A founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, a writer and liberation icon, Lauretta was an unstoppable patriot. She wanted to see her people liberated from poverty, ignorance and land dispossession. Her life in exile and her persecution by the apartheid colonialist regime testify to this fact. Rest in power!

Former Canadian prime ministers are appointed to the boards of powerful multinationals to assist them penetrate African markets – mostly corruptly. They use their links with rulers on the continent to cut multi-million-dollar deals often at the expense of the local people. Yet, Canada and the west generally never tire of accusing African leaders of corruption.

The dust of the electoral contest in Tanzania is settling and, as expected, the winning party’s bigwigs are lining up for powerful state appoints even where they do not qualify. But it is time for the new government to immediately begin implementing its agenda for the good of all. On their part, Tanzanians must push the government to serve them as they surely deserve.

Madagascar is one of 27 countries around the world which continues to deny women the ability to confer citizenship on their children on an equal basis with men. Twenty MPs have committed to reform the current law.

Ethiopia is in the grip of a famine once again, bringing to mind the shameful images of hunger splashed around the world by western media in 1984. But Ethiopians are not helpless. They have the power to act: not only to end hunger but also to give the world dignified representations of their own crisis.