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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | DAKAR (IDN) – Can a fish and peanut-based economy ramp up to become a world-class industrial powerhouse when money is tight and oil discoveries may not bring the hoped-for rewards?
That’s the question for Senegalese people to consider as hopes placed in their president, Macky Sall, and his “Plan for an Emerging Senegal” sputter forward.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – As the number of cases of the coronavirus inched up in Africa this summer, another number was reaching new heights with less notice.
In Nigeria, Liberia, Morocco and South Africa, protestors have been taking to the streets demanding urgent action against the surge in rape and sexual violence against women. But it is hardly an African problem.
“African countries are not unique in this pattern of increased gender-based violence during the pandemic,” noted feminist writer Rosebell Kagumire and human rights lawyer Vivian Ouya in an online Al Jazeera opinion piece.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – This year’s Goethe Medal has been awarded to African writer and publisher Zukiswa Wanner, Elvira Espejo Ayca of Bolivia and Ian McEwan of the U.K. for their commitment to international cultural exchange.
Zukiswa, a writer, journalist and publisher, is the author of the novels The Madams (2006), Behind Every Successful Man (2008), Men of the South (2010). and two children's books, Jama Loves Bananas and Refilwe. As an essayist, she wrote “The Politics of Race, Class, and Identity in Education” and 2011 Mail & Guardian’s book of Women Introductory essay, “Being a Woman in South Africa”.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been ousted from power, removed by troops unwilling to keep up a bloody fight against jihadists and religious extremists who have been gaining ground while charges of corruption against the government continue to pile up.
The “mutinous” army had been taking heavy casualties in the seemingly endless fighting despite vast quantities of international support, training and intelligence pouring in from the U.S., and France. The United Nations alone spends $11.2 billion annually on a peacekeeping mission with 16,600 peacekeepers.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) – Two United Nations agencies have warned that about 3.3 million people in Burkina Faso are facing acute food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cited alarming new data, and the World Food Programme (WFP), stressed that “urgent and sustained action” is needed to address the worsening food and nutrition situation throughout the landlocked West African country.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – “Feminism: Our Bodies, Our Truths” will take centre stage at the upcoming South African Book Fair taking place virtually from September 11-13 at the culmination of South Africa’s National Book Week.
Featured speakers include Mishumo Maduma, Terry-Ann Adams, Jen Thorpe and Anelile Gibixego in discussion with Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele on how women’s bodies filter their life experiences and can be tools for conformity or resistance.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Good news is rare for those toiling to save the environment, but environmentalists could finally share the excitement of hard-won success.
The government of Cameroon announced on August 14 it was cancelling plans to log some 170,000 acres of the Ebo Forest, home to hundreds of rare plant and animal species, including the tool-using Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee, the western gorilla and giant frogs.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Death sentences are rare in northern Nigeria where Sharia law is implemented alongside secular law in most states.
But the recent sentence of a 22-year-old singer to die by hanging has revived an emotional debate in the West African nation. An upper Sharia court in the Hausawa Filin Hockey area of Kano state ruled on August 10 that Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, 22, should die by hanging for the crime of blasphemy for a song he circulated via WhatsApp in March.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Citizen activists in two West African countries, Ivory Coast and Guinea, are rallying their troops on social media to defend the constitutional limit of two terms which current office-holding presidents seem determined to defy.
In Abidjan, the Ivory Coast’s commercial capital, police have been firing teargas to disperse opponents of President Alassane Ouattara, who says he was asked to run for a third term of five years by the ruling party after the sudden demise of his hand-picked successor Amadou Gon Coulibaly from a heart attack in July.
The constitution limits presidents to two five-year terms.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – South Africa, with a population of about 58 million, has the fifth-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. It has become the country with the highest number of infections on the continent.
Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize announced 10,107 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s cumulative total to 503,290, including 8,153 deaths.
South Africa’s Gauteng province — which includes Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and Pretoria, the capital — is the country’s epicenter with more than 35% of its confirmed cases.
Health experts say the country could reach the peak of its outbreak in late August or early September.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.