Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Africa News blog:
Could Islamist rebels undermine change in Africa?
Creeping from the periphery in Africa’s east and west, Islamist militant groups now pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success.
The biggest story in Africa south of the Sahara over the past few years hasn’t been plague, famine or war but the emergence of the world’s poorest continent as one of its fastest growing – thanks to factors that include fresh investment, economic reform, the spread of new technology, higher prices for commodity exports and generally greater political stability.
Nigeria and Kenya, the most important economies in West and East Africa respectively, are pillars of the change in Africa as well as having the largest and most easily accessible markets for foreigners.
Both now face growing battles with Islamist groups; Kenya throwing troops into neighbouring Somalia in pursuit of al Shabaab fighters, Nigeria struggling with bombings and shootings by its homegrown Boko Haram sect.
Kenyan forces have pushed into southern Somalia to drive back al Qaeda-linked militants blamed by Nairobi for a string of border incursions and kidnappings, including the abductions of foreign tourists from coastal resorts which have damaged one of Kenya’s most important industries.
Shabaab has in return called for all out war on Kenya and “huge blasts” by its unknown number of supporters there. Grenade attacks this week have killed one person, wounded more than 20 and jangled nerves in Nairobi, where more than 200 people died in an al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy in 1998.
Killings by Nigeria’s Boko Haram sect (whose name means Western education is sinful) had been largely confined to a remote corner of the semi-desert northeast and ignored by much of the country until bombings struck the capital Abuja a few months back. A suicide car bombing on the U.N. headquarters in August killed 24 people.
from Africa News blog:
Nigeria’s non-vote: Incompetence or sabotage?
According to the shame-faced head of Nigeria’s electoral commission, one of the excuses given by suppliers who failed to get ballot papers to the country in time for Saturday’s parliamentary ballot was that there had been problems as a result of the tsunami in Japan.
Contractors in Nigeria tend to be pretty adept with their excuses, whether it’s about a failure to fix the plumbing or to build a highway on time, but this one stands out for its audacity.
Whatever the reason for the two-day delay to the vote, it has inevitably put another question mark over the credibility of a series of elections seen as a chance for a break from a history of ballots where fraud and thuggery have been the order of the day.
Because this is Africa’s giant, the conduct of elections matters all the more for the rest of the continent - whether as a sign of what other governments think they can get away with or whether investors can feel more comfortable in improving institutions.
Electoral Commission Chairman Attahiru Jega was enormously apologetic. The academic has generally been credited with independence and with trying to make sure the job gets done well this time.
The chaos now raises doubts over what can be done with ballots that had already been cast – as they had in some places – and what to do with electoral materials now in place. The whole point of delivering them at the last minute had been to avoid tampering.
As well as the disappointment, the delay to the vote was the cause for much hand-wringing. Some Nigerians asked whether their country could organise anything successfully.
from Africa News blog:
Could revolt spread in Africa?
So far there hasn’t been much political fallout in the rest of Africa from the revolts in the northernmost states.
Of course there are lots of differences between sub-Saharan African countries themselves let alone when you compare them to those north of the desert.
But there are plenty of similarities too: the rest of Africa can point to those leaders entrenched for decades, to so-called democracies where ballots are no more than a waste of paper and to a lack of opportunities for youths even where official growth figures appear startlingly good.
Could the revolt against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi change that dynamic in some places?
After all, he is the man who was once crowned ‘King of Kings’ of Africa by a group of friendly traditional leaders.
Although he is holding out defiantly, a security apparatus more pervasive and better equipped than most on the continent was unable to prevent the uprising - even if ultimately it prevails.
If Gaddafi falls, would it send a message that anyone can be challenged by their people?
from Africa News blog:
Africa’s trying tradition of sit-tight leaders
It may seem odd to ask the question only a day after he was sworn in, but will Guinea’s President Alpha Conde go when the time comes?
Long-suffering opposition leader Conde is the first freely-elected president of a country that has known dictatorship, with varying degrees of brutality and oppression, for pretty much the entire period since independence from France in 1958. And French rule wasn’t that much fun for Guineans either.
Conde took office with the pledges that might be expected; to heal division, to improve services, to fight corruption, to put food on every table etc. etc. In particular, he said he would work to unify his ethnically-divided country in the way Nelson Mandela did for South Africa after apartheid.
Nobody could wish him anything but the best of luck, but what if he doesn’t do well enough in the face of such immense challenges? What if his people tire of him or simply want to give someone else a chance?
As the situation in neighbouring Ivory Coast makes only too clear, the record of African leaders in allowing that someone might replace them is poor at best.
Ivory Coast was once the example of what Guinea could have been without its despots. Lacking the resources of France’s “Pearl of West Africa”, an independent Ivory Coast prospered under more liberal rule and became the new jewel.
More than a decade of crisis has put an end to that. Fears for the country are deepening again as incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo defies calls to step down made by the United Nations, African Union and regional group ECOWAS. They say opposition leader Alassane Ouattara won November elections and is now the president.
Dear Matthew,
I think the Broad Macro Trend is one that is dynamic and disjunctive. That Trend being A New Africa where Africans are connected to the c21st and each other via the Mobile Phone and the Mobile Internet. Layer onto this a Demographic Skew where Elections will be won by winning the Under 30s and I think we are entering a Moment of Maximum and Dramatic Change. Whilst the Old Landscape looked very Tribal and Adversarial and in essence had a Scarcity Zero Sum Game Mentality, I believe the New Landscape will be entirely different. Obviously, this is correlated to the Mobile and Internet. Ethiopia is a Stand Out Laggard. Kenya with its Undersea Cables practically a Laboratory Experiment.
The Ivory Coast is nevertheless quite a Blip on the Radar Screen. No Process of Change is ever Smooth, it often is about Tipping Points. Like That Tipping Point all those Years ago when The World realised that the Man in Prison Nelson Mandela was actually the President. So Ivory Coast is surely disappointing but if You care to measure the Degree of Pressure being applied, You will note its a Multiple of what has been seen before.
I remain optimistic Cote D’Ivoire is an Outlier and not the Norm.
Aly-Khan Satchu
Nairobi
http://www.rich.co.ke/rctools/wrapup.php
from Africa News blog:
Ivory Coast puts African credibility on the line
Mediation has already started after another bad election in Africa.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki was in Ivory Coast at the weekend to try to sort out the mess after election results ratified by the United Nations were rejected by the Constitutional Court, the army and incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who had himself sworn in again as president quickly. His opponent Alassane Ouattara said he was president.
Mbeki, all smiles as he met Gbagbo, is used to brokering deals. He helped negotiate the deal for Zimbabwe’s unity government between President Robert Mugabe and now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, ending months of turmoil at the time. Tsvangirai had led in the first round in early 2008 but boycotted the second after violence against his supporters.
That unity deal came months after former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan came up with an agreement in Kenya following an election in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was also accused of rigging, but had himself quickly sworn in. Violence followed in which at least 1,300 people were killed before a power-sharing pact was reached.
The agreements in Kenya and Zimbabwe certainly ended ruinous crises (or at least put them on hold), but could they also have been lessons in how to keep a shot at power when all might seem lost?
Until the early 1990s, most African presidents were there for life - comfortable as long as that life was not curtailed by an ambitious chief of army staff. Then came elections - some good and many not so good - under donor and popular pressure.
Could there now be a new model? Hold an election and if you win then great – you are a democrat after all - but even if you don’t there’s an escape route. The worst that happens is that an elder statesman shows up to mediate a deal which may still leave you in a strong position – perhaps even the strongest position?
We are then talking about the same thing: strong institutions, not one with blatant conflicts of interests and a handful of “faithful” friends whose future hangs on a person desperately clinging to power. We are talking of the rule of law, and for that, wouldn’t it be time to turn the page to ten controversial years and weird elections, to say the least? And most definitely, Africa no longer wants to see somebody tearing up people’s votes, a total lack of respect for those who patiently lined up to cast their votes. Africa no longer wants the world to see one camp is trying to solve problems with muscles, not brain.
from Africa News blog:
What can Nigeria expect now?
The return of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua three months after he left for a Saudi hospital might normally have beeen seen as a sign that a long spell of debilitating uncertainty was over.
But this was no ordinary return for a long absent president with an army band and a red carpet.
Yar’Adua was moved under cover of darkness from a plane to an ambulance and then driven to the Aso Rock presidential villa in Abuja. No pictures. No comment.
In fact, nobody outside his immediate circle has had a chance to see him and that apparently includes Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, who two weeks ago assumed executive powers with the support of parliament to end a power vacuum.
A statement from Yar’Adua’s spokesman thanked Jonathan for his help and said he would continue running affairs of state while the president convalesces. Before seeing the president, he was due to meet his wife, Turai.
Yar’Adua’s return was welcomed by many in the country of more than 140 million although there were widespread doubts about whether he would return to office and questions over what would be the role of his aides and powerful wife.
What will the new arrangement mean for chances of addressing problems such as unrest in the Niger Delta, power shortages, ensuring fair elections and corruption? What will it mean for the political intrigues ahead of an election due within just over a year?
Dam its time 4 change…… change….. change. Dont yall understand change????
from Africa News blog:
The unnumbered dead
The simple answer to the question of how many people died in Congo’s civil war is “too many”.
Trying to get a realistic figure is fraught with difficulties and a new report suggests that a widely used estimate of 5.4 million dead – potentially making Congo the deadliest conflict since World War Two - is hugely inaccurate and that the loss of life may be less than half that.
The aid group that came up with the original estimate unsurprisingly says the new report is wrong.
The problem is the way estimates are reached.
One way is to do a body count, but that is next to impossible in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Very few of the victims are shot, blown up or otherwise die as a result of violence. Most succumb to disease or malnutrition. But then who died as a result of the war and who would have died anyway in a country where survival is normally so tough?
That is where the other methodology comes in. It is based on using the difference between the rate at which people were dying before the war and the mortality rate once it has started. It should indicate the number of those who have died as both a direct and indirect result of the war. This sort of calculation led to the figure of 5.4 million dead in Congo.
The problem is that if you get the wrong mortality rates, even by a small margin, the estimate can be way off. That is what the Human Security Report Project says happened with the Congo figures. The International Rescue Committee stands by its estimate.
A recent article in The Lancet by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters gives an overview of mortality trends in Darfur: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet /article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61967-X/abstr act
from Africa News blog:
Nigerian president on the way back?
So Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has ended weeks of silence with comments on the BBC that he is getting better and hopes to be back home soon.
That at least appears to have answered speculation in local media that he could be brain damaged, in a coma or even dead.
But it hasn’t satisfied critics who say that to fulfil his constitutional duties he should be handing over powers to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, at least temporarily.
"Whether he is alive or brain damaged or spoke to the BBC is not our bone of contention. He left a vacuum which we want filled,” as one put it.
It has been a particularly difficult time with Yar’Adua away and doubts over his future.
Not only has the speculation slowed government in Nigeria and fuelled the maneuvering by politicians only too eager at the unexpected chance for an opening to power, but Nigeria has come under new pressure internationally following the failed plane bombing by a Nigerian passport holder.
J. Peter Pham, senior fellow and director of the Africa Project at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, recently suggested that Yar’Adua’s death or further decline in 2010 could lead to major instability or even a slide towards a failed state.
For more in-depth news about Africa, you may want to visit Newstime Africa http://www.newstimeafrica.com – We cover the whole of Africa. You will get our views on this topic and much more.
from Africa News blog:
Was Nigerian bomber a one-off?
Quite apart from the Nigerian would-be plane bomber’s lack of success, there are other reasons why Africa’s most populous nation cannot be expected to produce a rash of similar cases.
As this Reuters story from Sahabi Yahaya in the bomber’s home town of Funtua points out, it is Umar Abdulmutallab’s foreign education rather than his background in Muslim northern Nigeria that is seen as having radicalised him.
The relatively affluent upbringing is not too dissimilar to that of some of the Sept. 11 attackers or Al Qaeda recruits for other attacks, but makes him a particular exception in Nigeria. Most people live on less than $2 a day and many would give almost anything just to have got aboard the plane he tried to blow up. Every year, tens of thousands of Abdulmutallab’s compatriots brave deserts, oceans and unsympathetic immigration police to try to get to the West for just a taste of the chances he had and to take whatever work they can get to better themselves and their families.
Although only around half of Nigeria’s population is Muslim, that still gives it the sixth biggest Muslim population in the world.
But while outbreaks of religious violence in northern Nigeria have killed thousands of people over the past decade – hundreds died in July in clashes between security forces and the radical Boko Haram sect – bloodshed has often also been just as tied to political and ethnic factors.
Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam and Boko Haram's ideology is dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and most believers.
Many comments on Nigerian websites bemoaned the fact that the attempted bombing would make it even harder for Nigerians travelling abroad and for their country to improve its image.
The show of the Ashura festival (2010) celebration in northern Nigeria as aired by bbc should reveal this fact: growing islamic fundamentalism! Far more radical than the most radical of the islamic world! The recent Boko Haram incidence is a proof..and historically the maitasine riots and several others. The sultanate and the emirates are a constant reminder – a religion spread and maintained through violence. In the light of this, the last of the bomber from northern Nigeria is yet! The CIA’s prediction that Nigeria would be a failed state is no insult, not if you live in northern Nigeria and are previlage to hearing the radical sermons in the mosques these days. The violence in Jos is a taste of things to come. Soon even the east and south of the country will be engulfed in flames – the plans are in the works! I feel pained when the western press say its a fight for resouce control, or elections or ethnic. ITS A JIHAD! In islam every non-believer belongs to the house of WAR! Yes, while carrying out Jihad, looting & rape is part of the reward! And if you die in Jihad, its a “costly and glorious death”! Wake up world! The islamic hordes are on the break again! Iran means business with the nukes, the taleban will always come back, Al-Qaeda is sponsored by the muslim world and terrorism is ISMAELS’s second name!
from Africa News blog:
Lessons for coup makers?
President Barack Obama’s decision to end trade benefits for Guinea, Madagascar and Niger shows some stiffening of Washington’s resolve to act against those seen to be moving in the opposite direction to demands for greater democracy in Africa.
But the fact that new benefits were simultaneously extended to Mauritania may also give a lesson in how would-be coup makers should best behave if they want to get away with it.
In the first three countries, there is no clear idea as to how they will return to a form of government more acceptable in the eyes of Western countries or those of their neighbours.
Guinea and Madagascar in particular both look in real danger of much greater turmoil.
In Mauritania, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz overthrew an elected president in 2008 - the country’s first freely elected president - but managed to get elections organised and himself voted into office by July, although the ballot was condemned by his opponents.
Perhaps crucially for the Western support, he also swiftly promised to cooperate in fighting al-Qaeda in the Sahara.
Uncertainty over transitions in both Guinea and Madagascar has stoked internal instability as well as costing foreign assistance.
It shows that if you are “strategic” enough (either because of Al qaeda or oil, other natural resources, competition with China), you may get away with it even with questionable elections. Aziz removed a democratically-elected president, held elections which he won and was quickly recognised as the president of Mauritania by the AU and then the EU, and the USA. Would it have been the case without the threat of Al qaeda? The lesson is that not only you need elections, but for them to be quickly accepted, you need something bigger and Aziz played the right card from the beginning (fight against terrorism).
imperialrober, “…who enslaved the africans…”
…No doubt Europeans have a lot to answer for… but Arab slavers had the biggest part in taking (or assisting tribes in taking) slaves from their villages and marching them to the coast… leaving a long trail of bones bleaching in the sun…
…
…The Sudan *still* has slavery in places (Google it along with info on slavery around the world including remote backwaters of China…) which did not keep it from serving on the U.N. Human Rights Commission… along with Libya…