Pambazuka News 538: Scams, theft and invasions
Pambazuka News 538: Scams, theft and invasions
The United Nations' newest agency - UN Women - takes an ambitious and sometimes startling look at gender equality and women's rights around the world with its first-ever report. The 2011 'Progress of the World's Women: In Pursuit of Justice' report is 'a global survey of women's access to justice -looking both at legislation passed by governments and the steps taken (or not taken) to implement those laws,' according to the Guardian. 'The report highlights the practical barriers that women - particularly the poorest and most excluded - face,' says former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in the report’s introduction. It states that 127 countries do not explicitly criminalise rape within marriage, while 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime.
The Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) is accepting applications to its 2nd Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ), an annual week-long residential programme with a focus on Transitional Justice issues in the context of Africa. The Institute, which is scheduled to take place from 20 - 27 November 2011, in Kitgum, Northern Uganda has as its theme: 'Whose Memories Count and at What Cost?' The deadline for submitting applications is 1 August 2011, and any applicant intending to apply for some form of scholarships must do so before that deadline.
CODESRIA and SEPHIS are pleased to announce the first edition of the African-Arab Advanced Institute. This annual advanced institute on African-Arab relations will be held alternatively in North Africa and in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Institute is conceived as a high-level knowledge-building, agenda-setting and networking forum for scholars in the prime of their careers desirous of experimenting with new fields of knowledge and exploring new conceptual terrains.
In line with its mandate to promote high-level scientific and academic debates on various aspects of socioeconomic development in Africa, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) hereby announces the 2011 edition of its Gender Symposium which will be held from 1st to 3rd November, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. The Gender Symposium is a forum organized annually by CODESRIA to discuss gender issues in Africa, and the theme of this year’s edition is Gender and the Media in Africa.
South Sudan becomes the world's newest nation on 9 July, the final step in the six-year Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a deal that ended the 1983-2005 North-South war. The government is upbeat, but after the euphoria of celebrations and the pomp of speeches, the new nation faces a mammoth task. Exactly how North and South Sudan divorce is critical to the future for both states. Key negotiations still remain - most importantly over oil. Border conflict has already forced thousands to flee, including some 110,000 people following the northern occupation of the contested Abyei region in May.
National AIDS programmes are feeling the pinch as the international community and governments rethink their prioritization of AIDS over other infectious diseases. The withdrawal of support for the fight against HIV is gaining momentum and it is time to get angry, according to Francois Venter, head of the Southern Africa HIV Clinicians Society. In this Q&A with IRIN/PlusNews, Venter spoke about debunking the five major claims fuelling the backlash against global HIV expenditure, drawing on work by University of Cape Town professor Nicoli Nattrass and long-time HIV activist Gregg Gonsalves.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency has described the situation in drought-hit Somalia as the 'worst humanitarian disaster' in the world, after meeting with those affected at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. The camp, located in the northeast and the world's largest in the world, is overflowing with tens of thousands of refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia and within Kenya. Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), visited the camp on Sunday, appealing for 'massive support' from the international community for the more than 380,000 people estimated to be living in Dadaab.
A lack of proper primary care facilities in South Sudan means doctors are often overworked. And a lack of money means they are under-equipped, as well. The government in Juba does not give them enough to buy the supplies they need, and donations from the international community do not fill the gap. The health ministry has plans to open a network of primary care centres - roughly one per 15,000 people - but none are fully operational. And the military and police hospitals are closed, forcing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers to seek care from civilian facilities.
More than half of Tunisians do not know who they will vote for in October's elections, according to a poll partly sponsored by Al Jazeera. The faultline between those who would like to see an Islamist form of governance and those who wish to see the secularism established under President Habib Bourguiba maintained is fast becoming a defining divide in the nascent democracy. With 54 per cent of Tunisians yet to decide who they will cast their vote for, according to Al Jazeera's poll, it is clear that the campaign period will be crucial. Most of the newly formed political parties remain completely unknown to the public.
Ghana’s former President Jerry Rawlings has finally lost his charm and charisma after delegates at the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) primary rejected his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings’s bid to replace incumbent President John Atta Mills at next year’s election. Out of 2,861 votes, Nana Agyeman-Rawlings could only poll 90 votes against President Mills’ 2,771. If she had won, this would have been the first time that a serving president is changed after his first term in office since the country returned to Constitutional rule in 1992.
Early in June in Singapore, the International Centre for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board of directors announced that they will allow more gTLD (generic Top Level Domains). Currently, there are only 22 registered gTLDs like .com and .org. The expanded gTLD space means that Africa can too have its own gTLD like .africa. An organisation going by the name DotConnectAfrica (DAC) (http://www.dotconnectafrica.org/) has been spearheading this venture for a while now. DAC has even been on social media, communicating their agenda and advocating for the .africa gTLD long before the ICANN announcement.
Women in minority and indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to wide-ranging forms of violence, abuse and discrimination, according to a new report released by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), a human rights group that works on behalf of minorities and indigenous peoples. The disproportionate levels of abuse and discrimination that these women face - including rape, other forms of sexual violence, and trafficking, from government forces, paramilitaries, or members of their own communities - can be attributed to the fact that their identity exists at the intersection of two rather marginalised groups, women and minorities, making them easy targets.
More countries have gender equality legislation on their books than ever before but many laws are inadequate and rarely if ever enforced, the first major report by the new UN women’s agency showed on Wednesday. While equality between women and men is guaranteed in the constitutions of 139 countries and territories, the report titled 'Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice' paints a picture of a world in which statutes have little impact on women’s lives. 'In rich and poor countries alike, the infrastructure of justice – the police, the courts and the judiciary – is failing women, which manifests itself in poor services and hostile attitudes from the very people whose duty it is to meet women’s rights,' the report said.
Mother of eight, Jessicah Foni, 36, hopes that independence will mean a hospital will soon be built in her village. Foni, who has travelled from a remote village in South Sudan to the state’s capital to celebrate independence, lost two babies at birth because of the lack of medical facilities in her area. South Sudan has one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. Out of 100,000 live births, 2,054 women die.
A married couple in the US pleaded guilty in federal court to exploiting an African woman and forcing her to work for them, authorities said. The woman, from Swaziland, was invited to travel to the United States and work as a caterer for a wedding. The wedding never existed. Instead, the woman was harboured in a home, concealed from law enforcement detection and kept working as a housekeeper until early 2007. 'This case reminds us that modern day slavery is occurring in our communities,' United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. Last month, a Nigerian citizen in Atlanta was convicted for trafficking women from Nigeria to work as nannies.
In a historic gathering, more than a hundred women from seven continents representing more than 40 women’s organisations worldwide attended the first general assembly of International Women’s Alliance (IWA) in Manila early this month. With the theme 'Advance global anti-imperialist women’s movement in the 21st century, strengthen the international women’s alliance', progressive women from 20 countries vowed to fight imperialist attacks against women’s rights and welfare.
When the European Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations began ten years ago, there was a common understanding that the new trade regime would be targeted at deepening of Africa’s regional and continental integration, the enhancement of the competitiveness of the economy, and improvement of production capacities with a view to achieving sustainable development. However, says this posting on the Third World Network-Africa website, in the process of the negotiations these laudable objectives are not being pursued whilst WTO-plus elements have been introduced into the negotiations as reflected in numerous contentious issues.
Red tape at border points is costing East Africa $7 million (Sh630 million) for each hour of delay in a year, according to a new study that proposes checks along the Northern Corridor be co-ordinated to ease transport costs. The report, 'Harmonisation of vehicle overload control in the East African Community', sponsored by the Japan International Cooperation Agency shows that trucks take five days to cover the 1,100 kilometres from Mombasa to Kampala - with 19 hours being spent on crossing borders and weighbridges.
While ‘data exclusivity’ clauses will not feature in the India-European Union free trade agreement, the threat posed by the impending deal to the world’s supply of cheap generic drugs is far from over. India’s commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma assured Michel Sidibe, chief of the United Nations joint programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) at a meeting this week that India would reject attempts by pharmaceutical giants to include data exclusivity clauses in the FTA. 'The government of India reaffirms its full commitment to ensure that quality generic medicines, including antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, are seamlessly available, and to make them available to all countries,' Sharma said.
Tanzania and other sub-Saharan Africa countries have made rapid progress towards the millennium development goals (MDGs), but reaching all goals by 2015 remains challenging, a new report says. Despite major improvements, the report says, there were still too many people being left behind calling for intensified efforts to improve the economic gap. Progress tends to bypass those who are lowest on the economic ladder or are otherwise disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability or ethnicity. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Geneva, finds that sub-Saharan Africa improved the fastest among all developing regions in many areas, especially those related to health.
Four communities that Shell Petroleum Development Company operates in recently issued a 14 day ultimatum to the company, demanding implementation of an agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi. Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest at the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base.
Europe's biodiesel industry could be wiped out by EU plans to tackle the unwanted side effects of biofuel production, after studies showed few climate benefits, four papers obtained by Reuters show. Europe's world-leading $13 billion biodiesel industry, which has boomed in the wake of a decision by Brussels policymakers in 2003 to promote it, is now on the verge of being legislated out of existence after the studies revealed biodiesel's indirect impact cancels out most of its benefits.
In this interview with , Pius Adesanmi speaks about the role of academia, politics, aid, football and his new book, ‘You are Not a Country, Africa’, the inaugural winner of the Penguin Prize for African Writing.
The recent political upheaval in Burkina Faso demonstrates the fragility of peace, writes Paul Kéré, with the country facing numerous challenges around ensuring affordable staple foods, public health, its economy and the handover of power.
The pharmaceutical industry uses dirty tricks to maximise profits at any cost, hurting sick people and taxpayers. Khadija Sharife examines the methods used by multinational drug corporations to control markets – and lives.
Neera Kapur-Dromson pays tribute to Cynthia Salvadori, who wrote extensively about the peoples and culture of Kenya. 'Cynthia never got the full recognition that she deserved, yet she left us an invaluable legacy with treasures of well researched and documented works. We in Kenya remain indebted to her generosity,' she writes.
Last year’s backlash against homosexuals in Malawi and Uganda is ‘cause for great concern’, but it shouldn’t be taken as ‘as evidence of the apparently enduring homophobia of African people in general’, argues H. Nanjala Nyabola.
While the Niger Delta amnesty could be seen as a ‘modest success’, writes Uche Igwe, it is now time to direct resources towards the pursuit of ‘verifiable physical development in the region’.
Former international aid worker Christina Clark-Kazak uses extensive interviews done in Kampala and Kyaka II refugee settlement, Uganda, to present the narratives of 10 young people living as refugees. Their accounts reveal both political awareness and individual agency in everyday and extraordinary circumstances.
I hear you talking of genocide and gorillas. But there is more than that to Rwandan history. In telling you of Rwanda, come with me into the 17th century...
Social progress and transformation in Africa will be driven by the continent’s people themselves, writes Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe. Africa remains a net exporter of capital to the Western world, just as the remittances provided by Africans abroad far outweigh the ‘aid’ the continent receives, Ekwe-Ekwe underlines.
‘After so many years of work on Sudan, I thought myself fully braced for the worst the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime might do. As so often before, I was wrong. The litany of egregious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law over the past five weeks is simply overwhelming---in South Kordofan, in Abyei, but in other areas along the North/South border as well.’ Eric Reeves provides an overview of the situation.
Set the cost of the Fifa World Cup against South Africa’s development needs, and ‘you can't but conclude that we didn't need it, nor could we afford it. So why did we go all out to host such an unnecessary event?’ asks Andile Mngxitama.
Agostinho Chicaia – an Angolan human rights activist arbitrarily detained without charge in the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than two weeks – must be released immediately, Amnesty International has said.
Those within the peace and justice movement seeking an end to NATO’s illegal bombing of Libya must also be careful not to extend misplaced support for dictators, writes Horace Campbell.
When Zimbabwe’s political temperature rises, women and children are the most vulnerable, writes Grace Kwinjeh.
The 'World Bank Out of Climate Finance' campaign calls on readers to send emails via urging the Transitional Committee of the UNFCCC to keep the World Bank out of the green climate fund.
The TASENE programme is a unique collaboration between COSTECH (Tanzania), Sida (Sweden) and NWO-WOTRO (The Netherlands). TASENE invites applications from recent PhD graduates in any discipline to conduct full time research over two years, jointly with colleagues from the other countries. The researchers will work in Tanzania and in either Sweden or The Netherlands. Research should be relevant to the research and university system in Tanzania.
Scholar Mahmood Mamdani has cautioned East Africans against copying the European model of regional integration, arguing that it is a recipe for disaster. He was addressing the East African Legislative Assembly symposium. Mamdani said those who call for unity in Africa have tended to follow a model - The European Community - yet developments in Greece, Spain, Ireland, etc should cause a rethink.
What does the future look like?
KPFA 94.1FM recently interviewed Desmond D'sa, chairperson of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance in South Africa, who was on a visit to the United States ahead of the COP17 meeting scheduled for Durban in late 2011. D'sa described the key themes of his visit as exposing the greed of corporates and the destruction that they cause, emphasising the message that corporates can be challenged and tackled, and the importance of linking up local issues with national issues in South Africa.
This special issue of African Journal of Conflict Resolution (AJCR) on Southern Africa - 50 years after Hammarskjöld underlines the current relevance of Hammarskjöld’s legacy and the continued relevance of his mindset and convictions for our efforts today to enhance peace and reduce violence and discrimination. This covers not only dimensions seeking to protect individual people. It also includes efforts to ensure more equal relations among states within the international system, often misleadingly called ‘order’ but more often tantamount to a structurally embedded disorder. By doing so, the following contributions also articulate parameters for better conduct by and among states and their leaders, respecting the interest of ‘We, the Peoples’ as the Preamble of the United Nations Charter declares (in contrast to what follows in the actual clauses, which focus on the governments of states). the special issue.
Plans are in place to clear the diverse rainforest ecosystem in Southwest Cameroon to make room for oil palm plantations. The forest and the agricultural societies situated around it are the foundation for the livelihoods and food supply of the people in the region, which comprises 38 villages and around 45,000 inhabitants. The organisation Rainforest Rescue is asking people to participate in their protest by writing to the minister of environment of Cameroon.
Millions of citizens from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been killed or displaced during decades of political corruption and military conflict. Many forced migrants are young people, who are often seen either as passive victims or as radicalized and amoral child soldiers perpetuating the cycle of violence. Recounting Migration refutes these stereotypes by presenting young Congolese refugees' nuanced understanding of the complex power relations that affect their everyday lives.
An Angolan human rights activist arbitrarily detained without charge in the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than two weeks must be released immediately, Amnesty International has said. Agostinho Chicaia, an environmentalist and former president of the banned Angolan human rights organisation Mpalabanda, was arrested in Kinshasa on 20 June, apparently in connection with an attack on the Togolese football team last year.
This discussion paper from the International Council on Human Rights Policy examines the human rights implications of the immense diffusion of data-gathering technologies across the world in recent years. It starts from the premise that the relevant issues, while much discussed, are not yet well understood and are evolving rapidly, both of which contribute to widespread anxiety. The paper explores the roots of this anxiety and attempts to determine its sources and effects. It queries the degree to which data-gathering technologies pose problems that represent (or are analogous to) human rights threats and asks whether and how human rights law may help to assess or address those problems.
Mouctar Diallo is a graduate student in Political Science and Anthropology/Sociology at the American University in Cairo and a Guinean National. He was arrested on April 30, 2011, three days after arriving in the Gambia to continue anthropological research he had begun in the Gambia the previous semester and had continued in his home country of Guinea. He spent over a week being questioned in jail and then was effectively under house arrest until June 28th, when the Gambian National Intelligence Agency (NIA) called him in again for questioning and told him they were making a case to prosecute him as a terrorist. They accused him of spreading Egyptian revolutionary ideas to Gambia. Since then, no one has been able to reach him.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive response to the late Manning Marable’s ‘Malcolm X: A life of reinvention’, within days its publication, the book ignited ‘a firestorm in some quarters of the Black Freedom Movement’. Bill Fletcher Jr examines the controversies around the biography.
Shell South Africa has been ordered to withdraw 'unsubstantiated' and 'misleading' claims it made in full-page advertisements in newspapers about its use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale gas exploration in the Karoo. The ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was welcomed by Jonathan Deal, chairman of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG), who laid the complaint. 'It is critical that with an issue so important to South Africa as fracking that the public is not misled, as Shell clearly intended in its advertising.'
South Sudan’s independence celebrations on Saturday will not only usher in the world’s newest country, they may also be a coronation of its southern neighbor, Uganda, as a cresting regional influence. Even now, with independence close at hand, South Sudan will be a nation in dependence. Countries from the United States to China are investing in the soon-to-be country, and the nearby East African Community says it is likely South Sudan will join the regional economic bloc. But Uganda, a developing country itself, holds a special place. A vast portion of South Sudan’s produce is imported, and Uganda exports more goods to South Sudan than any country in the world.
With just weeks to go before a 27-month moratorium on deporting Zimbabweans living illegally in South Africa expires, the authorities are scrambling to complete a documentation process that will still leave hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans lacking the necessary permits to avoid arrest. The number of Zimbabweans who have fled the political and economic crisis in their country and moved to South Africa is unknown but estimates from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) range from one to 1.5 million. Before the government introduced the moratorium in April 2009, the authorities were deporting Zimbabweans who had entered the country illegally at a rate of about 200,000 a year.
Ten people were on Thursday 7 July arrested as protests against the high cost of living and graft at the Ministry of Education turned chaotic. And police were forced to lob several teargas canisters to disperse the group of Unga Revolution campaigners who are pressing for a reduction in the cost of flour as well a the sacking of Education minister Prof Sam Ongeri.
The Cameroon Government has tabled a Bill in the National Assembly that could grant the vote to the diaspora. The Bill is almost sure to be passed as it is supported by both the ruling CPDM party, which has a two-third majority in the Assembly as well as the leading opposition party SDF. Cameroonians in the diaspora have been clamouring for the vote over the years, to no avail.
An appeals court in The Netherlands on Thursday 7 July sentenced a Rwandan citizen living in the country to life in prison for crimes committed during the genocide in 1994. Joseph Mpambara, 43, was found guilty by the appeals court of torture causing the deaths of two Tutsi mothers and their four children on 13 April 1994, upholding a previous lower court conviction.
Four Numsa members were injured when police shot them with rubber bullets during an engineering sector strike in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, the metalworkers' union claimed on Thursday, 7 July. The union's spokesman Castro Ngobese said the four men were in hospital and a case had been opened at a local police station. He condemned the alleged shooting, during protests for higher wages. On Wednesday Numsa claimed police intimidated, harassed, shot at and arrested strikers in Bellville, Cape Town and Germiston, Johannesburg.
It's early morning in Zandspruit and police are barricading one end of the road. At the other end, behind a blockade of trees, rocks and burning tyres, a mob of young and old emerge, singing struggle songs. The protest started at 3am and will not stop until their councillor addresses them. It's been two months since South African local government elections, and the community is fuming that no one has come to address them since. As they march they carry posters that are calling for councillor Maureen Schneeman to step down.
Every year the Zambia government allocates billions of Kwacha for poverty reduction, but much of the money has been stolen or misappropriated. The latest report from the Office of the Auditor General, and a study published by the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) in June 2011 shows that a number of multi-billion Kwacha projects funded by government failed to take off in 2009 and 2010 because of the misappropriation of funds.
While George Padmore is well known as the ‘father of African emancipation’, Cameron Duodu reminds us of the life and ideas of Edward Wilmot Blyden, ‘the grandfather of African emancipation’.
Two deaths recently marked the South African political landscape - one of a well-known former government minister, the other of a community organiser. When it came to water, the two were on opposite sides of the political battle lines: Kader Asmal implemented a commericalised water policy while Thulisile Christina Manqele fought against that policy. Both leave a legacy, writes Patrick Bond.
Doreen Lwanga describes a debate with Ugandan members of parliament in which many of the myths around homosexuality were evident. 'Gays are humans and as such, deserving of humane recognition and respect,' she writes.
SENEGAL: 23 JUNE WAS A RED LETTER DAY
Demba Moussa Dembélé
23 June will always be remembered as a disgrace for President Wade and his clan. But it will be etched in gold in the political history of independent Senegal. 23 June 2011 will forever remain a day of glory for the Senegalese people, who showed that power ultimately resides with them. 23 June is also a shining testimony to the courage, determination and self-sacrifice of Senegalese youth.
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SENEGAL: A PEOPLE’S VICTORY AND A REPUBLIC ON ITS FEET
Mamadou Diallo
On 23 June, the Senegalese people demonstrated en masse against the planned vote in parliament to modify the constitution in order to facilitate the re-election of Wade and ensure that his son would be his successor. But mass protests scuppered the plans of the president, his government and parliament. According to Mamadou Diallo, the people prevented a dangerous development.
DRC: A MAP OF VOTING BOOTHS AND ELECTORAL FRAUD
Benjamin Stanis Kalombo
On 4 July Congolese police dispersed a demonstration called by opposition activists in front of the headquarters of the Independent National Election Commission (CENI). The activists were protesting against irregularities in the electoral lists drawn up for November’s legislative elections. And as Benjamin Stanis Kalombo notes, cases of fraud have been increasing.
FRANCO-IVORIAN RELATIONS ON THE UPSWING IN THE POST-GBAGBO ERA
Jean-Jacques Konadjé
The dark chapter of the Laurent Gbagbo period has finally ended. But can Côte d’Ivoire embark on a new destiny and build a new history at the same time? France has strengthened its position in what it considers to be its backyard, but, argues Jean-Jacques Konadjé, it also faces competition from other powers, especially the strategic interests of the United States.
Newly discovered Nigerian-Ghanaian writer Taiye Selasi, Kenya’s Binyavanga Wainaina and Congolese filmmaker Léandre-Alain Baker are among the artists whose work is discussed in this week’s review of African blogs, compiled by Sokari Ekine.
Femi Ojo-Ade’s study of Césaire’s four plays is ‘a celebration of black consciousness’, writes Peter Wuteh Vakunta in a review of Ojo-Ade’s 'Aimé Césaire’s African Theater: Of Poets, Prophets and Politicians'.
This morning Municipal Security Guards arrived at the Kennedy Road shack settlement and began disconnecting people from electricity. The community had previously negotiated an understanding with the Municipality that they would not send their security guards into the settlement to disconnect.
Bunge la Mwananchi demands the recognition of organic agriculture and other agro-ecological farming practices in Kenya’s agriculture policies and practices.
Despite the contravening of at least 11 stipulations of international law, the International Criminal Court continues to turn a blind eye to NATO’s activities in Libya, making a mockery of its supposed status as an unbiased arbiter, writes Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey.
‘Digital Tongues’ is a series of conversations with four Africans from across the continent, hosted by Zimbabwean Tendai Marima. This week’s discussion focuses on African politicians and social media and nationalism and identity. Readers are invited to participate in the dialogue by posting a comment on the story.
Last spring, Haiti’s minister of agriculture gave agribusiness giant Monsanto permission to ‘donate’ 505 tonnes of seeds to Haiti ‘to support the reconstruction effort’. A year later, Beverly Bell asks what has become of the seeds that Monsanto gave, and ‘how real was the fear of Haitian farmer organizations that the donation was a Trojan horse?’
Being rooted in sexuality rather than gender, the issues of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are completely different from those of transgender people, writes Audrey Mbugua.
The Oakland Institute takes a closer look at South Sudan’s largest land deal to date – the granting of a 49-year lease of 600,000 hectares of land to US-based firm Nile Trading and Development Inc (NTD) by the shadowy Mukaya Payam Cooperative in March 2008. For a sum equivalent to around US$25,000, NTD has full rights to exploit all natural resources in the leased land during this period.
Zimbabwe’s three governing parties have agreed on a mid 2012 election timetable despite demands by President Mugabe that they must be held this year. President Mugabe has been insisting that elections must be held before the end of the year, despite protests that the political situation was still volatile and that the necessary reforms were yet to be put in place. 'This means that there is no way we can hold elections this year,' the privately owned NewsDay newspaper quoted one of the negotiators as having said.
The River Congo waters have drastically decreased in the first six months of the year, causing problems for boat navigation. According to the DRC public company in charge of the waterways - Régie des Voies Fluviales - the phenomenon is unprecedented in DRC history. According to Congolese meteorologist Amos Paluku, the low water level is linked to other climatic changes observed in the country, particularly in the western DRC.
Liberia has kicked off campaigning for 11 October presidential and legislative elections, with incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf facing criticism over her plan to seek re-election. Sirleaf, who was elected Africa’s first female president in 2005, said she wanted a second term to continue her work in rebuilding the west African nation which was devastated by the 1989-2003 civil war.
Thousands of Ethiopians in Afar State are facing critical food, water and health gaps almost a month after a volcano erupted in neighbouring Eritrea's Nabro region, officials say. The volcano started erupting on 12 June, spewing ash over hundreds of kilometres, affecting food and water sources as well as air travel in some parts. The eruption also caused an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7, Eritrea's Information Ministry reported in a communiqué.
With hundreds of new Somali refugees arriving daily at the congested and overcrowded Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya, incumbent refugees are going around the camp with loud-hailers appealing for help for the newcomers, most of whom lack food, clothes, and blankets. 'As the numbers [of new arrivals] kept increasing and more people kept coming, we decided to organise and pool our efforts,' Abdiwali Hussein Mohamed, a member of the refugees' committee, told IRIN. 'We must do what we can, even if it is one pair of shoes.' The new refugees arrive in a deplorable state, Mohamed said.
Persistent violence compounded by a serious drought have forced 54,000 Somalis to flee in June, bringing the total number of displaced Somalis to a quarter of the country’s population, the UNHCR has said. The food shortage problem is so acute that there are now reports of children under five dying of hunger and exhaustion while fleeing, or dying within a day of their arrival at refugee camps despite emergency aid, the UN refugee agency said.
Almost eight years after an estimated 50,000 people perished in a four-year conflict that also displaced 500,000 from their homes in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a tenuous calm prevails in the area. The 1999-2003 Ituri conflict was between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups. In Nioka, Mahagi territory, about 90km northeast of the district capital, Bunia, the violence sucked in the Alur ethnic community, with the Lendu accusing them of supporting the Hema.
This report documents the state of Zimbabwe's education sector in the year 2010. It is the latest edition of the Students Solidarity Trust (SST)'s 'Inside the Pandora's Box' annual series. This 2010 report focuses on the material and democratic tenets in its evaluation. The gist of the 2010 argument is that whereas there have been some minimal and noticeable improvements in the availability of education little of that has been premised on democratic tenets. Consequently, explanations of educational change rooted in material analysis premised in the political economy are helpful but inadequate to capture political dynamics in contemporary Zimbabwe.
A journalist who had recently reported about the arrest of locals accused of trafficking weapons for criminal activity was found shot to death last week in the eastern town of Kirumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo, report Journaliste en danger (JED) and other IFEX members. Kambale Musonia, the host of a daily programme on Radio Communautaire de Lubero Sud, was shot to death a few metres from his home on 21 June. Musonia is the sixth journalist gunned down in the past four years in North and South Kivu alone, says JED.
Civil society organisations from Latin America, Europe and around the world have issued an open letter calling on the World Bank's International Finance Corporation to reject a proposal to finance Calyx Agro, a company that acquires farmland in Latin America on behalf of wealthy foreign investors. Calyx Agro is a subsidiary of Louis Dreyfus, one of the world's biggest commodity traders. The World Bank is considering a loan of up to US$30 million to help Calyx Agro expand its operations in Latin America. The letter also denounces the Bank for its on-going support to other leading investors involved in land grabbing around the world.
To breathe new life into its agricultural sector and boost output, Sudan is desperately seeking foreign investment, especially from neighbouring Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia which are nervous about their future food security. In recent months, farmers have staged sporadic demonstrations against what they consider an unacceptable offer by the government to buy their land. Some have degenerated into violent confrontations with the police. 'The farmers are complaining, because the price they are being offered for their land is not fair,' said lawyer and political activist Majdi Selim, speaking at his office in Wad Madani.
Gamba Manyatta village is empty now, weeds already roping around the few skeletal hut frames still standing. The people who were evicted took as much of their building materials as they could carry to start again and the land where their homes stood is now ploughed up. The eviction of the villagers to make way for a sugar cane plantation is part of a wider land grab going on in Kenya's Tana Delta that is not only pushing people off plots they have farmed for generations, stealing their water resources and raising tribal tensions that many fear will escalate into war, but also destroying a unique wetland habitat that is home to hundreds of rare and spectacular birds.
The Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council to the OECD has declined to support an official communique on principles for internet policy-making, saying that it could undermine 'online freedom of expression, freedom of information, the right to privacy, access to knowledge, and innovation across the world.' Their concerns include the communiqué’s over-emphasis on protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights at the expense of fundamental freedoms.
The 1972 Succession Act identifies the persons eligible for inheritance and their respective share entitlements in Uganda, but the majority of women in rural communities are not aware of this office and its function, nor do they understand Uganda's legal provisions for inheritance, says this policy brief from the Uganda Land Alliance and the Uganda Media Women's Association. Current policy on the implementation of women's legal rights must be revised to address this problem. Action needs to be taken to educate and sensitize the community as well as women their legal entitlement to land inheritance of property.
A ship packed with refugees bound for Saudi Arabia has caught fire and capsized off the northeastern coast of Sudan, killing 197 people, the Sudanese Media Centre, a state-linked news agency, has said. The ship had launched from the Red Sea State, one of Sudan's 26 states, and sailed for four hours in Sudanese territorial waters before the blaze broke out, according to the news agency.
An Egyptian court has acquitted three ministers from the toppled regime of Hosni Mubarak of squandering public funds. They were the first not guilty verdicts issued in a series of trials of former senior officials following the fall of Mr Mubarak in February. The ministers include former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali.
Judge Modather Al-Rasheed of the Khartoum press court has sentenced Fatima Ghazali, a journalist with the daily Al-Jarida, to a fine of 2,000 Sudanese pounds (516 euros) or one month in prison in case of refusal to pay. As Ghazali refused to pay the fine, she was immediately taken to Omdurman prison to begin serving her sentence. The judge also sentenced Al-Jarida editor Saadeldin Ibrahim to a fine of 5,000 Sudanese pounds (1,290 euros) in connection with the same articles about human rights violations by the security forces.
The Women’s Health and Equal Rights (WHER) Initiative, established in 2010 to fight for the right of Nigeria’s lesbians and bisexual women, last week held a picnic to create awareness about their work. Nigeria’s first lesbian/bisexual rights organisation, WHER, was set up to counter the repression faced by people whose sexual orientation and gender identity do not conform to the 'societal norm'. The establishment of the WHER Initiative was meant to enable a holistic and more representative approach to LGBT rights activism in the country.
In light of the increasing homophobia perpetuated against marginalised gay asylum-seekers and immigrants, a Cape Town based community organisation, PASSOP (People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty) has launched a Gay Refugee Programme, aimed at supporting and building a network for this group. In a statement, David von Burgsdorff, Programme Coordinator for PASSOP said, 'recognizing the vulnerability, the programme will provide support and advocacy for this social group and will include a solidarity network to unite Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants by providing them with outlets for emotional support and counseling.'
One person dies weekly in Kenya due to a shortage of anaesthetics and the situation is worse in slums and rural areas across the country. In areas like Turkana in the Rift Valley, and the North Eastern, Eastern and Western provinces people are enduring painful operations without any anaesthetics at all. This is according to James Kamau, a civil society activist and the chief executive of the Kenya Treatment Access Movement, a local non-governmental organisation.
As the country’s inflation rate hits a staggering 14.5 per cent – compared to 4.5 per cent in December 2010 - Kenyans are struggling to afford basic commodities like maize, amid a shortage of the staple food. But with a recent budget allocation of almost 112 million dollars for agriculture, maize shortages may soon become less frequent in years to come. At nine per cent, the budget allocation is only one percentage shy of meeting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) policy framework. CAADP requires that countries signatory to the agreement allocate at least 10 per cent of the national budget to agriculture.
In a week that saw two Somali traders shot dead in Cape Town and two more in Port Elizabeth, the South African government's handling of xenophobia received the lowest possible rating in a report by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Monitoring Project. Three years after widespread violence against foreigners broke out across the country, evaluators from the Monitoring Project noted that the government had failed to prioritize the issue, and that 'there is even an element of denialism on the part of some officials'. Tara Polzer Ngwato, of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, agreed with the assessment. 'Government responses have been fragmented, poorly resourced and with limited political commitment,' despite a significant rise in attacks on foreign-owned shops in several provinces since the beginning of 2011.
Amid growing factional conflict and infighting in the province, which was solidly united behind Jacob Zuma at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference, disgruntled members in the Moses Mabhida region continued their six-week-long sit-in protest against corruption and internal dysfunction at the party's regional branch headquarters in Pietermaritzburg. Tellingly, the protesters have strong support from the South African Communist Party and its youth league, as well as Cosatu.
Ian Khama, Botswana's president since 2008, has interests in a premium tourism company that benefited from the controversial relocation of Botswana's Bushmen from their ancestral land to resettlement camps in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Khama is a shareholder in Linyanti Investments, a subsidiary of Wilderness Holdings, a company criticised by the Bushmen and international pressure group Survival International for illegally occupying their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
The temperature climbed a few degrees in the arms deal kitchen this week as the Swedish prosecutorial authority directed a seemingly low-key missive to South African counterparts inquiring whether investigations into the defence procurement scandal had been reopened. The letter, under the signature of Gunnar Stetler, the director of the Swedish National Anti-Corruption Unit, notes that details have come to light of what he describes as an alleged 'bribery scheme towards South Africa', and asks whether in response to the new information, the South African judicial authorities have seen fit to open preliminary investigations.
Zambia would have been in less debt if it had better policies on minerals, says the Zambia Climate Change Network. ZCCN chairperson Robert Chimambo said this was the right time to create good policies that would ensure enough revenue from the country’s minerals when copper prices were high on the international market. He, however, regretted that foreign investors were controlling the government at the expense of the Zambian people. Chimambo said it was unfortunate that the government had decided to ignore the numerous calls from various stakeholders on the need to introduce better taxing systems on the mining companies.
The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) says it might have to institute public interest proceedings over the breach of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) Act. LAZ President Musa Mwenye says that ZNBC’s news broadcast is unbalanced and mostly inclined to the MMD, a situation which has been compounded by the absence of a board of directors at the media institution.
Health experts say the drug misoprostol is saving women's lives around the world. It's also controversial. Originally developed to prevent gastric ulcers, it's also been shown to prevent excessive bleeding after childbirth. That's the leading cause of maternal death in the developing world. It's estimated that one woman dies from postpartum hemorrhage every seven minutes. The controversy comes because misoprostol, or miso, can also be used to induce abortion.
Zimbabwe and South Africa could be headed for another diplomatic furore after Zanu PF strategist and serial political turncoat Jonathan Moyo suggested that facilitator to the Zimbabwe political crisis, President Jacob Zuma could be aiding the 'regime change agenda' in the country. But Zuma’s international relations advisor, Lindiwe Zulu immediately dismissed Moyo’s astonishing claims, saying they will not be distracted from continuing their facilitation role for the sake of Zimbabweans.