A journey through life
Posted in Africa on Nov 30th, 2009
The president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, looks set to win yesterday’s national elections with 96.7 per cent of votes, according to partial results posted on the government’s web site today. Nguema has ruled sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-largest oil-producing country for the last three decades. Human rights groups claim the vote was unlikely to have [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 27th, 2009
The world’s largest diamond trading network has declared a ban on all gems from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields because of what it calls “severe and continued human rights violations”. Rapaport Group’s RapNet Diamond Trading Network issued a ban on Wednesday forbidding its members from trading Zimbabwean diamonds. The call follows a decision earlier this month [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 26th, 2009
In a statement released a few hours ago in Abuja, aides of Nigeria’s sickly leader, Umaru Yar’adua, admitted that he is suffering from “acute pericarditis,” a heart condition that results from complications of Churg-Strauss Syndrome.
The statement was written by Yar’adua’s personal physician, Salisu Banye, but distributed by chief spokesman, Segun Adeniyi.
The statement amounts to validation [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 25th, 2009
Large sums of money promised to developing countries to tackle climate change aid are unaccounted for, according to the BBC. A BBC investigation has found that it is not possible to verify whether the 410 million US dollars a year pledged by industrialised countries in the 2001 Bonn Declaration has actually been paid or not. [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 24th, 2009
The number of new HIV infections around the world has dropped by 17 per cent in the past eight years, according to a new United Nations report. The figures also reveal a reduction of more than 10 per cent in the HIV death rate as a result of greater access to anti-retroviral drugs. Because fewer [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 23rd, 2009
The East African Community has agreed on a common market trade treaty that will allow the free flow of people, services, capital and goods across the region. The deal was signed last Friday during a meeting of the presidents of the bloc’s five member states: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. It should be ratified [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 23rd, 2009
The European Commission has signed a $1bn (£602m) development pact with Nigeria, aimed at tackling corruption and promoting peace. A substantial amount of the funding will be spent on resolving conflict in the oil-rich and crime-plagued Niger Delta, the EU’s development chief said. The money will also target electoral reform and improving human rights.
But [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 21st, 2009
The Zimbabwean government says it is pulling its soldiers out of the Marange diamond mine following allegations of abuse. Earlier this month the Kimberley Process group, the diamond industry’s watchdog, urged Zimbabwe to reform its running of the diamond mine, giving it a June 2010 deadline. Human rights activists have called for Zimbabwe to be [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 19th, 2009
Islamists in Somalia have stoned to death a 20-year-old woman divorcee accused of adultery. Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, the judge for the group al-Shabab, said Halima Ibrahim Abdirahman was killed on Tuesday in front of a crowd of 200 people. Judge Abdirahman said the woman had confessed to having an affair with an unmarried 29-year-old man [...]
Posted in Africa on Nov 18th, 2009
Western Sahara’s most prominent human rights activist has been told to appear in a Spanish court for public disorder after starting a hunger strike in the Canary Islands. Aminatou Haidar, who campaigns for indigenous Sahrawi rights, started her protest at Lanzarote airport on Sunday after Morocco refused to allow her to return to the disputed [...]
