A post template

No image available
/ 27 November 2006

Kenya’s first land policy perhaps not the best

Historical injustices that have resulted in landlessness among Kenyans have been the focus of recent public discussions on a land policy — the first to be drawn up in the East African country. Previously, Kenya has had no clearly defined laws on how to manage land, leading to a breakdown in land administration. Disparities in land ownership, tenure insecurity and squatting have occurred, often resulting in conflict.

No image available
/ 27 November 2006

A coup for democracy

Africa is full of bad stories that started well and good stories that started badly. Mauritania is developing into one of the latter. Voters waited patiently and peacefully in long lines to cast their ballots in the country’s parliamentary and provincial elections, recently. They look set to do so again in presidential elections that are scheduled for March, ending military rule and completing the process of bringing democracy to this arid, sparsely populated country in north-west Africa.

No image available
/ 27 November 2006

Chad increases its defences

With humanitarian groups sounding the alarm about the violence in eastern Chad near Sudan, the Chadian government has sent troops south to neighbouring Central African Republic to battle rebels there who, it said, are being backed by Sudan. Chad is already contributing troops to a regional peacekeeping force in CAR but the prime minister said last week that he wants to send more.

No image available
/ 27 November 2006

The Lord and the lycra

And there I stood: eyes downcast, in all my crimson shame. As my eyes welled with the pools of my disgrace, and the tips of my (well-covered) ears burned, I felt myself transported to the cobbled streets of … Salem, Massachussets — and I could almost get a whiff of the smoke as the tinders licked at my (hosed) feet. My crime was read out: guilty of immodest dress unbefitting a woman of The Faith.

No image available
/ 27 November 2006

Forest of broken dreams

It was midnight at the Charlooe Drinks Bar and business was flagging. Dozens of prostitutes, some barely 12, were hovering outside the main avenue of Castelo dos Sonhos (the Castle of Dreams), an isolated town in the northern state of Para that, until recently, was at the centre of Brazil’s illegal logging trade.