Dynamic Africa

Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s first black government minister, proposes a law that would give citizenship to the children of immigrants if they are born on Italian soil.

Born in the Congo, Kyenge moved to Italy in the 1980s to study medicine in Rome, before obtaining a position in a hospital in Modena. She met her husband, a native Italian with whom she has two children, after he underwent surgery in her department. Kyenge was at the forefront of a dramatic demographic shift in Italy. As recently as 1991, just 1 in 100 residents held a foreign passport. Today, it’s 1 out of every 12. For every five children delivered in the country, one is born to a foreign parent. Unlike Kyenge, most of Italy’s recent arrivals are poor and employed in jobs that Italians refuse: construction workers, maids, caregivers for the elderly. The foreign-born middle class has yet to establish itself, while the first generation of immigrant children born and educated in the country is just moving into the workforce.

While Italians don’t like to think of their country as racist, the experience of non-white Italians and resident immigrants illustrates a culture that has found it hard to welcome increasing diversity. “How many times have I been told, ‘You’re so beautiful, you don’t even seem truly black?’” says Medhin Paolos, 23, an Italian of Eritrean descent and a member of Rete G2, a group campaigning for a reform of Italy’s citizenship laws. “Where I come from, this is not a compliment.”

A study by the University of Messina and the anti-discrimination group ARCI found that a substantial majority of the children of immigrants reported being insulted on the streets, talked down to by teachers, watched with suspicion in shops, turned away from restaurants and treated rudely by immigration officials. In 2002, the Italian government passed a law requiring all non-Italian residents to have their fingerprints taken, as part of the process for applying for residency.

“There’s the idea that black people stink,” says Jean Zongo, 28, the son of African immigrants. There was a period when he was younger, Zongo was afraid to take the bus at night, for fear of encountering racial violence. More than once, he has climbed aboard to hear a group of young men grunting like monkeys. It’s a charmless display of racism that has migrated from Italy’s soccer stadiums — where Mario Balotelli, the Italian football star of Ghanaian heritage, has famously faced chants of “There’s no such thing as a black Italian” — to youth culture at large. Zongo has traveled to France, Spain and England. Only in his own country, he says, is he made to feel second class. “[Discrimination] is present in just about every aspect of life, in every circumstance,” he says.

Masdar, the clean energy company and creator of the eponymous “green city” on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, launched a $32 million solar plant in Mauritania. The Sheikh Zayed Solar Power Plant, located in the capital, Nouakchott, will generate 15 megawatts of solar photovoltaic (PV) power and, according to Masdar, is now the largest PV plant in all of Africa.  It will, in fact, deliver 10% of the country’s current electricity load.

Yesterday’s launch of the new solar power plant is significant for several reasons. Masdar City, only one part of the company but the immediate showpiece that comes to mind, is often derided as a fluff project in a country that is one of the world’s highest carbon emitters per capita. And while the United Arab Emirates’ massive carbon output is, of course, concerning, at the same time the UAE’s leadership has shown it is willing to be part of the solution in addressing climate change and energy scarcity. As much of the developed world from the U.S. to Japan is mired in debt and political polarization, there is an opening for such countries in the Middle East as the UAE and nearby Qatar to invest in renewables–after all, their reserves of oil and gas are finite.

Masdar kicked off the Mauritania project last fall as part of its commitment to the UN’s “Year of Sustainable Energy for All.” As announced last year by UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon, Sustainable Energy for All aimed to expand modern energy sources to those who could least afford it; double energy efficiency worldwide; and double the amount of clean electricity and power within the globe’s total energy portfolio. The results may not have been as impressive as the goals, but arguably the UAE, Abu Dhabi and Masdar kept their end of the deal.

Mauritania’s energy grid is currently marred by energy shortages and both expensive and dirty diesel generators. Masdar claims the new solar energy plant, with its 30,000 solar panels in Nouakchott, will displace over 21,000 tons of carbon emissions annually and will provide up to 10 percent of the country’s total energy needs. Should this new plant prove to be an important anchor of Mauritania’s energy potential, more hope is on the horizon: Masdar claims the country’s wind potential is four times the its current energy demands.

A foreign policy from an oil emirate that in part relies on delivering foreign aid via renewables? The UAE is certainly moving forward with this strategy with Masdar at the helm.

Nineteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africans are still passionately divided over whether Margaret Thatcher helped or hindered the cruel system of white rule and prolonged the incarceration of Nelson Mandela.

The heated discussions triggered by Thatcher’s death show how influential South Africans believe she was on the fate of the last bastion of white-minority rule in Africa.

The former British leader supported the apartheid government when it was at its deadliest, killing many in the late 1980s in state terrorism at home and abroad in bombings and cross-border raids on neighboring states accused of harboring guerrilla fighters, said Pallo Jordan, a former Cabinet minister and stalwart of the governing African National Congress.

“Maggie Thatcher and Britain were important figures … they were defending (apartheid) South Africa, they were preventing international sanctions,” said Jordan to The Associated Press.

“Many lives were lost (as a result of the apartheid regime). I don’t think it’s a great loss to the world,” Jordan said of Thatcher’s death. She died after a stroke Monday at the age of 87.

“I say good riddance,” he said Tuesday on South Africa’s Talk Radio 702.

Thatcher branded Mandela and his ANC movement “terrorist,” amid concerns that they received backing from the former Soviet Union during the Cold War era and because of their guerrilla war for democracy.

Jordan was at Mandela’s first meeting with Thatcher after his release from 27 years in jail, at Downing Street in London in 1990.

“What amused the old man (Mandela) more than anything else was that here she was engaging in a conversation with this man that she thought an arch-terrorist.” He said Mandela’s inherent charm disarmed “the Iron Lady,” and the meeting passed without confrontation.

Thatcher’s spokesman said in 1987 that anyone who thought the ANC, then the leading anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, would govern South Africa was “living in cloud cuckoo-land.”

But others argue that Thatcher was strongly opposed to apartheid and racism and helped influence the white government to free Mandela.

“Thatcher did more to release Nelson Mandela out of prison than any of the other hundreds of anti-apartheid committees in Europe,” Pik Botha, the last foreign minister of the apartheid regime, said Tuesday on Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg.

F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president of South Africa, said in a statement that Thatcher, whom he called a friend, was “a steadfast critic of apartheid.” He said she had a better grasp of the complexities and realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries.

“She exerted more influence in what happened in South Africa than any other political leader,” de Klerk said. He said Thatcher “correctly believed” that more could be achieved through constructive engagement with his government than international sanctions and isolation of the South African government.

Thatcher argued that sanctions were immoral because they would throw thousands of South African blacks out of work. Her stance allowed British companies to continue operating in apartheid South Africa, where the United Kingdom was the biggest trading partner and foreign investor.

Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda berated Thatcher bitterly at a 1986 Commonwealth conference where she refused to join six nations including Australia and Canada in imposing a package of sanctions against South Africa.

Kaunda told reporters Thatcher cut a “very pathetic picture indeed” and accused her of “worshipping gold, platinum and the rest” on offer from South Africa.

It was a far cry from his amused references to Thatcher as “my dancing partner” after the two famously waltzed at a 1979 Commonwealth summit of Britain and its former colonies in Livingstone, Zambia.

The rapport engendered there led Thatcher to help resolve the impasse in Rhodesia’s 7-year war. With Australian negotiators, she persuaded the warring parties to sign a peace settlement that ended that country’s white-minority rule and installed Robert Mugabe as leader of a democratic Zimbabwe in 1980.

Mugabe, now derided for destroying the economy of his country through violent and illegal grabs of white-owned farmlands, always enjoyed a collegial relationship with Thatcher. He said he admired her and that she was easier to deal with than Tony Blair who later became prime minister for Labour Party.

But Britain’s government under Thatcher ignored the killings of an estimated 20,000 Zimbabwean civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe, prompted by an uprising of dissidents, that lasted from 1982 to 1987. Queen Elizabeth II even gave Mugabe a knighthood after the massacres. Donald Trelford, editor of The Observer newspaper in London, later charged that Thatcher and her Foreign Office were more concerned about their relations with Mugabe than with human rights.

Only after thousands of white farmers were driven off their land and more than a dozen killed did the queen strip Mugabe of his knighthood in 2008.

Thatcher finally was forced to impose sanctions against South Africa by following the lead of the U.S. Congress, which in 1986 passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, overriding Reagan’s presidential veto after South Africa attacked Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana on the same day, recalled Pallo Jordan.

The official ANC statement on Thatcher’s passing was surprisingly restrained, perhaps reflecting an African tradition of respect for the dead.

“She was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe, to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world,” said ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu, referring to her view that the apartheid regime was a bulwark against communism. “Her passing signals the end of a generation of leaders that ruled during a very difficult period characterized by the dynamics of the Cold War.” 

bolding mine.

South African President Jacob Zuma, facing a firestorm over the deaths of 13 soldiers in a coup in the Central African Republic, said Thursday he was withdrawing troops from the restive nation.

Zuma is facing thorny questions over why South Africa had troops in the country in the first place, amid accusations of dodgy deals with ousted president Francois Bozize.

“We have taken a decision to withdraw our soldiers,” Zuma said as pressure rose over South Africa’s biggest military loss since the end of apartheid.

Thirteen troops died and 27 were wounded on March 23 when they came under fire from around 3,000 Seleka rebel fighters near the capital Bangui.

Zuma said the decision to pull out remaining troops was made because the overthrow of Francois Bozize’s government effectively ended a bilateral military deal.

“Our mission was to help train the soldiers, since the coup and the self-appointment of rebels, it was clear that the government is no longer there,” Zuma said, according to state broadcaster SABC.

As the situation in Central Africa deteriorated last year, South Africa had 26 soldiers on the ground to help with military training in the troubled nation, which has suffered repeated coups since independence in 1960.

In December a decision was taken to send around 200 more South African troops to protect the trainers and military equipment.

It emerged that there was a mandate to protect Bozize, who himself seized power in a coup in 2003, and later won a flawed presidential election.

With the South African government offering few details about the mission, accusations have swirled that it had morphed to match business interests of the ruling ANC.

Allegations also surfaced in Bangui that Zuma and Bozize had signed accords giving South African businesses access to oil, diamond and gold riches in exchange for protection.

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A Liberian actor has filed a $25 million lawsuit against UNICEF for alleged child abuse over his starring role aged 13 in a fundraising film as a murderous child soldier who tortures his victims.

Mike James, now 28, says he and other cast members have been “stigmatised as rebels, killers, cannibals and drug addicts” after being recruited for the 1997 film “Soldier Boy” and made to act out eating human body parts.

In a writ filed in a west African human rights court earlier this month, James says he was paid $300 by a Danish production team hired by UNICEF for the docu-drama and duped into believing it would get limited distribution when in fact it went worldwide.

The UN child protection agency’s Liberian office provided “active support and collaboration” to the Danish crew which recruited children from schools and orphanages to act in the short film, the writ says.

James’ lawyer Syrenus Cephas told AFP on Wednesday the children were assured the film was for private viewing by potential donors but copies landed across Africa and abroad, where it was shown in cinemas and video clubs as well as private homes.

“(The) plaintiff further avers that as a result of this widespread public circulation of the film, (he) and other actors of the film were easily recognised and stigmatised as rebels, killers, cannibals and drug addicts, and prostitutes on account of the roles they had played in the said film,” the writ adds.

“(The) plaintiff avers that this stigmatisation was all the more devastating for him because he had not only been made to ‘kill’ his own ‘brother’ in the film, but had been persuaded by the producers to use his actual name instead of a pseudonym in the film.”

The writ was filed in the Economic Community of West African States Community Court of Justice, which usually mediates in disputes between states but has jurisdiction on alleged human rights breaches.

The film is offered for $100 in VHS and $200 in the largely obsolete Betamax format on the UNICEF video catalogue website, which says it is four minutes long.

“In Liberia, thousands of children are forced to fight as soldiers in a civil war that has been raging since 1989,” the summary reads.

“This docu-drama profiles 13-year-old Mike who, when driven by the militia to join the army, tries to slip away after one bloody assault.

“But boy soldiers who have escaped are often rejected by their relatives because they have ‘blood on their hands’. Until peace returns, he will have to fend for himself.”

Speaking to AFP by telephone from his home in the United States, the actor said he was appalled that video copies of the film were being sold for up to $200.

“I was not given a dime of the millions that UNICEF raked in from the sales of a movie that ruined my life,” he said.

UNICEF was not immediately available for comment.

Penguin fossils from 10 million to 12 million years ago have been unearthed in South Africa, the oldest fossil evidence of these cuddly, tuxedoed birds in Africa.

The new discovery, detailed in the March 26 issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, could shed light on why the number of penguin species plummeted on Africa’s coastline from four species 5 million years ago to just one today — Spheniscus demersus, or the jackass penguin, known for their donkeylike calls.

Daniel Thomas, a researcher at the National Museum of Natural History, and colleague Daniel Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center were studying rock sediments near a steel plant in Cape Town, South Africa, when they uncovered an assortment of fossils, including 17 pieces that turned out to be backbones, breastbones, legs and wings from ancient penguins.

The bones suggested these ancient birds ranged from 1-to-3 feet tall (0.3 to 0.9 meters).  For comparison, Africa’s living jackass penguin, also called the black-footed penguin, stands at about 2-feet tall (0.6 meters) and weighs between 5.5 and 8.8 pounds (2.5 and 4 kilograms). [Happy Feet: A Gallery of Pudgy Penguins]

The discovery pushes back the penguin fossil record in Africa by at least 5 million years.

Because the next oldest fossils from Africa date to 5 million years ago, it’s tricky to determine exactly why most penguin species disappeared from Africa.

“It’s like seeing two frames of a movie,” Ksepka said in a statement. “We have a frame at five million years ago, and a frame at 10-12 million years ago, but there’s missing footage in between.”

One possibility is that changing sea levels eliminated most of the penguins’ nesting sites.

About 5 million years ago, sea levels were 296 feet (90 m) higher than today, and the low-lying South Africa became a patchwork of islands. Those islands provided beaches for several penguin species to create nests and rear their young while sheltering them from predators.

Once the oceans fell, most of those beaches would become mainland.

Africa’s remaining jackass penguins are also on the decline. Their numbers have plummeted by 80 percent, in part because humans are overfishing their staple foods, sardines and anchovies. African penguins are being bred in captivity; for instance, a successful breeding season at the New England Aquarium in 2010 ended with the birth of 11 new African penguin chicks.

In addition, Bristol Conservation and Science Foundation, along with South African and international partners, is working to establish breeding colonies of the African penguin closer to fish resources, to ensure successful chick-rearing, according to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

They attached an $8 (£5) ball lens to the handset camera lens, and used a cheap torch and double-sided tape to create an improvised microscope.

Pictures were then taken of stool samples placed on lab slides, wrapped in cellophane and taped to the phone.

They were studied for the presence of eggs, the main symptom of the parasites.

When the results were double-checked with a laboratory light microscope, the device had managed to pick up 70% of the samples with infections present - and 90% of the heavier infections.

The study has been published this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Researcher Dr Isaac Bogoch, who specialises in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Toronto General Hospital, told the BBC he had read about smartphone microscopes being trialled in a laboratory and decided to “recreate it in a real world setting”.

“Ultimately we’d like something like this to be a useful diagnostic test. We want to put it in the hands of someone who might be able to use it,” he said.

“70% (accuracy) isn’t really good enough, we want to be above 80% and we’re not quite there yet,” he added.

“The technology is out there. We want to use materials that are affordable and easy to procure.”

Camera key

Dr Bogoch and his team, which included experts from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, said the only reason he used an Apple iPhone was because it was his own handset.

“You need the ball lens to help with the magnification - but any mobile phone with a decent camera and a zoom function will be sufficient,” he explained.

The smallest eggs visible using the smartphone were 40-60 micrometres in diameter.

“From an egg standpoint that is not tiny but it’s not enormous either,” said Dr Bogoch.

“The microscope was very good at diagnosing children with heavier infection intensities as there are more eggs, so they are easier to see.”

Intestinal worms are estimated to affect up to two billion people around the world, mainly in poor areas.

“These parasitic infections cause malnutrition, stunted growth, and stunted mental development,” added Dr Bogoch.

“It’s a big deal, a big problem.”

Uhuru Kenyatta, indicted for crimes against humanity, was declared winner of Kenya’s presidential election on Saturday, but rival Raila Odinga said he would challenge the outcome in court and asked supporters to avoid violence.

Kenyatta, Kenya’s richest man and son of Kenya’s founding president, faces trial after the disputed 2007 presidential vote that unleashed a wave of tribal killings. His win avoided what could have been a divisive a run-off penciled in for April.

With 51-year-old Kenyatta in the top job, Kenya will become the second African country after Sudan to have a sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court.

The United States and other Western powers, big donors to the east African nation, said before the vote that a Kenyatta win would complicate diplomatic ties with a nation viewed as a vital ally in the regional battle against militant Islam.

Kenyatta said in his acceptance speech that he and his team would cooperate with international institutions and that he expected the international community to respect Kenya’s sovereignty.

“We recognize and accept our international obligations and we will continue to co-operate with all nations and international institutions - in line with those obligations,” he said.

After saying Kenyatta secured 50.07 percent of the vote, edging over the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Issack Hassan, announced: “I therefore declare Uhuru Kenyatta the duly elected president of the Republic of Kenya.”

Shortly afterwards, Hassan handed a certificate of the results to Kenyatta, who had arrived after the declaration. Kenyatta thanked him and went to a nearby university campus in the capital where delivered his acceptance speech.

Many in the election center cheered, although celebrations started in the early hours of Saturday after provisional results indicated Kenyatta’s victory. Supporters thronged the streets of Nairobi and his tribal strongholds, lighting fluorescent flares and waving tree branches and chanting “Uhuru, Uhuru”.

Violence flared briefly in Odinga’s heartlands where police fired teargas at supporters of the defeated candidate who were throwing stones. “No Raila, no peace,” they chanted at the scene near the western city of Kisumu, which was devastated by violence after the 2007 vote.

CHALLENGE

Odinga, 68, said he would have conceded if the vote was fair, adding that there was “rampant illegality” in the electoral process and that “democracy was on trial in Kenya” and he would challenge it in court.

“Any violence now could destroy this nation forever, but it would not serve anyone’s interests,” he said.

Odinga, who secured 43.3 percent of the vote, had also questioned the election process before the vote and during the count his party officials had called for tallying to stop.

The election commission, plagued by technical problems that slowed the count, took five days to announce the result. It dismissed accusations of irregularities.

International observers broadly said the vote and count had been transparent so far and the electoral commission, which replaced a discredited body, said it delivered a credible vote.

Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister, climbed above 50 percent by just 8,400 of the more than 12.3 million votes cast.

Both sides relied heavily on their ethnic groups in a nation where tribal loyalties mostly trump ideology at the ballot box. Kenyatta is a Kikuyu, the biggest of Kenya’s many tribes, Odinga is a Luo. Both had running mates from other tribes.

John Githongo, a former senior government official-turned-whistleblower, urged the rival coalitions, Odinga’s CORD and Kenyatta’s Jubilee, to ensure calm. “Jubilee and CORD, what you and your supporters say now determines continued peace and stability in Kenya. We are watching you!” he said on Twitter.

How Western capitals deal with Kenya under Kenyatta and his government will depend on whether Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto, who is also indicted, work with the tribunal.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said America had longstanding ties with Kenya, and “will continue to be a strong friend and ally of the Kenyan people”, and congratulated the people of the east African country for holding peaceful vote.

CALL FOR COOPERATION

Both Kenyatta and Ruto deny the charges and have said they will work to clear their names, though Kenyatta had to fend off jibes during the campaign by Odinga that he would have to run government by Skype from The Hague.

“Until now, Kenyatta has been cooperating with the court and we do hope this will continue,” said Fadi El-Abdallah, spokesman for the Hague-based court. “This is part of Kenya respecting its legal obligations under international law.”

Kenyans hope the vote, which has so far passed off with only pockets of unrest on voting day, would restore their nation’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies after killings last time left more than 1,200 dead.

Many Kenyans have said they are determined to avoid a repeat of the post-2007 chaos that brought the economy to a halt.

Church leaders in Kisumu sought to defuse tension this time and some Odinga supporters said it was time to move on. “I urge our candidate to forget the presidency and let the will of God prevail,” cloth vendor Diana Ndonga said.

Many shops stayed closed as a precaution in the port city of Mombasa, another Odinga stronghold, but streets were calm.

“We are heading for a bleak future where the economy goes down and international relation sour because of the ICC case,” said Athumani Yeya, 45, a teacher in the city.

Others were hopeful that Kenyatta could bring change.

“We are celebrating. Even with the ICC case in Holland, the people of Kenya still have faith in him,” said Thomas Gitau, 25, a bare-foot car washer on a main Mombasa street. “We hope he can fix infrastructure and security so we have more jobs.”

Odinga’s camp had said even before the result that they were considering a court challenge. In 2007, he said the courts could not be trusted to handle the case. Kenyatta’s camp had also complained about counting delays and other aspects of the vote.

But many Kenyans said this race was more transparent. Turnout reached 86 percent of the 14.3 million eligible voters.

(Additional reporting by James Macharia, Beatrice Gachenge and George Obulutsa in Nairobi, Hezron Ochiel in Kisumu, Drazen Jorgic in Mombasa and Thomas Escritt in Amsterdam; Writing by Richard Lough, Edmund Blair and James Macharia)

Mozambican taxi driver, who was allegedly dragged from back of vehicle by policemen, was later found dead in custody.

South African authorities have suspended the officers accused of dragging a man from the back of a pick-up vehicle, an incident caught on video, and sparked further anger after he died in custody.

Riah Phiyega, the police commissioner, said on Friday she was looking into the “alleged brutal treatment” by officers “in a very serious light and it is strongly condemned”.

“The [police] management regrets the incident that led to the death of Mido Macia,” Phiyega said.

“We would like to assure the country and the world, that what was in the video is not how [police] in South Africa goes about its work.”

The officers involved were also ordered disarmed, and the station commander removed while the investigation is ongoing, she said.

The 27-year-old Mozambican taxi driver Macia, was found dead in detention with signs of head injuries and internal bleeding, according to an initial post-mortem report released by the country’s police watchdog. 

The incident, videotaped on Tuesday and broadcast nationwide on Thursday, was condemned by President Jacob Zuma and opposition politicians.

“The visuals of the incident are horrific, disturbing and unacceptable. No human being should be treated in that manner,” Zuma said in a statement that described the incident as “the tragic death of a man in the hands of the police”.

‘Routine brutality’

Police told media they detained Macia after he parked illegally, creating a traffic jam and then resisted arrest. The video clearly shows the man scuffling with police, who subdue him.

He was then bound to the back of the pick-up by his arms before the vehicle drove off in front of scores of witnesses in the east Johannesburg area of Daveyton.

The latest fatal incident is drawing a storm of protest against the South African police force accused of routine brutality.

Lucy Holborn, of the South African Institute of Race Relations, told Al Jazeera that South Africa’s police force has a long history of using “brutality and violence” going back to the Apartheid era.

“I think that has permeated into the police force in the democratic era,” Holborn said.

“There’s a huge amount of pressure for the police to be tough on crime,” she said in the wake of allegations of corruption and incompetence in the police force.

The country is also struggling with the fallout from the Marikana mine shootings.

In August last year the police opened fire on striking miners, killing dozens at a platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg.

Now a judicial commission is investigating allegations that many were shot in the back as they tried to escape.

“It is absolutely par for the course,” said Nooshin Erfani, the coordinator of Wits Justice Project at Witwatersrand University. “Such ridiculous things happen all the time.”

This culture of xenophobia and the violence that comes with it in South Africa needs to be addressed thoroughly. Whilst incredibly shocking and heinous, this is not a unique incident both as a xenophobic attack and as an attack of this nature supported by South African authorities.

If you head to the link to watch the video, be warned - it contains graphic and disturbing content.