Pambazuka News 486: Remembering Soweto/World Cup 2010
Pambazuka News 486: Remembering Soweto/World Cup 2010
Progress in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity is still "tragically slow". Now, the United Nations has unveiled a global initiative based on government, civil society and private sector cooperation that could save the lives of up to one million women during pregnancy and childbirth. A US$20 billion funding gap in maternal and child health in the world's least developed countries means that between 350,000 and 500,000 women die each year from preventable pregnancy-related causes and complications, and another 15 million suffer from equally preventable long-term disabilities.
A South African study suggests that nurses are able to manage patients on antiretroviral (ARV) therapy as effectively as doctors, supporting the case for “task-shifting” in HIV treatment. The study, published in the Lancet on 16 June, divided 812 HIV patients into two groups - one of which received ARV therapy from doctors, the other from nurses. Both the nurses and doctors were inexperienced in ARV management and received similar training from clinicians who were also on call during the duration of the study to answer questions.
The government of Kenya is running an ambitious programme that aims to have 80 percent of all uncircumcised men - an estimated 1.1 million - circumcised by 2013. Most uncircumcised men live in the western province of Nyanza, where so far more than 100,000 have had the procedure, and the drive is seen as hugely successful. IRIN/PlusNews visited Nyanza's capital city, Kisumu, and spoke to several men about why they refused to be circumcised.
Senegal and other African countries are the victims of state power that has become ‘over-centralised, personalised and trivialises the institutional safeguards that are supposed to keep it in check’, writes Amy Niang. Niang explores the available avenues for reversing this restraint on civil society’s political agency, and suggests it is the diaspora that has the potential to offer new perspectives and become an ‘incubator of political revolution’.
The Zimbabwean artist, Owen Maseko, was arrested on 26 March when his art work illustrating ‘decades of oppression and violence that have characterised Zimbabwe’ was exhibited by Radio Dialogue, the Zimbabwean community radio station. Radio Dialogue praises Maseko’s bold political statements presented on canvas.
Following the kick-off of the World Cup last Friday, Sokari Ekine finds herself torn between joining in with the ‘hooray vuvuzela-blowing madness’ and watching the games, or blanking out ‘the whole flag-waving charade.’ Ekine reports back from the African blogosphere with its views on the matter, as well on the unawarded Mo Ibrahim Prize, homosexuality and homophobia in Africa and the Niger Delta Amnesty.
Not only did the Soweto uprising mark a radical shift in consciousness, it also sparked a renaissance in black South African cultural creativity, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. While in the 80s and 90s, ‘literature, theatre and the arts were an integral part of political work and writers and artists were visible and audible in political spaces and platforms’, argues Bofelo, today the arts ‘have been marginalised’ by the ‘pop culture which is utilised by the political establishment to de-politicise the masses’. But there are encouraging signs that radical underground artists are finding ways to keep the arts, theatre and music of revolution alive.
In commemoration of 16 June 1976, City of Johannesburg and R.I.S.E. Mzansi AFURAKA invites you to an exciting Youth Symposium.
Date: Saturday 19 June 2010
Time: 12 noon to 4pm
Venue: Power Park Community Centre, Soweto
Address: The Soweto Twin Towers, Cnr Cornelius Street and Old Potchefstroom Road
Organisers: The Youth Symposium is organised by City of Johannesburg, R.I.S.E. Mzansi AFURAKA in collaboration with June 16 Youth Foundation, Siyaphambili Youth Pioneers, Ebukhosini Youth, Kliptown Youth Project, Indali Agric Project and other youth structures.
Theme: IN THE SPIRIT OF 1976: Youth Uniting Against Afri-phobia. Inspired by the youth of 1976 who protested against a, seemingly, unbreakable system of oppression, Afrikan youth today are claiming their freedom and shaping their future. The topics of the day will include empowerment, self-determination and Afri-phobia (the fear of being Afrikan).
Programme: Young speakers and discussants will present inspirational messages on empowerment, identity and Afri-phobia. Young artists will bless the stage with poetry, drama, music and reflections. Three generations of youth leaders will take part in an inter-generational dialogue on self-determination.
Land reform in Zimbabwe is widely stereotyped as ‘a corrupt land grab by Zanu PF and its cronies’, precipitating ‘a calamitous decline in agriculture’ from which the country ‘has never recovered’, writes Ben Cousins. Clearly agriculture in Zimbabwe has experienced significant problems in the years following radical land reform, says Cousins, but based on the findings of a three-years study, the notion of “total failure” is not accurate. So what does this mean for future land policy?
Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) has issued a call for the release from detention of human rights activist, Farai Maguwu, and the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process.
Rooibos tea is as uniquely South African as Champagne is French and Parmesan Italian, writes Glenn Ashton. It should be one of the country’s roaring success stories while providing a platform for the upliftment of its traditional owners, the indigenous people who introduced it to the colonialists from its home range of the Cederberg Mountains. But while the Rooibos market has grown over the years, indigenous emerging farmers remain largely marginalised and have yet to reap their just rewards.
Following a violent attack on Emmanuel Lubala Mugisho, President of leading Congolese human rights organisation Heritiers de la Justice, Christian Aid is appealing to the international community for increased protection for human rights activists and greater support to the Congolese authorities to bring perpetrators to justice and end the cycle of violence.
Reflecting on the anniversary of the Soweto uprising, ‘lovers of liberty everywhere continue to be inspired by the generations of freedom fighters and the youth who sacrificed to change Africa’, writes Horace Campbell. Although the romance with the old liberation forces is coming to an end, says Campbell, ‘there are renewed energies for substantive change all across Africa’, and it ‘is on the cultural front where the explosive energies are most manifest’.
The participants of the an international conference on “Women’s Leadership Conference” held in Lusaka at the Inter-Continental Hotel, 7-9 June 2010, have expressed dismay and anger at the unprofessional and unacceptable behaviour of the Second in Command of the Zambian Police for Lusaka Province (Mr. Chushi) for harassing and embarrassing a co-participant, Ms Jean Kapata, in the dining room at lunch hour on 8 June, on the pretext that she was allegedly holding an ‘illegal meeting’ of the Patriotic Front (PF) at the same hotel.
Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) and Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) is alarmed and concerned over the recent political violence witnessed during the by elections in Mufumbwe, Zambia.
Angola’s independent press has played an important role in holding the country’s leadership to account, writes Sylvia Croese, but there are increasing fears that critical voices will be crowded out, after a group with suspected links to the government bought out three private newspapers. Angola’s media landscape is largely dominated by the state, which owns two national television stations, the national radio broadcaster, the daily national newspaper and the national press agency.
Kenya’s High Court may have awarded Wachira Weheire compensation for his unlawful detention and torture, but it did not set any meaningful judicial precedent with the case, writes Tennille Duffy. In its ruling, the court neither denounced ‘the outcome of torture as well as the practice’ nor brought ‘home the point to those in power today that violation of constitutional rights by the state is not acceptable and will always be severely penalised by the courts.’ Not only has the court failed Mr Weheire, argues Duffy, it has failed all those who continue to suffer unlawful detention and torture at the hands of the state.
The crime of ‘democricide’ is being committed in Ethiopia both by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and a hoard of accessories who cheat the Ethiopian people out of fair elections, free press and aid, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Those complicit in this crime include the political bureaucracy that pumps out shining reports on ‘development’ and the donors themselves, who continue to prop up regimes like Zenawi’s and stifle democracy in the name of stability.
China and India are emerging economic powers rather than the architects of a new world order, writes Shawn Hattingh; there is no overhaul of the existing capitalist order and class-based social divisions imminent. The global power balance is simply widening to include the new elite of China and India in partnership with their American and European counterparts, says Hattingh, but it is still the workers who are being exploited by the same heads of industry.
The 1994 genocide of the Rwandan Tutsi never happened. This is this unfounded and disturbing allegation at the heart of a new book by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, writes Gerald Caplan. Instead the authors claim that that it was part of an elaborate American conspiracy to “gain a strong military presence in Central Africa, a diminution of its European rivals' influence, proxy armies to serve its interests, and access to the raw material-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo”. Why they want to create such gratuitous hurt for the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda is ‘impossible to fathom’, says Caplan, but their ‘egregious views’ ‘relegate them squarely to the lunatic fringe’.
Concerned that plans to move the seat of the High Court from Grahamstown to Bisho will make unemployment even worse, Xolelwa Faku calls on the minister of justice to reconsider the decision.
Following Barack Obama’s tough stand against BP for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, victims of the Bhopal gas disaster are calling on the US president to hold to account the US business interests implicated in the incident. Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, refuses to accept its liability for cleaning up the toxic wastes at the closed factory, which is still harming citizens of Bhopal.
Walter Rodney's contribution to our understanding and actions for change in the world was cut short, but it was seminal, and we should celebrate as well as mourn his time among us, writes Bob Thomson.
Selim Y Gool responds to Neville Alexander’s speech, ‘South Africa: An unfinished revolution?’, from the perspective of historiography, the current economic crisis and alliance politics.
Following comments from South African Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu around the need for the country's defence force to be a 'rite of passage' for young people, Nicholas Tucker suspects such remarks to indicate moves towards 'a massive recruitment campaign for the AFRICOM [US Africa Command] programme'. Conscription is not a 'rite of passage', Tucker stresses, 'unless of course your country happens to be Sparta'.
Writing in response to a New York Times article by Henry Louis Gates, Antumi Toasijé strongly challenges the view that we should simply 'end the slavery blame game'.
The wave of sentimentality surrounding Africa's first World Cup has concealed the persistence of marked gender discrimination around both how countries use public funds and conceive of organised sport, writes Salma Maoulidi. Football's popularity in countries like Tanzania and the political capital to be had by pandering to its followers, Maoulidi highlights, end up reinforcing discriminatory funding allocations and perpetuating a mismatch of opportunity along gender lines.
, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, has been ranked second in the University of Pennsylvania's 2009 'Global Go-To Think Tank Rankings' for the sub-Saharan Africa region behind the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). The ranking was undertaken by a panel of 300 experts from around the world, across the political spectrum and from every discipline and sector to help nominate and select public policy research centres of excellence. The members of the expert panel were asked to nominate regional or global centres of excellence that they felt should be recognised for producing rigorous and relevant research, publications and programmes in one or more substantive areas of research. The index is available from www.sas.upenn.edu.
Members of the ‘Yes’ camp in the run-up to Kenya’s constitution referendum continue to reject the legitimacy of a recent ruling by the Constitutional and Judicial Review Division of the High Court of Kenya that deemed the inclusion of Kadhi’s courts in the country’s draft constitution ‘discriminatory’, writes Dana Wagner. Wagner investigates how the inclusion of Kadhi’s courts in Kenya’s constitution has become a contentious issue in the country, and how this issue has given constitution debates a sharp religious edge.
In the wake of the recent death of Floribert Chebeya Bahzire, Dave Peterson pays tribute to this revered figure who was ‘undoubtedly Congo’s most prominent, committed and courageous human rights activist’.
Love is not what they claimed inhabited our relationship
It was desire masquerading as adorement
I spit in the face of tough love
This was not love when you left me
Outside in the rain; umbrella-less
You walked on
Made me choose between my divine path and you
Love is what warms me when I am alone
It screams my name and hugs me
Wipes my tears and tells me to laugh hard
Because it is my audience of one
Smiles when I leave its wings
Because it knows I one step behind my destiny
And it is following me
Love will be with me when I fail
Pick me up, kiss me and push me back out
It tells me that I am priceless
Everything about me is valuable
And no man deserves my virtues
It reads my palms and sees my future
Which it is an unvarying factor of,
Love is the void in my heart
For it is waiting for another heart
Voided just as big for a perfect fit
When I am no longer clouded, with teenage infatuation
When I have found the other heart,
I will tell you
So many times have given mine out first
This time; they will engage me with theirs
But for now
Love is what speaks to me at night
In morning tells me, I am a queen
And walks with me day after day.
Pambazuka News 485: Remembering Walter Rodney 30 years on
Pambazuka News 485: Remembering Walter Rodney 30 years on
The World Bank, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretariat recently presented seven “Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment.” The principles seek to ensure that large-scale land investments result in “win-win” situations, benefiting investors and directly affected communities alike. But, though well-intended, the principles are woefully inadequate.
As the 2010 World Cup kicks off this Friday, thousands of football fans will arrive in South Africa to cheer on their favourite teams. HIV awareness and prevention is also a high priority during this time. HIV can spread particularly among young people, through the dangerous combination of alcohol and unsafe sex.
The United Nations envoy in Côte d’Ivoire has urged a new impetus for the country’s electoral process and reunification efforts to overcome the ongoing political impasse and make progress towards the holding of the long-delayed presidential polls. The objective in the immediate future is to concentrate on the production of the definitive electoral list, Y. J. Choi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said in Abidjan on Wednesday following a meeting with the head of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, Henri Konan Bédié.
Six countries in Central Africa have committed to end the recruitment of child soldiers, a move welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a step forward in giving all young people in the region a better life. In the N’Djamena Declaration adopted yesterday, the six – Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), Niger, Nigeria and Sudan – outlined their commitments to child protection in line with global standards, including those in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Somalia (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, invited Somali women to share their experiences, concerns and recommendations on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in Nairobi on 9 June, on the occasion of the Global Open Day on women, peace and security.
With the World Cup finals looming, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) turned to football to tackle the lingering problem of xenophobia in South Africa's townships. The partner organizations, together with the Africa Diaspora Forum, have just staged a pilot Township Soccer Challenge. The initiative began in May and culminated last Saturday in Mohlakeng, when Randfontein beat Tembisa 5-0 to earn bragging rights to being the best township team in Gauteng Province.
The UN refugee agency has reported it had been told by the government of Libya to close its office in that country and halt activities. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists that UNHCR was hoping the closure would be temporary and that negotiations to find a solution were continuing. However, she indicated that until the matter was resolved there would be difficulties in meeting vital refugee needs.
UNHCR is concerned about delays in a search-and-rescue operation involving a boat carrying more than 20 people, mostly Eritreans, near Malta. Distress calls were received on Sunday evening, including by UNHCR, and passed to Maltese and Italian maritime authorities. It is unclear which country had search-and-rescue responsibility when the distress calls were first sent. According to information made available to UNHCR, the boat was only rescued late on Monday, and by Libyan vessels.
Civil society groups attending a meeting on climate change in Bonn, Germany, have expressed disappointment that Saudi Arabia had blocked a review on the discussion of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius target as suggested by scientists. "Many civil society groups are also disappointed to see discussions of the gigat on gap, the gap between pledged reductions and what is scientifically necessary, gone missing from the talks,' said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign that has rallied millions of citizens in support of a science-based climate treaty.
Cameroonian writer, diplomat and civil servant, Ferdinand Leopold Oyono, died on Thursday in Yaounde, the Cameroonian capital, at the age of 81.
He was the author of two influential novels - The old man and the Medal and Une Vie de Boy written in the 1960s.
According to Geoges Etoa Oyono, who is the nephew of Oyono, the writer complained of weakness as he came out of the presidential palace where he attended the lunch offered in honour of the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon.
Oyono was an official at the UN in the 1970s and Cameroon's ambassador to the United Kingdom. He returned to Cameroon in 1985 and was appointed secretary-general of the presidency of the Republic.
He was minister of Foreign Relations and minster of Culture and worked for the setting up of copyright authority in the country.
UN Standing Committee on Nutrition has called for more diverse food sources to curb the impact of climate change on agriculture. The committee made the call in its latest publication. It reported that climate change trends will also affect food and nutrition security.
UNESCO has said that although social science from Western countries continues to be of great global influence, the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil. Quoting from its findings in a 2010 World Social Science Report - "Knowledge divides", UNESCO said in sub-Saharan Africa, social scientists from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya produced 75% of academic publications
Partner states of the East African Community (EAC) and the European Commission (EC) have ended their third negotiations session here on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), observing that the main challenge in accessing the European Union market continued to be stringent rules of origin. Both sides, however, have affirmed their recognition of development needs of the EAC region and their commitment to ensure that EPA is an addition to development that would promote and consolidate regional integration and fast track the integration of the EAC into the global economy.
The global economy is likely to grow 2.9 per cent to 3.3 per cent in 2010 and 2011, the World Bank said. The bank, however, said that "Europe's debt crisis poses problems for global growth". In its latest Global Economic Prospects 2010, it said global economic recovery continued to advance "but Europe's debt crisis has created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth".
The global economic recovery continues to advance, but Europe's debt crisis has created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth, cautions the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects 2010 released on Wednesday. The World Bank projects global GDP to expand between 2.9% and 3.3% in 2010 and 2 011, strengthening to between 3.2% and 3.5% in 2012, reversing the 2.1% decline in 2009.
Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir has agreed to negotiate with the Southern Sudan on a pre-referendum that could herald the split of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan from mainland Sudan. The Sudanese leader met the top leader of an African Union special panel on Darfur, Thabo Mbeki, former South African President, and announced he was ready for pre-referendum negotiations.
A leading London-based gay rights campaigner has blamed the recent break-up of Malawi's first openly gay couple on what he called the southern African country's homophobia. Peter Tatchell of Outrage! said 26-year-old Steven Monjeza and his 20- year-old partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga caved in to pressure from threats on their lives.
Al-Shabaab, one of the Islamist movements opposing the Somali government yesterday decreed a total ban on Somali speaking Universal TV. The group accused the London-based broadcaster, widely viewed in Somalia, of showing cartoons negatively depicting Prophet Mohammed. In the decree issued in Mogadishu, the top Council of Al-Shabaab quoted verses of the Koran (Muslims’ Holy Book) explaining the punishment to be faced by anybody undermining Prophet Mohammed a result, the movement described Universal TV as a tool used by non-Muslims to undermine Islam.
Scores of infants in northern Nigeria could be left with long-term neurological damage from lead poisoning caused by illegal gold mining which has already killed at least 170, most of them under five. Authorities in the state of Zamfara, aided by international agencies including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the World Health Organisation and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are helping treat the sick and bury mines to try to contain the pollution before heavy rains due next month
Zimbabwe's first private daily newspaper hit the streets to break a state monopoly established years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government banned a pro-opposition newspaper over a registration dispute. Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, was forced to form a power-sharing government over a year ago with his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to tackle an economic and political crisis, including opening up the media industry.
In early 2008, an estimated 650,000 Kenyans were displaced and a further 1,300 lost their lives during two months of intense communal violence after the announcement of presidential and parliamentary election results. The incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU), was declared to have defeated Raila Odinga, head of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in the presidential contest, despite the fact the PNU won fewer parliamentary seats. Both local and international observers questioned the results.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Zimbabwe remain internally displaced as a result of government policies and actions. The two largest groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) are farm workers and their families who have been displaced as a result of the fast-track land reform programme, which began in 2000 and continues to this day; and people displaced as a result of arbitrary evictions in Zimbabwe's towns and cities.
Food insecurity and livelihoods have been compounded by a critical lack of water in the worst-hit southern province of Zinder. "The women with whom I've spoken in villages have said water is their first problem," UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes told journalists during a visit to Zinder in late April.
The lawyers and paralegals of the Puntland Legal Aid Center go weekly to visit the 24 IDP camps that are scattered in and around Garowe to help displaced people with legal issues. The staff of the Center inform the IDPS of their rights, provide them with legal advice, and when needed, with free representation. Today, Youssuf, the Director of the Center, and Asha, a paralegal, are taking us to the Ajuran camp, by the river in Garowe.
Throughout the Women Deliver conference, and the Symposium on Strengthening Midwifery that preceded it, the critical importance of midwives to meeting the safe motherhood challenge was emphasized. Here, midwives and advocates from eight countries talk about their work, the challenges they face and what they need in order to save more women’s lives.
This brochure reflects a consensus of 40 international experts who convened in New York on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development. Together they reviewed evidence and developed recommendations on how to reduce inequities in access to family planning and other sexual and reproductive health services, particularly for disadvantaged populations. These actions are urgently needed to accelerate progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Sudanese authorities to release up to a dozen journalists who have been held for over two weeks in two separate incidents in the North and South of the country. In Kharthoum, deputy Editor Abu Zar al-Amin and reporters Ashraf Abdel Aziz and Dahab Ibrahim, all working for the opposition owned Rai al-Shaab's newspaper have been in detention since 16 May accused of undermining relations between Sudan and the United State
The notorious rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is carrying out ever more deadly attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also continues to abduct children to use as soldiers in its ranks, United Nations aid workers reported. The rebels have murdered an average of 102 civilians every month in the DRC’s Orientale province since last December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, compared with an average of 64 per month in the previous two years.
South Africa’s travel and hotel industries have signed a code of conduct designed to protect children against sex tourism, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, praising the ethical guide as an enduring legacy of the 2010 World Cup. “The contribution of the travel and tourism industry is vital to help stamp out child sexual exploitation,” said Aida Girma, UNICEF’s representative in South Africa, following the signing of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct in Johannesburg.
The United Nations human rights chief has urged the Kenyan Government to reconsider setting up a special tribunal to pursue accountability for the crimes committed during the violence that followed the disputed December 2007 elections. “I have been assured that this option is still open,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement issued at the end of a three-day visit to Kenya.
Survivors of the brutal conflict that has wracked northern Uganda for two decades, most of them young people, must be helped back on their feet by supporting their efforts to acquire skills that will help them reintegrate into society, a United Nations envoy has said after spending a week in the country. “Armed conflict creates victims, but also survivors whose resilience must be reinforced by government, international organizations and civil society as well as adequate rehabilitation and reintegration programmes,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.
A court in Finland has sentenced a Rwandan pastor, Francois Bazaramba, to life in jail for his participation in Rwanda's genocide. Bazaramba, 59, moved in 2003 to the Scandinavian country which allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed.
Uganda's rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army attacked a village in the neighbouring Central African Republic on Thursday and kidnapped more than 30 people, police said. The rebels besieged the village of Fode at around 16:00 (15:00 GMT) and raided local houses and stole goods and provisions, a police official in the main local town of Bangassou said.
A former Nigerian rebel leader has said he would abandon an amnesty programme with hundreds of his followers if the government did not quickly provide jobs and development in the Niger Delta oil region. Ateke Tom, an ex-gang leader in the oil-producing Rivers state, told Reuters that life for his "boys" had yet to improve eight months after agreeing to surrender arms and participate in the government's amnesty programme.
South African Foreign Affairs officials in Pretoria are making frantic efforts to squeeze in a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and the three principals who will be at the official opening of the FIFA World Cup. The World Cup opens in Johannesburg on Friday and Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara have been invited to attend. The three will travel to the football extravaganza having failed to agree on any of the outstanding issues in the GPA during their Tuesday meeting in Harare.
A human rights campaigner has been sentenced to three years in jail by an Angolan court that convicted him of committing crimes against the state, in what his lawyer says is part of a crackdown on activists. A judge found Angolan rights activist Andre Zeferino Puati guilty late on Thursday after authorities found documents in his possession aimed at inciting people to protest against the government, his lawyer said.
The gold mining sector came under heavy criticism from clinicians, ex-miners, advocacy groups and the Minister of Health for the TB crisis it faces at the recent South African TB Conference. “If TB/HIV is a snake in Southern Africa, we know that its head is in South Africa in the mines,” stated Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. Paula Akugizibwe from the Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) stressed that the mining sector, which she referred to as a “TB factory”, was over a century behind schedule with regards to its TB response.
Researchers have started testing the safety a vaginal ring containing an antiretroviral drug in South Africa in the hope that it has the potential to prevent HIV infection in women. The clinical trial, known as IPM 015 will test the safety and acceptability of the dapivirine-containing vaginal ring – which is successfully used in Europe as a delivery method for hormonal therapy and birth control.
For lies to continue to hide the truth they must be constantly sustained and maintained. For truth to be able to emerge from under the lies we have to constantly remember what has really been said and done, by whom and for what purpose. We have often said that the attack on our movement in the Kennedy Road settlement on the 26th and 27th of September last year was planned at a very high political level. It was planned outside of the Kennedy Road settlement.
All of the Protea South Five, arrested after the electricity war in Protea South, Soweto, have been released on the grounds that 'there is no evidence against them'. None of the five were harmed while in detention. A sixth person from Protea South (who is not an LPM member) has now been arrested and charged with burning the transformer. There are currently conflicting reports at to whether or not there has been an arrest for the murder of the LPM activist shot by the Homeowners' Association in Protea South.
The National Information Communication and Technology Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) was switched on in 16 regions after the completion of the first phase of its construction.The move brings the hope of increased efficiency and reduced Internet charges in Tanzania.
TB patients who have knowledge regarding the relationship between TB and HIV or have been counselled on HIV are more likely to report having used a condom during sexual intercourse, according to a study presented at the 2nd South African TB conference held in Durban last week.
Behaviour change and high AIDS death rates contributed to the substantial decline in HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe from 29% in 1997 to close to 16% in 2007 according to findings published by Simon Gregson and colleagues in the April 20th advance online edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have taken different platforms in negotiating with the European Union (EU) for the implementation of the full Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This follows a recent engagement meeting between SADC’s Ministers of Trade and Industry and Economic Development and the EU in Brussels aimed at mapping the way forward for the implementation of the EPAs.
Over 15 fair trade lobby organisations have warned the East African Community leaders against signing the Framework Economic Partnerships Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. The Framework Economic Partnerships Agreement between the European Union and the East African Community is scheduled to be signed today in the Tanzanian capital of Dar-es-Salaam, despite widespread criticism.
A High Court judge has reserved judgement on the Kalahari Bushmen’s bid to gain access to a borehole which they rely on for water. The Bushmen were at the Botswana High Court to hear their application for permission to use their borehole which the Botswana government has banned them from using.
Aid to poor countries should be tailored more towards benefiting European firms, a top-level Brussels official has recommended. Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's commissioner for development, is seeking a new aid strategy that has "value for money" as an overriding priority.
Hanging from a rafter in Jane Wanjiku’s home is a calendar bearing the image of the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. It's an illustration of how the ICC has seized the imagination of ill-treated people around the world. Wanjiku has lived in Kibera for more than 60 years and witnessed many upheavals. But the 74-year-old says she has never seen violence as severe as what followed the 2007 elections.
The entry of a Swedish-led oil consortium into southern Sudan in 1997 triggered civil war and crimes against humanity, claims a European coalition of aid agencies. The European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) has called on the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate into the possible complicity of the consortium in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The estimates are at best approximate on both sides on the equation, but six weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the cumulative oil spill has now reached a bit more than 3 times that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez. It is still dwarfed, however, by the estimated equivalent of 30 Exxon Valdez spills discharged into Ecuador's Amazon by Chevron/Texaco over 3 decades, or more than 50 Exxon Valdez spills into the Niger Delta by Shell, Chevron, and other companies over 5 decades.
A recent march by over a thousand Ghanian Muslims against “the growing activities of gays and lesbians” in this West-African country, could hamper initiatives that target Men having sex with Men (MSM), such as HIV and Aids interventions, activists have warned. Mac-Darling Cobbinahof the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana, an organisation that also caters for the MSM community said, following a march that went through principal streets of the Metropolis against homosexuality, after an alleged report that close to 60 gays and lesbians from eastern
Ethiopian rebels said on Friday the military had killed 71 civilians in the last month as part of a growing crackdown in a region where international oil and gas companies are exploring. "The Ethiopian army combed the countryside, summarily executing men in front of their families while beating, raping or killing the women," the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said in a statement.
On World Day Against Child Labour 2010 on Saturday 12th June, leading NGO Plan International is concerned the problem is on the increase in Niger where children are being forced to work because of the food crisis. Children are being pulled out of school and sent to work for money or food to supplement their family's income.
Several rebel groups and bandits are spreading fear and chaos in many parts of the Central African Republic. Regular attacks on civilians are resulting in killings, abductions, rapes and looting. They are forcing people to flee their homes to find a safe haven. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, putting pressure on already impoverished host communities.
“I would like to thank everybody for the support that I have been given since Friday and before that,” The Post editor Fred M’membe told Reporters Without Borders as he was released this afternoon from Lusaka prison, where he had just spent three days. “I am very grateful to my fellow journalists,” said M’membe, who was sentenced to four months in prison with hard labour on 4 June on a contempt of court charge. “I have received more than the support I thought I would get and I deserve.”
Reporters Without Borders regrets the Cameroonian government’s foot-dragging in the investigation into journalist “Bibi” Ngota Ngota’s death in Yaoundé’s Kodengui prison on 22 April. See previous release. At the end of April, President Paul Biya called for an investigation into the circumstances of Ngota’s death but a report on its findings has yet to be published.
Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) celebrated 10 years of empowering women and women organizations through the use of ICTs on 1st and 2nd June 2010 at Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda. Among the activities to mark the celebrations, was a one week SMS awareness campaign which took place from 24th to 29th May 2010, a two day exhibition and a one day symposium.
Desertification is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems by human activities and climatic variations. Because of its toll on human well-being and on the environment, it ranks among the greatest development challenges of our times. The World Day to Combat Desertification focuses international attention on this growing problem. It has been observed each 17 June since 1995, the same year the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was iimplemented
An experimental treatment for Ebola that could potentially save human lives has been shown to be completely effective in monkeys. If approved for human use it would be the first treatment for the deadly disease, according to Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the US-based National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories Institute.
In colonial times, Senegal's metropolis Dakar was famous for its open and tolerated homosexual prostitution market, and as late as in the 1970s, as many as 17 percent of Senegalese men admitted having had homosexual experiences.
Alpha Condé, the "eternal opposition leader" of Guinea who is widely believed to have won the 1993 presidential election, is gathering the largest crowds as Guinea's first truly democratic poll has kicked off.
The corruption case against South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, which was dropped by the prosecution before he became President, still haunts national politics. The opposition fights for documents in the Zuma prosecution case.
Allegations of massive fraud during May’s local elections in Burundi have cast a shadow over the country's democratic transition, prompting international calls for compromise rather than confrontation. Attributing the ruling CNDD-FDD’s landslide victory to ballot-box stuffing, vote-buying with state resources, the illegal use of proxies and a lack of secrecy in some polling stations, 13 opposition parties have announced a boycott of the 28 June presidential race, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only runner.
African Union members have adopted plans to implement the Kampala convention on the protection of internally displaced people, including increasing their contributions to refugee and IDP funding and accelerating the convention’s ratification, signature and domestication, the AU said. Signed by 26 countries since it was endorsed in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on 23 October 2009, the convention obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported, according to Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.
BET, the acronym for the three northern regions of Chad – Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti – comes up regularly in meetings of international aid agencies frustrated by the lack of information and difficulty of access to the remote territory. Drought in 2009 triggered the government’s call for international assistance, but no one really knows the full extent of the problem, according to a local NGO.
Civil society activists are protesting the closure of a factory that produces the only UN World Health Organization-pre-qualified version of a life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drug for infants. Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), which owns the French factory that produces didanosine, a second-line ARV for babies weighing less than 10kg, will shut down the plant in June 2010, stopping production of the drug until at least February 2011, when regulatory approval of a new United States-based manufacturing site is expected.
There is intense lobbying for the finalisation of a formal trade agreement on agricultural products between Namibia and China. The general mood in government corridors is explicitly clear that as of next year trade flows from Namibia to China should add tangible value to the local economy, instead of comprising minerals exports, as is the present case.