Africa

Photo: Paul Rusesabagina. Wikimedia Commons.

Film Hero from Movie Hotel Rwanda Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina has been sentenced to 25 years in prison on terror charges despite pleas from human rights watchdogs and other critics of Rwanda’s repressive government to lessen the judgement or cancel it.

Rusesabagina was credited with sheltering more than a thousand ethnic Tutsis during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and was a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. He boycotted the announcement of the verdict after calling the trial a “sham.”

: Global Information Network; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 01 October 2021

Photo. 1986 Nobel Prize winner in Literature Wole Soyinka during a lecture at Stockholm Public Library on October 4, 2018. CC BY-SA 4.0

Nobel Laureate Soyinka’s ‘Searing Political Satire’ Of Nigeria Today

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — The first Black African laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature has a precious gift for his place of birth. It’s a new book, his first novel in 50 years, scheduled to land on the 60th anniversary of Nigerian independence.

“I wanted this to be my present to the nation,” the 87-year-old Wole Soyinka told a reporter in a recent interview. “To the people who live here: both the governed and those who govern, the exploiters and the exploited.”

: Global Information Network; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 01 October 2021

Photo: Mrs Baptista S. Gebu, Executive Director of ProHumane Afrique International.

Africa Needs to Do a Lot More to Combat Gender Discrimination and Violence

Interview with ProHumane Afrique International's Executive Director

MOSCOW (IDN) — Globally, violence against women and girls persists. Besides, there are all kinds of gender discrimination. Some governments are steadily making efforts to eradicate violence and discrimination using legislation, and supporting public platforms devoted to discussing these. In this interview with Kester Kenn Klomegah* of IDN-InDepthNews, Mrs. Baptista S. Gebu, Executive Director of ProHumane Afrique International, discusses the situation of women and girls in the Republic of Ghana in West Africa.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; OPINION; 30 September 2021

Photo: OACPS Secretary General Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti. Credit: OACPS

A Climate Awakening Is Urgently Needed to Save The World’s Most Vulnerable

Viewpoint by Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti

The writer is Secretary-General of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).

BRUSSELS (IDN) — Time is fast running out for millions of peoples living in situations of high risk where lives, livelihoods and a safe, secure place to live are all at stake.

Extreme climate and weather-related devastation is occurring at unprecedented scales, frequencies and intensities. We need only to look at the headlines of recent months to see the onslaught of drought, wildfires, hurricanes, torrential rains and floods right across the Blue Planet—North; South; East; West.

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 26 September 2021

Photo: The DRC government is planning to lift a moratorium on new logging concessions that threatens some of the last intact tropical forest on earth, Forest protection in DR Congo. Credit: Greenpeace.

NGOs Urge Donor Governments to Intervene to Stop New Logging Plans on The Congo Rainforest

By Devendra Kamarajan

NAIROBI | KINSHASA (IDN) — Ahead of international donors announcing a 1 USD billion forest protection agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo, NGOs are urging that such funding for the Central African country should be conditional on a moratorium on any logging concessions, reports Greenpeace. The ban has stood since 2002 but the DRC government is apparently planning to lift the moratorium.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 24 September 2021

Report Censures Facebook for Promoting Human Trafficking

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

New York (IDN) — False or misleading posts on Facebook and Instagram are being blamed for enabling human traffickers who recruit African women to be ferried to Saudi Arabia and other countries with promises of visas and jobs.

Instead, the women are held captive, denied access to food and forced to perform sex acts in massage parlours, according to internal investigations published recently in the Wall Street Journal.

: SUSTAINABILITY; Decent Work & Economic Growth; 20 September 2021

Photo: President George Manneh Weah, his wife and entourage.

Liberia To Mark Year-Long Bicentennial Celebration Beginning January 2022

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

New York (IDN) — On February 5, 1820, the first organized group of emigrating freed slaves departed from New York to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa.

Next year, Liberia will mark the date with a bicentennial celebration beginning January 2022 and running through December 2022, according to a recent announcement by President George Manneh Weah.

: THE WORLD; Africa; 20 September 2021

Photo: Herero prisoners of war, around 1900. CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Germany’s Forgotten Genocide in Namibia

Viewpoint by Adekeye Adebajo

Professor Adekeye Adebajo is Director of the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation in South Africa.

JOHANNESBURG (IDN) — As some world leaders gather in New York for their annual United Nations General Assembly rituals, the September 22 debate on “Reparations, Racial Justice, and Equality for People of African Descent” to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2001 Durban Racism Conference, will be particularly significant. While at the Durban conference itself, the issue of reparations was not allowed to be debated by former Western slaver and imperial powers, this issue is now firmly on the agenda.

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 17 September 2021

Photo: A market in Igwuruta, Nigeria's Rivers State, which has started a war with the Federal Government over the collection of Value Added Taxes (VAT). CC BY-SA 4.0

A VAT War Between Nigeria's Federal Govt. and Rivers State

Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene

The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.

ABUJA (IDN) — The guns of Nigeria’s three-year civil war were silenced 51 years ago, but in the battle for a truly federal state, the echoes of warfare have never been more resonant.

On August 10, Rivers State, which at an average monthly federal receipt of N12b, is the third richest by dole amongst Nigeria’s poor 36 states, started a war with the Federal Government over the collection of Value Added Taxes (VAT).

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 16 September 2021

Photo: Two women are shown better farming techniques at one of a hundred gardens in Cape Town made possible through the Albalami Bezehkaya voluntary association, supported with funding from Australia. The gardens help improve food security through improving production and generating income for the farmers involved. Kate Holt/AusAID

USAID’s Agricultural Transformation for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems

By Henry Prillaman

The writer is a student at the University of Virginia and an Intern at the High Atlas Foundation.

NAIROBI, Kenya (IDN) — I attended the 2021 pre-summit for the world’s premier forum for African agriculture, the Agricultural Transformation for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems (AGRF). The forum consisted of many great speakers and commentators discussing different parts of African agriculture, from the fiscal and political side to the implementation and community side.