In curving galleries designed by David Adjaye, artists are putting Africa firmly on the biennale map
The Venice Art Biennale, the world’s most celebrated international art event, has a history that is inextricably bound up with colonialism.
Its first pavilion for the showcasing of a “national” art was established by Belgium in 1907. Britain followed soon after. European countries remain dominant at the event – at least numerically.
Continue reading...The ruling ANC, in power since 1994, is favourite to win the national election despite corruption scandals
Continue reading...When South Africans go to the polls today, it could be the last time the governing ANC wins an overall majority, unless the party renews itself and starts delivering on its promises to increasingly disgruntled supporters. The ANC is likely to win the national elections but its majority will take a hit and it may struggle to win, or have to share power in some of the provinces. After 25 years in power, the party’s popularity is lower than the personal popularity enjoyed by President Cyril Ramaphosa. If Ramaphosa was not also the head of the ANC, it is very likely that it would be heading for defeat this week. Large numbers of ANC supporters have entirely given up hope, both on the party of liberation being able to deliver a better life for them and on South Africa’s post-apartheid democratic institutions.
Even if the ANC wins today’s election, it will be unable to deliver a better life for those who voted for it
Continue reading...Mathew Talbot of Coldstream Guards died on deployment in Malawi, MoD confirms
A British soldier has died while on anti-poaching operations in Malawi, the Ministry of Defence has said.
It is understood Mathew Talbot, of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, was on a patrol when he was killed by an elephant. He was on his first operational deployment when he died on 5 May, according to the MoD.
Continue reading...Nigerian media has been awash with news of a recent police raid in the capital, Abuja, in which dozens of women were arrested in and around nightclubs on charges of prostitution. A city official said one way police assessed the potential guilt of the women was if they were dressed “provocatively”. No men were arrested in the raid. There was also an ominously conspicuous absence of any evidence of soliciting, which is a crime under Nigerian law. Most alarming of all, there are witness reports of rape, sexual assault and financial extortion of the women by the policemen who arrested them. Some of the women were taken to a mobile court and allegedly pressured to plead guilty to charges of prostitution on the spot.
Such arrests don't just disregard due process but send a clear message as to who's in charge: men
Continue reading...Khalifa Haftar’s bid to topple UN-recognised government has displaced 50,000 people
Nearly 200 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in the most recent wave of fighting in Libya, officials said this weekend.
The offensive to take control of Tripoli launched by Khalifa Haftar, a military commander based in the east of the country, is now in its second month.
Continue reading...In the days following the Yom Kippur war, after the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, agreed to a ceasefire and subsequent peace treaty with Israel, he faced questions at home about his climbdown. When confronted on his capitulation, he is reported to have said that he was prepared for battle with Israel but not with America. On the third day of the war, President Nixon had authorised Operation Nickel Grass, an airlift from the United States with the purpose of replenishing Israel’s military losses up to that point. In November of 1973, the New York Times reported that “Western ambassadors in Cairo confirm Egyptian accusations that American Galaxies were landing war equipment in the Sinai.”
Related: Sudan's female revolutionaries must beware fate that befell women in Libya
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary refuses to be called on possible leadership bid during marathon African tour
Jeremy Hunt’s 12,500-mile odyssey through Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya has been a chance for the man who could be the UK’s next prime minister to learn more about Africa – and for us to learn more about him.
The visit by the foreign secretary was ambitious in mileage and scale, speckled with meetings with presidents, helicopter rides to Maiduguri – the Boko Haram haven in Nigeria’s north-east – keynote speeches at the African Union headquarters, seminars with civil society and photo-ops.
Continue reading...Women and children fare worst as efforts to contain outbreak are undermined by health centre attacks and local mistrust
The number of people killed by the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is expected to exceed 1,000 on Friday, the World Health Organization has warned.
Weekly infections have been rising since late February, with attacks by armed groups and a failure to win community trust undermining the response to the epidemic.
Continue reading...Olympian receives strong backing from South African government and fellow athletes
South Africans have expressed widespread support for the double Olympic champion Caster Semenya, who will run her last 800m on Friday before the imposition of controversial new rules limiting testosterone in female athletes.
Tokozile Xasa, the sports minister, said on Thursday that the South African government was disappointed with the ruling by the court of arbitration for sport that women with unusually high testosterone levels, such as Semenya, would have to take medication to significantly reduce their testosterone before they were permitted to compete internationally at distances between 400m and a mile.
Continue reading...Alaa Salah’s role in Sudan’s protests was not unique, African women have long led change – and Libya’s precedent is especially relevant
At the same time that images of female Sudanese revolutionaries were going viral, the citizens of Tripoli were preparing for an assault on their city. The contrast between the two experiences – jubilation and determination in Khartoum, weary resilience in Libya – could not be greater. But the parallels between the uprisings in Sudan and Libya are much closer that one might think, with hard lessons to be learned.
Having protested against the regime of Omar al-Bashir for 16 weeks, Sudanese women like Alaa Salah became icons almost overnight. In much of the global coverage, the sight of an African woman leading crowds chanting for freedom and democracy was seemingly regarded as novel, even groundbreaking.
Continue reading...Roughly 20,000 people have been detained by Nigeria’s military over the past decade, leaving their families fraught with anxiety
It was on a chilly morning in October 2011 that Hajja Gana Suleiman’s world began to unravel.
The news came that her son had been arrested by military men. Mustapha “Saina” Abdulkareem had been saying his morning prayers at a nearby mosque when he was taken away.
Continue reading...Islamist parties that supported the Bashir regime are now facing challenges
As members of Sudan’s Islamist Popular Congress party arrived for a meeting in Khartoum one Saturday afternoon, they were greeted by abuse from groups of young protesters and chants of “no to Islamists”.
In the scuffles that followed, both sides threw stones. Dozens were injured and more than a hundred were arrested.
Continue reading...John and Susan Cooper did not die in Red Sea resort from natural causes, court told
A British couple who died on holiday at a hotel in Egypt may have suffered the effects of an infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals, a coroner’s court has heard.
John Cooper, 69, and his wife, Susan, 63, died suddenly on 21 August last year after becoming ill while staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Continue reading...Judges order oil firm to release confidential documents as wives of late Nigerian activists get go-ahead to pursue claim
A Dutch court has ruled that it has jurisdiction to determine whether Royal Dutch Shell was complicit in the Nigerian government’s execution of the Ogoni Nine, environmental protesters who fought against widespread pollution in the Niger Delta.
In a 50-page ruling hailed by campaigners as an “important precedent” for global human rights cases, judges at The Hague’s district court said on Wednesday that they would allow the case to go forward, also indicating that the claimants – widows of four of the activists – would be able to bring further evidence to prove their case.
Continue reading...Despite Omar al-Bahir’s fall, most know their revolution is unfinished and still vulnerable
On the day in late March when Habeb Ali Yousif was released from three months in detention, his jailers dragged out the process.
When he eventually arrived back home, the Sudanese democracy activist discovered why: his wife, Sulaf Osam Baloul, had been seized.
Continue reading...Judicial harassment and rise in arrests under anti-sodomy law add to climate of tension and fear
One of the Arab world’s most visible advocacy groups defending the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people is facing closure following legal threats by the government.
Association Shams has been officially operating in Tunisia since 2015, helping the country’s LGBT community repeal article 230 of its penal code, a French colonial law, which criminalises homosexuality with up to three years in jail.
Continue reading...Fierce fighting for control of Libya’s capital that has already displaced tens of thousands of people threatens to create a greater humanitarian crisis, a senior UN official has warned
Continue reading...Divided party faces ‘deep moral crisis’ despite anticipated victory in election in May
Major Mgxaji, a retired union official in the poor township of Khayelitsha near Cape Town, was repeatedly jailed and tortured by apartheid authorities for his political activism with the ANC in the 1970s and 80s.
“It is not the same party as back then,” the 67-year-old said in an interview in Khayelitsha, where rolling power cuts in recent months have been widely blamed on corruption at the national electricity provider. “The ANC people have developed the struggle of the belly instead of the struggle to better the lives of our people. That is very dangerous.”
Continue reading...The US president has gone from urging a ceasefire in Tripoli to threatening to veto such calls in the UN
Egyptian and Emirati influence on Donald Trump has thrown US policy on Libya into turmoil at a moment when Tripoli is under attack and the country is on the brink of a full-scale war once again.
The state department went from encouraging a UN security council resolution calling for a ceasefire and an end to an offensive on the capital by the eastern Libyan warlord, Khalifa Haftar, to threatening to veto the same resolution a few days later.
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