F for failure

Educational standards in Africa’s biggest and most advanced economy remain generally dire. Seventeen years after the end of apartheid, black pupils still generally fare much worse than their white counterparts. Barely one in ten South African pupils qualifies for university, and only 5% end up with a degree. South Africa does particularly badly in maths and science, coming last (out of 48 countries) in a report published in 2003 by a Dutch institute called “Trends in International Maths and Science”, a study of Grade 9 pupils (aged 15). It withdrew from the 2007 series.

In 2009 just over half of black matric candidates passed, compared with 99% of whites, 92% of Indians and 76% of coloureds (people of mixed race). Though blacks now account for nearly half of all university students (and 80% of the whole population), less than one in 20 of the relevant black age group, still facing harsh economic and social disadvantages, ends up with a degree, compared with almost half of all whites.

Even though public schooling was desegregated in 1994, the vast majority of poor black children continue to go to severely deprived, overwhelmingly black schools. Two-thirds of state schools have no library or computer; 90% have no science laboratory; more than half of all pupils either have no text books or have to share them. Whites, by contrast, together with a small but growing contingent from the black middle class, send their children to the former all-white “Model C” state schools, with their far superior facilities, or, increasingly, to a private school. Since 1994 the number of pupils attending independent schools has more than doubled to around 500,000 (4% of the total school population); six out of ten are black. Tuition fees, over a quarter subsidised by the state, range from a modest 1,600 rand ($230) to a hefty 80,000 rand a year. Many parents think it worth it. Class sizes are generally half those in state schools, the teachers are better qualified and the success rate a lot higher. More than 90% of private-school pupils can expect to get their matric, compared with just 30% of state-school pupils. The former Model C schools boast a similar success rate.

Angie Motshekga, the schools minister, admits that the system is largely “in crisis” and will take 20 years to fix. Others fear it may need longer.

from here

nigerian poverty grows

About 70 percent of Nigeria’s 150 million people live below the poverty line, the Daily Trust reported, citing Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The figure rose from 54 percent previously.

"There is little reason to believe that this wider diversion can be narrowed without much intensive effort." he said.

It is estimated that 12 million out of the 150 million Nigerians are unemployed. 49.9 percent of youth within the age of 15 and 24 years residing in the urban areas have no job while 39.6 percent of their counterparts in rural areas are also not employed. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics put the number of unemployed women in the urban areas at 22 per cent and those in the rural areas at 24 per cent.

BEE - Black Elite Enrichment

"Most African politicians play the ethnic card to stay in power. And unfortunately the masses don’t realise that they are being duped – they don’t understand that their interest are different from those of the elite even if they happen to come from the same tribe. Why? The masses have no sense of its own identity and are not politically consciousness of its own interests. It is only when that consciousness develops that this group would be transformed from being a class ‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself’. Now because of the under-developed nature of our society, sociologically speaking that is, most of our people think that the main problem confronting them are ethnic in nature forgetting the central issue which is the daily struggle for economic survival. So, it’s important that we bring the issue of class and class struggle back in our discussion...
...why after a good 21 years into our independence all we are seeing is the yawning inequality in the Namibian society leading to a sharply divided nation of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. This is not what we promised our people. What we promised our people was to imagine a country with no poverty. With no one who sleeps under bridges, no one looking through garbage for food. On the contrary: everyone would have what you or I would call a decent home and a decent standard of living...But when independence came, they made a total u-turn and adopted and accepted the capitalist agenda in toto...
....The masses should now wake up from their deep slumber and wage a new struggle for their own liberation."

Quoted from T Kaure in The Namibian

Feeding Ourselves 2

The wild African black plum (vitex doniana) has great potential as a by-product of a revered—and useful—native tree. The greatest economic potential of the vitex trees probably lies in the wood and leaves. But black plums support diets and incomes throughout the life of the tree. Black plums are common across tropical sub-Saharan Africa’s coastal savannas and savanna woodlands. The black plum tree is not domesticated, but it is widely utilized and protected and is often found at the center of West African villages.

The olive-shaped fruit has a sweet, prune-like taste with a hint of chocolate. It is believed to have high levels of vitamins A & B. The fruit makes good quality jellies and jams as well as a black molasses. A beverage similar in flavor to coffee is also made from roasted fruits. Young, leafy shoots from the tree are picked, boiled, seasoned, and eaten like spinach.

The tree is used for a variety of medicinal purposes as well. The edible parts of the tree are traditionally prescribed for anemia, due to high iron and potassium content. Leaves are also eaten to treat dysentery. Bark extracts are believed to be useful treatments for jaundice, toothaches, leprosy, and other skin ailments. Some traditions use the bark to improve fertility in women.

In addition to its edibility, the leaves, pods, and seeds make excellent fodder for goats, sheep, and cattle. The trees are especially utilized for livestock fodder during dry seasons and drought. Its long roots can reach deep groundwater pockets, which keeps its leaves green much longer than the grasses that livestock usually depends on. Beekeepers value the tree as a base for their beehives. Abundant white flowers attract bees, and beekeepers like to hang hives in the branches or in a hollowed out trunk of a black plum tree.

It is nitrogen fixing, meaning it adds nitrogen to the soils it grows in. Whether the tree is growing throughout the field or along boundaries, crops can benefit from natural soil nutrients. Shade from the tree can protect from over-exposure to the tropical sun. Leaves from the tree are also used as nutrient-rich mulch. Its nitrogen fixing abilities encourage soil health and its deep roots protect soils from erosion, benefitting other plant life. In this way, it could be utilized for rebuilding degraded native ecosystems. Timber harvested from black plum trees is medium hard and is similar to teak. It is termite resistant, making it favored as a building material. It is known to be used for making furniture, boats, chairs, and drums and is good for carving. It also makes quality firewood and charcoal.

Native to the humid, tropical forests of West and Central Africa, safou (Dacryodes edulis) is also known as the “butterfruit” for its rich, oily pulp. Safou is still not widely domesticated.

People in West and Central Africa have been eating safou for centuries as a fresh fruit between meals and cooked as a main course. When roasted or quickly boiled in salted water, the pulp separates from the skin and seed and takes on a buttery texture. In Nigeria, cooked pulp is combined with starchy foods like maize to make a main course. And if cooked for even longer, a healthy oil, primarily made up of unsaturated fats, can be extracted from the pulp and seed. Like its name-sake, butter, safou is high in fats and very calorie-dense. But unlike butter, safou is also high in amino acids, the chemical building blocks of proteins. Concentrations of some its essential amino acids, such as lysine and leucine, are comparable to concentrations found in eggs and meat. Plus, the fruit is also high in micronutrients and minerals, particularly potassium, calcium, and magnesium, making safou a super food with the potential to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition.

Its wood is stiff and elastic, making it useful for tool handles. The bark produces a resin that makes both a glue for mending pottery and topical treatment for jiggers, a parasitic flea that embeds itself in the skin. And the leaves and roots are also found in a variety of traditional medicines used to treat everything from dysentery to joint pain.

Monkey oranges have all the characteristics of a successful crop–high productivity, extended shelf life, pest resistance, delicious flavor, and high demand. But , the fruit remains undomesticated and has rarely undergone organized cultivation. Monkey orange trees are similar in shape and size to apple, pear, and orange trees.The grapefruit-sized fruit tends to be yellow, orange, or brown, and emits a sweet scent with a touch of clove. They are known for their delicious sweet and sour flavor and are rich in vitamin C and in B vitamins. It is traditionally eaten raw, or made into jam, juice, or fruit wine. A mature tree can bear 300 to 400 fruits per year. Indigenous to tropical and subtropical Africa, they are capable of growing in arid and semi-arid areas and in poor and rocky soils. Their tough outer shells make them resistant to fungi and fruit flies and protect them from being easily damaged in transport and storage. They have an exceptional ability to remain edible in tropical heat for months after fruit maturity. Monkey oranges could be used to produce juices and dry fruit roll. They are a source of shade and erosion protection, and the wood is commonly used for firewood, tool handles, and building poles.

The locust bean is indigenous to the savannah regions of Africa, and most commonly found in the band stretching from Senegal to Uganda. The fruit pulp and seed extracts provide nutritious ingredients for traditional soups, sweetmeats and condiments across West Africa. The locust bean is also extremely hardy; it is well suited to a wide range of soils, it survives fires, thrives in semiarid tropical climates, and has a low susceptibility to pests and diseases. The tree has a wide-reaching crown and can grow more than 20 meters tall.

The sugary pulp can be eaten raw, used in traditional sweetmeats or mixed with water to make a refreshing drink. While the pulp makes for a good energy snack, the seeds are the plant’s most sought after product. Rich in protein, starch, fiber, sugar, and fat, as well as vitamins and minerals, such as calcium and iron, the seeds are about as nutritionally balanced a food as you can find. Because the pods mature during “the hunger season,” when most other vegetation has dried, the locust bean is a true lifesaver – it can be a source of emergency food with a high nutritional value.The seeds are famous for their greasy extract, which is fermented and pressed into cakes or balls, known in West Africa as dawadawa. It has a pungent odor, often compared to that of aged cheese, and is used as a condiment or an ingredient for soup.

Its leaves are so rich in nitrogen and other minerals, that they are often collected as manure for soil improvement.

Referred to as a “supermarket on a trunk,” moringa is potentially one of the planet’s most valuable plants. Serving not only as a reliable source of diverse foods, moringa also provides lamp oil, wood, paper, liquid fuel, skin treatments, and the means to help purify water.

The moringa tree comprises 4 different edible parts: pods, leaves, seeds, and roots. The green-bean looking pods are the most sought-after parts, not only because of their taste – similar to asparagus – but also because they are highly nutritious. They provide a good balance of amino acids and minerals and possess one of the highest vitamin C levels of any tropical vegetable. The moringa leaves are also an excellent source of nutrition. People commonly boil the tiny leaflets and eat them like spinach. Like the pods, the leaves contain vitamins A and C as well as more calcium than most other greens. These leaves also contain such high levels of iron that doctors frequently prescribe them for anemic patients. Before fully mature, pods can also be picked for their soft seeds. The seeds can be boiled and eaten like fresh peas, or fried to taste more like peanuts. Seeds can also be pressed for oil that can be used for cooking, medicinal ointments, lamp fuel, or even as an ingredient in soap. The thick, soft roots are another important food resource, and are usually used to make a condiment similar to horseradish. Boiling roots and shoot tips is also common because of their high-protein content.

Researchers have found that mixing crushed moringa seeds with polluted water help settle silt and other contaminants. This is highly cost effective because the seeds can replace the expensive imported material usually used for water purification in rural areas. The seed filtered water still needs a final filtration before it is completely drinkable, but the seeds make the process easier and help other water filters last longer.While smoke from household fires can pollute the air, the soft, spongy moringa wood burns cleanly with little smoke or smell, making it a more healthy source of fuel.

Indigenous to West Africa, a Dika tree can grow to be as tall as 40 meters and produces a small green and yellow fruit that looks, at first glance, like a small mango.

Its fruit ranges in taste from sweet to bitter and can be enjoyed—especially the sweeter varieties—fresh off the tree, or made into jelly, jam or “African-mango juice.”But while the fruit is a delicious treat, the seeds are where the real value can be found. Resembling smooth walnuts, Dika seeds are cracked open by harvesters to collect the edible kernel contained inside. These kernals can be eaten raw or roasted, but most are processed and pounded into Dika butter or compacted into bars or pressed to produce a cooking oil. The seeds also produce a unique flavor when crushed and are combined with the other spices to make “ogbono soup,” a common dish.

Teff is an indigenous grain grown on the dry plateaus of Ethiopia. Teff grows very well under difficult conditions such as unpredictable rainfall and is usually left alone by pests and disease.

Teff is rich in nutrients, providing all eight essential amino acid, and is a great source of carbohydrates and fiber. It is also high in the nutritionally important minerals calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, aluminum, iron, copper, zinc, boron, barium, and thiamin. In Ethiopia, teff is commonly consumed as a homemade fermented beverage, as a gruel called muk, and as a sweet and dry unleavened bread called kita. It is also made into flour and cooked into injera, a flat, spongy, slightly sour bread that is consumed with most meals.

Not only is teff good for eating, it is also a common construction material, with the straw being used to reinforce houses made from mud and plaster. It also is given to livestock as fodder, and farmers in Eritrea and Ethiopia say that cattle prefer it to other types of fodder.

The pigeonpea is grown by subsistence farmers in warm semi-arid and sub-humid tropics, often in poor soils with little to no chemical inputs thanks to its hardiness and drought-tolerance.the food is a staple for diets in India, southern and eastern Africa, and Central America. It’s also used extensively as a cover crop, to create a hedge or windbreak, or as green manure in many sustainable farming systems and home gardens in the tropics and subtropics because of its ability to grow in warm temperatures.

The pigeonpea can help improve food security because it requires minimal water or inputs, can cope with poor soil and little water, yet still produces yields of grain that contain more than 20 percent protein, which is especially important for countries facing hunger and malnutrition.In addition to its nutritious and hardy benefits, the cowpea is also is a nitrogen-fixing legume which gives it great potential to improve soil quality and–when grown together with other pasture plants–to create a highly fertile, productive and sustainable livestock feeding system. The leaves, flowers, seed pods and peas all provide a nutritious animal fodder, not to mention attracting bees that help it to self-propagate. When planted around young fruit trees they provide shelter without over-shading and the trimmings can be used as mulch with the nitrogen from its root nodules nourishing the tree.

Amaranth is a small vegetable indigenous to Africa, mchicha in Swahili. In lowland areas of West African countries such as Nigeria, Amaranth greens are commonly eaten boiled. Its mild flavor and tender texture complements many starchy dishes well. Young plants can be eaten whole, and young leaves can be harvested continuously from mature plants. A nutritious vegetable, amaranth leaves are high in vitamins A, K, B6, C, riboflavin and folate; and essential minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese. Due to its high iron content, it is recommended for those at risk for anemia. It is also an important source of protein. Some African populations rely on amaranth leaves for as much as 25 percent of their daily protein intake during its growing season.

With a toasted flavor similar to popcorn when cooked, amaranth seeds are small in size but a good source of carbohydrate and protein (15-17 percent by weight). It is rich in the amino acids methionine, cycteine and has the highest content of lysine compare with all grains. It also has three times the fiber of wheat. Often milled into flour, bread made from amaranth seeds is gluten free and has a rich, nutty flavor.

Amaranth has been demonstrated in various studies to contain blood pressure and cholesterol lowering properties. Consuming amaranth leaf, seed or oil may prove beneficial for those with hypertension or cardiovascular disease.

Amaranth, especially the Elephant Head variety, displays useful properties as a companion plant for crops including bell peppers, corn, onion and potato—It helps loosen hard soil, acts as a trap for pests such as leaf miners, and provides sheltering for beetles, predators of insects pests.

The eggplant most commonly found across sub-Saharan Africa is Solanum aethiopicum. This variety has a brilliant red exterior, and is about the size and shape of an egg—giving it the name, garden egg. It is also known as mock tomato, ngogwe and nyanya chungu. hough technically a fruit, it is usually picked when it is green and is eaten as a vegetable; cooked into stews and sauces or even consumed raw. If picked after it is ripe, it can be enjoyed as a fruit—though some varieties are more sour than others. And, even the nutrient-rich leaves have come to be a popular meal. And even though the fruit is not well known for its nutritional content—it is 92 percent water—it also provides vitamin B, beta-carotene and vitamin C in addition to calcium, iron and potassium.

The plant itself can grow in “agricultural wastelands,” are somewhat drought resistant, and have the ability to grow in humid areas. The garden eggs have even proven to be resistant to molds, mildews and certain soil-borne plant-pathogens. They can also be grown alongside other crops or in small pots providing a high yield of fruit from a small area. The farmer will typically first harvest the fruit after 70 to 90 days when it is still immature and after that, 8 to 10 weekly harvests can be reaped. Once harvested, the eggplant can be stored for up to three months and some consumers dry the fruit to eat later in the year.

From humid lowlands to dry highlands, the lablab is easy to plant and even easier to care for. It stays green and productive throughout the dry season when food is generally hard to come by.

The pods, seeds, and leaves of the lablab are all edible and utilized in a variety of different meals–though its raw, dry seeds can be poisonous if not prepared correctly. The young pods are most often picked from the stalk and eaten like green beans or snow peas, but they can also be cooked and added to soups and stews. The leaves can be eaten whole or made into a seasoning herb for other dishes.

While the pods and leaves look similar to those of other legume varieties, they have much higher protein content and are an excellent source of iron. They also contain a good balance of amino acids, making lablab pods a good complement for cereal-based diets.

In India, dried seeds are split like lentils and used in making stews and soups. They are also sprouted, soaked in water, shelled, boiled, and smashed into a paste, which is fried with spices and used as a condiment. In Africa, lablab seeds are often boiled with maize, ground and fried, or added to soups as well. They are also included in traditional dish that is a mixture of maize, beans, bananas, potatoes, and green vegetables, all boiled down into a protein-rich paste.

In addition to being used as a source of food, lablab grows quickly and provides high yields, making it ideal for grazing for cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. It can also easily be intercropped, restoring nitrogen to soils and helping repair degraded farm land. It is considered a good cover crop in coffee and coconut plantations and is often planted as a second recovery crop in rice fields after the harvest. Lablab plants are also used to form hedges in urban settings. In Guyana, the government has encouraged city dwellers to grow ornamental varieties along fence lines to both provide protein for households and decoration for yards and along the street.

The cowpea, or kunde as it is called in Swahili (also known as blackeyed pea throughout the Americas), originates in the center of Africa and is one of the oldest crops known on the continent. Cowpea is extremely drought resistant and adapted to poor soil—making it a useful staple crop for farmers in areas facing increasingly extreme water scarcity and hot temperatures due to climate change. It is estimated that over 200 million people in Africa subsist on a diet consisting mainly of the crop.

Cowpea is an important source of protein and other nutrients. A member of the grain legume family, cowpea improves the body’s absorption and breakdown of other main foods like rice, maize, and cassava. Cowpea is also rich in oil and digestible carbohydrate.

Eaten at different stages throughout its development, cowpea forms the basis of a wide variety of meals. The leaves and young pods can be eaten like vegetables while the seeds are eaten as a side dish, or made into sauces or dry grain. The seeds are also ground into flour that can be pressed into deep fried cakes called akara balls or steamed cakes known as moin-moin. Cowpea meal is used to make puddings, porridges, and soups.

During especially dry years, when stockfeed is low, the stems and leaves of cowpea are used to feed livestock. The stems and leaves can also be dried and stored for the off season when fodder for livestock is scarce.

Not only good for those who cultivate and eat it, the cowpea is also beneficial to the soil in which it grows. It’s deep tap root—the part that makes it so tolerant to dry growing conditions—helps to stabilize soil, while its shade and dense cover help preserve moisture. Like all legumes, cowpea helps to fix nitrogen in the soil, making anywhere it grows more hospitable to other vegetables and staple crops. An annual crop, the cowpea’s seeds remain viable for several years and it is generally grown intercropped or in relay with maize, cassava, groundnuts, sorghum or pearl millet.

While the process of baking bread may vary from culture to culture, there are a few essential ingredients utilized by bread makers the world over. They include: flour, yeast, water, and salt. Researchers at the Food Technology Institute of Dakar, Senegal, however, have decided to break with tradition by adding a rather unconventional ingredient to their bread batter—black-eyed peas. Without sacrificing taste, bread made by substituting 15 percent of the wheat flour for black-eyed pea flour, is 40 percent cheaper than its all-wheat equivalent—and more nutritious. Imported rice and wheat have overshadowed this nutritious crop that is rich in both potassium and vitamins A and C.

Feeding ourselves

Nearly a half-century after the Green Revolution, a large share of the human family is still chronically hungry.

"The international community has been neglecting entire segments of the food system in its efforts to reduce hunger and poverty," said Danielle Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch's Nourishing the Planet project. "The solutions won't necessarily come from producing more food, but from changing what children eat in schools, how foods are processed..."

Serving locally raised crops to school children, for example, has proven to be an effective hunger- and poverty-reducing strategy in many African nations.
Roughly 40 percent of the food currently produced worldwide is wasted before it is consumed.

In 2007, some 6,000 women in The Gambia organized into the TRY Women's Oyster Harvesting producer association creating a sustainable co-management plan for the local oyster fishery to prevent overharvesting and exploitation. Oysters and fish are an important, low-cost source of protein for the population, but current production levels have led to environmental degradation and to changes in land use over the last 30 years.

In Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing "vertical" gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa's population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15–20 percent of all food.

Pastoralists in South Africa and Kenya are preserving indigenous varieties of livestock that are adapted to the heat and drought of local conditions--traits that will be crucial as climate extremes on the continent worsen. Africa has the world's largest area of permanent pasture and the largest number of pastoralists, with 15–25 million people dependent on livestock.

The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) is using interactive community plays to engage women farmers, community leaders, and policymakers in an open dialogue about gender equity, food security, land tenure, and access to resources. Women in sub-Saharan Africa make up at least 75 percent of agricultural workers and provide 60–80 percent of the labor to produce food for household consumption and sale, so it is crucial that they have opportunities to express their needs in local governance and decision-making.

Uganda's Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) program is integrating indigenous vegetable gardens, nutrition information, and food preparation into school curriculums to teach children how to grow local crop varieties that will help combat food shortages and revitalize the country's culinary traditions. An estimated 33 percent of African children currently face hunger and malnutrition, which could affect some 42 million children by 2025. School nutrition programs that don't simply feed children, but also inspire and teach them to become the farmers of the future, are a huge step toward improving food security.

climate change

Africa's oldest and deepest lake has experienced unprecedented warming during the past century, a trend that scientists say threatens fish stocks that feed millions of people. The surface of finger-shaped Lake Tanganyika, which stretches 420 miles along the Great Rift Valley, is 26 degrees Celsius -- its warmest temperature in 1,500 years. The lake surface experienced its biggest temperature jump -- 2 degrees Celsius -- during the past 90 years, a period corresponding with increased combustion of fossil fuels and emissions of heat-trapping gases.

"A lot of that increase has happened in the last 50 years, so we do believe man-made global warming is responsible," lead scientist Jessica Tierney explained.

A 2006 report from the U.N. Environment Programme estimated that roughly 200,000 tons of fish were harvested annually from the lake, which borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia. The report estimated that the lake's drainage basin is home to about 10 million people; most of the rural population fishes or farms for a living. The lake supports Africa's largest freshwater fishery.

food basket

Over the past 30 years, the world’s population has grown by more than 50 per cent to over 6 billion, and is expected to increase by the same proportion again by 2050. Yet the world’s food supplies are failing to keep up. Many of the farms in developing countries produce small yields, and need help and more modern farming equipment to help them produce larger amounts of crops. And there is still plenty of unused land around the world, suitable for agricultural expansion.

Nigeria has the potential not only to meet its growing food needs but also to become one of the leading food producing countries in the sub-region and the world at large. Nigeria has about 79 million hectares of arable land (less than half of which is under cultivation); and is blessed with highly diversified ecological conditions suitable for the production of a wide range of agricultural products. The country has 267 billion cubic meters of surface water; 57.9 billion cubic meters of underground water; an annual rainfall range of 300 mm to 400 mm; and potential irrigable area of 3.14 million hectares (seven per cent of which is utilised).

Yet it cannot feed itself. Why?

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/wealth-creation-thru-agric/15917-invest-in-agriculture

Powder-keg

Poverty and hunger used to be confined to rural areas, but the poverty level in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Kaduna cries to high heavens. Graduate prostitutes are all over the metropolitan cities of Nigeria while common beggars are a familiar sight in every nook and corner of the country. But men and women who have got muscles and have acquired university education, and have been jobless for upwards of 10 years or more have decided to take laws into their own hands. They no longer can stomach the hunger that has flattened their stomachs. They are very hungry. They are angry. Very angry. And they have therefore resolved to inflict maximum anguish on the society.

What we have on our hands is class war in its crudest form. And it is just beginning. No society can consider itself safe if more than 90 percent of its population live in abject poverty while about 10 percent live in nauseating opulence. Unemployed graduates roaming the streets of Abuja and Lagos watch in helpless disbelief the way and manner politicians throw away raw cash at social functions. They are awed at the infuriating daily dose of ugly news of wanton theft in high places. They pass by the mansions of the noveau riche and ask themselves what offence they committed against God to merit the sorry fate allotted to them.

Nigerians are angry. Then youth of this country are up in arms. Any graduate of chemistry can produce the bomb. Any educated young man can access the process and procedure of making bombs on the Internet. We are sitting on a keg of gunpowder.

Extracted from here

chief mischief

Senior chief Bright Nalubamba of Namwala says people in rural areas should put pressure on their traditional leaders to ensure that they speak on behalf of the poor. In an interview, chief Nalubamba said it was disappointing that some traditional leaders were not representing their subjects but their personal egos.
“There is too much poverty in this nation especially in rural areas. It is painful to see some chiefs defend wrong things instead of helping the voices of their subjects...it will be foolish for a chief to ignore the fact that poverty is rife on the ground. It will be foolish of a chief to choose to ignore the fact that his subjects are living in abject poverty...You will be foolish to ignore people’s concerns about poverty, their health, bad and dilapidated infrastructure” chief Nalubamba said.

In the accompanying newspaper article we read that the prosperity of chiefs has always been tied to that of their subjects. And since chiefs were traditionally not fending for themselves, what they ate, what they wore and all their glory emanated from what their subjects were able to bring or do for them.

Today, a great majority of people, especially those in the rural areas where most of chiefs reside, are impoverished. This means that they have very little to give to their chiefs because one can only give that which one has. If a chief’s subjects have nothing, the chief will get nothing. And this is the case today. Chiefs are getting very little, if not nothing, from their subjects. The only ones who have something to give are those in control of government resources. And today, both the chiefs and their subjects are looking up to those in control of government resources to survive. Chiefs today don’t seem to be dependent on the contributions of their subjects. As such, their loyalty, faith and commitment lies elsewhere. And if chiefs have lost that commitment, that loyalty to their subjects, there is no way their subjects can also continue to be loyal to them. People have faith in those who have faith in them; people are loyal to those who are loyal to them. Today, the chiefs are more preoccupied with their own survival while their subjects also have to fend for themselves and worry about their own survival.

Greed and vanity set in. In the name of recognising the institution of chieftaincy, a system of corrupt patronage has become a normal part of politics. Some chiefs, especially those who are viewed as being favourably disposed towards the political party in power, are given all sorts of gifts and inducements to maintain their support. What this does is that these chiefs are now forced to toe the ruling party line and support whatever those in government want. When this happens, an important voice which would have served the needs of the voiceless is shut up and the people continue to wallow in poverty.

There are not many chiefs in the country today who speak candidly and fearlessly in defence of the interests of their people. Most of them, when they speak, it is only about their own welfare – their allowances, automobiles, palaces, personal medical attention and so on and so forth. The interests of their people are only talked about in passing if ever they happen to be talked about. The corruption of this important institution has left the people poorer, helpless and in despair. For many poor people, their chiefs are nothing but an extension of self-seeking opportunists who do nothing for public good.

Slavery and Wage Slavery

In August 2007 Mauritania’s National Assembly unanimously adopted a law criminalizing slavery (including debt bondage and forced marriage). The law says slaveholders could be given 10-year prison sentences and fines ranging from US$2,000 to $4,000. Anyone facilitating slavery can be imprisoned for two years. The law also provides for financial compensation to former victims. Nearly a fifth of Mauritania’s 3.1 million people were slaves as of 2009. No one has been prosecuted for keeping slaves. Authorities generally classify such cases simply as disputes between an employer and his or her employees. The deputy head of SOS Esclaves in Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Khalifa explained “The authorities themselves keep slaves,”

“My masters told me: ‘The slave depends on his owner and in order to go to paradise he must obey his owner. Otherwise he will go to hell’,” said Rabah who, with the help of the Mauritanian anti-slavery group Initiative pour la résurgence du mouvement abolitioniste, was liberated. “I knew no one but my masters. I belonged to them and that seemed normal to me. When I was young my owners beat me; when I got older they threatened to take me to the police if I disobeyed them.”

Many say the question of land is at the heart of Mauritania’s slavery problem. “The cultivatable lands are monopolised by the former masters. And yet it’s us who farm them,” said Yeslim Ould Warmit, a Haratine farmer in the village of Leuceïba. “Indeed for them: slaves we were born, slaves we will always be,” added Abdallahi Ould Mohamed Salem, another freed sleeve. “That will not change as long as the local administration backs the former masters.”
“This land question is crucial,” said Mamadou Sarr, executive secretary of the forum of national human rights’ organisations in Mauritania. “Because today, no one is playing the game. Not the mayors, not the prefects, not even the governors. They still obey the big landowners.”

Banning slavery have failed to improve living conditions for victims of slavery.

“I was born into a family of slaves in 1959. I was sold to a tribe in northern Mauritania where I worked as a full-time slave. I was the first one to wake up and the last to sleep. My main daily work was to look after my masters’ cattle." Mbareck Ould Mahmoude told IRIN "My masters told me that I was free in 1979. They starting paying me US$19 monthly and $11 each to my mother and sisters to work as domestic workers. My mother and sisters are still working now for the same people as during the times of open slavery. They are now paid $27 a month, but that is not enough to live on. Now, people do not call me a slave anymore because of the law. But in reality, I am still a slave and I will stay one as long as I am poor and uneducated like the rest of my family. I feel that I am not a normal human being. I have no voice, no importance in my community and this is likely to last unless I get better pay and basic education. New slavery is worse than that of the old days. Today, you get a negligible amount for heavy work. You have to support yourself and your family unlike the old days of slavery, when you were called a slave but at least your food and housing were paid for by your masters.”

Biofuels are broadly defined as liquid, solid or gaseous fuels that are predominantly or exclusively produced from biomass. The main types of biofuels include biodiesel, ethanol, or purified biogas derived from crops, plant residues or wastes. All of these can be used as a substitute or supplement for the traditional fossil fuels used for transportation, domestic, and industrial uses.

Investors are targeting many areas of land which are perceived as being ‘unused’ or ‘marginal’ in terms of their productivity and agricultural potential. With interest in allocating such areas for biofuel increasing, the security of land tenure and access or use rights on the part of local resident communities across rural African landscapes is potentially at risk. Land tenure in rural Africa is often characterised by a high level of insecurity, as a result of the colonial legacy of centralised ownership of land by the state, coupled with weak mechanisms for accountability and enforcement of land rights. As the commercial potential of marginally productive rural lands increases across Africa due to growing interest in biofuels, the risk of large-scale dispossession of customary lands belonging to farmers and pastoralists may increase.In addition, expansion of biofuel production may lead to other negative impacts such as environmental damage, for example due to deforestation or industrial pollution, and indirect impacts from rising food prices where food crops are cultivated for biofuel production. As a result of these manifold factors, there is widespread concern about the adverse impacts of commercial biofuel production in rural Africa.

A special TMF funded programme reveals some shocking findings which the villagers, who are the land owners faced some sort of being ‘conned’ through a hail of promises of employment creation, construction of schools and health centres that proved futile. Local politicians emphasisied that if the villagers wanted development in social services, and alleviate poverty, they should give the land to these investors. According to Athumani Mkambala the Chairman of Muhaga village Kisarawe district Coast region, the biofuel investors arrived in October 2006 and made a series of promises purporting to develop them in the forms of construction of deep well, building of hospital structures and schools and improvement of roads. The said promises have never been fulfilled even partially. The investor’s sites are different from the villagers’. This means that they have all better facilities that include clean water, medical facilities and good infrastructure – drivable roads.

Tanzania gave a green light to biofuel investors without formulating a proper policy framework to guide development of the sub-sector. In the absence of guidelines on how the investments should be established, the projects undertaken so far have resulted into more problems that it was expected. The Global Change Course Students of 2010 (Action aid Tanzania) who recently made a field research in the Kisarawe and Rufiji districts where a huge chunk of land has been grabbed by biofuel investors for producing biofuel have advised the government to stop allocating land for biofuel production without a policy that ensures food security and that is implemented.

poverty amid diamonds

Thousands of people dependent on diamond mining in the eastern regions of the Central African Republic earn pitiful wages and are continually harassed by local and foreign armed groups, says a new study by the International Crisis Group. Poverty and crime characterize the diamond business. Costs such as the hiring of equipment and licensing fees make for a hand-to-mouth existence, especially for those struggling to feed large families. According to the UN Children’s Fund, chronic malnutrition in Central African Republic stems from, among other things, loss of income in mining areas.

“Miners are mostly ignorant of a diamond’s real value and, even if they know it, they are obliged to sell at the price offered, sometimes by written contract to the collector who financed the work… A collector might buy a one-carat diamond from a miner at 80,000 CFA francs [US$160] and sell it to a buying office for 200,000-300,000 CFA francs [$400-$600],” said the report.

Armed groups such as the Convention des patriotes pour la justice et la paix (CPJP) and the Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement (UFDR) remain active in the eastern diamond zone, making “the east a dangerous place to live and move around”, said the report, which noted that while diamond profits are not the only reason for rebel activity, they have contributed to making such rebellions harder to end it.
“The inability of artisanal miners to escape poverty holds back development in mining areas and increases the risk of young men and women joining rebel groups in the hope of better alternatives,” it said.

Tony Blair - the new Cecil Rhodes?

Tony Blair has defended his close personal and working relationship with one of Africa's most controversial leaders, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, even as foreign governments distance themselves over accusations of war crimes and the suppression of political opposition. A UN report that accused Kagame's forces of war crimes, including possibly genocide, in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, and charges that the Rwandan government is increasingly authoritarian after the opposition was effectively barred from challenging Kagame in August's presidential election. The White House has criticised Kagame for the suppression of political activity and made clear that it does not regard Rwanda as democratic. The UN report in October accused Rwanda of war crimes in eastern Congo, including the wholesale massacres of Hutu civilians and the plunder of minerals which tarnished Kagame's image.
Kagame has denied the accusations but human rights groups have been documenting such crimes for years. His re-election in August was with 93% of the vote, after his main rivals were jailed and barred from running after being accused of stirring up ethnic hatred between Hutus and Tutsis after what Human Rights Watch called "persistent harassment and intimidation" of their parties by the government, and the curbing of criticism in the press including the banning of two newspapers. The deputy leader of a third opposition party was murdered in July.

Blair has described Rwanda's president as a "visionary leader" and a friend after making the central African country the focus of the work of his charity, the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI). The initiative includes placing officials hired by Blair in Rwanda's institutions such as the president's policy unit, the prime minister's office, the cabinet secretariat and the development board to assist with administration. Blair said allowances have to be made for the consequences of the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and suggested that Kagame's economic record outweighed other concerns. Blair told the Guardian: "I'm a believer in and a supporter of Paul Kagame. I don't ignore all those criticisms, having said that. But I do think you've got to recognise that Rwanda is an immensely special case because of the genocide. Secondly, you can't argue with the fact that Rwanda has gone on a remarkable path of development. Every time I visit Kigali and the surrounding areas you can just see the changes being made in the country."

AGI, a registered charity, launched its first project in Rwanda in 2008 and involves placing Blair's staff in high government offices, such as presidential policy units and cabinet secretariats, to build "effective governance" through "a combination of on-the-job coaching and support and formal and informal training".

"There is a clear sense by this generation of African leaders that the future of Africa is in their hands and they're not interested in a debate about the colonial past," he said. "They're very much eager to get their countries sorted out. They're perfectly willing to listen and learn from the outside. They're also keen on bringing in quality private sector investment and that is the way you build a country."

But the initiative is open to criticism for promoting a model that pressures African states to again surrender political and economic autonomy.

"You've got to make a judgment about this, and my judgment, rightly or wrongly, is that he [Kagame] is somebody who does want to do his best for his country, is doing his best for his country..." Blair stated.

Socialist Banner is fully aware of Blair's sense of good judgement and his avowed declarations of good intent - such as the invasion of Iraq !

from one hell to another hell

More than 2 million Somalis have sought haven in U.N.-supported refugee camps in neighboring countries and in settlements in nearly every region of Somalia.

They had walked for 10 days. Djiboutian border authorities had stopped them on a recent day in order to speak with a visiting U.N. delegation. Djiboutians consider such people illegal migrants, but they only occasionally enforce the law, especially if the migrants are passing through to another country.

"Are you fully aware of the dangers?" asked Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees.

"We know the risks," replied Abdullahi Ibrahim, 28. "But we are escaping hunger. If we had enough to eat, do you think we would leave our mothers, brothers and sisters?"

"We are running away from poverty," said Mohammed Said, 17. "We want to go to Yemen to send money back to our families. They are counting on us."

"They travel from one hell to another hell," said Ahmed Abdullahi, a U.N. refugee protection officer

BAE tanzanian deal corrupt

Mr Justice Bean told Southwark crown court that it appeared that BAE had paid "whatever was necessary to whomever it was necessary" to get the Tanzanian contract. He added that it appeared that the payments were disguised so that BAE "would have no fingerprints on the money". "They just wanted the job done – hear no evil, see no evil," . He said: "I have to establish what has happened. If there is no money to be used for corrupt practices, why is 97% of it paid through a BVI company controlled by BAE to another [offshore] company controlled by Vithlani?"

In February, BAE struck the plea deal with the SFO and American prosecutors to end years of corruption investigations into its business methods. The arms giant agreed to pay £3 m in corporate penalties in return for admitting accounting irregularities over a radar contract with Tanzania. Vithlani had been recorded in its books as performing "technical services", but he had no knowledge of any technical matters. Anti-corruption campaigners have argued that the deal is too lenient and cosy.

Richard Evans, BAE's chairman, had "personally approved" the use of a businessman, Sailesh Vithlani, as its "covert" agent to secure the Tanzanian radar contract. Approval was also given by Mike Turner, then a board member who later became BAE's chief executive. Temple said BAE paid $12.4m (£7.7m) to Vithlani between 2000 and 2005 – around a third of the radar contract's value. BAE had paid much of this money through its front company based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), known as Red Diamond, to a Panama-based company controlled by Vithlani.

Uganda's inequality

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics is quoted to have found out that the inequality gap among Ugandans has continued to widen.Uganda has the highest inequality levels in East Africa. And that the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer.

One of the first civilisations to have risen and disastrously fallen due to institutionalised inequality is the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The Ancient Greek civilisation rose and fell also on account of institutionalised inequality. The well documented rise and fall of the Jewish nation of Israel in the Biblical times as documented by the prophets was also due to inequality. As it was in Egypt and Israel, so it was in the well known Indian, Chinese and Japanese ancient civilisations. In India, inequality was rationalised and institutionalised under the caste system where some people were born into poverty and were condemned to die in poverty. The great Roman Civilisation fell on account institutionalised inequality characterised by slavery, serfdom and feudalism. The Church in the middle ages fell into decay on account of inequality. It started forbidding priests from marrying so as to prevent the emergence of a hereditary priestly line that monopolised both material and spiritual power. The Arab countries of the Middle East are a typical examples of the rich-poor. The South American countries that became independent more than 200 years ago are still poor because they have for long tolerated inequality. The former Soviet Union which guised its inequality under the veil of "socialism" collapsed under its own inequality weight. Inequality breeds conflicts. Inequality is the mother of crime.

There is no reason to believe all this same demise may not happen to Uganda.

Extracted from here

The rewards of academia

It might come as a surprise to academics in South Africa but the purchasing power of their salaries, on average, is now higher than that of their counterparts in Canada, the UK and New Zealand, according to a survey of 46 Commonwealth universities.

At the same time, South Africa has the highest salary scales relative to national gross domestic product per capita and the overall average academic salary is seven times the GDP per capita. This is perhaps not surprising for a developing country where joblessness is high and average per capita income is low, and where there are deep inequalities between rich and poor.

South Africa ranks second overall with an average of PPP US$78,653 while Canada and the UK are in third and fourth place respectively. This is in contrast to the survey in 2006-07 when South Africa was at the bottom of the ranking. South Africa has the highest salary scales relative to national GDP per capita (the overall average academic salary is seven times the GDP per capita) and also saw the highest level of growth in academic salary scales since the last survey (51%). In South Africa, the large diversity in salary levels is due to the relatively high level of institutional autonomy.

Another corrupt president

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been accused of siphoning off up to $9bn (£5.6bn; 7bn euros) of his country's funds by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court .Luis Moreno Ocampo told the BBC that had hidden the money in personal accounts outside Sudan.

If Mr Bashir does indeed hold a fortune of $9bn in secret bank accounts, that would be equivalent to one tenth of the country's annual GDP.

swaziland outlook bleak

The Swazi government recently conceded that unemployment was running at 40 percent, despite doggedly maintaining for many years that it was 26 percent, but economists expect this to rise, pushing up already high poverty levels - about two-thirds of Swazis live in chronic poverty.

Government has announced a reduction of 7,000 public service jobs in 2011 but the impact will have a ripple effect throughout the economy. According to the government's Central Statistics Office, one employed person supports, on average, 10 others.

Swaziland has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - 26.1 percent – so one in four Swazis between the ages of 15 and 49 is living with the virus, and about half of those infected, or 110 000, are on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, which can prolong a person’s life. The budget for HIV/AIDS would be cut by 10 percent in 2011.

Subsistence farmers on communal Swazi Nation Land, where about 80 percent of the country's one million population reside, use government tractors for ploughing, but government fuel depots have run dry and the machines are standing idle."This is planting season. It is December now, and for six weeks we have not been able to get seeds in the ground," farmer in the central Manzini region, told IRIN.

However, government spending on non-essential programmes has not been cut. A recent request by the finance minister for an additional $50 million towards the building of an international airport was approved by parliament and the airport's final cost is expected to be in the region of $1 billion. Cabinet officials have also awarded themselves substantial pay rises, and have extended retirement benefits to former government officials.

"..as more business shut and public sector workers are laid off, it is inevitable that more people will join the ranks of the poor." Amos Ndwandwe, an economist at a bank in the capital, Mbabane, explained

WHITE TOURISM

Statistics released reveal that previously disadvantaged Namibians only own 90 of the 1 361 registered tourism establishments in the country The bulk, at 927 are owned by white Namibians while the rest, 344, are foreign owned. No previously disadvantaged Namibian owns an air charter operator's licence or one to operate a tented lodge, while only one owns a trophy hunting licence or a guest-farm. Most black Namibians in the tourism and hospitality sector are tour and safari operators, at 26, while 21 are tour facilitators, and 24 bed and breakfast operators. Establishments such as tented lodges, air charter operations and guest farms are very expensive to operate but generate the most revenue in the tourism industry, thus mostly owned by the previously advantaged white community and foreigners. Some foreigners are also involved in low-end tourism initiatives that are not very capital intensive, thus directly competing with indigenous Namibian operators.

Breaking the cycle

A 2009 study conducted by the Medical Research Council (MCR) sent shockwaves across the country when it revealed that one in four men in the coastal provinces of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal admitted to committing rape. But the findings of a new report, the Gauteng Gender Violence Indicators Pilot Project, released to coincide with 16 days of international activism against gender violence, suggest the situation may be even worse than initially thought.

The study found that 78.3 per cent of men admitted to perpetrating some form of violence - whether emotional, physical or sexual - against women. Twenty-five per cent of the women interviewed said they had experienced some form of sexual violence - but only 3.9 per cent of these reported the crime to the police. One in 13 of the women surveyed said they had been raped by a non-partner, but just one in 25 rapes had been reported to the police. Of the men interviewed, 37.4 per cent admitted to committing an act of sexual violence at least once.

A recent study conducted by the TLAC revealed that just four per cent of approximately 2,000 cases of rape they tracked since 2003 resulted in a conviction. "You are asking people to come out and report the cases, but if there are few consequences, then you are effectively undermining all of that," Vetten says. "The system is just not working."

According to official South African police statistics there were 68,332 reported sexual offences between March 2009 and March 2010. From March 2009 to March 2010, there were 16,834 reported cases of murder, 17,410 reported cases of attempted murder and 113,755 reported cases of aggravated robbery.

Mbuyiselo Botha, an activist at the Sonke Gender Justice Network, argues that getting to the root of violence in South Africa requires one to emerge from the collective amnesia about South Africa's past.
Botha, who works to rehabilitate abusive men, insists that this focus on the past is not an excuse. "We must remember that gender violence in South Africa is another type of violence, along with road rage, the massive rate of murders," he says. "We are a nation who abuse each other, because it seems to be the only language we understand. "It is tempting to have amnesia for what happened in the past ... it is useful to remember that we are emerging from an abnormal system that invariably created abnormal individuals who created a society that is also abnormal."

Some activists suggest that the social and cultural baggage of apartheid may not only be impacting poor, black men.

"We focus on the victims, and this is not a bad thing, but we tend to forget that fixing this problem means we have to unpack the origins of a type of masculinity that is required for social domination," Anthony Collins, a social researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's department of psychology, says, adding that studies have shown that during apartheid there was a correlation between returning soldiers and increased violence. "Think about British colonisation, with its harsh public school system of canes and cold showers; a sort of brutal psychological conditioning that created essentially aggressors that forwarded the aims of the empire."We know that well over 90 per cent of South Africans endorse corporal punishment ... and ultimately, the roots of violence come from violence during childhood. On one hand you have the new Domestic Violence Act, a set of gender provisions that are terribly progressive, the introduction of child protection courts, but on the other hand, you have a society that opposes restrictions to corporal punishment towards children and you have a violent masculinity emanating from our leadership."

China versus Miners

Zambian miners at the Collum Coal Mine are furious with their Chinese bosses. At least 11 miners were allegedly shot by two Chinese managers during a protest about poor conditions in October.

The southern rural district of Sinazongwe is covered in black coal dust, but otherwise there is not a hint that the 21st Century has reached the area. And this is what has angered the miners. They feel that while the Chinese benefit from the mine and live comfortably, they remain in poverty often renting mud-walled huts lacking basic facilities. There is also perception that the Chinese management has little concern for their workers' safety. They lack face masks, safety shoes and in many instances wear their own clothes in the course of duty.

"The salaries are a problem - we get 500,000 kwacha ($100; £63) a month but our rentals cost about 100,000 kwacha ($20; £13)," says miner Ngula Simukuka, who has a wife and four children to support in nearby Sinazeze township.

The nearby Sikalima stream is another cause of friction between the Chinese-run mine and the cattle-herding community in the area, who rely on it as a source of drinking water. The stream now carries black sediment of waste coal which eventually flows into Lake Kariba.

Elijah Muchima, minister for the area, recently visited the mine and had heated words with the Collum Coal Mine Director Xu Jian Rui.
"You are using labour and you should pay for it adequately," Mr Muchima said."Your investment is important but our labour is more important. If you find that business is not profitable, close it down. Other people will come. If it's not profitable, go away. If it's not profitable, you would not have been here for nine years."

The mine director attributed his company's poor pay to problems it faces in marketing its coal.
"Our clients are mainly Zambian copper mines but sometimes they import coal from Zimbabwe," Mr Xu answered, speaking through an interpreter.

Last year China invested more than $400m (£250m) in Zambia's mining industry, which is one of the major employers in the private sector. So for th government a balance needs to be struck between attracting investment and protecting the interests of the locals.Collum currently produces an average of 150,000 metric tonnes of coal, which earns the mine up to $6m (£4m) a year.

A temporary wage deal was struck until negotiations between the mine and the workers' union conclude. Miners will now get a minimum of $90 (£57) a month, but will also be entitled to monthly housing and transport allowances totalling $57 (£36).

China has massively expanded its economic ties to countries across Africa in recent years. Wikileaks recently released details of US diplomatic cables that accused China of being "...a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals...China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons...China is in Africa primarily for China."

shell's nigeria

Wikileaks have been divulging some interesting details from American intlligence sources in the US.

The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. Ann Pickard, then Shell's vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa, the company's top executive in Nigeria, told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.

"Shell and the government of Nigeria are two sides of the same coin," said Celestine AkpoBari, of Social Action Nigeria. "Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government."

The criticism was echoed by Ben Amunwa of the London-based oil watchdog Platform. "Shell claims to have nothing to do with Nigerian politics," he said. "In reality, Shell works deep inside the system, and has long exploited political channels in Nigeria to its own advantage."

billionaires double

"Cosatu has for many years been highlighting the gross levels of inequality in South Africa;...if the report is true, Cosatu, far from exaggerating the gulf between rich and poor, has been seriously under-estimating it!" said Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven was responding to a Sunday Times article that reported on a survey 'Who Owns Who' on the super-wealthy in South Africa.

The survey revealed that the number of super-wealthy South Africans had doubled in a year. The number of billionaires nearly doubled from 16 in 2009 to 31.

"The wealth that these people own and receive is created by the workers' labour in the mines and factories, on the farms and in the shops.Their bosses' salaries and perks are now higher than those in developed countries, while workers' wages are nowhere remotely near those of their American or European counterparts."

The top earner in the survey was reported as Pine Pienaar, CEO of Mvelaphanda Resources, who earned R63 million in 2009. He was followed by Norbert Platt, CEO of Richement, who got R58 million and then Marius Kloppers, CEO of BHP Billiton who took home R54 million.The highest paid state-owned enterprise executive was Khaya Ngqula, former head of SAA ‘earned' R13.7-million in 2009, including his controversial R9.35-million "termination benefit".

Changes in Africa

During the 1970s a small socialist group in Jamaica produced a journal called the Socialist Review, this article seems worthy of re-publishing on the web.

Capitalism have its own way of dealing with the various reformist movement its conflicting nature make inevitable. It make them obsolete in the most shameful fashion. The Black Power movement have taken quite a battering with recent development in Africa. The most damaging being the visit of Doctor Banda of Malawi to South Africa. Doctor Banda is not the only one showing this new interest in South Africa. Most of the other African countries are expressing their willingness to deal with "white" Africa. President Bokassa of the Central African Republic, have said he is willing to go to South Africa and meet Prime Minister Voster. President Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast have called on other African leaders to join in a new diplomatic approach to South Africa.

Why this change you might ask, is not South Africa still practising Apartheid? The answer to that is what socialists have been saying all along, there are neither stable alliances nor lasting enmities among capitalist nations. Observe the getting together of China and America, and the way of world capitalism is partly revealed.

South Africa is the most developed country in Africa. The other countries are all moving along the same line of capitalist development. They could not ignore for long her purchasing power, and her money for investment. South Africa have agreed to buy the whole of Malawi's rice, and other farm product. She have also invested over J$28 million in the important railway linking Mozambique with the new Capital at Lilongwe. This is what modern capitalism is, it goes on despite the speeches of politicals, or the protest of the mob.

Humans can only be united by their belief in a set of principles. The colour of a man's skin can never be the basis of unity. The Black Power movement although it take different form in each country is set on the premise of the unity of the Black man against White. Black Power followers often express the false assumption, that all White people are united against Black. The truth is that any Black and White capitalist, have more in common between them than all the White workers with the White capitalist, or the Black workers with the Black capitalist. Race have now become a very damaging factor towards workingclass unity. IT IS THE SOCIAL SYSTEM THAT WE LIVE UNDER AND NOT OUR RACE THAT MAKE POSSIBLE THE PROBLEMS WE FACE. Racism only serve to obscure the real enemy, World Capitalism, and in fact help to keep it going that much longer. A man's economic interest determine his action. The capitalist as an individual is not our target, it is the system that we hate and want to change.

The countries in Africa are no different from any other developing capitalist society, anywhere else. They are caught in the web of capitalism, and there is no escape. The civil war in Nigeria illustrate well the meaning of brotherhood in our capitalist world. The choice facing us today, is not Black, against White. but weather we want to continue with this strife ridden system capitalism, or replace it with a system of Common ownership Socialism.
CREMO.
1972

The need to struggle in new ways

Socialist Banner can sympathise with the writer and director of the Third World Forum, Samir Amin, when he says "...it has now come to a point where continuing the accumulation of capital is deepening and continuing the destruction of the natural basis for the reproduction of civilisation. And therefore that we ought to move and start moving beyond capitalism."

He explains further that:
"The forms of organisation and action have to be and are always invented by the people in struggle and not preconceived by some intellectuals and then put into practice by people. They are the result of invention. If we look at the previous long crisis of capitalism in the 20th century, during that century, people have invented efficient ways of organising and of acting – efficient vis-à-vis the challenge of their time. I mean, forms of organisation like the trade unions, like the political parties, whether communist parties or really social democrat working-class parties or the war of liberation associated with social change – those forms of organisation and of action have been really efficient and have produced gigantic progressive change in the history of humankind in the 20th century. But they have come all of them out of stream because the system has itself changed and moved into a new phase. And the first wave has come to an end. And now, as Gramsci said, the first wave has come to an end, the second wave of more that protest, of action to change the system, is just starting...there is no reason why through their struggle, which are growing and will continue to grow in the coming years and decades, the people in struggle will not invent new forms of organisation...social movements exist and have always existed and social struggles are already there, including in Africa, but they are in Africa as elsewhere, fragmented and on the defensive. Now to move from that position into some kind of unity and building convergence with respect of diversity with strategic targets is on the agenda in Africa, as elsewhere today, which means that re-politicisation of the social movements. Social movements have chosen to be depoliticised because the old politics – the politics of the first wave of progressive social forces which have been the basis for the first wave of reconquer of national independence – have come to the end of the road, have moved into a blind alley, have lead to growing contradictions, have lost their legitimacy. So the parties which built the conquest of independence of Africa, such as the Tanzanian National Union, African Union, such as the union in Mali, national liberation movements have come to the end of the road and they have lost their credibility. Now the social movements have to re-create adequate forms of politicisation."

Samir Amin then elaborates:
"We are moving into a second wave of emancipation of African popular classes along with liberation of their nations. We are at that point in history where the first wave has come to an end and the second is just starting. Now today for imperialism, Africa is very important because of the enormous natural resources of the continent, not only oil and gas, but also rare minerals, a lot of minerals common like copper and less common but no less important like cobalt and other rare minerals, but also more and more, land, which is becoming a scare resource at the global level and Africa has plenty of it. But for imperialism, Africa is important for its resources, not African people. They are rather an obstacle to the exploitation of natural resources. This is why the US and their European allies in NATO are developing a planned strategy of military control of important areas in Africa to be plundered for their natural resources. And they are assuming that the African people will remain passive and will not move into active agents which will stop their plunder of the continent. I think they are wrong. Just as the colonialists thought that the colonial system was there forever and that the peoples of Africa would have to adjust to it and they were for a number of decades adjusting to it, but that could not continue forever. Exactly in the same way, the idea that the African resources can be plundered without the African peoples responding to the challenge and taking over the control of those natural resources is a big error of judgment of imperialism"

Socialist Banner, however cannot endorse his statist advocacy of some sort of alliance with the ruling class and the state-powers for the "rebuilding of a solidarity of African and Asian nations and peoples against the plunder of imperialism."

land grab

"Everyone agrees that you can't have a wild-west scenario where countries and companies are going into countries and getting land for next to nothing," Michael Taylor, programme manager with the International Land Coalition , a global alliance of land rights organizations, told IRIN.

And it is happening on an unprecedented scale.Countries rich in capital but with land and water constraints, such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and China, are world leaders in this kind of investment. In 2009, following the 2007-2008 food crises, more than 45 million hectares (the size of Sweden) worth of large-scale farmland deals were announced.

Between 2006 and 2009, Saudi investors reportedly paid the Ethiopian government US$100 million per year to lease land for wheat, barley and rice to export back home, tax-free. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme spent over US $300 million in 2009 alone, delivering 460,000 metric tons of food relief to 5.7 million Ethiopians in need of assistance.

Africa can feed itself

"Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation." explain researchers led by Harvard University professor Calestous Juma, author of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa.


Juma said that Africa was the only continent with arable land readily available to expand agriculture, and that southern Sudan alone could feed all Africans if it was properly developed.

One in three Africans is chronically hungry, according to the UN, despite $3bn (£1.9bn) spent on food aid for the continent annually and $33bn in food imports. About 70% of Africans are involved in agriculture, but almost 250 million people, or a quarter of the population, are undernourished. The number has risen by 100 million since 1990. Some African leaders have been criticised for enriching themselves or their militaries.

The researchers found that, while food production has grown globally by 145% over the past 40 years, African food production has fallen by 10% since 1960. Only 4% of the continent's crop land is irrigated. Fertilisers, pesticides and high-quality seeds are prohibitively expensive and in short supply.

"An African agricultural revolution is within reach, provided the continent can focus on supporting small-scale farmers to help meet national and regional demand for food," Juma said. His proposal includes the modernisation of farms, with new machinery and storage and processing facilities, and the selective use of genetically modified crops. He calls for new roads, energy sources and irrigation projects.

There are no hungry countries

Out of the 40 countries in the world facing severe food shortages to the extent of requiring emergence food intervention, 26 of them are in Africa, while the rest are in Asia and Central America.

In my view, and if I can say it aloud, there are in fact no “hungry countries” in the world; there are simply countries with greater or less number of people living in them who cannot grow enough, or buy enough food to feed themselves and their families. In this respect, there is no essential difference between a Third World nation and the United States, where the Bureau of Census reported some few years ago that, “eight to ten million Americans are sick or starving because they do not have enough to spend on food”.

Westerners tend to ascribe this situation, to galloping population, climatic acts of God such as drought, or to laziness and lack of initiative on the part of the poor themselves. Such explanations are not only insulting, they are mythical; population pressures can aggravate hunger, but they do not “cause” it.

Many development “experts” tend to see the elimination of hunger as a question of technology. “Give them enough fertilizers, pesticides and tractors”, they say, “and the problem will be solved”. They seldom recognize that any technological innovation has an impact on the social structure, and that, if specific steps are not taken to prevent it, technology will benefit only cash crop production and the wealthiest farmers. Such questions as, “who can pay for fertilizer, machinery" are not asked. Innovations useful to village communities may even be suppressed. There is no hope for eradicating hunger via technology because it is not a technical problem. It is a question of economic and social justice at every level. Somewhere in the world, 10,000 people die every day because these truths have not been recognized.

Tanzania in particular and Africa in general, is also one of the outstanding victims of another system guaranteed to create and perpetuate hunger: the cash crop. That so many young nations like ours, have not yet rid themselves of colonial agricultural patterns inherited from a world they never made, is one of the great tragedies of our time. The argument for cash crop is, of course, is one of “We need the foreign exchange”. Cash crop producers do not control the prices of their primary products. The point therefore is for dependent countries to attain self-reliance in food before worrying about cash crops. There is no country in the world that could not adequately feed its own people – and then some – if this were a priority policy objective. All the rich nations (the G.8) have made a concerted, long-term effort to induce local planners to “choose” models of development which are geared first and foremost, to the advantage of the rich countries themselves. All the aid to their former Sub-Sahara colonies has consistently favoured finance for cash-crop schemes over food production for local consumption.

The United States, mainly through its Agency for International Aid (USAID), has made the longest, best financed and consequently most successful effort towards bringing Third World citizens around to “thinking American”. As a USAID official himself once testified to the US Congress some four years ago, “Our basic, broadest goal is a long range political one. It is not development for the sake of sheer development……An important objective is to ensure that foreign private investment, particularly from the United States, is welcomed and well treated. The problem is to evaluate the manner in which the [USAID] programme can make the greatest contribution to the totality of US interests”.

It was the World Bank’s economists who laid stress on the production of the so-called “cash crops” at the expense of food crops; who made it easier to secure credits for the production of tea or cocoa rather than rice or maize.

Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, warned in 1963, “In a country such as this (Tanganyika), where generally speaking, the Africans are poor and the foreigners are rich, it is quite possible that within eighty or a hundred years, if poor Africans were allowed to sell their land, all land in Tanganyika would belong to wealthy immigrants, and the local people would be tenants”. The government, having bowed down to foreign pressure on the issue is now all out to legitimize a policy of Individualization, Titling and registration (ITR) of land which will create open land market, to allow alienation of land to the investors without community intervention.

Extracted from an article by Joseph Mihangwa

World Cup -White Elephants

South Africa spent a whopping 38 billion rand (£3.7 billion) on stadiums and infrastructure to realise the vision of Africa's first World Cup.

Neal Collins, a South African-born author and journalist explains Fifa left behind them a shameful legacy of empty stadiums.
"The white elephants - 10 magnificent football stadiums lying empty and unused - serve as a constant reminder of the expensive legacy of the Fifa World Cup,"

Collins says: "In Polokwane, the new Peter Mokabe stadium, capacity 45,000, sits unused next to the old Peter Mokabe stadium, capacity 20,000, which was quite suitable for South Africa’s northernmost city. In rural Nelspruit, the Mbombela Stadium has no suitors. Neither city has a side in the local Premier League."

In Durban the Moses Mabhida stadium was recently snubbed by neighbouring rugby team the Sharks as its operators searched for a new tenant, whilst cricket bosses are unhappy that the playing areas of all the new stadiums are too small for their sport.

Soccer City in Johannesburg served as the flagship stadium of the World Cup and largest sports venue in Africa. The 95,000 seater venue underwent a £300 million renovation before the World Cup and costs around £250,000 a month to maintain.It is regarded as the de facto national stadium for the South African football team but other than the occasional derbies between local rivals Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates, the stadium has struggled to generate post World Cup revenue.

Cape Town's Green Point stadium, which hosted England's second group match against Algeria, hosts the odd Ajax Cape Town football match, luring an average of 7,000 supporters to the venue which has a capacity of 55,000 (reduced from 64,000) after the World Cup.

SOUTH AFRICA AND INEQUALITY

COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini yesterday said the country's income inequality has deepened within racial groups.

"We cannot rest when we are confronted with the reality that 16 years into democracy redistribution of income has not occurred. Besides the decline in the real incomes of African households between 1995 and 2005, income inequality has increased across the board," he said.
"The top 10 percent of the rich accounted for 33 times the income earned by the bottom 10 percent in 2000. This gap is likely to have worsened, given the fall in the share of employees in national income and the global economic crisis of 2008.
"About 20 percent of South Africans earned less than R800 a month in 2002, with the situation worse for Africans. By 2007 about 71 percent of African female-headed households earned less than R800 a month and 59 percent of these had no income; 58 percent of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48 percent had no income."

In 2008 the top 20 directors of JSE-listed companies, the overwhelming majority of whom are still white males, earned an average of R59million a year each, while in 2009 the average earnings of an employee in the South African economy was R34000.
Each of the top 20 paid directors in JSE-listed companies earned 1728 times the average income of a South African worker. On average, between 2007 and 2008, these directors experienced 124 percent increase in their earnings, compared to below 10 percent settlements for ordinary workers. In state-owned enterprises where the top 20 directors experienced a 59 percent increase in their earnings, collectively raking in R132223 million. This amounts to R6,6million a director.

zambia-perpetual poverty

In an interview yesterday, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction executive director Patrick Mucheleka said:
“The poor are being confined to perpetual poverty while the gap between the poor and rich keeps on widening. People will come out to say enough is enough. When people are determined to free themselves from the yoke of poverty they can do it without any problems. Ultimately supreme power lies with the people so you are better off listening now than later. We might have a situation like the one in Niger Delta Nigeria. We don’t want to get to that situation.”

health and IQ

In Mozambique, one in 11 children dies within the first year of life. One in seven dies within five years. The numbers are even higher in rural areas.Children here battle deadly diseases, like malaria, HIV, and conditions like diarrhea, and often lose the fight.

A new study suggests the babies who do survive face an additional lifelong challenge: lower intelligence. The study concludes that babies who use their body's energy to fight disease will not have enough energy left to fully develop their brains.

Christopher Eppig, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, authored the study, explained:
"I like to think of this in terms of sort of economics. So, the body has a finite amount of physical energy that it can spend in a limited number of areas. As a child at a younger age than 5, one estimate shows the brain occupying more than half of the body's entire energy budget. And at newborn -- as a newborn, that number may be as high as 87 percent. And another expensive thing that the body does is fights off infectious disease. And so, like any kind of budget, if you have a limited amount of funds, if you take money out of one area, it has to come from somewhere.The structure and the size of our brain is what gives us our intelligence. And, so, exposure to disease early in childhood can affect the way the brain is built, the way it's structured. And throughout your adult life, you can be left with a brain that wasn't built quite correctly."

Eppig found that countries with the highest levels of infectious disease also had the lowest average I.Q.s. Researchers matched I.Q. estimates of 192 countries against 28 infectious diseases listed by the World Health Organization. The study controlled for other potential factors in a nation's average I.Q. factors like quality and access to education, annual income levels, and even climate. And while those factors play a role, researchers found infectious disease to be the most powerful predictor of I.Q. Mozambique, which ranks at the bottom of I.Q. scores, also tops the charts in disease burden.

The study basically says that, if you fight infectious disease, that you will raise I.Q. of a nation. If this proposition is true, by fighting infectious diseases, you bring up the I.Q. of a nation,

100 million made poor by medical bills

In 2000, African heads of state committed to spend 15% of government funds on health. So far three countries (Liberia, Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania) have achieved this. An average of US$ 44 per capita is required to ensure access to even a small set of quality health services in low income countries. Many struggle to do this. Today, 31 countries spend less than US$ 35 per person on health.

Health bills push 100 million people into poverty each year. "No one in need of health care should have to risk financial ruin as a result," said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO.

casualisation in Kenya

Millions of Kenyan youths joined the ranks of the working poor in the past five years as employers turned to temporary or contractual jobs to cut costs – stalling the social progress that usually comes with employment. Since the country embarked on economic liberalisation in the early 1990s data shows that deregulation deepened in the past five years resulting in a steep rise in the number of part-time, contract, and out-sourced workers.

Temporary employment, which comes without key benefits such as pension, health insurance or access to loan facilities, has left the majority of young people either underemployed or underpaid locking them up in the bottom quarter of the social pyramid, according to the Institute of Economic Affairs, a Nairobi-based think tank.

The proportion of casual workers in the formal sector of the economy increase gradually from 17.9 per cent in 2000 to 32.2 per cent last year. underemployed or poorly paid employees often become incapable of starting families, providing their children with good healthcare or educating their off-spring.

“The danger is that unemployment or underemployment is extending the burden of dependency on parents, diminishing self-esteem fuelling frustrations and making crime an attractive option,” said Mr Githongo.
EN

Violent South Africa (2)

The richest 10 percent of households in South Africa earned nearly 40 times more than the poorest 50 percent.

Apartheid is one the key contributors to the high level of violent crime in South Africa. The brutality of apartheid; the inequalities the policy gave rise to and the demoralising effect of racism are some of the contributing factors responsible for the violent crimes experienced by South Africans, says the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR).While an exceptionally high rate of violence in not unique to South Africa one of the factors that distinguishes South Africa is the legacy of apartheid and colonialism, the report says.

The previous state's policies exposed millions of boys and young men to humiliating police harassment and a violent prison system during the apartheid years. The rule of law was also undermined by the state sponsorship of township violence during that time.These uniquely South African issues nurtured a culture of violence that has reproduced itself ever since.

There was the undermining influence apartheid had on families, often leaving children to grow up in single parent families because of the migrant labour system. The result being many children, particularly those in poorer sections of South African society, have grown up with an absent father or primary care-giver and plagued by problems such as alcoholism and violence. Children who become persistent offenders are those who tend to grow up with more negative family and school experiences, the report points out.

Under apartheid, the criminal justice system focused on protecting white South Africans from crime, while enforcing apartheid laws on black South Africans.
"A major focus of policing was also suppressing resistance to the apartheid government. Investment in addressing crime in township areas was minimal, contributing to the reliance in township areas on informal mechanisms of justice...The result was that criminal groups and a criminal culture entrenched itself in some township areas."
The core problem of crime in South Africa was a subculture of violence and criminality. This subculture is characterised by young men "invested in a criminal identity and engaged in criminal careers" that involves active criminal lifestyles. "The ability to operate and achieve credibility within this subculture is strongly related to one's readiness to resort to extreme violence using a weapon," the report adds. The importance of weapons in this subculture was identified as a key driver behind the problem of armed violence in the country.

The institutionalisation of racial domination and explicitly racist ideology are also to blame.
"It is reasonable to assume that one of the pervasive consequences institutionalised racism in South Africa is internalised feelings of inferiority which might also be identified as feelings of low self-worth," the report says. Studies into violence carried out by other countries show a link between feelings of low self worth and a propensity to violence.
"The psychological legacy of institutionalised racism in the form of internalised feelings of low self-worth is likely therefore to be a contributing factor to the problem of violent crime in South Africa," it adds.

demand pensions before you die

Hundreds of workers have marched in the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, against a bill which seeks to set the retirement age at 55 for women and 60 for men.

Average life expectancy is about 50.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11797117