By Fredrick Nzwili
Nairobi, 29 March (ENInews)–Religious denominations and people of faith play crucial roles in caring for the environmentand mitigating the effects of climate change, according to the head of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). Continue reading
New controversial rule compels foreign mining companies to sell majority stake to locals.
By Staff Writer
HARARE—Zimbabwean Government under new regulations released on Monday has compelled all foreign-owned mining companies in its country to sell majority stakes to locals in the next coming six months. Continue reading
Another major bloodshed was averted in Jos, the Plateau State capital, when two attempts to detonate bombs in two separate locations yesterday failed through divine intervention. However, at least four people died over the botched incident. Continue reading
At least five people were feared killed, many others injured and property worth millions of naira destroyed in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of Bauchi State following outbreak of fresh crisis in the area, yesterday. Continue reading
South African woman, 92, who was shot in leg by police 51 years ago, receives keys to government-built houses.
She survived the Sharpeville massacre, witnessed the rise and fall of apartheid and celebrated the release of Nelson Mandela.But this week Mamai Anna Maloso achieved a personal ambition when, after the wait of a lifetime, she moved into her first home. The 92-year-old was presented with the keys to a South African government-built house on the anniversary of the events at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960, when police opened fire on thousands of unarmed black protesters, killing 69, injuring about 180 and unwittingly lighting the fuse for decades of struggle against white minority rule. Maloso was shot in the leg as she fled and still uses a walking stick. Until Monday she was living with her married daughter in a four-room house in Sharpeville, 30 miles south of Johannesburg. Continue reading
PERU has a tradition of political outsiders who appear from nowhere to stage political shocks. The most notable example was Alberto Fujimori, a previously obscure university rector who won the presidency as an independent in 1990 even though opinion polls gave him less than 5% of the vote only a fortnight before the first round of voting. In 2006 Ollanta Humala, a populist former army officer with no previous political experience, came within five percentage points of winning. Continue reading
From the Jan-March 2011 Edition of Around Africa, by Bahati Jacques, AFJN Senior Policy Analyst
Since President Barack Obama signed into law the Conflict Mineral Act on July 21, 2010 (section 1502, of US public law N0 111-203), non-profit organizations and electronics companies have been working to influence the Department of State and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as they implement the law. Although the US Conflict Mineral law is a major step toward regulating the illegal trade of conflict minerals from the Congo, it will not create meaningful results on the ground until the root causes of the conflict are addressed. (Read the SEC Conflict Mineral Act proposed rules here also click here to read comments on the SEC proposed rule from individuals and companies). Continue reading
“Turn their Swords into Plowshares”
by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis
When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so after years of providing Libya’s dictator with the weapons he’s been using against the people, all the international community – France, Britain and the United States – has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Gaddafi’s palace. If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it’s that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate – and that democracy doesn’t come on the back of a Tomahawk missile. Continue reading
By Thorsten Philipp, SJ
The phenomenon is well known since long, but concrete numbers are rare: more and more people are forced to relocate permanently from their homes, due to environmental degradation and ecosystem losses. Projections for 2050, released by the International Organization of Migration in 2008, range from 25 million to one billion people displaced by the consequences only of climate change. Their livelihoods are threatened in many ways: farmers lose arable land due to droughts and other extreme weather events whereas islands and coastal areas are affected by devastating storm tides. As a result, people migrate from environments which no longer guarantee food stability and which no longer are hospitable for human civilization. Continue reading
When the students finish with a morning in the fields, picking over the last few heads of cabbage before the land is plowed under to grow sod, they head to a youth group back in Apopka, where they listen to teens talk about a young immigrant’s life. They speak of alienation, loneliness and the temptations of drugs, alcohol and gangs to make them feel better about who they are. It is surprisingly candid — and sobering. Continue reading
