Tensions Building in Nigeria Over Fuel Hike (NEWS BRIEF)

(PHOTO: Intelhub)(HN, UPDATED January 8, 2011) - As Africa's most populous nation headed towards a nationwide, indefinite strike Monday over sudden fuel price hikes, efforts to subdue the situation by Nigerian lawmakers over the weekend fell flat.

An emergency meeting of Nigeria's House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on Jonathan to restore a fuel subsidy that has triggered protests and economic hardship across the country.

“We are sitting near a keg of gunpowder and we are playing with fire,” said Rep. Pally Isumafe Obokhuaime Iriase of the Action Congress of Nigeria. “This will be the last straw that will break the camel’s back if we do not act.”

The 'Occupy Nigeria' protests began to appear shortly after New Year’s, when the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan scrapped a fuel subsidy - a move that more than doubled petrol prices and sparked price hikes for transport. (One report said fares in Rivers State are now 300 percent higher).

Police in the strategic northern city of Kano fired tear gas Thursday to disperse protesters who planned to stay overnight in a major square.

In Kano, protesters said they were not only tear-gassed but also detained by police by the dozens. According to one report, a lawsuit has been filed against authorities in Kano state over efforts to silence the protesters.

Said one spokesperson for the plaintiffs, Jibrin Suleiman Garin Ali: "They beat us to a pulp, they injured several of our protesters, and some are still missing and we don't know their whereabouts."

A harsh police response has been reported elsewhere in the country, including Lagos.

Even with the president and ministers huddled in meetings, there appears to be no resolution to the crisis. With the participation of organized labour, the movement is now positioned to virtually shut down the country starting Monday - even though a court ordered trade unions to call off the general strike.

At least one travel site has warned travellers to avoid visiting the country early next week.

(PHOTO: ALLAFRICA.COM) The protests have lit up Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites used by Nigerians. Because texting is so incredibly popular in the country it has been a major tool for organizers to mobilize the masses.

Wrote one Twitter user in Nigeria regarding the planned Monday strike: "Monday is the D-day in Nigeria. #OccupyNigeria is shutting down the nation. Watch out."

Many members of Nigeria's large Diaspora community have been praising the efforts of the protesters, with some expressing surprise at the huge numbers of people standing up. Tweeted Nigerian-American Yetunde Taiwo: "#OccupyNigeria I am so 4 it. Finally Nigerians r mad enough 2 effect change."

- HUMNEWS staff

A Liberian, a Liberian and a Yemen – Women – Walk into a Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony…..

Nobel Peace Prize winners Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, left; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, center; Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, right take the stage at City Hall in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2011. (PHOTO: TimesofMalta, John McConnico)(HN, December 10, 2011) - ...And take home the 2011 Nobel Prize for Peace.  On Saturday December 10, the traditionally sanctioned date on which the Nobel Committee awards the world’s highest peacemaking honor, three proud women – from Africa and the Middle Eastern – strode onto the stage at Stockholm’s `Concert Hall’ to take their place in history.

The women - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman - won the coveted prize for their efforts to peacefully bring change to their countries.

But President Sirleaf who called the prize a “wonderful recognition” said it really belongs to many more oppressed women around the world who have “suffered inequalities”.  

"This award belongs to the people whose aspirations and expectations for a better world we have the privilege to represent and whose rights we have the obligation to defend," said Sirleaf.  She went on, "History will judge us not by what we say in this moment in time, but what we do next to lift the lives of our countrymen and women who face a lack of access to those basic things that allow the comfort of life".

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Liberia's first elected female president in 2006.  Fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee is an activist recognized for uniting women against the country's warlords. 

Leymah Gbowee, who led a group of women in white t-shirts who stared down warlords to help turn the tide of her country's civil war, also spoke about the millions of others who were on stage Saturday.

"I believe that the prize this year recognizes not only our struggle in Liberia and Yemen, it is in recognition of the struggle of grass-roots women in Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Tunisia, Palestine and Israel and in every troubled corner of the world," said Gbowee.  Adding, "victory is still afar...there is no time to rest."

Royal trumpeters heralded the beginning of the annual ceremony, as Norway's royal family and this year's Nobel laureates entered the hall.

Both Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee become the seventh and eighth African recipients of the Nobel prize – following successively Albert John Lutuli, South Africa, 1960; Desmond Tutu, South Africa, 1984; Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk, 1993; Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana, along with the UN itself in 2001; sustainability advocate Wangari Maathai, Kenya, 2004 (deceased in September 2011 from a long battle with cancer). 

Co-recipient of this year’s Peace Prize Yemeni activist and journalist Tawakkol Karman becomes the first Arab woman and youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting for her country’s freedoms earlier this year in Sana'a's Tahrir Square.  On the Nobel stage she said, “The prize will lift the spirits and support the aspirations of Arabs who are struggling peacefully to improve their lives. This year's Arab revolutions confronted tyrants who went too far in depriving their people of freedom and justice. The international community must do more to fulfill its pledges and resolutions for peace, freedom and women's rights.”

The three Nobel Peace Prize winners each received a medal and a diploma, and will share the $1.5 million US prize. The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature - and the related prize in economics - were presented later Saturday in Stockholm as well.

These awards for 2011 were given in Physics, jointly to Saul Perlmutter,  Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess of the US and Australia; the Prize for Chemistry to Dan Shechtman of Israel; the Prize for Medicine jointly to Bruce A. Beutler, Ralph M. Steinman and Jules A. Hoffmann respectively of the US and Luxembourg; the Prize for Literature to Tomas Tranströmer of Sweden; and the Prize for Economics to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims of the US.

Since the Nobel Peace Prize was first annually awarded in 1901, a total of 15 women have received it. The first was Austrian writer and peace activist Bertha von Suttner in 1905.  Later the late Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun won in 1979 for her humanitarian work.  1991's recipient was Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi won in 2003.  The most recent woman to receive the prize was Wangari Maathai in 2004.

Women have also won Nobel Prizes in the sciences and literature, with one woman, radiation researcher Marie Curie, honored twice, first in physics and years later in chemistry.

Norwegian Nobel panel chairman Thorbjoern Jagland says women are critical to peace.  "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society," said Jagland.

IN A RELATED EVENT:

China’s Alternative Nobel Prize Honours Russia’s Vladimir Putin as Thousands Take to Streets to Protest Recent Elections

In Beijing on Friday, two exchange students accepted a Chinese peace prize on behalf of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The Confucius Peace Prize was hastily launched last year as an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize which in 2010 honored imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.  A group of five Nobel Peace Prize winners including Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams as well as former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, Reporters Without Borders and others have urged China to release Liu Xiaobo, who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for subverting state power in China by co-authoring an appeal for political reform.  The International Committee of Support to Liu Xiaobo said in an email that Liu is the only Nobel laureate currently in prison, following the release of Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s release in November 2010. 

The Confucius Prize sponsors are professors and academics who say they are independent of China’s government.  Organisers of the Confucius Peace Prize went ahead with this year's awards against the wishes of the Ministry of Culture who ordered the group to shut down saying they did not have official permission to run the awards.  Undeterred, the original masterminds of the award set up a new organisation called China International Peace Research Centre before quickly announcing this year's winner.

(Two Russian Exchange students recieve 2011 Confucious Award on behalf of Vladimir Putin. PHOTO: weibo/littleoslo)Lien Chan, former chairman of the Kuomintang, ruling party of Taiwan, was the winner of the first Confucius Peace Prize in 2010. He did not attend the award ceremony, so a little girl was selected by organisers to accept the award in his place.  Similarly, Putin, was honored for `enhancing Russia’s status and crushing anti-government forces in Chechnya’ organizers said because during his 2000-2008 term as president Putin “brought remarkable enhancement to the military might and political status of Russia”.  The 2011 prize ceremony took place one day before this year’s annual Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, and two Russian female exchange students were selected to stand in for Putin where they accepted a statue of the Zhou Dynasty sage on his behalf.  

The Prize came as thousands of people have taken to Russian streets for a week protesting authoritarian trends in Putin’s policies, his reputation for jailing political rivals and cracking down on government critics. Demonstrations in Moscow over last week’s parliamentary elections which were believed to be tainted by fraud have raised the biggest ever challenge to Putin who is seeking to return to the presidency next year; currently serving as the country’s Prime Minister, having spent two terms as the country’s former President.

Putin, who recently led the United Russia party to its worst ever showing at the polls, beat seven other nominees -- Gyaltsen Norbu (the "Chinese Panchen Lama"), Bill Gates, South African President Jacob Zuma, former UN chief Kofi Annan, Yuan Longping a Chinese agricultural scientist known as the "father of hybrid rice", German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Taiwanese politician James Soong -- to clinch the highly-uncoveted title of Confucious Prize winner.

IN RUSSIA, MEANWHILE PROTESTORS CHANT, `PUTIN OUT’

In the largest public display of mass discontent in post-Soviet Russia, an anti-government demonstration brought tens of thousands of Moscow citizens out to the packed streets near the Kremlin to protest alleged electoral fraud by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party `United Russia’ on Saturday. Protestors gathered in other cities across this huge country with clashes reported in St. Petersburg, the Pacific city of Vladivostok, the Siberian city of Perm and the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk among others.

(Video, Al Jazeera)  City officials in Moscow had given unusual permission for a rally of up to 30,000 people, and by the time the rally started, with periodic wind-blown snow, police said there were at least 25,000 while protest organizers claimed 40,000.

In smaller gatherings earlier in the week hundreds of people were arrested or hospitalized after violence broke out, including prominent opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, and Sergei Udaltsov.

On Saturday people chanted, “Putin Out”; saying things such as "Everyone is sick of living under this regime which forbids freedom of expression” and holding signs with "Putin's a louse" and banners such with the United Russia party emblem, reading "The rats must go".  The protests come three months before Putin, who was president in 2000-2008 and who has been Prime Minister under current President Dmitry Medvedev’s government, will seek a third term as President in nationwide elections on March 4, 2012.

Putin’s power however was undercut by last Sunday's parliamentary elections, during which his United Party narrowly retained a majority of seats, but lost the two-thirds majority it held in the previous parliament. Protestors allege that even that showing was inflated by massive vote fraud, citing reports by local and international monitors of widespread violations. Earlier in the week Russian President Medvedev conceded that election law may have been breached and Putin suggested "dialogue with the opposition-minded".  It is known that on Election Day, the websites of a main independent radio station and the country's only independent election-monitoring group fell victim to denial-of-service hacker attacks.

The Kremlin has come under strong international pressure which called the vote unfair, urging an investigation into fraud; Putin has specifically said that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US are intentionally fomenting protests and trying to undermine Russia. Recently, U.S. Sen. John McCain tweeted to Putin that "the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you".

---HUMNEWS staff, with contributors

Nigerian Leads List of Africa's Wealthiest (REPORT)

(HN, November 16, 2011) - A billionaire from oil-rich Nigeria leads the Forbes Magazine 2011 list of wealthiest individuals in Africa.Africa's richest individual, Aliko Dangote. CREDIT: Dangote Group

With a fortune estimated at $10.1 billion, Aliko Dangote made his billions from a stake in the pan-African, publicly-traded company, Dangote Cement. At just 53-years old, he also has interests in flour milling, sugar refining and salt processing. Dangote now accounts for a quarter of the Nigeria Stock Exchange's total market cap. 

Dangote is among 16 billionaires identified by Forbes as Africa's 40 wealthiest individuals. Egypt clocked in with the most billionaires, at seven - and primarily from the Sawiri and Mansour families. None of the 40 wealthiest are female, Forbes said.

Documenting the true extent of wealth on the continent is almost impossible, with many dictators concealing their wealth offshore. In China and Russia, wealthy individuals have been known to threaten journalists who publicly document their wealth.

Even though it is home to Africa's wealthiest man, Nigeria has extreme poverty. These women are at a UNICEF-supported feeding centre in Katsina. Credit: M BociurkiwAccording to Forbes, Dangote's fortune "surged 557% in the past year, making him the world's biggest gainer in percentage terms and Africa's richest individual for the first time."

Dangote's base - Lagos - is set to become the most populous city in Africa, in already the most-populous nation in Africa - but one with extreme poverty, with the poverty rate above 70 percent, according to UN Habitat. According to Forbes, Dangote recently bought himself a $45 million Bombardier aircraft for his birthday.

Number Two on the list of Forbes' most wealthiest Africans is South African diamond magnate Nicky Oppenheimer. With an estimated fortune of $6.5 billion, he recently deepened his pockets by selling the family’s remaining stake in diamond miner DeBeers.

Number Three is Nassef Sawiris, who runs Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's most valuable publicly-traded company, and is said to have a net worth of $4.75-billion.

Forbes acknowledges that much of Africa's private wealth is in the hands of current and former dictators. Among them it identifies two Nigerians: the late Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s former military ruler, who had stashed away at least $3 billion in offshore accounts; and, Nigeria’s former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, worth at least $12 billion.

Indicative of the inequality gap represented by the Forbes Africa list is that only six nations on the continent are represented: South Africa, with 15 wealthiest; Egypt, 9; Nigeria, 8; Morocco, 5; Kenya, 2; and Zimbabwe, 1.

- HUMNEWS staff

Africa Must Lead: COP 17 Must Deliver Climate Justice to Developing Nations (PERSPECTIVE)

By Glenn Ashton

Artist: Rose Fyson/ Photo Credit: Piotr Fajfer-Oxfam International Climate change predominantly impacts those who have benefited least from fossil fuelled industrialisation. The poor have less social, economic and political capacity to adapt to climate change than the rich. The arrival of the global climate negotiating lobby on African shores must focus the minds of the world on how climate change impacts developing nations and how we propose to solve this problem.

When the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meets in Durban in late November this year it is important to raise global awareness of the implications for the global South – the poor and developing nations of the world. The matter of climate justice is central to any fair and binding solution.

The UN climate change framework arose from agreements made during the first earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which destabilise global climatic systems. The best-known outcome from the many subsequent meetings was the agreement made in 1997 at COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan, with the so-called Kyoto protocol to reduce CO2 emissions.

This was the first time any sort of international accord was reached to address and reduce the threat of human induced (anthropogenic) climate change. The Kyoto Protocol will expire at the end of 2012 and it is critical that the Durban COP 17 meeting cements further agreement on frameworks to prevent runaway climate change this century. Time is not on our side.

The Kyoto protocol had extremely limited goals, far below what is now recognised as necessary. Importantly it was not ratified by the world’s biggest polluter, the United States, which rendered its outcomes largely academic.

It is known that human induced climate change is no longer theoretical – the impacts are real and appear to be both more serious and rapid than the rather conservative scientific opinions expressed by the International Panel on Climate Change. These changes will predominantly affect those in the South who lack sufficient resilience to meet these multifaceted challenges.

Regions, like Pakistan and the Sahel in Africa, wedged between tropics and deserts, are far more sensitive to climatic disturbances than more temperate climates. Over the past two years Pakistan has experienced unprecedented monsoon flooding pushing this already marginal economy to the brink. The climate induced social and political consequences are profound.

The Sahel has experienced fairly regular drought cycles over the past millennium, influenced by various climatic cycles. However seriously disruptive droughts in that region between the 1960’s and ‘80’s are now known to be linked to fossil fuel related aerosols and particulates.

These influences, compounded by global warming, have worsened these drought cycles across the region, causing protracted hunger and social dislocation. It is notable that as cleaner fuels and improved emission standards have reduced the levels of man-made particles in the atmosphere, the severity of the Sahel droughts have diminished.

Those who deny the influence of human activity on the global climate are either incapable of internalising the realities or repudiate them in order to continue business as normal. This powerful lobby which continues to benefit from cheap access to fossil fuel technology has actively undermined meaningful political negotiations toward a meaningful resolution to the real problem – increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.

This self-indulgence perpetuates the historical economic inequality visited upon the global South by the developed North. This exposes the failure to achieve any sort of meaningful, ambitious and binding climate change treaty. The most powerful vested interests – the G8, the OECD, the developed North – are so profoundly politically compromised that they cannot see their way clear to make the needed changes. These dominant powers have more than hinted that there is little chance that agreement will be reached in Durban. Self interest remains writ large.

Besides the Kyoto Framework the next ‘best’ outcome that has emerged from these expensive and time consuming conferences is the so-called REDD+ framework. REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation and is a trading mechanism, which proposes to keep global forests intact in order that climate change is mitigated and hopefully reduced.

REDD is controversial for many reasons, but primarily because of a failure to agree on the definition of a forest. This may appear obvious, but is a forest is a virgin natural resource, or a man made plantation which is harvested and hence has economic value? Because of this sort of intentional ambiguity inherent in “solutions” like REDD, strong opposition has arisen amongst indigenous and environmental groups who are profoundly uneasy with these sorts of agreements.

REDD and other economic carbon trading schemes are essentially devices which enable powerful, vested interests to exploit both the climate change negotiations and its proposed outcomes to ensure the continuation of business as usual. Perpetuating the interests of the privileged is no longer an option. In an increasingly connected world the exploited have gradually evolved a far more coherent position. REDD, like carbon trading, does nothing whatsoever to address the real problem - to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are just REDD herrings.

Dealing with solutions to climate change involves more than the authentic threats to the ecological stability of the planet. At its core, climate change involves dealing with issues of social and climate justice. Those who have benefited from decades of exploitation of fossil fuels must make amends. Those who remain excluded from these benefits, be they in Somalia or Pakistan, or in tropical jungles or low lying atolls, cannot be expected to continue to bear these punitive costs of climatic instability on top of their already impossible burdens. Perpetuating this inequity flies in the face of a just outcome to the climate negotiations.

The evolving power of blocs like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) has begun to provide some counterbalance against the old guard of developed nations. These shifts of economic and political power enable a change in the dynamic of negotiations.

This has become evident in how the South has refused the ratification of inherently unfair instruments like the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round, which would have perpetuated unfairness in global trade. Equally, in climate negotiations there needs to be far more negotiating parity between North and South, between rich and poor, between developing and developed, in order that just outcomes become possible.

The fact remains that we cannot continue the historical polarisation and deadlock that have dogged critical negotiations like the UN climate change accords. The Durban COP 17 meeting needs flexible leadership. It requires humility from the powerful to recognise that it is their world, which is under equal threat. Above all cohesion amongst the global South is paramount in order that the vested interests of the wealthy cannot undermine a united message of climate justice for all.

In a globalised world we are increasingly interdependent and connected - the failure of even one nation inevitably creates further instability. It is not an option to have weak leadership by the hosts or to allow ourselves to be pushed around. As Nelson Mandela memorably told Bill Clinton when he visited South Africa in 1998, we must tell the powerful to “jump in a big pool” if they are out of line.

We cannot allow another negotiation failure at our collective expense. We need to wisely and firmly guide our leadership. We must harness creative ways to make the North listen. Civil society must repeat successful campaigns like the Right to Know campaign which has had perceptible political impacts in South Africa.

The mobilisation of the “Climate Justice Now!” network in South Africa hopes to provide one such platform towards achieving a beneficial outcome. We certainly cannot abandon negotiating governments to be bamboozled by the none too tender mercies of the diplomatic and lobbying interests of conservative and corporate stakeholders.

We need a fair, ambitious and binding agreement which does not paper over the cracks. There can be no perpetuation of business as usual with the false promises of carbon trading, where the rich offset their impacts onto the poor, or REDD, where forests are stripped and replaced with monoculture plantations. What is urgently needed is an agreement that goes past symptomatic relief and cuts to the core issue - the introduction of across the board reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate justice is about cutting a deal at the COP meeting that provides just that – climate justice for all, not justice for the rich. It is time to show that Africa can lead. In doing so we, the people of Africa, must collectively hold our leaders responsible.

- Ashton is a writer and researcher working in civil society. Some of his work can be viewed at www.ekogaia.org.

Originally published by The South African Civil Society Information Service (www.sacsis.org.za)

African Wins Miss Universe 2011 Title (NEWS BRIEF)

Miss Universe 2011, Leila Lopes of Angola CREDIT: Leila Lopes(HN, September 13, 2011 - UPDATED 1940GMT WITH MISS UKRAINE CONTROVERSY) - In a stunning boost to Africa, Miss Angola, Leila Lopes, was crowned Miss Universe 2011 in Brazil Monday.

Lopes beat out 88 other competitors in São Paulo to win the title during the 60th anniversary of the world's biggest beauty pageant. The business management student replaces the 2010 winner, Ximena Navarrete of Mexico.

Lopes was born in Benguela, Angola, the daughter of Cape Verdean immigrants. She was recently crowned “Queen of Angolan beauty" in the United Kingdom, where she has been undertaking her studies.

It would appear that Lopes wooed the Miss Universe judges - which included American journalist Connie Chung, supermodel Isabeli Fontana and Indy race car driver Helio Castroneves - with her savvy answer to a question about what physical change she would wish for.

"Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing," Lopes said. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principals from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."

The first runner-up was Olesia Stefanko (Олеся Стефанко), 23, of Ukraine, followed by Priscila Machado of Brazil. The third was Miss Philippines and the fourth Miss China.

(Separately, a petition to revoke Miss Ukraine Universe's title began circulating on social networking sites Tuesday, on the basis that Stefanko allegedly spoke Russian - and not Ukrainian, the official language of Ukraine. It said petition participants are "appalled and disgusted" that Stefanko "represented our people and our homeland in a language that not only is not ours, but the language of our former oppressors.")

First runner-up, Miss Ukraine Universe Olesia Stefanko. The law student has been criticized for allegedly replying to questions in Russian, and not Ukrainian. CREDIT: O. Stefanko(Stefanko comes from western Ukraine, but is studying public prosecutor and investigation law in the mostly-Russian speaking city of Odesa).

As the results were announced, social media sites exploded with emotional comments from Africans. "I'm proud to be an African," tweeted Musuline.

Lopes of Angola, a former Portuguese colony, is only the second African to win the title. In 1992 Michelle McClean, who now resides in South Africa, became Miss Universe.

In a phone interview, Mariama Mounir Petrolawicz, a West African from Guinea and the founder of There Is No Limit Foundation, said she was extremely proud of the win.

"By the time I tuned in I saw that she was the only African girl representing, and I thought she would never make it," Petrolawicz said.

Asked how Africans would react, she said: "This will be one of the biggest gifts we can ever have...we are so proud...she will be such an inspiration. We feels as one tonight."

Miss Lopes is only the second African to win the Miss Universe title, and only the second national from Angola to reach the rank of Top Ten finalists.

In 2001, Agbani Darego of Nigeria was crowned Miss World.

On social media sites, many Filipinos expressed profound disappointment that their compatriot, Shamcey Supsup, did not win the Number One spot - especially after answering her question in flawless English.

This years Miss Universe was hosted by NBC "Today" anchor Natalie Morales and the Bravo network's Andy Cohen, and is co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC.

- HUM News staff

Reinventing Africa as a Country (PERSPECTIVE)

PHOTO CREDIT: Roland Urbanek via Flickr/CreativeCommonsLicenseBy Liepollo Pheko

Africa is again becoming a “country” in the popular discourse of Western media intent on rebranding the entire continent as the eternal basket case.

Despite North Africa’s Arab Spring (which has inspired a global movement against corrupt and undemocratic leadership) and the birth of Africa’s 54th state, Southern Sudan (the result of the Sudanese people’s will expressed via a referendum), the idea of Africa as an uninterrupted landscape of human suffering and political failure remains steadfast in Western media discourse.

This perspective is anchored in the tried and tested method of presenting this vast, diverse and in many instances breathtakingly beautiful continent paradoxically, as a homogenous mass of starving people stranded on barren lands under the yoke of despotic leadership and deadly diseases…Thus also implying that Western intervention is necessary and even noble.

One need just recall Hollywood’s cinematic forays into Africa. Hollywood presents a clichéd view of Africa as the hot and humid continent that’s a breeding ground for corruption, teeming with despotic leaders and malfunctioning governments. Of course, the longsuffering victims of this merciless continent are always ready for rescue by noble white protagonists who parachute in to save the day. Think Blood Diamonds, The Interpreter, Fair Game and the Bang Bang Club.

Branding Africa as the basket case of the world is nothing new, but the timing of this particular wave bears careful scrutiny together with the West’s geo-political, military and economic interests.

A CNN programme last weekend dedicated thirty minutes to American journalists’ anguish about “Africa’s plight,” replete with classic ‘Brand Africa’ imagery of war and hunger. There wasn’t a trace of strong African voices to counter the victimhood on display and certainly no mention of the mess left by America in Somalia twenty years ago. At exactly the same time, a local news channel was providing a vibrant account of the sterling work of the South African Humanitarian agency “Gift of the Givers” in Somalia, as told, designed and led by Africans. It was a challenging situation, but nowhere near helpless.

Having weathered America’s recession better than many other regions, its ironic that the picture of “Africa the scar” re-emerges at a time when most African economies are growing faster than at any time since the days of Structural Adjustment and more consistently than anywhere else in the world. Many countries, including South Africa, Nigeria and Angola have also made noteworthy investments in infrastructure.

Africa is possibly one of the best places to be on the planet. Yet it is presented as dependent and despondent in order to justify and rationalise the incursions on our sovereignty and resources.

The rebranding also comes at a time when European economies are faltering and when their citizens’ anger requires aggressive penetration into external markets to rehabilitate failed European governments and force open new market opportunities, including in Africa. Where Europe’s Economic Partnership Agreements may have failed, propaganda and some bombs may just do the trick.

The newly installed Transnational National Council [TNC] in Libya is an intriguing assemblage. Some reports suggest very few Libyans can even name the leadership of the TNC much less its mandate or vision for Libya. In typical form, the recent meeting in Paris, where global leaders decided upon Libya’s future, was covered by a CNN journalist who asked whether it was of any significance that South Africa chose to stay away from the meeting. An American analyst replied that the absence of a few Africans is unimportant since countries like Russia, the US, the UK, Algeria, China and Germany were there to shape Libya’s future.

Shortly after, Al Jazeera reported the unashamed jostling at the Paris meeting for lucrative tenders to “rebuild” Libya. It couldn’t have looked more like the Berlin Conference of the 1800’s that carved Africa up, entrenched the colonialist agenda and dislocated the continent from determining its own destiny.

Already multinationals and finance institutions such as the World Bank are lining up to do business with both Egypt and Libya. And while western leaders throw money at the transitional leaders of these emerging democracies, Egyptian civil society is rightly questioning the motives of Western countries that less than a year ago were happy to prop up both Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. Kinda Mohamadieh, of the Arab NGO Network for Development warns that transitional governments are not appropriate vehicles for long-term economic adjustments and could be consigning their successors to harsh neo-liberal policies that cannot be easily escaped.

Moreover, a military foothold in Africa is a long-term strategy of the US. Having observed the result of military invasions across Central and Latin America as well as the geo-military chaos in the Middle East, African countries rightly refused to host the much-reviled Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008. AFRICOM was rejected by every African country except Liberia, but seems likely to be back on the agenda as imperialist mayhem is once again sowed in an effort to force the African continent into hosting the American military presence. The attempt to import the chaos of the Middle East into Africa is just the justification needed to prop up ‘Brand Africa’ as the hapless victim and to start making moves on Somalia, Sudan and the Great Lakes region.

While claiming that it wants to reduce its military influence abroad, the US unconvincingly asserts that AFRICOM will support “leadership and peace building.” But when AFRICOM first emerged on the scene, Theresa Whelan, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for African Affairs was far more candid about America’s true intentions. “Natural resources represent Africa’s current and future wealth, but in a fair market environment, many benefit,” she said.

The recent invasion of Libya and the NATO inspired regime change is playing itself out as a clear and tragic replica of the fall of Iraq. The architecture of Iraq’s fall was built around myths and half-truths. Just as the “War on Terror” was the excuse the US needed to wreak havoc on civilians in Iraq under the cloak of “liberating” them from a despotic leader, so too has “freeing” Libyans provided a tenuous but determined foothold for the exploitation of the country’s oil wealth.

It seems inevitable that after Libya, the unholy Western alliance will pursue Algeria, with its huge energy resources and cash reserves. Again, imperial media mythology ignores patently self-interested motives for invading sovereign states and subverting African led processes. Instead, Western media propagate the myths of the “official” storyline, which in Libya’s case included the bizarre claim that Gaddafi’s soldiers were Viagra drugged to perpetrate mass rape. With no evidence other than an unverifiable, fuzzy cell phone video, Hillary Clinton and Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, peddled this lie even while Amnesty International reported that they had found no such evidence.

Manufacturing illegitimate wars in Africa to galvanise Western economies that are still in depression can only accelerate Western decline. Foreign invasion and war mongering are expensive and neo-imperialism has left Western countries practically bankrupt. America alone has a debt of $US14,000 trillion, while France, Great Britain and Italy each have enormous public deficits compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 of the 54 African countries combined.

While Western media houses continue their complicity in promoting ‘anti history’, the African continent as opposed to “Africa, the basket case” is ascending.

Cameroonian, Jean-Paul Pougala, sums it up perfectly in an article on why the West went after Gaddafi when he writes, “As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.”

Pheko is Executive Director at NGO/think-tank, the Trade Collective and is Africa co-convener of the World Dignity Forum. This article is republished with permission from the South Africa Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS).

Malawi Makes, Africa Takes? (COMMENTARY)

Farmer Grace Malaitcha, from Zidyana, near Nkhotakota, Malawi, pictured in 2009 on her maize plot, which she cultivates using conservation agriculture (CA) practices (PHOTO CREDIT: CIMMYI)

by Simone D'Arbreu

In 2005, President Bingu Wu Mutharika of Malawi embarked on an innovative five-year solution to promote Malawi’s agriculture sector by increasing farm subsidies and allocating 10 percent of the national budget to the agriculture sector to help promote infrastructure and farm training. Despite concerns from the World Bank and the UN, President Mutharika promoted Malawi’s agriculture sector and decreased poverty from 52 percent to 40 percent while turning Malawi into a food basket not only for its people but also for export. Malawi produced 1.1 million more ton of maize than the country requires annually and now exports this excess to neighboring countries. Malawi was also able to provide over 200 metric tons of rice to Haiti during the disaster relief.

In 2004 Malawi experienced a famine that threatened one third of the country’s 13 million people -- half of whom live in poverty. Malawi found the solution to its own problem by ignoring pro-privatization advice from experts from the World Bank, the World Food Program, and other international aid organizations. The World Bank also advised Malawi’s farmers to shift to growing cash crops for export and to use the foreign exchange earnings to import food. Starting in 2004, Malawi launched the nationwide Agricultural Inputs Subsidy Program that has provided coupons to roughly half of Malawi’s small farmers to buy fertilizer and seed at a rate below-market prices. Because of its subsidy program, Malawi managed to put aside a supply of food in case of emergency while boosting crop yields and decreasing the cost of food.

Malawi showed the world that it too, like Europe and North America, can effectively subsidize agriculture. Joshua Kurlantzick, author of "The Malawi Model," says Malawi’s approach is worth imitating as a model for agricultural development because it has actually worked compared to the failed privatization models upheld by international aid economists trying to find a “universal response” for a diverse range of countries.

Malawi’s subsidy program has potential drawbacks. Farm subsidy programs have the potential to force farmers to leave the agriculture sector because of decreasing crop prices. On average, Sub-Saharan countries lose 10-15 percent of total agricultural incomes due to farm subsidies. Mutharika’s plan might just be focusing on the short-term impact rather than the long-term. Then there are the political criticisms of Mutharika's authoritarian tendencies. Finally, even if the Malawi model has worked for Malawi, can it work for the many diverse countries of Africa and in such a short time frame?

Exporting the Model

President Mutharika has now proposed a five-year plan to make Africa independent of foreign food assistance. This five-year plan, also known as the African Food Basket project, focuses participating African countries and all cooperating partners on improving agriculture and food security through subsidies, increased budgetary allocations, and affordable information and communications technology. In Africa, only one-third of arable land is cultivated. Mutharika believes that increasing the land cultivation and government spending in the agricultural sector can reduce hunger and poverty by half by the year 2015.

Mutharika’s plan also promotes social development along with infrastructure building. Investments in women, youth, education, and infrastructure development can help build the agriculture sector. In Africa, women provide over 70 percent of agriculture labor, particularly in the production of crops. Yet, women lack the access to information and markets, which can provide them with land, resources, fertilizers, farming technology, and financial support. Because of the influence of traditional cultural roles, men still make the majority of decisions. As a result, women, who do the majority of agriculture labor, do not have say in the decision making despite being more involved in the production.

The African Food Basket project plans to resolve this disparity by empowering women to have control over land, what crops to grow, what farming systems to follow and how to use the income that accrues from farming. This plan relies heavily on education. By educating women, especially in the rural areas, literacy rates will increase, which will directly improve women’s access to information and to markets that promote an increased production of crops. Even though Malawi did not initially use women empowerment during the earlier years of agriculture reform, research has shown that by developing farming skills in women will directly promote sustainable growth. Women generally control the agriculture market and contribute significantly to the informal sector, which is the most booming and vibrant economic sector. 

Young people, too, are a key to agricultural success. According to the African Food Basket project, youth will undergo structured non-formal training on model farms, with graduate students linked to micro-finance institutions through funds like the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) in Malawi. YEDF attracts and facilitates investment in enterprises from market stalls to industrial parks beneficial to youth. An increase in farms will lead to an opening in the labor market, which will attract the young and the old to the agricultural sector while increasing the food supply.

Transportation is a third element in improving food security. Approximately 20 percent of crops are spoiled during transport. By improving methods of national and cross border transportation, like roads, railways, ports, harbors, and air transportation, African countries can ship food more effectively and avoid a significant loss in crops. Mutharika is strongly promoting the building of a greenbelt along the Nile River, the Niger River, Lake Chad and the Shebelli-Juba basin in northeast Africa to promote irrigation. Only 7 percent of arable land is irrigated compared to 29 percent in South America and 41 percent in Asia. A Grand Green Belt, connected throughout the continent, could raise the level of irrigation and, by extension, agricultural productivity.

A Feasible Plan?

Livestock farmer Jinny Lemson with her bean harvest in central Malawi (PHOTO CREDIT ILRI) Malawi’s success and Mutharika’s ambition to solve hunger and poverty show the world that Africa has the potential and ability to improve its own food situation. But not all African countries are alike. Some countries are in massive debt. Somalia’s deficit of $3 billion in 2001, for instance, made it difficult for the country to allocate additional funds for agricultural development and continued budget shortfalls continue to plague the country. But outside actors could help countries in deficit. Even Malawi received substantial financial assistance for its agricultural turnaround. Britain’s Department for International Development in Britain contributed $8 million to the subsidy program in 2006.

More challenging, perhaps, are the countries that are not motivated to increase government spending on agriculture. The government of Teodoro Obiang in Equatorial Guinea, for instance, is infamous for corruption and government mismanagement. It recently spent more than $830 million to construct a luxury complex for an upcoming African Union summit to be held outside the nation’s capital in hopes of attracting foreign investment. This sum could have gone a long way toward creating food security in the country.

Even for countries that are willing and able, the five-year timetable of the African Food Basket will be challenging. It took Malawi approximately a decade to establish food independence. Achieving even a measure of that success for the continent as a whole in five years is simply unrealistic.

Daniel Gustafson of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Liaison Office for North American say that the FAO supports the idea of the African Food Basket Project. A 10 percent increase in African countries’ national budget allocations to the agriculture sector is a wonderful idea and there is no reason why Africa would not be able to see advancement on a larger scale. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Malawi have done exceptionally well at becoming independent and investing in food production.

The political situation in Malawi, meanwhile, has become considerably murkier. The government cracked down on anti-government protests in July, killing 19 protestors. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government agency that provides countries that practice good governance with developmental assistance, has placed a hold on its five-year agreement to provided $350 million, among other things, to improve Malawi's agricultural productivity. Despite its agricultural success, Malawi continues to face poverty, illiteracy, and governance issues.

The African Food Basket, in other words, requires not only investments in the agricultural sector but good governance as well. If Malawi can achieve both these goals, then it can really show the way for the rest of the continent.  

- Simone D'Arbreu is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

- This article was originally published by Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

South Sudan: New Countries, Old Problems (PERSPECTIVE)

Even before today's independence celebrations, the GOSS had established offices in key African capitals, such as Addis Ababa. CREDIT: HUMNEWS

By Louise Arbour

South Sudan’s independence on Saturday will in some sense mark the welcome end of one of the most devastating conflicts of recent times. When decades of hostilities between North and South concluded with the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, several million people had already died as a result of the civil war, and millions more had lost their homes. As a culmination of that peace deal, independence would seem to be the last chapter of the story.

It is, however, anything but.

Saturday’s formal separation may have been an inevitable and even necessary step, but these two states will be tied together for many years to come. Trying to work through outstanding disagreements, many of them already violent, will require difficult negotiations, political savvy, and carefully considered international engagement to ensure both North and South develop into peaceful and stable states.

At this point, the signs do not look particularly good. Both sides have violated the 2005 agreement, and escalating tensions have sparked conflict in critical border areas. In May, Khartoum’s forces launched an attack on the contested town of Abyei.

Even more worrisome, there is wide-scale fighting between Northern and Southern forces in the border state of Southern Kordofan. Reportedly some 360,000 people have been displaced over the past six months, more than half in the last month.

The North, in particular the ruling National Congress Party (N.C.P.), is moving boldly both to assert control over Northern territory and to improve its negotiating position vis-à-vis the South on the post-independence arrangements. Of these, probably the most important to the North concerns oil revenue sharing, since Khartoum will lose a majority share of its primary income source, the petroleum being found predominantly in the South.

In any case, revenue sharing, border demarcation, the status of southern military units from northern regions, as well as future arrangements on citizenship and natural resource management will likely remain points of contention for years to come, and could trigger large-scale violence.

While both North and South will have to work closely together on these issues to avoid renewed war, each also faces extremely difficult internal challenges. In Khartoum, the ruling party’s rank and file are increasingly discontent. Despite austerity measures, the government is confronting a serious budget deficit and spiraling inflation, and it is not able to pay all salaries. The N.C.P.’s security-dominated policies are alienating huge swaths of Sudanese.

Northern opposition parties and rebel groups (from Darfur and elsewhere) are trying to position themselves for post-July, but they are weakened by the decision of some of them to enter into unilateral negotiations with the N.C.P. Unless the opposition forces present a much more unified front, it is quite likely that the N.C.P. will continue to stymie attempts to bring about badly needed government reforms.

Southern leaders meanwhile have to switch gears from the solidarity of the liberation struggle to the more mundane, though more divisive, tasks of running a democratic country. The signs are not encouraging. The new draft transitional constitution includes several red flags, including an amendment giving the president power to dismiss democratically elected governors as he pleases.

The leading party in the South, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (S.P.L.M.), has to open up political space — both inside and outside the party — to lay the foundations for a more inclusive multiparty landscape.

The international community also has an important role. Realizing that localized conflict in the new border zone will likely continue or even escalate if left to fester, it has to carry on acting as an impartial mediator, fact-checker and arbitrator, all the while dealing with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

To deal with Southern Kordofan, external actors need to get leaders back to the negotiating table with sufficient political will to contain the violence, including a cease-fire and new security arrangements for the transitional states. The initiative undertaken by the African Union’s High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan, led by Thabo Mbeki, is a good first step. It helped lead to an agreement on Abyei, which is a welcome deescalation, but the international community can only preserve the status quo — both Khartoum and Juba need to make the hard decisions and compromises necessary for peaceful coexistence.

Southern independence will also mean that the international community must recalibrate its relationship with the S.P.L.M. and avoid the tendency to overlook its abuses and constrictions of political space.

If there is a single message for all parties it is surely “inclusion.” The leaders of North and South need to understand the broad spectrum of peoples and interests in their new polities and work hard to bring them in under their respective new roofs. And the international community must sustain its involvement and support to ensure that both North and South develop into peaceful and viable states.

Louise Arbour is president of the International Crisis Group.

Also read our article about how Ethiopia and other neighbouring states are eyeing tempting business opportunities in South Sudan

Major Media Markets Big Winners at African Journalism Awards (REPORT)

By a HUMNEWS Correspondent in Johannesburg

(HN, June 26, 2011) -- Major media markets such as Kenya, Uganda and South Africa walked away with the bulk of the awards last night at the African Journalism Awards in Johannesburg last night.The African Journalism Awards gala in Johannesburg. CREDIT: HUMNEWS

The top prize winner was Fatuma Noor of The Star of Kenya, who was recognized for her hard work on a three-part series on the militant Islamic group in Somalia, al-Shabab. It was chosen from among 1407 entries from 42 nations across the African continent.

The series tells the story of the young men who give up their freedom abroad to return and fight for the ‘Al-Shabaab’ in one of the world’s most dangerous places on earth – Somalia.

Fatuma Noor was one of the 27 finalists at the Awards ceremony on Saturday evening and was a winner in the category ‘General News Award (Print).’

The Awards, which rotate location each year in tribute to their pan-African credentials, were held at a Gala ceremony hosted by CNN and MultiChoice. Established in 1995 in Ghana, the awards were co-founded by the legendary African photo-journalist "Mo" Amin.

Last night, Kenya alone received four awards, Uganda three and host country South Africa three. One sponsor of the event told HUMNEWS that the domination of larger media markets in the awards line-up is a trend that has held almost since the event was first hosted. He added that smaller countries may not have the capability to submit entries or that some works are produced in countries that have governments hostile to enterprise journalism.

Chair of the judging panel, journalist and media consultant Joel Kibazo said: “The judges were impressed with the high quality of entries to the competition this year, and this intrepid young journalist has shown great courage and determination in going the extra mile to tell this fascinating story. Fatuma Noor’s three-part series on the Al-Shabaab provides a detailed and personalised portrait of the young men who leave their comfortable western lives to join one of the world’s most ruthless militant groups in Somalia.”

The evening also recognised Mahamud Abdi Jama as this year’s recipient of the Free Press Africa Award, for his work in Somalia. His situation was noted by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) in New York. He wrote a critical article about the government there and was jailed for just over a month and released when pressure was put on the government of Somalia.

Media freedom is still very tenuous in many markets on the African continent. Just last week, the CPJ reported that Ethiopian columnist Reeyot Alemu has been detained and held incommunicado. She is a regular contributor to the independent weekly, Feteh.

Even in host country South Africa, journalists tell HUMNEWS they fear a sweeping crackdown if a proposed draconian bill on secrecy passes the legislature.

(The Bill is a revised version of a 2008 piece of proposed legislation that was withdrawn after protests that it would give state bodies too much leeway to quash information. It establishes serious hurdles for the media and civil society to obtain information about official corruption mismanagement and government service delivery issues. It gives government officials wide powers to prevent disclosure in the interests of “national security” which is broadly defined to cover a vast array of information).

No mention of the legislation - initated by the administration of President Jacob Zuma - was made last night.

Other winners at the awards ceremony were:

ARTS & CULTURE AWARD

Kofi Akpabli, Freelance for DailyGraphic, Ghana.
Title: ‘What is right with Akpeteshie?’

DIGITAL JOURNALISM AWARD

The Dispatch Online Team on behalf of ‘The Daily Dispatch’ in South Africa.
Title: ‘Failed Futures’

ECONOMICS & BUSINESS AWARD

Sylvia Chebet and Kimani Githae, Citizen TV, Kenya.
Title:  ‘An uphill task’

ENVIRONMENT AWARD

Lamia Hassan, Business Today Egypt, Egypt.
Title:  ‘Washed up’

FRANCOPHONE GENERAL NEWS AWARD: PRINT

Rabin Bhujun, L'Express Dimanche, Mauritius.

Title: ‘Le vrai pouvoir des castes’

FRANCOPHONE GENERAL NEWS AWARD: TV / (RADIO

Claudine Efoa Atohoun, ORTB, Benin.

Title: ‘Le barrage de Nagbéto: Outil de développement ou source de nuisance’

FREE PRESS AFRICA AWARD

Mahamud Abdi Jama,Waaheen Media, Somalia.

HIV/AIDS REPORTING IN AFRICA AWARD

Beryl Ooro, K24 TV, Kenya.

Title: ‘HIV infection among senior citizens in Kenya’

MOHAMED AMIN PHOTOGRAPHIC AWARD

Norman Katende, freelance for The New Vision, Uganda.

Title:  ‘When death strikes’

PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE GENERAL NEWS AWARD

Selma Marivate, TV Miramar, Mozambique.

Title:  ‘O Movimento Rastafari em Mocambique’

RADIO GENERAL NEWS AWARD

Melini Moses, SABC, South Africa.
Title: ‘Hillbrow – Den of Iniquity’

SPORT AWARD

Kamau Mutunga, DN2 Magazine, Daily Nation, Kenya.
Title: ‘Soccer and Superstition (Animal body parts and snake blood on the pitch)’

TELEVISION – GENERAL NEWS – FEATURE/CURRENT AFFAIRS AWARD

Lindile Mpanza, e.tv, South Africa.
Title: ‘Silence of the innocents’

TELEVISION – GENERAL NEWS – NEWS BULLETIN AWARD

Farouk Kayondo, UBC, Uganda.
Title:   ‘Watching in the hood’

TOURISM AWARD

Benon Herbert Oluka, DailyMonitor, Uganda.
Title: ‘Why Ugandans would rather watch goat races than visit their national parks or heritage sites’

On Their Annual Day African Children Remain Extremely Vulnerable (NEWS BRIEF)

A young boy in Burundi. CREDIT: HUMNEWS(HN, June 16, 2011) As the Day of the African Child is commemorated across the continent today, millions of young people face deadly threats, ranging from pneumonia and malaria to HIV and AIDS and domestic violence.

There are thousands of children under 18 languishing in jails from Nigeria to Burundi - either housed with adults or incarcerated without trial or proper legal representation.

The best laid plans of donors and governments have, in some instances, have failed to reach targets.

For example, despite the distribution of millions of bed nets, for example, in many African countries - including Nigeria and Burundi - malaria will be far from eradication by the UN goal of 2015.

In countries such as Lesotho, almost one in four people are living with HIV and an estimated 17 percent are aged 15-24.

In Africa, sexual violence is a daily reality for girls. A recent Swaziland study documents that about one third of adolescent girls under the age of 18 have stated that they have been victims of sexual violence by boyfriends, husbands and/or male relatives. Most of the violence takes place in the home, or close by in neighborhoods or at school.

There are bright spots on this day that deserve acknowledgement. The incredible efforts of such institutions as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has translated into the near eradication of polio in the four remaining endemic countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And across the continent, more children are receiving free primary education than ever before.

In Burundi, a visionary project operated by CARE and funded by the Nike Foundation has provided micro credit, small business grants to adolescent girls who have fallen into poverty due to early pregnancy and other reasons.

- HUMNEWS correspondent in East Africa

Sending Children to School in Uganda, Despite the Odds (PERSPECTIVE)

By Karen Snider

Asa and Titus PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersWhen tragedy strikes, I often hear people describe survivors as resilient. I’ve been thinking about what that means and whether that describes the children at an orphanage in Uganda which I support – are the children really resilient or are they mere survivors?

There are 85 children at the Nzirambi Talent Development Centre in Kasese, Uganda, and it’s not unusual for them to be ill at any given time. Just last month, eight newborns were hospitalized with pneumonia, malaria and/or extreme diarrhoea. One of the star students, Ellen, 16, who is in her first semester at senior school, nearly failed her classes because of pneumonia – without access to a doctor for a month.Ellen - PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Pieters

The reality is that children die of these illnesses at alarmingly high rates across much of Africa. In fact, the United Nations Children’s Fund states that four million children under age five die every year; of those, 1.5 million are from Eastern or Southern Africa.

The statistics are equally alarming in Uganda, which ranks as the 19^th worst country in the world for child mortality where 188,000 children die every year before their fifth birthday.  At this orphanage, we’ve lost eight children in the last two years.

With those statistics in mind, it was a relief this week when I got news that all of the newborns who had been hospitalized had recovered and were back home. Ellen is also doing better and has returned to school.

Against all of the odds, these children survived.

But when I think of the older children at the orphanage, including Ellen, I think I understand more what it means to be resilient.

Currently, through the Nzirambi Education Fund, we are sponsoring five youth in their senior levels of school, each of them having been brought to the orphanage as a vulnerable baby.Brenda PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Pieters

Twenty years ago, there was no sponsorship program at the orphanage to provide funds and so the children didn’t always have access to healthcare or nutritious food.

There is no question the children carry emotional scars – this I know as they have shared tears with me telling me about parents lost to AIDS, a parent crippled in a car accident and a polygamous father who would not care for his only daughter after her mother died.

Still, they have thrived and managed to excel in their studies.

Now there are new obstacles for them at school: missing classes due to illness; no extra learning from teachers; overcrowded classes; and they are boarding for the first time away from the orphanage.

When Ellen was ill, I spoke to her by phone. She told me not to worry, that (despite illness so severe she was hallucinating) she will be fine – and more importantly, that she was eager for classes to start again. Before she even finished a round of antibiotics, she was on the bus for the six-hour ride back to school.

To me, that is what resiliency is about.

Doreen PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersTime and time again, it’s what we see across Africa and around the world when families are struck with disaster or facing extreme poverty. It’s about surviving the unimaginable and forging ahead -- hopeful, optimistic and eager for future possibilities.  

Just last week, the five youth we are currently supporting returned to school for their second semester. To give them a boost to make it through the school year, we are looking into the possibility of hiring a guidance counsellor who can check in on them to ensure they are healthy and doing well in their classes.  That way, if any problems arise – like one of them needing a doctor or extra tutoring – we can address it more quickly.

Veronica and Steven PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersThank you to those of you who continue to support the Nzirambi Education Fund. We've recognized the resiliency of the children and now we have an opportunity to truly help make their dreams come true. They so very much deserve the chance.

Want to be involved? Help send one of our children to school. Donate using PayPal on our blog http://africanwalkabout.blogspot.com or contact NzirambiFund@gmail.com. Also, you can join us on Facebook at http://groups.to/orphans

*After volunteering at the Nzirambi Orphans Talent Development Centre in Uganda, Karen launched an education fund to ensure the older children at the orphanage have access to education beyond primary school. To date, the Nzirambi Fund has paid for five youth to go to school. More funding is required to ensure that all of the 85 children at the orphanage will have access to higher levels of education.

Opposition Growing to Draconian 'Secrecy Bill' in South Africa (REPORT)

South African President Jacob Zuma has shown little tolerance for media criticism. Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro - famous as 'Zapiro' - was sued last year by Zuma for a 2008 cartoon showing the President preparing to rape Lady Justice. And last Friday, Zapiro did it again - producing a cartoon about the Protection of Information Bill that has Zuma apparently preparing to “rape” a woman labelled “Free Speech”. Photo: The Witness(HN, June 12, 2011) - Opposition to a proposed secrecy bill - also known as the Protection of Information Bill - is presenting the Government in South Africa with one of its biggest-ever challenges.

Observers describe the bill as sweeping in its powers to muzzle civil society, as well as the media; possibly a knee-jerk reaction to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to stinging criticism from the media and civil society - as well as published embarrassing details about the private life of President Jacob Zuma.

Tensions between the Zuma Administration and mainstream media have reached a boiling point. One observer told HUMNEWS Zuma sees the media as essentially an elite, white-dominated entity - hostile to a predominantly black government. 

The Bill is a revised version of a 2008 piece of proposed legislation that was withdrawn after protests that it would give state bodies too much leeway to quash information.

The Bill establishes serious hurdles for the media and civil society to obtain information about official corruption mismanagement and government service delivery issues. It gives government officials wide powers to prevent disclosure in the interests of “national security” which is broadly defined to cover a vast array of information.

The Bill applies to all organs of the state, including national and provincial government departments, independent commissions, municipal and local councils and forums. It empowers the Minister of State Security to “prescribe broad categories and sub-categories” to classify information to prevent it from entering the public sphere. The heads of government departments are further empowered to put in place departmental policies, directives and categories for the purpose of classifying and declassifying information.

Under the Bill, journalists who publish classified information could face draconian punishments ranging up to 25 years in prison for a host of offences, including obtaining, possessing, intercepting and disclosing classified information. A proposed media tribunal would be empowered to punish journalists.

One analyst described the provisions on media as "the most dangerous assault on media freedom since the end of apartheid."

The popular South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro - also known as Zapiro - said he has produced stinging depictions of Zuma because he feels strongly about the serious threat posed by the bill. “Silencing the media and whistle blowers is terrible. I wanted to communicate the need to fight for freedom of expression and free speech. I’m angry and upset about the bill. The whole of society will be badly affected. It’s appalling and it’s not what our constitution stands for," Shapiro was quoted as saying.

According to Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT), South African journalists and civil society activists are extremely anxious about their ability to pursue their quest for the truth in the future. 

Dale McKinley, an independent writer, researcher, lecturer and political activist based in Johannesburg, voiced in a column what many people in South Africa have to say about the Bill.

Wrote McKinley: "It is clear that unless many more speak out now, the ANC will use its parliamentary majority to pass a Bill that will 'normalise' the gagging of the very democracy that so many inside and outside this country struggled and sacrificed to realise...Everyone needs to stand up, speak out and put a stop to what now represents an enforced 'marriage' of elite convenience."

In recent weeks, several civil society organisations, political parties and ordinary people have publicly voiced their opposition to the Bill, effectively forcing the ANC as the key backer to temporarily extend the time frame for the Bill's passage by two more months.

One international petition currently being circulated online says the Bill "could take South Africa back to the dark days of impunity -- allowing government institutions to operate without public scrutiny, and stopping the media from exposing corruption, and abuse of power."

The ANC has been ridiculed for arguing that their Bill is on the same footing as similar legislation in countries such as Zimbabwe.

A little over a month, McKinley says, during a sitting of the parliamentary ad-hoc committee tasked with processing the Secrecy Bill, ANC MP Vytjie Mentor energetically argued that Zimbabwe was a good example of how information could be successfully kept secret and thus was worthy of the committee's closer attention as it fashioned South Africa's own secrecy legislation.

Western diplomats have also voiced concern. Last year US Ambassador Donald Gipps suggested the proposed BIll would be a step backwards after hard-won battles to create a model constitution. He said: "South Africa must not turn away from that history now."

Some segments of the business community are worried that the bill could give state-owned organs, such as South African Airways, a competitive edge if it allows them to suppress information about internal operations.

Last year, the state-owned electricity utility, expressed concern, saying restrictions on sharing commercial information under the Bill could complicate negotiations with foreign investors.

One observer told HUMNEWS that, even if the Bill passes, it could face significant challenges from the country's Constitutional Court.

- By a HUMNEWS correspondent in Johannesburg, with files.

Victory in Uganda Amidst Worsening Human Rights Situation (PERSPECTIVE)

By Sarah Gunther

Friday marked a victory for human rights activists in Uganda and the rest of the world, when its Parliament ended its session without voting on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. 

The proposed bill was an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender and inter sex (LGBTI) community - and on Uganda’s citizenry at large. It would have criminalized the “promotion of homosexuality,” including the provision of health and other essential services to LGBTI people, with three years in prison, and punished “aggravated homosexuality,” which entails homosexual acts by “serial offenders” and those who are HIV positive with the death penalty.

It was no coincidence that the Ugandan parliament galvanized new energy to pass the bill last week, at a time when Ugandan citizens are protesting high food and fuel prices and the government is cracking down with violence, repression and disregard for the rule of law.

In fact, the renewed push to pass the bill during the last week of parliament was a blatant political tactic to divert attention from the deteriorating human rights situation affecting all Ugandans. Over the past month, President Yoweri Museveni has responded to peaceful protests over sky-rocketing commodity prices by arresting opposition leaders, teargassing bystanders and using live ammunition on crowds.

According to Human Rights Watch, Ugandan security forces have killed at least nine unarmed people during the protests, including three in the back as they fled.

Beyond this crackdown, Museveni’s government has done little to respond to the expressed needs of its citizens, who can’t afford food or other basic needs. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was nothing more than a hateful diversion.

There’s no question that the bill would have passed if it came to a floor vote. Museveni has publicly stated that he would veto the bill, but his government’s conduct of late makes it clear that he has no problem violating human rights to maintain power. Passing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and pandering to the country’s hateful climate for LGBTI people would have garnered Museveni increased public approval at a time when he desperately needs it.

Uganda is a sovereign country and has the right to govern its own affairs. But the international community must not stand by while a repressive government opens fire on its people for peacefully protesting—and considers legislation that forces a mother, teacher or doctor to report her daughter, student or patient to the police simply for being who he or she is.

We must remain vigilant when the next session of Uganda’s parliament opens on May 18th, as it is likely, if not probable, that the bill will be re-introduced.

When I woke up on Friday to the amazing news that the bill had been defeated, at least for now, I started thinking about what made it possible and what lessons we might extrapolate for the human rights work that my organization, American Jewish World Service, supports around the world.

First, activists in Uganda built a remarkable coalition of organizations working in different sectors—human rights, HIV/AIDS, women’s rights, refugee rights, labor rights, LGBTI rights, and the list goes on. The notion that LGBTI Ugandans deserve the same rights as all Ugandans was not an uncontested idea in Ugandan civil society in October 2009 when the bill was first introduced. Building a coalition was no easy feat. But 28 organizations came together on the premise that LGBTI rights are not special, different or extra: they are human rights.

The victory in Uganda would not have been possible if LGBTI activists had been the only voices opposing the bill. Speaking from multiple perspectives, the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law made the argument that the bill was unconstitutional, violated best practices in public health, and undermined civil liberties. The win underlines the importance of building social movements that transcend narrow identity-based rights claims and can gain new allies as a result. Activists in Uganda have shown us what that can look like.

In addition to local organizing, there’s no doubt that international activism played a critical role in killing the bill. In just the past few week, e-petitions from organizations like AllOut gathered millions of signatures, and domestic pressure in the U.S. and Europe encouraged dozens of legislators and government representatives to speak out against the legislation.

What’s been encouraging to me in the last week—in contrast to past moments during the nearly two-year fight to kill the bill—is the degree to which international actors took their lead from Ugandan activists. The Civil Society Coalition offered strategic guidance to advocacy organizations in the West, providing context by sharing its broader critique of the human rights crisis in Uganda, and helping us avoid playing into the government’s use of the bill as a distraction from its violence and repression.

AJWS believes that grassroots communities are best placed to envision, articulate and carry forward their own visions and strategies for social change. In the struggle against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, it has been encouraging to see more and more international advocates respect the expertise and leadership of local activists in their own struggles.

There’s no question that the fight for human rights of LGBTI people in Uganda is far from over, and the country’s overall human rights situation is worsening with no end in sight. But victories are few and far between. This one is certainly worth savoring.

Sarah Gunther is the associate director of grants for Africa at American Jewish World Service, where she oversees a human rights grantmaking program with a focus on LGBTI communities in Uganda.

Meddling Media: How media plays a role in shaping Sub-Saharan Africa (REPORT)

By Vanessa Yurkevich in New York

(HN, April 28, 2011) - Ndimyake Mwakalyelye was a reporter working for Voice of America (VOA) during the presidential elections in Zimbabwe two years ago.Sanjukta Roy and Michael Behrman at the Columbia panel. CREDIT: Vanessa Yurkevich

The government quickly realized people were turning to VOA for their election information and that’s when the government blocked the station’s air waves. “Someone had found a way to penetrate the system,” Mwakalyelye said, referring to the media’s role in the election. After spending what she calls “a small fortune” on the right equipment to override the block, VOA’s listenership went from hundreds of thousands of people to millions. “The jamming” by the government, she said, was “creating a need to broadcast more.”

Zimbabwe is one of nearly a dozen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where there is no freedom of press. At a conference at Columbia University in New York Wednesday, journalists working in Africa, policy makers and researchers discussed the power and restriction of media in the region.

Mwakalyelye, who sat on a panel, said the landscape of journalism is evolving, and bloggers, citizen journalism and social media are playing larger roles in inciting change. “Its power is unbelievable but it needs to be in good hands” Mwakalyelye says. “Uganda tried to block Twitter and Facebook during the elections” she recalls. “People saw the revolution it caused in Egypt and Tunisia.”

“Freedom of the press is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure a healthy and effective media sector,” said economist Sanjukta Roy, who is currently working on the Media Map Project with Internews, which helps to support independent media and access to information.

In partnership with the World Bank Institute, the project will provide guidance to NGO’s and donors on how investments in local media might serve to advance a country’s governmental and developmental objectives.

Roy explained that in order for press freedom to thrive, the country must also be financially viable and establish an educational system with developmental goals and basic access to food. She said professional journalists and a plurality of sources are essential to a successful media.

Michael Behrman studies quantitative methods in media at Columbia University and said, “Press freedom is an important component in maintaining a long term democracy.” For example, he said. the democratic nation of Mali has one of the freest media in Africa and the government protects freedom of speech.

Meanwhile, Behrman, citing a country like Niger, which never fully capitalized on its a freedom of press during a democratic period in the 1990s, said the country has seen its press freedom deteriorate significantly.

Behrman points out that Africa has the least amount of data regarding the media, and panelists agreed there is currently no means to measure the quality of the content being produced, in part because it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, propaganda from truth.

Behrman said while the lack of data is troubling, it is exactly the reason it’s not easy to predict whether the uprisings in the Middle East could be paralleled in Sub-Saharan Africa. The best way to determine what can cause such a social media and political revolution is to study what happened in the Middle East and use it as an indicator for other regions.

“It would be good if there were such data so that you can get a glimpse and a better understanding” Behrman said. “It would be a natural experiment.”

Presidential Election in Nigeria Held as Attacks on Media Increase - Watchdog Group (NEWS BRIEF)

Campaign posters in Abuja. Credit: HUMNEWS(HN. April 18, 2011) - As Presidential elections were held this weekend in Africa's most populous nation, the US-based watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, voiced concern about a crackdown on journalists in Nigeria.

The group has recorded more than 30 attacks on media freedom so far this year, despite reforms and the promises of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure the free flow of news during the campaign for the delayed 9 April parliamentary elections and this past weekend’s presidential election.

Nigeria has one of the poorest media freedom ratings in Africa and is 145th out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders worldwide Press Freedom Index. It is a dangerous place for journalists to work.

The country does have a diverse media and a flourishing Internet scene - in fact it is one of the few African countries without laws governing the Internet -  however and the senate passed a law last month giving public access to official information as long as it does not affect national security. But threats, intimidation, physical attacks and unlawful arrests of journalists have remained at an alarming level since the beginning of this year.

For the most part, foreign journalists working in Nigeria are spared from intimidation but still are at risk, especially if they are critical of powerful state governors. Last year, a Lagos-based correspondent for the BBC World Service, Fidelis Mbah, said his wife and son received a letter threatening to kill them.

The country’s State Security Service (SSS), which was on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide list of predators of press freedom for several years until being taken off it in 2010, is still a repressive body, which targets and arrests journalists.

One recent example was the case of US-Nigerian journalist Okey Ndibe, who was arrested and interrogated at Lagos airport on 8 January this year and his passports seized for two days.

Political parties and state governors also threaten and harass the media, according to Reporters Without Borders. Journalists who criticise the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are sometimes prevented from reporting on political activities.

Ehigimetor Igbaugba, of The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), was unable to cover the senate primary elections in Auchi (in the southern state of Edo) on 8 January after being detained by PDP officials who criticised articles he had written about the party.

Intimidation of accredited journalists sharply increased when polling stations opened on 9 April for the parliamentary elections. African Independent Television cameraman Tamunoemi Kingdom and another crew member were beaten in Ozoro (Delta state) by PDP officials who objected to the filming of them harassing a man entering a polling station. The camera and the windscreen of the journalists’ vehicle was damaged. Aisha Wakaso, of This Day newspaper, and Afeyinwa Okonkwo, correspondent of NAN in Enugu state, were hounded by police who prevented them reporting on the voting.

Analysts say that Nigerian journalists are east targets by polticians, as they are poorly-paid and receive little training and support. Said one Lagos-based foreign correspondent in a 2010 blog posting: "Many senior journalists have now adopted a loose lifestyle of selling their influence to government officials and businessmen in exchange for cash and gifts without the slightest concern for any conflict of interest."

Reporters Without Borders has fought for press freedom on a daily basis since it was founded in 1985. 

- Reporters Without Borders, HUMNEWS staff