Pambazuka News 586: Africa Liberation Day and the new scramble for our lands
Pambazuka News 586: Africa Liberation Day and the new scramble for our lands
As a food crisis continues to spread and levels of severe acute malnutrition continue to rise in Chad, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is expanding the number of emergency malnutrition treatment programs it is operating in the country. Even in a normal year, Chad has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world. This year is showing signs of being worse than usual. In early 2012, in some areas of the country, rates of global acute malnutrition as high as 24 per cent have already been reported among children under the age of five.
ARTICLE 19 and the Caucus of Women Leaders of Senegal unveiled two documentaries on May 14 2012 to celebrate the second anniversary of the adoption of the law on equal political representation. The first documentary produced by the Caucus, highlights the process that led to the adoption of the law and the commitment of all political actors. The second documentary produced by ARTICLE 19 assesses the level of access to information and freedom of expression in relation to the parity and public debate on political representation of women.
The most important question post-uprising is how to entrench a Pan-African agenda led by citizens that addresses the fundamental challenges hampering African unity.
Accusations are flying about African writers and intellectuals telling lies about the continent to their Western audiences, thus confirming age-old racist stereotypes. There are claims of plagiarism as well.
At Rio+20 next month, the world’s elites will meet in Brazil with the aim of holding back human progress.
Somalia’s Roadmap, including the proposed constitution, is anti-democratic and should be abandoned. It will probably produce another illegitimate, unworkable transitional entity and lead to further violence.
Blaming victims of rape largely misses the mark: when does the onus begin to fall on those who carry out the crime, instead of it perpetually falling on those who have been assaulted?
What the national executive body of the doctors need to know is the need to constructively explore all available options for resolving the conflict in Lagos State.
cc W E FWith the 54 leaders of the African Union due to try again to elect a new Chairperson of the AU Commission in July, isn’t it time the African had a say in the election, rather than the outcome being influenced by outside interests?
The Gibe III Dam, now under construction in Southwest Ethiopia, will devastate ecosystems that support 500,000 indigenous people in the Lower Omo Valley and around Kenya’s Lake Turkana. The UN’s World Heritage Committee called on the Ethiopian government to 'immediately halt all construction' on the project, which will impact several sites of universal cultural and ecological value. In August 2011, the Kenyan parliament passed a resolution asking for the suspension of dam construction pending further studies. On 21 June, the World Bank is expected to submit to its Board of Directors a credit of $684 million for a 1,000-kilometer-long transmission line from Ethiopia to Kenya. Strong evidence links this transmission line to the Gibe III Dam.
Poor countries can expect to see their debt repayments to the rest of the world increase by an average of a third by 2014, as they battle with the consequences of the financial crisis in the west, according to a new report by the Jubilee Debt Campaign. In its report 'The State of Debt', Jubilee uses predictions from the IMF and World Bank to show that among 61 poor countries it analysed, total debt repayments are expected to rise by a third on average over the next two years as a result of the slower growth and shaky financial system in the rest of the world.
The rejection of race discrimination claims brought by a young Nigerian woman who was brought to the United Kingdom illegally by her employers, brutalised and denied wages, gives a green light to racism, says this article from the Institute of Race Relations website. Mary Mounga was probably only 14 when her employer brought her from Nigeria to work in the UK as an au pair, promising to send her to school and to pay her £50 a month on top of her board and lodging. She was told to say that she was 20 and that she was coming to visit her grandmother. Once here, she was beaten, never paid any wages and not given the opportunity to go to school.
Africa needs equality in trade and the exchange of technology, not myth-making charity. This scathing indictment tracks the predatory career of Bill Gates and paints his high-profile philanthropy as capitalist adventurism that further impoverishes the continent.
The land issue is still very much politically sensitive. But now there is greater pressure to rehabilitate the land for productivity, investment and economic recovery than just fulfil a political process.
As Charles Taylor awaits sentencing for his conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Lansana Gberie responds to Taylor’s attempt to defend his actions in Sierra Leone.
There is a sustained ideological assault on trade unionism in South Africa. But why should millions of unemployed people be expected to see trade unions as the cause of their problems when there are more obvious targets?
Twenty pan-EU networks have called on the EU to ensure implementation of the Family Reunification Directive for all migrants. According to the Family Reunification Directive, all Member States are obliged to guarantee family reunion which signifies ensuring that there are no legal or practical obstacles to this practice. The full statement is available through the web address provided.
Personal and social communication have changed substantially with the use of ICTs, social networks and text messages. ICTs create new scenarios, new ways for people to live and these reflect real-life problems. Issues of security, privacy, and surveillance are now part of the debate around ICT development. Women should assert their rights here too, with determination and without delay. Women may not have been an active part of ICT development when the conversation started, but the rapid pace of change online, means they need to participate now to ensure that the future of the internet is shaped taking into account women’s rights concerns, says this report.
Every year, the International Lesbian and Gay Association produces maps on Gay and Lesbian rights in the world as well as its State Sponsored Homophobia report. Most material is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, this year the world map has been also produced in Chinese, Hindi and German. You can download them at the page accessible through the web address provided.
An award winning photographer who has devoted her working life to documenting the lives of black lesbians has had five years worth of her work stolen. Zanele Muholi, described by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa as 'one of the country’s foremost artists', had more than 20 external hard drives stolen from her flat in Vredehoek, Cape Town on April 20. The hard drives contain stills and video footage, including photos from the funerals of victims of homophobic hate crimes. It is thought that the burglars were targeting Muholi’s work, as little else was taken from her flat, and back up hard drives were also taken.
International Rivers’ new report argues that the World Bank’s top-down approach to infrastructure should be replaced by a strategy that prioritizes the needs of the poor. In its new report, 'Infrastructure for Whom? A Critique of the Infrastructure Strategies of the Group of 20 and the World Bank', International Rivers calls into question the ability of megaprojects to address the needs of the poor. The report instead offers another, more eco-friendly solution.
The complex relationship between violence against women (VAW) and information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a critical area of engagement for women's rights activists. ICTs can be used as a tool to stop VAW, while VAW can be facilitated through the use of ICTS. However, few women's rights activists are working actively on this issue. Consequently, a political and legal framing of the intersection between these issues is not established in most countries.
The Rendition Project website is the product of a collaborative research project funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Working closely with Reprieve, a legal action charity which has led the way in investigating secret prisons and representing victims of rendition and torture, the Rendition Project aims to bring together and analyse the huge amount of data on rendition and secret detention in the US-led ‘War on Terror’.
The UK Government is facing a series of difficult questions after it surfaced that it has chosen to intervene on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell in a major US court case brought against the oil giant by Nigerian villagers. Kiobel v Shell is the latest incarnation of a long-running legal battle fought by communities in the Niger Delta, who claim that Shell is responsible for serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in the region. The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition, a group of human rights, development and environmental NGOs, is now determined to find out why the UK Government has chosen to intervene and has submitted a wide range of formal Freedom of Information requests.
The National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) should stop harassing human rights defenders and journalists in Sudan and drop the charges against Mr. Faisal Mohammed Salih, the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project and Journalists for Human Rights said. Salih, director of Teeba Press, former chief editor of Al-adwaa newspaper and a columnist, has been arbitrarily arrested and detained on three separate occasions on 8th, 9th and 15th May 2012.
A farmer who says that Heritage Oil dumped dozens of truckloads of waste in a pit dug on his land, a few kilometres north of Murchison Falls National Park, is still waiting for the National Environmental Monitoring Agency (NEMA) to give him the results of tests they conducted in 2009, and for the waste to be removed for permanent disposal elsewhere. Douglas Oluoch, 43, relates that he first came into contact with Heritage in his capacity as a local councillor (LC II) in Purongo sub-county of what is now Nwoya District. In 2008, he says, a Heritage official, who he can identify only as 'Albert', offered to pay him for accepting waste from exploration wells dug within the National Park.
The Malawi government will not arrest two lesbians who got engaged recently in Blantyre because the law on homosexuality is currently under review, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General Ralph Kasambara has said. 'Right now the two women will not be arrested or prosecuted, the reason is that the law under which they could have been arrested and consequently prosecuted is under review,' said Kasambara.
Swaziland police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse students protesting about the lack of equipment at their university. Armed police forced the students from the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology campus, Mbabane, where they had been boycotting classes for the past week. Limkokwing administrators said the university had now been closed ‘indefinitely’.
Civil society grouping Section 27 has won a legal victory in the fight for basic education. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Limpopo Department of Education have so far failed to supply textbooks to learners and schools throughout Limpopo for the academic year of 2012. On 17 May 2012, following an application brought by Section 27 in the North Gauteng High Court, Judge Jody Kollapen held that this omission by the DBE and the Department constituted a violation of the constitutional right to basic education.
Globally activists are celebrating the decision by the Quakers to divest nearly $1 million of shares from Caterpillar because they sell bulldozers and other equipment to destroy Palestinian lives, homes, trees and land. This courage decision is the beginning of serious disinvestment from Caterpillar. The image below demonstrates how Israel uses Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes. Similarly, from Australia and the US to Europe, activists globally are celebrating the South African government’s first step in the direction of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign demands, reports the blog,
Dorothy Dyton and her family have been removed from their land. The government, which owns all customary land, sold it to a sugar company. Like many other African countries, small-scale farmers in Malawi lack secure title to land. And a new law which would allow farmers to register their customary land as private property has stalled in Parliament.
Ikhaya (Home) is a part of the Photo XP community project supported by Greatmore studios, co-facilitated by Zanele Muholi and Lindeka Qampi. All featured participants are members of Freegender. It is a collection of 60 hours of photographic memories that were taken in different areas of Khayelitsha. The photographs were taken by seven women. Six of them were unemployed and one a part-time worker. All of them are black lesbians between 21 and 31 years of age, from various places within and outside of Khayelitsha.
The National Press Commission (CNP), the print media regulatory body has suspended Notre Voie, a privately-owned pro-opposition daily newspaper for four publications. The suspension takes effect from 19 May 2012. According to the Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent, the decision of the regulatory body follows the publication of material that the commission says amounts to distortion of facts.
Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma is threatening tough measures against the media in what is a departure from his traditionally tolerant bearing. 'The honeymoon for reckless journalism is over,' he said in a statement, warning journalists and civil society activists to stay away from politics. That has touched on the nerves of media figures.
The government plans to spend R2,7bn buying more than 320,000 ha of agricultural land during the current financial year in a bid to advance its land reform programme, says Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti. The government aims to redistribute 24,5-million hectares, equivalent to 30 per cent of agricultural land, to black farmers by 2014 -a target it is far from meeting. The department last year acquired 848 farms totalling 882238 ha, reports Business Day.
A South African court Tuesday 22 May convicted one of the two accused black farmworkers in the murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terre'Blanche. 'After all the evidence given, I conclude that accused number one (Chris Mahlangu) is guilty as charged,' said Judge John Horn in the High Court sitting in Ventersdorp in northwest South Africa. Co-accused Patrick Ndlovu, who was a minor at the time of the crime, was found guilty only of house-breaking, and not guilty on charges of murder and robbery.
About 100 people have died of cholera, although the Ministry of Health put the death toll at 73, while thousands are being hospitalised in different health centres. The number of people affected has increased to 3,111 from 2,200 in March in 13 districts of northern, eastern and western Uganda.
A combined Amisom force comprised of Ugandan, Burundian and Somali Transitional Federal Government troops launched a massive dawn assault on al-Shabaab positions outside Mogadishu, marking the second phase of the Somalia war. Sources said an estimated 5,000 Ugandan, 1,500 Burundian and 2,000 Somali soldiers were still advancing to Afgoye and areas of Shabelle with tanks and motorised infantry fighting vehicles, including armoured mambas and tanks.
The Judiciary has apologised to health activists and advocates for the delay to pronounce itself on a case in which government was sued over high preventable maternal deaths, citing administrative issues, among others. The apology followed a peaceful demonstration by health activists. The activists marched from Kamwokya, a Kampala suburb to the Constitutional Court under police guidance, to express their concern over the seven-month delay.
The Raise Hope for Congo campaign has launched 'I Am Congo,' a new video series highlighting voices from the ground. The series profiles five inspiring Congolese individuals - Fidel Bafilemba, Amani Matabaro, Denise Siwatula, Petna Ndaliko, and Dominique Bikaba - who are making a difference in their communities.
The academic activists who have raised the stakes by educating South Africa about solidarity ethics will hopefully continue to 'terrorise' the Israeli apartheid regime.
‘Who gets to eat and who doesn’t is decided in a few rooms by boards of directors composed mainly of rich men. A handful of people in Northern countries deciding whether Africa is going to eat or not is insane.’
New collection of rendition data brings together records of over 1100 victims and shows involvement of 45 countries
Offshore oil and gas exploitation is accident-prone. Yet the response mechanisms of the oil companies as well as the government's regulatory agencies remain dismal in Nigeria.
People who just want to grow food and make a living from the land are being expelled, criminalised, and sometimes killed, to make way for land grabbers. It is nothing less than an assault on peasants.
Follow super-secret agent 86 Maxwell Smart in Mission Equatorial Guinea
The American president has opened up a discussion not just about same-sex marriage but about democracy and tolerance unlike anything we have had in years.
The piece of art reinforces the Eurocentric notion that it is okay to infer that the Black president is a rampantly savage sex fiend and publicly shame him in what is probably the most insulting manner a man in his culture can be affronted.
This letter from African civil society critical of foreign investment in African Agriculture at G8 Summit was presented by Mamadou Cissokho,?Honorary President of ROPPA, ?President Steering Committee CDP/CSO, on behalf of farmers who are members of the organizations listed below.
Revival of Pan-Africanism Forum presents:
Celebrating the Life of Thomas Sankara with a roundtable discussion on
Revolution and Counterrevolution in Africa
The 25th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara provides a moment for reflection upon Sankara’s life and his contributions to PanAfrican thought and the relevance of his thinking to the uprisings currently in North Africa and beyond.
Speakers include:
Patricia Daley, Lecturer in Geography at Jesus College, University of Oxford
Jeremy Keenan, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, London School of Oriental and African Studies
Gnaka Lagoke, Founder, The Revival of PanAfricanism Forum
Firoze Manji, Editor in Chief, Pambazuka News
Carina Ray, Department of History, Fordham University
Date: 8 June, 2012
Time: 2.30pm - 6.30pm
Location: Habakkuk Room, Jesus College
For more information, please contact
Joseph Kangah [email][email protected] Amber Murrey [email][email protected] or visit us at www.revivalofpanafricanism.org
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Ministry of Information
Press release
About 40 students at Wits University in Johannesburg have gone on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the unfair dismissal of 17 female workers. They were joined by 2,000 students who boycotted the canteen staffed by outsourced workers from the offending company. This is part of a larger campaign to fight the externalisation and casualisation of labour at Wits, and in South Africa generally.
On the impact of the April 12 coup d’état on vulnerable communities
Experts predict that in the next decade there will be 4 million chronically malnourished children in Mozambique, which despite recent, rapid economic growth and the discovery of large natural gas deposits remains one of the world's poorest countries.
The Mozambique government estimates that 80 per cent of its citizens use charcoal to cook. Almost everyone buys it on the informal market (here's an in-depth look at how that works), where it's the cheapest and most readily available cooking fuel. And it's that demand for charcoal that's feeding the plague of deforestation in Mozambique, where thick forests are razed at an increasingly alarming rate.
President Joyce Banda has said she wants to repeal Malawi's laws against homosexual acts, going against a trend in Africa in which gays are being increasingly singled out for prosecution. Banda, who assumed the presidency in April when her predecessor died, made the announcement in her first state of the nation address. 'Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed,' she said. But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote, and it is unclear how much political support Banda would have for sweeping changes in this impoverished and conservative nation in southern Africa.
Zambia's never ending borrowing frenzy continues under the new government without parliamentary oversight, reports the Zambian Economist. 'First we had the announcement that Government has signed a US$50 million loan agreement with the World Bank for "livestock development and animal health project". Separately, the World Bank informed us that it had approved another US$60 million credit to Zambia as part of an effort to reinforce the existing electricity transmission network...The World Bank loan was clearly not enough because Government also is borrowing US$30 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for upgrading of the same power transmission line.'
A lecture by an Israeli diplomat at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) was cancelled on Monday, less than 24-hours before he was to speak. The university said: 'The university is committed to a non-racial and democratic society where debate, dialogue and divergent viewpoints are encouraged.'
Vigilantism has resulted in another necklacing in Khayelitsha. Following a spate of robberies in Khayelitsha B Section, a mob of residents stoned and necklaced suspect Andile Mtsholo, 32, after he was accused of stealing cell phones. A bag full of cell phones was found next to his body. This brings to five the number of people killed by necklacing in Khayelitsha over the past few months.
Twenty-five mutineers loyal to a renegade general have been killed in clashes with the army in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said. The east of the Central African country remains unstable nearly a decade after the formal end of a vicious civil war which sucked in neighbouring countries and left millions dead. The region has been swept by fresh fighting in recent weeks after hundreds of troops defected from the army over issues including poor pay and living conditions and in support for Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
The ANC is squaring up to the Goodman gallery and newspaper in court on Tuesday (22 May) over the exhibition and publishing of Murray’s contentious artwork The Spear. The ruling party is seeking an urgent court interdict against the gallery and the newspaper, demanding the image to be removed from the exhibition and taken off the newspaper’s website, arguing that it violates President Jacob Zuma’s right to privacy and dignity. Both the gallery and the newspaper stand by their decision to exhibit the portrait, claiming they are protected by their constitutional right to freedom of expression.
The attack on Mali's president Diancounda Traore by angry protesters puts the post-coup transition in the West African country in danger, the UN says. The diplomatic efforts by the west African bloc Ecowas to convince the leaders of the March coup to accept Traore’s 12-month transition have been 'put seriously in danger by these latest developments [and] maybe other options will now have to be considered,' France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters in Abidjan.
Angolan security and immigration forces have raped and tortured migrants during deportations of hundreds of thousands of people to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said. 'Women and girls have been victims of sexual abuse including gang rape, and of sexual exploitation,' the group said in a report based on 211 interviews conducted since 2009. Angola has deported around 400,000 illegal immigrants - most from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - since 2003, according to UN data.
Wage talks between the South African Municipal Workers' Union and the South African Local Government Association have begun in Boksburg. Samwu and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union, have proposed an across the board increase of 15 per cent or R2 000 (whichever is greater) for employees under the scope of the South African Local Government Bargaining Council. Salga had responded with a 4 per cent wage increase across the board, no minimum wage for the sector and no filling of vacancies, said Sema.
The Swaziland writer at the centre of a gay hate speech storm has been suspended by his newspaper. The Times of Swaziland acted against Qalakaliboli Dlamini when an ‘unprecedented’ number of readers complained at his article last week attacking homosexuals. Times Sunday editor Innocent Maphalala told his readers, ‘As Editor, I also take full responsibility for publication of the said article and unreservedly apologise to all our readers who found it in bad taste.’
A government minister has warned workers in the kingdom that they cannot invite trade unionists from overseas to Swaziland without permission. Lufto Dlamini, Minister of Labour and Social Security, said Swazi unions could not have any meetings with organisations which had not informed government of their mission. He was reacting to a meeting that took place 21 May between Swazi unionists and a delegation of workers from the UK and the Netherlands.
The African Centre for Biosafety and Trust for Community Outreach and Education have released a new study which provides an overview of the structure of the seed system in South Africa, the types of seed in use and their pros and cons, the legislative and policy environment, and the role of the public sector in seed production and distribution in South Africa. It aims to identify the trends in the seed sector and consider possible points of intervention to advance the agenda of strengthening small-scale resource-poor farmers in control over and access to appropriate seed for seed sovereignty, which sits at the heart of food sovereignty.
Guinea-Bissau's junta, parliament and a group of political parties have signed a roadmap aimed at ending the crisis created by the April 12 coup, officials told news agency AFP. The five-page document was signed by interim parliament speaker Braima Sori Djalo, the junta's top leader and 25 parties, including the Social Renovation Party, which was the main opposition party before the coup.
Migration, especially when it is forced, is always stressful and very often traumatic. Reaching a place of relative safety does not mean the trauma of having survived rape, torture or the loss of loved ones is over. Studies have found that migrants are far more likely to suffer from chronic anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) than non-migrants. Yet the psychosocial needs of migrants and refugees are usually overlooked as governments and NGOs focus on meeting their more obvious need for food, shelter and documentation.
Madagascar has a low level of HIV prevalence, and managing its AIDS programme should present no major difficulties. But the apparent advantage of a low infection rate, combined with the ongoing political crisis, has brought its own challenges. Madagascar, and the neighbouring islands states of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles, are anomalies in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Prevalence is very low - around 0.37 per cent, or 24,000 confirmed cases - and restricted to a few sections of the population. Recent research has revealed that the groups most infected are men having sex with men (14 per cent), intravenous drug users (7 per cent) and prison populations. HIV prevalence among female commercial sex workers is relatively low.
Pambazuka News 587: The Egyptian elections: Odds stacked against democracy
Pambazuka News 587: The Egyptian elections: Odds stacked against democracy
Preferably based in London with frequent travel
Saferworld is an independent non-governmental organisation that works to prevent and reduce violent conflict and promote co-operative approaches to security. We work with governments, international organisations and civil society to encourage and support effective policies and practices through advocacy, research and policy development and through supporting the actions of others. We are seeking a senior manager with extensive experience in the areas of conflict prevention, peace- and security- building to help lead Saferworld’s development into the future.
Pambazuka News 585: Of flowers, thorns and coups d'état
Pambazuka News 585: Of flowers, thorns and coups d'état
Brazilian diversified mining major Vale has confirmed that its portfolio includes investments of $7.7-billion in projects in nine African countries. Speaking at a recent seminar on Africa hosted by Brazil’s National Economic and Social Development Bank (better known by its Portuguese initials, BNDES), Vale CEO Murilo Ferreira reaffirmed the importance of Africa in his company’s strategy.? He highlighted that Vale continued to be interested in the continent and specifically cited coal and copper as sectors in which Vale continued to make investments in Africa.
Ghana’s Immigration Service is getting tough with illegal immigrants drawn to the country by the robust economic growth and its stability and has now set a deadline to start flushing them out. Most of the illegal immigrants are said to have entered the retail business and gone into illegal gold mining whilst others have targeted oil services, irking many locals who accuse them of stealing their jobs.
This is to invite you to Kilombo 2012, which is an event on Africa, Africans and Social Justice. This is going to be an annual event and the first which is Kilombo 2012 will lay the foundation for launching the Kilombo Centre for Civil Society and African Self-Determination.
UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet has announced the members of her Global Civil Society Advisory Group that will facilitate regular consultations and dialogue between civil society and UN Women. The establishment of UN Women Civil Society Advisory Groups at the global, regional and national levels was announced earlier this year at the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
The South African government decided last week to draw attention of consumers that products they buy labeled “Made in Israel” could have been made in illegal Jewish settlements mushrooming the occupied Palestinian territories, a press release issued by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said. It said that after more than a year of joint work between Palestinian and South African organizations, South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies announced he will forbid false and misleading labeling of settlements products.
'The Unemployed People’s Movement rejects the Youth Wage Subsidy as a solution to the unemployment crisis that is leaving millions of young people without a future. We note that there has been a concerted attempt by big business, their academic and media allies and the DA to present workers as lazy and overpaid. This is outrageous. Workers have struggled bravely for a living wage over many years and the gains that have been won must be defended.'
On 17 May 2012, Trans Support Initiative Uganda (TSI-U), a Transgender and Intersex Organization in Uganda joined the rest of the world to commemorate the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. 'We take this day to remember all the injustice, violence, discrimination and murders that have already occurred to colleagues, relatives and friends. It has not been long since we lost our very own David Kato because of homophobia, Aunt Victoria from Tanzania because of transphobia, the denial to access of medical services more especially HIV/Aids drugs to people like Beyonce and the closure of human rights workshops denying already marginalized people access to information.'
This special program of Africa Today is on the case of the Angola 3 - Herman Wallace, Alert Woodfox and Robert King. Woodfox and Wallace have served more than 14,500 days in solitary confinement in the Louisiana Prison System. A discussion on the issues of incarceration and solitary confinement with Robert King of the Angola 3, Marina Drummer of the Angola 3 Support Committee, Everette Thompson of Amnesty International and Professor Allen-Bell.
Africa's impressive growth during the financial and economic crisis of the last five years will be put at risk unless action is taken to combat rising inequality, according to the annual health check on the continent from a panel led by the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. The report from the Africa Progress Panel found that African countries were growing consistently faster than almost any other region, with booming exports and more foreign investment. But it warned that there was a contrast between a growing yet still relatively small middle class and the Africans left behind after a decade of buoyant activity.
'Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives' is a series that features 12 alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community. The latest installment looks at water being turned into a good for sale and for profit. 'Driven by a different vision and by economic necessity, a global counter-trend is growing to assure that household water be free or cheap, accessible, and safe, and that the earth’s water be kept pure and flowing. Marcela Olivera is a part of this movement. In 2000, she played a key role in organizing the massive protests in Cochabamba when residents of the city forced the Bechtel Corporation to give up control of the municipal water system, thereby restoring water as a human right for all instead of as a source of corporate income. This victory has been repeated elsewhere in Bolivia and around the world.'
The African Union Commission, in collaboration with South Africa, will hold the first Global African Diaspora Summit on 25 of May 2012 in the southern African nation. The summit will coincide with the African Day. 'The African Union recognises the fact that the African Diaspora, found in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and various parts of the world are an integral part of the continent,' the commission said ahead of the summit.
While the National Transitional Council government heads to elections, local militias threaten to launch secessionist movements and others refuse to demobilize. As preparations intensify for elections on 23 June for a parliament that will write a new constitution, much of Libya is still under the control of local militias.
The UN has found asylum-seekers increased by 20 per cent in 2011. The Guardian UK has mapped the countries where asylum-seekers are coming from and the countries they are going to.
Algeria's legislative election saw women take almost a third of the seats, making the national assembly the most gender-balanced in the region but activists say the battle is far from won. According to official results made public Wednesday, 143 of the enlarged national assembly's 462 seats will be occupied by women, up from a representation of only seven per cent in the outgoing house.
Thousands of people rallied Saturday in a demonstration by the opposition Unita, to celebrate a surprise court victory that forced the national elections chief to step down months ahead of polls. Dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a photo of Unita boss Isaias Samakuva, with many wearing caps in the party's trademark red and green, thousands sang and danced in a plaza in the Angolan capital.
A recent brush between Leader of Opposition Nandala Mafabi and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Members of Parliament reflects a deeper problem in the FDC, Uganda’s leading opposition party, reports The Independent. 'The Independent has learnt that as FDC President Kizza Besigye pays more attention to protests, a power vacuum has developed within the party that many players are now trying to fill, including perhaps, the ruling party. Within FDC, jostling for the top job has taken centre stage and issues like fundraising been neglected, leaving the party broke, unable to finance crucial elections, and its leadership splintered.'
Fresh clashes between the DR Congo's army and a group of mutineers erupted Sunday in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, defectors said, a day after fierce battles near a gorilla park. 'We're on the ground. We've been confronting the FARDC (the Democratic Republic of Congo's military) since this morning three kilometres (two miles) from Bunagana ... where we were yesterday,' Vianney Kazarana, a spokesman for the mutineers' March 23 Movement, told AFP by telephone.
The International Trade Union Confederation is demanding that the Algerian authorities stop repression of the country’s emerging independent trade union movement. A wave of harassment of members of the National Independent Union of Public Administration Personnel (SNAPAP) has led to seven members of the union’s board, including four women, starting a hunger strike on 6 May. One of them, Fayza Abrakan, has been admitted to hospital in a serious condition.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has withdrawn its advisory team from Swaziland, saying it is unable to support the government’s proposed financial reform programme. The IMF was assisting the government in implementing the Fiscal Adjustment Roadmap (FAR), to right-size the budget, where government spending currently exceeds its revenue. 'Government has yet to propose a credible reform programme that could be supported by a new IMF staff monitored programme… the budget allocates an increasing share of resources to some sectors at the expense of education and health,' Joannes Mongardini, head of the IMF team in Swaziland, told a recent press conference.
There is mounting concern that The Gambia, Africa’s smallest country, could face yet another shortfall in the 2012/2013 agricultural season in the production of rice, millet, maize and groundnuts, the main crops, crippling its efforts to become food secure. The planting season has begun, yet there is a huge seed deficit. 'It is essential that farmers receive quality drought-tolerant seeds, as well as fertilizer and other production support by the end of May 2012 to start their next production campaign,' said Sonia Nguyen, a spokesperson for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the Sahel.
This article from looks at the changing meaning of privacy in the online world. 'None of what you transmit - however personal - through a digital wireline or wireless network is “private.” Rather, through the spectacle of post-modern capitalism, the private has become public, the property of the corporation that owns your keystrokes. The digital revolution has morphed the personal into an electronic commodity; the electronic commodity is the exchange currency of an encroaching, 21st-century digital feudalism.'
The daughter of the late ANC veteran Oliver Tambo showed little sympathy for President Jacob Zuma's complaint about a portrait of himself exposing his genitals, The Star reported on Monday. Tselane Tambo posted the following message on a social networking site: 'So the Pres JZ has had his portrait painted and he doesn't like it...He should inspire the reverence he craves...' The 1.85m-high painting titled The Spear is part of Brett Murray's Hail to the Thief II exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. The portrait has sparked debate about freedom of expression and the right to dignity and privacy.
Plans to create a 26-nation free trade area by integrating three existing African trade blocs by July 2014 are on track and the only major sticking point is likely to be harmonising rules of origin, the three blocs said. The East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) aim to create a free market of 525 million people with an output of $1 trillion when they unite.
Egypt’s April 6th Youth Movement have declared they are starting a campaign under the slogan 'The eyes of Egypt 2012', to monitor the presidential elections scheduled for May 23 and 24. It said it also adopted the slogan 'participate, elect, monitor and boycott'. The Movement, which has not decided yet which candidate to support in the elections, is also willing to launch a website for the campaign bearing the same slogan 'Eyes of Egypt'.
Media Foundation for West Africa,in its bid to promote issues-based and decent language campaigning in Ghana’s 2012 elections, launched a project to monitor and report indecent expression by politicians and political activists in the campaign process. The level of indecent expression increased from nine in the fourth week to 24 in the fifth week covering the period April 29 to May 5, 2012.
The Saudi Labor Ministry has begun taking steps toward canceling the highly controversial individual kafala, or sponsorship, system, the Saudi newspaper Al-Eqtisadia reported on Monday, quoting a ministry official. The sponsorship system, which is applied in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, raises concerns over foreign workers’ rights.
Hundreds of families living in a camp for internally displaced people in Carrefour, in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, are being harassed and intimidated and are at imminent risk of forced eviction. Residents at Grace Village camp, in the Carrefour area of Metropolitan Port-au-Prince are at imminent risk of forced eviction. At least 30 families have already been forcibly evicted, after their shelters and belongings were destroyed during the night of 28 April. They were forced to leave their properties without any due process and without being offered any alternative accommodation.
Uganda’s proposed National Oil Company will have the right to acquire a 15 per cent stake in the oil fields that Tullow Oil, TOTAL and CNOOC are developing, according to Eoin Mekie, Tullow’s General Manager in Uganda, speaking exclusively to Oil in Uganda. The arrangement was included in the agreements signed between Tullow and the government in early February, in defiance of a parliamentary moratorium on further oil contracts.
The Swaziland Government has been accused of trying to close down the press with the publication of a new Bill to bar public servants from disclosing any information about their work that relates to ‘public policy’. They will also be prevented from talking about the economic strategy of the kingdom. The new Public Service Bill also states civil servants must not ‘publish in any manner anything which may be reasonably regarded as of a political or administrative nature’.