300 bloggers, activists and technologists participating in the Global Voices Summit 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya have just been seated for a two-day meeting of public discussions and workshops about the rise of online citizen media movements worldwide.
Among the highlights in today’s program is the opening panel on the Global Rise of Citizen Media led by Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman.
We will also be introducing Kenya citizen media, discussing the rise of #Occupy movements around the world, and exploring the influence of diaspora populations on citizen media and national public debates.
My people of great Egypt, who today celebrate democracy in our country; those of you standing in the public squares, in Tahrir Square, and all the public squares of Egypt; my dear people, big family, brothers and sons, you who are awaiting the future, who want security and safety, goodness and revival, and development and stability for our country, I turn to you praising God for having brought about this historic moment.
This is a shining course written by the hands of Egyptians, by their will, their blood, their tears and their sacrifices. I would never have been able to stand before you today as the first elected president by the will of free Egyptians in the first presidential elections after the revolution of 25 January, nor I would have been able to stand before you now with this overwhelming happiness that extends to the four corners of our beloved country without the support of God almighty and the sacrifices and precious blood of our noble martyrs and the noble, wounded citizens. …
Rwandan involvement in the recent fighting, which is still confined to a tiny patch of land of about twenty square kilometers, has fueled much debate in recent weeks. Most foreign diplomats in Kinshasa – as well as some in Kigali I have spoken with – privately agree with the conclusions of Human Rights Watch, that Rwanda is helping M23 recruit soldiers, and is possibly also supplying the rebels with food, weapons and free passage through their territory.
Kigali, however, has vehemently denied the allegations, and aside from expressions of concerns by diplomats – including a letter from Washington a few weeks ago – there have been few concrete demarches by capitals. Meanwhile, after a week of calm, the fighting saw a brief peak again on Thursday, when M23 was almost able to take a large military camp at Rumangabo and cut off the Bunagana road. Seguir leyendo →
On Friday 8 June, Thomas Thabane succeeded Pakalitha Mosisili as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho, not by winning elections but by building a coalition government with the support of the opposition. The outcome of Lesotho’s 2012 general elections was historic for three main reasons.
Firstly, the country moved from a single party majority government under the Lesotho Congress Party (LCD), led by former Prime Minister Mosisili since 1997, to a coalition government. Mosisili, who led the newly created LCD splinter party, the Democratic Congress (DC), to a significant win of 48 parliamentary seats (218 366 votes out of a total of 551 726) fell short of winning an outright parliamentary majority, leading to his defeat.
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The second reason for the significance of these elections is that the coalition, which unseated and relegated the ruling DC to opposition status, was itself produced by opposition parties in the minority.
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The third point to highlight is that the parliamentary opposition numbers are now far more significant than during the previous parliament, which was characterised by a fragmented and weakened opposition.
Nigerian emergency services recovered more bodies on Monday from the smouldering, ash-covered wreckage of a plane that crashed in the commercial hub Lagos, killing all 153 people on board.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning and ordered an investigation into the cause of Sunday’s accident, in which a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 flown by privately owned domestic carrier Dana Air crashed into the iron roof of an apartment block in the Lagos residential suburb of Agege.
His office said he was scheduled to visit the crash site on Monday afternoon.
«This is really a horrific moment for us here and we sympathise and give condolences to all the victims and families. (There are no) words to express our pain and grief,» Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola said at the crash site.
«It is saddening, it is simply too much.»
The airline said on Sunday 147 people had perished, but in a list published overnight, there were also six crew members on board, taking the total to 153 killed. An unknown number of people may have been killed on the ground.
Mali’s Tuareg rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine Islamist militants have agreed to merge and create an independent Islamic state in the north of the country, a rebel spokesman said on Saturday.
The deal between MNLA, which has said it wants an independent secular state in the north, and the al Qaeda-linked Salafist Ansar Dine, which had wanted to impose Sharia across Mali, may complicate international efforts to stabilise Mali after a March coup that plunged the country into chaos.
«The agreement reached this evening will see the merging of the two movements – the MNLA and Ansar Dine – to create an independent Islamic state,» MNLA spokesman Mohamed Ag Attaher told Reuters by phone from Gao, in the north of Mali where the deal was signed.
An agreement between northern Mali’s MNLA Tuareg rebels and the al Qaeda-linked Islamist group Ansar Dine to create an Islamic state in the Azawad desert has hit trouble over how strictly to impose sharia, Islamic law, MNLA sources said on Tuesday.
The separatist MNLA wants a moderate form of sharia, while Ansar Dine would like to impose a more hardline version, using punishments such as the amputation of hands and heads for certain crimes, the sources said. (…)
«We want sharia similar to that in Mauritania or even Egypt. This point must be clarified,» Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, an MNLA official in the northern city of Gao, told Reuters by telephone. (…)
A second MNLA source confirmed that a disagreement had emerged, centred on what form of sharia to impose. «The strict application of sharia, for example by cutting off hands, we don’t agree with,» the second source said.
An Ansar Dine official was not available, but the group has said it wants to impose a strict version of sharia in Mali and would be willing to cut off hands and heads if the Koran required it.
Just months after the Zambian netizens were up in arms against UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon for asking the country to be tolerant of homosexuals, President Joyce Banda says that Malawi will lift the ban on homosexual acts in the country angering some Malawi netizens over the pronouncement.
In her first national address Joyce Banda told Parliament that her government will repeal laws that discriminates against people based on sexual orientation.
“The indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed,” she said.
onafrica.org 