Minister of health refers case to Uganda’s medical council as assault on LGBT rights in Uganda intensifies
A doctor in Uganda faces charges of professional misconduct over allegations he assaulted a lesbian patient.
The country’s minister of health, Jane Aceng, referred Ben Kiwanuka Mukwaya to the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC) over allegations he assaulted the patient at his private health facility in a suburb of the capital, Kampala, on 19 October.
Continue reading...Kenyan government reforms promise to make domestic work safer in a region notorious for labour trafficking – but are they working?
In a busy recruitment agency in Nairobi’s central business district, dozens of women line the halls. All hope that today they will secure a job as a domestic worker in the Gulf states, cooking, cleaning and caring for another family thousands of miles from their own homes.
Pamela Mbogo* is one of them. The 29-year-old has found a job in Saudi Arabia starting next month. It’s not her first time as a domestic worker. On the previous occasion she lived and worked for a family in Bahrain, where she was abused and locked inside the house for days at a time. Yet, this time, Mbogo believes it will be different.
Continue reading...Amnesty and Human Rights Watch raise concerns over rising levels of abuses against activists, opponents and the press – including arrest of journalist Erick Kabendera
Tanzania’s president John Magufuli is presiding over an escalating campaign of repression that has targeted journalists, human rights defenders and political opponents ahead of his plans to run for re-election next year, two reports claim.
Magufuli – nicknamed “the Bulldozer” – is accused in two independent reports, by the human rights organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, of presiding over rising levels of abuses against activists and opponents since his election in 2015.
Continue reading...Arrest warrant issued for Abd al-Rahman Milad, suspected of drowning dozens of people
The UN-backed government in Libya has ordered the arrest of a man described as one of the world’s most notorious human traffickers who was this month revealed to have attended meetings between Italian officials and a Libyan delegation to discuss controls on migration flows from north Africa.
In a note released on Monday by the interior ministry in Tripoli, authorities said Abd al-Rahman Milad, described by the UN security council as a ruthless human trafficker suspected of drowning dozens of people, was “a wanted man and an arrest warrant was issued against him”.
Continue reading...Other scientists raise questions about results, which were based on DNA samples
Scientists claim to have traced the ancestral home region of all living humans to a vast wetland that sprawled over much of modern day Botswana and served as an oasis in an otherwise parched expanse of Africa.
The swathe of land south of the Zambezi River became a thriving home to Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, the researchers suggest, and sustained an isolated, founder population of modern humans for at least 70,000 years.
Continue reading...Authorities seek to build desalination plant in drought-stricken area sitting on top of a vast reservoir of salty water
Authorities in Kenya’s driest region are in talks with a Saudi investor to build a desalination plant, after hopes of finding drinking water from an aquifer were dashed.
Tito Ochieng, the director of water services in Turkana, in the north of the country, said the potential investor – Saudi-owned Almar Water – has already signed a deal to build a $160m (£125m) desalination plant in Mombasa.
Continue reading...Violent clashes leave at least 67 dead as activist compares Abiy Ahmed to a dictator
Violence in Ethiopia that began with protests against the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and quickly morphed into ethnic clashes has left 67 people dead in Oromia state, a police official said on Friday.
“The total number dead in Oromia is 67,” said Kefyalew Tefera, the regional police chief, adding that five of the dead were police officers.
Continue reading...EU and Britain ramp up pressure on government to act as street demonstrators converge on Lilongwe
Hundreds of rights campaigners have taken to the streets of Malawi’s capital to call for a government investigation into allegations of rape by police officers during ongoing post-election violence.
The EU ambassador to Malawi condemned the alleged sexual violence and called for “light to be shed on what happened.” The British high commissioner also reportedly called for a thorough investigation.
Continue reading...From Table Mountain to District 6, cartoonist Brandan Reynolds explores the complicated past and present of the city often referred to as South Africa’s ‘Mother City’
Continue reading...Kremlin denies discussion at Russia-Africa summit but CAR president says countries’ defence ministries were reviewing idea
The president of Central African Republic has said his country would consider hosting a Russian military base, as Vladimir Putin woos dozens of African leaders in an effort to spread Moscow’s influence at an investment summit in southern Russia.
In an interview with Russian state media, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra said he had also asked Russia for new weapons shipments for CAR’s soldiers, who have fought a civil war against rebel forces in the country since 2012. Asked about a potential military base, Russia’s first in Africa, he said that his government was “considering the possibilities”.
Continue reading...In a 2016 study of Diepsloot, 56% of men surveyed admitted to raping or beating a women in the previous 12 months – a lack of policing is just the start of the problem
The violence usually starts on a Thursday night, worsens on a Friday and reaches a peak over Saturday into the early hours of the morning. At the start of spring in September, temperatures rise and tempers flare. By the hot, heady weeks of the festive season in December, domestic abuse reaches its worst, outdoing the incidents of violence that have become common over long weekends throughout the year. In Diepsloot, an impoverished community north west of Johannesburg, gender-based violence has become so common that it follows a recognisable pattern.
Some would survive if a car comes by while they are raping her or before she was killed
Continue reading...When Magnum nominee Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s mother worked as a live-in help in this one-time white-dominated community, the family wouldn’t let him inside. He returned as a photographer to document the town’s transformation
“I first went because my mother used to be employed there as a domestic worker,” says photojournalist Lindokuhle Sobekwa. “When I first visited Daleside, to me it seemed an isolated place, a ghost town.”
Daleside used to be a white-dominated area, but now it is mixed. In the early 2000s Sobekwa’s mother took a job as live-in help with a white family in this town south of Johannesburg. As she struggled alone to support her four children he only saw her on weekends and during school holidays.
Continue reading...Twenty-five years after apartheid, black people cannot live and work in this small South African city
Photographs by Madelene Cronjé
October in Orania can be charming. When the sun sets, long ribbons of burnt orange settle on the horizon. The flies and mosquitoes that come with the summer’s oppressive heat haven’t arrived yet. It is Magdalene Kleynhans’ favourite time of year. “You can sit outside until late into the night,” says the businesswoman, whose family spends much of their time outdoors. Her children fish from the banks of the Orange River whenever they choose. Kleynhans leaves the house unlocked. “It’s a good life. It’s a big privilege.”
But there is much more to small Northern Cape town than the bucolic ideal painted by Kleynhans. Incredibly, 25 years after the fall of apartheid, Orania is a place for white people only.
Continue reading...Men could face life in jail as campaigners warn of escalating attacks on sexual minorities
Uganda has said it has arrested 16 LGBT activists on suspicion of gay sex, which is punishable with life imprisonment, in what fellow activists called an escalating campaign against sexual minorities.
The 16 men, believed to be aged between 22 and 35, were taken into custody late on Monday at the office of a sexual health charity where they all worked and lived, fellow activists said.
Continue reading...Authorities believed Mimi Mefo, an award-winning journalist who works for Deutsche Welle in Berlin, might try to stay
A Berlin-based journalist who was due to speak at a press freedom conference in Brisbane has said she was denied a visa by the Australian government because they believed she might try to stay.
Mimi Mefo, an award-winning Cameroonian journalist who currently works for Deutsche Welle, was scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Integrity 20 conference on Friday.
Continue reading...A refusal to include affordable housing led Johannesburg to reject glossy plans for high-end housing, offices, a rail station and entertainment district. It seems the city will get disconnected car-centric gated communities instead
The Gautrain rushes through the green rolling hills and grasslands of Modderfontein, the commuter rail’s gold livery recalling Johannesburg’s reason for existence as a mining town, and speeds past the platforms of the commuter station that never got finished.
Four lanes of smooth tarmac lead over the horizon. Streetlights evenly spaced and dropdowns from the kerbs make it easier for pedestrians to cross than in much of South Africa’s biggest city – except there are no pedestrians. The paint still looks fresh and the markings clear, but these roads to nowhere end in concrete and steel barriers.
Continue reading...Three activists argue that a radical approach is required in a country where conflict and rape are endemic
The spotlight on South Africa may have subsided with the departure of the royals, but foreigners are camping outside the UN refugee agency in Cape Town, clamouring to leave because they are no longer safe.
Last month brought a surge in xenophobic attacks in and around Johannesburg, and there were huge protests in Cape Town and across the country against the government’s failure to deal with rising violence against women. Gender-based violence is an hourly occurrence.
Continue reading...Millions of ounces of unmined gold are still believed to lie below the surface, fuelling a booming – but frequently deadly – illicit industry
As he prepares to descend an abandoned mineshaft in the Johannesburg suburb of Roodepoort, Fix, a sinewy informal goldminer from Lesotho, recounts stories of subterranean gun battles and unearthing the scattered bones of those who came before him.
“This is very dangerous work,” he says, draining a quart of beer for courage. “But there’s a lot of money down there.”
Continue reading...Bumi Thomas, whose sister got citizenship, wins appeal against removal from UK
Two Windrush sisters who describe themselves as inseparable are celebrating after a judge ruled that one of them should not be sent back to Nigeria.
Bumi Thomas, 36, was at risk of removal from the UK and at one point was given 14 days to leave, while her sister Kemi, 38, was not because of their different dates of birth.
Continue reading...In interview in Spain, businessman says he is in fear of contract killing and that he has new plan to topple President Sisi
The Egyptian whistleblower who prompted rare street protests against President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi from exile in Spain has said he is in a “state of shock” and feels a deep sense of personal responsibility for those jailed for answering his call to demonstrate. But he insisted his fight to topple Sisi will enter a new phase, claiming many junior officers in the army support his call for an end to corruption.
In an interview with the Guardian in Barcelona, where he says he lives in fear of a contract killing, Mohamed Ali, called for the US Congress to investigate how decades of US economic and military aid amounting to more than $70bn had been spent by the Egyptian state. “Trump has let Sisi steal as much of America’s money as he wants,” Ali said. “It is like a comedy film.”
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