Pambazuka News 512: Crises of citizenship and identity: Sudan, DRC and Côte d’Ivoire
Pambazuka News 512: Crises of citizenship and identity: Sudan, DRC and Côte d’Ivoire
It's a 'whopping' increase in the matric pass rate, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said triumphantly last Thursday morning. But education specialists were immediately divided on the question of whether so unexpected and so huge an improvement is educationally both believable and reliable as a true indicator of pupils' aptitudes. At 67,8 per cent, the pass rate for the 2010 national senior certificate (NSC) outstrips 2009's 60,6 per cent by 7.2 per cent and all nine provinces recorded increases in their pass rates as well, reports the Mail and Guardian.
There has not been much progress in government's job creation project due to the economic crisis that hit the world recently, President Jacob Zuma said during an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, reports the Mail and Guardian. Speaking a day after addressing the 99th African National Congress (ANC) anniversary celebration in Polokwane, Limpopo, Zuma said the issue of job creation was going to be a central issue at the upcoming ANC congress, as well as how resources would be allocated to see to it.
President Zuma’s latest plan to address stagnating land reform is a positive move, say land and agricultural experts, but clarification of the details, the input of all stakeholders, and government support for black farmers is crucial to its success. Speaking at the ANC’s 99th birthday bash in Polokwane this weekend, Zuma said land reform would be based on the de-racialisation of the rural economy to enable shared and sustained growth, as well as the democratic and equitable allocation of land across gender, race and class.
At an increased risk of HIV and often unable to negotiate safe sex with clients, sex workers have been a major focus in HIV prevention and treatment. However, away from the streets and brothels, their children have been largely ignored. Now a small but growing body of research has suggested that the children of sex workers face a range of HIV risks including early sexual debut, low school enrolment, parental abandonment and psychological issues, including social marginalisation, related to their mothers' work, according to Jennifer Beard, assistant Professor in the Department of International Health at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Police in Malawi have arrested a senior journalist with the sensational weekly tabloid which was briefly banned by authorities in October for not properly registering with the government. Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika has threatened to shut down newspapers he accused of lying that up to one million Malawians will need food aid.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT ) organisations of Malawi have expressed concern over the delay by the Canadian authorities to issue visa to a Malawian gay Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Chimbalanga and his colleague Steve Monjeza hit the headlines following their arrest and conviction on homosexuality charges after going public about their engagement in December 2009.They were later released following a presidential pardon last year.
Mozambique's parliament has created a committee to draft amendments to the constitution that analysts have warned could be used to allow President Armando Guebuza to stand for a third five-year term. The creation of the committee comes a year after ruling party Frelimo won enough seats to change the charter unilaterally.
Zimbabwean government officials insisted on Friday that they would not back down from a plan to require journalists and media houses to pay higher registration fees. Foreign media outlets are now required to pay $6 000 to register in the country, up from $2 500. Zimbabwean journalists working for the foreign press need to pay an accreditation fee of $400 - up from $100.
IkamvaYouth, a township-based volunteer programme that gets learners out of poverty and into university has once again shown that transformation is possible, despite the odds.
South Africa has given tens of thousands of illegal Zimbabwean immigrants a reprieve after agreeing to extend the deadline for them to regularise their stay to 31 March. It is estimated that 1.5 million Zimbabweans are in South Africa illegally and most of them do not have proper identification documents.
Voter registration begins this week in Liberia where a little over a million eligible voters are expected to go to to polls to choose a new president come October. Incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - who is vying for a second five-year mandate - won the last polls in a runoff against George Weah, who is this year expected to run as an opposition coalition joint candidate.
This paper from the South African Institute of International Affairs notes that oil production in Southern Sudan has 'degraded agricultural lands and caused mass displacement and suffering of local pastoralist and agriculturalist communities'. The paper looks at the legal system around environmental issues arising from oil production in Southern Sudan after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. This agreement guarantees the right to compensation to those whose rights have been violated by the activities of the oil companies.
The results of this year’s SA Reconciliation Barometer survey, conducted by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), found that a majority of South Africans still agree that they are trying to forgive those who hurt them during apartheid. Close to three-quarters feel that they want to leave the past behind and move forward with their lives. However, writes Kate Lefko-Everett, the 2010 survey results also reveal some enduring concerns about the delivery of justice that pose challenges to further reconciliation, particularly in a context in which experts, analysts and practitioners have begun to question whether the wounds and traumas inflicted under apartheid may prove to outlast political will to help them heal.
Khartoum has denied it will take on Sudan's entire debt to free an independent south of any liabilities, after former US president Jimmy Carter said he received assurances the north would do so. The Daily Nation reports that Sudan's foreign ministry 'categorically refuted the statements of the former US president Jimmy Carter to CNN... that the president of the republic told him Sudan's entire indebtedness would be carried by north Sudan,' the official SUNA news agency reported late on Monday.
Kenya Anticorruption Commission (KACC) is currently investigating another minister over graft, in addition to the four ministers earlier mentioned, reports the Daily Nation. According to KACC director Dr PLO Lumumba, the latest case relates to allegations of misuse of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) money.
Yunis Egbaguru still lives in fear after she fled her village in south Sudan following an attack last month by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, but she hopes an independent south will better protect her. Known for abducting young girls to serve as sex slaves and young boys to fight, the LRA fought Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's government from neighbouring Sudan's lawless south for nearly 20 years until 2005, when it was ejected from its bases and forced on the move.
Air Tanzania managing director, Mr David Mattaka, allegedly proposed the use of an 'agent' to push for a multi-billion shillings fleet modernisation deal with American plane maker – Boeing. The claim, in a confidential diplomatic communication from the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, says the ATCL boss implied that the middleman would help to push for the deal that the embassy officials pegged at some $537 million (Sh750 billion) in sales. Mattaka vehemently dismissed the reports and said he did not at any time do what is being claimed in the memos, reports Tanzania's The Citizen newspaper.
With barely months to go before the second India-Africa Forum Summit, India has said the Indian model of 'green revolution' had an appeal for African countries across the board and underlined that boosting agriculture and food security were at the heart of its engagement with the 53-nation African continent. 'Agriculture is without doubt at the forefront of India's engagement with Africa in the current transformation phase,' Gurjit Singh, joint secretary in charge of east and southern Africa, told experts at a seminar on exploring twin themes of food security and India-Africa relations in the context of South-South cooperation.
After mapping various key locations and landmarks in the country, Google is now mapping Korogocho, one of Nairobi's informal settlements. The mapping of Korogocho, an area with about 200,000 people, is meant to make it easier to identify streets, key structures and landmarks that were previously not mapped onto Google Maps. The mapping is done through Google Map Maker, a tool that allows people to help create a map by adding or editing features such as roads, businesses, parks, schools.
Sometimes… I suspect
I have not played this ‘African’ card
well enough…
TrustAfrica is an established African foundation set up to work on the continental level ‘explicitly on issues with regional and continental dimensions’. Bhekinkosi Moyo discusses the organisation’s background and strategy.
Demands for reparations around the transatlantic slave trade have been absent from United Nations conferences on racism. Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua discusses the history and context behind them.
With Egypt setting up a ‘Nile Basin Tournament’ for countries across the region, Chambi Chachage considers football’s political role and the broader diplomatic stakes surrounding the tournament.
Pambazuka News 511: Côte d’Ivoire elections: Chronicle of a failure foretold
Pambazuka News 511: Côte d’Ivoire elections: Chronicle of a failure foretold
With the growing dominance of the Internet, blog, chat and mobile telephony, the great 'big bang' of the new media has begun. Communication is rapidly changing and becoming mobile, interactive, personalized and multi-channel. This extraordinary revolution is affecting the basic structure of Mediterranean societies, especially those in the south.
This course is an intensive introduction to System Dynamics, a unique framework for understanding and managing complex development problems. Through case studies and practical exercises, the course will equip participants with the knowledge and skills required to effectively understand, map, and analyze complex national and global development challenges using a systemic perspective, and to determine the best approaches to mitigate them. The course is designed for professionals working in the field of development planning, especially policy advisors/analysts, and implementation and evaluation specialists from government institutions, research institutes, advocacy and civil society groups, private foundations, and international development agencies.
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.
Akina Mama wa Afrika is tendering for applications for consultants to conduct a Tracer Study on the African Women’s Leadership Institute.
In this interview with Annar Cassam, the co-editor of 'Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere' Cassam discusses Nyerere's life and contribution to Africa. The book includes contributions from leading commentators, those who worked and fought imperialism alongside Nyerere, members of a younger generation – and Nyerere in his own words. Their writings reflect on Nyerere and liberation, the Commonwealth, leadership, economic development, land, human rights and education. Above all, they are a testament to the growing recognition of the need to rekindle the fires of African socialism to which Nyerere was deeply committed.
African climate researchers and applied scientists are invited to apply for fellowships in African climate science. The fellowships are offered as part of the Climate Science Research Partnership (CSRP) between the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK government. The CSRP aims are to improve the understanding and prediction of African climate on monthly, seasonal and decadal timescales and to strengthen climate science capacity in Africa.
The January 2011 edition of Gay Kenya has articles on being gay and being safe, a Kenyan activist who has been granted asylum in the US and the do's and don't's of gay dating sites.
Russian sailors did not shoot at sea pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said in comment on a video clip showing crewmembers of the Marshal Shaposhnikov large anti-sub ship fire at small boats, which presumably belonged to Somali pirates. 'Our sailors would have never opened fire at people at sea. That is an absurdity, which is not worth a comment,' he said. The three-minute video clip posted on the Internet displays firing sailors, a pirate boat and an approaching ship, and missiles flying from the warship.
As the new year starts, millions of hard-working men and women gather the money they have saved throughout the year, go to a local Western Union office and wire it to their relatives throughout the developing world. But up to 20 per cent of these savings are taken in transfer fees, allowing companies to make billions of dollars in profit on the backs of the world's neediest.
Hacktivists have struck a blow against the regime in Zimbabwe by attacking a number of government websites. The cyber-assault appears to have been in support of newspapers who published secret cables in the ongoing WikiLeaks saga, to the annoyance of the-powers-that-be in the country. Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, was recently reported to be suing a newspaper for $15 million after it published a WikiLeaks cable that claimed she has benefited from illegal diamond trading.
At the end of 2010, Zimbabwean citizens remained broadly supportive of power sharing as an antidote to political crisis. But they were increasingly critical of the halting performance of their country’s coalition government. Most people also perceived declining civil liberties and feared resurgent political violence. Yet clear majorities called for constitutional reforms to limit the powers of the presidency and seemingly even for free elections in 2011 to return the country to legitimate rule. These are the major findings of an Afrobarometer survey conducted among a national crosssection of the Zimbabwean adults in late October 2010.
Widespread unrest continued to rock Algeria on Sunday (9 January) as protests continued against rising food prices despite government action to stem the riots. The Algerian cabinet agreed on Saturday to lower the custom duties and taxes on sugar and other food stuffs by 41 per cent as a temporary act to cut prices. But the measure, which will last through the end of August, did not end days of conflict in the streets between angry youth and security services.
Even though freedom of conscience is enshrined in Article 5 of the Tunisian constitution, which 'protects the free exercise of beliefs with reservation that they do not disturb the public order', a growing number of women experience coercion in religious practices. Rabiaa, in her 30s, is one of them. She admits to wearing Islamic garments out of fear of her husband's violence. 'He threatened to divorce me and to prevent me from seeing my kids if I insisted on my rejection of the veil and cloak,' she told Magharebia.
In the midst of recent protests in Sidi Bouzid, the Tunisian public discovered a new source of information which enabled them to get the latest developments as soon as they took place. Social media sites such as Facebook now compete with professional news organisations, which some observers have criticised for not reporting on the demonstrations.
'People living with disability face all sorts of discrimination. We are discriminated against at job interviews in schools. Every day is a battle to remain positive in the face of a world that is too bent on dismissing those among us that do not meet the standard of what is normal,' explains Mishi Juma, a disabled community leader from the Coast region. In the past, Juma never had a safe space to raise these issues. But all this has now changed. Juma and many other disabled women can now raise their concerns with the newly established Ministry of gender and social development.
As the continuing political stalemate threatens to unleash a civil war in Cote d’Ivoire, the United Nations is taking an increasingly aggressive stance in the widening standoff with the West African nation. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has routinely opted for quiet, low-keyed diplomacy in political trouble spots such as North Korea, Sudan, Palestine and Myanmar (Burma), has been vociferously outspoken in condemning President Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to step down after his defeat in the 28 November elections.
This edited volume brings together some of the papers that were presented at a conference organised in Accra, Ghana by Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa) and the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) in November 2008, on the theme: ‘Beyond Foreign Direct Investment in Africa’s Mining Sector’. The conference brought together activists from community groups and NGOs, officials from African government institutions as well as intergovernmental bodies and academics to discuss the state of mining on the continent and the experience of two decades of mining sector policy dominated by strategies for attracting foreign direct investment.In total, eight papers are contained in this volume. The first four papers explore various financial aspects of mining sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa.
Millions of jubilant south Sudanese started voting on Sunday in an independence referendum expected to see their war-ravaged region emerge as a new nation. People queued for hours in the burning sun outside polling stations in the southern capital Juba, where banners described the week-long ballot as a 'Last March to Freedom' after decades of civil war and perceived repression by north Sudan, reports Reuters. Hours after voting started, the celebratory atmosphere was marred by reports of fresh fighting between Arab nomads and tribespeople associated with the south in the contested Abyei region.
At least 20 people have been killed in clashes in the central Nigerian city of Jos following a protest against the killing of seven Muslims in a nearby village. The violence is believed to have begun after news spread that Muslims had been killed by Christian youths in an attack on a bus. Nigerian soldiers fired into the air to disperse youths burning vehicles and tyres in Jos in protest at the killings, villagers said on Saturday.
Freeman Mbowe, the chairman of Tanzania's opposition party Chadema has been released on bail by a local court, a day after police shot dead two anti-government protesters. After being released along with a group of other opposition legislators and their supporters on Thursday, Mbowe urged his followers to continue to fight for their rights.
Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrests and disappearances of bloggers and online activists across a number of Tunisian cities. The worldwide press freedom organisation has monitored at least five such cases but the list could well be longer. Police arrested the bloggers to question them about hacking into government websites by the militant group Anonymous, several sources told the organisation.
The International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) is offering 10 journalists fellowships to produce investigative reports on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The project will offer 10 experienced South African reporters one-on-one coaching with media trainers and stipends to conduct interviews and in-depth research.
The South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) has added its voice to those condemning police for arresting two journalists while they were carrying out normal reporting duties. Penwell Dlamini and Antonio Muchave were arrested by Hillbrow police on 29 December. They were detained while covering a story on the eviction of nine families from Regal Court flats in Johannesburg city centre.
This week, South Sudan is again going to the polls, this time to vote in a referendum on secession from the North. The preliminary result should be known by 15th January, and will mark one of the final stages of the historic 2005 agreement to end the long-standing conflict between North and South Sudan. All eyes will be on this vote, which is widely seen as likely to result in the South’s separation from the North. How will this shape women’s lives in North and South Sudan? asks this article from
There are no technology shortcuts to good education. For primary and secondary schools that are underperforming or limited in resources, efforts to improve education should focus almost exclusively on better teachers and stronger administrations. Information technology, if used at all, should be targeted for certain, specific uses or limited to well-funded schools whose fundamentals are not in question, argues this article.
Rats that can smell the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium in a sputum sample could be more effective in detecting TB than expensive laboratory tests, a study suggests. The Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus), found all over Sub-Saharan Africa, can smell the difference between TB bacteria and other germs found in human phlegm, according to researchers writing in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene last month (December).
An unusually deadly outbreak of poliomyelitis (polio) in Congo has scientists scratching their heads. Close to 500 people were left paralysed and almost 200 succumbed to polio since the outbreak began in October. The viral disease killed around 42 per cent of people infected, unlike typical outbreaks that kill 5–10 per cent. And although the disease usually attacks children under five years of age, most victims in this outbreak were men aged between 15 and 25 years.
Slapped into submission by a child soldier, a man thanks the gunmen who have just raped his wife and daughter, now bedraggled and whimpering. Dozens of women in a large circle observe the harrowing scene. But this is theatre - as therapy. The 'stage' is the grounds of the General Referral Hospital of Panzi, in Bukavu, capital of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province, a facility that specializes in treating survivors of sexual violence, of whom there are a very large number in eastern DRC, where rape is widely used as a weapon by warring groups. The performance brings together both survivors and perpetrators of extreme violence.
IRIN has produced a series of briefings exploring the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire triggered by contested elections in November 2010. Both Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara are laying claim to the presidency, with Gbagbo refusing to yield to international pressure to step down. The series takes a look at the UN’s position, issues of human rights, as well as the stances of the African Union, ECOWAS, western governments and the EU and World Bank.
Using panel data from Mozambique collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors of this working paper explore the impact of the food crisis on welfare of households living with HIV/AIDS. The analysis finds that there has been a real deterioration of welfare in terms of income, food consumption, and nutritional status in Mozambique between 2007 and 2008, among both HIV and comparison households.
A new Counter Balance report ‘Hit and run development - Some things the EIB would rather you didn't know about its lending practices in Africa, and some things that can no longer be covered up’ reveals how the European Investment Bank’s use of intermediated loans and private equity funds facilitates corruption and tax evasion. The report concludes that the use of these lending tools in developing countries 'goes against any kind of development logic'.
World trade is expected to have grown by more than 13.5 per cent in 2010, the fastest ever in global commerce, according to revised projections made by economists of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). 'This would be the fastest year-on-year expansion of trade ever recorded in a data series going back to 1950,' the WTO noted. The high growth figure, while reflecting higher industrial activities worldwide, is also a result of the severely-depressed level of trade in 2009, when world exports plunged by 12.2%, a WTO release said.
Guest editor David Anderson Hooker, Director of Research and Training for 'Coming to the Table: Taking America (USA) Beyond the Legacy of Enslavement', and the editorial staff of Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, invite submissions for the first issue of its fifth volume, entitled '500 Years Later: Reverberations of the Transatlantic Slave Trade'.
Ivory Coast’s political crisis remains in a deadlock. President Laurent Gbagbo and longtime opposition leader Alassane Ouattara have each claimed victory in November’s disputed election. Ouattara has received the backing of the international community. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman speaks with Horace Campbell of Syracuse University and Gnaka Lagoke, an Ivory Coast political analyst.
Writing from Haiti, Sokari Ekine describes the problem of unsanitary conditions, the randomness of the destruction caused by last year’s earthquake, the wounds of people who survived and the possibility of a third revolution to come.
Through an initiative by called 'Treasures we Bring' migrants of all kinds - refugees, economic migrants, students, cross border or from one city to the next - are being invited to share their stories thorough video testimonies about a treasured object that represents where they come from, their journey, their challenges, and their hope for the future.
By telling these stories, the videos aim to show how migrants bring a wealth of diversity, talent, and skills to their new homes, while also sharing the histories of the personal objects that they consider to be treasures.
In what is being hailed as a victory by human rights activists, a Ugandan court has issued an interim order restraining the editors of the Rolling Stone tabloid from any further publication of information about anyone alleged to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
Somali youth in the US should form a volunteer peacekeeping force, says this reader.
The UN's secretary general needs to be educated about gender issues, write the co-directors of AIDS-Free World.
While edicts around the need for non-discrimination and racial equality within Brazil’s education system have changed, the attitudes of figures in positions of educational authority have not, writes Andréia Lisboa de Sousa.
Twenty years after independence, representation of women in senior government structures and in Parliament is declining in Namibia. According to the latest demographic survey results of August 2010, out of a population of around two million, women outnumber men 10:9. In 2001, the ratio was 94 males per 100 females. In 2010 Namibia reformed its national gender policy in line with the United Nation’s millennium development goals (MDGs) and its own Vision 2030, a national development policy dissected into five-yearly development plans. It includes the increase of women in decision-making positions in government, the private sector, religious groups and community institutions.
When darkness descends in the ubiquitous slums and ‘informal settlements’ surrounding Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, women who visit and use communal toilets unwittingly become sitting ducks. The dangers are high, for women living in the slums, that they may become targets of youth gangs and individual male rapists. 'I had heard that it was unsafe to visit the (community) toilet alone,' said forty-two year old, Rebecca Nduku, a single mother of three, when she challenged her friend’s ‘I-told-you-so’ warning. Acting against advice, Rebecca suffered irrevocably for throwing caution to the wind.
Sudanese activists Ali Agab and Abdel Monim Elgak were forced to flee their homes for defending human rights. Ahead of the referendum on the future of South Sudan, they spoke to Amnesty International about the challenges they face and what keeps them positive about the future.
Women and girls living in Haiti’s makeshift camps face an increasing risk of rape and sexual violence, Amnesty International has said in a new report. One year after the earthquake which killed 230,000 people and injured 300,000, more than one million people still live in appalling conditions in tent cities in the capital Port-au-Prince and in the south of Haiti, where women are at serious risk of sexual attacks. Those responsible are predominately armed men who roam the camps after dark.
The United Nations and the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will hold a meeting to discuss ways of better protecting five sites from the vast African nation that are inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The five sites in danger are Virunga, Garamba, Kahuzi-Biega, and Salonga National Parks, and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, which are home to a unique range of flora and fauna including the Mountain Gorilla and the Okapi – a forest giraffe only found in DRC.
As Côte d’Ivoire's post-electoral crisis continues, Pierre Sané discusses the circumstances leading up to the contested election results and stresses the need for the country to be left to solve its own problems.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and the West African Journalists Association (WAJA) have expressed concerns over the political crisis in the West African country of Ivory Coast. According to agency reports, the distribution and publication of newspapers in Ivory Coast have been blocked. Newspapers ideologically allied with the opposition leader, now internationally recognised Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, are not allowed to publish. Two reporters working for Le Mandat newspaper were briefly arrested, at least eight foreign journalists were arrested in different periods, and the safety and security of local journalists have been compromised by the armed forces of both political camps.
A human rights team from the joint United Nations-African Union mission verified that one rape occurred when Government paramilitaries and police started shooting in the air at a camp market in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region last month, a UN spokesman has said. Two human rights officers from the mission (UNAMID) were sent to Tawilla camp to verify reports of rapes and other abuses during and after the shooting incident on 25 December.
The physical laying of the optic fibre cable in Rwanda, which includes civil works, laying of ducts and installation of the fibre is complete. Patrick Nyirishema,the Deputy Director of Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in charge of Information Technology said. The infrastructure will boost access to various broadband services including fast tracking government initiatives like e-Governance, e-Banking, e-Learning, e-Health, and other applications.
An editor of an independent newspaper Agnes Uwimana is at the mercy of a Rwandan prosecutor who is pushing for a 33-year prison sentence, according to state radio on Thursday. She has been accused of denying the 1994 genocide and would know her fate on 4 February at the High Court. Uwimana appeared before the country's High Court on charges of negating the 1994 genocide, defaming senior officials - including President Paul Kagame - and disturbing the peace, all through articles published last year, Radio Rwanda reported.
Food riots, geopolitical tensions, global inflation and increasing hunger among the planet's poorest people are the likely effects of a new surge in world food prices, which have hit an all-time high according to the United Nations. London's Independent newspaper reports that the UN's index of food prices – an international basket comprising wheat, corn, dairy produce, meat and sugar – stands at its highest since the index started in 1990, surpassing even the peaks seen during the 2008 food crisis, which prompted civil disturbances from Mexico to Indonesia.
The international diamond watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP), has reportedly denied giving Zimbabwe permission to carry on selling diamonds from the controversial Chiadzwa fields. According to the news service for the US based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network (RapNet), a KP representative has refuted the claims made by Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Gift Chimanikire. 'No decision has been made yet,' said a spokesperson for the new KP Chairman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The latest release from the whistleblower website WikiLeaks says President Robert Mugabe regards SADC facilitator to the Zimbabwe crisis South African President Jacob Zuma as a 'man of the people who likes to make promises without necessarily knowing how to fulfil them'. The website also says President Mugabe views former SA leader Thabo Mbeki as a 'great man' who is 'judgmental and calculating and cautious with policies'.
In February, Ugandans will be going to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections. It is an interesting time for a changing of the guard in Parliament, as Uganda will soon be the latest oil-producing country on the continent. Already there are concerns over a lack of transparency and government accountability related to oil agreements and revenues. This article from the South African Institute of International Affairs asks what role is Parliament expected to play in holding the Executive to account and ensuring greater transparency in the oil sector?
Cre8, a non-profit music project working in southern Africa, discuss their latest tour around Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. An audio clip from the second movement of their composition 'Notes to Africa' is available .
Egyptian activists are calling on the government to take action to save African asylum-seekers from what they call the 'systematic torture' they are being subjected to by their Bedouin captors in the Sinai peninsula who demand thousands of dollars in ransom. 'The government says it does not have information [on this],' said Magda Botrous, a violence and physical safety specialist at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a local NGO. 'But the problem is that the government doesn't try to get the information,' she told IRIN.
Six anti-slavery activists are in prison in Mauritania in a case rights experts say points to the challenges of ensuring a 2007 law criminalising slavery is more than just words on paper. The six men, members of the Mauritanian anti-slavery group Initiative pour la résurgence du mouvement abolitioniste (IRA), are set to go on trial in the capital, Nouakchott, on 5 January after two postponements. The authorities reportedly said the IRA members attacked security forces; the activists said they were simply demonstrating against slavery.
Threats of military intervention in Cote D’Ivoire by international parties following Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to step down from the presidency are ‘pushing the country on a treacherous path to a precipice of war’, argues Mawuli Dake.
Egypt’s political stability hangs in the balance following recent parliamentary elections that are widely thought to have reversed any political reforms achieved over the past three decades, writes Hany Besada.
Africa’s central problem is that over the past 50 years of independence, it has been ‘nearly impossible’ to hold the continent’s ‘so-called leaders accountable’, argues Alemayehu G. Mariam.
Following South Africa’s acceptance as a full member of BRIC, a group of prominent emerging economic powers, Adams Bodomo considers why the country was selected over other candidates, and what the news might mean for the rest of Africa.
'The Youth Bridge Foundation and the African Youth and Governance (AYG) Conference is deeply worried about the ongoing post-election conflict in Côte d’Ivoire. YBF and AYG are particularly concerned about the tensed political climate and resultant violence in Côte d’Ivoire with the youth as both perpetrators and victims of the violence.'
A new International Council on Human Rights Policy report looks into the human rights implications of contemporary patterns of social control: how laws and policies construct and respond to people, behaviour or status defined as 'undesirable', 'dangerous', criminal or socially problematic. The report explores how changing ideas of crime, criminality and risk are shaping social policy, why incarceration continues to be a preferred sanction and how contemporary policing and surveillance practices order and organise social relations.
Still reeling from the earthquake, hurricane and cholera outbreak, Haiti has had to face fraudulent elections followed by protests. There’s ‘no resolution in sight, other than possibly to cancel the elections altogether,’ reports Sokari Ekine, in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere.
This program will provide a unique opportunity to explore shifting security dynamics in the Asia Pacific region and to discuss the future of the US role. Visits to Okinawa and Tokyo will provide insight into the sensitivities surrounding the physical presence of US troops and Japan’s renewed debates about its defense strategy given the perceived threat from North Korea and territorial disagreements with both China and Russia.
ESPA is a highly innovative global research programme designed to provide world-class evidence on how ecosystem services can improve the lives of the world's poorest people. ESPA will invest in researchers around the world to create new knowledge, through excellent interdisciplinary research to be conducted in Africa, South Asia, China and the Amazon Basin. The ESPA I-PAC has a crucial role in providing advice to the Directorate and ESPA's funders to ensure that the programme delivers world class science, meeting the most pressing current policy and evidence needs, and through this has the potential to improve the lives of millions of poor people around the world. I-PAC members will be world-leading researchers, opinion formers and development practitioners selected to provide ESPA with the advice it requires to ensure success.
The Equal Rights Trust (ERT) is an independent international NGO whose purpose is to combat discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic principle of social justice. Following the award of a new project grant, the Trust is seeking a Research and Advocacy Assistant to support its Statelessness Projects.
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan is working hard to convince people that he will ‘deliver credible elections’, with the appointment of electoral commissioner Attahiru Jega. But, writes Uche Igwe, ‘a functional system rather than an individual is what is needed’ to sanitise a process that has become ‘a vehicle for electoral fraud’.
‘If the AU and ECOWAS intervene in Cote d’Ivoire on behalf of France and imperialism, it could be a dangerous example, threatening the sovereignty of other African countries, writes Asad Ali.
‘No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way’, Sylvia Tamale’s ‘African Sexualities: A Reader’, ‘African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices’ and Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians come to Britain’ are among the forthcoming titles from Pambazuka Press reviewed by Chuka Nnabuife.
Femi Ojo-Ade’s ‘thought-provoking collection of essays’ and poetry addresses three fundamental questions, writes Peter W. Vakunta: Who is Barack Obama, what makes him tick and what does his victory mean both for the US and for the global community?
For centuries we have watched and we have listened. Listened to the wind; watched the flowering and shedding of leaf and shrub. Listened to birdsong; watched the movement of termite. Listened to the croak of frog, watched the movement of the river. Through listening and watching, we have been able to advise; to suggest the time for preparation and the sowing of seed. Our story of weather-telling is very long. My family has been given a crucial task: we are the guardians of sacred knowledge...
Sponsored by the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental & African Studies
Opening remarks by Prof. Stephen Chan, SOAS
Co-chair: Victoria Brittain
Speakers: Richard Gott, António Gumende, High Commissioner Republic of Mozambique, Adotey Bing, Lionel Cliffe, Peter Brayshore, Senait Jones, Extracts from Basil’s Channel 4 African History series, introduced by Mick Csaky.
27 January 2011, 6 – 9pm
Khalili Theatre, Main Building, SOAS, Thornhaugh St, London WC1H 0XG.
Co-sponsors: Institute of Race Relations, Review of African Political Economy and Action for Southern Africa
RSVP: Nick Davidson, 75 Balfour Road, London N5 2HD
or [email][email protected]ahoo.co.uk
Gado captures the African Union's approach to Laurent Gbagbo and Côte d'Ivoire.