Pambazuka News 456: Counterterrorism's blindness: Mali and the USA
Pambazuka News 456: Counterterrorism's blindness: Mali and the USA
While in the 1980s, the IMF and the World Bank appeared to be the only major source of funding for African development, Chinese and Indian interest in the continent’s more recently discovered mineral and oil resources have opened up alternative offers of investment. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Renu Modi and Seema consider the benefits new players China and India bring to Africa.
The spokesman of Kenya Youth Alliance, Njuguna Gitau, has been shot dead. Mr Gitau was shot in the head on Nairobi's Luthuli Avenue, according to witnesses at the scene. They said he had been walking on the street with four men when an argument broke out. Two of them drew pistols and shot him before the attackers fled the scene.
Kenyans for Justice and Development welcome ICC Prosecutor Louis Moreno Ocampo’s intervention towards helping Kenyans find justice for the chaos of early 2008. The ICC’s intervention is a major step towards holding criminally accountable all those who masterminded and executed the 2007/2008 pre and post election mayhem.
Pambazuka News 455: Climate change and Africa's natural resources
Pambazuka News 455: Climate change and Africa's natural resources
Citizenship Law in Africa: A comparative study, published by two programs of the Open Society Institute (AfriMAP and the Open Society Justice Initiative), describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms.
The Secretary-General has issued a widely awaited Guidance Note on Democracy to all parts of the United Nations Secretariat, setting out the UN framework and committing the Organization to action in support of democracy. The Note, which followed the Secretary-General’s call in 2007 for an organization-wide strategy for democracy support, was the product of many months’ collaboration by several entities of the UN, including UNDEF
The Acting Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Joseph Kamara, has welcomed the final convictions of three leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The trial convictions of the RUF leaders were upheld by the SCSL Appeals Chamber, with Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon convicted on 16 counts and Augustine Gbao was convicted on 13 counts of an 18-count Indictment charging them with atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war.
The International Council on Human Rights Policy has released a new report, When Legal Worlds Overlap: Human Rights, State and Non-State Law. This report highlights human rights impacts and dilemmas associated with plural state and non-state laws, such as family laws based on religion, customary justice practices and Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms. Drawing on examples of such plural legal orders from around the world, it proposes principles and a framework to guide human rights practitioners and policy-makers.
This paper looks at IMF agreements with 41 countries. These include Stand-By Arrangements (SBA), Poverty Reduction and Growth Facilities (PRGF), and Exogenous Shocks Facilities (ESF). The paper finds that 31 of the 41 agreements contain pro-cyclical macroeconomic policies. These are either pro-cyclical fiscal or monetary policies – or in 15 cases, both – that, in the face of a significant slowdown in growth or in a recession, would be expected to exacerbate the downturn.
The residents of Mandela Park in Khayelitsha are reliving their worst nightmares once again - residents are being evicted from their homes just like five years ago. More than 200 homes have been served with eviction orders, with approximately 10 evictions having taken place in the past two weeks alone. However with the help of the community those families are not on the streets as they have been returned to their homes forcefully by the residents.
The PhD in Human Rights and Peace Studies is the only PhD program of its kind in Asia, while the MA is the longest running graduate degree program in human rights in Asia. These programs offer a unique opportunity to engage in depth with the highly important issues of human rights and peace in the world today. The objectives of the programs are to produce graduates with excellent research skills and thorough theoretical and conceptual knowledge of these fields, and who are able to apply this knowledge to the field.
With the click of a mouse, students at Canadian universities find information quickly and download what they need at high speeds. They could not imagine doing research without using the Internet to supplement material from their university library.But it’s a different story in most parts of Africa, where limited library collections make access to the Internet even more critical for research, yet that access is harder to come by.
With the growing use of satellite imagery and easy-to-use technology, geographical maps are being used more often by human rights organizations. Geo-mapping can help an organization map crises, places of heritage, visualize data, monitor the impact of conflict, uncover critical evidence, and more! The goal of this dialogue will be to take the stories shared by practitioners with experience using these tools and tactics and draw out lessons to enable other organizations to strategically apply these resources.
ARTICLE19 is recruiting a Programme Officer to further strengthen our presence in Kenya and East Africa. He/she will ensure ongoing projects are delivered in a timely manner and assist in the preparation of future project plans. Educated to degree level, the successful candidate will have extensive experience in policy work, monitoring, advocacy and/or campaigning work in the human rights sector combined with demonstrable project management, implementation and budgeting skills. Familiarity with human rights issues and knowledge of societies in Eastern Africa are also essential.
Please apply by CV and a covering letter detailing how you meet the person specification to [email][email protected]
Alternatively, send your CV and covering letter to:
The Selection Panel
ARTICLE19, Kenya & East Africa
ACS Plaza, 3rd Floor, Lenana Road
PO Box 2653, 00100
Nairobi
Kenya
Closing date for receipt of applications: 5.30pm 6th November 2009
Only short listed applicants will be contacted
It’s a busy day as usual in the city-centre, with everyone moving about their daily business. Looking around, it seems that you will mostly find women and girls sitting by the roadside selling fruits and vegetables, while men are operating bigger businesses, like construction. Male directors are moving up and down their construction sites to make sure work is at its best. Meanwhile, women dust their wares, waiting for passersby to purchase, so that at least they are able to put food on the table by the close of day.
Gender Links is commissioning submissions that will be used as part of activities for 16 Days of Activism 2009. Commissioned pieces may be used in a booklet to be launched on Human Rights Day entitled “World Cup 2010: Problems and Possibilities" and/ or distributed to mainstream media and through the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.
Twenty-seven civil society groups, among them, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) rose from a brain-storming session in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, with a call on governments in Africa must initiate, implement and sustain policies that guarantee the protection of small scale farmers and provide them subsidies and needed inputs to ensure increased food production and general food sovereignty
When in 2008 the government of Madagascar agreed a deal with Korean Daewoo Logistics for the company to access 1.3 million hectares of agricultural land to grow maize and palm oil for export, protests, political crisis and ultimately the fall of the government and the cancellation of the deal followed. Madagascar’s citizens were not consulted.
It is projected that if the economy does not improve within the next two years, more than half a million mineworkers in the region will lose their jobs. It is estimated that more than 25% of mineworkers are HIV positive. Only two countries reviewed in the study have sufficient reserves to deal with a long-term recession.
The conference on contractual teachers, called Bamako +5, ended in the Malian capital, Bamako, with an appeal to African governments to mobilize more resources to ensure a better quality of their education systems and the training of contractual teachersThe conference in a declaration called on African governments to initiate political dialogue between stakeholders of their educational systems in order to find ways and means to build leadership in schools. They should also allocate at least 20% of their national budgets to education.
In a statement published in a local newspaper, Oyia, the Libyan general people's committee of justice urged citizens deprived of their freedom by security agencies or those who have been proved innocent after being jailed, to fill the reconciliation application forms. The invitation is also meant for Libyan men who have been arrested without trial and those who have been released and wish to participate in the national reconciliation process.
Finding 'an African solution to an African problem', the African Union (AU) has endorsed the establishment of a hybrid court to try all crimes committed in the Darfur crisis. The decision was reached by the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC), which met at the level of heads of state and government in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja Thursday to consider the recommendations of the Thabo Mbeki Panel on the Darfur crisis.
Diplomats from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are mediating in the talks, the latest in a series the regional group has brokered to find a durable solution to Zimbabwe's long-running political instability. Tsvangirai, accusing Mugabe of violating a power-sharing agreement they signed last year, partially pulled out from government some two weeks ago, sparking the latest political crisis.
The Constitutional Court in Tunisia has validated the results of Sunday's presidential election, won by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali with more than 86.62% of the votes, official sources said. The 73-year-old Ben Ali, who was the candidate of the ruling party in power for 22 years, beat three opposition candidates to win his fifth, consecutive five-year term, which should be his last, since the constitution prescribes 75 years as the maximum age for presidential candidates.
Some 14,955 Mauritanian refugees, consisting of 3,888 families, have been repatriated from Senegal to Mauritania since the end of January 2008, under a tripartite agreement signed in November 2007 by both countries and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
An estimated 60,000 hungry refugees in the western Uganda settlement of Nakivale have staged a strike complaining of lack of food supplies for three months leading to deaths of mainly children.
The detained Campaign Manager of Gambia's main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), Femi Peters, appeared before Banjul Magistrates' Court charged with "organising an unlawful assembly". According to sources, Mr. Peters refused to enter into a plea when the charges were read out to him in court on Monday in the absence of a lawyer.
Germany has granted 23 million euros to the Organization coordinating the fight against Endemics in Central Africa (OCEAC) as part of its project for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Central Africa. An agreement to this effect signed Monday in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, by a representative of the German Development Bank (KFW), Hubert Eisele, and the Secretary-General of OCEAC, Dr. Jean Jacques Moka.
United Nations torture expert Manfred Nowak said on Thursday he would recommend that the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) take action against Zimbabwe after his expulsion from the country. Zimbabwean officials denied him entry and forced him to board a South Africa-bound plane on Thursday after he was detained by security officials on arrival overnight.
As tensions worsen in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change says an armed gang tried to abduct its security administrator in central Harare on Tuesday. Zimbabwe’s unity government is on the verge of disintegration after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai pulled his ministers out of cabinet meetings.
An investigation by the government in Liberia has concluded that the Firestone Rubber Plantation Company has polluted local water sources. The three-month investigation found that a plant south-east of the capital Monrovia was responsible for high levels of orthophosphate in creeks.
Kenya is to carry out a census of its gay population in an effort to bolster the fight against HIV/Aids - despite homosexuality being against the law. Nicholas Muraguri, head of Kenya's Aids prevention programme Nascop, told the BBC it was vital that the government reached out to the gay community.
A Rwandan man convicted of war crimes has been jailed for life by a Canadian court, without the prospect of parole for 25 years. Desire Munyaneza, 42, was found guilty in May in the first court case brought under Canada's 2000 War Crimes Act.
A French appeals court has halted a lawsuit against three African leaders accused of embezzlement. Anti-corruption group Transparency International had accused the leaders of using African public funds to buy luxury homes and cars in France.
An in-depth investigation into the September 28, 2009 killings and rapes at a peaceful rally in Conakry, Guinea, has uncovered new evidence that the massacre and widespread sexual violence were organized and were committed largely by the elite Presidential Guard, commonly known as the “red berets,” Human Rights Watch has said.
What are the key strategies for closing the gender gap in agricultural production? This paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute reviews attempts to increase poor female farmers’ access to, and control of, productive resources in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
By hosting the next eLearning Africa, Zambia is confirming its commitment to placing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) at the heart of its development projects and is highlighting the different plans and programmes in progress that incorporate ICT as an essential development factor.
Kenyan teenagers are having sex. And they appear to have no clue how to go about it. A report by the Nairobi-based Centre for the Study of Adolescents (CSA) reports that 40 percent of girls and 50 percent of boys reported having had sex before their 19th birthday, a significant minority reported having sex with more than one partner in the previous six months.
Women's football is being used in Zimbabwe to confront the stigma associated with HIV and Aids. A total of 16 women's teams now take part in competitions for players who have openly declared that they are HIV positive. But despite the courage of the women involved, there has been much resistance.
Flash floods caused by four days of torrential rains have displaced more than 15,000 people in the southwestern town of El-Waq near the Kenyan border and submerged most homes and businesses, say locals.
Senegal has admitted that it gave a "money gift" to an International Monetary Fund official earlier this month at the end of his three-year posting, citing an African tradition of offering goodbye presents. The gift, which the IMF said amounted to 100,000 euros and $50,000, was returned within days by IMF representative Alex Segura, who had been an outspoken critic of the West African nation's budget process during his posting.
ARTICLE 19 joins with the Africa Forum for Media Development, the African Media Initiative, the Global Forum for Media Development, the International Federation of Journalists and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers in calling for stronger dedicated European Union support to media freedom in Africa.
The Security Council has extended the sanctions imposed on Côte d’Ivoire, warning that the situation in the divided West African nation continues to pose a threat to international peace and security for the region. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member Council voted to maintain for another year an arms embargo, restrictions for certain individuals on travel and financial movements, and the ban on any State importing rough diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire.
The total number of people forced from their homes in the past six months by persistent violent conflict in Central and Eastern Africa has topped 1 million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported. According to the data compiled by OCHA’s regional office, the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the region has now passed the 10 million mark.
Guinean youths have embarked on a hunger strike exactly one month after the massacre to demand justice and call for a political dialogue. The youths say the hunger strike will last for five days and they hope to draw their leaders' attention to engage in dialogue, and prevent any further violence.
The SADC Troika on Defence, Security and Politics began its fact finding mission in Harare on Thursday in an effort to narrow the differences between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. The ministerial mission is being led by Oldemiro Baloi, the Mozambican Foreign Affairs Minister, Zambia deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Fashion Phiri and Lutho Dhlamini from Swaziland.
India has offered Democratic Republic of Congo $263 million in loans to build hydroelectric plants and repair battered infrastructure in the war-ravaged central African nation, Congo's foreign minister said on Friday.
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza appeared headed for a resounding victory in an election on Thursday that would also see his ruling Frelimo party winning parliamentary and provincial polls. Partial results showed Guebuza, seen as welcoming of greater foreign investment, taking a commanding lead over his rivals, longtime opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama, and the head of a new party, Daviz Simango.
In what has been described as the final death of state sponsored AIDS denialism, President Jacob Zuma has delivered a historic speech in the National Council of Provinces acknowledging that the country was not winning the war against the disease and that extraordinary measures were needed.
Tanzania Telecommunication Company Ltd customers will from this month enjoy a 50 per cent cut in Internet charges, making Tanzania the first East African country to lower Internet charges. TTCL chief executive officer Said Amour Said, told The EastAfrican that the lowering of charges follows the firm's connecting to the Seacom submarine fibre optic cable.
The Institute for Human Security (IHS) will be hosting a multi-disciplinary and multi-genre colloquium on Cultures of Violence /War and Identity on the 3-4 November 2009. The title of the event this year is "Violent Cartographies: Mapping Colonial and Postcolonial Identities and Cultures of War"- a project that seeks to "unmap" the familiar world by raising questions and employing genres of expression that interrogate dominant ways of thinking about violence/ war , identities and the spaces of their occurrence.
A new report on Eritrea has been commissioned by the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. Contributions were also made by other NGOs, including Human Rights House Foundation. “The HR violations are extensive and systematic, and the oppression by the authorities is total”, says the president of the Oslo Center, Kjell Magne Bondevik.
Measures to reduce loss to follow-up in antiretroviral treatment programmes such as abolishing user fees, paying transportation costs, providing meals and improving staff training would be cost-effective even if they prevented less than half of patients from failing to return to the clinic, according to projections based on data from Côte d’Ivoire.
Nurses in Rwanda and Lesotho are successfully prescribing antiretroviral drugs and managing HIV treatment, two studies published this month show. Both Rwanda and Lesotho face a serious shortage of doctors, and in order to increase the capacity of the health system to treat people with HIV the World Health Organization recommends "task shifting"— the delegation of many medical tasks including ARV prescription and management to nurses and clinical officers.
Election observers from southern Africa have said Botswana’s elections were in conformity with regional standards and principles. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Election Observer Mission (SEOM) said the elections were conducted in compliance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections adopted by SADC Member States.
The appointment of Margaret Nasha as the first woman to occupy the post of Speaker of the National Assembly in Botswana signals another step towards gender equality in southern Africa. However, the low number of women who made it into Parliament in the recent elections is a setback in a region committed to reach 50 percent parity in decision-making by 2015, in six years time, following just one more election.
A recent round of talks has failed to achieve agreement between Morocco's unions and the government on several of organised labour's key demands. Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi began his annual "Social Dialogue" with leading Moroccan unions on Monday (October 26th) in Rabat.
Morocco is developing a new strategic framework to fight poverty, which will place top priority on addressing the vulnerabilities that lead families into destitution. "There was a need to bring all governmental and non-governmental initiatives together to fight poverty, given the necessity of coordinating all activities, both in terms of financial and human resources," said Minister of Social Development Nouzha Skelli, as her office unveiled the plan on October 22nd in Rabat.
Opposition parties made strong advances in legislative elections held on Sunday (October 25th), capturing an unprecedented 53 of Parliament's 214 seats. The ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD) of incumbent President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali obtained an expected majority, winning 161 seats, though only capturing 31% of the popular vote. Ben Ali himself was elected to his fifth five-year term with 89.62% of the votes in the presidential election held the same day.
To maintain sustained economic growth and meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Sub-Saharan African countries have to invest up to US$ 50 billion annually in infrastructure, said Zemedeneh Negatu, the Managing Partner of Ernst & Young, LLP in Ethiopia. He made the comments at the Africa Investor “CEO Forum on Infrastructure, Energy and Clean Tech”, held at the Cape Town International Convention Center.
"Keep Your Chats Exactly That!" is a campaign by Women'sNet and Girls'Net that aims to empower young people in the use of the internet and cell phones. It looks at both strategies of prevention from harassment, bullying and violence, as well as strategies for using ICTs in affirmative ways to advocate for change on issues that concern them.
Concerns abound about a nine billion dollar Chinese investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially around environmental consequences and transparency. And, on the Chinese side, investors complain not only about the lack of security in the DRC but about their own government not providing enough support.
More than half of Ugandan girls who enrol in grade one drop out before sitting for their primary school-leaving examinations. The fact that girls are dropping out between age 11 and 13 is being linked to the beginning of the menstruation cycle and its associated challenges.
The Ggaba landing site on Lake Victoria is the nearest wholesale fish market to the Ugandan capital, Kampala. More than 6,000 people live and work in this fishing community. The water looks green and dirty from the quay. It smells like - well, like fish, or an abandoned, stagnant water pond.
In recent weeks, the U.N. has bolstered a groundbreaking, but largely symbolic, resolution passed in 2000 that identified women's rights and roles during war. Recent public rapes in Guinea now pose a crucial test of their strength
On the eve of the climate change summit in Copenhagen this December, momentum for action still falls far short of that needed to avert catastrophe. Africa will suffer consequences out of all proportion to its contribution to global warming, which is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from wealthy countries. But Africa can also make significant contributions to mitigating (i.e. limiting) climate change, by stopping tropical deforestation and ending gas flaring from oil production.
The IICD-supported Global Teenager Project (GTP) has launched a new virtual learning environment to support online classroom discussion on social issues with peers from all over the world. Founded in 1998, GTP offers collaborative global learning to over 10,000 students in 34 countries based on themes, or Learning Circles.
The last 400 of more than 200,000 Burundians who fled to Tanzania 37 years ago travelled home on Friday, ending one of the longest-running refugee sagas in the world, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday. The Burundians arrived in 1972, fleeing ethnic conflict at home. While many have returned under a U.N.-backed voluntary repatriation programme, some 29,000 were naturalised in Tanzania and 133,000 citizenship applications are still pending there.
Armed villagers have killed at least 47 policemen who were trying to intervene in ethnic clashes in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo, reports say. A number of civilians were also killed in the violence which erupted in the village of Dongo in Equateur province early on Thursday, the UN-sponsored Radio Okapi said, citing local officials.
Arkadi Gaydamak, a Russian-born Israeli businessman and Pierre Falcone, his French associate, have been sentenced to six-year jail terms for organising the illegal trafficking of weapons to Angola.
Reporters Without Borders has noted the release from prison of Abdoulaye Tiémogo, editor of the independent weekly Le Canard déchaîné, after his sentence was reduced on appeal. The journalist, who is in poor health, had been held in custody since 1st August. He had been found guilty of “discrediting a judicial decision”.
Start local, then Africa, then the world. That’s the mantra app developers in Africa should be repeating to themselves as they build their game changing tools. That’s what Agosta Liko and his team at Verviant are doing with their new web and mobile payment platform: PesaPal.
Whatever else it is, information and communications technologies (ICTs) policy-making can often be symbolic, especially in poor countries. The vision is one of social upliftment, and a new golden age of possibilities brought on by technological roll-out. Sometimes these promises can feel like fantasy in contrast to the real spadework of laying cables, orbiting satellites, and securing billion-dollar investment deals that don’t exploit the poor.
The Ugandan Clergy have appealed to the government to scrape the death penalty in the Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009 currently being debated in parliament. The clergy said the government should rather opt life imprisonment. Earlier this month, the homosexual groups expressed rage over the tabling of the Anti-Homosexuality bill, saying it was in violation of their human rights.
Fifty-seven IFEX members and other rights organisations joined the Arab Network for Human Rights (ANHRI) to condemn the recent targeting of Moroccan journalists who have been hit with lawsuits, high fines and jail sentences, threatening media diversity. Orchestrated by the monarchy, newspapers have been shut down as the government ramps up its repression of independent journalism, report IFEX members.
Gibril Gottor, a reporter for Radio Kolenten, based in the Kambia district of northwestern Sierra Leone, was violently assaulted by a group of men on 10 October 2009 for allegedly "sabotaging" the government. The men are believed to be supporters of the ruling All People's Congress Party (APC).
In this week's emerging powers news roundup, Stephen Marks looks at preparations for the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation [FOCAC] ministerial meeting, the growing controversy over Chinese investments in Guinea and DRC, and criticism of China from the US for keeping its currency too low.
The International Budget Partnership has released “It's Our Money. Where's It Gone?”—a new documentary film on the work one of its partners, MUHURI (Muslims for Human Rights), is doing to involve communities directly in monitoring the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Mombasa, Kenya. The CDF allocates approximately one million dollars annually to each member of parliament to spend on development projects in his or her constituency but provides for no meaningful independent oversight. This is the story of ordinary Kenyans stepping in to do something about it.
This week, Dibussi Tande reviews blogs on , a relatively new blogging and communication platform specifically designed for the sub-Saharan blogger and writer. According to its founders, Maneno 'allows those with limited or narrow-bandwidth internet to use a system that is lightweight and straightforward in functionality'.
The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law has issued a statement on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which was tabled in Uganda's Parliament on 14 October 2009, and is currently before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament. The coalition argues that the bill targets everybody, and involves everybody: It cannot be implemented without making every citizen spy on his or her neighbours.
The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, has taken note of the
introduction into the Ugandan Parliament of the Anti Homosexuality Bill, 2009.
We are of the very strong view that this bill should not be adopted. It not
only violates the Ugandan constitution and Ugandas international human rights
obligations, but also stifles debate, undermines civil society and demeans the
common citizenship of all Ugandans.
Dr Darsi Ferrer is one of the most important civil rights leaders in Cuba today, and a tireless, courageous fighter against social exclusion. Dr Ferrer was arrested more than three months ago, and jailed on absurd, untrue charges of having 'stolen materials' from the state.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum unreservedly condemns the arrest and detention of NANGO Board Chairperson Dadirai Chikwengo and Chief Executive Officer Cephas Zinhumwe on Sunday, 25 October 2009. The conduct of the police in Victoria Falls is reminiscent of the repression and clamp down on Civil Society and political opposition forces that was taking place before the inception of the Inclusive Government.
On the eve of the UN Climate Change Conference this December, ‘momentum for action falls far short of that needed to avert catastrophe’, William Minter and Anita Wheeler write in this week’s Pambazuka News. When it comes to Africa's natural resources, say Minter and Wheeler, the ‘prospects for change depend squarely on African governments, on foreign companies and their home-country governments, and on the pressures that can be mobilised by national and international civil society’. With Africa predicted to ‘suffer consequences out of all proportion to its contribution to global warming, which is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from wealthy countries’, African governments ‘can and should take action now’.
Why are so many Kenyans unhappy with the work of the Committee of Experts charged with determining options for resolving contentious issues around reforming the country’s constitution, L. Muthoni Wanyeki asks in this week’s Pambazuka News. And will their disgruntlement end up defeating and derailing the latest effort to finally conclude Kenya’s constitutional reform process?
Ethiopia’s aspirations for a fair and free election in 2010 depend on whether the country’s government agrees to and abides by an election code based on respect for the rule of law and human rights, Alemayehu G. Mariam writes in Pambazuka News. An election code of conduct forged through ‘a consensus of all the political parties and administered by an independent and impartial electoral commission could go a long way to ensure a peaceful, fair and free election in 2010,’ writes Mariam, or it could simply ‘end up being the old zero-sum game the regime has played for the past two decades’ in a different guise.
Capitalism is in crisis, Samir Amin writes in Pambazuka News, creating new opportunities to challenge its imperialist dimensions. While the first wave of struggles for the emancipation of workers and people simply wore itself out, Amin asks whether this time round bridges can be built that ‘associate the anti-imperialist and popular struggles in the South with the progress of a socialist conscience in the North’, converging struggles from the North and South in ways that previous movements of the 1950s failed to.
Corruption in South Africa is becoming so widespread now, that unless it is decisively tackled in this presidential term, it will become entrenched as a ‘normal’ aspect of life in our country, William Gumede writes in Pambazuka News. And once it becomes part of the ‘culture’ of South African society, it will be impossible to uproot.
With a government that makes it illegal to leave the country and military service compulsory for all men and women aged 18 to 40 in the name of a festering border conflict with the more powerful Ethiopia, it’s no wonder Eritreans undertake perilous journeys in search of a better life. But getting out of Eritrea itself is no guarantee of change for the better, thanks to flawed international responses that fail to see the humans behind ‘the refugee problem’, Yohannes Woldemariam writes in Pambazuka News.
Raúl Chambote
The prominence of the Obama family has brought black people's humanity onto the world stage, writes Patricia Daley. The Obama family's success challenges patriarchal systems headed by white alpha-males and reveals possibilities of overcoming exclusion for non-white people across North and South America and Europe, Daley contends, albeit in the face of a backlash aimed at reinforcing white supremacy. But if struggles in the West over racial exclusivity can ultimately promote greater confidence from Africans and black people around the world, will there be a fresh impetus to challenge explicit and implicit claims of superiority?
Vuyiseka Dubula, general secretary of the will be speaking on ‘HIV/AIDS: The struggle for human rights and dignity in South Africa’ on 4 November 2009 in Oxford, England, at an event hosted by Ruskin College and Fahamu - Networks for Social Justice.
She is her, like-in-her
poetic rituals
mystical diamond
that speaks
multi-fold'd miracles
on earth,
she
wearing moonstone for slippers
gleams
like meteoric splendor,
affectionate for stars
blossoms early
in seasons of
darkness,
Enough-in-herself
graced with all inside
she
always river-like,
harbors black water
emerging from
hollow mountains
varied terrains
swelling to gush
divine truth
into seas
infinitely vast
in breadth and depth,
She makes, petals of jasmine
fall open
she-as-in-her
roses that leave shadows on ground
bless gardens scented
Afrika, born of night musk
our garden queen
paradise to us
thousands over,
she
open to us, as-in-blossomed flower
silently residing in us,
as-in the secret word
of Divine's love,
She,
firstborn as-in-known-in legends
royally sits
above honored
Kings and Queens,
throne
bent across high heavens
she, a sight of elegance unseen,
birth-er
of many-colored rainbow
gifted butterflies
float on diverse seas,
she
ancestor of seasons
goddess of wealth
brings all around
belonging to all, but yours only.
Gifted bee of the heart
that resides deep
inside
she-is-her
who makes me
feel safe
to be a rose,
she-is-her
who lies abed with me
enraptured in her embrace
she
helps me rise to live
destiny's fiery life-giver
heartbeat of bodily soul to me,
Aye Afrika, yene fikeregna.
(to be continued)
With Nigeria's Yar'Adua administration pursuing a policy of 'deregulation', Ayodele Ademiluyi calls on Nigerian workers to oppose the country's direction and stand up for their rights. Critical of the marked gulf in the decision-making power of labour's leadership and ordinary workers, Ademiluyi also stresses the need for greater democratic organisation in the struggle to effectively challenge the excesses and exploitation of the government.
Following the release of the latest IMF 'regional economic outlook' report for sub-Saharan Africa, Stephen Marks argues that predictions around Africa's ability to bounce back from the global economic crisis rest on a number of 'good-news' assumptions.
Responding to intellectuals' efforts to repair the downtrodden image of African people, Chielo Zona Eze urges us to recognise that we have 'moved beyond the world shaped by the 19th century ideas of the African'. Stressing that he sees little probability of Nigeria's difficulties coming to an end anytime soon, the author asks us to consider a 'change of heart that begins with a radical rejection of the thought that the West is only interested in grubbing in the African compost'.
Pambazuka News 454: Let us return to the source
Pambazuka News 454: Let us return to the source
Less than 100 kilometres from the second-largest dam in Africa, women walk with their babies strapped on their back, water pails balanced on their heads. They walk slowly, their bodies tired. And as night falls, and darkness hits the red sand of the dirt road, they disappear into the dark.
The economic crisis is a fresh reason to meet Millennium Development Goal targets, not an excuse to miss them, said European Commission president Jose-Manuel Barroso, opening the dialogue at the fourth edition of the European Development Days (EDD).
Eleven years ago, Raloke Odetoyinbo had been married for two years and a month when she found out she was HIV positive. In that moment she thought she had lost her chance of ever having children because, she said, she believed that her child would be born HIV positive.