By Tendai Marima Marikana, South Africa – A pair of thin brown horses graze on patches of dry, yellow grass and thorny shrubs near a seemingly endless row of shacks patched together from sheets of corrugated steel. This dusty maze of one and two-room shelters is part of Nkaneng, an informal settlement in South Africa’s platinum mining belt that sprang up shortly after the Marikana Massacre of August 16, 2012, when police shot and killed 34 miners during a wildcat strike. Ten more people, including two police officers and two security guards, had been killed the week before. Three years…
Author: AMA
By Al Jazeera Pierre Nkurunziza has been sworn in as Burundi’s president for a controversial third term in power, the presidency has said, following last month’s disputed elections boycotted by the opposition. Nkurunziza took the “oath for a new term of five years”, the presidency said in a statement, in a surprise ceremony on Thursday, announced only a few hours in advance. His previous tenure was slated to end on August 26. His third term has been condemned as unconstitutional by the opposition and provoked months of protests. In mid-May, rebel generals attempted a coup, which failed. The United Nations…
By Richard Nield South Sudan’s government has failed to sign to a peace agreement to end almost two years of fighting in the fledgling country, despite securing substantial gains at the negotiating table. Despite mounting pressure on the government from the United States to sign a deal, plans to demilitarise South Sudan’s capital, Juba, remain a fundamental obstacle to a deal in the government’s eyes. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the East African bloc that is mediating the deal, set an August 17 deadline for agreement on the latest deal to bring an end to the bloody civil conflict…
By Al Jazeera Three young females, including a minor, have accused United Nations peacekeepers of raping them in the Central African Republic, the global body has announced, taking the number of allegations to 13 since the UN stationed troops in the country in September. The announcement on Wednesday comes a week after Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general, removed the head of the peacekeeping mission in CAR over the handling of a series of similar allegations in the conflict-wracked country. Vannina Maestracci, spokesperson for the secretary general’s office, told reporters that families of the three young females made the allegations on August…
The US is proposing that the UN Security Council impose an arms embargo on South Sudan after its leader surprised rebels and observers by refusing to sign a peace deal. The US circulated a draft resolution to council members on Wednesday evening, and diplomats said they expected a vote very soon. “Imminent, I think that was the word,” Gerard van Bohemen, the New Zealand ambassador, said. The draft also proposes further sanctions, but diplomats did not say who might be targeted. A senior US diplomat would not reveal when the council would vote on the resolution but said that in…
Photo depicting death, murder, and fear in post-elections Burundi. Follow Griff Tapper on Twitter: @GriffTapper Source:: Al Jazeera
By Al Jazeera Ghana plans to bring in more than 170 doctors from Cuba to help mitigate the deficiencies from a crippling strike by medics over pay and training. Health Minister Alex Segbefia said on Wednesday that several people have died without proper emergency attention since the strike began early this month. About 2,800 public sector doctors started withdrawing services to out-patient departments before extending the strike to emergency wards. Staff at the police and military hospitals that have remained open in the capital say they have been stretched thin as civilians come there for emdical services. The government says…
By Al Jazeera China has devalued its currency once again sparking fears of a global currency war that is unsettling global financial markets. Emerging and developing nations have been the hardest hit and have seen their currencies fall to multi-year lows. Analysts say the move is designed to keep Chinese products competitive with weaker exchange rates. But as it manipulates its currency to eke out an economic advantage for its exports, economies such as South Africa are felling the pinch as demand for commodities and raw materials wanes. Sim Tshabalala, the co-CEO of Standard Bank, joins Counting the Cost to…
By Al Jazeera The US says it is consulting with other countries about imposing UN sanctions on anyone who undermined the peace process in warn-torn South Sudan. Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, said in a statement on Wednesday that Washington was proposing such sanctions “if an agreement is not signed by the government within 15 days and a ceasefire is not implemented promptly by all parties”. On Monday, South Sudan President Salva Kiir declined to sign a peace deal proposed by regional leaders, saying he required more time. The country, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011,…
As a school student Gbenga Sesan was denied access to the computer room at his Nigerian school and told he was not clever enough to operate one. Years later, Gbenga is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expert, who has won international awards and is running a successful consultancy business. “I’m the kind of guy you don’t tell not to do something, I will do it. If you tell me it’s impossible, I’ll take it as a challenge…. I think the first thing that hit me was: ‘Do I want to raise a child in Nigeria?’ There were things that…
Nigerian comedy has boomed in the last decade, and Bright “Basketmouth” Okpocha is, arguably, the country’s most successful stand-up comic. Born and bred in the notorious Lagos slum Ajegunle, he discovered his gift for comedy by chance and has never looked back. “Basketmouth means somebody who doesn’t hold anything back, which is like a basket. A basket doesn’t hold water. And when I decided to go with the name Basketmouth, it actually defined my kind of art, my kind of delivery, because I just say it the way it comes, I do not have any filtering system, and that’s how…
Kate Henshaw has always been known as one of the Nollywood stars with integrity. Nollywood is the second largest film industry in the world, producing over 1,000 films a year. Kate has been in the film industry for over 21 years. Having made over 70 Nollywood films, the movie star has decided to leave the fictional world and run for a seat in Nigeria’s House of Representatives. “People are really intrigued. They want to know why, why am I going into politics…. As an actor, I’ve always been in the forefront fighting for different causes that I feel I am…
By Al Jazeera The global burden of disease caused by treatable surgical conditions is twice that of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The solution is simple: more surgeries. Yet almost one in three people, mainly the world’s poorest, have no access to surgery. And without access to appropriate equipment and training, a life-saving operation can quickly become a life-threatening one. In Uganda, we see how the use of a simple pulse oximeter, a cheap drill cover and a basic, three-minute checklist is proving that universal access to essential surgery can be safe and affordable. In the developed world, 100 percent…
By Al Jazeera Niokolo Koba Park in Senegal is an important world heritage site, which started out as a hunting reserve during the colonial era in 1926. However, over time, attitudes towards hunting wild animals has changed. As the home of the West African lion and other protected species, local tribes were forced out of the area to protect the wildlife. However, the villagers know the area well and are aware of the lucrative nature of the poaching industry. Although locating poachers unaided is a difficult task, rangers do occasionally receive tips, which aids them in their task. Al Jazeera’s…
Fraught with logistic and security concerns journalists have struggled to report on Boko Haram’s insurgency in northern Nigeria. Since 2009, around 17,000 people have been killed as the armed group battles the central government. Both sides have been accused of human rights abuses, but with a deteriorating security situation – journalists have struggled to speak to the victims and file stories directly from the ground. And as most of the region’s telecom infrastructure has been destroyed, journalists have had a limited choice as to where to get their information: Boko Haram’s propaganda machine or official press releases from the government.…
By Al Jazeera The African Union (AU) has said that there may be “catastrophic consequences” for Burundi and the region if political differences are not resolved peacefully. This comes a day after Burundi’s former army chief of staff Jean Bikomagu was assassinated, further indicating the possibility of renewed conflict in the country which has witnessed violence since April over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term. Nkurunziza won the July presidential elections despite deadly violence and boycott by the opposition parties and civil society groups. AU Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Sunday called for “utmost restraint” from all…
By Mandeep Tiwana Since August 16, 2012, South Africans have been coming to terms with the police killing of 34 striking mineworkers at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana. This biggest massacre by police of civilians in post-apartheid South Africa continues to haunt the collective conscience of a nation. South Africans should have made great strides in addressing inequality and ensuring better conditions for its workers, but they have not because of the continued dominance of the neoliberal economic discourse. In many ways, Marikana has become the symbol of the global collusion between political and economic elites, fostering inequality and…
By Al Jazeera Their job is to protect the most vulnerable people in what are often impoverished and war-torn regions of the world. But the UN’s peacekeepers are facing serious allegations of wide-spread sexual abuse, exploitation and gross misconduct. The latest is in Central African Republic, over the killing of a teenager and his father, and the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he is “angered and ashamed” by the allegations and described them as “a cancer in our system”. There are around 118,000 military, police and civilian staff involved in UN peacekeeping. They…
By Al Jazeera Unidentified attackers have shot and killed Burundi’s former army chief of staff in the second high-profile killing this month, amid chaos linked to the disputed re-election of President Pierre Nkurunziza. Colonel Jean Bikomagu was shot dead outside his home in the capital Bujumbura in the morning as he returned from church, said a witness who declined to give his name, the Reuters news agency reported. Bikomagu’s daughter, who was with him at the time, was seriously wounded and rushed to hospital. A former Burundian security chief and close ally of Nkurunziza was killed in early August. The…
By Al Jazeera A blast in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state has killed at least 47 people and injured another 52, according to a military source and a civilian joint task force member. The explosion, in a region where hundreds of people have been killed in attacks by suspected members of Boko Haram in the last few weeks, struck the town of Sabon Gari at around 1.30pm local time on Tuesday, the sources said. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from the city of Kano, said the attack happened close to a cattle market. “According to sources in the area, this attack…