Pambazuka News 496: Racism, Islamophobia and capitalist depression
Pambazuka News 496: Racism, Islamophobia and capitalist depression
After twice postponing the release of its 2009 census results, Kenya has finally revealed that it is home to over 38 million people. Muthoni Wanyeki highlights the sexist and xenophobic elements of the debate on the population figures and calls for Kenyans to resolve their past.
The recent Mozambican food and fuel riots raise the spectre of food insecurity and social unrest in the future, writes Saliem Fakir. 'We certainly have the capability to feed all of the world’s population, but the political economy of agriculture, food production and distribution somewhat has a greater influence as to whether people can feed themselves or not.'
Friends of the Earth International says it is outraged by reports that a major UN investigation into Nigerian oil spills funded by oil giant Shell relies more on figures produced by oil companies and Nigerian state statistics than on community testimony and organisations on the ground who work with communities.
The Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) has established an Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ). The institute is pleased to announce its first short course on African Transitional Justice that will take place in Kampala, Uganda from 21 - 27 November 2010.
The discussion on World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatibility in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has so far been very narrowly defined, and largely from the perspective of the EU, says the South Centre. In an analytical note, the centre presents a matrix providing a comparison of the EPA commitments the EU is asking ACP countries for, and treatment of these issues in the WTO, including where appropriate, the type of flexibilities available for the different developing country groupings at the WTO.
Campaigners for increased health financing have welcomed the commitment by African Union member states to direct more resources to health. But the needs of the continent seem to dwarf available budgets. Africa, is home to 12 per cent of the world’s population, yet accounts for 22 per cent of the total global disease burden.
Figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) presented this week revealing a reduction in the world's number of hungry people in 2010 for the first time in 15 years should be a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the fall is down to short-term improvements in the global economic climate, rather than real, lasting progress in the fight against empty stomachs, says this article.
Academies (private schools) are reported to be growing in popularity as Kenyan middle class parents shun free primary school education, writes James Shikwati. 'Parents are subliminally communicating to policy makers that they prefer quality over the mere quest to scale up Millennium Developing Goals (MDG) enrolment statistics.'
Drawing on the works of intellectuals Issa Shivji, Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Paul Zeleza, Chambi Chachage discusses competing concepts of Africa. ‘Those who claim to be of Africa ought to truly seek its intellectual and material prosperity,’ he argues, ‘It is such an Africa-centred progress that will surely undo the yoke which has continually left us fragmented.’
In permitting the rise and enrichment of a self-serving political elite, Namibia’s party of liberation, SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation), has betrayed its once noble goals of creating a more egalitarian society, writes Henning Melber. In the absence of a ‘human-’ rather than ‘elite-centred’ postcolonial trajectory, the country now sustains two sides of an ugly face of privilege and poverty, Melber concludes.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/496/66982_logo_tmb.jpgIn October 2010 we will publish the 500th issue of Pambazuka News as we reach our 10th birthday. Over that time, we have built up a database of some 60,000 articles and news items on the website - all available for free. Some 2,500 authors have contributed articles, poems, audiovisual materials and commentary. Pambazuka News has become the oldest and largest (and of course most dynamic) citizen journalism site for social justice in Africa.
The number of readers continues to grow - some 660,000 unique visitors to the site during the last 12 months. Pambazuka News has played a significant role in supporting social movements to get their voices heard, and is widely used in advocacy by a wide range of alliances and networks. Pambazuka News provides a perspective of a proud, active and resonant Africa fighting for progressive social transformation.
We think this is something to celebrate. We'd like you to join us in this celebration. If you'd like to send messages of solidarity, congratulations (or even commiserations!), we'll publish them on this site at the same time that we publish a special anniversary issue of Pambazuka News.
We'd also like you to join us by helping us to reach the 1,000th issue of Pambazuka News - forward to the next 500 issues and our 20th anniversary.
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We want to raise $300,000 to expand the services provided by Pambazuka News to our readers. Please consider this appeal as a serious one: it is the only way we can make sure that Pambazuka News survives and grows, but above all, remains independent.
Contrary to the claim by Times magazine that the war on drugs, the longest war that has cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion over 40 years, has ‘no clear enemy’,[1] the NAACP in 2010 rightly condemned the war on drugs as a racist war against African Americans and against the poor generally.[2] Californian voters have also proposed the legalization of marijuana to avoid the unnecessary criminalization of otherwise law-abiding responsible adults, aid the sick who need the drug and create fair employment opportunities and wealth for the people and tax revenues for the state.[3]
We took this opportunity of September 7th, 2010, marked by the meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the recent case of mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to denounce this war of low intensity imposed on the Congolese populations in the East of their country. The femicide, rape, atrocities, and degrading and despicable human insecurity and fear now characterize the climate of life of people in Ituri, North and South Kivu and across the DR Congo; in a strategy and complicity to balkanize the country.
La Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org), a global peasant movement representing small farmers, landless workers, fisherfolk, rural women, youth and indigenous peoples, with 150 member organizations from 70 countries on five continents, has denounced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s recent acquisition of Monsanto Company shares.
The recent furor over a Florida pastor’s plans to burn copies of the Qu’ran on the anniversary of 9/11 and protests against a proposed Islamic community centre near New York City’s Ground Zero feature in this week’s roundup of the African blogosphere, along with Monsanto, Haiti and a message for Mugabe.
As Ethiopia celebrates its new year, Alemayehu G. Mariam resolves ‘to continue to call attention and raise awareness’ of the ‘unjust imprisonment’ of opposition political leader Birtukan Midekssa by the Zenawi government. Mariam highlights parallels between Midekssa and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, with their 'genuine empathy and understanding for the ruthless dictators who are themselves "locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness".'
The South African Parliament has just released a report that investigates the service delivery protests that have rocked the country over the last decade. But, argues Patrick Bond, the report is ‘utterly inadequate’ and fails to identify the root cause of the protests.
Requests to accord national hero status to the late Gibson Sibanda, former trade union leader and MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) founder, have been denied, despite petitions to Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe. Sokwanele’s Glow argues that ‘the definition of heroism’ in the country should not be 'controlled by Zanu PF alone’, given the 'multi-party political reality'.
The sorrow is long
But the sparrow must return
To the nest
He served well
And brightened our lives and our thoughts
I am sad still
And pray that we all find a dry eye
With which to remember our giants
As they fall
Go well Giant Friend
You touched our lives!
South African writer and academic Lewis Nkosi has died, writes Margaret von Klemperer. ‘He was a fearless critic, a clear analytical voice. He didn’t have to align himself with any group and spoke his mind on both literary and wider cultural issues.’ Nkosi is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Following Omar al-Bashir’s attendance at Kenya’s constitutional celebration last month, Francis Kornegay speculates on strategic reasons behind Kenya’s defiance of the ICC’s arrest warrant on the Sudanese president. ‘Could there be a connection between al-Bashir’s visit’ and ‘a regional conflict prevention diplomacy addressing the anticipated referendum on South Sudan self-determination in 2011?’ asks Kornegay.
Reporters Without Borders has expressed shock at the death of Alberto Chakusanga, the host of a programme on a radio station critical of the government. The first journalist to be murdered in Angola since 2001, he was found dead in the kitchen of his home in the Luanda district of Viana at dawn on 5 September.
The UK government has come under fire for delivering 75 per cent of its climate finance for developing countries as loans, which the World Development Movement warns threatens to reverse decades of hard-fought progress on debt relief. Rich countries claimed a key success of the Copenhagen Accord was the announcement of $30 billion of new climate finance to developing countries. But UN Adaptation Fund, set up specifically to manage climate finance, has received just one per cent of money committed so far by donors.
We are writing to invite you to participate in the publication of an African LGBTI Reader to be published by Pambazuka Press in June 2011. The African LGBTI Reader is being published in response to the increasing homophobia and transphobia across the continent which aims to silence the voices of African Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Intersex people.
The African LGBTI Reader [Working Title] seeks to make a timely intervention by bringing together a collection of writings and artistic works that engage with the struggle for LGBTI liberation and inform sexual orientation and gender variance. The book seeks to engage with primarily an African audience focusing on intersectionality and will include experiences from rural communities, post-conflict situations, religious experience as well that of immigration and displacement.
Article 19 has called on the government of Somalia to amend the media law based on proposals by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) and recommendations made by ARTICLE 19 in a legal analysis released on 13 September. Somalia’s 2007 adoption of the Media Law raised serious concerns for media freedom. The law subjects all media to a largely government-controlled regulatory regime.
Fahamu in partnership with Society for International Development (SID) and the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA) wishes to announce the launch of the website, an open platform for the Kenyan people and friends of Kenya to interact and share information.
Everyone is invited to write articles to be posted on the blog as well as share your views on change in Kenya.
The European Union and Africa have agreed to take joint action to achieve a goal of setting up over 15,500 MW of renewable energy facilities in Africa and pledged to provide sustainable energy to at least 100 million Africans additionally by 2020.
Record sums were invested last year in coal power - the most carbon intensive form of energy on the planet - by the World Bank, despite international commitments to slash the carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
The Nigerian cartoonist shares his perspective on the issues of the day, from politics and the media to population emergencies.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the murder of Prime Radio anchorman, Dickson Ssentongo, who was severely beaten by unknown assailants and abandoned to die in a cassava plantation in Mukono District some 35km from the capital Kampala on Monday, 13 September 2010. 'The killing of Dickson Ssentongo signals a serious deterioration of the security of journalists and the Ugandan Government must reassure journalists and the public in general that the perpetrators of this heinous crime will be apprehended and brought to justice very quickly.'
‘The whole nation of Pakistan continues to reel from devastating impacts of the unprecedented disaster that hit the country over a month ago,’ writes Jubilee South. ‘We call on our members and other peoples’ organizations, movements and citizens groups in the South and throughout the world to step up our efforts to press for Debt Cancellation for the people of Pakistan.’
This week the coalition government that is currently running Zimbabwe reached two important milestones. Tuesday was the end of the 30 day deadline, suggested by South African President Zuma and facilitator of the Zimbabwe crisis, to resolve and implement 24 of the remaining problematic issues in the GPA. Wednesday ushered in the second anniversary of the signing of the Global Political Agreement that created the so-called ‘inclusive government’. A statement released late Wednesday by the MDC criticized what it called ZANU PF’s deliberate delaying of implementing the GPA.
Earlier this year, 25-year-old Adam Osman Abdile received an ultimatum from Somalia's Al Shabaab: join the militia or die. He decided to flee to Kenya. The journey nearly killed him, but it is one that many young men are willing to risk in Somalia and other countries in eastern Africa to escape persecution or violence.
Following inflammatory remarks made by Florida pastor Terry Jones around burning the Qu'ran on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Horace Campbell considers the resurgence of Islamophobia and attempts by powerful sections of the US conservative ruling class to stoke up the flames of conflict. At a time of acute economic downturn, Campbell contends, the forces of peace and understanding must complement one another in a bid to prevent discrimation, prejudice and conflict from gaining traction and cementing the position of the US neo-conservative establishment.
I'm walking home on the streets of Enugu from an afternoon of volunteer work in the orphanage, where I draw circles on the children's backs…
On 2002 February,
God did sojourn
Angola
To deliver Savamibi…
O Lord!
What happened
To the Somali Land?
No wonder…
Your eyes,
Your faces,
Staring…
We plan to provide regular information about mobilisation for the Dakar World Social Forum in February 2011. Watch out for more, and in the meantime check out the .
Pambazuka News 495: Oil-dependency and food: Livelihoods at risk
Pambazuka News 495: Oil-dependency and food: Livelihoods at risk
HIV/AIDS activists in Zimbabwe are hailing the inclusive government for ramping up its male circumcision drive targeting about 1,2 million children and adults with the aim of lowering their chances of contracting the virus that causes the pandemic. The campaign got a major boost Wednesday when the United States Agency for International Development and the John Snow International jointly donated US$1,5 million worth of medical equipment to facilitate 28 000 procedures.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition says it is drafting a list of grievances on the ongoing constitution revision and will present a dossier to the select committee leading the process in the next few days. The organization said Thursday it was concerned the results of the outreach may not reflect popular views of members in various communities, as many speakers at the outreach meetings appear to have been coached on what to say.
There is a division between men and women, not only in terms of pure economics, but also in the realm of technology. Women’s lack of technological access is caused by many factors, and it will ultimately hurt them. Though there is currently a wide range of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) available, there is still a division of who is allowed access to it. Women are deprived not only economically, but also in terms of information.
A young woman in Uganda contracts HIV/AIDS and faces relentless prejudice that alters every aspect of her life. She is only one of the millions of young people whose physical challenges are multiplied by the cruelties of social discrimination.
Large-scale foreign land deals in developing countries pose “significant risks” to the livelihoods of the rural poor, according to a new report from the World Bank. In the 139-page report, released in Washington, the bank analyses the effects of a worldwide increase in foreign agricultural land purchases in countries with weak land-tenure rights.
Companies access to farm land in Sudan, the first deal of its kind between the two countries, an agriculture ministry official has said. The agreement would allow Egyptian firms to grow crops on 1 million feddans (1.04 million acres) [400,000 hectares] of land, said Saad Nassar, advisor to Egypt’s agriculture minister.
East African governments have been criticised for failing to protect their agricultural workers from exploitation, and chided for leasing to foreigners land without the explicit consent of existing users. A regional meeting heard that land deals are often done in secret without informing the current land users, in a manner that causes abrupt dispossession and food insecurity.
The number of investment projects in the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa is at “unprecedented” levels, Paul Runge, the MD of Africa Project Access, said at an agriculture investment conference in Durban. “I have never seen a project flow as we have it now,” he said. His company provides assistance to greenfield and brownfield projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
If dodgy emails offering millions in return for your down payment to repatriate a stranded Nigerian astronaut do not tempt you, then maybe this will appeal to your speculative side — a hectare of fertile African land on a 99-year lease — for $1 a year. Think about it: crop prices are soaring, land is appreciating and importdependent rich nations almost guarantee you a never-ending export market. It’s starting to sound like that Nigerian astronaut deal. But this is not a scam.
Gambela, one of the nine regional states of Ethiopia is fast growing into what the local media has described as “a land grabbing” hub among Indian companies. Gambela’s new tag as a land grabbing hub comes as BHO Agro Plc becomes the third Indian firm to begin operations in the region after two other Indian companies, Karuturi and Ruchi Group, moved into Gambela in 2008 and early 2010, respectively.
As large-scale investors’ interest in acquiring vast swathes of land for commercial agriculture in Africa intensifies, farmers believe the time is ripe for the government to press investors to allocate shares to villagers as a corporate social responsibility. Should the proposal be put in place villagers will become shareholders of large-scale commercial farms.
The United Nations refugee agency is backing a pilot project to use a mobile telephone application to help locate and reconnect refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Uganda with their families. The project will enable refugees to use mobile telephones to register themselves, search for loved ones, and subsequently be able to reconnect through an anonymous database, using SMS or mobile Internet.
Guinea-Bissau does not make international headlines very often, and when it does, the news is usually pessimistic: turbulence within the small West African country’s army, repeated coups and killings, and growing problems of drug trafficking. Reflecting the frustrations of international donor institutions, the European Union (EU) has just announced that by 30 September it will pull out a small mission that it originally sent to Guinea-Bissau in June 2008 to support reforms of the security sector.
The political climate is growing increasingly antagonistic in Burundi, where many of today’s political parties were yesterday’s rebel groups. A spate of elections designed to entrench stability through pluralism has only made matters worse, say analysts, raising fears that a 10-year-old power-sharing deal is falling apart.
Kibrom Sebhatu, 45, is among hundreds of Eritreans expected to benefit from a recent Ethiopian government ruling allowing Eritrean refugees to live outside the camps. “I am happy that UNHCR [the UN Refugee Agency] and the government of Ethiopia agreed to let us live outside the camps. I hope this will open a new era in Ethiopia-Eritrea relations,” Sebhatu said. He joined the Shimelba Refugee camp, along the border with Eritrea, in 2006, after serving in the Eritrean army.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he will continue discussions with Rwanda’s President on a soon-to-be released United Nations report on serious human rights violations committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Mr. Ban wrapped up a two-day visit to Kigali, during which he met with President Paul Kagame, Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo and other senior officials to discuss Rwanda’s concerns over the report.
The United Nations-sponsored radio station based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has the largest Francophone audience in sub-Saharan Africa, is the winner of this year’s Free Media Pioneer award bestowed by the International Press Institute (IPI). Radio Okapi is a partnership between the UN mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym MONUSCO, and the Hirondelle Foundation, a Swiss non-governmental organization (NGO).
Cameroon is currently experiencing one of its most severe outbreaks of cholera in decades. The epidemic began in May 2010, following the country’s rainy season, and is most prevalent in the country’s Extreme North province. To date, there are some 5,560 reported cases of cholera and 385 deaths, according to the Government of Cameroon.
The United Nations has voiced its strong condemnation after Friday's terrorist attack at the main airport in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which has killed two African peacekeepers and several civilians. In a joint statement, the heads of the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) described the attack as a “heinous act of terrorism.”
The United Nations is dispatching a senior staff member to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as senior officials express outrage at the recent rape and assault of more than 150 civilians by rebels based in the remote and troubled east of the country. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallström, condemned the attacks, saying they demonstrated the widespread level and systematic nature of sexual violence in the DRC.
A major distribution of school supplies got under way today across Zimbabwe in an effort by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Government and international donors to ensure that every primary school student receives a textbook for all core subjects. All 5,575 primary schools in Zimbabwe will receive the supplies thanks to support from the Educational Transition Fund (ETF), a multi-donor funding mechanism launched a year ago to mobilize resources for the education sector with a view to improving the quality of schooling for the country’s children, UNICEF said in a press release.
For two years, Rozina Chimbalani has struggled to feed, clothe and school the four grandchildren left in her care after her daughter died. Across Malawi, this has been a painfully common story, as for more than two decades HIV has shattered families and left more than a million children orphaned.
UNHCR is alarmed by the further deterioration in the situation in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Partners report that fighting over the past two weeks between the transitional government and al-Shabaab has cost more than 230 civilian lives with at least 400 people wounded and 23,000 displaced. So far this year over 200,000 civilians are estimated to have fled their homes.
Kenya is set to become the first East African nation to develop regulations on the management of electronic waste (e-waste), following a national conference held at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi. The aim is to minimize the impacts of the unsafe disposal of electronic products on public health and the environment.
The UN operation in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI) has charged the Ivorian Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) to look into the 'imperative job' to release the country's electoral schedule, the spokesperson for the UN operation, Hamadoun Touré said.
The opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described as 'unrealistic and a recipe for failure' the 2011 general elections timetable, which was released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showing the staggered elections will be held in January. According to the timetable, the elections will start 15 January with the National Assembly (parliamentary) polls, followed by the presidential poll 22 Jan and the Governorship/State Assembly polls 29 Jan.
The prices of foodstuffs have risen in Guinea-Bissau since mid-August, the chairman of the Association of Consumers of Goods and Services (ACOBES), Bambo Sanha, has said. The price of a bag of 50 kg of rice, the basic food in the country, increased from 12,000 to 14,000 FCFA, while that of the 50 kg of sugar increased from 15,000 to 27,000 FCFA, he said in Bissau.
Ethiopia's Director General of the Environmental Protection Authority, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, is among the 15 world-class experts named to serve in the Food and Agric Organisation (FAO) food security committee. Egziabher and the other experts will serve in the FAO High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) Steering Committee.
A three-day, capacity-building training on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) for 30 media practitioners across the Gambia got underway in Banjul. Organized by The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices affecting The Health of Women and Children ((Gamcotrap), with the support of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) joint programme to accelerate the stoppage of FGM, the training is meant to build the capacity of the participants for effective and progressive reporting on the harmful traditional practices and domestic violence.
Hidden Voices: Urban Refugees is a video produced by the International Rescue Committee and MediaServe International. The short film highlights the daily struggles facing thousands of urban refugees living in the Kenyan capital city of Nairobi. In their own words, the refugees tell of how they face poverty, harassment and violence as they make their way in the urban environment.
Zimbabwe wants normal ties with Western powers critical of its policies but will press ahead with a plan to hand control of foreign companies to local blacks, President Robert Mugabe said in a rare interview. Mugabe told Reuters that his government was waiting for positive movement from the United States and European Union to mend ties soured over the last decade by rows over the seizures of white-owned farms for landless blacks and charges of rights abuses and election fraud.
The head of Guinea's election commission and a senior aide have been sentenced to a year in jail for fraud during June's presidential vote. The verdicts are likely to increase tensions ahead of the 19 September run-off, correspondents say.
Swaziland unions have condemned the prime minister's suggestion that dissidents should be beaten on their feet with spikes. Barnabas Dlamini also said foreigners who meddled in the affairs of sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch should be subject to the traditional punishment, known as "sipakatane".
The recent Mozambican food and fuel riots raise the spectre, in general, about food insecurity and social unrest in the future. We certainly have the capability to feed all of the world’s population, but the political economy of agriculture, food production and distribution somewhat has a greater influence as to whether people can feed themselves or not.
Women's month in South Africa has come and gone without much fanfare, and perhaps rightfully so, since African women continue to be confronted by institutions, policies and systems within an economy that entrenches patriarchy and a fundamentalist brand of neoliberalism.
The Ugandan government has done little to investigate or hold security forces responsible in the year since at least 40 people were killed during two days of civil unrest in Kampala, Human Rights Watch has said. Despite multiple promises from government officials after the September 2009 riots, police investigations have not resulted in prosecutions, and a parliamentary committee tasked with examining the incident has yet to call a single witness.
The arrest and conviction of seven Quranic teachers who forced boys trusted to their care to beg is a significant move forward for children's rights in Senegal, Human Rights Watch has said. The men were sentenced on September 8, 2010, marking the first application of a 2005 law outlawing the practice; two more men are scheduled to face the same charges on September 9.
Congolese authorities should open a prompt, impartial, and thorough investigation of the abduction and ill-treatment of a human rights defender in North Kivu province in late August 2010, a coalition of 36 international and Congolese human rights organizations has saidy. The authorities should publicly condemn this act and identify and bring to justice those responsible, the coalition said.
Kenyan children in acute and chronic pain suffer needlessly because of government policies that restrict access to inexpensive pain medicines, a lack of investment in palliative care services, and inadequately trained health workers, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The 78-page report, "Needless Pain: Government Failure to Provide Palliative Care for Children in Kenya," found that most Kenyan children with diseases such as cancer or HIV/AIDS are unable to get palliative care or pain medicines. Kenya's few palliative care services provide counseling and support to families of chronically ill patients, as well as pain treatment, but lack programs for children.
The World Development Movement (WDM) has said proposals to establish three new European banking regulators could help prevent food crises, as wheat price rises fuelled by financial speculation trigger bread riots in Mozambique. WDM has been pushing for urgent action to prevent banks and hedge funds engaging in excessive speculation in food derivatives markets, which drove the 2006-2008 food price crisis [1] and is fuelling the recent wheat price spike. Wheat prices have rocketed nearly 70% since January, causing riots in Mozambique this week in which seven people have died.
At least 17 people have drowned in northern Ghana in recent weeks after nearby Burkina Faso opened spillway gates to dams following heavy rains, the country's relief agency said on Friday. "As at yesterday, the death toll in the three northern regions stood at 17 and a number of farmlands have been destroyed," National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) spokesman Nicholas Mensah told AFP.
The XXV ILGA World Conference will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, between the 4 and 9 December 2010. The theme of the conference will be “Building the way forward in times of crisis”. In the last few years and since the last World Conference in Vienna in 2008, it has become even more evident that our movement can be very vulnerable to crises, them being political, social, or economic ones. However, unstable conditions can also represent turning points and opportunities for the movement to further the human rights agenda of LGBTI people.
Human rights advocates have commended the stance taken by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), granting the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) a consultative status at its council stating it is as a milestone for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. The decision made on 19 July 2010 saw IGLHRC become the tenth organisation working primarily for LGBTI human rights, gain such status at the United Nations following solidarity actions of over 200 NGOs from 59 countries who endorsed a letter to all United Nations member states, demanding fair and non-discriminatory treatment.
Chekib El-Khiari, a human rights defender and journalist, is serving a three-year prison sentence in Morocco after he denounced corruption of some Moroccan officials. Amnesty International believes that Chekib El-Khiari’s conviction is politically motivated and that he is being punished for daring to mention the involvement of high-ranking officials in a drug-trafficking ring. Amnesty International considers Chekib El-Khiari to be a prisoner of conscience, solely detained for his anti-corruption statements and his human rights activities.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the unwarranted assault of New Vision Photographer, Arthur Kintu, by a businessman and prominent religious leader, Hassan Basajjabalaba which occurred on September, 6th at Namboole while he was covering the elections in Kampala, Uganda.
African journalists have adopted a declaration calling on governments, the African Union journalists’ trade unions and the international community to join forces in promoting the safety and protection of journalists in Africa. The Addis Ababa Declaration was adopted at the conclusion of a two-day regional workshop on the “Safety and Protection of African Journalists” hosted by the African Union Commission and organized by the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) at the African Union Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya got a massive boost this week after the Global Fund released $60 million to help the East African country to combat the virus and malaria. The funds were part of the round seven HIV/AIDS funds of which the government had already received $18,343,450, officials said.
The chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) this week told the Bulawayo High Court that only Robert Mugabe as President can call for an election. The ZEC chief was responding to a court application by three MP’s expelled from the Mutambara MDC. Abednico Bhebhe (Nkayi South), Njabuliso Mguni (Lupane East) and Norman Mpofu (Bulilima East) lost their parliamentary seats when the Mutambara MDC sacked them. They responded by filing an application with the High Court to compel ZEC to call for by-elections to fill up the vacant seats.
The campaign for Angola's 2012 elections is off to a ill-tempered start with the ruling MPLA party and the opposition UNITA party accusing each other of dirty tactics that threaten a return to violence in the oil producing nation. The polls will only be the second since the end of Angola's civil war that pitted the Russian and Cuban-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against UNITA, backed by the U.S. and apartheid South Africa.
A set of U.N. goals aimed at drastically reducing poverty and hunger worldwide by 2015 are achievable, despite setbacks caused by the global financial and economic crises, a draft document said. The 27-page draft declaration on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals is expected to be formally adopted at a September 20-22 summit meeting at the United Nations which U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders are expected to attend.
A Darfur rebel group has said it was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas in Sudan's west. "A group of LRA attacked our forces in Dafak in South Darfur yesterday," Haydar Galucuma Ateem, vice president of the Darfur rebel Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), told Reuters from Qatar-based peace talks.
A South African study has found that antiretroviral therapy which includes a cheaper nevirapine-based regimen was as beneficial to the long-term health outcomes of HIV-positive infants’ as the more expensive Protease Inhibitor (PI)-based regimens currently prescribed. The study confirmed that once tests confirmed that the infants’ immune system had successfully suppressed the HI Virus on the more expensive PI regimen, the child could be safely switched to the more affordable nevirapine based regimen. In fact the study showed slightly better outcomes in the children who were switched compared to those who remained on the PI regimen.
Almost a million South Africans are already on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number is supposed to triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan. But the prospect of the South African government being able to meet its target of treating 80 percent of those who need it by 2011 is being threatened by a lack of funds.
Google held a very well attended G-Kenya event for developers. But this has been just one of several things that have been happening on the continent that show a renewed focus on services and apps development. There is fertile ground for African tech innovators but they need to decide what prize they will be seeking, writes Russell Southwood.
Many cases of tuberculosis (TB) in patients starting HIV therapy will be missed if screening for the disease relies on 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, investigators from South Africa report in the October 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Following last year’s positive result from an HIV vaccine trial in Thailand the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise has issued a new scientific plan, calling for a speeded-up effort to test new vaccine candidates in large trials.