The Agonist - Africa: Sub-Saharan

Seafloor dynamics at work splitting continent

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:06:16 -0800

Jonathan Sherwood | Rochester, NY | November 3

Futurity - In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

The new study, published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of little by little as has been predominantly believed. In addition, such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, says Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and coauthor of the study.

“This work is a breakthrough in our understanding of continental rifting leading to the creation of new ocean basins,” says Ken Macdonald, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “For the first time they demonstrate that activity on one rift segment can trigger a major episode of magma injection and associated deformation on a neighboring segment. Careful study of the 2005 mega-dike intrusion and its aftermath will continue to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning about continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges.”

Global protocol could limit Sub-Saharan land grab

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:06:06 -0800

Nick Mathiason | Nov 3

The Guardian - New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land

Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol.

A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy's entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank are now discussing a new code of conduct for land buyers in Africa. Amid increasing concerns over food security, it could include ensuring consent is given prior to selling land from local people as well as ensuring smallholders do not lose out. A first draft is expected to be released next spring.

Alex Wijeratna, Action Aid's food rights campaign officer, said: "There's a new scramble for land in Africa. It's growing at an incredible rate. There's massive secrecy, poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted. There's an argument for a moratorium on sales until there's a proper framework to assess them. We are concerned that an agreement will not come fast enough."

Earlier this year, legendary hedge fund speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland buying frenzy caused by growing population, scarce water supplies and climate change. South Korea bought huge areas of Madagasca recently while Chinese interests bought up large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.

Simon Mann pardoned over role in Equatorial Guinea coup plot

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:59:42 -0800

Haroon Siddique & Giles Tremlett | Nov 3

The Guardian - The British mercenary Simon Mann, who was sentenced to 34 years in prison in Equatorial Guinea last year for plotting to overthrow the oil-rich country's government, has been granted a presidential pardon.

Equatorial Guinea's information ministry said tonight that Teodoro Obiang, the president, had already signed the waiver, which was "a complete pardon on humanitarian grounds".

Mann, an Eton-educated former SAS officer, was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of mercenaries when their private plane landed. He spent three years in prison in Zimbabwe and was then extradited to Equatorial Guinea.

During his trial, the court in Equatorial Guinea heard that Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister, was a member of the group. Mann acknowledged knowingly taking part in the attempt to topple Equatorial Guinea's government, but his lawyer argued he was a secondary player. He has been held at the notorious Black Beach prison in Malabo, the capital.

Mann was also ordered to pay a fine and compensation of about £14.6m.

The presidential pardon said Mann had been released, taking into account his health and given his need "to receive regular medical treatment and to be with his family". It stated that the pardon came on the eve of an official visit to Equatorial Guinea by Jacob Zuma, the South African president.

The decree also said that Mann's "attitude during the investigation … and his behaviour during the trial and while being held in prison … showed sufficient and credible signs of repentance".

When Mann was sentenced in July last year the presiding judge, Carlos Mangue, said Mann had failed to show "an attitude of regret" despite his apology before the court. But there was speculation at the time that he would be pardoned by Obiang.

Diplomatic sources said he had told the court what the regime wanted to hear, implicating individuals and foreign governments blamed by Equatorial Guinea for the plot. Mann claimed Spain and South Africa, with the endorsement of the former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, had supported the plot. "It was like an official operation. The governments of Spain and South Africa were giving the green light: 'You've got to do it'," he told the court. Tacit approval for regime change came from the Pentagon, CIA and the big US oil companies according to Mann. Mann had accepted he was doing the job for money – said to be $15m – but he claimed he was sympathetic to the story he was told: that Equatorial Guinea's oil money was not reaching the people. He told the court that in retrospect he was relieved the coup had not succeeded, because he now realised Equatorial Guinea was not such a bad place.

The trial took place under heavy security with a tank outside and the court ringed by soldiers.

Climate change will melt snows of Kilimanjaro 'within 20 years'

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:20:50 -0800

Steve Connor | Nov 3

The Independent -

The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa – may soon be falling on bare ground following a study showing that its ice cap is destined to disappear entirely within 20 years, due largely to climate change.

The vast ice fields of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are melting at a faster pace than at any time over the past 100 years and at this rate they will be gone completely within two decades or even earlier according to one of the world's leading glaciologists.

A team led by Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University said that the latest assessment of Kilimanjaro's famous ice cap has confirmed that 85 per cent of the ice that covered the mountain in 1912 has been lost, and 26 per cent of the ice that was there in 2000 is now gone.

A series of cores drilled through the ice fields at different points on Kilimanjaro has revealed that the melting observed over the past few decades is unprecedented in nearly 12,000 years. The research also shows that that the current thinning of the ice cap is faster than when a devastating 300-year drought occurred 4,200 years ago, a period when very little snow fell on the mountain.

"The dramatic loss of Kilimanjaro's ice cover has attracted global attention. The three remaining ice fields on the plateau and the slopes are both shrinking laterally and rapidly thinning," the scientists write in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If conditions persist, and warmer temperatures continue to melt more ice than falls in the form of snow, then there is a "strong likelihood that the ice field will disappear within a decade or two", the authors conclude.

Somali man, '112', weds girl, 17

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:40:43 -0700

Oct 28

BBC - Hundreds of people have attended a wedding in central Somalia between a man who says he is 112 years old, and his teenage wife.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore - who already has 18 children by five wives - said he would like to have more with his new wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is 17 years old.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," Mr Dore said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband".

Mr Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," the groom said.

Somalia Peacekeepers Accused of Firing Into Civilian Areas

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:16:58 -0700

Alisha Ryu | Nairobi | October 22

VOA News - At least 24 people were killed and as many as 60 wounded in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, during what witnesses say was one of the worst fighting in recent months. African Union peacekeepers are being increasingly blamed for causing deaths and injuries among civilians.

Even the most battle-hardened residents describe the early morning fighting between African Union peacekeepers and al-Shabab militants as one of the most frightening battles they have ever seen.

One eyewitness, Mohamed Ali, tells VOA he was about to open his shop inside the city's sprawling Bakara open-air market, when artillery shells began raining down all around him.

Ali says storekeepers and shoppers began running in panic when the shelling began. He says some people were killed and others were wounded while trying to take cover.

Nigeria rebels end ceasefire

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:43:50 -0700

October 16

Al Jazeera - Nigeria's main rebel group has ended its 90-day ceasefire with the government and threatened to resume attacks in the oil-producing southern region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said in an emailed statement that it would resume "hostilities against the Nigerian oil industry, the Nigerian armed forces and its collaborators" on Friday.

Mend halted attacks in July to facilitate possible peace talks following an amnesty offer by Umaru Yar'Adua, the Nigerian president, to all fighters.

But the two sides have yet to hold any formal discussions.

More than 8,000 rebel fighters laid down their arms and accepted the amnesty which ran from August 6 to October 4.

The offer was to help check years of unrest which is preventing Nigeria from realising two-thirds of its oil capacity, and the unconditional pardon of Mend members is the most serious attempt yet by the government.

But Mend, with an estimated 10,000-strong force, dismissed the amnesty as a "charade", saying it failed to address key issues of under-development and injustice in the Niger Delta.

Zimbabwe unity pact teeters on the brink of collapse

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:35:17 -0700

Daiel Howden | Oct 17

The Independent - Arrest of MDC official pushes Tsvangirai to denounce Mugabe as 'dishonest partner'

Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing government is facing its most serious crisis after the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, declared a "temporary withdrawal" in response to the arrest of one of his main allies.

"It is our right to disengage from a dishonest and unreliable partner," he told reporters in Harare. "Whilst being in government, we shall forthwith disengage from Zanu-PF and in particular from cabinet and the council of ministers until such time as confidence and respect are restored amongst us."

The stalemate could stall all government business including attempts to reform the constitution. Mr Tsvangirai said that if the crisis intensified further, it could be resolved only by holding fresh elections under the supervision of the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community.

The former trade unionist and opposition leader has been sharing power with his bitter political rival, President Robert Mugabe, since March this year but the already rocky relationship has reached breaking-point after the arrest of Roy Bennett, a prominent member of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

Minton report: Carter-Ruck give up bid to keep Trafigura study secret

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:15:28 -0700

David Leigh | Oct 17

The Guardian - • Guardian 'released from restrictions forthwith'
• Report called firm's oil waste 'potentially toxic'
• Read the Trafigura study: the Minton report (pdf)

Lawyers for oil traders Trafigura finally abandoned attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in west Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.

Just after 7.30pm Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. An MP revealed the report's existence to parliament this week, after the Guardian was hit with a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it and other UK media were then subsequently notified of, and therefore bound by it.

The Minton report, commissioned in 2006 from the London-based firm's scientific consultants, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".

The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.

The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation.

Although the report was cautious, pointing out that unreliable press reports and "mass hysteria" might have led to exaggeration of alleged ill effects, its contents were unwelcome.

Trafigura subsequently did not use the report in the personal injury report in the claim against them and did not dislcose the report's existence.

Darfur: A deadly new chapter

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:40:19 -0700

Daniel Howden | Darfur, Sudan | October 17

The Independent - The Lord's Resistance Army, one of the most feared guerrilla groups in Africa, has moved into Darfur, one of the continent's most troubled regions, intelligence sources in Sudan say.

The unexpected move by the LRA comes just as the war-weary west of Sudan recedes from world headlines and after the UN mission there had tentatively declared the fighting to be over. The possible arrival of a messianic cult notorious for rape, civilian massacres and the enslavement of child soldiers threatens that fragile peace. The LRA has been terrorising the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo for 18 months but the bulk of its forces have now crossed into southern Darfur, a senior official in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) told The Independent.

"We have confirmed that the LRA are there and they have clashed with the local population," said Major-General Kuol Deim Kuol.

He said the LRA had moved into the area to stock up on weapons and supplies and accused the Sudanese government in Khartoum of sponsoring the group. The south has long accused Khartoum of funding militias to destabilise the region but the UN and Sudan experts are both taking the latest reports seriously.

The rebels, led by the self-styled prophet Joseph Kony, have waged a campaign of terror in central Africa for two decades. When The Independent visited the dense jungle on the border area between DRC and Sudan last year, refugees who had fled from LRA attacks spoke of bodies strewn over the forest floor, people burned to death in their huts, women raped and children marched into the bush in gangs.

US to make Blackwater-style entry into Somalia

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:23:25 -0700

Grand Rapids, MI | October 16

PressTV - The grounds have reportedly been established for armed American presence on Somali soil with a US security firm winning a contract in the war-ravaged country.

Michigan-based CSS Global Inc., secured the contract under the plea of 'fighting terrorism and piracy' and 'protecting' Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), reported Michigan Live citing The Grand Rapids Press newspaper.

"It is going to be a huge challenge," said Chris Frain, chief executive officer and co-owner of CSS Alliance, to which the CSS Global Inc is affiliated. "This is a brand-new government being stood up with the help of the international community."

The contractor's operations team was composed of former military and law enforcement personnel, including Special Forces, Michigan Live added.

The US firm has been involved in other African nations as well as in Iraq, where 17 civilians were killed in 2007 by a similar licentiate, Blackwater, currently known as Xe Services.

70 killed in multiple vehicle inferno in Nigeria

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:09:24 -0700

Nairobi/Abuja | Oct 11

DPA - Some 70 people were killed, many of them burned to death, in a multiple-vehicle inferno in Nigeria caused after a fuel tanker lorry crashed, the online edition of This Day newspaper reported Saturday.

The accident in Anambra State ultimately involved nine vehicles, including the fuel tanker, six commuter buses, and passenger car and a van, the report said.

The newspaper cited eyewitnesses as saying the fuel tanker first toppled over near a junction, spilling fuel onto the road. The fuel exploded when a car approached the secne and then the other vehicles also were engulfed in flames.

Kenyans not ready to leave camps

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:43:05 -0700

Will Ross | Eldoret, Kenya | October 9

BBC - A Kenyan deadline expires on Friday for people displaced by post-election violence to leave their camps.

Two weeks ago President Mwai Kibaki ordered the closure of the camps, which at the peak of the violence were home to around 500,000 people.

But more than a year-and-a-half later there are Kenyans still living in tents some of whom are reluctant to leave.

Stanley Wanyoike said he will only leave if the president keeps his promise to give them land.

"We are ready to leave if the promise made by the head of state is fulfilled," said Mr Wanyoike, who was forced to flee his home with his wife and five children on 30 December 2007 - the night President Kibaki was controversially declared the winner of the election.

Kenya clans 'rearm for 2012 poll'

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:27:09 -0700

Oc t 7

BBC - Rival ethnic groups in Kenya who fought after the 2007 election are rearming in readiness for violence at the 2012 poll, a BBC investigation has found.

It is feared villagers in Rift Valley province are moving from traditional weapons such as spears to machine guns.

Government officials insist they are tackling the influx of illegal arms.

But they have been widely criticised for failing to punish the ringleaders of violence after the 2007 election, in which 1,300 people died.

Last call for the Lunatic Express

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:12:14 -0700

Daniel Howden | Oct 6

The Independent - Plans for a high-speed rail line may spell the end for East Africa's Victorian engineering folly.

In a neglected corner beyond Nairobi's frantic bus terminal lies the entrance to the city's railway station. It barely warrants a second glance from the thousands of commuters making their way on to the hundreds of matatu minibuses that keep Kenya's capital moving. The station is more useful for time travelling than getting anywhere in a hurry. Most of the destinations have fallen off its battered departure boards, no one sits on the ripped upholstery in the first-class waiting room, and only a tiny Somali girl is brave enough to use the blocked bathrooms behind it. Platform One has the feel of a museum gone to seed, which is what it has taken a step closer to becoming this month with the unveiling of plans for a high-speed rail link between Mombasa and the capital.

It may not have passed the lips of Nairobi's station announcers but the plan for double-decker trains was also the last call for the legendary "Lunatic Express", a folly of Victorian engineering that changed East Africa and created the modern country now crowding on to buses outside. The new version is expected to cost more than £2.5bn and take five years to build and will cut journey times to three hours. Despite its price and ambition, the construction will not match the extraordinary cost both in human lives and to the British Exchequer of the line it replaces.

The railway line's original purpose was to shore up Britain's hold on Uganda, which was believed to hold the key to the security of the River Nile. In the convoluted logic of the late 19th-century "Scramble for Africa", stopping France, Germany or Belgium from tampering with Lake Victoria's waters flowing into the Nile would secure the Suez Canal and, in turn, the passage to India. A rail track would mean troops could be quickly transported from the coast to the Great Lakes region in defence of the empire. At least, this was the argument made in the 1890s by the British East Africa Company to persuade Parliament to finance the line that would eventually cost £5m (that, and assurances that it would hasten the end of slavery).

Not everyone was convinced and the radical MP Henry Labouchere denounced it memorably: "Where it is going, nobody knows, what is the use of it, none can conjecture ... It is clearly naught but a lunatic line."

What is left of the railway today is more curiosity than controversy. The sleeper to Mombasa offers faded grandeur and comforting adventure to the white tourists in first class, while giving the cheapest possible route to the coast to those sleeping on benches in third. Dinner is announced soon after departure by the tuneless chimes of a worn, metal xylophone. What remains of the romance of rail is on display in the dining car, where threadbare tablecloths and mismatched cutlery bear testament to doing your best with what's available. Engraved fish knives speak of better times but are now deployed to make up the numbers as a dinner of beef stew and fried chicken is served. The distinctive "RVR" logo of Rift Valley Railways breaks the frayed burgundy band around the chipped white dinner service.

The settlers, soldiers and missionaries that once convened here have been replaced by their modern counterparts and conversation drifts from NGO projects to charities and safaris. A young American called Jason is on his way to Zanzibar to recuperate after rebuilding churches in southern Sudan. A few wrinkled noses and forced smiles mark the train's passage through Nairobi's slum district as the smell of open sewers comes through patched-up mosquito screens on the open windows. There are no electric lights to illuminate the faces outside as they watch the express idle past.

Mutual incomprehension also marked the colonial engineers' push into Africa's fabled interior, which was seen as the domain of naked savages, deadly diseases and ferocious animals. It is hard now to imagine how the first locomotives must have appeared to the patchwork of peoples who found themselves in the way of British progress in what was then the East African Protectorate.

Many of the tribes, from the Kamba to the Maasai and Nandi, had ancient prophecies of an "iron snake" that would bring with it a "white tribe" that would steal their cattle and end their world as they had known it. It was the Nandi, whose lands stretched from the western side of the Mau escarpment, who put up the sternest resistance, terrorising the survey party and stripping the line of steel and copper for weapons and ornaments.

Sir Charles Eliot, commissioner of the protectorate, was rare among his peers in trying to understand why it was happening. "One can imagine what thefts would be recorded on a European railway if the telegraph wires were pearl necklaces and the rails first-rate sporting guns," he wrote in 1905. "It's not surprising the Nandi yielded to the temptation." Now, as then, the line is threatened by scrap metal opportunists who have responded to the economic crisis by stripping Kenya's railway bridges.

Sadly, it is still dark when the Mombasa-bound service passes over the bridge that would guarantee the lunatic line became a legend. Bridging the River Tsavo was meant to take less than two months. Instead, it took nearly a year as the hundreds of workers drafted in from India, known as "coolies", fell prey to lions.

The big cats first struck by dragging a British engineer from his tent, one crushing his head in its jaws. Immortality was achieved by Charles H Ryall, a police superintendent who fell asleep in his guard carriage and was dragged through the window by a lion. At Nairobi station, a glass box with tacky cartoons marks his fate. Within months there was a bounty of £100 on the "man-eaters of Tsavo" and the camp was swarming with soldiers, opportunists and wealthy sportsmen hunters.

All to no avail. The "deadly monsters" took on supernatural status to many at Tsavo as the pair, a male and female, evaded barricades and guard posts to kill at least 28 workers. Their exploits were commemorated in the 1996 film Ghosts And The Darkness. Eventually, after endless nights watching from a tree, Colonel John H Patterson shot the first of them dead in December 1898. It was so heavy it took eight men to carry the lion's carcass. Its mate was killed three weeks later and the bridge was completed.

Many more workers were killed by malaria, while the beasts of burden suffered from tsetse flies that killed 1,500 of the 1,800 animals deployed. The dead are not forgotten and the current driver, Jared Boaz Otieno, can reel off a list of their graves that are scattered from the Taru desert and the floor of the Great Rift Valley to the overgrown sidings in Mombasa. "You have to remember the lion is cunning like a human being," he muses from his cab. "You can see their graves. A lot of people died to make this line."

As the express train pulls gently in to the port city where the line was born, the clock reads 9.28am and journey has taken 14 and a half hours. The driver is quietly pleased that we are 32 minutes ahead of schedule. Yes, he admits, it does take six hours by bus but "who would want to drive on those reckless roads?", he asks.

As for the future, he is not too worried. The 21st-century train isn't going to arrive any quicker in Kenya than its late 19th-century counterpart, he believes. "It's a vision but for now that's all it is. We'll see," he says.