NEW YORK | ACCRA – Compassion was not in the hearts of Ghana’s religious leaders for two detainees flown to freedom this month (January) after 14 years in Guantanamo prison behind bars.
The Rev. Joseph Osei Bonsu, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference, scolded President John Dramani Mahama, saying the two Yemeni ex-detainees did not deserve any compassion from Ghanaians.
NEW YORK | MAPUTO – At the Centro Cultural Americano in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, there is a trove of books in the Martin Luther King library that tell the American story with some offerings touting a mythological tolerance, belied however by the fierce struggles in the U.S. over race, religion and immigration.
Materials provided by the U.S. Embassy to the Centro Cultural include an article titled ‘Unity Through Diversity: The American Identity’. In it, DC-based author Samier Mansur writes: “American’s capital pays homage to the intellectual achievements of Muslims… The U.S. is not only a nation born of diversity, but one that thrives because of diversity. And this is not by accident, but by design.”
NEW YORK – Ghana’s abundant resource in gold produced $23 billion in earnings from 2013 to 2016 but only $1.7 billion for the country’s coffers, according to a newly-released report by the African Centre for Energy Policy in Ghana
Titled ‘Golden Days for Newmont’, the report said the U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation paid less than $500 million (US) in taxes to the government of Ghana from 2003 to 2012.
The yawning gap between export earnings and royalties to the government was documented as far back as 2008. Gold accounted for 40% of exports in that year, with a value of $2.2 billion, whereas government received only $116 million in taxes and royalties from mining firms, which is less than 4% of the country’s total tax take, according to The Economist news magazine.
NEW YORK – Children as young as seven haul cobalt for foreign companies operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mineral ends up in smartphones, cars and computers made by such brands as Apple, Microsoft and Vodafone, according to claims by Amnesty International in a new report.
Children carrying back-breaking loads and working in intense heat receive between one or two dollars a day. They work without face masks or gloves, the investigators reported, and are beaten by security guards employed by mining companies.
By J C Suresh | IDN-InDepthNews Feature
TORONTO | ABIDJAN (IDN) – The African Development Bank (AfDB) is upbeat about 2016 and hopes to build on unprecedented development in 2015 which in its view would go down in history as a year “when the world decided that the time had finally come to set aside individual differences and to forge a new development paradigm for the planet”.
By Sonia Nguyen* | IDN-InDepthNews Feature
CHIBOK (IDN) – Repeated attacks on civilians from Boko Haram have led to massive displacements and negatively impacted livelihoods in North Eastern Nigeria. Displaced people rely on the limited resources of their host communities, placing the most vulnerable households under extreme pressure.
By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis
BERLIN (IDN) – A man raped a nine-year old girl who was on her way to school and infected her with HIV. The Zimbabwean police initially arrested the attacker, but then released him in secret. The reason: he paid bribe.
This case is by no means an exception The police and private sector have regularly been rated as highly corrupt, says Transparency International in a report entitled People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015, adding: “we hear stories like this every day . . . In many countries you can pay off police officers to ignore any crime, however horrific and devastating – it’s just a matter of price.”
In fact, says the report, bribery affects more than one-in-five Africans. “Shockingly, we estimate that nearly 75 million people have paid a bribe in the past year – some of these to escape punishment by the police or courts, but many also forced to pay to get access to the basic services that they desperately need.”
For this latest African edition of the Global Corruption Barometer, Transparency International partnered with the Afrobarometer, which spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between March 2014 and September 2015 to ask them about their experiences and perceptions of corruption in their country.
By Friday Phiri | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe (IDN) – Just as climate change has been getting popular in development discourse over the past two decades, so has been climate financing, which refers to local, national or transnational funding, drawn from public, private and/or alternative sources.
By Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-InDepthNews Feature
HARARE (IDN) – As the battle to attain the Sustainable Development Goals hits up across the globe, the government of Japan through its development organisation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has covered a myriad of development areas in this Southern African nation.
By Robert Johnson | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis
BRUSSELS (IDN) – The 28-nation European Union (EU) has decided to strengthen relations through “high level dialogues” with the world’s fourth largest uranium producer Niger during the EU foreign and security affairs chief Federica Mogherini’s first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa. Uranium is of critical importance for both civilian and military purposes.
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