Sokari Ekine

African Shirts (http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2006/04/carmen-with-clicks.html) discusses the vibrancy of the South African film industry which he compares with that of the Francophone African countries and Nigeria’s Nollywood. Two of the latest films from SA are U-Carmen eKhayelitsha and Oscar winning Tsotsi.

“U-Carmen is a Xhosa language film based on Bizet's opera Carmen, and it won the Golden Bear ...read more

Zambian blog, Real Life of a Journalist (http://oliviaphiri.blogspot.com/2006/04/making-icts-accessible-to-women-...) writes on how to make ICTs more accessible to women. Technology has been traditionally “male” in both its construct and usage. She praises the coming of FOSS but writes that it is not user friendly and requires a certain level of technology literacy. She believes one way to overcome t...read more

The 23rd International Gay & Lesbian Association (ILGA) meeting was concluded in Geneva on Monday 4th April after a week of discussions and workshops around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues (LGBT). Africa was represented by LGBT activists from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Tunisia and Senegal.

The two issues that most concerned the Africa group were the homosexuality trial in Cameroon and the proposed same sex marriage law in Nigeria.

...read more

Chippla (http://chippla.blogspot.com/2006/04/price-of-disloyalty.html) writes on the ongoing “3rd term” battle between Obasanjo and his supporters and the growing opposition in Nigeria to the idea. In particular he focuses on the disagreement on the issue between the President and Vice President, Atiku Abubakar:

“A few days ago, the Vice President, Mr. Abubakar, attended a meeting in which he publicly accused h...read more

Kenyan blogger and Africa’s resident environmental guru, AfroMusing (http://www.afromusing.com/blog/?p=211) points to a post on using African deserts as hubs for solar energy. The idea is that the Sahara, which is some 9 million sq km and the Kalahari which is 900,000 sq km, could be used as solar energy farms to supply cheap electricity for the continent. AfroMusing quotes Anatole France, who wrote:

“To accomplish great things, we mu...read more

Nigeria has just completed it’s latest census which does not include religion or ethnicity. Naijablog (http://naijablog.blogspot.com/2006/03/on-nigerian-languages-ethnicities-...) wonders exactly how many languages are spoken in Nigeria as depending on your source, the numbers differ. The number ranges from 250 to 500.

“The World Bank and the UN like to suggest 250 in the documents I've seen...read more

The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents is an all in one guide for both beginners and seasoned bloggers. The guide is roughly divided into two parts. The first covers “how to get started” and includes blogging tools, ethics, how to stand out and promote your blog. All of these can be found on many different sites on the internet such as on Wikipedia and blogger.com. The second part deals exclusively with blogging anonymously and how to get around issues of censorship for those blogging...read more

Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman (http://madkenyanwoman.blogspot.com/2006/03/outing-heterosexuality.html) writes an essay entitled “Outing Heterosexuality” in which she discusses the inability of Africans to deal with any discussion on sexuality that is not limited to:

"…the missionary position sex-is-for-the-purpose-of-reproduction-only-and-any-other-type-of-sexual-activity-will-send-you-into-the-inferno h...read more

This is Zimbabwe (http://zimpundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/arm-cache-political-faux-pas.html) comments on the latest conspiracy theory that the Harare government is “falling apart”. This time it is the release of one of the eight arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill Mugabe. “MDC's Brian James, a treasurer for the party's Manicaland structure was released yesterday, but gagged from spewing details about how...read more

The phenomenon of blogging has exploded globally, with the new medium being hailed for its ability to democratise the global conversation. But that doesn’t mean the blogosphere doesn’t reflect existing prejudices within society. Sokari Ekine explores the more sinister side of the blogoshpere, focusing specifically on the abuse of women.

Last weekend the number of blogs topped the 30 million mark, according to the UK Guardian technology section. In it’s leader entitled “In Praise of t...read more

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