Zone 2- Africa Summary, week # 122

Week # 122, Dated 29^th May- 4^th June 2010

POLITICS OF SECURITY AND CONFLICT ISSUES

West Africa: Ghana’s ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) last week intensified strategies to retain power in Elections 2012 with the inauguration of the Greater Accra Regional Women's wing of the Zongo Caucus in Accra.

Liberia’s Upper House of the 52nd National Legislature has again failed to passage the Population Threshold Bill into law due to another Writ of Prohibition filed before the Full Branch of the Supreme Court of Liberia.

Meanwhile the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board of Directors, chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has approved an approximately $15 million grant for Liberia to support the country's ongoing efforts to improve governance.

According to a senior UN official the ongoing political impasse in Côte d'Ivoire contributes to heightened tensions and hampers efforts to normalize the situation in the West African nation, which has been trying for eight years to overcome the crisis that split the country. Meanwhile UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed skepticism over the holding of Ivorian elections and warned of imminent violence. However Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has pledged that long-delayed elections will take place before the end of the year.

In line with the provisions of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, protocol on democracy and good governance, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Aliyu Idi Hong, has restated that Niger and Guinea remain suspended until constitutional order was restored in both countries.

In Sierra Leone the political parties registration commission (PPRC) has appointed 18 new core members to beef up the staff strength of the commission countrywide.

Justice Jon Kamanda of Sierra Leone has been re-elected to serve as President of the United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal set up to deal with the worst acts committed during the long and brutal civil war in the West African nation.

Central Africa: Burundi's main opposition party says it is pulling out of this month's scheduled presidential election because of concerns that the vote will be rigged. Five other opposition parties pulled out because they believe the vote will be rigged. Burundi's National Electoral Commission says the election will go ahead despite the boycott.

The president of the Central African Republic will stay in power beyond the end of his electoral mandate, in June, because of delays in organizing a new vote. His political opponents want voter lists updated and rebel groups disarmed.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC POLITICS

West Africa: A number of Muslims in Ghana’s Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly have demonstrated against the activities of homosexuals in the area with a call on government to enact Sharia Law in Ghana.

Defense lawyers for Charles Taylor last week asked Special Court for Sierra Leone judges to deny the request by prosecutors to issue a subpoena for Supermodel Naomi Campbell, who is alleged to have received rough diamonds from Mr. Taylor while on a visit to South Africa in 1997. A defense witness for Mr. Taylor also told judges this week that members of Mr. Taylor’s rebel group, who assisted Sierra Leonean rebels during the country’s civil conflict, did so voluntarily and were not sent by the former Liberian president.

Aid groups allege that progress on a "Zero Tolerance" national campaign in Côte d'Ivoire to eliminate female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) by the end of 2010, has been slowed down by health and education infrastructure

Southern Africa: Zimbabwe's first private daily newspaper hit the streets last week to break a state monopoly established years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government banned a pro-opposition newspaper over a registration dispute.

Central Africa: : ISt has been announced that Rwanda will not short circuit legal procedures to release American lawyer, Prof. Peter Erlinder, despite a request by the United States State Department to release him on compassionate and humanitarian grounds. Erlinder is charged with denying the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and minimizing it. Erlinder had come in the country to represent Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza in her case which also involves genocide denial.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, U.N. officials say while humanitarian conditions improve in one region, they’re getting worse in others. For example, civilians are starting to return to their homes in Gem ena in Equatuer Province, following inter-communal fighting, but insecurity persists in parts of North and South Kivu Provinces.

More than 50 human rights organizations have called for an independent investigation into the death of a well-known human rights activist Floribert Chebeya in an open letter to DRC President Joseph Kabila. Meanwhile The president of Congolese non-governmental organization, La Voix des Sans-voix or VSV (Voice for the Voiceless) was found dead on the road going out of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DOMESTIC POLITICS

West Africa: In Ghana the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi and the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) of the US has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build a $1,000,000 state-of-the-art Eye Centre at the hospital.

According to reports National programme manager of Onchocerciasis in the ministry of health and sanitation has revealed that Bombali district in Sierra Leone’s north currently has the highest number of elephantiasis cases.

Southern Africa: A Zambian editor was given four months hard labor last week for criticizing the arrest of another journalist who sent the vice president images of women in childbirth to highlight the country's dire hospitals.

According to reports South African AIDS organizations have had limited success in getting FIFA to allow them to distribute condoms and HIV education materials during the World Cup. Meanwhile South Africa promised last week to protect foreign migrants from attacks amid fears of a rise in violence coinciding with the World Cup.

South Africa's public education system shows signs of serious decline. Reports of dismal graduation rates, bad teachers and crumbling buildings have become commonplace.

MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) has launched a campaign called Starved for Attention to reform humanitarian food assistance and nutrition programmes for malnourished children, which will run until World Food Day on 16 October.

Central Africa: The U.N.Children's Fund and the government of the Central African Republic are distributing more than one-million insecticide treated mosquito nets in the African nation to protect children and pregnant women from malaria. The Central African Republic has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. More than 170 out of 1,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

In Rwanda over 10,000 people across the country tested for HIV/AIDS and 100,000 condoms were distributed during the "Police Medical Services" week.

POLITICAL ECONOMY

West Africa: The Ghanaian government has declared that they would not turn against the maintenance and production of high quality cocoa, despite the discovery of oil in the country.

According to a new report on Ghana’s mining, between 2007 and 2009, the nation lost approximately €36 million, in mining revenues that have been repatriated without the necessary taxes to government.

Southern Africa: South Africa's COSATU trade union federation threatened on Tuesday to pull out of an alliance with the ANC if the ruling party persists with disciplinary charges against union leader Zwelinzima Vavi who has accused President Zuma of not getting tough enough on corruption.

Madagascar is going through a financial crisis where stock prices are plummeting in the country. §

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