Aidan Jones | Valleta, Malta | Dec 29

CSM - Island nation struggles with a flood of illegal migrants bound for Europe

Shaqaale Hassan handed $1,000 to people traffickers, confident it would secure his passage from Libya to Italy, and the European Union's sprawling labor market.

Instead, after three days adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, the small speed boat carrying the 23-year-old Somali and two dozen other illegal migrants was intercepted by a European Union patrol and the passengers were taken to a detention center on the nearby island of Malta – the EU's smallest member state.

Mr. Hassan says that he fled Mogadishu, Somalia, after a close friend was killed in cross-fire between militias. But after five months on Malta he says his prospects are limited. "The Maltese people don't want us. There's no work here and when we find a job we are paid nothing," he says. "In Somalia you live or you die, ... Here I am not dying, but I am not alive. I want to go to Italy."

He is among nearly 2,500 Africans – the majority from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan – to arrive this year. At least 550 other migrants fleeing war and poverty are reported to have died during the journey, although the actual toll is likely to be much higher.

Clifford Coonan | Hebei province | Dec 29

The Independent - China has a shortage of land, Africa a shortage of food. So one entrepreneur had the bright idea of persuading Chinese farmers to emigrate.

Liu Jianjun is wearing a brightly coloured African tunic, the tall hat of a tribal leader, a string of red beads round his neck and carrying a stick with a secret knife in the handle. Beside him sits a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. It is a slightly incongruous scene but one that mirrors the ever-closer relationship between Asia's economic giant China and the world's poorest continent.

"The African people yell, 'Mao Zedong is all right' and they are very warm-hearted when I'm there," says one of China's most prominent private sector ambassadors. "The minute Chinese people get off the plane, the Africans are friendly. Chinese do not bring rifles and weapons; they bring seeds and technology."

China's Ministry of Commerce triumphantly announced this month that its bilateral trade with the continent is set to hit $100bn (£67.8bn) by the end of 2008, two years ahead of schedule. Africa's plentiful oilfields and rich mineral deposits are top of China's imports, and in return the world's most populous nation is exporting tens of thousands of its countrymen.

Nicholas D. Kristof | Dec 4 | NYT

Travelers to Africa and Asia all have their favorite forms of foreign aid to “make a difference.” One of mine is a miracle substance that is cheap and actually makes people smarter.

Unfortunately, it has one appalling side effect. No, it doesn’t make you sterile, but it is just about the least sexy substance in the world. Indeed, because it’s so numbingly boring, few people pay attention to it or invest in it. (Or dare write about it!)

It’s iodized salt.

Almost one-third of the world’s people don’t get enough iodine from food and water. The result in extreme cases is large goiters that swell their necks, or other obvious impairments such as dwarfism or cretinism. But far more common is mental slowness.

Nov 30

The Guardian -

As the rain begins to fall on Tanzania's Tarangire National Park, thousands of zebra, wildebeest and giraffe will begin one of the world's greatest migrations. But many of the herds trampling across the grass at the foot of the Rift Valley highlands are falling in number - and scientists do not know why.

To find out, they are using a new 'photo-fit' system that can recognise individual animals by their unique skin patterns, which are as distinct as a human fingerprint.

The park, dotted with muddy water holes and ancient baobab and acacia trees, has the highest diversity of migratory hoofed mammal (ungulate) species in the world. The animals move out of the park as the wet season begins, in search of new feeding and calving grounds. They will make the return dry season journey in June, to take advantage of the permanent water of the Tarangire river.

Numbers of wildebeest have fallen from 50,000 to 6,000 in the past 20 years, and numbers of antelope species, such as hartebeest and oryx, have declined by 90 and 95 per cent respectively. Confusingly some species - zebra, giraffe, gazelle and buffalo - have remained relatively stable. To understand such contrasting fortunes, scientists from America's Dartmouth and Utah universities are working to determine whether habitat loss, changed food sources, or hunting - or a combination of all - is responsible.

** Picture gallery: Saving the Tarangire migration
** Background: Great migrations under threat

Paul Rincon | Oct 14

BBC - Researchers have found a possible new route taken by early modern humans as they expanded out of Africa to colonise the rest of the world.

A study published in the journal PNAS proposes a "wet corridor" through Libya for ancient human migrations.

Rivers once flowed from the central Saharan watershed all the way to the Mediterranean, the team explains.

This might have enabled modern humans to spread beyond their ancestral homeland about 120,000 years ago.

Sarah Boseley | Oct 4

The Guardian - The US government is cutting its funding for the supply of contraceptives to family planning clinics run by Marie Stopes International in Africa, alleging that it condones forced abortions in China.

MSI has categorically denied that it supports forced abortions or coercive sterilisation in China or anywhere else in the world, and says that the actions of the Bush government will result in more abortions in Africa, as women will be unable to get contraceptives and will end up with unwanted pregnancies.

One of George Bush's first acts after becoming president was to stop all US funds to foreign organisations that helped women in any way to get an abortion, including providing advice. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) lost $34m that Congress had appropriated for it in 2002.

According to MSI, the inevitable consequence will be more abortions. It estimates that it will lose $1.5m worth of supplies in the next year, resulting in 325,000 extra unwanted pregnancies in the six African countries and 65,000 abortions.

"At a time when governments have pledged to increase their commitment to improving the health of women, only the Bush administration could find logic in the idea that they can reduce abortion and promote choice for women in China by causing more abortion," said Hovig.

IN AN AFRICAN MARKET, PENNIES ARE NOT PEANUTS

Oct 1

AFP - The US military's Africa Command becomes fully operational on Wednesday, but it still faces skepticism about its intentions as it seeks to provide security assistance to African states.

US defense cooperation and military assistance programs that until now have been scattered among three different commands will be brought together under Africom.

Africom, in concert with international partners, "conducts sustained security engagement through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of US foreign policy," the command's website says.

They include efforts to develop crisis response forces, regional counter-terrorism programs in North Africa, anti-piracy and counter-drug training for regional coast guards, and programs to professionalize African militaries.

"US Africa Command is nothing more than a device to ensure that the US oil industry will have unfettered access to Africa's vast supplies of oil," said Mark Fancher of the US-based National Conference of Black Lawyers.

"If anyone in Africa interferes with US oil operations, we suspect that they will be given the terrorist label and then targeted for military attacks," he said.

Ian Sample | Sept 8

The Guardian - The rise of organic farming and rejection of GM crops in Britain and other developed countries is largely to blame for the impoverishment of Africa, according to the government's former chief scientist.

Sir David King, who left the job at the end of last year, says anti-scientific attitudes towards modern agriculture are being exported to Africa and holding back a green revolution that could dramatically improve the continent's food supply.

Godfrey Maganda | Uganda | September 7

Bloomberg - Joseph Kony, leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebel movement, failed to sign a peace accord after mediators were unable to locate him, said Paddy Ankunda, a member of a group sent to make contact with Kony.

Habert Deng, a coordinator of talks aimed at ending the LRA's two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda, said yesterday Kony would sign the agreement this weekend. Southern Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, who has helped mediate the negotiations, has traveled to a camp on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo to witness the signing.

``We are still trying to get a connection to Kony on the phone and have him sign the agreement,'' Ankunda, a Ugandan army spokesman, said by phone today from Nabanga in Southern Sudan. ``We can't communicate with him since he seems to be outside the network. We are not sure where he is exactly.''

Harare | August 28

AFP - President Robert Mugabe's regime insisted Thursday it will form a new government alone as an outraged opposition planned to petition mediator Thabo Mbeki to save Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks from an "act of insanity".

"Rewards of Marxism" - Pictures from inside one of Mugabe's mansions might provide some insights into his determination to hold onto power. Nice digs, if you like that sort of thing. Especially for the headman of a destitute country that has the lowest life expectancy in the world.

Xan Rice | Nairobi | August 18

The Guardian - They are the arteries of the modern world. Stretching for tens of thousands of miles over the ocean beds, the vast web of intercontinental submarine cables have brought the possibility of cheap high-speed internet and clear long-distance telephone calls to all major parts of the globe. Except one.

East Africa remains the only large, inhabited coastline cut off from the global fibre-optic network. Reliant entirely on expensive satellite connections, people on the world's poorest continent pay some of the highest rates for logging on or phoning. Local universities are charged up to 50 times more for bandwidth than a typical American college, making online research slow or impossible.

But with the last piece of the global fibre-optic jigsaw about to fall into place, all that is set to change. In October, the first lengths of a new 9,300-mile submarine cable to serve east Africa will be loaded on to a ship and then unrolled into the Indian Ocean.

In horribly oppressive theocratic countries, these five remarkable women bust out to find a freedom that many of us in America fear and hide from under the veils of self-imposed constraints. Awake up call to the American fundamentalists who demand more religious based laws and education. Theocracies exist and they often grow into ugly regimes.

The autobiography, entitled Infidel by Ayaan Kirsi Ali, drags gruesome truths out from the shadows of Muslim society that otherwise remain in the darkness of closed circles and communications controlled by Islamic authorities. Ayaan exposes the hidden workings of a backward society gripped tightly in religious fervor.

CBC/AP | August 5

CBC - Rwanda has accused senior French officials, including the country's former president and prime minister, of being involved in its 1994 genocide.

France knew preparations for the genocide were underway and even contributed to them, according to accusations in a 500-page report compiled by an independent commission appointed by the Rwandan government.

The report, released Tuesday, also suggests France was responsible for killing some of the 800,000 people slaughtered in Rwanda between April and July 1994, most of them minority Tutsis or moderate Hutus killed by Hutu militias.

Jason Leopold | August 1

Public Record - Halliburton and its former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, have been engaged in talks with federal prosecutors and securities regulators to settle a long-running probe into claims the company bribed Nigerian officials to win a $5 billion construction contract for a natural gas liquefaction plant while Vice President Dick Cheney headed the corporation, according to Halliburton's latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"From time to time, we and KBR have engaged in discussions with the SEC and the DOJ regarding a settlement of these matters," Halliburton disclos

Alok Jha | July 23

The Guardian -

A concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Spain that uses panels to reflect light on to a central tower to produce electricity. Similar plants are proposed for north Africa. Photograph: AP

A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe's carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun.

Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity.

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe's energy needs.

The scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms - producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines - as part of a plan to share Europe's renewable energy resources across the continent.

Kevin Sullivan | Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | July 20

WaPo - Cultural Expectations Ensure Women Are Hit Hardest by Growing Food Crisis
Gallery

After she woke in the dark to sweep city streets, after she walked an hour to buy less than $2 worth of food, after she cooked for two hours in the searing noon heat, Fanta Lingani served her family's only meal of the day.

First she set out a bowl of corn mush, seasoned with tree leaves, dried fish and wood ashes, for the 11 smallest children, who tore into it with bare hands.

Then she set out a bowl for her husband. Then two bowls for a dozen older children. Then finally, after everyone else had finished, a bowl for herself. She always eats last.

Washington | July 17

Reuters - The new U.S. military command for Africa is unlikely to foster the security required to bring badly needed development to the impoverished continent, according to a study released on Thursday.

A report by the Washington-based relief agency Refugees International said U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, lacks the funding necessary to address the continent's need for competent policing and criminal justice operations.

"AFRICOM's current meager budget for bilateral security cooperation falls far short of what is needed to have true credibility and impact," the 48-page report said.

But Africa Command spokesman Vince Crawley said the command would play only a supportive role in helping countries upgrade police and other law enforcement agencies, and that most of the effort would be funded and led by the State Department.

Donald Macintyre | Hebron | July 11

Independent - Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the restrictions endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.

Ethan Baron | Dadaab, Kenya | July 6

Ottawa Citizen - Somalis trapped in worst conditions imaginable: official

Refugees streaming from war-ravaged Somalia have driven the population of squalid, Canadian-funded camps in northern Kenya past 200,000 for the first time, overwhelming strained resources, aid officials say.

"Somalis, the ones who are in the camps, are probably in the most difficult and harsh conditions that a human being could imagine," said Karin Michnick of Toronto, a resettlement officer in Kenya for the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Fleeing fierce battles between Islamic militias and government and Ethiopian troops, more than 3,000 Somalis crossed the border to the three sprawling camps in Dadaab, Kenya, in June alone, pushing camp numbers to more than 202,000, the UN said.

Eliza Barclay | June 17

CSM - The Millennium Villages Project is pricey. But it may hold answers to tackling the global food crisis.

The dry months of April, May, and June were once equated with hunger for Agre Ranyondo and his neighbors in this community of 55,000 people.

Mr. Ranyondo, a farmer, waited for the rains to come before he could plant corn on his six-acre plot. Often the 10 bags of corn he harvested through two planting seasons weren't enough to feed his family of eight.

But the cycle of hunger was broken last year.

The change began in 2005, when Ranyondo met with agricultural extension workers dispatched by the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), an international organization conceived by economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute. He was given seeds better suited to the region, fertilizers, and was taught how to use them.

In this pair of satellite images, the contrast between the relatively lush vegetation of January 2005 and the parched landscape of January 2006 reveals the intensity and extent of drought in Kenya and Tanzania. (Images courtesy NASA)

New Atlas Captures Changing Face of Africa's Environment

"Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment" illuminates how development choices, population growth, climate change and conflicts are shaping and impacting Africa's natural resources. The "before" and "after" photographs offer images of local environmental transformation across the continent - postive and negative.

Launched by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is hosting the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, the atlas features over 300 satellite images taken in every country in Africa in over 100 locations. It was compiled by the UN Environment Programme, UNEP, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The report:"Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment"(PDF)

UNICEF reports that over 100,000 Ethiopian children are in danger of starvation and is pretty much unable to help them for lack of funding. Late rains and food prices are named as culprits.

But Ethiopia's been starving for as long as I can remember. Are we doing the Ethiopians a favor by "helping"? Given that the global climate change will probably engender more late rains and droughts, what hope is there? Are the Ethiopian people themselves creating the problem with a total fertility rate of 5.1? Note: to be perfectly fair, it's better than the 7+ TFR in 2000.

So I was exploring West African music and naturally enough West African culture and history when the thought struck me...

What if the Americas and South Africa and various other places had been colonized by those "Other" people Phillip Zimbardo talks about. Those heroic people who see wrong, and no matter what their peers say, they say "No" and will not let it be.

What civilization would we have evolve at _this_ point in time if our forebears had found slavery instantly and deeply repugnant.

Let's play WhatIf for a moment....

Antony Sguazzin | Johannesburg | May 23

Bloomberg - Gold mines in the East Rand near Johannesburg have been affected by the anti-immigrant violence that claimed the lives of at least 42 people across South Africa's biggest city over the past two weeks.

For decades, the country's gold mines, among the world's biggest and most labor-intensive, have relied on migrant labor from neighboring Mozambique and Lesotho as well as poor areas of South Africa such as the Eastern Cape. The anti-immigrant violence has left about 20,000 people homeless.

One in four South Africans don't have a job and foreigners are perceived to be competing for employment and scarce government housing. The country, with a population of 48.5 million, has about 3 million Zimbabweans as well as other African immigrants.