Stories about Sub-Saharan Africa from August, 2007
Uganda: Bloggers Respond to Controversial Daily Monitor Articles
Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community has gotten a lot of press recently in the form of a number of articles written by Katherine Roubos, a 22-year-old Stanford student from the United States. Most recently, Roubos covered the first ever LGBTI press conference, a story that prompted an anti-gay rally in Kampala.
Madagascar: Malagasy travellers encouraged to blog their stories.
Tattum explains that madonline started a new project that strives to promote blogging activities in Madagascar. The project will initially focus on asking bloggers to tell stories of their travels across Madagascar in order to help people learn more about unfamiliar places. A familiar obstacle for blogging in Madagascar is...
Sierra Leone: Presidential run-off in Sierra Leone
Sandra writing about the final election results in Sierra Leone: “The presidential run-off between the All People’s Congress and the Sierra Leone People’s Party will be held on Saturday, September 8th, 2007.”
Gambia: The religion of sycophancy
A Gambia Professor, Ba Banutu Gomez, leaves the US and returns to Gambia, but…: “What gets under my skin though is the tendency of African intellectuals returning home and all of a sudden converting to the religion of sycophancy to fit in the system.”
Cape Verde: Cape Verde beats Egypt
Dan Klotz clebrates Cape Verde success in the African Basketball Championship: “As many of you know, most of these larger teams have better funding and support, so it really is a cinderella story when a team from a small country can beat all but the very best of an entire...
South Africa: Introducing Thought Leader
The South African Mail & Guardian has a new blogging platform: “Today the Mail & Guardian Online linked to our new blogging platform called Thought Leader so I may as well post about it here and shed some light on our strategy and thinking.”
South Africa: Continuing education is working
The nonrequired writes about the success story that is continuing education in some African nations and how it can prevent the brain drain. Continuing education is paid for by companies and provided by local universities at an affordable cost. It has been succesfully implemented so far in countries such as...
Tanzania: The future of the East African Community
By joining SADCC instead of Comesa, Tanzania has diminished chances of a regional integration: “This was until Tanzania opted out again to join South African Development Cooperation (SADC) , allying itself to what is clearly a grouping for Southern African countries.”
Kenya: Political satire on Facebook
Kenyan political satire of Facebook: Kenyan opposition figure Raila Odinga has two facebook profiles. In one of them, his only friend appears to be the very dodgy Artur Margaryan. The other, which seems more likely to be real, says that Raila is ” Raila is Working hard to cement ODMK...
Madascar: It takes a village to raise an idea
It takes a village to raise an idea: “4 African bloggers from there have united on a project to make a difference. They aren’t just talking, they are doing something.”
Madagascar: Closing ceremony of the Indian Ocean Island games
According to Jentilisa, the closing ceremony of the Indian Ocean Island Games went on without any troubles because the organizers learned from their previous mistakes during the opening ceremony (Mg).
Reunion: Mild earthquake felt on the island.
At. 15:17 local time, an earthquake (3.6 on the richter scale) was felt all around the island of Reunion today. There is no report of major damages as of yet. Jonathan Gravier said he was driving in St-Denis at the time but did not feel the earthquake (Fr).
Senegal: Africa according to Nicolas Sarkozy
Francophone Africa was awaiting anxiously the newly elected French President's arrival. Nicolas Sarkozy's reputation certainly preceded him in Africa. He was minister of the interior under Jacques Chirac and was responsible for quenching the revolts of disaffected youths (ones he referred to as “racaille” (scum)). Today Africa is still reeling...
Namibia: Digital tools for development
Gerard writes about LearnLink Project in Namibia: “I will simply start with LearnLink, especially their LearnLink Project: NAMIBIA that saw Ed's Net see the day of light.”
Africa: Leave Africa alone
Communist Socks and Boots lashes out against One Laptop Per Child: “It based on the wrong assumption that kids will take it with them to hunt, or use it in their clay-wall classes. Or that they will need easy translation from English to local languages.”
Zambia: Donor money for cars and iPods
Most people in Zambia want cars and iPods, writes Positively Zambian, but because of donor money available they set up organizations, which claim to fight poverty.
South Africa: Who will follow Google to South Africa?
Vinny expects more Internet companies to move to South Africa in the near future: “South African Internet usage has grown 120% in the past year, and it won’t be long until you see eBay, Yahoo & the others follow Google & Amazon’s recent foray (Amazon’s Cape Town office built EC2)...
Malawi: Moving on Despite the Politics of Section 65
The phenomenal story of 19 year-old Malawian blogger William Kamkwamba continues to attract attention from around the globe. William began making headlines after his appearance at the TEDGlobal 2007 conference in Tanzania, in June, where he talked about how he built a windmill using locally available resources in a remote part of Malawi where the easiest means of energy is fuel, wood, kerosene and candlelight.
Benin: Let's open ourselves to China.
China ‘s new focus on investing in Africa has been well documented. However, Eloi Goutchili thinks that Africa should also embrace the Chinese influence on culture (Fr). Goutchili advocates the practical application of Senghor's theory: the need for Africa to open itself to the whole world and not only the...
Africa: the “soon-to-be” presidents’ sons.
Fodé-Moussa Keita links to an article that presents sons of African presidents who are groomed to take over the presidency (fr).
Environment: A sampling of Voices from South Africa
This time on this short edition, we will take a quick trip to South Africa where there is a vibrant blogosphere, to hear from three bloggers. One reminding us about Blog Action Day for the environment, another on bringing up eco-friendly children and another blogger shares their opinion of environmental...
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