The Case of Two Presidents, One Country Côte d'Ivoire aka Ivory Coast
Laurent Koudou Gbagbo vs Alassane Dramane Ouattara
The double executive power situation in Côte d'Ivoire seems to have inspired the opposition in Gabon as well...on January 26 2011, former candidate to the Gabonese presidential election Bruno Ben Moubamba announced on his blog that André Mba Obame, another candidate to the same election and regarded by many as the probable winner of the 2009 election, has taken oath as president and formed his own government (fr).
Panelist Frannie Léautier MS, PhD from Tanzania is the CEO of the African Capacity Building Foundation ACBF, which is a Foundation providing grants, advisory services, technical assistance and knowledge services in the area of capacity development in Africa, with programs in 45 countries.
MYC4 is an online marketplace that connects people from all over the world – just like you and me – with African entrepreneurs, who lack capital to develop their businesses. With the Internet as infrastructure, MYC4 bridges the gap between people with needs and people with means.
How it Works The MYC4 marketplace is built around a network of local Providers, who screen the businesses looking for a loan, and local MYC4 Administrators, who handle financial transactions. All businesses go through a thorough investigation process to make sure they provide healthy economic prospects for growth. This due diligence process includes for instance a background check of the business, track record and whether the business is involved in anything that conflicts with MYC4’s values and Code of Conduct. This process ensures that the businesses are solid and have good prospects in terms of sustainability, repayment and return on investment.
The Facebook group The April 6 Movement has been the catalyst of the current political upheaval shaking up the government of Hosni Mubarak. Formed around three years ago, the loosely organized social network forum & movement was started by young activists Ahmed Maher and Ahmed Salah in order to mobilize support for striking industrial workers El-Mahalla El-Kubra. They wanted to organize people to support the cause of the workers, who were planning a strike April 6, 2008.
The events in Tunisia in January and its success inspired the youth groups in Egypt galvanizing change.
According to AlJazeera news broadcast, April 6th Youth Movement founders sought inspiration and advise from the Otpor! (meaning Resistance) Movement a student led uprising that led to the overthrow of dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
Otpor! advice on the key to success:
Unity
Discipline
Planning
Avoid violence in any way
Keep people engaged with chants and slogans
Be clear in their aims/goals
April 6th Youth Movement mission as stated on their Face book Page:We are a group of Egyptian Youth from different backgrounds, age and trends gathered for a whole year since the renewal of hope in 6 April 2008 in the probability of mass action in Egypt which allowed all kind of youth from different backgrounds, society classes all over Egypt to emerge from the crisis and reach for the democratic future that overcomes the case of occlusion of political and economic prospects that the society is suffering from these days. Most of us did not come from a political background, nor participated in political or public events before 6 April 2008 but we were able to control and determine our direction through a whole year of practice.
The undying quest of children in one vast part of the country and the story of determination from the harsh terrains of Turkana all in the quest for education.
The year 2011 is one that will go down in the history books as the year in which the leadership apparatus in Tunisia and Egypt got tested, sending the despotic leader packing in the former. The youth have not been left behind and are in the forefront of the unveiling events. They have been successful in mobilizing and organizing themselves as activists in a quest for change and demanding their rights.
Will the rest of the African continent witness similar events? Can they succeed?
Elsewhere in the news...
Inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, Egyptian youths are leading ongoing protests in their own country. Thousands of Egyptians have taken to the streets across the country, demanding political change. So, how do young Egyptians view the protests and are they hopeful that change will come?
The demands on the street of Egypt: "Bread, Freedom and Human Dignity! that capture the aspiration and hopes of the people"
When Hosni Mubarak, then an aloof young military officer, returned to his Nile Delta hometown to bury his mother he was so disliked, according to residents, he was told to find another burial site....Once a small village from where a young Mubarak would set out every morning to attend school several kilometres away, Kafr el-Moseilha is now a large neighbourhood of the sprawling city of Shibin el-Kom...."I won’t lie. Some here felt sadness to see him leave the way they did. They think his dignity was part of theirs. But the youth, they didn’t think: ‘Oh, he’s from here’. They were only thinking of freedom,” Shirbani says.Mubarak, born in 1928, left the village to go to military academy, from where he ascended to become air force chief and finally president. He would never return to visit, the residents complain. “He never identified with the village, he had no roots here,” Mr Shirbani says. “Mubarak always dealt with life like a pilot — always up in the air and distant from the people below. This wouldn’t have happened to him if he weren’t so distant,” said Mr Nabawi. “Mubarak didn’t like to flatter. As a person, I think he hated corruption, the corruption came with the new generation brought in over the past 10 years,” said Mustapha al-Fikki. http://www.nation.co.ke/
Opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei presses the US to abandon Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has named intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as his first ever vice-president as he struggles to regain control of the country. Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafiq has also been appointed as prime minister.Tens of thousands of protesters defied the curfew to remain on the streets, despite army warnings.
With a deep investment in the status quo, Israel is watching what a senior official calls "an earthquake in the Middle East" with growing concern. ..."We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations, but we have to look to the future," says the minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel enjoys diplomatic relations and security cooperation with both Egypt and Jordan, the only neighboring states that have signed treaties with the Jewish state.
An 18-day-old revolt led by the young people of Egypt ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Friday,{February 11, 2011} shattering three decades of political stasis here and overturning the established order of the Arab world. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html
May 4, 1928 – Born in a village in Egypt's Nile Delta.
Oct 6, 1981 – Thrust into office when Islamists gun down President Anwar Sadat at a military parade. He is approved as president in a referendum in November and re-elected in October 1987 and October 1993.
June 26, 1995 – Gunmen attack his car as he arrives at an African summit in Addis Ababa. He is unhurt.
Oct 5, 1999 – Sworn in as president for his fourth term and names Atef Obeid as prime minister after the government led by Kamal Ganzouri resigns.
Dec 22, 1999 – Egypt agrees to sell its natural gas through what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office dubs a "Pipeline of Peace".
March 2005 – Street protests by the Kefaya (Enough) Movement draw hundreds across Egypt to oppose a fifth term for Mr Mubarak or any attempt to install his son Gamal in his place.
May 11, 2005 – Parliament votes to change the constitution to allow contested presidential elections.
Sept 27, 2005 – Mr Mubarak is sworn in for a fifth consecutive term after winning the first contested presidential election on Sept 7. Rival Ayman Nour is the only member of parliament to remain seated during the ceremony, apparently to show his refusal to accept the official vote count.
Dec 8, 2005 – The Muslim Brotherhood increase their seats in parliament to 88 after an election marred by violence, but Mr Mubarak's party retains a big majority. Eight people were killed on the last day of voting on Dec 7.
Nov 19, 2006 – Mr Mubarak says he will retain his responsibilities for the rest of his life.
June 4, 2009 – US President Barack Obama in a speech in Cairo calls for a "new beginning" in ties between Washington and the Islamic world.
March 26, 2010 – Former U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei makes first public appearance after his return to Egypt in February.
March 27, 2010 – Mr Mubarak returns to Egypt to reassume presidential powers after three weeks recovering from gallbladder surgery in Germany.
Jan 25, 2011 – Street protests begin after an online campaign calling for an end to Mr Mubarak's rule.
Feb 11, 2011 – Mr Mubarak steps down on the 18th day of protests that have killed an estimated 300 people.
Winnie is there really a unified African identity...or is it just farce...
Marie, I believe there are various interpretations of the "african identity"..and different people, depending on their experiences and interractions, subscribe to different versions of these..Does this make the identity less "unified"? I don't believe so...i think what fundamentally defines our COMMON/ UNITED "African Identity" is that we all [or most of us] believe that there EVEN EXISTS such a thing as an "African identity"...
One-third of the world’s population, approximately 1.7 billion people, is between the ages of 10 and 24 years.1 Today’s generation of young people is the largest the world has ever known. In general, young people are healthier and more educated today than the generations before them. Nonetheless, young people, particularly young women, face significant challenges that prevent them from meeting their full potential. Half of all new HIV infections occur in young people ages 25 and under, and 14 million adolescent girls give birth every year. Over 70,000 teenage girls are married each day. Complications from pregnancy, childbirth, and unsafe abortions are the major causes of morbidity and mortality for young women between the ages of 15 – 19 years in the developing world. Girls under 16 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, while mothers under 20 years are twice as likely to die as women in their 20s. People between 15 – 24 years have the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Furthermore, approximately 20% of women under 24 years of age have been infected with the specific strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), an STI that cause almost all cervical cancers.
Women Deliver: Fact Sheets on Young People in Africa
In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth.
In most Sub-Saharan African countries, fewer than one-third of sexually experienced adolescent girls report using a condom during their most recent sexual experience.
An estimated 4.3% of women ages 15–24 in sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV, compared with 1.5% of men in that age-group.
In West Africa, 55% of women give birth before the age of 20 years.
In Kenya, married women have higher rates of HIV infection than their unmarried peers. Married adolescents’ HIV rate is 6.5 percent, compared to a rate of 2.5 percent for their unmarried peers.
In Niger, Guinea, Central African Republic, and Mozambique, 25% or more of girls ages 15 –19 had their first experience with vaginal intercourse before age 15.
In Ghana, 1 in 5 adolescents who have heard of AIDS believe that sharing food can transmit the AIDS virus.
In Uganda nearly half the number of young people who have had an STI did not seektreatment – mostly because they were embarrassed, did not want other people to know,did not know where to go, or thought it cost too much.
