Zimbabwe – Mugabe anger at Zanu-PF fighting

BBC
Video- Robert Mugabe: “The party is fighting itself, it’s eating itself up”
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has hit out at members of his own party for weakening their rule over the country.
Zanu-PF has been forced to share power with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) after disputed polls last year.

Congo: priest and nun killed

Independent Catholic News
News has just come through of the killing of a  priest and a nun, in the Archdiocese of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo:  Fr Daniel Cizimya Nakamaga and Sister Denise Kahambo Murahirwa.
Fr Daniel Cizimya Nakamaga, 51, was killed in the parish in Kabare on [...]

Law on trafficking urgent to curb vice, says IOM

Daily Nation
Kenya urgently needs a specific anti-human trafficking legislation to address the rising dangers posed by human traffickers, an international aid agency has said.
Protracted emergencies in the country, such as drought, hunger, civil and political unrests both internally and in neighbouring countries, have led to an increase in forced displacement, perfect conditions for trafficking, the [...]

A lake lies on its deathbed

Daily Nation
By WANJIRU MACHARIA

Drought and human activity join forces to drain off 85 per cent of  Lake Elementaita
The short rains that pounded the larger Nakuru District for a few days in August, September and November were greeted with a sigh of relief.
For a while, residents and tourists marvelled at the replenished Lake Elementaita that had [...]

Nigerian police killing at will, says Amnesty

BBC
Nigerian police are carrying out a shocking level of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, Amnesty International says.
The rights group’s three-year inquiry details cases of prisoners tortured to death and shootings at roadblocks.

Annan to meet Kenya leaders over reforms

Daily Nation
In Summary
-  He will be joined by Mrs Graca Machel in discussions with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
- Mr Annan will also chair a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.
By ANTHONY KARIUKI
Kenya peace talks mediator Kofi Annan is expected in the country Wednesday [...]

Land grabs: Africa’s new ‘resource curse’?

Pambazuka News
As developed nations attempt to secure supplies of food and biofuels to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the food and energy security of their populations, Khadija Sharife writes in this week’s Pambazuka News about the rush by foreign investors to buy up agricultural land across Africa, all too often at the expense [...]

Climate ‘is a major cause’ of conflict in Africa

BBC
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Climate has been a major driver of armed conflict in Africa, research shows – and future warming is likely to increase the number of deaths from war.
US researchers found that across the continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years.
Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy [...]

Africa fights the ‘people trade’

Africa Renewal
Scourge of human trafficking ensnares hundreds of thousands
By Michael Fleshman
When 20-year-old Isoke Aikpitanyi was offered a job in Italy in 2000 she leapt at the chance. Life was difficult at home in Nigeria and opportunities for young women were limited and few. She knew that she would have to enter the country illegally and [...]

Tsvangirai’s terrifying gamble

Pambazuka News

A season of fear has returned to Zimbabwe, following Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to ‘disengage’ from the country’s dysfunctional Government of National Unity, Mary Ndlovu writes in Pambazuka News. With unlawful arrests, abductions, beatings, torture, burning of homes and killings by Zanu PF and state agents on the increase again, ordinary Zimbabweans are sceptical that [...]