Africa News Update
Africa News Update offers news, background and feature articles from African sources twice weekly. The newsletter is free of charge and is edited by the Norwegian Council for Africa. Some of the articles may be shortened.
South Africa: Health system blamed for tuberculosis explosion
Cape Town (South Africa) — Weaknesses in South Africa's public health system have been cited as being among the reasons tuberculosis has increased four-fold in the last 15 years. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
AllAfrica.com
Somalia: Kismayo feels the heat ahead of AMISOM assault
Mogadishu (Somalia) - Hundreds of civilians have over recent weeks fled the Somali port city of Kismayo, where tension is rising amid sporadic shelling by the Kenyan navy in the run-up to an African Union military operation to dislodge Al-Shabab militants from their last stronghold in the country. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Cameroon: US company accused of greenwashing ‘land-grab’
Washington DC (US) - Environment groups are accusing a New York-based agricultural company, Herakles Farms, of going forward with plans for a 73,000-hectare palm-oil plantation and refinery in southwest Cameroon despite a lack of government authorisation, two court injunctions, and in the face of significant community opposition. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
Inter Press Service (IPS)
Ethiopia: Navigating through the narratives on the demise of Meles
Haile Mariam Desalegn - Ethiopia's new PM - must build on Meles Zenawi's strong national and regional legacy to maintain Ethiopia's influential position. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
African Arguments, by Solomon Ayele Dersso*
Togo: Disease and death stalk cramped prisons
Lome (Togo) - Togo’s 12 prisons - many of them dilapidated - hold more than twice their designed capacity. The congestion, as well as inadequate food, medical care and poor hygiene have led to diseases and deaths. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Côte d’Ivoire: Shedding a legacy of violence and corruption at universities
Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) - Yacouba Coulibaly was pursuing a doctorate in education at Cocody University in Abidjan before Côte d’Ivoire’s post-election violence started in 2010. But his classes were routinely disrupted by armed members of a powerful student federation that wished to hold meetings instead. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
Inter Press Service (IPS)
Libya: US did Gaddafi's dirty work, says Human Rights Watch (analysis)
Johannesburg (South Africa) - I don't know whether Abdullah al-Senussi is a man prone to pondering the ironies of life. If he is, he would have had plenty to think about as he sat on the plane that was taking him to his new prison cell in Libya. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
The Daily Maverick, by Simon Allison
Uganda: Play about anti-gay politics banned
Kampala (Uganda) - Since Ugandan MP David Bahati proposed an anti-homosexuality bill in October 2009 that included provisions for capital punishment for homosexuals, Uganda has earned a reputation as one of the most homophobic countries in the world. Media and arts regulators lived up to that billing in August by banning The River and the Mountain, a play that charts a gay man’s difficulties confronting intolerance in Ugandan society. Read >
Thursday, 06 September 2012
ThinkAfricaPress, by Peter Jones*
Angola: “Free and fair” elections could be contested
Luanda (Angola) - Question marks hang over the legitimacy of Angola’s general election as Africa’s second-longest serving leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos has won a five-year term in office following his party’s landslide victory. Read >
Tuesday, 04 September 2012
Inter Press Service (IPS)