New African articles from July 2006

New African archives from July 2006

Will Taylor get a fair trial?(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... That the people of Sierra Leone have gone through hell, no one can deny. But how can the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, be charged, tried and found guilty for acts perpetrated by Sierra Leoneans themselves inside Sierra Leone while...

Sheer hypocrisy.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... The arrest and extradition of Charles Taylor and branding him a warlord is a blatant act of hypocrisy and racism. Why is the term "warlord" reserved for only Africans? Mark Thatcher (the son of the former British prime minister, Margaret...

The mother of all insults.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I am a 52-year-old Liberian businessman living in Philadelphia, USA. I am appalled that you chose to feature Charles Taylor elegantly on the front cover of your May issue, especially when the magazine claims to be the "New African". Taylor's...

Defending Taylor.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I am surprised to realise that Baffour Ankomah is one of those who think that pan-Africanism is about defending everything that comes from Africa irrespective of the merits of such defence. In Baffour's Beefs (May), the author strained every...

Good journalism.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... Your May cover story on Charles Taylor was a classic example of good journalism. While the Western media give us one-sided stories, New African gives us the truth, and nothing but the truth. Please keep up the good job. Charles L....

History won't be kind to Obasanjo.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... The May cover story on Charles Taylor was interesting, and I particularly liked your analysis. Kudos also to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, the former Nigerian foreign minister, for his thought-provoking article. The Taylor saga is actually a shame...

No tears for Taylor.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... The political turmoil surrounding Charles Taylor's arrest and eventual handover to the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone is nothing short of an embarrassment to both the Liberian and Nigerian governments. True! And as Prof A. Bolaji...

Hurray for Nigerian Senate.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I was so relieved when I learnt that the Nigerian Senate had voted to stop President Olusegun Obasanjo from becoming president for a third term. This is a noteworthy event because amending the 1999 Constitution just to let one person out of...

Capitalist what?(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... The campaign in the Diaspora by revolutionary pan-African nationalists on the abolition of the "N" word has attracted reactionary, revisionist and infantile literary nonsense of the like peddled by Chika Onyeani (Letters, NA, June). The author...

Fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts (1).(British's opinion about Africans)
July 1, 2006... "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB--General Well-Being"--David Cameron, leader of Britain's Conservative Party I am sorely tempted to start with the World...

World Cup: the fabulous five.(African teams' professional football)
July 1, 2006... The Hilton hotel in Cologne had never seen anything like it before... and will probably never see anything like it again. It was the day Ghana beat the Czech Republic 2-0 in the World Cup and one hell of an improvised party broke out, with...

We were just simply magnificent: a moment of sublime greatness for Ghana football--Czech Republic 0, Ghana 2. It was a sweet, sweet victory--it showed us the true meaning of a joy that is perfect in every respect; a victory made sweeter by the faith it had regenerated in us, in our Black Stars.(Under the Neem Tree)
July 1, 2006... There are certain moments in our lives that define us not as we normally are, but what we hope we could be. In ordinary life, we may be rich or poor; we may be healthy or unwell; strong or weak. But in our imagination, we can be anything we...

The scramble for African oil.
July 1, 2006... Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project in Washington DC, on how oil is leading another scramble for Africa, this time not by the usual suspects who met in Berlin in 1884-86, but by the oil guzzlers from across the...

South Africa: apartheid legacy difficult to shift; On the 30th anniversary of the Soweto student uprising, Kgomotso Nyanto reports from Johannesburg that not much has changed on the education front 12 years after the demise of apartheid.(Around Africa)
July 1, 2006... The 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprising on 16 June was preceded by several events, speeches and debates. Whether anybody was listening is another matter. Most people simply take 16 June as another welcome holiday and engage in that most...

Liberia.(InBrief)(Charles Taylor's political activity)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Charles Taylor (photo above) was removed from the custody of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on 20 June and flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands. Taylor was initially against standing trial in...

Kenya: look east my son; Kenya is the latest African country to fall for the charms of the world's emergent superpower, China. Wanjohi Kabukuru reports from Nairobi on what this portends for the East African country.(Around Africa)
July 1, 2006... In August last year, President Mwai Kibaki made a high profile visit to China, where he met President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiaba and other top officials. The visit was the first by a Kenyan president to China in 11 years. By the time Kibaki...

Ecowas.(transformation of the Ecowas Secretariat)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The 30th ordinary summit of heads of state of Ecowas has finalised the transformation of the Ecowas Secretariat based in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, into a nine-member Commission comprising a president, vice president and seven commissioners....

Zambia: opposition in disarray; There is chaos in opposition ranks as their preferred frontrunner has died months before the next elections. Austin Mbewe reports from Lusaka.(Around Africa)
July 1, 2006... The death of Zambia's main opposition leader, Anderson Mazoka, in May has left the newly formed opposition alliance in disarray. Not only did the bombshell drop when the alliance was gearing up for this year's elections, but also his succession...

Cameroon: Lake Nyos is in a mess; In August 1986, a deadly gas leak from Lake Nyos killed over 1,800 people in Cameroon. Now there are fears that the dam may collapse within five to 10 years and kill more people. Tansa Musa reports from Yaounde.(Around Africa)
July 1, 2006... When Dr Isaac Njilah, a geo-environmental scientist at the University of Yaounde, said last August that the natural dam holding back the water of Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon was fragile and could collapse at any time, his colleagues at...

Zimbabwe.(InBrief)(China's Development Bank to support Zimbabwe's economic recovery programme)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... China's Development Bank (CDB) has pledged support, including a possible currency swap, for Zimbabwe's economic recovery programme. Reports from Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, quoting Chen Yuan, the CDB chief, said the Bank had expressed...

Charles Taylor: what AlGathafi told Johnson-Sirleaf; "Violating the right of political asylum is a very dangerous matter. This is a serious precedent. Besides, the 'manufactured escape' and his arrest on the Nigerian border made this matter e smorhameful. This is shameful and it is far from African manners.".(Feature)
July 1, 2006... The Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, paid her first official visit to Libya in mid-May, at the invitation of President Muammar AlGathafi. Johnson-Sirleaf expressed her gratitude to the Libyan leader for supporting her in the elections...

'I'm happy to see Liberia again': Alfred Romann joins a UN convoy taking Liberian refugees home from Sierra Leone. It's a hard three-day journey, but the end--being back home--justifies the bumpy ride.(Feature)
July 1, 2006... The region of West Africa where Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia come together looks like the beak of a parrot. It is a small area; a few hundred square kilometres of forest where national borders are lines on a map that bear almost no relation...

Uganda: a huge dilemma; The emergence of video footage showing one of the world's most wanted men, Joseph Kony, has led to the belief that the 20-year-old LRA insurgency in northern Uganda could finally be about to enter its endgame. But which deal would Kampala strike? And would Kony take it, when international arrest warrants are hanging over his head?, asks Stuart Price reporting from Kampala.(Feature)
July 1, 2006... For one of Africa's most vilified and sought-after individuals, Joseph Kony, leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), looked remarkably calm and collected. A videotape of a meeting held between the LRA's top brass and officials of the...

'Not enough flies to create the right effect': Rotimi Sankore on Aids, Africa, the Western media and "development pornography". For decades, development and aid charities in the West have believed the best way to raise funds for their work is to shock people with astonishing pictures of poverty and disease from the "developing" world. But what are the unintended consequences?(Feature)
July 1, 2006... In modern times, poverty has been the first of all social ailments to be given a human face in the international media. It evolved over time but it finally emerged that in the minds of the opinion shapers of the Western media, poverty is...

'The ancestors are an immediate & accessible reality': poetic licence, a conversation with Sir Bob Geldof--on his new book/TV series, Geldof in Africa, and other matters. "Every time I go to Africa, I feel renewed--quite the opposite to what you would expect." Arise Sir Bob!(Feature)(Interview)
July 1, 2006... It took all my courage to approach Sir Bob Geldof, even at a London party. After all, he had once called a notorious Horn of Africa factional leader "a f--k", and on TV too. It had stopped an embarrassed interpreter dead in his tracks. "Go on,"...

Cote d'Ivoire: 'it is an economic war orchestrated by France'.(Interview)
July 1, 2006... "Paris is using this war as a pressure device to commit us into agreeing not to challenge the 1960s' cooperation agreements signed between our countries and France. Paris is also insisting that the Ivorian government must guarantee that it will...

Malawi: Chihana bids adieu; Lameck Masina reports on what the death of Chakufwa Chihana means to his party and Malawian politics in general.(Appreciation)
July 1, 2006... The story about multiparty politics in Malawi is incomplete without mentioning the opposition leader, Chakufwa Thom Chihana, who died on 12 June 2006 at the Garden City Clinic in South Africa. He was 69. He died after undergoing brain surgery...

Don't mention slavery.(Special Books)("The Eloquence of the Scribes" of Ayi Kwei Armah)
July 1, 2006... In the fourth instalment of the serialisation of The Eloquence of the Scribes, Ayi Kwei Armah tells how Africans trained in literature the colonial way find it embarrassing to discuss such central issues as slavery in their works. "It takes...

Celtel on the march: new Nigerian acquisition extends the reach of Africa's fastest growing mobile company to 15 countries.(Celtel International acquires Vmobile)
July 1, 2006... Celtel International, a subsidiary of the MTC Group of Kuwait and a leading mobile operator in Africa, has acquired a controlling 65% stake in Vmobile, one of Nigeria's leading mobile telecom operators, for over US$1bn. This transaction marks...

Rwanda: how Solace quietly brings solace to the needy; There are several African success stories of heroism in charitable works. One of them is The Solace Ministries in Rwanda. This month we have decided to highlight their good works if only to show to those who are still asking, "what are Africans doing for themselves in the midst of their problems?" This report is by Ola Sheyin.(Feature)
July 1, 2006... When asked why African musicians had been largely ignored as acts in the last Live 8 concerts, the principal organiser, Sir Bob Geldof, reportedly replied in essence with a question along the lines of, "why weren't African musicians organising...

China and Angola--too soon to tell: will the Chinese love-affair in Africa, especially in Angola, follow the same trajectory as the Soviet Union's in Africa before the fall of the Berlin Wall? Proceed with caution.(Lest we forget)
July 1, 2006... The late Chinese prime minister, Chou-En Lai, upon being asked whether the French Revolution had been a good thing in world history, was reported to have said: "It is still too early to tell". Watching the Western media analyse the recent...

The historian who made history himself.(Albert Adu Boahen)(Obituary)
July 1, 2006... "Some people make history and do not write it themselves. Others write history and do not make it. Adu Boahen [was] privileged to record the annals of the past ages and actively contribute to the history of his own times." Ivor Agyeman-Duah...

The man who rescued African history.(African History)(Albert Adu Boahen)
July 1, 2006... "Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none: There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness." When the British don, Hugh Trevor-Roper, wrote this, little did he know...

New museum to lure back Africa's looted artefacts: Juha Vakkuri, a Finnish author, and his group, African Art Returns, are setting up a museum in Grand-Popo, Benin, to house returned African art looted in colonial times. David Williams reports.(The Arts)(Museum of Returned African Art)
July 1, 2006... More than 100 years after a British force torched the capital of the old kingdom of Benin and carted off the exquisite Benin Bronzes, an international campaign is being launched for a museum to lure back some of sub-Saharan Africa's lost...

Nokia finds new home in African fashion: seventeen African beauties have been selected for the semi-finals of this year's Nokia Face of Africa modelling competition. The winner has a date with global stardom.(The Arts)
July 1, 2006... Nokia South Africa has enhanced its standing as the world's most fashion conscious mobile phone brand with a string of marketing initiatives at Africa's leading fashion events. Early this year, Nokia took its cutting edge L'Amour Collection...