Top Ethiopia government officials have told Bikyamasr.com that they are looking at jumpstarting the massive Renaissance Dam project along the Nile River in an effort to increase water resources and energy for the East African country. The move could threaten the regional stability.
Uganda should deploy oil revenues to create universal old age pensions and universal health insurance to make a more humane society. This would be a real investment in the future of the nation. So says Dr. Ezra Suruma, Uganda’s former Minister of Finance, in this exclusive interview with Oil in Uganda. He accepts that it will be prudent to place some of the revenues in an Investment Fund - because too much money flowing too fast into the general budget would be difficult to absorb. But, he argues, all Ugandan citizens should become individual shareholders in the Investment Fund, in order to ensure that each and every citizen benefits directly through annual dividends - and also to create citizen-shareholder pressure for transparent and corruption-free management of the funds.
Malawi has opened up negotiations on the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, which have been deadlocked since 2002. The new round of negotiations may see President Joyce Banda’s administration change the status quo and sign the free trade agreement. 'We have opened up negotiations and consultations on EPAs. We can’t ignore the issue anymore like the previous administration, and President Banda will pay attention to this,' said the country’s trade minister John Bande.
Raheli Philipo Kilaye is a Maasai woman. She lives in Longido, a village in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border. For many years, collecting and selling firewood was this 37-year-old woman’s only source of income. Every third day, she walked 12 hours to collect two bundles of firewood from the bush, which she would carry to town on her back to sell in the market. If she sold the firewood, she earned 3000 Tanzanian shillings, about two dollars. But this arduous and unrewarding work is now just a bad memory. A year ago Mrs. Kilaye enrolled in a school for adult learners in Longido, where she is studying English, Swahili and mathematics.
Janet Otieno, a Nairobi-based journalist, writes that xenophobia seems to be steadily taking root in Africa’s newest nation, as the hosts growingly perceive foreigners are encroaching on their territory and taking up their jobs. Even humanitarian workers are not spared in a country where civilians still possess firearms given proper disarmament is yet to be carried out since a bloody civil war ended.
Riots erupted in Zanzibar’s Stone Town and Tanzania’s commercial city of Dar es Salaam Wednesday following the arrest and disappearance of Muslim clerics. According to information posted by the US Embassy in Tanzania on its website, there have been roadblocks, tyre burning, rock throwing and rioting in Darajani, Mbuyuni and Kisonge in Zanzibar following the disappearance of Sheikh Farid Haji.
The author of the controversial book on President Museveni titled 'The Correct Line? Uganda under Museveni', has been summoned by the High Court in Kampala, and ordered to file her defence in response to a defamation suit filed against her by a UPDF officer Lt. Col. Atwooki Ndahura. In the summons dated October 15, 2012, issued by registrar Festo Nsenga, Dr Olive Kobusingye has been ordered to file her defence within 15 days, lest judgement is passed in her absence. 'Should you fail to file a defence, the plaintiff shall proceed in the suit and judgement entered in your absence,' the order states.
Clarisse Kimbi barely ekes out a living from a tiny parcel of land in Kom village in the North West Region of Cameroon. Today, the mother of six finds it hard to put food on the table for herself and her children. But five years ago she, her husband and children were considered well-off. In 2007, farming on five hectares of land, Kimbi could comfortably feed her family, and still have enough surplus food to sell. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, her family was counted among the wealthy. But things changed when her husband died five years ago. Almost everything was taken away from her and her children.
This analysis of the Constitutional Draft seeks to examine the document from the perspective of what it provides in terms of protection and/or advancement of women’s rights and position in Zimbabwean society. The analysis will address both the process leading up to the compilation of the Constitutional Draft as well as its contents.
Malawi's President Joyce Banda has asked the African Union to intervene in the country's border dispute with Tanzania, state media has reported. The southern African nation broke off talks with Tanzania earlier this month over the border on Lake Malawi, which is potentially rich in oil and gas. Malawi disputes Tanzania's claim to half the lake - Africa's third biggest.
New evidence implicates Libyan militias in an apparent execution of dozens of detainees in rebel custody following the capture and death of Muammar Gaddafi last year, a watchdog has said. In a report released detailing Gaddafi's final hours on October 20, 2011, Human Rights Watch said it had gathered evidence that Misrata-based militias captured and disarmed members of the dictator's convoy and subjected them to brutal beatings.
In this submission, ARTICLE 19 outlines its concerns that, over the last four years, there has been an escalation in violations of the right to freedom of expression and information, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Djibouti.
The latest IMF World Economic Outlook is causing quite a stir, states this article. It contains a three page text box basically saying that the IMF, together with other international institutions such as the OECD and the European Commission, has heavily underestimated the impact of fiscal austerity on economic activity. By thinking that fiscal cuts would only have a relatively minor impact on economic activity, governments were given bad advice and were pushed into policies administering overdoses of austerity.
Pambazuka News 601: Libya's unending war, US in Africa and Uganda at 50
Pambazuka News 601: Libya's unending war, US in Africa and Uganda at 50
The Pan African Parliament (PAP), now in its third five-year term in Midrand near Johannesburg, is urging the continent's leaders to start taking it seriously by giving it the powers to do the real work of legislation and oversight that it was created to do. The continental institution, created as part of the African Rennaisance vision, has been little more than a talk shop since its inception in 2004.
Countries where people lack adequate access to land rights, water and energy - are among the worst performers in the annual Global Hunger Index (GHI). 'We find there is a definite correlation between these resources and food insecurity,' said Claudia Ringler, a co-author of this year’s GHI study, which was produced jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the NGOs Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
Four farmers whose farmlands were washed away by the flood that has ravaged Nigeria's central Kogi state, among other states, have committed suicide, the local media reported Monday. The reports quoted President Goodluck Jonathan as making the revelation during a tour of the camps for those displaced by the flood in his home state of Bayelsa.
Francophone Africa is not as involved in the fight against AIDS as the rest of the continent, according to a report presented in Kinshasa, on the sidelines of the 14th Summit of the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF) holding in the Congolese capital. The report notes that 43 per cent of people with AIDS have access to treatment in francophone countries, against 59 per cent in the English-speaking countries. Nearly 50,000 children are born each year with HIV in francophone Africa, the report said, noting that 60 percent of them are in DR Congo alone.
Ghana’s former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, was on Saturday endorsed as the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP) as she continued pushing her ambition to lead the West African state where she was first lady for 19 years. Her breakaway party, formed in May following her humiliating defeat by the late President John Evans Atta Mills at the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) primaries last year, endorsed her by popular acclamation at its maiden national delegates’ congress Kumasi, central Ghana.
Ghana says it takes strong exception to the contents of the purported United Nations Group of Experts report on Cote d’Ivoire, which was prematurely leaked to the media. The state-owned Graphic on Saturday quoted a statement signed by Mr Chris Kpodo, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, as saying it was grossly abnormal for such a report to appear in the public domain before it was received by the Security Council Sanctions Committee, which was scheduled to meet to receive the report on 12 October. 'The Government of Ghana, therefore, takes strong exception to the contents and leakage as it sought to give credence to repeated allegations that Ghana is being used as a base by Ivorian refugees and exiles to destabilise the Ivorian Government.'
A documentary on Zambian copper mining and its negative impact on society has emerged on YouTube and has so far attracted over 6,000 hits. The clip 'Zambia: Good Copper, Bad Copper' was first reported in the blogosphere by the Zambian Economist. Global Voices reports on the reactions.
Earlier this year it was reported that the Zambian government had released K5 billion or US$1 million to send police and security staff abroad to learn to hack websites. In April, Zambian Watchdog listed several measures taken by the government to crackdown on Internet users in Zambia. Global Voices Online reports on the story.
Loud explosions and gunfire have rocked Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri, which has seen growing violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Details are unclear, but reports said at least 10 people had been killed, including several soldiers. A primary school and a radio tower were reportedly set ablaze.
Over 56 million young people in sub-Saharan Africa have not completed primary school and lack basic skills for employment, according to a report. These young people are aged between 15 and 24. The African leg of the UN Global Monitoring Report on Education was released by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Soweto.
The town of An Nahud in southwestern Kordofan yesterday mass demonstrations organized by students of the University of Western Kordofan because of power outages in the city, the deterioration of basic services and the high cost of living. Multiple sources in the area reported that the demonstrations in An Nahud kicked off Monday morning with crowds of students denouncing the regime. The demonstration came after power outages in the town for nine days in a row everywhere except at the homes of the commissioner, emir and head of the security service.
Sudanese security forces burned and looted a village in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan state in May and filmed the attack, a monitoring group said on Tuesday, providing satellite images, cell phone video and witness accounts to back its claims. The Satellite Sentinel Project, whose founders include Hollywood actor George Clooney and the Enough Project, said a joint unit of Sudanese police known as Abu Tira, the Sudan Armed Forces and the Popular Defense Forces militia attacked Gardud al Badry on May 18 and then bombarded it with artillery on July 29.
Developed by the GBV Prevention Network in collaboration with over 100 Network members, 'In Her Shoes' is an interactive, educational tool that raises awareness about the day-to-day reality for women experiencing violence and encourages activism among service providers and community members. By 'walking in the shoes' of survivors, participants gain powerful insight into the many obstacles women face as a result of violence. Click on the URL provided to download in English or Swahili or to find out more.
The Civil Society Associations Gambia (CSAG) has filed an application against the government at the ECOWAS Court of Justice regarding the West African country’s 38 death row inmates at Mile 2 Central Prisons. Banka Manneh, chairman of the CSAG, made the announcement in a statement released by the West African bloc ECOWAS on Monday in the Nigerian capital Abuja. The group accused the Gambian government of violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Customary International law.
After 20 long years of negotiations on a proposed expansion of the Security Council, African countries continue to be left out in the cold – even as African leaders complain that the international community has failed to respond to their demands for two permanent seats in the most powerful body at the United Nations.