Pambazuka News 556: G20 summit: Under the shadow of Occupy Wall Street movement
Pambazuka News 556: G20 summit: Under the shadow of Occupy Wall Street movement
Zimbabwe police Tuesday 01 November raided Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party headquarters, fired tear gas at staff and beat up people in the central business district, witnesses said. Police 'blocked Harvest House (MDC headquarters) staff from leaving, but also threw tear gas at them. This is a deliberate attempt by the police to harass and decimate the MDC,' Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told AFP.
Education is priority number one in Tanzania: the education budget has grown, primary school enrolment is close to universal, and secondary school enrolment is expanding fast. But, writes Rakesh Rajani, head of Twaweza, a ten-year initiative to promote citizen agency and improved service delivery in East Africa, millions of children are not learning. 'According to the large-scale and independent Uwezo Survey, 7 out of every 10 children in Grade 3 cannot read Swahili at their level, 8 out of 10 cannot do math and 9 out of 10 cannot read English. Even after seven years, when they have completed primary schooling, half the children cannot read Grade 2-level English.' So, after 50-odd years of advice and studies and reforms and programmes, why have the experts not managed to deliver a system where children are learning?
At a recent conference on statelessness and gender discrimination organised by Refugees International (RI) at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), international human rights advocates urged countries around the world to take action on issues of statelessness, a legally invisible status that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonia Guterres, said is 'probably the most forgotten global human rights problem in today's international agenda'. According to RI, about 12 million people worldwide lack effective citizenship, a status that deprives them of rights such as legal representation, identity documents, and access to public schools. And in many countries, discrimination against women in nationality laws aggravate or actively create statelessness.
Kenya’s war against the Al-Shabaab militia has received support from the European Union, the US, Canada, Turkey, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Gulf Cooperation, who met Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his Somali counterpart Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and expressed their support for the military operation.
The number of people living with HIV in Egypt is estimated to be 11,000 people, but some say the number must be much higher. 'The stigma around the disease causes fear and mistrust, so people don’t end up getting proper info or receiving already available services such as testing and counseling,' writes Ahmed Awadalla on the blog He refers to a report that shows stigma and discrimination is rife in different sectors. 'It comes from healthcare providers, the government, the media, the workplace, religious leaders, and sadly family and friends.'
Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka has said 'tougher times were still ahead' for Uganda. Her statement comes on the back of rising inflation which currently stands at 30.5 per cent up from 28.3 per cent in September. The high inflation trend has reduced real incomes and increased the costs of living and doing businesses in Uganda.
'The car is ready,' exclaimed Mr Paul Isaac Musasizi, the project manager of the Vehicle Design Mission at Makerere University, which has produced Uganda’s first electric car. The Kiira EV was tested for road and drive performance, ability to climb steep areas and ability to pick up speed, among other parameters. The making of Kiira EV started in August 2009 with a handful of students at the College of Engineering Art and Design, formerly the Faculty of Technology.
This paper from the Governance and Aids Programme at Idasa examines the role that local government might play in promoting food security for people living with HIV in a democratic governance context. It examines local government's role in food security through interviews with local councillors in the Tshwane area.
The Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) commissioned investigations on the 'land grab' in South Sudan which culminated into a 48-page dossier dubbed 'The New Frontier'. The dossier reveals that in the period 2007 to 2010 'foreign interests sought or acquired a total of 2.64 million hectares of land (6.52 million acres) in the agriculture, forestry and biofuel sectors alone'. According to the report’s author David Kuol Mading: 'That is a larger land area than the entire country of Rwanda,' said the report’s author, David Kuol Mading.
The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement. The guidelines, in the making for several years, were sparked by fears that a 'land rush' is leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses. More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis. Once in place, the United Nations’s Committee on World Food Security guidelines are meant to protect people, mainly in poor countries such as Sierra Leone, from 'land grabbing'.
Bribing public officials when doing business abroad is a regular occurrence, and companies from Russia and China, which invested US$120 billion overseas in 2010, are seen as most likely to pay bribes abroad, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Bribe Payers Index. The index, which involves a survey of 3,000 business executives from developed and developing countries, also shows that companies from the Netherlands and Switzerland are seen as least likely to bribe.
The World Bank has approved $250 million in funding for South African power utility Eskom to develop a wind and solar plant as part of a push to boost sources of clean energy. The World Bank said the funding through its Clean Technology Fund will finance a 100-megawatt solar power plant in Upington in the Northern Cape province and a 100-megawatt wind power project at Sere, north of Cape Town. 'The loan will help Eskom to implement two of the largest renewable energy projects ever attempted on the African continent,' the bank said in a statement.
A tribunal in Nigeria has rejected an attempt by the opposition to declare President Goodluck Jonathan's victory in April's election fraudulent. The result triggered violence in northern strongholds of defeated opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari after he rejected the result. But the judge said Mr Jonathan won the election lawfully. Mr Jonathan, a southerner, obtained 59 per cent of the vote, while Mr Buhari got 32 per cent.
The International Labour Organisation has warned that a jobs crisis caused by the slowdown in the global economy threatens a wave of widespread social unrest engulfing both rich and poor countries. 'We have reached the moment of truth,' said Raymond Torres, director of the ILO International Institute for Labour Studies to mark the publication of the organisation's World of Work report. In a new 'social unrest' index, the ILO said there was growing unhappiness over the lack of jobs and anger over perceptions that the burden of the crisis is not being shared fairly. It noted that in over 45 of the 118 countries examined, the risk of social unrest is rising, with particular signs of tension in the EU, the Arab region and to a lesser extent Asia.
Mountains of hazardous waste grow by about 40 million tons every year. This waste, mostly from Europe and North America, is burned in developing countries like Ghana in a hazardous effort to recover valuable metals. A children's school in Accra, Ghana's capital, was recently found to be contaminated by lead, cadmium and other health-threatening pollutants at levels over 50 times higher than risk-free levels. The school is located directly beside an informal electronic waste salvage site.
As concerns deepen about the quality of education in Zimbabwe, parents can expect an indefinite extension of subsidising teacher salaries as the cash- strapped government struggles to meet the bloated civil service wage bill. Teacher incentives - a stipulated amount of usually between two to five dollars, which is paid by parents directly to teachers on a monthly basis - were introduced two years ago by the government to supplement teacher salaries. But many parents say the situation has become untenable and that they can no longer afford to contribute to teachers' salaries.
Several major new dams are being constructed on the Niger River. The new dams not only raise ecological concerns, but are also provoking difficult negotiations over equitably sharing the resources of a river basin that extends over two million square kilometres. 'There are nine countries in the Niger basin, but their interests are divergent. There are certain countries - such as Mali and Niger - which don't want any dams constructed upstream,' said Bi Tozan N'Guessan, an expert at the Côte d'Ivoire Water Ministry.
Swaziland’s economic crisis has forced the government to put on ice the agricultural input scheme that has made the survival of many subsistence farmers and their families less precarious on communal Swazi Nation Land, where 70 per cent of the 1.1 million population live. 'There is no seed subsidizing now. We used to do it, and we are talking about reviving the programme,' Xoxile Nxumalo, of the agriculture ministry, told IRIN. Under the Swazi Agricultural Development Programme, seeds were sold at a discount or provided free of charge to subsistence farmers working on communal land.
The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries has warned of an alarming resurgence of the use of mercenaries in armed conflict –'often in new and novel ways'. The expert panel also noted in a report to the UN General Assembly that the growing activities of private military and security companies raise numerous human rights challenges, and called for international regulation. 'Recent events in Africa clearly demonstrate that the problems posed by mercenaries are still a live issue,' said Ms. Faiza Patel, who currently heads the Working Group. 'Mercenaries pose a threat not only to security, but also to human rights and potentially to the right of peoples to self determination. It is crucial that States cooperate to eliminate this phenomenon.'
The global diamonds watchdog, the Kimberley Process, has cleared Zimbabwe to sell alluvial diamonds from the controversial Marange fields, despite documented evidence that top military and political chefs are involved in massive looting and that human rights abuses continue.
The tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho is to harness the power of wind and water in a $15-billion green energy project, the biggest of its kind in Africa. The Lesotho highlands power project (LHPP) will generate 6,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power and 4,000MW of hydropower, equivalent to about 5 per cent of South Africa's electricity needs.
The United States said on Monday 31 October it had stopped funding Unesco, the United Nations' cultural agency, following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership. US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters the US had no choice but to halt funding because of longstanding US law, saying Washington would not make a planned $60-million transfer that was due in November. The United States provides about 22 per cent of Unesco's funding.
A $430-million fund which will give Zimbabwean children and pregnant women free medical care at public hospitals was launched on Monday with the help of the European Union and Unicef. 'The issue of user fees is one of the biggest barriers to poor women and children's access to life-saving and critical health care in Zimbabwe,' said Peter Salama, the Unicef country representative. The Zimbabwe health care system, which has collapsed from years of economic crisis, requires $436-million over the next five years to improve capacity, particularly the delivery of maternal care, according to Unicef.
Ugandan police released opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Monday 31 October, hours after detaining him for the second time in a month, but warned they would keep seizing him if he tried again to take part in protests against surging prices. Besigye was mobbed by supporters after he walked free from the Kasangati police station on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala, and drove off in his car, a Reuters witness said.
Trade unions in Swaziland said on Monday 31 October they had been forced to call off mass demonstrations planned for the week after the government obtained a court order blocking them. Unions had called the strike to draw attention to a three-month paralysis of the country's courts, which lawyers have been boycotting in protest at the dismissal of a top judge accused of insulting King Mswati III.
The 18-year-old Angolan youth who faces deportation despite having lived in the Netherlands since 2003, has made an emotional appeal to MPs to be allowed to stay. MPs will vote on whether Mauro Manuel, who has lived with the same foster family in Limburg since arriving as an unaccompanied refugee aged 10, can stay. The Christian Democratic party, which first supported Mauro and later changed its mind following pressure from immigration minister Gerd Leers, holds the key to his future.
Authorities in the Angolan enclave of Cabinda should take all steps necessary to ensure the safety of independent journalist José Manuel Gimbi, the Committee to Protect Journalists said following reports that unidentified armed men raided Gimbi's residence and threatened to harm him. Gimbi, a local correspondent for US Government-funded international broadcaster Voice of America, is one of only two independent journalists based in Cabinda, a region holding most of Angola's oil wealth which is contested by armed separatists and the government.
Zambia's newly elected President Michael Sata has outlined plans to review the higher education sector as well as establish three new universities, to fulfil his election manifesto. Job creation for higher education graduates would also be prioritised. Sata, who came to power last month after defeating former president Rupiah Banda, said he also had plans for the establishment of universities and technical colleges in each of the country's nine provinces and intended rehabilitating existing institutions. Staff recruitment would be scaled up to meet demand in these institutions.
Zambia’s President Michael Sata has threatened to dissolve the newly-elected Parliament and call fresh general elections if opposition MPs continue shooting down his government’s motions. This was after opposition MPs voted against the new government’s nominees to sit on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Zambia has a hung Parliament, where two major political parties neither have absolute majority seats. President Sata’s governing Patriotic Front (PF) has 60 elected and eight nominated legislators totalling 68 - short of a two-thirds majority - in a 158-member National Assembly, which still has three vacant seats.
Botswana should decriminalise homosexuality and prostitution to prevent the spread of HIV, ex-President Festus Mogae has told the BBC. Mogae, who heads the Botswana government-backed Aids Council, said it was difficult to promote safe sex when the two practices were illegal. A government spokesman on HIV/Aids told the BBC homosexuality and prostitution would remain illlegal until the government concluded wide-ranging consultations to see whether there was a need to change the law.
The African Development Bank (ADB) has proposed Egypt with a loan valued at US$1.4 billion dollars. US$550 million of the US $1.4 billion loan has already been allocated to the Steam Power Station of the Suez for the purposes of an electrical production project. The project is one of 12 projects that will be discussed by Karebuka during his three-day visit with Egyptian officials. The loan offer comes at a time in which the post-revolutionary Egyptian economy is strife with turmoil.
A few thousand Egyptians marched through the streets of downtown Cairo in a protest against military tribunals and solidarity for a jailed blogger on 31 October. The march started at Talaat Harb Square and went through busy streets all the way to the prison where prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah is being held for 15 days under investigation.
The occupy movement is spreading, and in more ways than one, says this article from which notes that environmentalists and climate campaigners have linked up with Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. 'The coming together of the two movements is a good sign because there is no way out of our ecological crises as long as the world’s richest 1 per cent keep control over the economy and our political systems.'
The first international farmers’ conference, whose objective is to strengthen the fight against land grabs in Africa and other parts of the world, will be held in Sélingué from 17 to 19 November 2011, and will bring together almost 200 farmers affected by land grabs as well as numerous other participants, including researchers, political figures, and NGOs resisting the unprecedented land-grab offensive by large businesses and hedge funds, among others, that compromises the ability of people to feed themselves.
The team drafting the constitution, the Constitution Select Committee (Copac) has said that the final phase of the drafting process will start next month. Copac co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana said that the document would be put to a referendum early next year, paving the way for harmonised elections.
Three members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change who were last week charged with treason in connection with walk to work have been further remanded to Luzira Maximum Security Prison. The FDC women leader Ms Ingrid Kamateneti Turinawe along with Sam Mugumya, the political assistant to Dr Kizza Besigye and Mr Francis Mwijukye who heads the FDC youth wing appeared Monday 31 October at Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court before Mr Charles Sserubuga. The trio were produced in court for mention of their case but court remanded them until 14 November.
Senegalese musician Baaba Maal has put his voice behind the 99 per cent figure cited as demanding justice in the Occupy Movement. But, the post notes, 'BTW, Maal could have added that Africans have been going on about global Apartheid for a while. If you take the anti-privatization social movements of the early 2000s in South Africa, the role of activists like Dennis Brutus, the various World Social Forum meetings held in Dakar last year and Nairobi before that, the AIDS movement, the films of Abdourahmane Sissako (‘Bamako‘) or the protests against Shell in Nigeria, etcetera.'
Hundreds of SPLM-North fighters were killed in clashes with the Sudanese army in South Kordofan state, local governor Ahmed Haroun said. 'Several hundred members of the movement were killed this day in an assault on the city of Teludi that was repelled by the armed forces,' the governor of South Kordofan, an oil-producing state and scene of frequent clashes, said. An army spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, said 'this morning more than 700 rebel fighters together with 12 officers tried to attack Teludi (east of the provincial capital Kadugli) to occupy it'.
A website has been launched to promote transparency in the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector, which is plagued by conflict and corruption. The Carter Center said it helped launch congomines.org to give people more information about the mining sector, including contracts and payments. Hundreds of mining documents and maps will be published on the site, it said.
At least five people, including three children, have died after a refugee camp in southern Somalia was bombed, the MSF charity says. Kenya's army denied bombing the camp, saying it had been attacked by the militant Islamist group, al-Shabab. A Kenya fighter jet only hit al-Shabab positions in Jilib, killing 10 of its fighters, an army spokesman said.
Pambazuka News 555: Durban climate change conference: Africa demands equity and justice
Pambazuka News 555: Durban climate change conference: Africa demands equity and justice
As the world heads for the next climate change meeting, the politics around climate change negotiations is getting more complex and murky as rich countries dig in their heels to preserve their economic competitiveness, writes Lim Li Lin.
The next major global climate change negotiations will take place in Durban, South Africa between November and December 2011, but the politics that sidelines developing regions of the world from shaping final agreements remains unchanged, writes Hewa Nzuri.
As the international climate change negotiations intensify in the run up to the Durban, South Africa COP 17, developed countries are pushing hard to destroy some of the UN processes and measures that could save the Earth from the brink, writes Lim Li Lin.
Climate change is already exacting a toll on populations and species around the world. Responses to the phenomenon must, however, be based not solely on economics but also science and the equity issue, writes Hewa Nzuri.
cc FairPhoneClimate change is set to intensify, resulting in a rising number of conflicts around the extraction and export of Africa’s natural resources to feed the industries of the historically biggest polluters in the industrialised north, writes Godwin Uyi Ojo.
Africa remains at the mercy of a self-interested international ruling class interested purely in maximising profit at all costs and consolidating its position, writes Yash Tandon. As the continent faces up to the enormous challenge of climate change and the creation of a sustainable ‘green economy’, it must look inwards and draw upon its own expertise and resources and resist the temptation to rely on compromised external ‘experts’, Tandon stresses.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP 17) takes place in Durban in late November. At stake is whether the world can agree to a global deal that will tackle climate change. Introducing this joint special issue of African Agenda, a publication of Third World Network-Africa, and Pambazuka News, Tetteh Hormeku from TWN-Africa calls for a set of decisions that address issues of equity and justice.
The build-up to the final United Nations Convention on Climate Change meeting in 2011 has been fractious and combative even as many countries grapple with negative impacts of climate change. Durban may not save the world, writes Kwesi W. Obeng.
It’s unlikely we’ll get ‘an equitable outcome’ from COP17, but it will be ‘a great moment to intensify campaigns against the business-as-usual manner’ in which climate negotiations have been conducted so far, writes Nnimmo Bassey.
In the run-up to the UN’s Rio+20 meeting next year and the Durban Conference of the Parties in November, ETC Group’s new book reveals ‘information that the large corporations who profit from climate change do not want the public to know.’
In an extract from his forthcoming book, Nnimmo Bassey provides a glimpse into the links between exploitative natural resource extraction, ecological destruction and conflict in Africa. ‘What can Africa do? And once our peoples decide, can the rest of the world act in solidarity?’ Bassey asks.
Pambazuka News 554: After Gaddafi: Intervention and imperialism in Africa
Pambazuka News 554: After Gaddafi: Intervention and imperialism in Africa
Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been to Cairo’s notorious C28 military prosecution headquarters to face charges of incitement to violence in the violent 9 October Maspero clashes between Coptic-Christian protesters and military police. Abdel Fattah, who rejects the notion of civilians being tried by military courts, has refused to be interrogated by military prosecutors as a matter of principle. He has also vociferously criticised the idea that the military prosecution should investigate the Maspero clashes, in which military police were directly involved.
The White House has confirmed that the US military has unmanned drone aircraft in Ethiopia but says no strike missions are being launched from the east African country. The White House confirmed the drone flights out of an airfield in the city of Arba Minch after the Washington Post newspaper first reported the operation. The Post, citing unnamed officials, reported that the MQ-9 Reaper drones flying out of Arba Minch were armed, but the US government on Friday denied that they were.
In an extraordinary move, President Michael Sata has apologised to the government of Angola for what he said was Zambia's 'treachery' through its support of the rebel Unita movement of Dr Jonas Savimbi during the Angolan civil war. The apology came as Sata received the credentials of the new Angolan ambassador last week and was the first time Zambia had admitted to its part in the Angolan civil war. Subsequently, Sata sent Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, to deliver the apology in Luanda.
Kenya has received the support of Rwanda and South Africa for its action in Somalia during separate meetings here between President Mwai Kibaki and Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Jacob Zuma of South Africa. The three leaders, who met in Perth, were in the capital of Western Australia to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) held from Friday to Sunday. President Kibaki briefed his two fellow African leaders on the security situation in war-torn Somalia. President Kibaki also appraised the two leaders on the joint military operation that Kenya and the Transition Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia were undertaking to neutralize the insurgents of the Al-Shaabab militia inside Somalia.
Calm has returned to the town of Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the Tunisian revolution, after an overnight curfew was imposed because of violent post-election protests, police said. The curfew - in effect from 7:00pm on Friday until 5:00am on Saturday - was imposed after hundreds of people marched on the Sidi Bouzid headquarters of the Ennahdha party. The crowd burned tyres and pelted security forces with stones following the announcement that Ennahdha had won last Sunday's national elections.
A Kenyan air strike on a camp packed with displaced women and children killed at least three and wounded scores in southern Somalia, witnesses and an aid group said. The Kenyan army denied killing civilians and said that its strike on Sunday had taken out 10 fighters from the Islamist group Shebab, the main target of its two-week-old military operation in Somalia. Medecins Sans Frontieres said at least three were killed in the air raid on the camp with some 9,000 internally-displaced people and witnesses spoke of up to five victims following a strike residents said was conducted by a Kenyan warplane on the city of Jilib.
Egypt has a budget deficit of nearly 10 per cent of GDP and the finance minister recently said that the country is on the brink of a liquidity crisis. Meanwhile, economic growth has slowed since the uprising, decreasing government revenues, while public sector workers around the country are striking to raise wages that have been stagnant for decades. Egypt is in a tight fiscal spot. But a group of Egyptian and international activists have a solution that would take pressure off the budget and at the same time undue the economic legacy of Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt regime. The Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt, a coalition of civil society groups and concerned individuals, are calling for a comprehensive public debt audit with the eventual aim of debt forgiveness from foreign lenders.
Police authorities at the Leopold Sedar Senghor airport in Dakar have confirmed that they were preventing the secretary-general of the International Federation of Human Rights from entering the country. A statement issued by the rights group quoted the airport police as saying that Mr Paul Nsapu had been detained since Thursday. Since the beginning of the Arab upheavals, civil society and rights groups in Senegal have been facing difficult times with the regime of President Abdoulaye Wade over his bid for a controversial third mandate. Several rights activists have been beaten up, arrested and briefly detained during a string of public demonstrations that left scores injured and public and private property destroyed.
The shortage of health workers in Uganda is a 'crisis', says the Minister of Health, and activists say expectant mothers are bearing the brunt of the country's staffing deficiency. Just 56 per cent of Uganda's available health positions are filled. Parliament's recent refusal to reallocate part of the country's budget to hire more doctors, nurses and midwives has now become a rallying point for Uganda's maternal health advocates.
UN agencies and NGOs are urging the Côte d’Ivoire government to reconsider its planned shutdown of sites for displaced people in the west in a bid to force them to return home. Some 18,455 internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain in 36 sites in the west, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates, while a further 169,486 are living in Côte d’Ivoire with host families. Teams are currently out verifying the latest numbers.
A proposed initiative to distribute condoms to Rwandan secondary school students has divided parents, teachers and other members of society, with some cheering the plan and others concerned that teens are not mature enough to use condoms responsibly. Local NGOs, including Health Development Initiative (HDI-Rwanda), Rwanda NGOs Forum on HIV/AIDS and Health Promotion, and Association Ihorere Munyarwanda are fronting the initiative on the grounds that young people must be protected from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.
Women make up just 12 per cent of the roughly 18,000 candidates who will stand for election to parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo's 28 November elections. According to the Permanent Framework for Dialogue for Congolese Women, a gender equality pressure group, only 42, or 8.4 per cent, of the 500 members of the current National Assembly – the lower house of parliament – are women.
Ugandan human rights activists are concerned that President Yoweri Museveni's proposal to do away with bail for people suspected of committing certain crimes could swell the country's already overcrowded prison system and exacerbate severe problems in delivering health services to inmates. Museveni announced the move to amend the Constitution and the Penal Code in May following 'Walk to Work' protests over high food and fuel prices. The proposed law would allow judges to deny bail for at least six months to people arrested for treason, terrorism, rape, economic sabotage and rioting.
More than a quarter of countries represented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth have failed to allow basic industrial rights for workers, the ACTU said. ACTU President Ged Kearney said a survey by the Commonwealth Trade Union Group showed workers’ rights were being ignored across the Commonwealth, with the worst abuses currently occurring in Fiji and Swaziland. The CTUG, representing over 30 million workers in 50 countries, is calling on the CHOGM to suspend Swaziland for wholesale violations of democratic rights.
Trusted Society of Human Rights Alliance has said IDPs still living in camps will next week take to the streets to press the government to resettle and compensate them. The lobby’s chairman, Mr Elijah Sikona, alleged that IDPs have been turned into cash cows by some unnamed politicians who have also hatched a plot to buy their votes next year. 'We have close to 800,000 IDPs in camps and some politicians are using them as a tourist attraction to earn cash,' Mr Sikona claimed.
Two Al-Shabaab suicide bombers blew themselves up yesterday at an Amisom base in Mogadishu and conflicting accounts indicate anywhere between three and 80 Ugandan soldiers were killed. Late on Saturday, the militant group, which withdrew from the Somali capital in August, leaving a queasy security situation, claimed in a press statement that 'the Mujahideen stormed an Amisom compound, killing 80 Ugandan soldiers'. Uganda army Commander, Lt Gen Katumba Wamala, last night confirmed that a lunch-hour suicide attack on AU troops took place but but said only three soldiers perished and two were seriously injured.
In this video, John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review and co-author of 'The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences' discusses the causes of the current global financial crisis. 'You’ve all heard of the 700 billion bailouts…but the US government has so far committed over five trillion dollars to directly bailing out or providing a backstop to financial operations…you’ve probably only heard of the 700 billion…they’ve been bailing like hell and they’re failing…every part of the world is now in state of economic crisis.'
Three years after her husband’s disappearance, Phyllis Chamnai Kipkeyo from Mount Elgon, Kenya cannot stop thinking about him. She does not know if he is dead or alive. All she knows is that he was one of the over 300 people said to have disappeared during an insurgency in the region between 2006 and 2008. The insecurity in the area began in 2005 after the militia group, Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF), was formed to seek redress for alleged injustices that occurred during a land distribution exercise in the Chebyuk settlement area. But by 2008 the SLDF had been accused of killing several hundred people, and committing offences such as torture, rape and theft.
Numsa on Sunday cautioned against 'factional defences' by some leaders within the ANC-led tripartite alliance, at the expense of the poor. In a statement issued after its two-day national executive committee, Numsa said it was concerned with the reaction of working class formations - South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) - in relation to the ANC Youth League's economic freedom march held this week. Earlier this week, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande urged members of the ANC Youth League not to participate 'any march that will not make a difference' in their lives.
A public call for proposals is underway to encourage individuals and organisations to apply for grants that provide innovative and critical analysis of South Africa’s foreign policy behaviour and impact. OSF-SA wishes to award grants to suitably qualified organisations and individuals that undertake empirically focused research projects on South Africa’s global role as it relates to the following issues:
- Deliberating South Africa’s 2nd year on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
- Understanding South Africa’s Role in Development Cooperation and the Implementation of
the Development Partnership Agency
- South Africa’s identity in IBSA and BRICS
- Comparing South Africa’s corporate footprint in Africa with BRIC partners:
Complementarities and Competition
- South Africa’s Foreign Policy after 2014: Continuity and/or Change?
African Speakers of Parliaments and Presidents of Senate have unanimously adopted a landmark resolution on a Declaration of Commitment to prioritise parliamentary support for increased policy and budget action on maternal, newborn and child health in African countries. The milestone Declaration of Commitment was adopted at the 3rd Pan African Speakers Conference 17 - 18 October, which was convened by the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
This month’s newsletter contains news of how, for the first time, an Israeli court has ordered the Government of Israel to grant asylum. Also in the issue are articles on resettlement in exchange for local asylum; UNHCR's incentive salary policy; human rights in Rwanda; child custody rights and UNHCR resettlement; resettlement, divorce and visitation rights and a profile of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. The edition also includes opportunities, publications, announcements, news of petitions and resources.
This video on the rabble.ca website is about the moving visit of members of the Egyptian Revolution to Occupy Wall Street. It features Asmaa Mahfouz - the girl who helped spark the Egyptian Revolution through her famous youtube video, which went viral. The video clip is part of an upcoming feature documentary, 'Occupy Love'.
This rabble.ca page contains the latest news on the global Occupy Movement. 'From Wall Street to Bay Street, and hundreds of cities and towns around the world, a movement is underway to reclaim the commons and to challenge corporate power.'
In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...
Tunisian women activists accused Ennahda party of giving false promises during its election campaign and reneging on them after winning a majority in the National Constituent Council in the first election the country witnessed after the ouster of President Zine Elabidine ben Ali’s regime. Those activists were particularly concerned about recent statements by Ennahda leader Rashid Ghannouchi on making some changes to the personal status law, particularly concerning the legalization of adoption and the ban on polygamy.
'Algeria will remain committed to the principle of supporting the inalienable right of Sahrawi people to self-determination,' said Kamel Rezzag-Bara, founder member of the Algerian National Committee of Solidarity with the Sahrawi People (CNASPS). 'Algeria will continue to supporting the fundamental right of the Saharawi people to self-determination through free, just and fair referendum,' Mr. Bara told Algeria Press Agency (APS) on the sidelines of the 2nd international conference on the peoples’ right to resistance: case of the Saharawi .
Commonwealth leaders have ignored warnings that their decaying association will die without urgent reforms and have failed to reach significant agreement on how to ensure its member nations abide by human rights principles and the rule of law. The development came Saturday, as the leaders spent the second day of their biennial gathering - known as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) - debating the merits of a report delivered by an advisory group established two years ago. But instead of endorsing the report, the leaders adopted a distrustful view about its contents - even deciding that it should be kept secret and not be published.
LDPI is launching a Small Grants Competition Part 2: 2011-12. Grants of up to US$3000 per study are available to successful applicants who wish to undertake original field research, carry out follow up fieldwork on an ongoing related initiative, or write up a paper based on research that is being/has been undertaken on any of the following themes (or combinations).
This article from Media Lens looks at the mainstream media coverage of Gaddafi's killing. 'We suspect that most journalists are not actually unfeeling brutes. They are conformists wary of the high price they can be made to pay for even the suspicion that they might be "apologists" for an official enemy,' says the article in response to many of the crass headlines that have been seen in some newspapers.
Through photography and video, Her Story Wins will document the personal stories of US & Kenyan women political candidates as they run for office in the 2012 elections. Her Story Wins will highlight the social and physical obstacles that girls and women face in translating leadership skills to political aspirations, and more importantly celebrate the valuable impact women have on their communities when they run for and get elected to office. Visit the website to find out more.
The Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation is a comprehensive and cumulative website resource that provides continually updated cutting-edge knowledge, experience and lessons learned for those working in the field of transforming violent ethnopolitical conflict.
'Farmers represent 1/3 of the world’s population, 1/2 of its poor, and over 800 million of the hungry. As the planet’s primary ecosystem managers, farmers are best placed to ensure sustainable development and contribute to a green economy. However, there is a concern that today’s agricultural policy and governance fall short of contributing to sustained food security, eradicating poverty and catalyzing sustainable rural development. Yet African countries are primarily agricultural economies with 70% of the population engaged in agriculture.'
Since 1998, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has produced The World's Abortion Laws map to visually compare the legal status of abortion in different countries - and to advocate for greater progress in ensuring access to safe and legal abortion services for all women worldwide. Visit the website for more information.
This video shows how African women have, for a long time, been taking a back seat in many aspects of life, but also that the trend is changing and now women are taking on men, even in such areas as the crowded entertainment industry in Niger.
Libya is plunging into a cycle of tribal violence and retribution which, if left unchecked, could undermine the authority of its new leaders, spur new forms of insurgency and throw the country back into chaos, says this Reuters article. More than a week after the death of Muammar Gaddafi, anger is on the boil again with what many Libyans see as the inability of the interim government to rein in its brigades and stop a wave of revenge attacks. The cycle of retribution appears already to have started. The town of al Jemel, a scattering of sandy homes in the palm-studded desert southwest of Tripoli, is one example. Residents said brigades from faraway Misrata had appeared at their doorstep a week ago, breaking into people's homes and looking for Gaddafi loyalists.
Land-related conflicts are increasing in Tanzania where more than 12,600 such cases are recorded every year, if the last twelve months' figures are anything to write home about. Mr Godfrey Eliseus Massay, an official with the Land Rights, Research and Resources Institute (HAKI-ARDHI), has revealed that such land cases that were reported between mid- last year and June 2011 had reached 12,643.
Gmedia Center is a Geneva based initiative whose overall objective is to empower media to further civil society goals on human rights and democracy. Gmedia Center will facilitate the necessary interaction between international actors and the media to enhance journalists’ capabilities in human rights reporting and maintain these connections through a global web community dedicated to furthering civil society goals.
The Angola Monitor covers the politics, economics, development, democracy and human rights of Angola. It is published quarterly by Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA). The latest issue covers the deportation of southern Africa civil society leaders, Angola’s hosting of the SADC Summit, rumours about whether President dos Santos will stand down before elections in 2012, objections to the proposed changes to electoral law, discussions with the DRC over oil, the sale of properties at Cidade do Kilamba, recent protests and the authorities response, the halting of evictions in Lubango, the conviction of a newspaper editor for libel and the recent floods in southern Angola.
Preparations for the Rio+20 meeting that could decide whether humans survive or not are hotting up. 1 November 2011 is the deadline for official contributions to its Zero Draft document but over the next seven months decision-makers and campaigners will need all the facts they can lay their hands on. 'Earth Grab - Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes' - essential, cutting-edge climate science in everyday language - is published this week (27 October 2011). The authors reveal information that the large corporations who profit from climate change do not want the public to know.
Reporters Without Borders says it fails to understand a decision by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to urge countries that have given asylum to Rwandan refugees to withdraw their refugee status by the middle of next year on the grounds that political life in Rwanda is back to normal. 'What normalization is UNCHR talking about?' Reporters Without Borders asked. 'President Paul Kagame was reelected with 93 per cent of the vote in 2010 in an election in which his main opponents could not take part. One is in prison and another is in exile and escaped an assassination attempt. The Rwandan authorities do not tolerate criticism. The independent press is harassed.'
Gerald A Perreira recalls Muammar Gaddafi as a brilliant and profound man of honour, courage, strength and great integrity. He spent his entire life fighting on the side of oppressed humanity worldwide and will continue to inspire those who admired him
The dominant discourse among Muslim women tends to be about dated cultural rules and practices, writes Salma Maoulidi. But activists are now increasingly preoccupied with contemporary questions such as leadership and political participation, as was the case at a recent conference in Istanbul
Kenya’s military invasion of Somalia ostensibly to pursue the Al Shabaab terrorists is unconstitutional and unnecessary, argues Onyango Oloo. The war is part of a larger US/NATO geo-political agenda to ‘stabilize’ the Horn of Africa in line with wider imperialist interests
‘Kenyans are seen to have a “business-as-usual” approach to corruption, but a new report published by the International Peace Institute shows that our extreme tolerance of impunity is having devastating consequences and is, in fact, undermining the State’s legitimacy,’ writes Rasna Warah.
With Muammar Gaddafi buried in a secret desert grave this week, Maximilian C. Forte, in this article written earlier this year, outlines the ten myths that served to justify the NATO-led war on Libya and advance the cause of 'war corporatists, transnational firms, and neoliberals'.
Artist Brandon Carter has released a new rap entitled 'Blood Money' - a strong criticism of capitalism and Wall Street. There's an excellent video which goes with the song.
Pambazuka News 551: Special Issue: Western Sahara's struggle for freedom
Pambazuka News 551: Special Issue: Western Sahara's struggle for freedom
It will soon be a quarter of a century since the death of Thomas Sankara. He joined Lumumba, Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, Osendé Afana, Ben Barka, Outel Bono, Pierre Mulele, etc in the pantheon of the worthy sons of Africa assassinated by the colonialists and their African accomplices. But today, when Africa more than ever needs the spirit of the Sankarist action, Guy-Marius Sagna considers it regrettable that Sankara is not the reference he should have been.
******
For 50 years now, France has covered a state crime it has had since 17 October 1961, when the Parisian police attacked Algerian demonstrators and killed more than 200 of them. Some were killed by bullets, while others drowned in the Seine River. From General de Gaulle to Sarkozy, this massacre has been covered like a deliberate political decision, because it has never been disapproved. Emmanuel Terray thinks "it is high time that this accomplice silence ends!”.
******
Paul Biya is set for a third term in office. A well locked electoral system offers him re-election without encountering any opposition. It is in this respect that the Cameroonian autocrat has gone after the popular movement which had destabilized him in 2008, where the repression caused about 140 deaths. According to Pierre Sidy, the political opposition failed for "not taking the political direction of these social movements and for not succeeding in structuring and anchoring them in the popular quarters”.
******
The Durban+10 Coalition conference passed in near indifference from international media. Not shocking when it is known that the states which control the world had wanted to empty the Durban Declaration of all its contents ten years ago. The conference against racism, discrimination, xenophobia and associated intolerance, fights on in the same logic. Behind their masks of virtue, racism, xenophobia and intolerance continue to nourish them. ‘Some’, notes Mireille Pennon-Mendès-France, ‘do not hesitate to bring back to the surface the theory of the supremacy of the ` white race' as the only race that can save humanity’. Interventions such as that carried out by NATO in Libya do not justify themselves differently.