Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Nigeria is a veritable factory of sophisticated novelists. It was no surprise that Ben Okri won the British Booker Prize that goes annually to the best novelist of the year. Considering that high-class novel writing in English only began in Nigeria in 1958 with Chinua Achebe’s famous […]
African Leaders Put Rich Nations on Notice That Days of Cheap Resources Are Ending
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | CAPE TOWN (IDN) – African leaders had a new message for foreign companies seeking the diamonds, gold, rubies and emeralds so plentiful in desperate dirt-poor countries and so pricey when polished and sold in New York, Paris and Switzerland. We’re no longer a cheap date. That […]
Emeralds, Rubies Could Make Zambia Rich
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – Foreign mining companies extract more than a quarter of the world’s production of rare emeralds in Zambia yet, in some quarters, are alleged to declare losses to make themselves tax exempt. So far, charges of tax evasion filed against Kagem mine, a subsidiary of the […]
U.S. Hits Ghana With Visa Sanctions In Spat Over Deportees
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department say they will no longer issue visas for certain Ghanaians owing to a “lack of cooperation” by the West African nation – namely its refusal to accept 7,000 Ghanaian nationals that the U.S. wants to […]
Remembering Dumisani Kumalo, Anti-Apartheid Campaigner And South Africa’s Leading Diplomat
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – In an interview for the book No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists Over a Half Century, Dumisani Kumalo recalled the struggle to cut off the U.S. funds that were sustaining the apartheid government of South Africa. “I spoke to more than 1,000 campuses […]
Ghana Rolls Out The Red Carpet To Encourage Resettlement In The Motherland
By Benjamin Tetteh, Africa Renewal ACCRA (IDN-INPS) – In the heart of Accra, Ghana’s capital, just a few meters from the United States embassy, lie the tombs of W. E. B. Du Bois, a great African-American civil rights leader, and his wife, Shirley. The founder of the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored […]
Perils Of A Journey From Eritrea Through Libya To Europe
Migrants’ Search For Greener Pastures Carry Deadly Consequences By Franck Kuwonu and Louise Donavan This article first appeared on Africa Renewal, December 2018-March 2019 issue. NEW YORK | NIAMEY (IDN-INPS) – Alone in Niger, the young man sits, filled with regrets. “I didn’t necessarily want to come this far,” he says with anguish. “Khartoum may have […]
Suspension Of Top Judge Casts A Dark Shadow Over Forthcoming Elections In Nigeria
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | LAGOS (IDN) – Efforts to clean up government – difficult in the best of times – were hamstrung by none other than Nigeria’s top judge accused of failing to declare hundreds of thousands of dollars that ‘suspiciously’ appear in his accounts but were never declared as […]
The African Music Community Mourns Tuku’s Death
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | HARARE (IDN) – After 67 albums and a score of awards and honorary degrees, Zimbabwe’s musical legend Oliver Mtudkudzi – affectionately known as ‘Tuku’ – lost his long battle with diabetes at the Avenues Clinic in Harare. He was 66. He was buried January 27, with […]
Uganda Hosts Africa’s Largest Refugee Population
By Sulaiman Momodu The writer is a public information officer with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR. This article first appeared on Africa Renewal, December 2018-March 2019 issue. KAMPALA (IDN-INPS) – As thousands of desperate men, women and children flee conflicts and natural disasters in search of a place of refuge, some countries are debating whether […]