Africa

In terms of natural resources, Africa is the most abundant continent on earth. BP has stated that Africa holds 127 billion barrels of untapped oil, almost ten per cent of global reserves.Oil was first drilled commercially in Africa in Oloibiri in the Niger Delta, in 1956 by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell. There are...
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The ongoing food crisis in the Sahel, West Africa is actually a purchasing power crisis: there is food in the markets, but the poorest households cannot afford it said Bakari Seidou, food security advisor to Save the Children UK. “The market is their main source of food, but they need money. Their main source...
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The loss of a parliamentary constituency in Mufumbwe keeps on to erode the political majorities of the ruling MMD come the 2011 presidential elections. This took place on 28 April after the death of MMD Member of Parliament for Mufumbwe Misheck Bonshe. The PF/UPND pact won by a landslide victory—in an election characterised by...
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As the South African World Cup draws to a close, we read that one of the South African newspapers is asking whether it was worth $5-billion to produce a mood of national well-being. When the World Cup ends the euphoria will soon fade, but South Africa’s harsh problems will remain: poverty; unemployment; poor housing;...
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We read that Ivory Coast , once called the “economic miracle” of Africa, with rapid growth in the first two decades after independence from France in 1960, is one of Africa’s major agricultural exporters – around 40% of the world’s cocoa, and more rubber and cashew nuts than any other country on the continent....
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Regionally, today, sub-Saharan Africa has the largest slum population where 199.5 million (or 61.7%) of its urban population live in such areas. A new report by the United Nations organisation UN-HABITAT makes intersting reading , full of facts and figures , some of which are quoted below . Three South African cities top the list...
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It couldn’t have gone unnoticed the news coverage of Obama’s visit to Ghana and Africa but underneath the PR gloss of the memories of slavery roots , a much more mercenary purpose existed. The new scramble for Africa Today’s race is not for colonies to conquer but for natural resources and America has stepped...
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Xenophobia flourishes in Africa too, encouraged by state-building. It is not only in the West that black people are subjected to racism and abusive languages by the host nation’s population as “bloody foreigners”, “parasites”, “aliens”,”refugees”, etc, but also Africans living in other African countries are grimly accustomed to the same abusive language. Matters have...
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Although the peace accord of 2003 ended five years of war in other parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighting has continued intermittently in the eastern Kivu region. The latest bout began on October 25, when the rebel forces of Laurent Nkunda resumed their offensive, accompanied by the usual atrocities against civilians,...
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The end of Apartheid and the election of the ANC to power was supposed to see the grinding poverty of the townships ended, but the ANC have turned out to be powerless to run capitalism in a way that would end exploitation and poverty. Despite 15 years of power the ANC are just another...
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