Category: Africa

LONDON (IDN | GIN) – Digital dumping ground, world’s largest e-waste dump – whatever you call it, Agbogbloshie, a former wetland and suburb of Ghanaian capital Accra, is one the top ten “worst polluted” places on earth where tonnes of discarded electronics, refrigerators, microwaves and televisions, also known as e-waste, end up decomposing in a massive scrap heap.

“Mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic – these are the four most toxic substances [in the world], and they are found in e-waste residues in very large quantities,” Atiemo Sampson, an environmental researcher at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, who has conducted several studies of the Agbogbloshie site, said in an interview with the BBC.

Exposure to these toxins is known to cause a whole range of illnesses from cancers to heart disease and respiratory illnesses.

DAKAR (IDN | GIN) – Former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, was sentenced May 30 to life behind bars, ending a long journey for justice by his victims and victims’ relatives who filled the court.

The specially convened African Union-backed court in Senegal convicted him of rape, sexual slavery and ordering killings during his rule from 1982 to 1990.

Victims and families of those killed cheered and embraced each other in the courtroom after the verdict was read.

Analysis by Martin Plaut *

BRUSSELS (IDN) – “I have never experienced anything like it,” says Philippe Remarque, editor in chief of De Volkskrant. The paper – the Netherlands’ largest broadsheet – has been taken to court by a man Remarque describes as an “operative working for the benefit of the awful Eritrean dictatorship”. On May 13 the newspaper received a verdict in the second case in which the court ruled once more in favour of the newspaper.

There is a large, and growing, Eritrean community in the Netherlands. Eritreans flee their country at a rate of 5,000 a month – the largest number of refugees crossing from Libya to Italy. More than 38,000 made the dangerous voyage in 2015, according to the European border agency, Frontex.

Those who arrive in the Netherlands seek refugee status. They discuss their cases with the Dutch immigration agency, only to confront a problem. According to a Dutch based website, Oneworld, refugees found that they were speaking through official translators who had close links with the Eritrean government.

By Busani Bafana

KIGALI (IDN | Africa Renewal) – Rwanda’s moniker, “land of a thousand hills,” not only attests to the country’s unique geography but also suggests the trajectory of Kigali through its many crises to become a model sustainable city.

Kigali is one of Africa’s rising cities: it is clean and organised and, thanks to an ambitious national development plan, the city has become an ultramodern metropolis that boasts recognizable social, economic and environmental successes. It is a city under construction, in which new buildings are fast replacing outdated ones. Tarred, dual-carriage roads crisscross Kigali, providing a seamless connection between urban settlements and the fog-covered countryside uplands. The city is now a preferred destination for many organizers of international conferences.

It is easy to understand why Kigali sparkles. Among other impressive environmental measures, city government banned the importation of non-biodegradable plastics and designated a day each month for the residents to clean the city and spruce up the surroundings. It is difficult to find litter on Kigali streets.

NEW YORK | MONROVIA (IDN | GIN) – In what might be a first in Africa, Liberia will put its entire pre-primary and primary education system in the hands of a U.S. start-up that would bring a charter school model to struggling schools on the continent.

Bridge International Academies already has a presence in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. Despite a headquarters in Nairobi, a listing for the company shows a San Francisco address.

When Liberian Education Minister George K. Werner announced in January that all pre-primary and primary schools would be outsourced to Bridge to manage, he set off a furor among local and international education experts. The arrangement, they said in an interview with the New Dawn newspaper, would be a “blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution.

NEW YORK | JOHANNESBURG (IDN | GIN) – South Africans are rising up against the outsized influence of corporate entities and wealthy individuals allegedly doling out contracts and jobs within the African National Congress (ANC).

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, at a recent event, rebutted the charge, declaring the ANC was not for sale and anyone who wanted to capture the state should “go next door”.

Speaking to about 1,500 professionals and academics at the ANC event in Sandton on March 23, Ramaphosa declared: “Those who want to capture the ANC and influence it to advance personal or corporate interests, you have come to the wrong address. Try next door. We will not be captured.”

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe will be remembered as a man of principle who chaired the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) and fought to hold back titanium mining in South Africa’s Xolobeni coastal dunes.

“Our beloved Bazooka made the ultimate sacrifice defending our ancestral land of Amadiba,” the ACC said in a published statement. Rhadebe, who said his name had appeared on hit list, was gunned down on March 22 by two men who approached him dressed as police.

The ACC had successfully blocked efforts by Minerals Commodities Ltd of Australia and its South African subsidiary to get a mining license after the company failed to obtain an environmental impact survey or a social impact plan.

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Tech hubs and incubators in Africa are expected to number close to 300 by year-end, and in some surprising locations.

In 2015, Disrupt Africa, which describes itself as a one-stop-shop for news, information and commentary pertaining to the continent’s tech startup – and investment – ecosystem, reported on a new hub and entrepreneurship development centre in Somalia, the first such project to launch there.

The Gambia also saw its first tech hub open, when Jokkolabs expanded to the country launching a space in the capital Banjul.

Also in 2015, Nigerian billionaire Tony Elumelu threw open the doors for applications to the US$100 million Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP), while Paris-based incubator NUMA expanded its operations to Africa, launching in Casablanca, Morocco.