Pambazuka News

2012-02-20 In this KPFA special broadcast, Africa Today and Transitions on Traditions present a three-hour program on artist, musician, and poet Gil Scott Heron and a tribute to the Peoples Free Medical Clinic survival program of the Black Panther Party. The program features the music of Gil Scott, interviews on his life and work, and discussions on the Survival Programs of the Black Panther Party.

2012-02-20 IRIN’s latest film, 'Out of Sight', explores the lives of blind undocumented migrants from Zimbabwe as they try and eke out a living begging on the streets of Johannesburg. In the aftermath of xenophobic violence, the South African government put in place a moratorium on deportations to Zimbabwe in 2009, enabling undocumented migrants to regularise their status. But none of the women in this film were able to take advantage of that dispensation. Deportations resumed in October 2011, and to date, more than 10,000 undocumented migrants have been expelled to Zimbabwe, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

2012-02-14 President Robert Mugabe will not sign the draft constitution into the new supreme law of the country as long as it disqualifies him from contesting the next elections, a senior Zanu PF official has declared. Mugabe, who turns 88 next week, has already been endorsed as the Zanu PF Presidential candidate for elections set to take place later this year or in 2013. The Constitution Select Committee (Copac) last week published the first draft of the long awaited new supreme law of the country which has many sections which Zanu PF is strongly opposed to. Section 6.4.2 of the draft disqualifies from standing in Presidential elections, any person who has already held the office for 10 years, meaning that President Robert Mugabe cannot contest the next polls.

2012-02-16 A Harare court on Wednesday 15 February dismissed an acquittal application by a group of activists arrested a year ago for watching footage of the people’s revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. The six, including former MDC-T MP Munyaradzi Gwisai, were among more than 40 people arrested last February after watching the video at an academic meeting, which was raided by police. After their initial arrest some in the group, including Gwisai, were tortured in police cells and kept in solitary confinement at Chikurubi maximum security prison in Harare for weeks.

2012-02-20 The European Union has lifted some more of its sanctions against top officials and institutions in Zimbabwe. An EU diplomat said the bloc was ending measures against 20 entities and 51 people - including the justice and foreign ministers. However restrictions on President Robert Mugabe continue.

2012-02-20 Across the Darfur region of western Sudan, female workers weighed down by heavy buckets are a common sight on building sites. The work is arduous and the pay pitiful, but many women in Darfur have no other way of earning a living. 'This work is very hard,' said Aisha (not her real name), who works on a construction site in Nyala. 'Most days, we stay on the site from six in the morning to six at night without eating anything. We drink water perhaps once or twice a day. Anything we do eat is taken out of what we are paid.'

2012-02-20 Human rights group Ditshwanelo has urged the Botswana government to suspend the execution of murderers. This follows the hanging of Zibani Thamo on 31 January for the murder of his girlfriend in 2007. In Southern Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe are some of the countries that institute the death penalty. South Africa abolished the death penalty in 1995, a year after the demise of apartheid, while Namibia had already done so when it gained independence in 1990.

2012-02-20 The detention without charge of Dr. Wenceslao Mansogo Alo, a medical doctor who is also a prominent human rights defender and opposition member in Equatorial Guinea, for more than five days following the death of a patient during surgery is a source of serious concern, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. Both organizations are calling for his immediate release. Mansogo is a member of the leadership of the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) party and serves as its secretary for international relations and human rights. He is a medical doctor and owns and runs a private clinic in the city of Bata. He is also a member of the local city council.

2012-02-20 The Ogaden Somali Community in South Africa says it has filed a complaint with the country's top prosecutor and the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging an investigation into the actions of the Ethiopian government against the Ogaden people. In a statement released on behalf of the community, a South African media advocacy group, Media Review Network, called on ICC authorities to probe complaints of alleged crimes in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. The crimes include extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, rape, torture, disappearances, the destruction of livelihood, the burning of villages and the destroying of life stock, the statement said.

2012-02-20 An outspoken opponent of Malawi's president who once served as his attorney general says the administration sent thugs to petrol bomb his law office - and the government critic ended up in jail. Ralph Kasambara was arrested last week, accused of kidnapping and torturing three men he told reporters confessed to his bodyguards that they had been sent after him by the government.

2012-02-20 Morocco is prosecuting activists who campaigned peacefully for a boycott of elections held three months ago, Human Rights Watch said. These prosecutions contradict statements by Moroccan officials that authorities arrested no one for advocating a boycott. One of several such trials resumes on 22 February 2012, before the Marrakesh First Degree Court. Charged with distributing fliers in violation of the law, the defendants were arrested in Marrakesh on 16 and 17 November 2011, as they began handing out fliers urging Moroccans to boycott the legislative elections on November 25. Another group of pro-boycott leafletters are on trial already in the city of Benguerir.

2012-02-20 Sudanese police have raided student dormitories at the main university in the capital Khartoum, arresting and beating hundreds of students, activists say. The youth activist group Change Now said Friday's raid took place before dawn, adding that more than 350 students had been arrested at the University of Khartoum. The university has been the scene of student protests since late December. The students have previously staged a sit-in to demand the right to form a student union and to protest against police violence in earlier raids there.

2012-02-20 A record 1,500 migrants, mainly from Somalia and other parts of Africa, died trying to reach European shores in 2011 and the deadly odyssey continues from Libya, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said recently. It said popular uprisings in Tunisia and Libya prompted more people to flee last year, including sub-Saharan migrants working in North Africa, after tighter border measures sharply reduced arrivals in Europe in 2009 and 2010.

2012-02-20 The Conservative government's new plan to reform the refugee system will prevent legitimate claimants from telling their stories and will damage the Immigration and Refugee Board's ability to review those claims, says one immigration expert. The reforms were announced by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who said Canada is being preyed upon by 'bogus' refugees from democratic countries with strong human rights records.

2012-02-20 The UN says the number of Malian refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries to escape fighting between Tuareg rebels and the military has doubled over the past 10 days. More than 44,000 people have crossed into Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso.

2012-02-20 'We all know that the provision of housing in Durban has been taken over by corrupt politicians and their friends to make them rich while hundreds of thousands of people in this city continue to live in shacks facing fires, floods, rats and evictions. In Shallcross there are shack dwellers who occupied neglected RDP houses which were built over 2 years ago and then left uncompleted. The residents who have been waiting for more than 17 years for the houses promised to them decided to occupy these houses, including an old granny in her 80 years who lives with her grand children, after a heavy wind had destroyed their shacks last year. Another reason for these occupations has been that the housing officials have allegedly sold some of these houses to people from outside the area including those who do not qualify for the RDP houses such as teachers, nurses and police officers.'

2012-02-20 In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

2012-02-14 Angola's President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will seek a new term with former state oil company head Manuel Vicente as his vice president in September polls, a source in the ruling MPLA said. The southern African oil giant is expected to hold elections around September, and the run-up is being closely watched for signs of whether Dos Santos will seek a new term and whom the MPLA might pick to replace the long-ruling leader, in power since 1979, when he eventually steps down.

2012-02-20 Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma must try again to be elected as the African Union Commission chairperson, the Southern African Development Community decided at the weekend. Foreign ministers from SADC countries met in Cape Town at the weekend, where her recent defeat at the AU summit in Ethiopia was discussed. Dlamini-Zuma contested the election against Jean Ping, the AU Commission head, who was standing for a second term.

2012-02-19 An alleged police hit squad exposed by the Sunday Times is being investigated for at least 51 suspicious murders - including one in its offices and another in its toilets. The body count is higher than initially thought - and 18 KwaZulu-Natal police officers are now suspects. They include two from the National Intervention Unit and 16 from the notorious Cato Manor Organised Crime Unit. The Sunday Times initially investigated seven cases involving the Cato Manor unit and 16 suspicious deaths.