Africa

Trump's Conservative Nominee For Post In Kenya Gets Grilling

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Democrats are challenging President Trump’s nominee from the Midwestern state of Illinois for the post of U.S. ambassador to Kenya. State Sen. Kyle McCarter’s conservative views run the gamut from opposition to gay rights, restrictions on immigration and locking up former Senator Hillary Clinton.

A White House media release said McCarter would be "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Kenya."

The post requires Senate confirmation. State Sen. McCarter was questioned by members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 August 2018

Photo: #TheTotalShutdown organisers said they were seeking legal advice after they were instructed to hand themselves over to the police. Credit: Alaister Russel | Times Live, South Africa's news website.

South African Women March Against Gender-Based Violence

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | PRETORIA (IDN) – Thousands of women and gender activists joined together on the first day of Women's Month to protest the rising incidence of gender-based violence across the country.

The movement's Brenda Madumise said the marchers, under the banner #TheTotalShutdown, were taking control of their destiny.

"We are saying that we had enough,” said Patience Mpani from the Center for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. “We are dying every day and we cannot continue to live like this. It can't be business as usual in South Africa when women are dying every day."

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 August 2018

Photo credit: Transparency International

Stakes High in Returning Nigerians' Stolen Millions

By Kwame Buist

LONDON (IDN) – Of the estimated 20-40 billion dollars stolen annually from developing countries and hidden abroad every year, a small proportion is sometimes successfully confiscated and returned to the country it came from.

However, where institutions of accountability do not work well, this poses a complex problem: how to make sure that the money is not embezzled again, and actually benefits the real victims of corruption – the ordinary people whose state finances were plundered.

Take one case, Nigeria, where plans are under way to distribute 322 million dollars recovered in Switzerland from the late General Sani Abacha, the country’s former military ruler who is suspected of looting between three and five billion dollars in public money.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 August 2018

Photo: Members of the Hadzabe community in Manyara region making bows for hunting. The group is among beneficiaries of the mapping project run by the Ujamaa Community Resources Team. Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

Tanzania's Indigenous Communities Racing to Secure Land Eyed by Investors

By Kizito Makoye

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – Helena Magafu smiled as she held a piece of paper that recognizes her as the sole owner of a disputed farmland in her village was handed over to her, thus resolving a raging dispute with her neighbours.

"I am very happy, I don’t think anyone with ever again claim this is their land," she said

For the past eight years the 53 year-old widow, who lives in Sanje village in the rural district of Kilombero – in Morogoro Region, south-western Tanzania – has been embroiled in a dispute with her neighbours who attempted to take 30 hectares of her family land when her husband died.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 05 August 2018

Photo: Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Chair of the Sanctions Committee on Somalia and Eritrea and Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Horn of Africa on 30 July 2018. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.

Kazakh Chair of UN Sanctions Committee Calls for Support to Peace in Horn of Africa

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Applauding the landmark rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, ending two decades of hostility, the UN Security Council has called for providing all necessary support to build peace in the Horn of Africa. The appeal came in the briefing on July 30 on the Council's recent visit to the region by the Sanctions Committee on Eritrea and Somalia, which Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan's Permanent Representative to the UN headquarters in New York, chairs.

Umarov welcomed the July 9 signing of the Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship by President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, as well as the July 28 visit by Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo to Asmara. In the reporting period, March 14 and July 30, 2018, the Committee also attended meetings in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia, Umarov said.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 02 August 2018

Photo: Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed wants the diaspora to tear down the wall of hatred and bring home the culture of innovation. Source: ECADF

Ethiopian PM Sparks Euphoria In A Whirlwind U.S. Trip

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – It’s been called 'Abiy-mania' – an impulse to reach out and hug the young new Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, who brought an end to his country's two-decade-long war with Eritrea and other sweeping changes in the Horn of Africa.

The 41-year old Ethiopian leader landed in the United States on July 26 where he met with thousands of his countrymen and women and reiterated his message of love and unity. "He urged them to tear down the wall of hatred and bring home the culture of innovation that Los Angeles is known for," his chief of staff wrote on Twitter.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 July 2018

Photo: LandInfo App training in Nakuru, the fourth-largest city in Kenya after Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Credit: ATPS.

African Experts Decry Information Gap on Climate Change

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (IDN) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in Africa are being undermined by lack of information on climate issues among the public, policy-makers and leaders in Africa, leading to poor and delayed decision making as well as untimely undertaking of remedial actions.

This emerged during a Regional Climate Change Dialogue and Training Workshop organised by the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) held on June 25-27, 2018 in Nairobi.

ATPS is a trans-disciplinary network of researchers, policy-makers, private sector actors and the civil society that promotes the generation, dissemination, use and mastery of science technology in Africa.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 July 2018

Photo: VW Polo assembled in Rwanda in the showroom. Credit: ktpress.rw

Rwanda President Launches VW's Car Assembly Plant in Kigali

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | KIGALI (IDN) – You'll see plenty of Volvos, Mercedes, Hondas, Toyotas and even a Ford Windstar tootling around the booming cities of Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg.

But these foreign cars were no spring chickens when they arrived in Africa after years of use. Often they had to be totally rebuilt in order to sell at top dollar. Only six cars claim to be made in Africa but Asian origins belie that claim.

Now, at a launching ceremony attended by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, the first domestically built car has rolled off the assembly line at Volkswagen's new factory in Kigali. With 5,000 cars envisioned for the first phase, VW aims both to sell cars and use them in the Uber-like car-sharing system.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 25 July 2018

Photo: More than 35,000 rural households in Kenya will soon be eating better and earning more money thanks to a new financial agreement signed by the IFAD and Kenya in support of the country’s aquaculture sector. Credit: IFAD

Stories Behind IFAD's Focus on Africa

By Kwame Buist

ROME (IDN) – In its recently released Annual Report 2017, the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) – a specialised agency of the United Nations dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries – promises to leverage core resources of 1.2 billion dollars to fund a programme of loans and grants totalling 3.5 billion dollars over the 2019-2021 period.

Ninety percent of these core resources will be allocated to low-income and lower-middle-income countries, with about 45 percent being channelled to sub-Saharan Africa, and 50 percent to Africa as a whole.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 21 July 2018

Photo: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet Paul Biya, President of the Republic of Cameroon, and Chantal Biya. Credit: U.S. Department of State.

Why Must President Biya Follow President Robert Mugabe?

By LIsa Vives | Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Cameroon's President Paul Biya is seriously considering a re-election bid despite having served 36 years in the job and despite approaching 90 years of age. The President-for-Life syndrome is sadly alive and well. An editorial in the Liberian Daily Observer expressed on July 16 its frustration in dramatic fashion.

The text of the editorial follows.

It was announced late last week (July 13, 2018) that Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, has said he would run for re-election in October, in a bid to further extend his 36-year term of office. If re-elected, Biya would, like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, be well into his 90s as president.