Profiteers selling ‘conflict diamonds’ from Central African Republic, despite ban
GINNEWS (GIN) - Since a coup d'etat and an extremely bloody aftermath, not much has improved in the Central African Republic and that suits the black market diamond merchants just fine. With news cameras turned away, their trade in “conflict diamonds” is proceeding at a gallop, despite a global ban. The diamond-trading ban was imposed by the Kimberley Process, a global...
New hotspot opens up in North Africa despite UN bid to defuse tensions
(GIN)—War is breaking out all over. Fighting shows no signs of ending in Ethiopia as the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, attempts to put down a rebellion by the sovereign-seeking state of Tigray. Eritrea now appears to have been drawn into the fighting. A massacre was reported by Amnesty International. In the Amhara region, political unrest and communal violence continue to...
Africa, the internet and youth organizing
Autocratic leaders in Africa are increasingly relying on internet shutdowns to mitigate young people’s use of social media to mobilize against post-colonial political structures across the continent. The internet continues to grow and “gain considerable power and agency around the world,” noted The Conversation, a research-based online publication. The internet is perceived to be a threat by governments that have...
Questions about EU, World Bank, IMF ties with Sudan
Davoe Malpass recently landed in Khartoum, the first visit for a World Bank president to Sudan in more than 50 years, announced Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The prime minister of the East African nation hailed the visit as a sign that Sudan’s integration into the international community “is progressing in strides,” Hamdoks’s office said. Malpass tweeted that the World Bank “is...
‘Resist them until we are victorious or they rule an empty country after they have killed us all’
The Monday designated a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was the day the United Nations, as the result of horrific violence perpetrated by Sudan security forces, cited seven people killed and dozens injured “when security forces brutally dispersed demonstrators in the capital, Khartoum.” On that same day my activist wife, Zakia Sadeeg, was filming on her cell...
Russia, Ukraine, the West and Africa’s agricultural woes
Joe Mzinga is coordinator for Small Scale Farmers Forum in Eastern and Southern Africa. He told Africa Watch from his home in Dar Es Salaam that blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for Africa’s agricultural woes is just the latest iteration of the Motherland’s agricultural problems. Mzinga, who coordinates the group’s 2.4 million small scale farmers’ membership in 16 countries, said...
Libya: Some leaders ‘actively hindering progress towards elections’, Security Council hears
Efforts continue to get political leaders in Libya to overcome their differences so that long-awaited presidential and parliamentary elections can finally take place, the Security Council heard on Nov. 15. UN Special Representative Abdoulaye Bathily briefed ambassadors on the ongoing impasse and other obstacles to the vote, which was postponed last December. Libya has been divided between two rival administrations in the aftermath...
If African leaders don’t intervene in Sudan, the consequences could be cataclysmic
Taking a page from the Nation of Islam’s Eternal Leader, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s often quoted, “Our unity is more powerful than an atomic or hydrogen bomb,” Kenya’s PLO Lumumba said recently, “We Africans must stop operating in silos.” “Rwanda, (where he was speaking) alone will not confront them (Europe and the U.S.). Burundi alone will not confront them, but...
Forced displacement of Palestinians concerns Arab and African countries
South Africa and Chad have recalled their ambassadors to Israel for consultations, joining a growing list of nations that have withdrawn diplomatic personnel in protest of Israel’s brutal military assault on the Gaza Strip and its 2.3 million civilian population. According to South Africa Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, South Africa is extremely concerned about the continued killing of children...
South Africa’s opposition to U.S., UK interference is a risk worth taking
There is an old adage that states, “politics make strange bedfellows.” South Africa’s upcoming May 29 national elections don’t beg to differ. Out of the not-so-clear blue, the United Kingdom (UK), members of the United States Congress, and the head of the Oppenheimer family founded Brenthurst Foundation have donated millions of dollars to the opposition—including the Democratic Alliance (DA),...