NEWSBRIEFS

Photo: Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina in Nairobi, Kenya, on January 27, 2014. Source: The East African

A Pioneering Voice in African Literature Dies

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activist, has died in Nairobi after a short illness. He was 48.

Wainaina won the 2002 Caine prize for African writing. Credited with founding the literary magazine and collective Kwani? and advancing the fight for LGBTQ rights in Africa, he made headlines around the world in 2014, when he responded to a wave of anti-gay laws around the continent by publicly outing himself in a short essay, published to mark his 43rd birthday.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 May 2019

Photo: Rejoicing at Ex-President Omar al-Bashir's arrest. Source: Internet

Ex-President of Sudan Faces Formal Charges of Murder

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – From the presidency to prisoner behind bars, former President Omar al-Bashir now faces formal charges of murder in the latest development to spring from a massive turnout of Sudanese people demanding civilian rule.

"Omar al-Bashir and others have been charged for inciting and participating in the killing of demonstrators," the office of Sudan's acting prosecutor general, Al-Waleed Sayyed Ahmed, announced on May 13.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 14 May 2019

Photo: Poster of Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

South African National Congress Wins 57.5 Percent of Vote

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Frustrated with the failures of the ruling African National Congress, South Africans gave the ANC its lowest turnout since 2004 when it took a record 69 percent of the vote. The ANC won a sixth straight term but with the worst ever electoral showing for the iconic party. Voter turnout was low. Thousands of youth did not even bother to register.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 14 May 2019

Photo: Landslides due to flooding are a major concern in the Mahate neighbourhood of Pemba after Cyclone Kenneth swept across northern Mozambique. Credit: OCHA/Saviano Abreu

Oil Barons Bid Billions for Energy Giant While Mozambique Fatalities Spike

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – The back-to-back cyclones that have ravaged Mozambique are unprecedented in recorded history, according to the UN. As more villages are wiped away, a multi-billion-dollar bidding war is heating up in foreign board rooms among multinationals eager to extract Mozambican oil. Top bid so far by Occidental Petroleum Corp has reached $57 billion.

The fantastic sums changing hands are between Anadarko which owns the wells, Chevron and Occidental, hopeful buyers. Donations for relief and rescue, however, are far below satisfactory, according to foreign charitable organizations like CARE.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 April 2019

Photo: Sudanese women preparing songs to celebrate ouster of O. al-Bashir

Sudanese Demands for a Civilian Government Remain Firm

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Protests that began over the skyrocketing price of bread and shortages of food and fuel have accomplished what few people believed was possible in a country ruled by a leader with an iron fist.

A Sudanese people’s movement was born on the streets of Khartoum. Hundreds of thousands of women and men hunkered down and braved attacks by anti-riot police.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 17 April 2019

Photo: Malian women protesting massacre of Fulanis. Credit: Hilltop Monitor

Senior Malian Officers Removed from Posts After Massacre of Fulani Herdsmen

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Jihadist groups dislodged from Middle East battlegrounds are reportedly regrouping in West Africa, exploiting longstanding grievances between the Dogon farmers and the Puelh-Fulani nomadic herdsmen of Mali over access to limited supplies of land and water.

A militia in Dogon attire entered Ogossagou, a Fulani village and suspected jihadi hideout at about 4 a.m. local time and murdered over 100 men, women and children.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 March 2019

Photo: President Félix Tshisekedi (left) and predecessor Joseph Kabila (right). Credit: DR.

DR Congo President Resists Latest Power Grab by Predecessor

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Joseph Kabila, ex-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, may have gone once too often to the cookie jar, taking back one by one all of the powers and rights earned by his successor from a recent election, Felix Tshisekedi.

President Tshisekedi may have had enough.

After a disputed vote that gave the former president’s allies an overwhelming majority in the upper house of parliament, 80 out of 100 seats, while the actual president’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress party (UDPS) gained only three, the newly-named senators were blocked from taking office in a surprise move by President Tshisekedi.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 19 March 2019

Photo: Joseph Hammond, aged 91, is a Commonwealth veteran from Ghana who fought for Britain in WWII. Credit: DFID

African WWII Vets Seek Formal Apology, Compensation From UK

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LONDON (IDN) – The UK government is coming under pressure to compensate and apologize to the last surviving African veterans who fought alongside white British soldiers in the Second World War that began 80 years ago and lasted six years.

More than half a million black African soldiers who fought in the British army were paid up to three times less than their white counterparts, a newly unearthed document has revealed, prompting calls for an investigation and the government to compensate surviving veterans.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 20 February 2019

Photo: Voters look for their names in the lists during Presidential and Legislative elections in in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (30 December 2018). Credit: MONUSCO/Alain Likota

Congo's Constitutional Court Declares Tshisekedi Presidential Election Winner

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Democratic Republic of Congo finally has a president. Opposition figure Felix Tshisekedi was declared winner of the presidential race by the DR Congo’s top court on January 20.

The Constitutional Court said Tshisekedi had won by a simple majority, paving the way for him to take over from the current president, Joseph Kabila.

The outcome was challenged by runner-up Martin Fayulu who claimed that the election had been stolen and called on the international community to reject the results.

Election data leaked to some news organizations suggested that he won the vote.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 22 January 2019

Photo: Anti-government protests have rattled Sudan after the government tripled the price of a loaf of bread. Credit: nileinternational.net

African Leaders Confront A 'Blue Wave' Demanding Change

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – When Democrats captured one House seat after another in the U.S. midterm elections, observers brushed it off as a "blue trickle". Later they had to admit: it was a giant blue wave.

Africans are also yearning for change and their frustration is erupting across the continent with a new crop of activists challenging the old order.

In Ethiopia, reforms are already underway since the installation last year of 42-year-old Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Women have been named to some of the government’s key positions – president, chief justice and half of all ministers. Thousands of political prisoners and journalists have been freed while senior officials accused of human rights abuses and corruption no longer enjoy immunity.