NEW YORK (IDN) – The Obama Foundation, which aims “to inspire and empower people to change their world”, is launching a ‘Leaders Africa Program’, and is seeking to identify a group of emerging African leaders from all sectors – government, civil society, and the private sector. They should have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the […]
Obiang Restores Death Penalty in Bid to Save Unpopular Regime
By Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – The Central African Equatorial Guinea, under President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is reviving the odious death penalty against 147 opposition activists accused of “rebellion, attacks on authority and public disorder”. The activists include leaders of Citizens for Innovation (CI), many of whom were rounded up after a […]
Kazakh President Lauds China’s Silk Road Initiative
By KazInform ASTANA (IDN) – China’s plans to establish the Silk Road Economic Belt, also known as the One Belt and One Road Initiative, are “great”, according to President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, reports Kazinform international news agency. In an interview aired by China’s CCTV-13 channel, Nazarbayev stressed the importance of the state visit to […]
Activists Call on U.S. to Respect the Olympic Truce
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – As the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games kicked off on February 9, over 100 activists from around the United States sent an open letter to Defence Secretary James Mattis, calling on him to respect the Olympic Truce by postponing provocative nuclear-capable missile tests. Dozens of organizations around the country worked closely […]
South African War on Corruption Moves into High Gear
By Global Information Network NEW YORK | PRETORIA (IDN) – A shakeup in the African National Congress has boosted hopes that new party officials will make a clean sweep of the backroom dealings that have made millionaires out of a small South African elite and punished the majority with high unemployment and a national credit […]
Liberian Soccer Icon Plans Sweeping Changes as New President
By Global Information Network NEW YORK | MONROVIA (IDN) – George Weah, Liberia’s president-elect, declared the country open to investment and pledged to tackle entrenched corruption, in his first speech to the nation since decisively winning an election on December 30, 2017. Speaking at a press conference at his party headquarters, Weah thanked his predecessor, […]
Controversial Kenyan Advocate of GM Seeds Dies in Boston
By Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) –The Kenyan director of the Science, Technology and Globalization Project at Harvard University, Professor Calestous Juma, passed away in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 15, at the age of 64. Juma served as Professor of the Practice of International Development, and was affiliated with the Belfer Center for Science […]
Writers Protest the Arrest of New York Professor in Cameroon
By Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – The African Literature Association and other professional associations of writers and scholars are demanding the release of a Cameroonian-American writer and university professor, detained on December 6 without explanation at the airport in Douala, Cameroon. Patrice Nganang, who teaches at Stony Brook University’s cultural studies and comparative […]
African Fact Checkers Expose ‘Fake News’ And Win Prizes
By Global Information Network NEW YORK | JOHANNESBURG (IDN) – Striking a blow against fake news, reporters from Kenya, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Cameroon scooped the top prizes this year in a competition organized by Africa Check, the leading fact-check organization on the continent. Founded by the French news service AFP in partnership with […]
Mugabe Faults Late Mandela for Leaving South Africa to the Whites
By Global Information Network
NEW YORK | HARARE (IDN) – Thanks to the former South African leader, “Everything (today) is in the whites’ hands.” That was the harsh judgment of the legacy of President Nelson Mandela heard early September 2017 at a rally in Zimbabwe. It provoked a media whirlwind that rocked southern Africa.
“The most important thing for (Mandela) was his release from prison and nothing else,” Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was widely reported to say. “He cherished that freedom more than anything else and forgot why he was put in jail.” Mugabe made his remarks in Shona at a ruling party rally in the central town of Gweru. NewZimbabwe.com translated these remarks.