Pambazuka News 466: Obama one year on: Dashed hopes?
Pambazuka News 466: Obama one year on: Dashed hopes?
The Tanzania government has signed a five-year livestock and fishing agreement with China that would see Chinese firms invest in aquaculture and livestock projects.
When David Magang sat down to write his memoirs, he certainly could not complain that his career had left him short of material. The former Minister of Mineral Resources and Water Affairs, who has waged a protracted battle for diamond beneficiation against De Beers, had a front row seat at some of the most questionable goings on between the diamond mining giant and the Botswana government.
The Nigerian Senate has unanimously rejected calls for the declaration of a fresh state of emergency in crisis-ridden north-central Plateau State. Plateau State had been engulfed in sectarian violence, which began Sunday in capital, Jos, and had claimed several lives.
Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, who writes for the private weekly, The Zimbabwean, has fled the country after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said quoting the paper's editor, Wilf Mbanga.
A group of 41 prominent Nigerians, led by former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, were at the National Assembly in Abuja, the Nigerian Federal capital, urging lawmakers to take immediate steps to resolve the current political and constitutional crisis created by the 59 days of absence of President Umar Musa Yar'Adua from the country on account of ill health.
Because of the world economic and financial crisis, the African Development Bank (AfDB) last year more than doubled its financial commitments to Africa to US$11 as against US$5.0 billion, the chairman of the financial institution, Donald Kaberuka, has said.
Zimbabwe has suspended its constitution making process following sharp differences within President Robert Mugabe’s unity government over a consultation process that is already behind schedule by several months.
Exiled Swazis and supporters are to hold a weekly Vigil outside the Swaziland High Commission in London in protest at human rights abuses in that country.
The US embassy in Zimbabwe has confirmed a report in the state-run Herald newspaper that the US would not oppose the restoration of Zimbabwe's voting rights in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
More than 20 Egyptian bloggers, who were on their way to pay their respects to the families of the victims of the Coptic massacre, were arrested when their train arrived in the village of Naga Hammady in Upper Egypt. They were released shortly afterwards and they are now telling their side of the story.
The army has taken over responsibility for security in the central city of Jos, Nigeria's Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan has said. At least 65 Christians and 200 Muslims are believed to have died in religious rioting in Jos in recent days.
Angola's parliament has approved a new constitution which abolishes direct presidential elections. The head of state will now automatically be the leader of the party with the parliamentary majority.
A Ugandan MP who proposed introducing the death penalty for some gay people has told a newspaper he is willing to change his draft legislation. In an interview with the Daily Monitor, David Bahati said he had talked to the cabinet about the bill and was willing to "amend some clauses".
A Rwandan doctor wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes has been arrested in France, police say. Sosthene Munyemana, 45, who had been working in a hospital in Bordeaux for eight years, denies the charges.
Sudan would accept the south's secession if southerners were to vote for independence in a referendum next year, President Omar al-Bashir said. Speaking at a ceremony marking five years since the end of the north-south war, he said his Northern Congress Party did not want the south to secede
Guinea's military rulers have chosen opposition leader Jean-Marie Dore to be prime minister, overseeing a return to civilian rule, officials say. Junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif said 70-year-old Mr Dore had "experience and understanding of Guinean politics".
Amnesty International has called for much stricter controls for the military assistance being given to Somalia's transitional government. The human rights group says weapons are all too often being used against civilians or they end up in the hands of groups opposed to the government.
After researchers in Burkina Faso identified the best crop varieties for the Sissili region, a local organization, FEPPASI, introduced ICTs to inform farmers and explain new growing techniques. As a result, production is up to nine times greater than before.
A team of researchers combine maps, satellite images and participatory mapping techniques to develop an accurate picture of land use among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia.
The important judicial decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have enriched the law on genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said as it released a comprehensive digest with the judgments of the tribunal presented by topic.
The Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) seeks a Program Assistant to provide administrative support to department members in the Nairobi office. Working under the supervision of the Program Officers, the Program Assistant will provide general administrative and programmatic support.
A Ugandan preacher said on Friday he planned a “million-man” march to support an anti-gay draft law which the United Nations top human rights official called “blatantly discriminatory”.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the four year jail term handed down to Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukadous on 13 January by a court for his reporting on the demonstrations against unemployment and corruption in the mining town of Gafsa in 2008.
The Year 2009 can be considered as one of the worst years for press freedom in the African continent. Considering the year under review, 13 journalists were killed across the continent; 32 journalists imprisoned, a significant number of journalists arrested, some violently attacked and wounded, while threats and intimidation against journalists continued unabated.
This workshop aims to provide an academic forum aimed at the discussion of immigration detention in liberal, democratic countries. This practice raises important questions for researchers from different fields of study: What implications does it have for understanding state power and the future governance of communities?
The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), is calling on the Zambian authorities to immediately end attacks on Zambian media as they work to establish self-regulatory mechanism.
In this week's emerging powers news roundup, the forecast is positive for the South African economy in the wake of its first recession in 17 years, a WEF risk assessment counts sharp slowdown of China as a major threat to future prosperity, and the China-Africa Development Fund invests US$540 million in Africa.
Ivory Coast's electoral commission (CEI) has apologised for errors made in drawing up a voter list, saying thousands of names disputed by President Laurent Gbagbo were never intended to be on it.
Nearly 80 percent of the 300,000 conflict-related deaths in Darfur were due to diseases like diarrhoea, not violence, Belgian scientists said on Friday. An analysis of deaths dating from 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government of Sudan, showed that after an initial peak of violent deaths in the still-ongoing conflict, diseases associated with diarrhoea became the major killers.
Herders of cows or camels in arid northern Kenya can obtain a new type of insurance against drought, the first of its kind in Africa using satellites to gauge rainfall.
The African Union's top diplomat, Jean Ping, opened talks seeking an end to Madagascar's year-long political crisis with a call to its feuding leaders to respect last year's power-sharing deals.
When Nairobi was founded in 1899, it took its name from what the Maasai called the place: Ewassi Nyirobi, "cool waters." A century later, the river has something stuck in its throat: millions of plastic bags threaten to choke it.
On Friday 22 January, the "Kennedy 12" will be in court for the eighth time. The five will be expecting judgement in the bail application, while the seven will be seeking relaxation of their bail conditions. The "Kennedy 12" now need your presence, your prayers and your protest more than ever before.
At 4pm January 21, 48 law enforcement officers from the City of Cape Town invaded the city's Temporary Relocation Area, Blikkiesdorp, and removed about 60 people from the one roomed dwellings. This was done completely unlawfully without any high court eviction order, without any explanation, and even more inexplicably by the same city officials who installed the people in the first place.
In what is being considered a significant milestone for communications in the country, the number of South Africans to have access to the Internet has hit the five million mark. Research conducted by local analyst house World Wide Worx, in conjunction with Cisco, shows that local Internet penetration has increased to 10%.
Cabinet has approved the newly-crafted national information communication technology strategy plan and the ICT blueprint is expected be launched at the end of next month.
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), a South African-based civil society organisation, is currently accepting applications for its Internship Programme. ACCORD works across Africa to bring creative African solutions to the challenges posed by conflict on the continent.
Recently-appointed Minister for Public Sector Modernisation Mohammed Saâd Alami has embraced his new position by vowing to curtail corruption in Morocco. Combating corruption "requires much thought from all players, be they the government, official institutions or charitable associations," he announced at a meeting on Tuesday (January 12th), when he convened an inter-ministerial committee to oversee government actions against corrupt practices.
This week, Libyan bloggers tackled sensitive issues ranging from poverty to corruption, while comparing how government supporters and the opposition differ on the meaning of key historical events.
Members of Morocco's Parliament must declare their assets by May 2010, as the government implements a law passed in 2008 to govern the conduct of elected officials.
After a number of textile companies closed up shop, unable to face the onslaught of the slowdown in the markets, the government of Botswana has finally decided to implement a rescue plan.
The South African Department of Environmental Affairs has expressed a “firm intent” to complete the country’s national climate change policy white paper by the end of 2010.
A project in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, is creatively using "marginal water" to ease water scarcity while helping residents provide food and earn a living. Water scarcity has led urban farmers to turn to treated waste water to grow food within the city limits.
Charity Mwansa, a former minister and member of parliament, knows just exactly what being one of the very few female politicians in Zambia means. When she left politics it had nothing to with not being able to do the work and instead had everything to do with the mad world of male-dominated politics.
Organisers of a protest march against the expulsion of Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah El Faisal say Kenyan police have arrested up to 400 people and are interrogating them to prove their nationality and try to uncover links to terrorism.
Non-medical abortions are frequent in Ghana, where abortion is illegal. Yet, as more people witness the suffering and deaths of women who've attempted unsafe abortions, more international organisations are trying to provide birth control, or to exploit legal loopholes to carry out abortions.
In Malawi, where aids agencies estimate 120,000 children are HIV-positive, school teachers are finding themselves increasingly in the frontline of the epidemic. The National AIDS Council recently carried out a study that found "teachers had not received enough HIV/ART education to carry out their supportive role in paediatric and adolescent care and support".
Dialoubé is in a region of sparse savannah in north-western Mali, near the Mauritania border. A cold, dry harmattan wind whistles through the fence surrounding the nursery full of young Acacia senegalensis seedlings, about 100 metres away from the villagers' mud houses. Further out lies a 50-hectare plantation established in 2007: part of Mali's Acacia Senegal Plantation Project which aims to plant 6,000 hectares of acacias in four villages in the area.
In the last three decades, changes in the global economy have led to debt and balance of payments crises in many African countries. They desperately needed foreign exchange which they could only get from the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions used this opportunity to expand their influence over the recipients' national policies. This paper discusses country ownership which is a central issue of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. It looks at the contradictory and competing usages of the term - ownership as commitment and ownership as control.
While lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) groups are up in arms against the alleged appointment of controversial columnist John Qwelane as South African ambassador to Uganda, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s remains ambiguous about his appointment.
Human rights campaigners who have been struggling for years to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) in West Africa got a boost this week as news emerged that a group of Muslim clerics and scholars in Mauritania had declared a fatwa, or religious decree, against the practice.
Mobile Monday, the global community of mobile industry professionals and innovators, has now launched its newest chapter in Uganda. The Kampala Chapter was founded by representatives from Uganda’s telecom companies: Orange Uganda, MTN Uganda, I-telecom, Mara Telecoms, Universities, media and ICT firms.
Feminist Practice of Technology is a growing idea that gives perspectives on technology. It poses questions and defines issues relating to technology from feminist perspectives, taking into account various women's realities, women's relationships with technologies, women's participation in technology development and policy-making, power dynamics in technologies and feminist analysis of the social effects of technologies.
In collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communication Women’s Network Support Programme (APC WNSP), Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) organized a national strategy workshop on 22nd and 23rd September 2009 at NobView Hotel, Ntinda. The main objective of the workshop was to enable key stakeholders in the area of VAW and ICT to explore and understand the connections between violence against women and ICT.
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) would like to recruit a Program Coordinator to work at the Secretariat based in Kampala, Uganda. Applications which should include a letter of motivation and a C.V. with details of education background, working experience, human rights activities and three references should be sent to; [email][email protected] by the 31st January 2010.
A US$20 million loan to the Republic of Zambia from IFAD will directly benefit 30,000 small-scale farming households, many headed by women. The loan agreement for the Smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme was signed today in Rome by Lucy Mungoma, Ambassador to Italy for the Republic of Zambia, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.
Kenya's planned development path will more than double its carbon emissions unless efforts are taken to pursue low carbon development, according to an environmental think tank.
People in developing countries often lack information that could transform their economic circumstances. Those in remote parts of Africa, in particular, could benefit from knowledge that would help them move up from subsistence farming to become successful, commercial smallholders.
Improving nutrition in the developing world has never been more important. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than a billion people — one sixth of the global population — have a diet so poor they may be severely underweight, have stunted growth, or lack the vitamins and minerals they need for good health (all are aspects of severe malnutrition, or undernutrition).
The African Union Chair Jean Ping has hailed the Governments of Chad and Sudan’s agreement to normalise the once soured relations between the two neighbours. The remarks followed the peace agreement signed on 15 January 2010 in N’Djamena.
The global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, with a knock-on effect on future economic growth, poverty reduction and progress in health and other areas, according to a United Nations report.
An ambitious state plan that will almost double the number of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of 2010 has drawn mixed reactions from AIDS activists, but increased donor funding has made the government quietly confident.
The Kenyan government has created the first ever tribunal to handle legal issues relating to HIV, including discrimination against people living with HIV and protecting the confidentiality of medical records.
More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response.
January 12 at 5 p.m. local time, a powerful magnitude-7 earthquake struck in Haiti. It was centered near the capital city Port-au-Prince and has caused massive destruction. We have word that School Director Réa Dol is okay and has converted her house and the school (which suprisingly survived the quake) into a makeshift hospital and shelter . There are 30 to 40 people at her home and 60 to 70 at the school.Unfortunately, we now know that some of the teachers and students were killed.
Dwa Fanm has activated an emergency response through our connection with the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Tabernacle doctors, nurses and community health workers are working to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit with the first delegation expected to be Haiti as early as tomorrow. Other delegations will continue to go to Haiti during these next few days of crisis.
While Article 39 of Kenya’s Revised Harmonised Draft Constitution makes giant steps in guaranteeing media freedom, Henry Maina finds it still lacking. Maina explores Article 39’s shortcomings in the areas of licensing, censorship and confidentiality and suggests some fundamental safeguards as solutions.
Writer Georges Anglade and his wife Mireille Neptune died in the collapse of their Port-au-Prince home. John Ralston Saul writes a tribute to a man whose life enriched both Canada and Haiti and which in many ways was a classic Canadian story of exile and commitment. ‘It is hard to accept that such a force of nature could be stopped by nature’, he concludes.
Kenya’s government, Paul Mwangi Maina argues, has failed to involve the youth in political processes, despite pre-election promises to do so. Maina portrays a system in Kenya where youth participation is dependent on wealth and connections. These youths are then merely used as political pawns, corrupted by politicians even before they enter politics at a national level, he stresses: ‘These people do not represent the young people of Kenya accurately.'
Last year marked 15 years of official relations between Cuba and South Africa, and 50 years of the Cuban Revolution, writes Nicole Sarmiento. But before official relations between the two states began, there was already a long history of assistance to the liberation struggle, which forms the background to relations between the two countries today, and provides a significant example of the possibilities of strengthening South-South relations.
Can or will Barack Obama deliver a more peaceful, humane world, asks Ama Biney, a year after his inauguration as 44th President of the United States. Offering a tentative evaluation of the path followed by the Obama administration so far, Biney suggests that genuine change lies not with the president, but in the remobilisation of a grassroots movement among the ordinary Americans who had the optimism and motivation to campaign for him.
Ethiopian politics needs to reinvent itself if it is to offer the country a coherent and convincing alternative to the current culture of oppression and corruption, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. ‘Reinvention’, argues Mariam, is ‘a multi-step process whose ultimate aim is to cultivate a true democratic civic culture shared by all Ethiopians.’
‘There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster,’ writes Greg Palast, ‘200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF “austerity” plans.’ Palast takes a look both at international community’s response to the Haiti earthquake and at its role in impoverishing a nation that was once the wealthiest in the western hemisphere.
Debate over who was behind the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana has raged for nearly 16 years, writes Gerald Caplan. But a new report, prepared by an ‘Independent Committee of Experts’ appointed by the government of Rwanda, makes ‘a major contribution to settling the great question of who was responsible’ for Habyarimana’s death on 6 April 1994, two days before the genocide began.
The lack of honesty in South Africa’s political, economic and social debates is now becoming so severe it is undermining effective delivery of public services, the country’s economic prosperity and the consolidation of the democracy itself, says William Gumede.
The late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem has been named Africa's 'Personality of the Year 2009' by the . A big ceremony and the presentation of the award is planned for next Wednesday 27 January in Abuja, Nigeria, with Winnie Mandela, Salim Ahmed Salim and many others in attendance.
In recognition of the first year of Tajudeen's passing, Pambazuka Press will be publishing a collection of his Pan-African Postcards in May 2010, along with his book 'Pan-Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the Twenty-First Century' in October.
2008 statistics show that total trade between the China and Africa was valued at $106.8 billion, up 45.1 per cent in 2007. These fast rising Sino-Africa ties are expected to face a major test in March when Tunis plays host to a rare meeting to scrutinise China’s engagement with the continent.
While the achievement of universal ontological rights in South Africa has been a marvellous step forward, writes Jason Hickel, the paradigm of a rights-based revolution is seriously and fundamentally flawed, and cannot serve the ends that South Africa intends it to. Cautioning that the state can grant people discursively constituted rights with one hand and strip them of the conditions for sustainable life with the other without ever having to confront the contradiction, Hickel says it’s time to reclaim the heritage of the commons.
Chinua Achebe’s latest book,‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’, a ‘compendium of seventeen skilfully written non-fictional pieces’, is an ‘acerbic lampoon on the propagation of colonial stereotypes via the medium of literature,' writes Peter Wuteh Vakunta.
In the wake of the devastation following the 7.0 earthquake on 12 January 2010, the African People’s Solidarity Committee, a white organisation working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, expresses its deepest solidarity with African people in Haiti.
Nigeria's failure to make the progress commensurate with 50 years of nation-building is not just a failure of leadership. It is first and most catastrophically, a failure of followership.
It does not take a political scientist to infer that it was foolhardy of the Angolan government to agree to host a tournament of this magnitude in a country that has been at war for more than three decades, writes Sonia Maria, a lawyer and civil rights activist from Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
It has taken an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude, causing momentous loss of life, to get the world talking about Haiti and its past. As the world digests the tragedy, it begins to remember and to criticise too. Rebecca Zausmer does a round-up of the commentary and analysis that is flowing fast about Haiti and the actors in its history.
Claude Ribbe
For those anticipating sweeping, immediate change from Barack Obama's election to the US presidency, the results of the president's first year in office will undoubtedly have proven profoundly disappointing, writes Demba Moussa Dembele. Just as his Accra address was rooted in patronising references to 'corruption' and 'tribalism', it should be always borne in mind that Obama operates and will continue to operate first and foremost in defence of the 'interests of empire', Dembele stresses.
The following 2006 congressional record of the United States Congress, entered by Representative Major R. Owens and drafted by Marian Douglas-Ungaro, praises the work of Christiane Taubira and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall in documenting France's role in the slave trade and recording the experiences of those enslaved across the Louisiana area.
A year into his presidency, Barack Obama is essentially following the same course of militarised action in Africa pursued by his predecessors over the past decade, writes Daniel Volman. A consequence of the US president's faith in the necessity of the global war on terror and pragmatic political concerns around retaining oil supplies, Obama's approach to Africa has been entirely rooted in asserting his country's military might, Volman concludes.
Following the arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian captured with an explosive device on a Northwest flight, Joseph Kaifala stresses that each and every individual accused of criminal activity must be treated according to the rule of law.
Following the devastation wrought by the recent earthquake in Haiti, Peter Hallward stresses the role of 'systematic postcolonial oppression' as a chronic obstacle to Haiti's progress. If the West is sincere in its desire to help Haiti, Hallward contends, it will need to stop trying to control the country's government before 'paying for at least some of the damage we've already done'.
Dennis Sammut reviews Jeremy Keenan's 'The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa', a book which tackles US counter-terrorist activities in Africa and alliances with dubious governments in the wake of 9/11.
Jacques Depelchin
Pambazuka News 465: French nuclear energy: Powered by Niger / Haiti in crisis
Pambazuka News 465: French nuclear energy: Powered by Niger / Haiti in crisis
The Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) began in 1999 and has received an enthusiastic response from Zimbabwean audiences, participating artists as well as local/regional and international media. The event celebrates the finest Zimbabwean and international music, theatre, spoken word, dance and visual and applied arts.
This manual is designed to help NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who may be interested in the field of Human Rights but feel that they do not know enough about it or where to start.
This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the impact of the Inclusive Political Dialogue and the current challenges to a state that has lacked meaningful institutional capacity for some three decades. I
The 31st Durban International Film Festival (22 July - 2 August 2010) is proud to announce the 3rd edition of Talent Campus Durban from 23 - 27 July 2010, an intensive 5-day programme of workshops and seminars delivered by film professionals to enhance both theoretical and practical approaches to filmmaking.
'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping.
In this research programme an interpretation will be offered of the relationship between the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), social space, mobility and marginality in Sub-Saharan Africa. In six case-studies (Central Chad, West-Cameroon, Central Mali, Senegal, North Angola and South-East Angola), the programme seeks to arrive at an interdisciplinary analysis of the dynamics of mobility, social relations and communication technologies.
The seminar is aimed at generating policy-oriented research on the impact of the rising strategic and economic role of China on Africa's development prospects and its economic and political governance. The seminar will be held in Tunis, Tunisia, on 25-26 March 2010.
The Center for African Studies (ISCTE / Lisbon University Institute) and the Center for African Studies of the University of Porto are organizing the 7th Iberian Congress of African Studies which will be hosted by ISCTE / Lisbon University Institute between 9 and 11 September 2010.
The Music Crossroads program was initiated in 1995 by Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI), the world's largest youth-music network. Music Crossroads is going to lead a research on the creative sector as well as a feasibility study/search for partnership for Music Crossroads International in Mali, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Cape Vert.