POLITICS OF SECURITY AND CONFLICT ISSUES
West Africa: The challenges and opportunities for Africa's peace and development were the focus of discussions between General Assembly President Ali Treki and Cameroonian President Paul Biya last week.
In Nigeria former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, has called on president, Goodluck Jonathan to abolish the current voters’ register, describing it as a “fraud.”
According to Donald Oji, a Nigerian brigadier general and the leader of the task force Troops of the Special Task Force (STF) on the Jos Crisis, have averted renewed violence in Bukuru, Jos.
Chad has become the 100th nation to agree to give the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) more information about its nuclear activities, which the agency hailed as a milestone in efforts to bolster global nuclear verification efforts.
South Africa: Madagascar's government is accusing former President Marc Ravalomanana of being behind an attempted mutiny last week when security forces battled with a dissident group of military police. Military officials say at least two soldiers were killed and several civilians wounded in the violence in the capital, Antananarivo. The mutineers were said to be angry at alleged abuses by their superiors.
Swaziland’s banned opposition PUDEMO party is demanding an independent inquiry into what they say is the “murder” of a member of the group after he was arrested and imprisoned by security agents.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: One Nigerian was shot dead while after trying to flee from a routine police inspection. 32 Street vendors were detained by police at a popular open-air market after throwing stones and metal objects at custom authorities in reaction to the killing of one of their colleagues. A similar case in Greece in 2007, had led to a massive protest by African immigrants.
Nigerian police routinely carry out summary executions of suspected criminals, use torture to extract confessions from detainees, and rape as an interrogation technique, according to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a rights group, which appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to make good on promises to urgently reform the force.
The 820 prisoners on death row in Nigerian prisons across the country have dragged the 36 state governors and the Comptroller-General of Prisons before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, seeking an order to stop their planned execution. The governors had recently announced that they will start signing execution warrants to kill prisoners sentenced to death, as a way of decongesting prisons in their states.
In Mali a controversial new family law intended to give greater freedoms and rights to women, has been sent back to the National Assembly for a second reading after protests from Muslim radicals.
South Africa: Human Rights Watch has warned in a letter to Zambian leaders that recent homophobic statements by religious leaders and government authorities risk undermining Zambia's fight against HIV/AIDS. Meanwhile a Malawi judge gave the maximum sentence of 14 years to a gay couple convicted of "gross indecency" and unnatural acts. The Malawian minister of information, Leckford Mwanza Thotho said his government is pleased with the conviction.
Amnesty International is accusing Zimbabwe's unity government of failing to compensate hundreds of thousands of people forcibly evicted from their homes in 2005 following a "slum clearance programme",
HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DOMESTIC POLITICS
West Africa: The WHO's baseline estimate for achieving the health-related MDGs is at least 23 health workers per 10,000 people - against an average of 13 in Africa. Shortages of medical staff have been identified by IRIN as one of the major impediments in Chad, Burundi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Mozambique and Niger.
Reports from northern Nigeria say a growing number of people from Niger are crossing the border into Nigeria because of the food crisis at home. Aid agencies have said that about seven million people in Niger - about half the population - are short of food.
South Africa: In Madagascar by mid-May admissions to the malnutrition rehabilitation centre had topped the combined totals for 2008 and '09, and at 117 seemed set to breach the '07 level as well. Meanwhile despite some remaining pockets of food insecurity and fears that a prolonged dry spell would set back Malawi's maize production in 2010, the country looks set to realize another surplus year.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
West Africa: The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had signed an MOU with Chi006Ea State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd. to construct three oil refineries (about 250,000 bbl/day capacity each) and a petrochemical plant. The total cost would reportedly be $28.5 billion. Meanwhile the Nigerian naira weakened to 152.40 to the U.S dollar last week, from 151.75 previously, in the interbank market after heady buying of dollars by some banks.
Multinational German telecommunications firm, Siemens AG, has assured Nigerians that it will pay the price for the bribery scandal involving it and some top government officials, if fined by the federal government.
A group, Northern Elders Assembly, has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of contravening his oath of office and violating the constitution over the recent appointments made in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Out of the 20 senior officials of the ministry of petroleum, 10 are from the South- South zone, the area where the president comes from.
According to the Mozambican National Director of Research and Innovation in the Ministry Chinese assistance could boost the productivity of rice farmers from their current average of 1.2 tonnes per hectare to 10 tonnes per hectare (733%). Meanwhile the China Development Bank is to fund construction of a cement factory in Beluluane, in Mozambique’s Maputo province costing US$100 million.
Researchers from the Centre for Chinese Studies at the University of Stellenbosch have said that despite having secured licenses to invest in Tanzania, most Chinese investors still continue to import Chinese-made goods.
Transportation costs in West Africa are among the highest in the world second only to East Africa, according to a study of one of the primary trade corridors in West Africa funded by USAID.
East Africa: China Development Bank (CDB) has extended a 50 million U. S. dollars loan to Kenya's largest Equity Bank. §
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