POLITICS OF SECURITY AND CONFLICT ISSUES
West Africa: According to the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Muslims in the
nation have rejected attempts by Al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups to procreate their cells in Nigeria.
The international community has been increasing pressure on Ivory Coast to hold a presidential election and end the seven year old political and security crisis. The opposition too has called for long delayed polls to be held by March this year after a civil war which has allowed President Laurent Gbagbo to stay in power for a decade without seeking a second term. Meanwhile investigators have concluded that a voters' list being drawn up for polls deferred five times after the failed 2002 coup is marred by "fraud".
South Africa: Last week in an interview Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Tsvangirai said that early elections could be the only way to solve the country's political problems.
Meanwhile a South African nuclear expert Kelvin Kemm has urged the government to go ahead with the development of the pebble bed modular reactor nuclear technology.
The Executive Secretary of SADC (Southern African Development Community), Tomas Salomao, believes that the political factions in Madagascar will return to the negotiating table very soon to achieve a lasting solution to the crisis that erupted last March when the mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, seized power.
East Africa: An official of the Southern Sudan government has said the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is not putting pressure on the party’s independent candidates for governor to withdraw ahead of the scheduled April general election.
Last week the head of the joint African Union/United Nations mission in Darfur joined the efforts in Doha to broker a peace deal between Sudan's government and Darfuri rebels.
Somalia's U.N.-supported Transitional Federal Government marked its one-year anniversary under former Islamist opposition leader Sharif Sheik Ahmed last week amid one of the most intense insurgent attacks in the capital in months.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: Last week Nigeria's influential state governors backed a proposal for Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to become acting head and end a vacuum following President Umaru Yar'Adua's lengthy hospitalization abroad. Meanwhile the fast crumbling President’s camp received further heat as some young professional ministers have resolved to break ranks with the hawks in the Federal Executive Council. Amidst these traumatic times
Amidst growing instability oil company Royal Dutch Shell cut back production in Nigeria last week just hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), the main rebel group in the oil-rich southeast, declared it would no longer abide by a ceasefire it agreed to last year. Meanwhile Muslim-Christian violence has drawn a threat of jihad from an al-Qaeda-linked group.
Rebels in Senegal's restive Casamance region have forced nearly 600 people to leave their villages and flee to neighboring Guinea-Bissau. Meanwhile in Guinea the new prime minister has said that a presidential election meant to bring civilian rule may not be held within six months. Also in a shifting balance of power a military hard-liner and vocal supporters of Guinea’s exiled coup leader, Colonel Moussa Keita was arrested last week.
Togo has lodged a legal complaint against the African Football Confederation (CAF) and a rebel group behind a deadly attack on the team as it traveled to the African Nations Cup in Angola last month.
A federal court in the United States has ordered the son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to pay more than US$22 million in damages to five people tortured by his paramilitary unit during Liberia's civil war
A New UN Gender Equality Initiative was launched to enhance cooperation among all stakeholders in the West African region. Meanwhile last week A Geneva-based housing rights group urged Nigerian authorities to provide "adequate emergency shelter" for thousands of people displaced by deadly violence in the central city of Jos.
South Africa: A two-year land audit due to begin in Zimbabwe in February has been put in doubt following an angry reaction from President Robert Mugabe's allies and more attacks on white farmers in the region.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe's civil servants, in a serious blow to the year-old unity government, went on strike last week demanding higher wages.
East Africa: In Kenya Human rights activists have hailed a landmark ruling by the Gambia-based African Commission on Human and People's Rights, ordering the Kenyan government to take steps to return land to a group of indigenous people forced out by the government in the 1970s from Lake Bogoria, one of the top tourist destinations in the country.
Meanwhile the corruption watchdog Transparency International last week blasted Kenya's draft constitution and warned that unless lawmakers deliver an improved version, the country could collapse into a failed state.
U.S. President Barack Obama has sharply criticized an anti-gay bill in Uganda that would impose the death penalty in some cases.
Meanwhile in yet another incident of piracy The European Union's anti-piracy naval force has reported that Somali pirates have hijacked a North Korean-flagged cargo ship. Meanwhile in another incident Danish Special Forces serving as part of Nato's counter-piracy operation freed the crew of a cargo ship boarded by pirates off Somalia.
An African Union summit has given the organization more authority to act against unconstitutional changes of power, Coups and conflicts in the region are dominating the summit agenda this week.
Meanwhile 33 Burundian soldiers accused of mutinying while serving in Somalia as peacekeepers have gone on trial. They are charged with refusing to obey orders in January 2009 in a protest over their salaries.
Central Africa: Rwanda and nine other African countries have been elected as the new members of the African Union (AU)'s Peace and Security Council (PSC).
HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: In Benin cholera has killed five people in the past two weeks in a rare dry-season outbreak. Meanwhile the U.N. Children's Fund says it needs more than $263 million for emergency funding in West and Central Africa this year because of flooding, higher food prices, and outbreaks of disease including cholera, measles, yellow fever, and meningitis.
South Africa: South Africans have reacted strongly to allegations that President Jacob Zuma's fathered a child out of wedlock, highlighting a gaping cultural divide that has triggered debate in the HIV plagued country. Following the scandal two Christian political parties have also urged the President to resign.
East Africa: The Rwanda Rural Rehabilitation Initiative (RWARRI) has awarded items and cash prizes to primary and secondary school pupils in Kayonza for sensitizing local communities on climate change.
Meanwhile Kenya faces stiff competition from Tanzania as a tourist destination of choice in the East African region. The two countries are locked in a tight scramble for international tourists and revenue, even as East African Community partner states prepare to market the region as a single tourist destination.
Central Africa: In Rwanda as part of the continuous effort to eliminate the country's nutritional problems, Health Minister Dr. Richard Sezibera has called upon experts to advice on policy regarding use of food fortification as a way of increasing availability of micro nutrients.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
West Africa: Nigeria plans to sell oilfield assets this year containing as much as 2 billion barrels of reserves either relinquished by Western firms or unsold in three previous bidding rounds.
South Africa: South African trade unions are up in arms over visas granted to over 50 construction workers from mainland China who are building new premises for the Chinese consulate in Cape Town.
Central Africa: MTN Rwanda has finally launched the much anticipated 'Mobile Money' product, through the use of cell phones, targeting 100,000 subscribers in 2010. §
West Africa: According to the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Muslims in the
nation have rejected attempts by Al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups to procreate their cells in Nigeria.The international community has been increasing pressure on Ivory Coast to hold a presidential election and end the seven year old political and security crisis. The opposition too has called for long delayed polls to be held by March this year after a civil war which has allowed President Laurent Gbagbo to stay in power for a decade without seeking a second term. Meanwhile investigators have concluded that a voters' list being drawn up for polls deferred five times after the failed 2002 coup is marred by "fraud".
South Africa: Last week in an interview Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Tsvangirai said that early elections could be the only way to solve the country's political problems.
Meanwhile a South African nuclear expert Kelvin Kemm has urged the government to go ahead with the development of the pebble bed modular reactor nuclear technology.
The Executive Secretary of SADC (Southern African Development Community), Tomas Salomao, believes that the political factions in Madagascar will return to the negotiating table very soon to achieve a lasting solution to the crisis that erupted last March when the mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, seized power.
East Africa: An official of the Southern Sudan government has said the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is not putting pressure on the party’s independent candidates for governor to withdraw ahead of the scheduled April general election.
Last week the head of the joint African Union/United Nations mission in Darfur joined the efforts in Doha to broker a peace deal between Sudan's government and Darfuri rebels.
Somalia's U.N.-supported Transitional Federal Government marked its one-year anniversary under former Islamist opposition leader Sharif Sheik Ahmed last week amid one of the most intense insurgent attacks in the capital in months.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: Last week Nigeria's influential state governors backed a proposal for Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to become acting head and end a vacuum following President Umaru Yar'Adua's lengthy hospitalization abroad. Meanwhile the fast crumbling President’s camp received further heat as some young professional ministers have resolved to break ranks with the hawks in the Federal Executive Council. Amidst these traumatic times
Amidst growing instability oil company Royal Dutch Shell cut back production in Nigeria last week just hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), the main rebel group in the oil-rich southeast, declared it would no longer abide by a ceasefire it agreed to last year. Meanwhile Muslim-Christian violence has drawn a threat of jihad from an al-Qaeda-linked group.
Rebels in Senegal's restive Casamance region have forced nearly 600 people to leave their villages and flee to neighboring Guinea-Bissau. Meanwhile in Guinea the new prime minister has said that a presidential election meant to bring civilian rule may not be held within six months. Also in a shifting balance of power a military hard-liner and vocal supporters of Guinea’s exiled coup leader, Colonel Moussa Keita was arrested last week.
Togo has lodged a legal complaint against the African Football Confederation (CAF) and a rebel group behind a deadly attack on the team as it traveled to the African Nations Cup in Angola last month.
A federal court in the United States has ordered the son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to pay more than US$22 million in damages to five people tortured by his paramilitary unit during Liberia's civil war
A New UN Gender Equality Initiative was launched to enhance cooperation among all stakeholders in the West African region. Meanwhile last week A Geneva-based housing rights group urged Nigerian authorities to provide "adequate emergency shelter" for thousands of people displaced by deadly violence in the central city of Jos.
South Africa: A two-year land audit due to begin in Zimbabwe in February has been put in doubt following an angry reaction from President Robert Mugabe's allies and more attacks on white farmers in the region.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe's civil servants, in a serious blow to the year-old unity government, went on strike last week demanding higher wages.
East Africa: In Kenya Human rights activists have hailed a landmark ruling by the Gambia-based African Commission on Human and People's Rights, ordering the Kenyan government to take steps to return land to a group of indigenous people forced out by the government in the 1970s from Lake Bogoria, one of the top tourist destinations in the country.
Meanwhile the corruption watchdog Transparency International last week blasted Kenya's draft constitution and warned that unless lawmakers deliver an improved version, the country could collapse into a failed state.
U.S. President Barack Obama has sharply criticized an anti-gay bill in Uganda that would impose the death penalty in some cases.
Meanwhile in yet another incident of piracy The European Union's anti-piracy naval force has reported that Somali pirates have hijacked a North Korean-flagged cargo ship. Meanwhile in another incident Danish Special Forces serving as part of Nato's counter-piracy operation freed the crew of a cargo ship boarded by pirates off Somalia.
An African Union summit has given the organization more authority to act against unconstitutional changes of power, Coups and conflicts in the region are dominating the summit agenda this week.
Meanwhile 33 Burundian soldiers accused of mutinying while serving in Somalia as peacekeepers have gone on trial. They are charged with refusing to obey orders in January 2009 in a protest over their salaries.
Central Africa: Rwanda and nine other African countries have been elected as the new members of the African Union (AU)'s Peace and Security Council (PSC).
HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: In Benin cholera has killed five people in the past two weeks in a rare dry-season outbreak. Meanwhile the U.N. Children's Fund says it needs more than $263 million for emergency funding in West and Central Africa this year because of flooding, higher food prices, and outbreaks of disease including cholera, measles, yellow fever, and meningitis.
South Africa: South Africans have reacted strongly to allegations that President Jacob Zuma's fathered a child out of wedlock, highlighting a gaping cultural divide that has triggered debate in the HIV plagued country. Following the scandal two Christian political parties have also urged the President to resign.
East Africa: The Rwanda Rural Rehabilitation Initiative (RWARRI) has awarded items and cash prizes to primary and secondary school pupils in Kayonza for sensitizing local communities on climate change.
Meanwhile Kenya faces stiff competition from Tanzania as a tourist destination of choice in the East African region. The two countries are locked in a tight scramble for international tourists and revenue, even as East African Community partner states prepare to market the region as a single tourist destination.
Central Africa: In Rwanda as part of the continuous effort to eliminate the country's nutritional problems, Health Minister Dr. Richard Sezibera has called upon experts to advice on policy regarding use of food fortification as a way of increasing availability of micro nutrients.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
West Africa: Nigeria plans to sell oilfield assets this year containing as much as 2 billion barrels of reserves either relinquished by Western firms or unsold in three previous bidding rounds.
South Africa: South African trade unions are up in arms over visas granted to over 50 construction workers from mainland China who are building new premises for the Chinese consulate in Cape Town.
Central Africa: MTN Rwanda has finally launched the much anticipated 'Mobile Money' product, through the use of cell phones, targeting 100,000 subscribers in 2010. §
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Business and Politics in the Muslim World (BPM)refers to the project entitled, "Globalized Business and Politics: A View from the Muslim World.' The blog development project has been undertaken and jointly developed by the Gilani Research Foundation and BPM as a free resource and social discussion tool.
Please Preview your comments before posting.
Business and Politics in the Muslim World (BPM)refers to the project entitled, "Globalized Business and Politics: A View from the Muslim World.' The blog development project has been undertaken and jointly developed by the Gilani Research Foundation and BPM as a free resource and social discussion tool.
Please Preview your comments before posting.
