New African articles from February 2003

New African archives from February 2003

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... Justice before peace I appreciate very much the effort you and your magazine are making in trying to bring awareness and justice to the African people, both at home and in the diaspora. It is your magazine that made me start looking at the...

Corporate citizenship in a changing world.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Recently, ExxonMobil took stock of its worldwide involvement in society, and published a report entitled Corporate citizenship in a changing world. The report illustrates the many ways that a company interacts with the societies in which it...

Shame to the pretenders. (Baffour's Beefs).
February 1, 2003... "The equivalent in terms of distance to the truth in the Labour government's version of the events in Zimbabwe and our experience, is like the journey between Mars and the Earth" -- Dr David Nyekorach-Matsanga to the Foreign Office minister,...

Diasporan wins Miss Malaika. (The Gallery).(African American student Morgan Chitty)
February 1, 2003... Morgan Chitty, a 22-year-old African-American student majoring in African Studies and Politics, won a closely contested Miss Malaika pageant beamed from Harare on 14 December to an estimated 300 million people in 30 countries across the world....

"The land has come back". (Cover Story: Zimbabwe).
February 1, 2003... Amidst the mounting Western strangulation and demonisation of Zimbabwe in recent months, the government has quietly pressed ahead with its fast track land reform programme, bringing it to a virtual end. Baffour Ankomah reports from Harare. ...

What future for Morgan? (Cover Story: Zimbabwe).(Morgan Tsvangirai)
February 1, 2003... He nearly snatched the crown. But if the omens are any guide, Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader much loved by Britain and its allies, may never see the inside of State House. By his own reckoning, even the British are turning...

Brazil -- the black stake. (Lest We Forget).
February 1, 2003... President Bush caused great hilarity when he welcomed the former Brazilian president, Henrique Cardoso, in Washington with the amiable question: "so you also have blacks in Brazil?" Of course, but they have little stake in their country. ...

Victory for democracy: some say it is a "political earthquake"; others say "it's old wine in new bottles". But this may be the new dawn that Kenyans had always yearned for. (Around Africa: Kenya).
February 1, 2003... When Kenyans went to the polls on 27 December, the results were more or less foreclosed: the massive edifice built by KANU over 40 years since independence on 12 December 1963 was about to be replaced. But by what? For years, headlines...

Kufuor's programme: relying on foreign handouts to run your country is a disgrace, and Ghana is in that exact position, says President Kufuor. (Around Africa: Ghana).(John Agyekum Kufour)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... "It is a matter of great concern and indeed a shame for all Ghanaians that more than 60% of the country's budget comes from development partners," President John Agyekum Kufuor told the nation when addressing this year's People's Assembly, a...

Not a pretty picture. (Around Africa: Zambia).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... When President Mwanawasa set up a Task Force to investigate "the plunder" of the country's resources by the last government, there was jubilation in the country. Now people are not so sure. Riding high on a populist wave soon after his...

Reform is in the air: the coalition for government reform is becoming bigger and bigger, and now business and the church have become members. (Around Africa: Swaziland).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... The push for government reform in Africa's last country to be ruled by an absolute monarch has always been led by labour unions, human rights groups and banned political parties. But the New Year began with the surprise launch of a new group...

Tax them out: a new stringent tax regime is driving foreigners and business away. But don't tell the government. (Around Africa: The Gambia).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... There is hardly a more pertinent theme of discourse in town these days than the new tax regulations contained in the 2003 budget speech of finance minister Famara Jatta. In markets, street corners, bars, work places and homes, the concerns are...

Playing maiden to America's war machine: not many people can spot it on the map, but Djibouti has increasingly become important in the American scheme of war. (Around Africa: Djibouti).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Like it or not, Africa will have to play a part in the looming war against Iraq. Djibouti's militarily strategic ports on the Red Sea, wanted by America since the September 11 attack, are going to be a vital staging post. Djibouti's president,...

Die, they must. (Around Africa: DRCongo).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Despite pressure put on him to commute the death sentences passed on 30 people recently in connection with his father's assassination, President Joseph Kabila says the law must take its course. The pressure has been intense. It has been...

Can famine be avoided? The spectre of famine is once again stalking Ethiopia almost 20 years after a million people died in the horrific 1984 tragedy. (Around Africa: Ethiopia).
February 1, 2003... Drought has once again devastated Ethiopia's food production and another tragedy will only be avoided if massive resources can be mobilised internationally. Georgia Shaver, the World Food Programme director for Ethiopia, points out the scale of...

Coffee woes, Congress rescue: the recent resolution by the US Congress to salvage the plummeting price of coffee may have come as a godsend for East Africa. (Around Africa: East Africa).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... The falling world market price of coffee has hit hard the economies of African producers dependent on the crop, especially those in East Africa and Central Africa -- Burundi for example where coffee accounts for approximately 80% of export...

Voting for apartheid at the UN. (Dossier: South Africa).
February 1, 2003... Historical amnesia is sweeping over the world, but there is a little piece of South African history that must not be allowed to be forgotten. This extract is from William Blum's Rogue State, a book which every New African reader must have a...

South Africa the triumph of the African spirit: African renaissance has hit education, and the black pass rate in exams is at its highest this year. (Dossier).
February 1, 2003... South Africa had good reason to doubly celebrate when matric results (final examinatons after 12 years of schooling) for 2002 was released just before the New Year. For the first time in the history of the country, tremendous strides were made...

Why we should fear the IMF. (Feature: Africa).(International Monetary Fund)
February 1, 2003... This is the gospel according to Joseph E. Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank, who resigned three years ago because he could not stand the way the Bank and the IMF were running the show. Welcome to Globalisation And Its...

Mbeki: African Union is the mother, Nepad is her baby. (Feature).(New Partnership for African Development)
February 1, 2003... President Thabo Mbeki, in a letter to the Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien who wants Nepad to replace the African Union, tells him: "As Africans, like any other people in the world, we have the capacity to determine what is in our best...

Was it 'Hall' or 'Hell'? (Under the Neem Tree).
February 1, 2003... "Hall"? it was "Hell", and only timidity prevented people from changing the "a" into an "e" and having done with it. Anyway, the Standard Seven pupils left us in no doubt what they thought of it...the reminiscences of a 1950s Ghanaian boy...

"The conservatives would never have done that". (The Interview: Zimbabwe).
February 1, 2003... David Hasluck, the immediate past director of Zimbabwe's white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), blames Tony Blair's Labour government for messing up in Zimbabwe. "Clare Short knows that there was a land issue at Lancaster House, how can she...

The spark. (Zimbabwe).
February 1, 2003... Over the Christmas period, Clare Short, the British international development minister, led the British government's effort to stop the English cricket team from playing their World Cup matches in Zimbabwe this month (February) "because of the...

What is an African body worth today? (Not in Black or White).
February 1, 2003... What I find as despicable as the bomb that killed the Kenyans in Mombasa is that they were displayed in a manner in which no white body would be shown, in order to highlight and push the West's message advantageously... And did you see...

USA the Lott affair. (Diaspora).(Trent Lott)
February 1, 2003... The fight against racism has lately become a public relation war. Perception is all that matters. And don't mention the Democrats using "N" words. They can do it with impunity. Or is it? E. Ablorh-Odjidja reports from Washington DC. When...

Africa looking for a job? (Diaspora).
February 1, 2003... This is good news for African and Diasporan professionals. The movement of Africans over the past 50 years to live and work outside the continent has created a crippling brain drain. Now a new Commonwealth initiative wants to reverse all that....

Fashion models before Naomi. (The Arts).(Naomi Campbell)
February 1, 2003... From all the media hype, you would be justified in thinking that Naomi Campbell was the first black model -- on the catwalk or in commercials. Not so, writes good old Clayton Goodwin who did see quite a few before Naomi. British newspapers...

Confessions of a bond girl: John Braithwaite on the career and "good fortune" of Halle Berry, the first black actress to win an Oscar last year for a major role. (The Arts).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Halle Berry, the first black (or African-American) woman to play the "James Bond girl" in the latest Bond movie, Die Another Day, has caused many eyebrows to be raised in recent weeks. The colour of her skin has even become an issue. Some say...

Nigeria's future hangs in the balance: "a kingdom can endure with unbelief but it cannot endure with injustice" -- Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, the 19th century Islamic scholar from Northern Nigeria. (Endtail).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... On 19 April, the crucible of Nigeria's wobbling democratic experiment will be tested in the searing firmament of the electoral process. Let there be no doubt -- the continued existence of Africa's most populous country as a political entity...