Pambazuka News 461: Obama, oil and AFRICOM
Pambazuka News 461: Obama, oil and AFRICOM
It has been ten years since the South African government held its first annual '16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women' (and children) campaign. While the campaign has, no doubt, achieved a degree of success in relation to raising awareness, this has clearly not translated into much positive, practical impact.
Raising Voices invites applications for organizations in the Horn, East and Southern Africa interested in participating in an extensive, 3-year technical assistance partnership to prevent violence against women and HIV in their communities using the SASA! Activist Kit. Deadline for applications December 21st, 2009.
The Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times' is the fourth in a series published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The report is one of the few publications to monitor global trends in information and communication technologies (ICTs) as they affect developing countries.
Software and web-search giants Google on Monday November 1st, 2009 launched the online Google Trader pilot in Uganda to connect sellers and buyers of goods and services, including in agriculture.
The purpose of the Methodological Toolbox is to provide a practical aid for the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines. It contains a series of analytical, educational and normative tools that offer guidance and hands-on advice on the practical aspects of the right to food. I
A new report, "The World Bank - Civil Society Engagement: Review of Fiscal Years 2007 to 2009" was launched at a reception on October 4 at the Annual Meetings in Istanbul. Some 100 CSO representatives and Bank staff attended. Senior Vice President Marwan Muasher made a few remarks in which he stressed how the review vividly documents the myriad forms of engagement between the Bank Group and civil society across the institution and globally.
As global awareness grows around the Congo and the silence is finally being broken on the current and historic exploitation of Black people in the heart of Africa, a myriad of Western based “prescriptions” are being proffered. Most of these prescriptions are devoid of social, political, economic and historical context and are marked by remarkable omissions.
Pambazuka News 460: Kenya's constitution: Some progress towards democracy and justice?
Pambazuka News 460: Kenya's constitution: Some progress towards democracy and justice?
HIV/AIDS is an major issue in our times that is having diverse effects on the lives of women the world over and most especially in Africa. In 2007, an estimated 3.3 million people were living with HIV, 2.7 million people infected with the virus, and AIDS deaths also estimated at 2.3 million (UNAIDS, July 2008).
Kenyan farmers are concerned about climate change as they see crop production decrease because of rising temperatures, unreliable rainfall, soil erosion and drought.
The discovery of oil in Chad was supposed to allieviate poverty and human suffering, but it's only enriched Western Oil companies and the local dictators.
The major IFIs have appealed to the governments meeting at Copenhagen to come to a comprehensive agreement on climate change mitigation, pledging to use their own resources to contribute. Some are critical, however, of how ready these institutions are to tackle the issues involved.
The International Federation of the Journalists (IFJ) has strongly condemned the murders of Somali journalist Mohamed Amin Adan Abdulle, a reporter with Radio Shabelle and Hassan Zubeyr Haji Hassan, a cameraman working with Al-Arabia TV who were killed this morning in a bomb attack on a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The United Nations refugee chief has appealed to Spain and Morocco to consider any measure to pave the way for the movement of a Saharawi activist who started a hunger strike last month and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating.
Three Rwandan peacekeepers from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were killed and others wounded in an attack by unidentified gunmen while collecting water in the north of the strife-torn Sudanese region.
Although tobacco use is not as prevalent in Africa as it is in other regions, that will change unless immediate action is taken, the United Nations health agency has warned as it announced a new tobacco control effort for the continent.
Five Ugandan television stations are switching from analogue to digital broadcasting with 200 viewers receiving the signal in the capital Kampala. They are Kenyan-owned Nation Television (NTV), WBS, East Africa Television and Nile Broadcasting Service.
Talks to resolve outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement will continue over the weekend, amid reports the government will make an ‘important announcement’ next week. Speculation is rife in Harare that the principals might have agreed on the final composition of candidates to sit on the various commissions meant to reshape and democratize the country’s political arena.
Twelve students from Fort Hare University in South Africa have expressed fears about returning home to Zimbabwe, saying they will be sent to prison for supporting the MDC.
South Africa’s top scientists and researchers have come out in support of health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi after the furore over Home Affairs supplied AIDS death statistics he quoted recently - which may have been incorrect.
President Jacob Zuma has announced the most significant government-led interventions to stem the AIDS epidemic since its emergence more than 20 years ago, stating that extraordinary measures are needed.
Africa faces two linked problems that are holding back the extension of mobile services into a wider range of rural areas: diesel supplies are sometimes unpredictable and prices are high. For the first time mobile operators in Uganda this week sought to address the power problem by forming a consortium.
The growth of cellphone use, particularly in the developing world, is providing health experts with a new channel of communication to provide family planning information.
A generation of children free from AIDS is possible, according to the Children and AIDS, Fourth Stocktaking Report released by UNICEF in partnership with the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund ( UNFPA). However, the authors note the world is not yet on track to meet targets for prevention, treatment, care and support.
Many Moroccan women's rights groups and political parties, eager to change the country's blanket ban on abortion, are lobbying Parliament for changes to the law in cases of incest or rape.
Blind women, long marginalised in Arab society, should be allowed to rise from the role of mere workers to become dynamic leaders, according to local and international activists who convened in Tunis this week.
Twenty-two developing countries have agreed to cut tariffs on manufactured goods in a bid to boost South-South trade in the absence of progress in the Doha Round.
Mauritian experts are helping set up cogeneration systems to feed the hunger for electricity in Tanzania, Zambia and elsewhere. An example of how appropriate technology can be applied to problems common to countries in the global South.
On the Comoran island of Moheli, with a population of 36,000, malaria has been eliminated with the aid of a comprehensive Chinese-assisted treatment campaign. And at the 5th Pan-African malaria conference, held in Nairobi in early November, Kenya's minister of public health, Beth Mugo, announced that her country had set the goal of eliminating the disease by 2017.
Following this year’s theme for Worlds Aids day which calls for Universal Access and Human Rights, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) has demanded non discriminatory HIVand Aids approaches to health care for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people in Uganda.
Cameroonian gay rights groups are optimistic that human rights of gays and lesbians could see a positive light, should President Paul Biya consider about 10 000 signatures inked in a petition calling for decriminalisation of homosexuality in that country.
In its endeavor to bring to the fore, health needs of lesbians and gays, as a group that is also affected by HIV and AIDS, Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) organized a march on World Aids Day, themed Universal Access and Human Rights.
Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, has stirred controversy by stating that one of the reasons he received the Assisi Pax Prize, awarded each year to people who are promoting peace in the world, was because of his success in fighting homosexuality in the country.
In the year since the start of the first trial at the international war crimes court involving an alleged Congolese warlord, rape on a mass scale has continued unabated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A US$4 million grant will help Sierra Leone to introduce major reform in its mining sector and revamp the industry. This follows the approval by the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank of a $4 million IDA grant for the Mining Technical Assistance Project (MTAP) in Sierra Leone.
Nigeria’s External Affairs ministry has uncovered $15.3 million of school fees racket allegedly perpetrated by some Nigerian diplomats. Minister Ojo Maduekwe said investigations were on, to determine the perpetrators, but vowed that those found culpable of defrauding the government would be dragged before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for prosecution.
Despite consolidating his vice-like grip on power, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali continues to imprison journalists critical of his regime, say members of the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group in a joint action this week.
The UN has warned that the recent kidnapping of two aid workers in the northeastern town of Birao in Central African Republic will have a highly damaging impact on humanitarian activities in the remote, impoverished Vakaga region.
In his Kenya diary, Guardian journalist Xan Rice reports on how a decision by the prosecutor of the international criminal court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to investigate the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya threatens the corrupt elite.
COPA will for the period 15th to 25th February 2010 hold 10 day peace building training in Nairobi for peace and development practitioners from from Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. The training is ideal for persons wishing to build their skills in different thematic areas related to peace matters.
As African countries attract foreign investors looking to rent agricultural land, a group of civil societies who met in Addis Ababa has called on African leaders to reject what they call the “corporate takeover of African land for food production”.
As the Oromo Liberation Front has repeatedly stressed, the current Ethiopian regime has, since it came to power in 1991, dispossessed, displaced, and disenfranchised tens of thousands of the Oromo people. TPLF’s policies of dispossession and marginalization of the Oromo nation have remained at the root of today’s underdevelopment and the spectacle of mass starvation that has been witnessed throughout Oromia in recent years.
The IIE Scholar Rescue Fund is pleased to announce a call for applications for the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF). Fellowships support temporary academic positions at safe universities and colleges anywhere in the world for threatened academics whose lives and work are in danger in their home countries. Applications are due January 15 2009.
The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy is announcing a call for paper proposals for its upcoming conference, U.S. Engagement with the Muslim World: One year after Cairo. The deadline for submitting paper proposals is December 10, 2009.
A24MEDIA has scaled the heights in its pursuit to give voice to Africa by letting Africans tell their own stories, their own way. In this end-year roundup, A24MEDIA presents East and Horn of Africa’s most viewed stories in the A24 Media’s online portal. The list however casts an apparently real but unfortunate situation that; even Africans prefer the so-called negative stories.
In this week's emerging powers news roundup, South Korea pledged to double aid to African nations over the next three years, China and the World Bank plan to set up low-cost factories in new industrial zones in Africa, China turns to Egypt for production of ready-made garments.
People in the West throw away millions of old computers every year. Hundreds of thousands of them end up in Africa, where children try to eke out a living by selling the scrap. But the toxic elements in the waste are slowly poisoning them.
With less than a year to go to Tanzania's parliamentary and presidential elections, the people have started to give vent to their frustration with the performance of the present government in tackling rampant corruption, local newspapers reported this week.
Representatives of several humanitarian NGOs have called on the international community to raise FCFA 160 billion (US$ 368 million) in a bid to help impoverished people in the 15 ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) member countries and Mauritania.
The first round of the Ivorian presidential election will take place between the end of February and the beginning of March 2010, the Permanent Consultation Framework (CPC) on the Ivorian crisis announced here Thursday evening.
The Ethiopian government has re-opened the trial of four major newspaper publishers in connection with the 2005 post-election violence in the East African nation. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Front (EPRDF) has successfully lodged an appeal against the Ethiopian Supreme Court's decision to pardon the four publishers, Siday, Zekarias, Fasil and Serkalem, in connection with the 2005 elections.
Gambia women rights group, The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP) will honour ex-circumcisers and their communities at the Basse Stadium in the Upper River Region.
Guinea’s capital is on edge following a botched assassination attempt on the head of the ruling junta, with residents bracing for further violence between out-of-control army factions. Pickup trucks carrying heavily armed soldiers moved through the quiet streets of the normally bustling city searching for suspects in the attack, with shops open only part-time and most residents staying indoors.
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has been re-elected for a second term after winning 76.4% of the vote in last week's poll, official results show. Mr Pohamba's governing Swapo party got 74% of the parliamentary vote, maintaining its two-thirds majority.
A group of Nigerian farmers is suing Royal Dutch Shell, claiming that the oil firm polluted their land in the Niger Delta region. The four farmers allege that oil spilt from the supply lines of a subsidiary of Shell contaminated fish ponds and farms, ruining villagers' livelihoods.
South African agricultural policy is obsessed with market driven agricultural models while disproportionately high numbers of our people remain hungry. This is a hangover from our historical legacy, which continues in the form of internal and external neo-liberal pressures on government to conform to the tyranny of the market.
Uganda's government should reform the country's election laws to improve accountability for election-related crimes and reduce the risk of violence in the upcoming 2011 elections, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.
Guinea's military government should immediately release or bring specific charges against the human rights defender Mouctar Diallo, Human Rights Watch has said.
The causes of world’s ecological crisis can be traced to capitalism, Trevor Ngwane writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, but socialism still needs to give greater weight to environmental considerations – not least because it is the working class which is most vulnerable to the negative impacts of the crisis.
The Lake Kivu basin, which Rwanda shares with the DR Congo, contains vast quantities of methane gas, which can be used to provide desperately needed electricity. But a deadly threat lurks beneath the waters of the lake, as Khadija Sharife finds out in this week’s Pambazuka News.
In this week's emerging powers in Africa watch, Stephen Marks reviews the work of researchers Yoon Park and Barry Sautman who have teamed up to explore the seldom- researched topic of anti-Chinese feeling - and the distinct but interrelated phenomenon of anti-China sentiment - in Southern Africa.
Men and women with disabilities face many challenges in Southern Africa, especially related to discrimination and access to services. For many women, this also means that they face challenges when accessing health care services at one of the times when it is most important – when they are pregnant.
Last year I told my story about how a man in my community had harassed me, until one day he finally beat me so badly I had to go to the hospital, just because I am disabled. This day was a terrible day for me, it even left me with scars. Even worse, for four years after that day, I did not go back to that place. I even left my house there, and went to live with my mother. I did not want to see him or face him.
It is Norwegian interests in the island’s strategic location and offshore oil deposits that are behind Norway’s recent flurry of engagement in Zanzibar’s local politics and peace talks, writes Chambi Chachage in this week’s Pambazuka News.
The Soccer World Cup represents major economic opportunities for South Africa. It represents the possibility of showcasing South Africa to the world, and everything it is possible of accomplishing. However, the less glamorous side is the possible increase in sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Equatorial Guinea is perhaps the world's most striking example of why oil hurts, rather than helps, many of the countries that have it. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Tutu Alicante and Lisa Misol ask whether the US’s Obama administration will stop the country's President Obiang from sucking its people dry.
For the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, at CHOGM in Trinidad & Tobago, there was significant representation of GLBTQ (gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer) activists among civil society participants, and a concerted effort to highlight issues of sexual citizenship and rights.
'The proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Meaning that for Kenyans to fully test something they need to experience it themselves. We have seen Parliament boycott the debating chamber whenever the Special Tribunal Bill came up for debate. Now Kenyans are experiencing the bitter taste of Impunity.
Construction is cleared to begin on the SIDAREC-Mukuru Kwa Njenga Center, giving the expectant community a powerful tool to end the cycle of poverty. The community center, designed for Slums Information Development Resource Center (SIDAREC) and the needs of Nairobi youth, will give Mukuru residents access to the Internet, computer and technology training, health clinic services, early childhood development programs, and a community theater.
Burundi's government should immediately reverse a new policy of deporting Rwandan asylum seekers without considering their cases, Human Rights Watch has said.
On Saturday 5 December the Abahlali Solidarity Campaign will be holding an info stall and leafletting at Trafalgar Square by the South African embassy in London to raise awareness of the state repression and violence that the movement is currently facing. This is a joint action with the Landless Peoples Movement, AntiPrivatisation Forum, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front solidarity march in Joburg at the same time. As it also coincides with the COP demo, we anticipate a lot of people there. Come down on the day. .
Once perceived as an icon of progress in Africa thanks to wealth from its copper mines, today over 75 per cent of Zambia's population lives below the poverty line. In this week’s Pambazuka News Khadija Sharife recounts the country’s ‘riches to rags’ story – a story that is being repeated in former resource colonies across the continent, which although ‘politically liberated’ have ‘remained economically chained’.
On 18 November 2009 Jan Egeland gave the tenth annual Harrell-Bond lecture. Mr Egeland is the former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The lecture was entitled 'Beyond Blankets: in search of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced.'
As global awareness grows around conflict in Congo, a myriad of Western-based prescriptions are being proffered, Kambale Musavuli writes in this week’s Pambuzuka News, including the ‘conflict minerals’ approach. But this approach, devoid of social, political, economic and historical context, argues Musavuli, will simply perpetuate the root causes of the region’s challenges rather than resolve them.
The academic and administrative staff of the University of the Witwatersrand have organised a to express their disgust and opposition to the retrenchment of cleaning staff from the University in its aim to cut spending.
The effects of climate change are likely to lead to increased levels of conflict across Africa, a new study has suggested. Cyril Mychalejko takes a closer look at responses to the report’s conclusions.
War on Want is a dynamic organisation working in partnership with people across the developing world. War on Want’s International Programmes Department works to change people’s lives in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. We are seeking two programme officers with extensive practical experience in international development programmes, one to lead our Informal Economy programme and the other our Conflict Zones programme.
Over 5 million people, mostly civilians, have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since its conflict began in 1996. In this week’s Pambazuka News Phumlani Majavu looks at why peace is so elusive, with reference to a recent report from human rights group Global Witness on the role the illegal trade in minerals plays in fuelling violence in the DRC.
Conversations with Writers speaks to Ulysses Chuka Kibuuka about religion, writing and the state of publishing in Uganda.
Claire Ceruti reviews 'Neoliberalism and globalisation in Africa: Contestations from the embattled continent', a collection of essays edited by Joseph Mensah.
The rich are swindling the poor in the DRC and Zimbabwe, and no one seems to be in charge of a rudderless Nigeria, writes Sokari Ekine in this week’s roundup of the African blogosphere.
CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has cut funds to , ‘with no transition funds and no explanation’. KAIROS, a church based non-governmental organisation that represents seven of Canada’s largest denominations, works on a range of social justice issues, including human rights in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
KAIROS and partners call on the networks and supporters of KAIROS to meet with their MPs to discuss this critical matter. Please, respectfully and politely:
- Speak about your own positive involvement with KAIROS
- Express grave concern about this decision
- State KAIROS’ desire to restore our long standing relationship with CIDA
- Emphasise the impacts of this decision on global partners and our work in Canada
- Ask them to call on the Government of Canada to reverse this decision.
Please also write to , Minister of International Cooperation, and KAIROS.
Qaabata Boru, the editor of KANERE Refugee Free Press, writes of a recent assault he suffered and his loss of important personal property.
Michael Keating reviews Fantu Cheru's 'Africa’s Development in the 21st Century: Reshaping the Research Agenda', a book which he regards as inevitably limited by the fact that it is a mere 47 pages long.
Issa G. Shivji writes of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere's conceptions of nationalism in Africa, ideas which encompassed both the political through liberatory principles and the universal through transcending narrow identities. Debates around the economic success of his policies notwithstanding, Nyerere's greatest legacy, Shivji writes, was his sweeping vision of African unity.
Chinese civil society differs from its African counterpart in that its constituent organisations commonly enjoy the direct support of the government in a way that those in Africa do not, writes Yazini April. Greater collaboration between these two parties should at the very least encourage African civil society to follow the Chinese example in becoming genuinely productive, April concludes.
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Lamido Sanusi's financial reform, writes Kola Ibrahim, will do nothing more than re-assert the dominance of a rapacious capitalist class in Nigeria. While public ownership of services rooted in the welfare of Nigeria's people remains most desirable, Ibrahim contends, Sanusi and his ilk can be counted on to simply support the entrenched political class.
Nicholas Oloo berates the selfishness of Kenya's leaders and their apparent disdain for the welfare of the wider population.
In light of South Africa's entrenched poverty, William Gumede argues that the country's National Planning Commission must operate 'like the command centre of a country at war'. Tackling poverty and achieving economic progress require harnessing every resource and talent at the country's disposal, Gumede writes, and instilling a culture 'where failure is not an option'.
Following last week's Great Ethiopian Run, Alemayehu G. Mariam discusses an event that is more an act of mass civil disobedience than a running race. Drawing inspiration from Nelson Mandela's success in embarking on a continuous 'long walk to freedom' in South Africa, Mariam stresses that through undertaking its own marathon, Ethiopia will one day complete a route towards freedom, democracy and human rights.
Commenting on the Harmonised Draft Constitution produced by Kenya's Committee of Experts (CoE), Yash Ghai lauds a document envisaging a more open society and considerably enhanced socio-economic conditions for Kenya's people. With little time remaining to consider and scrutinise the draft however, Kenyans must take the opportunity to comment on and shape the document before it returns to the country's parliamentarians, Ghai emphasises.
Having sought clarification from Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos over his involvement in business activities contravening state regulations, Rafael Marques de Morais discusses the broad culture of corruption and questionable practices normalised within the country's government. Considering why the president's dubious actions enjoy the total support of members of the government, Marques de Morais concludes that the answer lies in mutual benefit: 'they do as the president wishes so that they too may act with impunity'.
One of the key settings that is often a point of contact for women, including survivors of violence and HIV positive women, is health systems. It is for this reason that it is critical that an essential package of services delivered should be part of a comprehensive response to the two interlinked crises of HIV and violence against women and girls. What does this entail?
Chenjerai Hove is considered to be one of Zimbabwe´s foremost writers, and a volume of critical essays on all aspects of his work is being planned for publication by Africa World Press in association with Weaver Press. this is a call for proposals for contributions towards this planned critical volume.
The ICC Prosecutor has issued a notice by which he informs victims of alleged crimes committed in Kenya during the post-election violence of 2007-2008 that he will request authorization from Pre-trial Chamber II to open an investigation into such alleged crimes, in accordance with Article 15(3) of the Rome Statute and Rule 50 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.
10 tactics for turning information into action' will be launched at the Frontline Club in London, December 4. This event will be the first of a series of global screenings of '10 tactics', the documentary film by Tactical Tech. Locations include Nairobi, Kenya; Berlin, Germany; Beirut, Lebanon Sydney, Australia; Upington, South Africa; Tbilisi, Georgia; New Jersey, USA; Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil and Banjarmarsin, Indonesia.
The Story of Cap and Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled, entertaining look at the leading climate mitigation strategy being imposed by elites at the Copenhagen summit and in Washington and most other capitals and financial centers. Host Annie Leonard introduces the people at the heart of this scheme - energy traders and Wall Street financiers.
The Twenty Ten project is inspired by the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the media opportunities this has to offer. It will be the first time that the FIFA World Cup competition takes place on the African continent. Football plays a vibrant part in life in communities across the continent. Taking a cue from this, Twenty Ten aims to give African journalists a voice, both in Africa and worldwide, by offering them an opportunity to express their own views of African reality, as opposed to having to depend on foreign news organizations.
Jacob Zuma, the President of Africa’s most powerful democracy since April 2009, and the recently chosen ‘African President of the Year’ (Sapa 2009), arouses strong passions from his supporters and detractors. A longtime ANC official from a humble peasant background in what is now Kwazulu-Natal province, Zuma was picked by the ANC to be the country’s deputy president under Thabo Mbeki in 1999.
This Bulletin began in response to news reports of “corrective” and “curative” gang rapes of lesbians in South Africa. These were then followed by news reports of a study in South Africa that found that one in four men in South Africa had committed rape, many of them more than once.