Pambazuka News 478: Obama and AFRICOM: Militarisation intensifies
Pambazuka News 478: Obama and AFRICOM: Militarisation intensifies
This is a communiqué issued by members of civil society Participating in ‘Civil Society Experts Consultation on Maternal, Child and Infant Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health in Africa’ Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, April 17-18, 2010, organised by Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition (SOAWR), IPPF-Africa Region, Ipas Africa Alliance, Save the Children International, Abantu for Development, and the UN Millennium Campaign in collaboration with the AU Commission to assess progress in reducing maternal, child and infant mortality and implementation of the Continental Framework on Sexual and Reproductive Health (Maputo Plan of Action 2007-10):
The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) wrote to the President on 19 January 2010 regarding the appointment of John Qwelane to the post of High Commissioner to Uganda. Despite assurances that the matter would be addressed, there has been no reply, prompting this follow-up letter
Upon replacing George W. Bush as US president, hopes were high that Barack Obama would oversee sweeping change in relation to US military policy. But, writes Daniel Volman, far from seeing a reversal, such policy has in fact intensified, entirely at the expense of more progressive diplomatic and economically-based approaches.
In the wake of serious doubts around Sudan's ability to oversee free and fair elections, Sudanese civil society networks 'believe that the voters of Sudan were unable to freely express their will and select their representatives'. Spelling out the range of problems impeding the current election, the group outlines a set of recommendations rooted in ensuring genuine representation for the Sudanese electorate.
Accompanied by Nomie, a Chinese female translator, Owen Grafham describes interacting with Chinese migrant workers in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
As religious fundamentalists in Kenya stress homosexuality to be 'ungodly', Audrey Mbugua asks 'so what?' Religious-based delusions paralyse 'otherwise rational people', Mbugua argues, and religious fundamentalism 'fosters criminal activities by coating them with spirituality and messages of madness'.
Once a respected and professional example of high legal standards around the world, the Nigerian judiciary has now entirely lost its way, writes Sabella Ogbobode Abidde. The judiciary is plagued by lost case files, tampered evidence and inmates seemingly locked up indefinitely, Abidde stresses, a picture of decline that mirrors that of Nigerian society as a whole.
'Fire in the Soul – 100 Poems for Human Rights', writes Amira Kheir, is a great set of poetic works, but one whose 'human rights' framing 'does a disservice to the beautiful poems encapsulated in this collection'.
While Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi may insist on his country's booming economic performance, the evidence speaks differently, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF) strangely indulgent of the Ethiopian financial institutions' statistics, the picture is one of glaring exaggeration and inaccuracy that does a huge disservice to the Ethiopian people, Mariam concludes.
While the greatest foreign influences on Sudanese youth culture have been predominantly American in recent years, there are signs that the Chinese government is beginning to get in on the act, writes Owen Grafham.
There is much uncertainty around the 2 March arrest of Agathe Habyarimana, widow of former Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana. Following a visit to Rwanda by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Agathe was arrested and subsequently released on bail, writes Horace Campbell, a turn of events that appears but a part of the murky collusion between Rwanda and France around the militarisation of the eastern DR Congo.
The late Fatima Meer was 'was to me like that elusive relative is to you', writes Azad Essa, a person who lived an incredible life whom you never got to know and who lacks the genuine recognition they deserve.
Economist David Ricardo's theory of 'comparative advantage', despite being highly dubious, continues to exert a high degree of influence on Tanzanian policymakers, writes Chambi Chachage.
Last month, as Jews around the world prepared for Passover, Egyptian border guards were killing migrants trying to cross into Israel. How many of us, as we sat at our Seder tables, were even aware of the dramatic parallel to the Passover story taking place on the present-day Egyptian-Israeli border?
In his Independence Day address, President Robert Mugabe spoke of the need for Zimbabweans to “foster an environment of tolerance and treating each other with dignity and respect irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, tribe, political or religious affiliation." At the same time, four WOZA activists, Jenni Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Clara Manjengwa and Celina Madukani were spending their fourth day in the cold, dark, filthy cells of Harare Central Police Station.
Almost four weeks have already passed since the six of the seven Saharawi human right activists, held at the Moroccan prison of Sale, began their open hunger strike. Their were arrested and detained, on 8 October 2010, on their return from a family visit to the Saharawi refugees camps in south West of Algeria. The Moroccan government intends to bring them before a military court on account of that trip.
The IBSA Fund, which finances anti-poverty projects in the most vulnerable countries, is an example of the spirit in which India, Brazil and South Africa wish to build their partnership, their leaders say. The fund was set up in 2004, one year after the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum was created, with annual contributions of one million dollars from each member. It currently supports reconstruction in Haiti after the January earthquake, agriculture in Guinea-Bissau, and projects in other African and Asian countries like Burundi and Cambodia.
The following is an with Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, conducted by Zahra Moloo. Commenting on the influences on his writing, Okri discusses a writer's 'natural journey' and the importance of drawing upon as wide a set of literature as possible.
Twenty years after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the majority of black South Africans remain excluded from the country’s land and formal economy. Udo W. Froese asks whether the talk of national reconciliation and nation-building is simply propaganda.
‘Humanitarian intervention’ in Haiti, South African attitudes to HIV/AIDS and condom use, police killings in Lagos and everyday life in the aftermath of an earthquake are among the stories covered by Sokari Ekine in this week’s overview of the African blogosphere.
In May, disarmament organisations will assemble alongside government delegations meeting for the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. But the ‘discussion, analysis and political course of action that bring real disarmament will not come from refining the discourses dominated by those who currently hold power and control debate, but by rendering them irrelevant,’ argues Andrew Lichterman – it’s time for conversations that chart a new way forward.
Cuba’s offer to rebuild Haiti’s entire national health service is arguably the most ambitious and impressive pledge made at the UN’s recent donor conference, write Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk and Norman Girvan, so why then have its efforts been largely ignored by the media, while those of other governments have been praised?
As South Africa prepares to celebrate Freedom Day on 27 April, Motsoko Pheko warns that the negotiated settlement that ended apartheid 16 years ago failed to take into consideration ‘the primary objectives for which the liberation struggle was fought’. The country’s constitution may be the best in the world, but isn’t it time it was amended on the fundamental issues that affect the majority poor, Pheko asks.
An exhibition of art from the Nigerian Kingdom of Ife at the British Museum isn’t only exquisitely beautiful, it is ‘something of absolute historical importance’, writes Joy Onyejiako. But given the low-key public response to the show, how much will it actually transform the ‘deeply embedded notion of African art as essentially primitive’ and encourage ‘the notion of a truly contemporary African artist’?
People born after 1980 have benefited little from 30 years of Zimbabwe’s independence, writes the Youth Alliance Democracy, thanks to the government’s continued failure to empower young people, rather than seeing them as equal partners in politics. Half of political representatives – from local government to the cabinet – should be ‘youths below the ages of 35, who can forward and address the youth concerns and youth mainstreaming in all national policies and processes’, the alliance argues.
Al-Qaida claiming responsibility for Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Omar al-Bashir's notion of 'free and fair elections' for Sudan, and inspecting Umara Yar'Adua as a guard of honour all feature in this week's cartoons from Gado.
In a piece written for Pambazuka News in 2007, Annwen E. Bates looked at how Africa’s lack presented as spectacle is used ‘to legitimise Euro-American programmes of salvation – from colonialism to aid involvement’. With South Africa in the spotlight ahead of the football World Cup in June, Bates revisits some of the ideas raised by her original article.
Much of Kenyan civil society wants politicians to leave the current draft of the constitution alone, fearing that they will make only those changes that benefit themselves, and that disadvantage ordinary citizens, writes Yash Ghai. As various groups put pressure on the politicians to change specific provisions, from a gender, religious or other perspective, Ghai argues that if Kenya is to get a new constitution at all, it may be worth accepting compromises on some issues.
The commitment of African finance ministers to continental integration, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the declarations of their own heads of state has come into question after national delegations from South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water in the report and resolutions of the annual meeting of the African Union and Economic Commission for the Africa Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, which took place in Malawi at the end of March. Geoffrey Njora explores the possible consequences of their actions.
Fifty years after ‘18 African countries allegedly gained their “independence” from colonialism’, it is ‘safe to state that most of Africa suffers from the delusion of being independent’, argues Hama Tuma. ‘Colonialism played many tricks on gullible Africans,’ writes Tuma, ‘and its most damaging joke has been to declare that it has left…while actually rushing back in through the back door.'
The Kenyan people cannot have leaders who don’t have their interests at heart, writes redINK, ‘We must organise ourselves and identify a genuine alternative leadership.’
Oxfam America’s endorsement of biotechnology sets a very dangerous precedent of being used by the industry in their struggle to force the adoption of GM crops in spite of strong global resistance. The shocking endorsement of transgenic crops in the face of diverse and voluminous literature countering their stance, threatens to damage Oxfam’s relationship with longtime allies and its reputation as an independent organisation.
What do you do with numbers so big that
They stop being people
And start being data
And you put them on paper
And make life or death
With tired calculators
What do you do with your heart so big
Do you put it on freeze
Shun the bleeding disease
Do you take it in stride
Would you still feel alive
Do you sustain
A million little bolts of pain
Or deny that bitter refrain
and Stay Calm?
The Katiba Sasa! Campaign is a civil society initiative aimed at ensuring that Kenya gets a new constitution. The National Civil Society Congress (NCSC) declares 2010 the Year of Transformation. The campaign was launched to ensure that Kenyans enact a new constitution to begin the process of transformation.
Pambazuka News 477: Zimbabwe: Demystifying sanctions and strengthening solidarity
Pambazuka News 477: Zimbabwe: Demystifying sanctions and strengthening solidarity
FEMNET has been spearheading the process of mobilizing women in Africa to engage in the monitoring of the aid effectiveness agenda. The purpose is to ensure that gender and human rights perspectives in the aid effectiveness agenda take centre stage in the discourse. The other objective is to influence donors implementing the PD and AAA to adopt gender equality and women’s empowerment indicators as one way of assessing development effectiveness.
Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg invites applications for the post of Editor of its Opinion and Commentary Service and related publications. All applications must be received by close of business on 23 April 2010. Late applications will not be considered.
The Oxfam International Liaison office with the African Union (OIAU) would like to put a call for civil society actors or staff of locally constituted NGOs, and coalitions of organizations who have the mandate and plan to engage the African Union, to be present in Addis Ababa and conduct their work. This secondment call is to enable committed and often disenfranchised communities’ representative to get the opportunity to meet the policy and decision makers at the AU Commission.
In January, 2010, a team from Cultural Survival's Global Response program went to Kenya to document a year-long pattern of brutal police assaults on the Samburu people of northern Kenya. These assaults, which include killing, raping, beating, and wholesale robbery, take place in an atmosphere of racial prejudice and discrimination against pastoralist tribes that resist assimilation and westernization in order to maintain their unique cultures. Kenyan police forces operate with impunity throughout the country, but in northern Kenya their brutality targets a specific ethnic community in violation of their rights as Indigenous Peoples.
The 19th African Human Rights Moot Court Competition will be held at the University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin from 4 - 9 October 2010. The deadline for Faculty registration was 28 February and individual registration is 15 May 2010.
Individuals from all African countries are invited to apply for admission to study for the Master‚s Degree (LLM) in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Women's civil society groups were noticeable by their absence from the landmark Haiti donor conference on 31 March, which secured pledges of US$5.3 billion over the next two years to support the country’s post-quake recovery. Their lack of a presence at the meeting was indicative of a broader missing voice in Haiti’s long-term reconstruction prospects, gender activists argued.
KONI – The Panafrican Alliance of Colombia is a non-governmental organization based in Bogota. In the spirit of pan African solidarity and cooperation, Koni has designed and availed a platform of technologies and tools for the exchange of ideas, methodologies and strategies of development on the African continent, and its Diaspora in Colombia
When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarised and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa, as well as toward other parts of the world.
The University of Texas at Austin scholars to submit conference papers for the 2011 conference on Africa in World Politics. The goal of this conference is to create an interdisciplinary dialogue concerning Africa's contemporary and historical place in world politics.
The corruption money would have constructed over 5,400 classrooms, paid 315,000 teachers, provided over 7.4million families with treated anti malaria mosquito nets’. The Tanzania corrupt Radar scandal appears to be taking a new twist as the notorious British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) now faces a potential legal suit over the manner in which it handled the corruption case involving the British Aero Space (BAE)
The public outcry of alleged entrenched corruption in Tanzania’s National Housing Corporation (NHC) appears to have reached catastrophic proportions with helpless victims alleging that the vice is so extensive and deeply rooted to the marrow of this giant state corporation
Help give Nigeria a voice at Chevron's Annual General Meeting this year by donating your frequent flyer miles or proxy vote to the JINN delegation. Each year, Chevron stakeholders gather for the company's Annual General Meeting at the end of May.
Shareholders have the opportunity to speak--or to donate their shares to allow others to speak at the meeting as their proxy. JINN needs your help in increasing Nigeria' representation at the meeting by providing proxy votes and frequent flyer miles. If you own shares in Chevron and wish to donate your proxy vote, or if you have frequent flyer miles on any airline, please
contact Abby at (415) 990-0792 or [email][email protected]
With humble respect, on behalf of the refugees living in the camps of Dadaab, we would like to share our grievances with the world and ask for you to help us find our way to freedom. Our lives in the camps are far worse than you can imagine. We live in an open prison, far away from justice and humanity. We talk, but our voices are never heard. We move, but only inside a cage. We have many skills and talents, but we are denied our chance to maximize our potential. We are chained to a life full of stress and despair; a life for which many would prefer death. We are denied opportunities for education and employment. We live in a condition without adequate water, food, or health facilities. We are arbitrarily beaten or detained by police within the confines of the camp. We lack the ability to freely express ourselves or have control over the decisions affecting our lives.
The African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) is a research, data resource, reflection and policy debate institution devoted to the resolution of the governance and development issues confronting policy-makers and societies in the East African Community (EAC) and the Great Lakes Region. It links scholars, researchers, opinion leaders and public service functionaries to interact and share ideas. The Forum also facilitates the evolution of a regional community of scholars, activists and institutions, with a shared interest in resolving inter-African development problems.
Civil society organisations in Angola gave a lesson of citizenship, courageously marching to say “Don’t Push Down My House”.The demonstration finally and peacefully took place in the coastal city of Benguela. Despite of the ban announced by the provincial government, the march managed to break the silence and voice the protest against the brutal house demolitions and forced land evictions that have become a regular occurrence in Angola in the last years.
Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies is now offering its globally renowned Masters program of postgraduate coursework to students around the world. Graduates enjoy challenging and rewarding careers in aid and development, in NGOs large and small, think-tanks, governments, universities and beyond.
Oxfam GB’s Global Centre of Learning on HIV and AIDS, based in the Pretoria Regional Office, seeks to recruit a Grant Manager to manage the CS Health Policy Action Fund supported by WHO. The grant was awarded in recognition of Oxfam’s growing record of work on health in international development, covering issues related to health systems strengthening (particularly health financing and health care delivery), access to medicines, sexual and reproductive health and HIV and AIDS
First Lady Thandiwe Banda has said Zambia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and that safe motherhood is still far from being assured. Ms Banda was speaking in Lusaka when she officiated at the opening of a media capacity building workshop on the campaign for accelerated reduction of maternal mortality in Africa (CARMMA).
The proposed media law is a monster, says Dr George Lugalambi, chair of a coalition fighting to preserve press freedom in Uganda. Publishers and journalists would have to apply annually for a licence, which could be revoked at will in the interests of "national security, stability and unity," or if coverage was deemed to be "economic sabotage."?
In the wake of a continent-wide upsurge in homophobia with Zimbabwe’s leaders Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai being the most recent to put there voices to it, Rev. Pieter Oberholzer and gay Christian activist, Victor Mukasa, were chased away “like lepers” from a consultative meeting on homosexuality held on 16^th March in Malawi. They’ve been attending on invitation of secretary-general Canaan Phiri of the Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), who organised the event.
Amkeni Wakenya is a UNDP led Facility set up to promote democratic governance in Kenya. The name Amkeni Wakenya is inspired by the second stanza of the National Anthem that calls upon all Kenyans to actively participate in nation building. Amkeni Wakenya primarily works through Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in recognition of the significant role that they play in ensuring that the aspirations of Kenyans are taken into consideration in the democratization process.
Applications are now open for the RVI’s first Great Lakes field course, to be held from Saturday 17 to Friday 23 July 2010 in Bujumbura, Burundi. The course is a fast-track, graduate-level introduction to the history, political economy and culture of Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Taught in English and French by a distinguished faculty of international and regional specialists, the course follows in the tracks of the acclaimed annual RVI courses on Sudan and the Horn of Africa. For more information please see Courses or download a prospectus here. The application deadline is 7 May 2010.
Rich countries have threatened to cut vital aid to the developing nations if they do not back the deal agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, it has emerged. The pressure on poor countries to support the US, EU and UK-brokered Copenhagen accord came as 190 countries resumed UN climate talks in Bonn in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
The "post amnesty" process that is supposed to be rehabilitating militants in the Niger Delta continued to face questions throughout March. Matters were not helped when a gathering of government and Niger Delta leaders associated with the process in Warri, Delta State, was interrupted by two car bombs planted by disgruntled militant
New Field Foundation is expanding and deepening its grantmaking to support rural women and their organizations, families and communities in West Africa through its Rural Women Creating Change program. We are seeking a Program Consultant for the Mano River Union, who is familiar with the realities and potential of rural women in the border region of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
The ambassador of the Republic of Congo to Cuba, Pascal Onguemby, rejected the lies included in an anti-Cuba resolution recently approved by the European Parliament. Addressing participants in the inauguration of the Eleventh International Conference on African Culture in the Americas that began today in Santiago de Cuba, the African diplomat spoke on behalf of the ambassadors from Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and Mozambique, as well as the cultural attaché from Angola.
South Africans are facing tough times. It is a time when there is no humanity, a time when no one in government is interested to listen to your story if you are a poor person. There are good thinkers in this country, but if their ideologies are coming from the bottom up, from poor communities, no one is prepared to listen carefully.
International agency Oxfam is deeply concerned with the recent detention of one of its staff and two colleagues from the Ngorongoro NGO Network (NGONET) by authorities in Loliondo, following protests by local women about alleged violations of land rights in the area. The three were detained on 12 April and released the next day on bail. Oxfam calls on the authorities to hold an immediate investigation into the detentions, and take steps to address the concerns of local communities amid growing tension in the area.
At noon April 15, 500 members of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise marched to the offices of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), Megawatt House, in Harare. Three simultaneous protests converged at the ZESA headquarters where the peaceful group handed over ‘yellow cards’ to staff members of the electricity service provider along with a report that outlines WOZA’s demands.
TechSoup Global, the U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides technology resources and knowledge to NGOs around the world, and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization (CSO) reporting, have announced that they will combine operations in order to strengthen their respective capacity-building programs for civil society. The two organizations share a mission to benefit global civil society through the provision of technology, information, and resources.
On the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle, April 17, FIAN International together with many other civil society actors calls for an immediate stop of land grabbing. A new report published by FIAN International documents the findings of two research missions on land grabbing to Kenya and Mozambique, and concludes that land grabbing violates human rights.
Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to introduce the , a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News. The e-Newsletter will follow recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from other constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal aid NGOs; and stories of struggle and success in refugee legal aid work. It welcomes contributions from legal aid providers, refugees, and others interested or involved in refugee legal aid.
In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, Three steps to unleashing Africa's genius, China is ready for Ghanaian entrepreneurs, South Africa and China sign trade deals worth R2,3bn, Africa and India to boost cooperation in agricultural technologies for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
61 of the 65 members, including juveniles, arrested outside ZESA headquarters in Harare earlier today have been released without charge. Four members, Jenni Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Clara Manjengwa and Celina Madukani, remain in custody and will spend the night in cells. They are being charged with participating in an illegal gathering.
On 4 April 2010 Egyptian State security arrested Karar from the street while he was returning from a bank to his home. Karar is a secondary school student and was in the midst of preparations for the final secondary completion exams.
With piracy raging in the Indian Ocean, international disputes over undersea oil and gas, and chronic overfishing, the oceans have rarely been subject to such varied and environmentally damaging conflict outside a world war. In Who Rules the Waves? Denise Russell gives us a rare insight into these issues and how they could be resolved.
The head of a 19-state African trading bloc has denied the Gulf’s policy of snapping up cheap farmland across the continent is tantamount to a ‘neo-colonialist’ land grab. Sindiso Ngwenya, secretary general of Comesa, which counts Kenya, Egypt, Sudan and Madagascar among its members, said multimillion-dollar land deals aimed at securing the Gulf’s food supply provide crucial capital to overhaul poverty-stricken rural areas and build infrastructure.
Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital is seeking to buy Kenya’s firms and long-term land leases as it seeks agro-based raw materials to feed its food business. Citadel’s consumer food business, Gazour, is keen to cut reliance on imports to supply its Egyptian plants by controlling the supply chain from farmer to the shop shelf to protect it from global commodity price fluctuations
A year after the purchases of vast swathes of farm land in Africa first drew public attention, transactions remain as opaque as ever. Private companies are resisting a global code of conduct that would ensure transparency and local elites continue to benefit from deals that encourage corruption and increase food insecurity.
An extensive study of rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), commissioned by Oxfam and conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, shows that 60 percent of rape victims surveyed were gang raped by armed men and more than half of assaults took place in the supposed safety of the family home at night, often in the presence of the victim's husband and children.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said that its new toolkit will highlight anti-hunger and development efforts by helping countries gather more accurate information on differences between men and women in agriculture.
Disturbed by the failure of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) to discharge its duties, the Kenyan government has now initiated the process of disbanding the body. Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Mutula Kilonzo, under whose docket the TJRC falls, said Thursday that he had asked the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs to work on modalities of disbanding the Commission.
As the indefinite strike called by Gabon's oil workers entered day two Thursday, the government has said it is willing to resume dialogue to end the strike. "The government solemnly reaffirms its preparedness to resume the dialogue," said a statement by Labour Minister Maxime Ngozo Issondou.
A resident magistrate in the southern Tanzania region of Ruvuma has sentenced a group of 74 Ethiopian nationals to six months imprisonment or a fine of 10,000 shillings (approximately US$10) for illegal entry into the country.
Nigeria's anti-graft Economic and Financial Crimes Commi ssion (EFCC) has declared the immediate past governor of oil-rich Delta State, James Ibori, wanted for alleged official corruption and money laundering. An EFCC statement said a court warrant had been obtained for the arrest of the governor, who was earlier freed of a 170-count charge of corruption against him by a court. EFCC has appealed against the ruling.
Ethiopia’s premier Meles Zenawi on Tuesday strongly warned opposition parties against any violence ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections in Ethiopia on 23 May. In a rather harsh parliamentary debate after he presented the government’s annual report to the House, opposition MPs bombarded Zenawi with accusations that his government and party members had continued to intimidate their members.
HIV/AIDS could pose a security concern in Africa due to high infection rates among military forces, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has cautioned, saying the loss of personnel not only af fected military preparedness but also increased costs of recruitment and training of replacements.
Guinean Minister of Territorial Administration and Political Affairs, Nawa Damey, on Monday urged political parties to put an end to "unauthorised demonstrations" which could cause traffic jam in Conakry, the capital. In the statement, read on the State Radio, the Minister called on political lead ers to exercise restraint and understanding in their activities so that they could make their contributions towards building a peaceful political transition in the country.
The Gambian government has given reasons why investigation into the murder of journalist Deyda Hydara has not been concluded. According to the Interior Minister, Ousman Sonko, two key witnesses in the case are outside the government jurisdiction and attempts to reach them have been unsuccessful.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga became the first Kenyan to register electronically as a voter following the introduction of a landmark electronic register, aimed at curbing fraud in future elections, which led to widespread chaos in 2008. Odinga, who led the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) during the 2007 Presidential elections, hailed the introduction of the electronic voter register as a historic step towards changing Kenya's previously flawed elections, leading to chaos.
The sub- regional rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), will Tuesday launch the West Africa Media Development Fund (WAMDEF), aimed at providing “low-interest credits to address the financial challenges of small and medium, private and independent media in West Africa.”
Hundreds of marabouts in Senegal subject talibés living under their de facto guardianship to conditions akin to slavery. They force the children to perform a worst form of child labor—begging on the streets for long hours—and subject them to often brutal physical and psychological abuse, all within a climate of fear
Sudan’s ruling party has said that the southern army had killed nine people, including at least five of its officials, stoking tensions during voting in the first open elections in 24 years. Oil-producing Sudan entered the last of a five days of presidential and legislative polls that mark a key test of stability for Africa’s largest country, emerging from decades of civil war and preparing for a 2011 southern referendum on independence.
Madagascar's leader has vowed to disband his internationally rejected government and form an interim body with an ousted opposition leader following an ultimatum from the army to solve a festering crisis. Analysts say there has been growing unease in some quarters of the government and military, and increased international pressure on Andry Rajoelina to solve the crisis, which has unnerved investors in the island's oil and mineral resources.
The UN has praised Tanzania for granting citizenship to some 162,000 refugees who fled Burundi 38 years ago. "It's the most generous naturalisation of refugees anywhere," said UN refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.
Uganda's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye had told the BBC of his anger that proposed electoral reforms have not even been debated in parliament. Dr Besigye was talking after being re-elected leader of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party
A court in Libya has freed a dissident who faced 15 years in jail for complaining he was tortured in prison.
Jamal al-Haggi was acquitted of charges that he insulted judicial officials, Human Rights Watch said.
Four peacekeepers with the joint UN-African Union mission in the Sudanese region of Darfur have been kidnapped, a spokesman for the force says. The peacekeepers went missing on Sunday and have now been confirmed as abducted, a spokesman for Unamid.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has asked opposition parties to join his government if he wins landmark elections currently under way. With polling due to end on Thursday, Mr Bashir has extended an offer to other parties to join his ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
Africa has been catapulted into the electronic age over the past decade and a half by an almost incomprehensibly swift growth in telecommunications technology driven primarily by a massive rollout of cell phones and wireless technology throughout the continent.
Burundian police and administrative officials must take stronger measures to prevent and punish pre-election violence, Human Rights Watch said today. Members of various political parties, especially their affiliated youth movements, have clashed on a number of occasions since November 2009. In most cases, police have not conducted thorough investigations and no one has been held accountable.
The government of Angola has not done enough to combat pervasive corruption and mismanagement, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. Even though the oil-rich country's gross domestic product has increased by more than 400 percent in the last six years, Angolans are not seeing their lives improve accordingly, Human Rights Watch said.
The Egyptian authorities should immediately cease deportation proceedings against two refugees from Darfur, Human Rights Watch has said. Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport Mohammad Adam Abdallah and Ishaq Fadl Ahmad Dafa Allah back to Sudan, where they would face persecution. Both men have been granted formal refugee status by the United Nations refugee agency, which should protect them from deportation.
Fighting between "Enyélé" insurgents and regular armed forces in the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo at the beginning of April left 18 people dead, including nine rebels, and triggered mass displacements from the region's principal city, Mbandaka.