http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_01_afrigadget.gif World junk – Africa recycles! I find my more and more of my friends are recycling household waste including food for fertilizer but there is still a lack of imagination in using junk as art or simply repairing a consumer item such as phones, computers, cameras etc. In Africa and other parts of the Global South it’s a different story. African Gadget presents a short photo essay of sculpture, Simon Mwangi who

“calls himself a mabati (sheet metal) blacksmith. He takes junk and creates beautiful metal animal sculptures. If you happen by his roadside shop on Ngong Road in Nairobi, you’ll see a number of crocodiles and if you’re lucky, a full sized giraffe”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_02_kameelah.gifKameelah Writes along with thousands of other bloggers, participates in the “National Day of Panhandling for Reparations” across the United States.

“I am participating in this performance because I believe that a conversation about reparations has been pushed aside for way too long. This country has paid reparations for some of its past injustices, but not for slavery. Why not? I am sitting with this sign to show that I want reparations for American Slavery to move forward.

You can participate too. Bloggers- spread this post to any and all blogs that you belong to. This performance is a great way to generate dialogue and re-energize the stalled conversation about reparations, and a great way to show the power of blogs for connecting people, art, social issues and dialogue!”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_03_olawunmi.gifSilent Storms in an Ocean of One comments on the recent attack by armed robbers on Nigerian rapper 2face idibia

“this was an act of needless violence, but who protects us? where do we get justice when the people charged with protecting the nation are among the very rank of murderers and thieves? last year my dad got robbed at a chackpoint by men he was certain to be policemen. his car was taken and he was left on the streets with no means of contacting his family. at least he was unharmed. most people are not so blessed.

2face idibia has struggled all his life to get where he has. what he really needs to do is be allowed to enjoy the success that his God-given talent has brought him. but to some people he's just another wealthy mark to be robed and harmed for loot. but why did they have to shoot him? at least if you leave the victim alone they have their lives to live, and with time they will replace what was taken. but how do you replace a life, or a limb? and how do you console a family whose joy has been stolen by a random act of violence?”

As usual in Nigeria there are rumors surrounding the attack such as it was not random but someone or group attacked him out of jealousy, he is dead, he is not dead, he was robbed, he was not robbed and so on. Whatever happened armed robbery such as this is endemic in the country and has been for the past 30 years. Members of my own family have been victims as have friends and friends of friends.. Who in Nigeria does not know someone who has been a victim of this type of crime?

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_04_ajao.gifOluniyi David Ajao comments on why paypal and other electronic payment systems are not available in Nigeria and has started an online campaign to try to rectify the situation and ask for PayPal to be available in the country.

“Whatever their reasons are, I am using this blog post to agitate that full Paypal services be made available to residents of Nigeria so they can fully partake in global e-commerce.

Are you a Nigerian resident in Nigeria? Do you agree that Paypal services should be available to Nigeria? Share your thoughts here and now by posting your comment”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_05_curiosity.gifNigerian Curiosity writes on the failure of Bill Gates to obtain a Nigerian visa.

“Apparently, Mr. Gates recently needed a visa for a planned visit to Nigeria. He was initially refused said visa on the premise that the authorities required proof he would not reside in Nigeria indefinitely, which would cause a strain on social services.

Eventually, the situation was cleared and Mr. Gates received a tourist visa to travel to the country of my fathers. He had to get a letter from his bank, though.” Hilarious!

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_06_ntwiga.gifSome music for a change.Steve Ntwiga is my favourite blog for African music. He specialises in seeking out old tunes and bands from the 60s and 70s. Everything here is wonderful and I only wish I knew where he found these gems.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_07_bennloxo.gifStayi… with the music theme – Benn Loxo is the next best African music blog to Steve’s and in this post he features some rumba music from Tanzania

“There’s something really sexy about the word ‘rumba’. It’s also a bit of a misnomer in that over the years it came to represent a variety of Cuban-influenced musical styles popular across Africa, not all of them ‘rumba’ in its original sense.

While the heart of rumba was in the country-formerly-known-as-Zaire, there were many great groups in other countries as well. One reason is the civil war that erupted in Belgium Congo during the 1960s. It forced many Congolese musicians out of the country, a bunch of whom ended up in Tanzania”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/blogs_08_bl.gifBlack Looks comments on the findings by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission that the US government has been funding anti-gay and lesbian organisations in Uganda as well as supporting Iran and Cameroon in preventing gay rights groups from having consultative status at the UN.

"The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has published a disturbing story reporting that the US Government has been funding anti gay and lesbian groups in Uganda such as the Makerere University Community Church and the Ugandan Muslim Tabliqh Women’s Desk who have said they will form an “anti-gay squad to fight homosexuality.”

“The US has also supported Cameroon and Iran in preventing gay rights groups from having consultative status at the UN. At the same time that the US government is funding anti gay and lesbian organisations, it’s own State Department has issued a report on human rights giving details of abuses by some governments based on “sexual orientation and gender identity”. Not surprisingly the report failed to include the US government’s own human rights record in the report.”

* Sokari Ekine is Online Editor for Pambazuka News

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

Researchers in six African countries can now better protect their rights and benefit from the commercialisation of their research as a result of a project to improve their countries' capacity to address intellectual property issues.

Algerian political parties and independents have been busy putting the finishing touches on their candidate lists for the November 29th local elections. The possibility of greater flexibility in governing at the local level has sparked more interest in the elections.

Institutions of higher education around the world are embracing the concept of online education as technological developments continue to cement their role in global development. The United Nations University has also embraced the idea of providing online education through the Global Virtual University (GVU), currently headquartered at GRID-Arendal in Norway. Launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, the UNU-GVU offers short and masters-level online courses in environment and development issues.

The African Business Leadership Conference 2007 will be held in Accra, Ghana, October 17-19, 2007. Among the renowned speakers at the conference, writes Carole Muchendu, will be Jerry Vilakazi, whose passion for transformation, social equality and the economic development of the entire African Continent is evident in his current role as CEO of Business Unity of South Africa (BUSA).

While the Zimbabwean crisis is deepening, the continued focus on the description of the crisis at the expense of finding solutions to it has been unhelpful, writes Trevor Ncube. That the main protagonists in the crisis have dug themselves into entrenched positions from which they are unwilling or incapable of extricating themselves also is unhelpful.

Former rebels in southern Sudan have withdrawn their members from a national coalition government, party officials said on Thursday, to pressure their northern partners to reignite a stalled peace process. "The SPLM (Sudan People's Liberation Movement) has recalled all ministers and presidential advisers from the government of national unity," SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum told reporters in the southern capital Juba.

The United Nations refugee agency is working to register displaced people fleeing confrontations between the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and troops of ex-General Laurent Nkunda in the volatile North Kivu province, where human rights abuses such as rape are reportedly on the rise. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported today that it has started registration of all internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the five camp sites in the Mugunga area some 15 kilometres west of Goma. Over 27,500 internally displaced have been identified.

The United Nations refugee agency has condemned the recent deportation of at least 15 Ethiopian refugees by the authorities in Sudan, calling it a breach of the country’s international legal obligations. Sudanese officials handed over the refugees to Ethiopian authorities at the Metema border crossing, about 500 kilometres southeast of Khartoum, on 27 September, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement issued in Geneva that it had only learned of the deportations this week.

The United Nations Special Envoy to Darfur has called for an end to the “vicious cycle of violence” engulfing the war-torn Sudanese region ahead of major peace talks later this month, warning that any delay to the negotiations between the Government and the rebels would only lead to further bloodshed.

On October 15th, a public hearing on the World Bank will take place in The Hague. The hearing aims to raise the debate on the legitimacy of the World Bank and influence the aid distribution process. The World Bank Campaign Europe, a coalition of more than 70 non-governmental organizations, is preparing a public hearing titled “World vs. Bank,” in co-operation with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. It will take place on October 15, 2007 in The Hague, Netherlands, at the beginning of the week of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank/IMF.

This week 125 civil society organizations sent a letter to Dominique Strauss-Khan, the incoming International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, calling on him to address IMF policies that undermine developing nations' ability to increase health and education spending. The former French Finance Minister was selected to head the IMF starting November 1.

The $600 million West African Gas Pipeline project (WAGP) aims to deliver gas from Nigeria via a 680 kilometre pipeline to a terminal point in Takoradi, Ghana. This pipeline cuts across and impacts communities in the states of Ogun and Lagos in southwestern Nigeria. Local communities and civil society groups in Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin had from the conceptual stages of this project in 2000 at an information consultative workshop hosted by Environmental Rights Action argued that this project would further impoverish them, intensify the degradation of the local environment and divert attention and resources from the very vital issue of gas flare reduction.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/43667-jena-6.jpgIn the Black American experience the act of defending one's community has always been viewed as subversive and any attempt to assert your own justice in self-defence will be criminalised. The case of the Jena 6 is one that has been repeated throughout the history of Black America from lynching whether as a genocidal act or in this case a symbolic one.

One of the main implications of the case of the Jena 6 is one that has sent countless activists to prison. The implication—if you dare to remove yourself from the role of a victim and attempt to assert justice yourself, you will pay a heavy price. The notion that six young Black men responded appropriately by not allowing an environment of terror to exist in their lives and their community enrages a society that does not want to see Black people recognizing and acting on the understanding that we alone will change our conditions. This case would have made countless people considerably more comfortable if these young brothers did not engage in a physical encounter with the white student. Many would have been appeased if we as a community continue to appeal to a legal system that has made it clear that it doesn't place much, if any value on the lives of Black people.

The Jena 6 engaged in an act of self-defense and their actions reflect our reality. Lynching, a genocidal act that occurred with the consent of the government, has long been a part of Black Experience in North America.
In a petition submitted to the United Nations in 1951, titled "We Charge Genocide", Paul Robeson and other prominent Blacks, documented that at least 10,000 Black people had been lynched since the abolition of slavery.
The exact number of people murdered can never be known. The horrendous act of lynching did not stop with the Civil Rights movement and our communities remain intimately familiar with the legacy of the noose.
Countless numbers of Black people have been killed throughout recent history with the legal system failing to prevent similar cases from reoccurring.

The call for justice in this case must include the dismissal of all charges against the Jena 6 and the immediate termination of prosecutor Reed Walters. Any call for decreased charges affirms the notion that Black people can do anything to struggle against white supremacy/racism except for physically defending ourselves.

Our history of struggle in North America has always had the importance of defending our lives as a fundamental pillar. The act of defending ourselves as a community has always been criminalized. This process of criminalization is an attempt to dissuade communities at large from becoming self sufficient in their own security. Former Black Panther Party member, Jalil Muntaqim stated, "We are our own Liberators"; our path to liberation must be decided and executed by us in the manner that we determine. It is this act of self-determination that is considered to be the most dangerous by government officials. The legacy of the Black Liberation Movement was rooted in this ideology and was responded to viciously by all levels of law enforcement, which routinely attacked and murdered activists. Thus we have the many political prisoners and prisoners of war in the united states today. Nationally we have a responsibility to call for the freedom of all political prisoners in the united states who have been found guilty of simply defending the lives of Black people.

We are pleased to hear the many calls for people to pay attention to Jena 6s in our own towns. We must recognize that we all live in Jena. The same people who boarded buses from all corners of this country must organize against the mass criminalization of our youth, militarized law enforcement and participate in the work for self-determination and the unconditional release of the political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States.

Self Respect, Self Defense and Self Determination We will defend our freedom fighters To find out how you can participate in the movement to free political prisoners, please contact:

Jericho amnesty campaign
Hands Off Assata campaign
Free the San Francisco 8 campaign
[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_01_zeleza.gifWriting on Pius Adesami adopts the persona of Sarah Baartman, the so-called "the Hottentot Venus", to ask why no African feminist theorist is included in the recently published Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader (by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar) which traces the evolution of feminist writing from the middle ages to the 21st century:

“I am interested in the stories told – or untold – by your editorial choices and options, the instinct to include and the impulse to exclude. I am interested in the conscious and the subconscious processes that led you to the conclusion that Africa, an entire continent of fifty-four countries and over a billion people, has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing, to five centuries of feminist theorizing. After all, as seasoned academics in the United States, you both know that exclusions tell much louder stories than inclusions. I know we are on the same page here.
..
Could it be that you imagined that the voices of the African American women you selected adequately speak for those of their continental sisters? Possibly. If this is the case, I must tell you that African American women cannot be made to stand in and speak for continental African women. According to an African proverb, the monkey and the gorilla may claim oneness, monkey is monkey and gorilla gorilla.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_02_kenya.gifIn the first part of an article on the peculiarities of the Kenyan political system, Thinker’s room looks at the Kenyan electoral system and political parties:

“During elections the incumbent expects to be challenged by the leader of the Official Opposition and h(is/er) Government In Waiting...But in Kenya we have a situation where the official opposition will support the incumbent in the next elections…

Political Parties in Kenya are largely meaningless entities. Very few political parties if any actually have a coherent vision and manifesto. Only a handful can actually describe what they are all about. At last count there are 144 currently registered political parties. 144. A good chunk of these are briefcase parties, hoping to cash in at some point in time when the correct political wind blows.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_03_congo.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_04_mugabe.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_05_wordsbody.gifThe Literary and Arts blog, Wordsbody, reviews the eagerly-anticipated second edition of the pan-African literary magazine, African Writing, which is now available online:

“The new issue of African Writing is now online, in a bumper package that you will read and read and read and hardly ever finish. Literary news, interviews, profiles, fiction, poetry, reviews, and stunning visual art. And where do we start with the contributors? Best not to start.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_06_sotho.gifSotho returns to the controversial and widely condemned decision by officials of the University in St. Thomas to bar South African Nobel Peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from speaking at that university because he has been critical of Israel:
“It is indeed a pity that those who made the decision to bar him from speaking at the school feel Israel cannot be criticized, or that people’s faith cannot be questioned.

A professor at the university who was pushing for the invitation to be accepted by the school has been “removed as director [of] the university’s justice and peace studies program.” Someone was very strongly against inviting Tutu to the school, which says that Tutu “has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he’s said.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_07_scribbles.gif[email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

This week, the AU Monitor is calling for your contributions toward a Peoples’ Audit of the African Union (AU) (www.aumonitor.org/comments/413/).

The Audit Review panel was set up by the African Union in July in order to identify the areas where significant improvement has to be made to accelerate the African integration process. Having launched an official invitation for contributions to the review, the AU Monitor is asking our readers to contribute to this important review. We have uploaded the official terms of reference of the review as well as a background summary for your attention.

We ask that you forward this invitation for submissions, contributions, debate and discussion far and wide so that CSO, including and particularly social movements, grassroots organizations, trade unions and women’s rights groups etc., as well as citizens’ perspectives on the African Union and the Union Government influence the policy recommendations of the Review Panel.

Please submit all contributions directly to [email][email protected] with the subject heading “Peoples’ Audit” before October 26th, 2007.

This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis of South Africa’s role in Darfur from the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre. Abdelbagi Jibril argues that by South Africa “providing unconditional political and diplomatic support to the government of Sudan in its attempts to cover up the crimes it has wilfully committed in Darfur amounts to certain complicity in the commission of these crimes”.

In news and analysis from Pan-African civil society, Nanjakululu Wasai urges the East African Community to use TRIPS flexibilities as enshrined in the WTO 2001 Doha declaration to ease access to HIV treatment in the region. Further, a network of Freedom of Information advocates has launched a regional centre in Nigeria to galvanize the campaign for the adoption of access to information laws on the continent. The International Civil Society Steering Group for the Accra High Level Forum launches a policy paper aimed at providing the basis for further discussions about the aid effectiveness agenda towards regional and national consultations planned for September-November 2007. It is hoped that these discussions will help to develop and prioritise the positions and recommendations of CSOs on aid effectiveness. The South African Institute for International Affairs also launches downloadable resources on the African Peer Review Mechanism for civil society to effectively engage the process. With two weeks until the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, mobilization against poverty and inequality and in support of the Millennium Development Goals is geared to take place in almost 90 countries. Lastly, the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides an update from the sixth session of the Court which was held in Arusha on the 17-28th of September.

At the conclusion of the “Mobilizing Aid for Trade: Focus on Africa” conference convened by the African Development Bank in Dar es Salaam, delegates called on African countries to include trade in their national development plans. Also in official AU news, the draft agenda for the eighth ordinary session of the Pan-African Parliament to be held in Midrand, South Africa between October 15 and 26th, 2007 is now available for download. While the ECOSOCC credentials committee has launched an urgent call for applications from African civil society groups in twenty-three African countries from the Central, Northern and Southern regions for elections to the ECOSOCC Assembly.

The government and the army in Guinea Bissau are implicated in drug trafficking according to the latest report on Guinea Bissau by the UN Secretary-General. “Drug trafficking threatens to subvert the nascent democratisation process of Guinea-Bissau, entrench organised crime and undermine respect for the rule of law,” the report, issued on 28 September, concluded.

While the Egyptian government basked in the praise of the “Doing Business” report earlier this week, at home, 27,000 employees of the country’s largest textile mills went on strike, demanding higher wages and benefits. The Egyptian government has reacted severely to the work stoppages, sending several of the strike organizers to prison.

In its preliminary findings, the first ever Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India found that the Bank had an undue and disturbingly negative influence in shaping India’s national policies disproportionate to its contribution, financial or otherwise. A four-day Independent People's Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank found that the Bank's policies and projects in India have led to increased and needless human suffering since 1991, among hundreds of millions of India's poorest and most disadvantaged in rural and urban areas.