Full Coverage: Africa

31.10.2007 Rwanda's president urged African heads of state and industry leaders at a major conference to promote the development of their continent through home-grown information and communications industries, saying that "in just ten years...the mobile phone has become a basic necessity in urban and rural Africa."
From: New Times (Rwanda)

31.10.2007 Nokia ja Plan kehittävät yhteistyössä kokeellista sosiaalista verkkomediaa yhdistämään kenialaisia ja tamperelaisia viidesluokkalaisia.

31.10.2007 Twice a year the Juba River overflows, flooding the surrounding Somali villages and farmlands, inciting hunger, and pushing people out of their homes. With the help of a Kenyan engineer and a disaster relief organization, however, villagers have learned to replace their ineffective sand bags with clay-based levees.

31.10.2007 PARIS, October 30 (IPS) - A new project to develop an integrated sugarcane facility in Kenya could be a boost for biofuels production in east Africa.

30.10.2007 As the Kenya Human Rights Commission prepares to sue the British Government for personal injuries sustained in detention camps by survivors of the Mau Mau war for independence, Mukoma Wa Ngugi unravels the colonial myths of Christianisation and civilisation and exposes the reality of torture, murder, slavery, landlessness, dehumanisation and internment.
From: Pambazuka News

30.10.2007 As a two-day summit on improving Africa’s information technology infrastructure wrapped up in Rwanda, the head of the United Nations telecommunications agency reminded investors that Africa is “open for business and looking for partnerships.”

30.10.2007 Three French journalists have been charged in Chad with kidnapping minors and fraud for covering the alleged attempt by Arche de Zoé (Zoé’s Ark) to evacuate 103 African children to France.

30.10.2007 Civil society representatives from Darfur have called for a greater role in ongoing peace efforts by emphasizing the role they could play in re-unifying the parties to the conflict, notably key rebel groups absent at the current talks.

29.10.2007 Worldwide, more than a billion people live in slums, with as many as one million in Kibera, Africa’s largest such settlement, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Slum Survivors, IRIN’s first full-length documentary, tells some of their stories.

29.10.2007 The sixteen countries covered by the report are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

29.10.2007 Oxfam and Internet giant MySpace have teamed up to present 31 "Rock for Darfur" concerts around the United States plus Australia and South Africa on November 10. Last year's concerts raised $50,000 to support the people caught up in the violence in western Sudan.

29.10.2007 In the fight for control of Kenya's lucrative telecoms industry, competition is becoming a useful weapon in the hands of rival firms -especially those that need to play the catch-up game to remain in the race

29.10.2007 Taistelut Iturin alueella Kongon demokraattisen tasavallan koillisosassa ovat pääsääntöisesti rauhoittuneet, mutta siviiliväestö kärsii yhä raskaasta väkivallasta.

29.10.2007 Spain and France have sent diplomats to Chad where 16 of their nationals are still under arrest accused of child trafficking after being caught on Thursday trying to fly 103 young children out of the country to France.
From: EuroNews

27.10.2007 President Kabila's ruling party has been charged with carrying out torture and murder of political opponents in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

27.10.2007 The UN Children's Fund has criticised an attempt to separate more than 100 young Chadian children from their parents and take them to France for adoption as “illegal and totally irresponsible".

27.10.2007 BBC World Service Trust has launched an exciting new training website for journalists on post-conflict justice in Africa. The site includes a handbook, internet resources, news and information on international criminal courts, truth commissions and other forms of transitional justice in five project African countries.

26.10.2007 Six women from various nations in Africa recently traveled to the UK to raise awareness about fistula, an easily preventable but debilitating disease that pregnant women develop after extremely long and difficult labor. Meet the women and read about their efforts to promote more regular and safer maternal care in their home countries.
From: UN Population Fund

26.10.2007 A police officer In South Africa manhandled and confiscated equipment belonging to The Star photographer Matthews Baloyi while chief photographer Chris Collingridge was arrested for talking down the registration number of a private car used by a police officer. He was later released.

26.10.2007 Zimbabwe’s telecommunications group NetOne has started erecting new base stations in resort centres to improve communications and help ease congestion ahead of the Fifa World Cup scheduled for South Africa in 2010. Work has already begun with the commissioning of the second mobile switching centre in the country's second largest city Bulawayo.