Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Lesotho takes tourism plunge
A day at the races? Abseiling down a waterfall? These are among the attractions residents hope will lure tourists to Lesotho.
It is struggling with drought and an HIV/AIDS crisis that is believed to have infected about a third of adults.
Its economic fortunes have waned too, especially after a new global textile deal in 2005 removed quotas supporting an industry once seen as the kingdom’s future.
With limited resources bar its and mountainous landscape — grazing for angora goats — the former British protectorate is dependent on the continent’s economic powerhouse South Africa, which entirely surrounds it.
Developing tourism could provide a lifeline.
Most of the informal businesses near the town of Semonkong, high in the mountains about 100 km (60 miles) from the capital, are linked in some way to serving holidaymakers. The town’s biggest economic venture is probably the Semonkong Lodge, which employs 30 people and is run by a South African.
“I started working at the bus stop with another woman making and selling local bread. The owners of the lodge used to see us there, and they asked us if we could supply bread on a daily basis. It’s the main source of income for all our families,” Itumeleng Rapotsana, who left her family behind in her home village, told Reuters Africa Journal. Another group of residents offers visitors the experience of abseiling down the gorge where sub-Saharan Africa’s highest single waterfall — Maletsunyane — surges into the river below.
Storm in Madagascar
In the relative political calm of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar has long been a centre of turbulence.
Now another political crisis is brewing as the opposition accuses President Marc Ravalomanana of abuse of power and threatening democracy. Tens of thousands of opposition protesters demonstrated in Antananarivo on Wednesday, two days after an earlier rally descended into violence that left nearly 40 people dead.
The bodies of most the victims were found in a burned out clothing store. The authorities said they were looters who got trapped.
Ravalomanana and opposition leader Andry Rajoelina are very different characters.
The president is a self made millionaire. In his early twenties, he started selling yoghurt off the back of a bicycle. Today, at 59, he is a dairy tycoon with extensive business interests.
Rajoelina is 34 years old and nicknamed TGV, after the French high speed train, for his rapid-fire manner.
He is incensed that the authorities closed down his private TV station after it broadcast an interview with the former president, Didier Ratsiraka. Since he was elected mayor of the capital – a position Ravalomanana once held – Rajoelina has been one of the most vocal critics of the presidency.
The situation in Madagascar seems to be somewhat similar to what’s happening now in other countries (Georgia,Kyrgyzstan).
Forgiveness in paradise?
If you lived on an archipelago that defined paradise with palm-fringed white sand beaches and emerald green waters, you would expect a relaxed, lazy pace of life.
Lazy would be a generous description of the Seychellois soldier’s wave at the entrance to State House as I arrived with my local colleague George Thande – who is admittedly a regular visitor here.
The Seychelles were ruled by the French before the British and State House in the capital Victoria is every bit the luxurious colonial mansion: a lush garden exploding with tropical colours; an oil painting of Britain’s Queen Victoria hangs in the wood-panelled reception room close to a portrait of Castor, a runaway slave from the 19th century with a fearsome reputation; a Daimler and Rolls Royce are parked on the forecourt.
But President James Alix Michel, cannot afford to be relaxed. This is an exotic destination at the sharp end of the global financial crisis.
The Indian Ocean archipelago may lie thousands of miles from the financial hubs of the world, but the bankers on Wall Street and in the City of London, not to mention the celebrity visitors, help keep the Seychelles’ tourism-dependent economy afloat.
On Friday, however, Michel told Reuters he thought visitor numbers might drop by as much as 25 percent, a painful blow for a heavily indebted economy – its $800 million debt is somewhat more than 2007 gross domestic product according to World Bank figures. The country, with only 85,000 people, is in desperate need of foreign currency to replenish severely depleted reserves.
When the Seychelles failed to service an interest payment on a $230 million bond late last year, it called in the International Monetary Fund, which pledged a 2-year $26 million rescue package. Now negotiations are underway with creditors over how to re-structure the debts.
Please let me share my experiences of the the Paradise they call Seychelles.
Better still,let the press relaes from my lawyer do it.
Whilst I was been held ‘hostage’ there, I had 5 different offers to walk away from the nightmare from different levels of officaldom there.
Believe me,4 months of being forced to stay whilst Irish mercenaries invent more and more bogus charges is not funny and all backed up by the government who are bankrupt and treat the Seychellois disgracefully, many of whom live in fear daily of being arrested and remanded for years before going to trial.
Let us see if the Seychelles government stand up and justify in an independant court in New York what they did to myself and my family or run away like the cowards they are and hide behind legal arguements.
Read this and then decide if the Seychelles is a fair, democratic country where there is one state controlled television channel and the only person who speaks out, Ralph Volcere has repeated attempts on his life.
Also, they use the Nation newspaper to promote lies and falsehoods knowing that no 3rd party can ever sue them for libel in a court of law.
Judgement day will come and I will have my day in court with or without these spineless people present.
Regards
Stephen Scholes (not hiding behind an anonymous username)
Saving Kenyan forest. Is it a turning point?
After a decade of rampant destruction of the Mau forest water catchment in western Kenya, the country’s coalition government seems firmly united in trying to save the complex before more serious damage is inflicted on the economy.
U.N. officials say this is no longer simply an environmental issue but something that has huge importance for the whole country. Already two of the top three foreign exchange earners — tourism and tea — are feeling the impact of falling water levels which have also forced the postponement of a major hydro-electric project.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga describes the forest’s destruction as a national emergency. Both foreign and local officials say there is no gap between Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki on the issue.
Saving the forest will involve huge costs to resettle and compensate some of the thousands of people living illegally there and restore tree cover which produces vital supplies of water. Officials say they expect international donors to provide major financial help.
Until a few months ago, the destruction of the forest was a familiar story of land grabbing, illegal logging and the allocation of government land to try to win votes. It began in 1997 when the government of Daniel arap Moi gave large plots away in exchange for electoral support.
Then, this year, the United Nations flew Odinga and other officials over the forest to show them the extent of the destruction, shocking them into urgent action.
The government is pushing ahead despite the fact that many of the area’s MPs and voters belong to Odinga’s ODM party. Unlike the past, political considerations are being pushed to one side in the national interest. U.N. officials call this process unique for a country long blighted by the depradations of powerful and greedy politicians.
This is very encouraging but very unfortunate to see that still there are some of the politicians who want a compromise on this grave issue, and i also personally think that why get financial help for a mess we have created?? it beats logic, let the government and politicians come up with the money to compensate the so called “squatters”, they are the cause of all this in the first place, our ecosystem is at the mercy of tribal leaders who only think of political sustainability but not sustaining life. We are waiting to see what happens on this issue, meanwhile i ask fellow kenyans to plant at least a tree on there birthday or once a year and to care for the tree, if we want nature to be kind to us let us be kind to it.
On the Great North Road into forgotten Kenya
MARSABIT, Kenya – We are in two Land Rover Defenders, headed north to Ethiopia through one of Kenya’s remotest and harshest areas.
Our route is along the Great North Road, the famed Cape Town-to-Cairo highway on what is said to be the only untarmacked stretch on the whole continent – roughly 550 kilometres from where the highway ends at Isiolo town north to Moyale on the Ethiopian border. It has all the wildlife and stunning scenery Kenya is world-famous for, but few tourists ever see it.
This is part of the old Northern Frontier District, the arid top half of Kenya which was closed to visitors by the British colonial government because of its inaccessibility, harsh conditions and endless banditry. Little has changed since independence in 1963.
To call the wide track of dirt, ruts and rocks a road is an insult to other roads. It demands a four-wheel drive vehicle, and punishes any that comes with an endless succession of shuddering bumps, heat and fine dust that penetrates every corner. It has taken us two days to reach Marsabit, a mere 600 km from Nairobi. But out here, trips are measured by time, not by distance.
We – Reuters TV producer Patrick Muiruri, Reuters photographer Antony Njuguna, navigator Michael Githaiga and mechanics Frederick “British” Gappy, Lawrence “Jughead” Waithaka and myself – are rolling in convoy in case one vehicle develops a problem. There is another reason to move together – safety in numbers. Cattle-rustling is still a rite of passage for young warriors among the nomadic peoples that roam the dry plains with herds of cattle, goats, camels and sheep. It has intensified in recent decades thanks to an influx of automatic weapons from conflicts in neighbouring Somalia and Sudan.
Violence here is regular and can easily spill over into outright warfare. Banditry has also blossomed in these badlands.
The government presence here is thinly stretched and usually without the equipment needed to police the problem, leaving police and paramilitary soldiers in a reactive position. Electricty, water and functioning telephones are rare sights, and in most places were never brought by the state-owned utilities. Schools are there, but it is difficult for teachers to get students from wandering clans. Most schoolchildren in other parts of Kenya are speaking English and Swahili by the age of 5; here, it is common to find boys of 15 who cannot speak Swahili – the lingua franca of a nation with more than 42 different ethnic groups.
its the hope of every son of northen kenya too see that there really an oilfor prospeity will soon be isovered,
may GOD FORIDoil curse for our region
Lesotho is an amazingly beautiful kingdom. Its most valuable asset lies with the people who’s rich culture lives in the malody sounding language, Sesotho.