Category: THE WORLD

NEW YORK | FREETOWN (IDN | GIN) – At their next meeting in Geneva, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will review reports detailing the obstacles, risks and challenges imposed by governments that limit the prospects for children to succeed.

Among the countries to be reviewed is Sierra Leone whose ban on admitting pregnant girls to mainstream schools was the subject of a briefing paper called “Shamed and Blamed”. Submitted by Amnesty International, it faults the policy expressed by Minister Minkailu Bah that “visibly pregnant girls would be a negative influence to other innocent girls”.

NEW YORK | PRETORIA (IDN | GIN) – Luvo Manyonga was overjoyed with the silver long jump medal awarded him at the Rio Olympic Games on August 14. But the track and field star from Mbekweni township in South Africa has soared over obstacles more than once.

Manyongo grew up in a single parent household in a township still struggling to provide regular services of water, sanitation and electricity. Drugs, guns and violence are never far from the world of young people without jobs or prospects. A few years ago, Manyonga was on the verge of becoming another statistic of this cycle of life.

NEW YORK | ABUJA (IDN | GIN) – A year after Nigeria was removed from the polio-endemic list, two cases have been reported in the northern Borno state, where the terrorist Boko Haram still controls the territory.

The eradication of polio, reported in 2015 by the World Health Organization, was called an “historic achievement” by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a public-private partnership leading the effort to eliminate the disease.

As recently as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide. Since then, a concerted effort by all levels of government, civil society, religious leaders and tens of thousands of dedicated health workers resulted in Nigeria successfully stopping polio.

By Kingsley Ighobor*

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) – A Liberian women’s peace movement led by 31-year-old Leymah Gbowee did something extraordinary in July 2003 to force Liberian warlords to sign a peace agreement that ended 10 years of a bloody civil war.

After months of fruitless negotiations, hundreds of women, members of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, gathered at the venue of the peace talks in Accra, Ghana, and sat at the entrance to the conference hall. They looped their hands and vowed to stop the warlords from leaving the venue until they had reached a peace agreement.

PRETORIA (IDN | GIN) – It was a long night for the African National Congress (ANC) party faithful as a popular revolt in the cities of Tshwane (Pretoria) and Port Elizabeth upended its long-held power base in those two key municipalities.

The ANC was beaten in working-class “black township” areas such as Mamelodi in Tshwane, and Motherwell in Port Elizabeth.

By Rodrigo Pérez

RIO DE JANEIRO (IDN-INPS) – Beneath the glitz and glamour, the Samba and Rio’s Carnival-like atmosphere, this year’s Olympic Games Opening Ceremony showcased the most impossible sounding dream of all – Africa’s Great Green Wall.

The initiative started a decade ago. Once completed it will be the largest man-made structure on Earth and a new Wonder of the World.

The progress made shows that land restoration efforts on a mass scale are both possible and offer hope. Senegal has already planted 12 million trees, Ethiopia has restored 15 million hectares of degraded land and Nigeria has created 20,000 jobs in rural areas.