New African articles from July 2002

New African archives from July 2002

Letters.
July 1, 2002... Ghana's shame Let me first express my deep respect for the good work you are doing. Being an avid reader for so many years, New African has become a constant source of information for me and I call myself the proud owner of nearly each...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
July 1, 2002... Our attention has been drawn to the fact that the OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was not a former prison donated by Emperor Haile Sellasie at the birth of the OAU in 1963, as reported by Baffour in our June issue. It was a police...

'Holocaust envy' or a better deal for Africa? (Comment: Africa and Reparations).
July 1, 2002... Despite the ornamental multi-racialism one sees mostly on Western TV these days, including the current black predominance in sporting events, the fact is that, by and large, black people still suffer from 'negative discrimination'. Their claims...

Africa day in prague. (The Gallery).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... As the African community in the Czech Republic grows, so is the importance to them of Africa Day, 25 May, the day the OAU was founded in 1963. 25 May has since become a day of profound significance for Africans at home and abroad. It is a day...

Desperation motivation: the UN is looking for a Director for the Millennium Campaign, a global initiative aimed at building awareness of the MDGs and creating coalitions for action across developed and developing countries.(Millennium Development Goals )(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... At the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders put development at the heart of the global agenda with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which Set clear targets for dramatically reducing poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy,...

Opposition in messy scandal. (South Africa).
July 1, 2002... In what has been described as a "season of madness", the official opposition patty, The Democtatic Alliance (DA,) has found itself embroiled in a messy scandal which it may find difficult to survive. A German fugitive, Jurgen Harksen, has...

Moi not gone yet. (Kenya).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Going, going...not gone yet? President Daniel Arap Moi's final term in office officially expires early next January while the life of the 8th Parliament ends about a month later. But now Kenya's ruling party, Kanu, on 18 June, agreed to delay...

The generals prepare for 2003. (Nigeria).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... There are still some months to go, but next year's presidential election in Nigeria is poised for a lot of excitement. It is bound to feature an off-barracks combat among retired generals; the same group chat held the Nigerian state to ransom...

Who's for privatisation? (Tanzania).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Calls for one of Tanzania's most powerful and strategic institutions to be probed are getting louder and louder. The Presidential Parasratatal Sector Reform Commission (PPSRC) which is overseeing the country's privatisation programme, has come...

Kagame 0, Onana 1. (Rwanda).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The 17th Chamber of the French high court in early June threw out on technical grounds the libel suit filed by Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, against the investigative Cameroonian journalist and author, Charles Onana. The journalist was...

Ghana Airways is going under. (Ghana).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Ghana's flag carrier, Ghana Airways (Ghanair) is on the brink of collapse. It is saddled with debts totalling $127m. In the face of the airline's sole owner, the Ghana government's failure to rescue it from its financial turbulence, or any...

What is MONUC doing here? (Dr Congo).(United Nations Observer Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Feeling let dawn by the UN Mission in Congo, known by its French acronym, MONUC, the people of Congo have now accused the UN observers of conniving with the foreign invaders from Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to prolong the occupation of their...

A dose of reality -- an insider's view of the aid industry. (Feature: Foreign Aid).(Michael Maren on Africa)
July 1, 2002... Michael Maren, an American-Jew, once an aid worker, writes in The Road to Hell: "The starving African exists as a point in space from which we measure our own wealth, success and prosperity, a darkness against which we can view our own cultural...

The early days of the OAU. (Special Feature).(Organization of African Unity, 1963)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The signing of the charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa on 25 May 1963 was the culmination of years of efforts in which President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia played particularly...

The OAU and liberation. (Special Feature).(Organization of African Unity)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The day of triumph when South Africa, under majority rule with Nelson Mandela as President, joined the OAU in 1994 was scarcely imaginable back in 1963. The apartheid regime seemed as solid as a rock then, and there was also the extension of...

The OAU in African conflicts. (Special Feature).(Organization of African Unity)
July 1, 2002... Within its first few months, the Organisation of African Unity successfully mediated three weeks of border fighting between Morocco and Algeria. Ever since then the OAU has had considerable success in resolving crises between African states,...

Unity and the African Economy. (Special Feature).(Organization of African Unity)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Those who suggested that after the end of the struggle against colonial/white minority rule in South Africa in 1994, the OAU should concentrate on Africa's pressing economic problems were doubtless aware that it had been paying attention to...

Towards a human rights agenda. (OAU Feature).(Organization of African Unity)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... As an alliance of governments in power, taking the principle of "non-interference in internal affairs" very seriously, the OAU was at first far from concerning itself with human rights and abuses of power in individual African states. In this...

The Union is here at last. (Special Feature).(African Union)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... It has taken Africa almost 40 years to achieve a full-blown Union, which comes to fruition in Durban, South Africa on July 9. But it has been an occasion well worth waiting for In the past 40 years, African leaders had been concentrating their...

Charles Taylor speaks. (The Interview).(Liberia's President Charles Ghanakay Taylor)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... Liberia's president, Charles Ghankay Taylor, is sure that "some powerful countries" are out to get him. But he does not want to name them, "because they punish you the more if you do". Yet, the names are all over in the streets of Liberia --...

'The war must end in peace with justice': Jacob Akol writes on the latest American attempt to bring peace to Sudan. (Feature: Sudan).
July 1, 2002... It is doubtful if President George W. Bush knew exactly what he was getting himself into when, barely a week before the 11 September attack on America, he appointed former Senator John Danforrh as his "Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan". ...

Oh dear! (Economy in Brief).(Africa)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, caused a stir in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Adaba, on 12 May when he said at a civil society meeting organised by the OAU that African leaders had stole $140 billion since independence in 1960 and...

World Cup: Pushovers no more; the splendid African performance at the 2002 World Cup in Korea-Japan has loudly proclaimed that the days when Africa just made up the numbers at the World Cup are gone forever.
July 1, 2002... In 1959, Gilberto Freyre made a telling comment in his book, New World In The Tropics: "The Brazilians," he wrote, "play football as if it were a dance. This is probably the result of the influence of those Brazilians who have African blood or...

Life in Ghana in the 50s (Part 3). (Under the Neem Tree).
July 1, 2002... Southerners and Northerners rarely mixed in those days and didn't understand each other's language. This made them mutually hostile towards each other. Which suited the British authorities very well, for it meant they could rely on the...

The Euro is bad news for the CFA: Ruth Nabakwe begins a new series on money matters, with special focus this month on the Euro-CFA link which, she writes, bodes ill for Africa's future. (Feature: Africa-Europe).(Communaute Financiere Africaine franc)
July 1, 2002... A short historical perspective of the CFA Franc and its link to, first, the French Franc and now the Euro is necessary for a better understanding of the negative consequences the monetary relationship portends for the African countries...

Last chance for sustainable development? as the second UN Earth Summit approaches, our special correspondent, Rob Rose, looks at what is in it for Africa. (Sustainable Development Special Feature).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... In August, world leaders will converge on the South African city of Johannesburg to thrash out a blueprint mapping out the future direction of global sustainable development. Called the Second World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), it...

GM foods for Africa: solution or hazard? (Sustainable Development Special Feature).(genetically modified foods)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe recently stunned the world when he turned down an offer of 12,000 tons of maize from the US sent to feed his citizens. His reason? The maize could have been genetically modified (GM) and no assurance had been...

Genetically improved cotton - the Makhatini experience: a contribution to sustainable development. (Monsanto).(Monsanto Co.)(Makhatini, South Africa)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... In Africa, where most people are engaged in farming, sustainable development will largely be a result of sustainable agriculture. Agriculture will largely be a result of sustainable need to be transformed into a productive and profitable...

The looming water crisis: how will it affect Africa? (Sustainable Development Special Feature).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... It is little wonder why the UN secretary general Kofi Annan has highlighted water as one of the five key areas he wants to address at the upcoming Earth Summit. In a report on "Implementing Agenda 21" prepared for the Summit, Annan highlights...

CFA, the devil is in the details: the Ivorian economist and author of Le Franc CFA et l'Euro Contre l'Afrique, Prof Nicholas Agbohou, bares it all in this interview with Ruth Nabakwe. (Insight).(communuate financiere africaine franc)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... NA: You have said in your book and lectures that the CFA zone countries finance the French economy. How do these poor countries do it? Agbohou: In order to understand how the CFA zone economies help to finance the French economy, it is...

Black skin, white masks. (Insight).(Frantz Fanon's 50th anniversary of 'Black Skin, White Masks')
July 1, 2002... Imagine Frantz Fanon, our psychiatrist-philosopher, writing it 50 years ago; imagine reading it then, too. Today, ask how far have we come; how far do we have to go? How much has changed? How much remains the same? What are anniversaries...

One democracy, different standards. (Feature: Zimbabwe and Elections).
July 1, 2002... The war of words between the West and Zimbabwe is still continuing. On 19 March, when the Commonwealth finally suspended Zimbabwe from its "councils" for one year, the main reason was that Mugabe's recent re-election was marred by violence and...

In John Howard's backyard. (Diaspora: Blacks in Australia).(prime minister of Australia)
July 1, 2002... John Howard, the Australian prime minister, was the man who had the honour to announce to the world the recent suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth -- because "conditions in Zimbabwe did not adequately allow for a free expression of...

Cameroon: how long will the union hold? (Economy in Brief).(English-speaking and French-speaking Cameroonians)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Discontent between English-speaking and French-speaking Cameroonians has been simmering for 41 years right after the British-administered Southern Cameroon decided to join the French-speaking La Republique du Cameroun and the country became the...