Pambazuka News 543: Resisting imperialism: Sites of struggle
Pambazuka News 543: Resisting imperialism: Sites of struggle
This report from Amnesty International draws on more than 200 testimonies from Somali children, young people and adults collected by Amnesty International in March 2009 in Kenya and Djibouti, in Djibouti city and the Ali Adde refugee camp and in March and June 2010 in Kenya, in the Dadaab refugee camps in the north-east and in the capital Nairobi. Amnesty International delegates interviewed refugees who had recently fled Somalia, to get as much as possible, an up-todate description of the situation in their country.
The opportunities for international oil companies (IOCs) to acquire new reserves are narrowing considerably, states this report from Oil Change International and Greenpeace. The companies have met this challenge with the development of technology and engineering that has enabled oil production in technically difficult locations and conditions. But the development of these resources, especially the offshore Arctic, Canadian tar sands and other unconventional oil such as oil shale, is significantly dependent on failure to adopt and implement effective policy to prevent climate change rising above the critical 2ºC mark, a stated aim of most of the world’s governments, says the report.
Education values and needs are often superseded by governments’ need to adhere to policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, states this report from the Global Campaign for Education. 'Despite strong gender research, multiple gender strategies and operational policies, and much rhetoric about gender equality, the World Bank is often failing to translate their statements, strategies and policies into tangible reform in their investments. Education operations must be made
gender-sensitive and especially seek to promote fee abolition, gender-responsive budgeting and demand-side incentives to target marginalized groups.'
Although Fair Trade coffee still accounts for only a small fraction of overall coffee sales, the market for Fair Trade coffee has grown markedly over the last decade. But among the concerns, says this article, are that the premiums paid by consumers are not going directly to farmers, the quality of Fair Trade coffee is uneven, and the model is technologically outdated.
An eleventh hour compromise saw the US move back from the brink of defaulting on its debt burden. One of the results of this for emerging market economies - Brazil, other strong performers in Latin America, much of Southeast Asia, and even the better performers in sub-Saharan Africa - might be that they will continue to experience a flood of capital seeking higher returns, hot money with all the attendant risks of a bubble.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Libya since the crisis began in February 2011, but European policy has shown a lack of hospitality. Following a meeting in Cecina (Italy), a coalition of Euro-Mediterranean migrants’ rights organisations, decided to charter a flotilla which will undertake maritime surveillance so that assistance is finally provided to people in danger. The participatory organisations call on European bodies and governments on both sides of the Mediterranean to establish relations within this common area on the basis of exchange and reciprocity.
The British medical journal, The Lancet, has published a study that shows the Aids virus has mutated into strains resistant to ARTs used around Africa. The study published on 28 July, was funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, and aimed to assess the prevalence of primary resistance in six African countries after anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) were introduced and whether wider use of ARTs in the region is associated with rising prevalence of drug resistance in areas south of the Sahara, as has been widely suspected in some circles.
Debates around GMOs or organic food are far from the first concern of those without food…
African countries could advise Greece on its economic woes…
Uganda could be the next country hit by alarming malnutrition rates due to drought which has already sparked famine in southern Somalia and hunger in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, the United Nations warned. Pockets of food insecurity have already been detected in drought-hit northern areas of Uganda, east Africa's third largest economy, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.
Health authorities in southern Ghana are battling an outbreak of meningitis which has killed four people in the municipality of Obuasi, the Daily Graphic newspaper reported. Seven other people suffering from the disease are receiving medical attention at the Obuasi Government Hospital although health authorities are not clear about how the disease broke out in the region, the paper said.
On Friday, July 29, 2011 President Barack Obama will meet Mr. Alassane Ouattara at the White House. Although the meeting may fall into the normal US-Côte d’Ivoire bilateral relations, it is nonetheless questionable that it is to take place at a moment when Côte d’Ivoire is still suffering from the consequences of the tragic events, which followed the presidential election of November 2010 and to which the Obama administration contributed.
With the Horn of Africa facing an acute drought and food crisis, Anne Mitaru underlines the need for African states and leaders to take centre stage in dealing with the crisis.
If Kenya’s new constitution is to provide for a genuine democratisation of the country’s politics, public participation will need to be the prerequisite underpinning all other constitutional provisions, writes Katto Wambua.
The recent acquittal of members of a leading South African social movement showed up the undemocratic tendencies of the ANC. Those committed to democracy will have to stand firm, writes Richard Pithouse.
When it comes to sexual violence against women in Uganda, Doreen Lwanga says it is about time men start seeing women as human beings and not sexualised objects.
In the absence of a well-functioning central government, Somalia is in effect being ‘managed and controlled by aid agencies’, writes Rasna Warah. But it’s a story that is unlikely to be told by either the global news networks or the ‘aid workers whose livelihoods depend on donor money that will soon flow into Somalia via Kenya.’
‘Life is cheap. And so we are lethargic – until the numbers become too large to ignore,’ writes Muthoni Wanyeki, as Kenyans fail to heed the plight of either their fellow citizens or neighbouring Somalis during the region’s worst drought in 60 years.
Tackling the racism and slavery inherent in Mauritania will rely on overthrowing ‘the ideological and religious foundations of slavery and racism with the state’, writes Sy Hamdou.
Why Pambazuka is unique
The 200th edition of Pambazuka News in French is a special issue featuring different contributors who over the years have made this a reality. In the 10 years of Pambazuka’s existence, 2,500 researchers, academics, activists and others, driven by a Pan-African ideal and a commitment to social justice, have made Pambazuka the most prolific African platform for citizen journalism. This special edition hears from these contributors, why they read Pambazuka and why it is important to them. The 200th edition also carries excerpts from the 500th English-language edition of the newsletter published in October 2010 (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/500). Pambazuka is clearly more than just a newsletter.
******
The struggle for a new thought world order
Tidiane Kasse
Four years on, we are now at the 200th edition of Pambazuka News in French. After years of cutting one’s teeth in mainstream journalism, working with Pambazuka (which means ‘arise’ in Swahili) and immersing oneself in the fervour of activism has led to a better understanding of the issues at stake in the battle for information in Africa.
******
Pambazuka and the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and for the emancipation of peoples
Demba Moussa Dembele
Demba Moussa Dembele pays tribute to Pambazuka’s commitment to the struggle for political, economic and social justice for the peoples of Africa and the diaspora and underlines that ‘its credibility and prestige make it a vital source of information on Africa for other media in the world, many of which reproduce Pambazuka articles, including translations, on their websites.’
The second phase of African decolonisation needs an alternative press
Guy Marius Sagna and Fode Roland Diagne
After reviewing the evolution of the African press since colonisation, Guy Marius Sagna and Fode Roland Diagne make a plea for a different kind of press to tackle Africa’s current challenges, one that will put at the forefront the voices of ‘workers, peasants, workers in the informal sector, women, youth and progressive Africans’ and accompany them in the struggle to take destiny into their own hands and break with the slavish ties imposed on the peoples of Africa by Françafrique, Eurafrique and Usafrique.’ Pambazuka, they say, ‘is the kind of model required for a truly alternative and anti-neoliberal press.’
Alternative media, a means of struggle against the capitalist system
Bernard Dodji Bokodjin
Amidst the plethora of mainstream media that has swept through the world to consolidate a system of exploitation and servitude, Pambazuka News, according to Bernard Bokodjin, stands out as a platform that enlightens people in Africa and elsewhere on the real issues of governance in Africa and ‘fights for the emancipation of Africa from the yoke of colonialism and the domination of the Françafrique mafia’.
‘Colonialism signified nothing less than the collective traumatising of the Namibian people who must carry the heavy burden of the consequences for generations,’ writes Shaun R. Whittaker.
Christopher Zambakari’s article on South Sudan fails to address the key issue of leadership, writes Africaforafrica.
Following a trip to Madrid’s archives, Agustín Velloso uncovers the history of Spain’s relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1960s and the secret backing given to Moise Tshombe’s ‘subversive activities’, his use of Spanish state resources and institutions and ‘the support of the press and other fascist entities of the time’.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has condemned the raid on a Tahrir Square sit-in on 1 August. 'The return of violence and repression after a revolution against a dictatorial regime is extremely disappointing, and the statements of some members of the Military Council betraying the revolutionaries and describing them as "thugs, vandals and agitators aiming to drive a wedge between the people and the army" are unacceptable.' ANHRI's press release contains a list of the detained, the injured and the disappeared.
Graffiti is suddenly all over Cairo - on schools, on telephone exchange boxes, on empty walls and corrugated fencing around building sites, reports the New Yorker magazine. 'Daubs of slogans, finely rendered panoramas of Tahrir Square, and, increasingly, the kind of biting satire and subversion...' There's a great gallery of the graffiti at the top of this article, with 25 scrollable images.
In this working paper, Ruth Hall from the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness and capital elsewhere in southern Africa and the rest of the continent. The research considers the changing character, scale and location of South African investments elsewhere in the region and the continent, focussing specifically on the AgriSA-Congo deal (the largest deal concluded thus far), and acquisitions by the two South African sugar giants, Illovo and Tongaat-Hulett, for outgrower and estate expansion elsewhere in the region. The study addresses the degree to which South Africa is no longer merely exporting its farmers, but also its value chains, to the rest of the continent — and what this means for trajectories of agrarian change.
The South African government has been called upon to display moral and political leadership as the country prepares to host the 17th round of United Nations-led climate change negotiations in Durban in December. But while the continent’s strongest economy gears itself up to represent Africa’s needs in the talks, it may also face scrutiny because of its coal-intensive economy which produces nearly half of the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Côte d’Ivoire remains fragile and unstable, says this report from the International Crisis Group. 'The atrocities after the second round of the presidential elections on 28 November 2010 and Laurent Gbagbo’s attempt to retain power by all means despite losing exacerbated already acute tensions. The next months are crucial. The new government must not underestimate the threats that will long jeopardise peace and must avoid the narcotic of power that has caused so many disastrous decisions over recent decades.'
A wave of mysterious poisonings has hit hundreds over the last two days in Angolan schools, but police have yet to identify the toxin that has sown panic in the country, officials said on Friday. About 300 students from both public and private schools have been hit by symptoms that include vomiting, headaches, sore throats and sometimes suffocation, said Renato Paulata, director of a public hospital in Luanda.
The ANC Youth league and its leader, Julius Malema, have been publicly rebuked by the ANC for calling for 'regime change' in Botswana and describing its president as 'a puppet'. In a harsh statement issued by ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu, the ANC said: 'This insult and disrespect to the President [Ian Khama], the government and the people of Botswana, and a threat to destabilise and effect regime change in Botswana, is a clear demonstration that the ANCYL's ill-discipline has clearly crossed the political line.'
In many countries women’s rights have been abused for so long that many women long ago stopped fighting for them. Not so Unity Dow, a lawyer who challenged the unequal citizenship rights in her native Botswana and won. Her 1992 lawsuit was recognised last month as a landmark case in the fight for women’s rights when UN Women published its flagship report: 'Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice'. Dow succeeded in overturning the section of Botswana’s Citizenship Act that prohibited Botswanan women who married foreigners from passing on their Botswanan nationality to their children.
A report by US-Africa Command (AFRICOM) says despite the Botswana government's significant achievements since 1966, Botswana's prosperity and political stability are more fragile than is frequently recognised. Dated June 2011, the report says three current realities form the core of this fragility: a population that is highly-dependent on social welfare programmes provided by the state; a state that is heavily reliant on a single commodity (diamonds) that is highly sensitive to fluctuations in the global economy; and a narrow economic base that leaves the country deeply tied to that of neighbouring South Africa.
Zambia's President Rupiah Banda launched his re-election campaign on 1 August with scathing attacks on his main challenger Michael Sata, describing him as a 'crook' that 'behaves like a punch-drunk boxer'. The president also pledged to sustain the country's economic growth if given another chance to lead the southern Africa country.
Civil society organisations in Malawi have appealed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika for crimes against humanity following the violent deaths at the hands of police of at least 19 people during the 20 July anti-government demonstrations. In a statement issued in the capital, Lilongwe, Monday, the eight organisations that organised the demonstration also asked the Hague-based court to prosecute Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister Aaron Sangala, and the Inspector General Of Police, Peter Mukhitho, alongside the president.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has expressed concern over the volatile political atmosphere in the country as incidents of politically motivated human rights violations shot up to 1,014 in June from 994 recorded in May. In its summary on political and food-related violations, ZPP said Midlands province recorded the highest number of incidents, pegged at 214, up from 201 in May. The province witnessed an increase in assault, harassment and intimidation cases while Mashonaland East recorded a drop from 188 to 172 reported cases.
While millions in East Africa are caught in the cobweb of a devastating drought that has spread its tentacles across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the government in Addis Ababa is snatching some of Ethiopia's most productive farmland from local tribes and leasing it to foreign companies to grow and export food. A Survival International investigation has uncovered shocking evidence that vast blocks of fertile land in the Omo River area in south west Ethiopia are being leased out to Malaysian, Italian and Korean companies. Vast stretches of land are also being cleared for huge state-run plantations producing export crops, even though 90,000 tribal people in the area depend on the land to survive.
Mandera town, on the border between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, is the hub for aid operations in the drought-affected Mandera district in Kenya. It could have been a possible logistics base for sending help by road to the famine-affected areas in south-central Somalia, but the security risk is high. About four months ago, Al-Shabab militia took over Bulo Hawo on the Somali side, and continue to mount sporadic attacks in the area even though it has been retaken by the authorities.
Many people believed that land reform would address the problem of land shortages, reports Farm Radio Weekly. Gifford Moyo is a social commentator and member of an advocacy group in Bulawayo which fights for the rights of the Ndebele people. He warned that if the land issue was not handled properly, it might erupt into a serious conflict. He says, 'The primary objective of going to war was to get back our land which was taken by the colonial regime. Now, if this government is failing to properly address the issue of land, the question is "Why did we go to war?"'
South Africa’s young democracy may have been a shining example to the rest of the world for a while, but dreams of real freedom of expression and of the media seem to be nearing the end of their usefulness to SA's ruling party says this article, which focuses on the province of Mpumalanga. 'There’s a shadowy force that threatens, arrests, assaults and otherwise intimidates reporters who ask inconvenient questions and publish uncomfortable truths. As Jacob Zuma’s fight to retain another term in office intensifies, the malevolence is spreading.'
The blog Rantings of a Sand Monkey reflects on what it means to be an activist in Tahrir Square. '...what intrigued me and got me moving around, doing things and staying there,' he writes, 'was the fascinating social experiment that the sit-in was creating. In essence, Tahrir was very quickly becoming a miniature-size Egypt, with all of its problems, but without a centralized government. And the parallels are uncanny.'
Burkina Faso installed Monday 1 August a new election commission after the previous one was dismissed amid criticism over November elections that handed President Blaise Compaore a large victory. The newly composed Independent National Electoral Commission will have to organise next year's municipal and legislative elections amid unprecedented tensions which have seen military mutinies and other unrest this year.
Liberia’s leading opposition party has called for a comprehensive boycott of the national constitution referendum set for 23 August 2011. The Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) made the declaration after the official announcement of the date of the referendum, which falls just ahead of the presidential polls in October this year. Among the things the referendum seeks to ratify is an amendment to Liberia’s constitution to the effect that changing an aspect of the constitution relating to elections would no longer require a two-thirds majority of the bicameral legislature.
Security forces broke up demonstrations by hundreds of people after weeks of electricity cuts in Niger, with several protesters wounded and arrested Monday 1 August, radio reports and police said. Police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who took to the streets of the central town of Tanout after a first day of protests on Sunday, private Anfani radio said.
The aim of this blog is to challenge readers and contributors to re-think the political common sense that denies migrants and immigrants access to health care and impedes their capacity to enjoy the social determinants of good health.
Lawyers for Human Rights says it is concerned about the large numbers of Zimbabweans who will become vulnerable to arrest and deportation at the start of August when the moratorium on deportations is lifted. This moratorium has been in place since April 2009 when Home Affairs took the decision not to carry out any further deportations to Zimbabwe for a defined period. The moratorium was supposed to be implemented together with a special dispensation for Zimbabweans to be able to regularise their immigration status. However, this special dispensation was only implemented from September to 31 December 2010. Any Zimbabwean who failed to successfully apply for one of the available permits during this time and will find themselves undocumented on 1 August may be legitimately deported for not having any authorisation to remain in the country. This deportation process will exclude any Zimbabwean who is in the asylum system and has a valid asylum seeker or refugee permit.
Increasing numbers of Ethiopians and Somalis fleeing war, drought and poverty in their home countries face arrest, deportation and detention as they try to make their way to the south of the continent. For most the goal is South Africa - the only country in the region where refugees and asylum seekers have freedom of movement and the right to work rather than being confined to camps. But as the number of migrants from the Horn of Africa seeking asylum in South Africa has reached unprecedented levels, border authorities have started refusing them entry.
Recent condemnation of homosexuality by religious and political leaders in Ghana has led to a climate of fear preventing men who have sex with men (MSM) from accessing vital health services, say local NGOs. The minister of Ghana’s Western Region, Paul Evans Aidoo, publicly described homosexuality as 'detestable and abominable'. As a result, far fewer MSM are accessing safe sex education and support programmes run by the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights (CEPEHRG) to prevent the spread of HIV, said MacDarling Cobbinah from the Coalition against Homophobia in Ghana and a member of CEPEHRG.
The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded Sunday in Washington, drew over 1,000 attendees this year, 40 per cent hailing from the global south, making it arguably one of the most influential and far-reaching forums for development experts and organisations in the world today. 'The emergence of new paths to development has [grown] along with the rise of middle-and low-income countries,' Rebeca Grynspan, associate administrator of the UN Development Programme, said at the opening plenary. 'But we have seen that we can also have growth without inclusion. In Latin America, for example, one in every four young people is not studying or working - 25 per cent out of the education system and out of the labour market. If that's not exclusion, then I don't know what is,' she said.
Tuberculosis remains a leading cause of death in Mali despite the availability of free treatment. The resurgence of the illness, linked to poverty and HIV infection, could be reduced by changing behaviour, doctors say. Some 6,840 cases of tuberculosis, counting all forms of the disease, were recorded in 2009 in Mali, including 5,163 cases of highly contagious pulmonary tuberculosis, according to the medical authorities.
The South African government’s assault on media freedom over the last 18 months has emboldened other African states to further clampdown on free speech said South African National Editors’ Forum chair Mondli Makhanya. Speaking in Cape Town to the Southern African Freelancers Association, Makhanya, who is also editor-in-chief of Sunday Times publisher Avusa, said South Africa’s introduction of the Protection of Information Bill (POIB) and the mooting of a Media Tribunal had an negative effect on freedom of expression in other states on the continent.
The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), a coalition of 21 IFEX members, is urging action to prevent any repeat of recent violent crackdowns on demonstrators and journalists in the run up to scheduled constitutional elections in October. The IFEX-TMG's concerns deepened after a statement by Interim Prime Minister Béji Caïd Essebsi in which he accused journalists of stirring up trouble.
Despite the stigma attached to divorce, ending a marriage is still relatively easy for Muslim women in Egypt. All they have to do is file paperwork with a family court and the deed is done, as long as they're not seeking alimony or damages from their husbands. For the country's millions of Orthodox Christians, or Copts, it's been nearly impossible since Pope Shenouda III, the head of one of the most conservative churches in Christianity, forbade divorce except in the case of conversion or adultery three years ago. That overturned a 1930s law that allowed Copts to obtain a divorce or an annulment for several reasons, such as impotence, mental disabilities and cruelty.
This document from Gender Action assesses the extent to which IFIs address gender based violence (GBV) in their policies and investments. The institutions dealt with include the World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
Human Rights Watch is seeking a part-time (24 hours per week) Office Administrator to be responsible for providing a high level of professional day-to-day support to ensure the smooth and efficient running of HRW’s South Africa office. The position reports mainly to the NY-based Associate Director of Financial Operations, and will also have a dotted line to the South Africa Director.
Pambazuka News 542: Libya: The true costs of war
Pambazuka News 542: Libya: The true costs of war
Just Budgets aims to support civil society organisations, Southern governments and donors to track
donor and government commitment to gender equality thus promoting accountability to the poorest citizens.
Journalists Aaron Ufumeli and Lev Mukarati were on 23 July 2011 reportedly assaulted and harassed by suspected Zanu PF supporters who were part of a public hearing on the Human Rights Bill that was being conducted at the Parliament of Zimbabwe in Harare. Ufumeli, chief photographer with Alpha Media Holdings publishers of The Standard, Zimbabwe Independent and Newsday, was manhandled by the mob that tried to grab his camera while the others demanded that he delete the pictures he had taken.
In 2005, countries in the wider East African region launched a master plan that would finally sort out the region’s perennial power woes. The East African Power Pool (EAPP) was to exploit the enormous hydropower potential in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda, the geothermal potential in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, natural gas in Tanzania and Rwanda and coal in Tanzania and the DR Congo. Six years later, the region’s power troubles seem to be going from bad to worse - Kenya this week joined Tanzania and Uganda in the growing list of East African Community countries rationing power to domestic and industrial consumers.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has appealed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to prevent forthcoming conflict-mineral rules from causing a 'de- facto embargo' on trade from the Central African nation. The commission was asked to develop the guidelines last July under the Dodd-Frank Act to help cut the link between Congo’s mineral trade and armed groups. The SEC rules, which are expected as early as next month, will apply to US companies involved in the trade in tin ore, tantalum, tungsten and gold shipped from Congo and nine neighboring countries.
COVAW (K) is looking for persons to fill one (1) available position for a Legal Intern for a term of six (6) months beginning August, 2011. The intern will be required to conduct client interviews, draft pleadings, undertake case management, undertake comprehensive research on varied legal issues to back legal briefs and/or advice to clients and the Organization, accompany Programme Officers to field work activities, draft reports and attend meetings on behalf of the Organization if need arises.
In this month’s issue:
Dialogue among Civilizations News
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Book Launch
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition KZNSA Gallery 2011
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition Leeds 2011
- Profile: Berry Bickle
Women for Children News
- Gabisile Nkosi Remembered (4 February 1974 - 27 May 2008)
- Youth Day 16 June 2011
- “Precious Cargo” by Ernestine White
- DUT Students view on Youth Day 2011
Break the Silence News
- 5th SA AIDS Conference - June 2011
- Art work: Yehoshua Comforting an Aids Victim by Mduduzi Xakaza
General News
- ASJ Conference
- Nelson Mandela Day – 18 July 2011
The Angola Monitor follows the progress of peace, stability, development and human rights in the country as it struggles to overcome the legacy of nearly three decades of war. Since the first multi-party elections in 1992, we have been monitoring the progress of democracy and peace in the region. The Monitor is produced in English and Portuguese. You can subscribe to the Angola Monitor and get it sent direct to your inbox four times a year.
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...
Cash for guns or buy-back programmes in post-conflict states have fallen out of favour as a method of ridding a society of weapons, and have been replaced by often elaborate schemes designed to remove money from the equation, but the debate continues as to the best way forward. The disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) community has grappled for years with buy-back practices and acknowledges they can have a profound effect on the nature of peace and even encourage a return to conflict. However, sometimes they can be termed 'good practice'.
August is when Nchoo Ngochila would normally be gearing up for the traditional female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) season in her Ilchamus community in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. This year, however, Ngochila will spend her time trying to convince her community the practice should be abandoned. About a year ago, a campaign by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) urged FGM/C practitioners in the area to put down their razors and campaign for women's rights in their communities.
Unless Malawi’s government does something to find solutions to its economic and governance problems, the country will see more nationwide protests like the ones last week where 18 people were killed and 275 arrested, analysts say. Mustapha Hussein, a political analyst at the University of Malawi, told IPS that Mutharika should start taking the concerns of Malawians seriously before things get out of hand. 'The president seems to not be ready to accept blame for the economic and governance problems facing the country. There will be bigger protests in the country than what we just saw should the government not move fast in addressing the issues that are being raised,' said Hussein.
Governments, especially in Africa, need to have strong accountability measures in place in order to effectively reach women in rural areas through gender responsive budgeting. This was one of the recommendations in the Global Call for Action plan drawn up at the end of an international high-level meeting on gender responsive budgeting held in Kigali from 26 to 28 July. The meeting was held in conjunction with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the European Union. Delegates also agreed that there was a need to strengthen the skills, competencies and abilities of local government leaders.
Opposition members of parliament in Burkina Faso have called on France to open its archives to look for evidence of involvement of the French secret services in the 1987 death of Thomas Sankara. The call is the latest effort in a long-running struggle to force a full and open inquiry into the assassination which brought Burkina Faso's current president, Blaise Compaoré, to power. 'Evidence presented in other countries indicates that France was involved in the death of Thomas Sankara,' said MP and lawyer Stanislas Benewindé Sankara - no relation to the former president - at a 16 July press conference in Ouagadougou, the Burkinabè capital.
Despite 12 years of reform, Morocco’s universities continue to fall short of expectations, with students complaining that the training they get does not meet the demands of the job market. Professors in this North African country of 32 million people echoed their students’ grievances, adding that Moroccan universities are poorly managed and riddled with corruption. 'The kind of training provided by universities remains poor and does not meet any of the educational, pedagogic, academic and intellectual conventional standards,' Zakaria Rmidi, a student preparing for his master's degree in English studies, told IPS.
Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Swaziland protesting against poor governance which has led to a shortage of essential medical supplies in sub-Saharan Africa's sole absolute monarchy. More than 500 people demonstrated in Mbabane, the capital, on Wednesday (27 July) while nearly 1,000 protested in the western town of Siteki. AIDS groups have warned of an imminent shortage of anti-retroviral drugs in a country where a quarter of the people between the ages of 15 and 49 are believed to carry HIV.
Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president, has set up a committee to negotiate with a radical Islamist group that has claimed responsibility for a string of almost daily shootings and bomb attacks in northeastern Nigeria, the government has announced. The committee was set up on Saturday after a meeting between Jonathan and local leaders in Borno state, which concluded that the military's strategy against Boko Haram, the group in question, has done more harm than good.
African women want their governments to undertake reforms that will enable them to get easier access to land. Making the appeal, the over 40 women drawn from across the continent also clarified: 'We are talking about natural succession to land.' This was at the end of a two-day workshop in Cameroon's Edea town on 28 July.
The Tanzanian Government has come under pressure to make public the revised version of the Constitutional Review Act 2011. Participants at a weekend meeting accused the government of being reluctant to issue the document and vowed that they would not relent in their quest to have it released. The chairman of the Constitutional Debate Forum, Mr Deus Kibamba, said the government appeared not to be ready for change, and was trying to delay the process. The country might experience chaos should the process of writing the new constitution not be transparent, he said.
President Goodluck Jonathan walked into the National Executive Committee (NEC) hall at the Peoples Democratic Party national secretariat in Abuja (PDP) recently to meet a tribe of anxious party faithfuls. They had gathered in the hall for the 56th meeting of the NEC, the first since the end of April general elections, to discuss the various issues confronting the ruling party. But prior to Mr Jonathan’s arrival, party members were overheard discussing the proposed amendment to the constitution to bring about a single term for the country’s president and state governors, which the incumbent, through his media aide, Reuben Abati, had offered explanations on, but which has raised the country’s political temperature.
Thousands of Zimbabweans in South Africa are in the dark about their residency status as the moratorium on the deportation of illegal immigrants expired. Though NGOs claimed that the Department of Home Affairs had indicated that the moratorium might be extended until the end of this month, no announcement has been made. Though the department has registered 275762 applications, NGOs estimate that there are as many as a million undocumented Zimbabweans in this country. This means thousands could be deported back to Zimbabwe.
'Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo', 'I Want A Wedding Dress' and 'Ungochani' were three of the films recently screened at the Women’s Law Centre in Harare as part of a new film based gender rights series initiative between Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ) and The Women’s Law Centre. The collaboration started in February this year and will continue in the next semester.
Women in Law in Southern Africa (WILSA) working in Zambia, believes prevention is important in reducing the number of women who become victims of gender-based violence. Rudo Chingobe Mooba says the media can play an important role in raising awareness of risks and dangers as well as in influencing public opinion and policies that protect the rights of women. Rudo is worried that a number of gender-based violence cases occur in marriages. A situation she says 'poses a threat to stopping gender-based violence, notwithstanding the issues of HIV/AIDS which stand at 16% in Zambia.'
Civil society organisations want East African governments to scrap tax incentives as a stimulus for investment inflows and development accelerator. Speaking during a roundtable discussion in Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday, activists said incentives hinder the entry of revenue and have no empirical results to prove their efficacy and impact to investment. The meeting - organised by the Tax Justice Network-Africa and ActionAid International Kenya - attracted policy makers, academics, tax administrators and business leaders in the EAC.
Early last month, pharmaceutical titan Merck became the latest multinational to pledge allegiance to the CEO Water Mandate, the United Nations' public-private initiative 'designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices'. But there's darker data beneath that sunny marketing: The CEO Water Mandate has been heavily hammered by the Sierra Club, the Polaris Institute and more for exerting undemocratic corporate control over water resources (PDF) under the banner of the United Nations.
The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) government has, in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB), officially launched a Curriculum Vitae (CV) registry that seeks to assist its citizens in their quest for employment opportunities in Africa’s newest nation. Under the new arrangement, the Ministry of Human Resource Development and other government ministries will review CVs received through the registry, thus matching them with appropriate openings within the public sector, if available. 'South Sudan requires a skilled and dedicated workforce in order to implement its national development plan and other goals effectively. The country needs qualified professionals to help it address challenges and who can share in the nation building process,' said AfDB in a statement.
A massive shortfall in funding for African infrastructure projects is costing the continent up to three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a year, a senior African Development Bank official said. 'The gap right now is something like $45 billion a year and that gap is dragging down economic growth in Africa by as much as 3 percent of GDP,' Mthuli Ncube, chief economist for the lender, said at a launch event for its annual economic outlook. 'The most critical area is energy - power. Any power outages are bound to cause massive problems for growth.'
There are several innovations to the research projects captured in this report. Firstly, it consists of studies of both xenophobic violence and community protests, drawing the links both empirically as one of collective action spawns or mutates into another, and theoretically through the concept of insurgent citizenship. Secondly, the research was conceived of, and conducted, through a collaboration between an NGO, The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and an academic research institute, the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at University of the Witwatersrand. This brought together scholars and practitioners, psychologists and sociologists, in a challenging and productive partnership to try to understand collective violence and its underlying social dynamics.
Rebel fighters challenging the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waged an eight-hour gunfight here in their de facto capital on Sunday, against what their leaders called a 'fifth column' of Qaddafi loyalists who had posed as a rebel brigade. It was the latest sign of discord and trickery in the rebel ranks to emerge in the four days since the killing of the rebels’ top military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, a former Qaddafi confidant who had defected to their side. The mysterious circumstances of his death have raised new questions about his own loyalties, and about the unity and discipline of the rebel troops.
The Hawks have taken the first step towards re-opening the multibillion-rand arms deal probe - which could expose those who took bribes to prosecution. The head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, Anwar Dramat, wrote to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) informing it of the Hawks' intention to speak to European investigators to establish whether or not criminal charges should be brought against any South Africans. The Hawks controversially dropped the probe into the arms deal in September last year, arguing that prospects of successful prosecutions were slim.
Four months before South Africa hosts the United Nation's big climate-change conference in Durban, concerns are mounting that the country is lagging behind in its preparations. This comes amid accusations that tensions are running high between the department of environmental affairs (DEA) and the department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) over responsibilities. Because of international protocol, the environment department handles the content of the climate change conference and Dirco the logistics. Greenpeace's Melita Steele, who is also part of the civil society steering committee for COP17, said it was only now, in July, that Dirco was ready and the confusion over which department was responsible for what seemed to have been sorted out.
The April 6 Youth Movement said that the movement, alongside 25 political powers, decided to suspend its sit-in in Tahrir Square until the end of Ramadan. 'We want to facilitate the traffic flow during Ramadan and put into consideration the special circumstances related to this holy month,' Amr Aly, member of the group's political bureau said.The movement said that it would continue exerting pressure on the government to execute the rest of their demands including ending the military prosecution of civilians, sacking the Prosecutor General, cleansing the interior ministry and setting a reasonable minimum and maximum wage.
African prosperity relies on a wholesale rejection of the Western free trade model, which was not the view of David Cameron or the delegates he travelled with on a recent trip to Africa.
Following a day of protest on 20 July and a violent government crackdown that left 20 dead, Steve Sharra reflects on the lack of debate in Malawi.
With UK Prime Minister David Cameron continuing to face pressure over the News International scandal, Cameron Duodu considers the parallels with Watergate in the US in the 1970s.
The Mandela Park Backyarders have issued a press statement detailing irregularities in the allocation of houses at the Mandela Park Housing Project in Cape Town, South Africa.
On 11 June and 2-3 July 2011 ‘punitive’ night raids were carried out against women in the southern city of M’sila, Algeria. Considered to be ‘potential prostitutes’ by their neighbours because they live alone, and under the pretext of the defense of morality, hundreds of youth have burnt down the houses of women who barely escaped being lynched. The police did not intervene.
Recently a press conference was held in Algeria where the Observatory on Violence Against Women condemned the lax manner with which the public authorities react to these punitive raids: ‘What we are denouncing is the absence of the state to the point where every individual can take the law into their own hands and find a pretext in the defense of morality to make an attempt on the lives of women.’
Please follow to read more and to sign a petition addressed to the Algerian authorities.
A French statement about these raids is available here.
‘The ongoing narrative wars over China’s African involvement between (mostly) Western Sinophobes and those they deride as “panda-huggers” have become as predictable as the opening moves in a game of chess.’ But Ian Taylor ‘well-informed and independent-minded account’ both challenges these orthodoxies, and brings out and questions ‘the assumptions they share,’ finds Stephen Marks.
As a means to reduce conflict and fulfil its citizens’ hopes, South Sudan’s key challenges revolve around the development of an inclusive, residency-based citizenship, writes Christopher Zambakari.
It’s Cairo, Casablanca & Cape Town
Addis, Abuja & Accra
Ouagadougou, Timbuktu & Antananarivo
Lagos, Lomé, Lusaka & Lalibela
Its peace and turmoil
Order and chaos
Evolution and revolution
Anarchy and regulation
Innovation and duplication
Progress and retreat
Static and constant change...
Keep up the good/bad news. African need a shock treatment, because so
far the majority of us are lost in the pursuit of material things
since moving up north. We need more debate, small or large educational
forum around the country. freedom of speech for sure but not at the
expense of truth. Know the truth and it shall set you free.
The recent regulatory approval of Zimbabwean diamonds for sale reveals deep flaws in the system, writes Khadija Sharife.
A wicked blow to Africa, the invasion of Libya has little to do with protecting civilians and all to do with strategic interests. Why are these invaders so heartless, asks Charles Abugre.
Following plans by Nigeria’s Rivers State to expropriate 258,954 hectares of land from Ogoniland for the development of a new town by the federal government, MOSOP has issued a statement condemning the ‘scramble for Ogoni’ which it says ‘will no doubt generate unmanageable land shortage for local subsistence food production and other uses especially housing development.’
Globalisation continues its forward march
Noam Chomsky
To date, the rise of public indignation has not questioned the power of companies. The future depends on what the majority is ready to withstand and knowing whether this vast majority will collectively come to a constructive proposal in response to the problems that are at the heart of the capitalist system of control and domination. If not, the consequences may be grave, as history has so clearly shown.
******
One Europe, several Europes in construction or deconstruction?
Samir Amin
To some, Europe is currently under construction. But Samir Amin thinks that those who think so have limited and fragile criteria for judgement which could be compared with the inter-dependence of interests, in the short-term, of European monopoles. According to Amin, the current crisis is most probably the start of the ‘deconstruction’ of Europe.
Senegal: What interpretation can be made of the happenings in June?
Sidy Diop
The events which recently shook Senegal show that the political system of the country is in crisis. Through massive street demonstrations, the population prevented the parliament from adopting a law, and a few days later, violent protests expressed the great dissatisfaction created by the energy policy. It should not be doubted that this is an unprecedented occurrence which calls for reflection in order to determine the true meaning of the happenings and perhaps draw lessons which are essential to hatch the institutional evolution that measures up to the new expectations displayed by the people.
The reason for marching against rape of women in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
When some Congolese heard of a march by their fellow citizens from Paris to Brussels, they thought it was madness. One of the recurrent questions asked was: ‘What will that change?’ The material, symbolic and humane reason behind the march was unknown to them. They had forgotten that great changes start from little things. This article by Jean-Pierre Mbulu is an attempt at theorising this walk and its effects.
Zambia's President Rupiah Banda has put this year's general vote on Tuesday, 20 September. Incumbent Zambian President and top contender under the governing Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) stable, Rupiah Banda announced the election day during a live broadcast to the nation.
The top United Nations peacekeeping official has reported that more than 500 troops with the new UN mission in the disputed Abyei area of Sudan have been deployed and both of the contesting sides appear committed to avoiding combat and willing to withdraw in favour of the blue helmets. But Alain Le Roy, the under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told a meeting of the Security Council that 'deployment difficulties' in working with the Sudanese government have left some of the troops facing a 'critical food shortage'.