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By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN (IDN) — Germany has taken a historic step toward addressing colonial injustice. It has agreed to return valuable bronzes to Nigeria. More than 1100 fascinating bronzes pillaged from the former Kingdom of Benin (today's Nigeria) are stored for some 125 years in the stockrooms and collections of 20 German museums. These are not only magnificent artefacts. They are some of Africa’s greatest treasures.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | LUANDA (IDN) — Colonial powers from east to west all played a role in subjugating the southern African nation of Angola over a stretch of 500 years until independence was achieved on November 5, 1975. Agostinho Neto, a politician, physician and poet, was the first to hold the presidency. After his death in 1979, Jose Eduardo dos Santos assumed the post.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | NAIROBI (IDN) — The former prime minister and a frontrunner in the August 9 presidential election, Raila Odinga, has tapped Martha Wangari Karua, a former justice and constitutional affairs minister, as his running mate—making her the first woman in Kenya to run on a major political party’s presidential ticket.
It is believed she can pull in a decisive number of votes among her Kikuyu people, the country’s largest ethnic group.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | CAPETOWN (IDN) — Almost three decades since the end of apartheid, South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world—where the richest 10 per cent of the population owns more than 85% per cent of household wealth—a gap higher than any other country for which sufficient data is available.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | LONDON (IDN) — As the United Kingdom moves ahead with the planned deportation of asylum seekers to the faraway nation of Rwanda, Prince Charles has privately described the plans as “appalling”, according to two media reports. The first flight taking refugees to the East African country is due to leave on June 14.
The UK’s controversial deal to relocate certain asylum seekers thousands of miles away is not for offshore processing but as a permanent destination. It symbolizes the broader policy push that some high-income countries are taking to dump migration management far away from their shores.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | MOSCOW (IDN) — African Union chair Macky Sall, after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has urged western and European “partners” to remove their sanctions hurting African economies.
Senegalese president Sall underscored the pain resulting from the barrage of international sanctions on Russia which have disrupted supplies of fertilizer, wheat, and other commodities, pushing up prices for food and fuel.
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | HARARE (IDN) — Several reports monitored this month confirmed that Russians have abandoned their lucrative platinum project contract that was signed for US$3 billion in September 2014, the platinum mine in the sun-scorched location about 50 km northwest of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Reasons for the abrupt termination of the bilateral contract have still not been made public, but Zimbabwe's Centre for Natural Resource Governance pointed to a lack of capital for the project. So, the site has been abandoned since early 2021.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The anti-corruption agency of the Democratic Republic of Congo has identified numerous irregularities in the management of the state-owned mining company, Gecamines, which it says has caused the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The report covered the years 2010 to 2020 and was completed on May 31, according to the weekly Jeune Afrique which first published the findings.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | ABUJA (IDN) — For one Nigerian novelist, the pomp and circuses filling the streets of London on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s 70th year on the throne, brought back memories of her parents’ generation, born and raised under colonialism.
Thrilled to see the British leave Nigeria on October 1, 1960, they finally had control of their government—no longer subject to a foreign empire and its monarchy.
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | HARARE (IDN) — Humanitarian aid issues are increasingly dominating the foreign policy priorities of the Russian Federation, but such charitable supplies are only reaching Soviet-era allied countries where top-level Russian delegations frequently visit in Africa. Early June, the Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Valentina Matviyenko, headed a group of Russian senators on a reciprocal inter-parliamentary visit to Harare, Zimbabwe.
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