New African articles from March 2006

New African archives from March 2006

What would Jesus do in Denmark?(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... Picture this: A cartoon of Jesus, with his pants down, smiling, molesting a child. The caption above it reads "Got Catholicism?". Or how about a picture of a Rabbi with blood dripping from his mouth after bludgeoning a small Palestinian boy...

Obasanjo and the third term.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... Nigeria's constitution does not provide for a third term for a president or state governor. However, there is an amendment provision in Section 9 to any section of the constitution. If the due process is followed and an amendment effected which...

Facts about social progress.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... The ancient development of Egypt was achieved by African kings. The 3rd dynasty built the Step Pyramid under King Djoser in 2630 BC. The 4th dynasty kings built the three pyramids located at Giza. The 6th dynasty kings built the two pyramids...

Leftovers from last year.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... I wish to take you back to New African Aug/Sept 2005 and Regina Jere-Malanda's article on the Sierra Leonean filmmaker, Sorious Samura. After 500 years of the most brutal form of plunder and exploitation of the African continent by Europeans,...

Proud to be African.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... I am proud to be African. Every time I read your magazine, I wish you could continue to open my eyes more. I had been blind but your Beefs column has helped me regain my sight. Definitely you are the voice we need. In your December issue,...

Simply the best.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... Just by accident I saw the New African January issue (The Myth of a Dollar a Day) at the newsstand at the Goteborg railway station in Sweden. I bought a copy, and read almost the whole magazine at once. I haven't read any magazine, ever, that...

The race issue.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... Dr Charles Quist-Adade might mean well in his series on race and racism but it is the contradictions they embody that are worrisome. Although he labours to establish that there is no such human biological category as race, nevertheless he is...

Africa: the Portuguese connection.
March 1, 2006... Most Pan-Africanists, notably the cosmopolitan Du Bois and other African liberation leaders, were multilingual and also educated or exiled in Europe, USA, Russia and China. But this did not mean that they became less attached to their African...

Kenya: has Kibaki delivered? On 27 December 2002, Kenyans elected a new government, headed by President Mwai Kibaki, amidst euphoria and optimism. Three years on, what is the score? Has Kibaki's government fulfilled its electoral promises? Or has it been more of the same? From Nairobi, Wanjohi Kabukuru takes an indepth look.(Cover story)
March 1, 2006... Not even the 1963 independence celebrations could match what was witnessed during the swearing-in ceremony of President Mwai Kibaki as the third president of Kenya in January 2004. It was the dawn of a new era, or so Kenyans were made to...

Kenya: old vs new corruption; Nairobi is abuzz with corruption talk. Politicians, the media, donors, civil society and diplomats are baying for the blood of those accused of graft. The finance, energy and education ministers have already resigned, and more heads are expected to roll. Wanjohi Kabukuru reports.
March 1, 2006... High-level sleaze has been the Achilles heel of President Mwai Kibaki's government for the past two years. The $100m Anglo-Leasing scandal, which first came to light in 2004, has resurfaced and raised a storm in Nairobi, and so far has claimed...

Kenya: the rise and fall of African Heritage.
March 1, 2006... In 1995, the World Bank described Alan Donovan's African Heritage gallery in Kenya as "the largest, most organised craft retail and wholesale operation in Africa... It is a pioneer, having raised handicrafts from the level of souvenir trinkets...

South Africa: 'the age of hope'; This year's "state of the nation" address saw a happy President Thabo Mbeki waxing more lyrical than normal. Yesterday was another country, he said, as optimism grows in South Africa. Kgomotso Nyanto reports from Johannesburg.
March 1, 2006... "Periods of a decade and a decade-and-a-half are but fleeting moments in the life of any nation. In our case, we have lived through these years conscious of the enormous effort it would require of all of us to unshackle our country from the...

Ethiopia.(to bring democracy with the help of African Union)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The Scandinavian Chapter of the Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES), a pressure group fighting for democracy in Ethiopia, has called on the African Union (which has its headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa) to speak out against...

The Gambia: who's for president? Gambians go to the polls later this year to choose a president for the third time since the beginning of the second republic in 1996. Although months away, the election has generated unprecedented interest as it is expected to be the closest fought ever. Sheriff Bojang reports.
March 1, 2006... In July 1994, a group of junior army officers led by Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh dislodged the 30-year rule of Sir Dawda Jawara. Following a constitutional review and referendum, Jammeh transformed his Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council...

Ghana: 'the state of our nation is good'; Ghana is in robust form and the country is on course to achieving its ultimate vision of middle-income status, says President John Kufuor in this year's state of the nation address. Osei Boateng reports.
March 1, 2006... As prescribed by Ghana's national constitution, the president must address Parliament at least once a year to give an account of the "state of the nation". It is an obligation President John Kufuor relishes. This year he was in his element: "Mr...

Zimbabwe.(pays the debt to International Monetary Fund)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... David Chapfika, Zimbabwe's deputy finance minister, announced on 16 February that the country had made a further payment of US$9m to defray its debt to the IMF which has been threatening since last year to expel Zimbabwe from membership of the...

Sierra Leone: Same Soup; The loudest voice of political dissent in Sierra Leone is not coming from opposition parties or the media; it is coming from musicians, reports Alfred Romann from Freetown.
March 1, 2006... Sierra Leone's best known musicians have built themselves by pointing thinly veiled fingers at corruption, unemployment, instability and abuses of power. Singles and albums like the Jungle Leaders' Same Soup, on the changing times but constant...

USA: a giant in her own right.(Mrs Coretta Scott King passes away)(Obituary)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... In 1967, Martin Luther King Jnr was interviewed by the US journalist, Arnold Michaelis. This is what he said about his wife, Mrs Coretta Scott King: "I think, on many points, she educated me. When I met her, she was very concerned about the...

Botswana: Voices of the San.
March 1, 2006... It is not often that you meet a San (or in colonial language, a Bushman) in Savile Row in Central London, the home of the finest tailoring in all of the UK. But Kabo Mosweu (left) was there in the flesh; and no wonder, such an event was...

Botswana: the San struggle lives on.(for ancestral land)
March 1, 2006... The San people of Botswana will not give up fighting for their ancestral land. Through their organisation, the First People of the Kalahari (FPK), led by Roy Sesana (pictured above), they have vowed to struggle to keep possession of the land...

Liberia: can Mama Ellen deliver liberty? Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem on the coming of Liberia's new president and cautions her to beware of her World Bank background. "No amount of foreign support can be a substitute for the efforts of your own people ... It is not going to be easy, but if you don't abandon the people, they won't abandon you too," he writes.
March 1, 2006... On Monday 15 January 2006, Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as president of Liberia, Africa's oldest modern republican state, founded by freed slaves largely from the USA in 1847. The search for liberty took them there, but the reality...

Church of England: 'we are sorry for benefiting from slave trade'.
March 1, 2006... The Church of England has finally said sorry for benefiting from transatlantic slavery, 199 years after the trade in slaves was abolished in the British Empire, in 1807, reports Osei Boateng. Slavery was made illegal in Britain in 1772, but...

The mission to feed Liberia: Ambassador Wendell McIntosh, crusader for peace and equity for all Liberians, founded the Foundation for African Development Aid (ADA) in 1990. He has since not rested. His goal is to achieve food security for the country as a necessary part of the peace process. Supplement by Jarlawah Tonpo.
March 1, 2006... Wendell McIntosh, Liberia's ambassador at large, resident in The Netherlands, began this journey because of his concern for the sorry plight of Liberian refugees in Guinea. He started by raising funds to provide food and other provisions for...

One step at a time: despite funding shortages, ADA is making steady progress and has again been voted "the NGO of the year 2005" by the Liberian media, as they did in 2004.(African Development Aid)
March 1, 2006... The first few months of ADA's programme were a real orientation period. ADA staff continually encouraged the young people who had never worked before or had had no labour-intensive training to persevere with the programme. [ILLUSTRATION...

Why donors should help ADA: factions in the conflict in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire are already recruiting Liberian youths to fight for them. This is a bad omen for Liberia and the wider region. It is why ADA needs more donor support to encourage ex-combatants to join its skills training programmes.(African Development Aid)
March 1, 2006... On 2 February 2006, the Monrovia newspaper, The News, reported that: "A notorious battlefront commander of the disbanded Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, Gen. Joseph Samba alias 'High Command' has been arrested in [Liberia's]...

Coming to Aburokyire.(village culture in Africa)
March 1, 2006... What wouldn't I give to talk to the "illiterate" person who was able to use a combination of rhyme, assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia to compose great verses, all in the head. How wonderful it would be if one were to be able to go around...

The 'hoax-masters' who have seized America: Cameron Duodu replies to Katie Phelps, an American resident in Johannesburg, South Africa, who wrote to complain in the February issue of New African that our November issue contained "overtly negative reports" about her "homeland, the United States".(Interview)
March 1, 2006... I was amused by Ms Katie Phelps' complaint, for Africa is often maligned by the Western media. Now, I am not saying that just because they publish what we consider "overtly negative reports" about our continent, we too must do the same. What I...

Britain: Harold Smith fights on.(for Africa)
March 1, 2006... At a time when free speech and press freedom are firmly on the agenda again in Europe (and the West in general) in the wake of Prophet Muhammad's cartoon protests, an Englishman who has Africa at heart is being denied his right of free...

Nigeria: Project Obasanjo in full swing.( Peoples Democratic Party )
March 1, 2006... Lindsay Barrett on the political situation in Nigeria today. "The sense of 'imperial right' being exhibited by President Obasanjo," Barrett writes, "is what has annoyed and alienated a substantial proportion of the founding elite of the ruling...

Nigeria: 'nobody knows tomorrow'; Emeka Nwandiko on the rise and rise of the Nigerian film industry (also known as Nollywood).
March 1, 2006... As the sun sets over Hillbrow in Johannesburg, South Africa, Phillipine Theledi, her fiance, and a friend settle down to watch TV. The watching hour of the soaps has begun, but the 24-year-old police constable and her guests are not interested...

It is religious hatred.(Editorial)
March 1, 2006... The Prophet Muhammad cartoons have nothing to do with comedy, comedic interpretation, satire--biting or not--or even caricature that's justified by citing press freedom or freedom of expression... I wonder how many "editorial" meetings were...

Egypt: the record breakers! The 25th edition of the African Nations Cup came to a head in Cairo as the hosts prevailed to inscribe their name on the trophy for a record-breaking fifth time. Having won the title in 1957, 1959, 1986 and 1998, Egypt had to wait for eight years to win it again in 2006. Report by Peter Law.
March 1, 2006... Much of the pre-finals attention was directed at Africa's five World Cup aspirants--Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, Angola and Tunisia--who faced strong challenges from more established sides still hurting from their failure to win places at the...

Western Union: football and multi-ethnic marketing.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... In just 10 years of presence in Africa, Western Union (WU), one of the leading global money transfer providers, has become a trade name in Africa, According to Jean-Claude Farah and Khalid Fellahi, WU's vice-presidents respectively for the...

End of an era: Peggy Appiah, the well-known British-Ghanaian writer of books for children and wife of the late Ghanaian statesman Joe Appiah, passed away in Kumasi on 11 February at the age of 84. Her literary friend and collaborator, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, pays her this tribute.(Obituary)
March 1, 2006... Peggy Appiah spent over 50 years in Kumasi since she left England after her marriage to the Ghanaian lawyer, statesman and presidential advisor, the late Joe Appiah. For all these years, she chronicled both as a profession and hobby,...