tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28464501931784031572024-03-13T03:45:54.247+03:00Africamusingsnews, politics, development and other tid bitsMelinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-76105829318374001492009-07-06T12:59:00.001+03:002009-07-06T13:02:48.898+03:00Moving onHi everyone, sorry for the absenteeism...parents' visit, Rwanda trip, etc... but I will be back up and running beginning this week, though I am moving on to Wordpress. Please visit me there: http://mplatas.wordpress.comThanks for reading!MelinaMelinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-40621494778800505712009-05-26T09:49:00.003+03:002009-05-26T09:56:44.314+03:00Dr. Tajudeen's final columnBelow is the last column Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wrote for the Daily Monitor, which he had written last week before a car accident took his life on May 25, 2009.Govts discourage enterprise and penalise those fighting povertyThe irony of Africa being a very rich continent but Africans being some of the poorest peoples in the world is no longer lost to anyone. While we can argue about the Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-26450966356725080102009-05-25T21:26:00.005+03:002009-05-26T05:38:48.413+03:00Afrobarometer Global ReleaseFirst of all, Happy Africa Day (yes, it is today, however underpublicised it may be). It was a good day for Afrobarometer to launch their Round 4 Results for surveys they have been conducting in 19 countries across the continent. I attended the Kampala release event today at the Serena Hotel, where Robert Sentamu of Wilksen Agencies delivered a presentation of the main findings, covering such Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-85398865523415993362009-05-25T20:50:00.006+03:002009-05-26T08:34:21.518+03:00In Memoriam: Tajudeen Abdul-RaheemRoad carnage claimed yet another victim today -- this time a renowned Pan-Africanist, Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, who was rushing to Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi when he was killed in an automobile accident. Alex de Waal has an excellent in memoriam post in honor of Dr. Tajudeen:Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, the most irrepressible Pan Africanist of his generation, died in Nairobi on 24 May 2009.Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-43149254487330333472009-05-25T16:56:00.004+03:002009-05-25T17:16:14.576+03:00Gettleman rafts the NileSo my parents visit in one week and, as luck would have it, the first NYT Uganda travel article in four years (I think the last was in 2005?) was published Sunday. What timing! (and good looking out Mom!) Unfortunately the whole thing was about rafting, which my beloved mother and father are not particularly keen to do. Not to mention, rafting was the only activity of consequence in Uganda, Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-81996838786869302762009-05-23T22:10:00.000+03:002009-05-25T16:12:49.874+03:00Why Don't We Have a Global Fund for Maternal Health?Asks a Tanzanian doctor in a Times article Sunday.Well, cause someone would steal the money anyway. No? Ok, how about because the international community is preoccupied (is obsessed too strong a word?) by the much more exotic sounding tropical and infectious diseases (a virus that turns your insides to mush = exciting/terrifying, bleeding to death giving birth = boring). Not everyone gets Ebola Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-52517339529442907902009-05-21T09:35:00.006+03:002009-05-21T11:19:14.232+03:00First do no harm. Ok, first do not-too-much harm...what? You don't know how much you're doing? Well in that case..."...apart from questions over its investments, the Gates Foundation has received little external scrutiny. Last year, Devi Sridhar and Rajaie Batniji reported that the Foundation gave most of its grants to organisations in high-income countries. There was a heavy bias in its funding towards malaria and HIV/AIDS, with relatively little investment into tuberculosis, maternal and child health, and Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-4474198653005688382009-05-12T13:36:00.003+03:002009-05-12T14:32:52.931+03:00Problematizing CorruptionI just finished (finally) reading Michela Wrong's latest book, It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower. I'm not going to review the book, per se, but I do recommend it to anyone interested in East African politics, corruption, foreign aid, diplomacy, etc. More than anything, it has made me think more deeply about this problem we have called corruption.What has really been Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-87825729613994629772009-05-11T16:42:00.003+03:002009-05-11T16:59:51.511+03:00No one cares about our nations more than we doWe appreciate support from the outside, but it should be support for what we intend to achieve ourselves. No one should pretend that they care about our nations more than we do; or assume that they know what is good for us better than we do ourselves. They should, in fact, respect us for wanting to decide our own fate.Says Kagame in his op-ed last week in the Financial Times.While I am concerned Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-23482652362173113902009-05-03T13:14:00.003+03:002009-05-03T13:27:50.228+03:00Afrobarometer shows waning faith in NRMAfrobarometer recently released the findings from it's 2008 Round 4 Survey of Uganda. There were a number of interesting results. Among the most interesting to me were those on trust in government institutions, a major increase in support for presidential term limits since 2005, and the lack of NRM support in urban areas."Museveni not likely to win clear majority in 2011 elections" was the Daily Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-50198529724312042652009-04-28T08:54:00.004+03:002009-04-28T17:27:15.416+03:00Rwanda: Repressive or Responsible?I am sure the Rwandan government will be blasted for their recent suspension of BBC broadcasts in Kinyarwanda, accused of being authoritarian and repressive. But before anyone jumps to conclusions I would like to see what was actually said, specifically by Faustin Twagiramungu, the former Prime Minister who now lives in exile in Belgium.This is as much as I could glean, as reported by the AFP:Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-15162096884292871962009-04-24T15:00:00.006+03:002009-04-24T15:37:17.407+03:00Friday rant on good intentionsI hate to harp on this, but the whole LRA/Northern Uganda/Invisible Children issue is still grating on my nerves (is that the phrase?). I just came across an article by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy in the Huffington Post on Invisible Children's "Abduct Yourself" event tomorrow. I don't especially want to get into another debate on IC and the work they do/have done, but I want to say that how you Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-74731848467488464942009-04-23T22:17:00.003+03:002009-04-23T22:27:13.088+03:00Cope can't copeSo the results are mostly in for South Africa's national elections, held yesterday. The ANC has won nearly two thirds of the votes counted so far, with the Democratic Alliance (DA) picking up close to 20%. Cope, it seems, however, is not coping so well, winning less than 10% of those counted so far.The biggest lesson to be drawn from the early results is that Cope, which so many South Africans Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-73485103603504070182009-04-21T21:13:00.001+03:002009-04-21T21:33:21.863+03:00Burundi is rebel-freeBut the challenges are far from over. African Union troops are physically disarming 21,000 fighters from Burundi's last active rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation (FNL). It follows a weekend ceremony where FNL leader Agathon Rwasa symbolically surrendered his own weapons to the AU. A grenade attack killed six people but the Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-27858714104191113952009-04-20T09:03:00.004+03:002009-04-20T09:20:44.722+03:00Workshops wasting timeSo government (or at least Musa Ecweru) has finally realised that workshops are a waste of time. But only in Karamoja apparently. In Kampala, where you could find no less than 30 workshops (at least) per day, they are...productive? At least they are a good place for free snacks, tea and coffee...and lunch if you're lucky!I like that government is making an effort (however feeble) to regulate NGOsMelinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-57413421463849821302009-04-18T14:46:00.003+03:002009-04-18T15:13:11.749+03:00Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrikaThis has to be my favorite national anthem (this version with Miriam Makeba). In fact I once tried to turn it into a title for this blog, but it proved far too lengthy/difficult to remember how to spell...Anyway, back on the subject of elections, South Africa is next week (April 22) holding its national elections, with the African National Congress (ANC) set to win by a landslide (again) and Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-40777270966122552242009-04-17T19:03:00.004+03:002009-04-17T19:24:56.469+03:00How to feel like a little fishin the big sea of democracies... look at India!India's general elections are currently underway, occurring in 5 phases over the course of a month. The number of voters in Uganda during the country's 2006 presidential and national elections -- 7 million -- was just slightly higher than the number of staff reported to be working on India's election (6.5 million, though some estimates go up to 10 Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-18760263630213339642009-04-15T20:28:00.004+03:002009-04-15T21:07:44.055+03:00Saving Survivors or Surviving the "Saviors"?There is already a lot of heat surrounding the latest book by Ugandan-born Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. Those whom have been involved in Save Darfur and similar campaigns have taken offense to Mamdani's harsh criticism of their involvement in Sudan. I have just gotten my hands on a copy and so cannot make an informed opinion of the book, but I am excited Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-3168149352425643052009-04-15T07:13:00.002+03:002009-04-15T07:31:34.931+03:00Blogging Kagame's university tourRwandan president Paul Kagame's recent trip to the U.S. has got people talking, particularly about his emphasis on technology and education investment.It is still too early to judge, but I am enthusiastic about the present Rwandan government investment strategy to initiate the necessary infrastructure to take the technological momentum and unlock the private sector possibilities- building of a Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-64679041432119482009-04-14T10:48:00.003+03:002009-04-14T15:22:21.741+03:00Debating RwandaStarting a conversation about Rwanda is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Observers of the small East African nation are often polarized in their views of the country's governance -- either President Paul Kagame is an inspirational genius getting things done in a country that was hacking itself to death just 15 years ago, or he is a brutal dictator, quashing the Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-3518435379094319622009-04-11T12:10:00.005+03:002009-04-11T13:07:28.220+03:00"Commotion" prevents rape in Sierra LeoneThis has been circulating around a bit, but I found it so outrageous/hilarious/absurd that I had to share here as well. Wronging Rights stumbled across a recent press release from Weyone, a "a public information outlet for the ruling All Peoples Congress political party" in Sierra Leone, in which the APC refutes allegations that women were raped by security forces last month at the headquarters Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-27398721643764517002009-04-10T10:02:00.003+03:002009-04-11T13:17:46.470+03:00More on torture...From the Great Lakes Peace and Security blog, an extended interview with the author of the HRW report on torture in Uganda, Maria Burnett.Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-6195030308764981732009-04-08T16:43:00.004+03:002009-04-09T11:04:34.144+03:00Torture in UgandaTorture has been a sensitive subject for the government of Uganda, and has led to the arrest of journalists who cover the topic. Human Rights Watch today released their 89-page report, "Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force in Uganda."An article highlighting information related to the killing of four suspects can be found here.A summary of the report, Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-83556616791867466702009-04-07T13:01:00.004+03:002009-04-07T13:21:39.301+03:00When the beater is beaten, who wins?This morning in Mulago hospital, a young man lay on a stretcher in the emergency ward, the side of his head split open over a lump that had swelled to the size of an apple. "Mob justice," explained a nurse. "They were found beating a woman, and so they were beaten." In the hall outside the room, two police officers waited for their suspects to be released. In the next room, patients waited to Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846450193178403157.post-47235162315596325662009-04-06T09:04:00.004+03:002009-04-06T21:57:35.658+03:00Want a Condom? Think again in the land of ABCUganda has long been hailed for its success in fighting HIV/AIDS, bringing prevalence rates from a high of 20-30% (depending on estimates) to 6%, where it has remained for the past several years. The success was attributed, among other things, to the ABC campaign -- abstinence, "be faithful" and condom use. Well, I'm not sure about either the abstinence or the being faithful bit (though a new Melinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07235440394343251191noreply@blogger.com1