l'AFRiQUE...and other stories

Two more weeks and I swear I’ll be back. Washington DC actually might be trying to kill me. In the meantime I hope everyone has been keeping up on their news. I know I have! Trying to do a recap might be too hard. Mali, Okonjo-Iweala….*sigh* and I bet there have roughly 1000 new What’s Up Africa’s. 

Soon. Soon. 

So. So. Busy. Too Busy. I have so many articles and videos that I’ve been wanting to post, but I have them all saved away. I will catch up one day. 

In the meantime. What’s Up Africa? - African Banksy??!!

souls-of-my-shoes:

Congo Life (by Julien Harneis)

(via thatnigeriankid)

Shaykh Mouhamadou Māḥy Cissé (via ryanbhilliard)

(via ryanbhilliard)

Senegal’s constitution requires that a presidential candidate receive fifty percent of the total votes or face a run-off. Incumbent president Abdoulaye Wade received only thirty-five percent of the vote in the February 26 presidential election, while his chief opposition, Macky Sall, received twenty-six percent. (There were numerous other candidates.) Only about half of the electorate voted, compared with more than seventy percent in the 2007 elections. There will be a run-off between Wade and Sall on March 18. Unlike the case of Cote d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo, Wade’s people have said that he will accept the results of the run-off. He probably will; Senegal is not as internally divided as Cote d’Ivoire, where rival presidential candidates represented profound ethnic, social and economic divisions. Senegal’s democratic institutions, while by no means perfect, are also among the strongest in sub-Saharan Africa.

Chatham House has published a succinct analysis of the electoral strengths and weaknesses of both run-off candidates. Its bottom line: even with the powers of the incumbency, there is a good chance Wade could be defeated. As Chatham House says, many Senegalese are angry that Wade has manipulated the constitution (of which he is the principal author) so that he could run for a third term.

African leaders struggling to remain in office even when there are term limits is an old and sad song. Nevertheless, Wade is at least 85 years of age, and one Kenyan newspaper speculates he is closer to ninety. Why is he risking the humiliation of defeat? To me the most credible explanation is that he is trying to engineer the eventual succession to the presidency of his son, Karim, whom he has promoted to various government posts. Wadeattempted to create the office of vice president, which many Senegalese think he intended for Karim. This was not popular, and Wade failed. Macky Sall, on the other hand, has cultivated the grassroots and is popular in Dakar. As a former prime minister and president of the National Assembly, he is a credible presidential candidate that is fifty years of age–neither too young nor too old. Given the immense power of the incumbency in most African countries and Wade’s political skills, Chatham House is rght to caution that he might yet win. But, if I were a betting man, I would put my money on Sall. We will see on Sunday.

Source: CFR 

…??? 

I don’t even know what to tag this as. 

We want to step off #Kony2012 (we promise to lay off them by this weekend), but we could not let this one pass. We know that Jason wants a career in musical theater. The writers of British broadcaster and satirist Charlie Brooker’snightlyweekly commentary on Channel 4′s weekly satire show ’10 O’Clock Live’ spent some time looking at Invisible Children’s videos on Vimeo and Youtube and found plenty musical theater among the 274 videos (at last count) the group has posted online.

The first video, 2006′s “Global Night Commute: A Musical to Believe” shows Jason (described by Brooker as “a clean-cut Abercrombie and Finch version of Jesus Christ”) and company “dancing around Glee-like in a high school like a boy band.” Brooker adds that the video “must have cost what even the Bible would describe as a bumload of cash.” Watch from the 1:40 mark:

Source: Africa is a Country 

digitalghana:

Each simian had a much different body suit, so besides trying to define class across species, there was a definite attempt to dress each group in different styles.

Cut By Ozwald Boateng

united-nations:

A landmark resolution on indigenous women was adopted this month at the 56^th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The resolution recognizes the key role of indigenous women in ending poverty and hunger and calls on Governments to strengthen policies for…

Eritrea has said Thursday’s attack by its southern neighbour Ethiopia on its military bases is meant to divert attention from Ethiopia’s illegal occupation of Eritrean territories.

“The objective of the attack … is to divert attention from the central issue of the regime’s flagrant violation of international law and illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories,” a statement from Eritrea’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

“Eritrea … will not be entrapped by such deceitful ploys that are aimed at derailing and eclipsing the underlying fundamental issues.”

Ethiopia said on Thursday its troops raided three military bases in the Red Sea state which it said were used by Ethiopian rebels.

The assaults were the first on Eritrean soil that Addis Ababa has admitted to since the end of a 1998-2000 war that killed 70,000 people. Eritrea claims there have been others.

‘Hostile provocation’

The statement came a day after Eritrea’s information minister said his country was not ready to be sucked into renewed hostilities.

“It is those who do not know the price of war who are hungry to go to war,” Ali Abdu told the AFP news agency.

“We fought enough for 30 years, and we will never be dragged into war through such hostile provocations as this.”

He continued: “We do not support such groups, as these are the products of Ethiopia’s own internal crisis and the result of a policy of exclusion and marginalisation.”

A vicious row over the position of Eritrea and Ethiopia’s shared border remains unresolved since the end of the 1998-2000 war.

The Hague-based Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled in 2002 that the border village of Badme belonged to Eritrea.

Proxy war

But the village remains in Ethiopia and Eritrea blames the international community, and the United Nations in particular, for not forcing Ethiopia to accept the border.

Analysts say Eritrea has launched a proxy war in lawless Somalia to weaken Ethiopia as it cannot match it militarily.

President Isaias Afewerki’s government has been slapped with sanctions for links with Somalia’s al-Shabab rebels.

“I suspect there is little fallout to expect from the raid, unless Eritrea chooses to unleash one of its proxies, perhaps in Somalia,” said J Peter Pham, director of the Michael S Ansari Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

“Of course, if that happens, it would give the lie to Asmara’s hitherto denials of linkages with groups like al-Shabab.”

Restraint urged

Concerned that tensions between the two counties could escalate, the US and France urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to show restraint and to find a negotiated solution to their differences.

“We have heard the government’s reports that its forces struck military posts inside Eritrea today,” Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, told reporters on Thursday.

“We are obviously calling on both sides to exercise restraint and to avoid any further military action.”

Bernard Valero, the French foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement: “France urges both states to avoid military escalation and, more broadly, to avoid raising tension. France believes the only way of resolving the dispute between the two countries is through dialogue and negotiation.”  

Valero said the incursion had targeted camps “which Addis Abeba accuses Asmara of using to train rebel groups operating on Ethiopian territory”.

Eritrea has dismissed these claims saying that it will not retaliate against its neighbour. It termed the allegations that it harbours armed groups against Addis Ababa as a “baseless and bogus lie”.

Source: Al Jazeera

Lubanga verdict delivered to the Hague 

Source: Al Jazeera

UN peacekeeping troops are backing a Congolese army drive against jungle-based rebel groups that is expected to displace at least 100,000 people and trigger a new wave of instability and human rights abuses across war-ravaged eastern Congo, aid workers and independent analysts have warned.

The new offensive by 5,400 troops of the Democratic Republic of Congo army (FARDC), largely unreported until now, began in South Kivu province, bordering Rwanda and Burundi, on 15 February and is being extended into North Kivu, bordering Uganda, this month.

The push into remote areas in the west and north of the two provinces is targeting the Rwandan Hutu rebel group the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), local armed groups known as mai-mai, and remnants of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, sources said.

Fears are growing that civilians will be caught up in the offensive, dubbed Operation Perfect Peace, and that the fragile calm of the past year, when the FARDC withdrew many of its regiments for reorganisation and retraining, will be shattered.

“The international community is struggling to keep a lid on eastern Congo,” said Anais Lafite, Oxfam’s provincial co-ordinator for South Kivu, based in Bukavu. “They are trying to maintain the status quo for fear that worse might follow … About 100,000 people have already been displaced since last October. It’s estimated the current operation could displace a further 100,000.”

Read on here

Source: The Guardian 

africanparentmeme:

submitted by: thatnigeriankid

Accurate.

(via thatnigeriankid)

The Federal Government and the Boko Haram sect have opened peace talks with an indirect contact made between the two sides over the past week through two senior clerics, sources privy to the discussions told Daily Trust last night.

A deal is being worked out for a three-month ceasefire during which there would be no attack by the sect and there would also be no “harassment” from the government, one of the sources said.

“Boko Haram wants the release of arrested members as a condition for ceasefire. Then discussions will follow,” a source told one of our reporters.

Earlier yesterday, Reuters news agency also reported that “mediated” talks have started.

One of the sources who spoke to Daily Trust last night said the two clerics involved in the negotiations have close contacts in the Boko Haram sect, and they have been shuttling between the sect’s self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau and government officials.

The two clerics were in the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria together with the late Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose death in police custody in July 2009 triggered a widespread violent uprising by the sect.

But one source said the talks were being threatened by leakages in the media.

“The problem is that Boko Haram has intended for this to be confidential. But the issue has already leaked to the media. So now, Boko Haram is threatening to back out though the mediators are trying to persuade the sect to stay on,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Presidency over the story yesterday. Boko Haram, which makes sporadic tele-conferences through Maiduguri-based journalists, also did not react to the report.

The senior cleric mentioned as the leading mediator did not answer calls made to seek his comments on Wednesday and yesterday.

When our reporter called the other cleric in the talks last night, he pleaded not be named because he said they had agreed ab initio to make these talks secret.

A third source spoken to yesterday said one of the mediators had confided in him that the discussions were going on and there were indications of success. He said the major target for now was to agree to a three-month ceasefire, during which Boko Haram will not launch any attack while security forces will not attempt to arrest any sect member.

The source said if the ceasefire is achieved, then discussions on ending the whole campaign of violence will start.

In its own report, Reuters quoted a source saying that “BH (Boko Haram) has mentioned a conditional ceasefire but it wants all its members released from prison. The government sees this as unacceptable but is willing to release foot soldiers.”

It said a traditional leader and a civil rights activist, whose names were not given, were also involved in the talks.

“It is the first time a ceasefire has been mentioned, so it is a massive positive, but given the lack of trust a resolution is still a way off,” the Reuters source added.

National Security Adviser, General Owoye Andrew Azazi, was quoted to have said in January that the government was considering making contact with moderate members of Boko Haram via “back channels.”

President Jonathan has also said in January that the government was open to dialogue but said sect members were hidden and therefore direct talks were unlikely.

The military’s efforts to stem the sect’s insurgency have had mixed results in the past, with human rights groups saying heavy-handed tactics have worsened resentment of authorities.

But more recently there have been arrests of senior figures including Abul Qaqa and Kabiru Sokoto, while some have died in clashes with security forces.

The group has not managed to launch a widescale, coordinated attack since one in Kano that killed 186 people in January, reverting to crude bomb attacks and drive by shootings. 

Source: AllAfrica

What’s Up Africa?? - Blackface, REALLY???