African and Caribbean News

Editorials

Reports

News : African and Caribbean News

"Lifting up successful models" of democracy in Africa encourages more democracy on the continent, President Barack Obama told AllAfrica Thursday, explaining why he chose the West African nation of Ghana as the first sub-Saharan African country he would visit next week as President of the United States. (AllAfrica)

Barack Obama makes his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president of the United States next week, following a trip to Russia as well as to Italy, where he will participate in a meeting of industrialized nations known as the G8. AllAfrica's Charles Cobb, Jr., Reed Kramer and Tami Hultman went to the White House to explore President Obama's views on Africa in advance of his visit. The interview took place in the Blue Room.Charles Cobb posed the questions. We asked visitors to our site, allAfrica.com, what they might be interested in with respect to your policy. And as you might imagine, the responses are everywhere: conflict resolution, development issues, trade issues, et cetera. But they and we have one immediate question: How is it that you happened to pick Ghana as the first place to visit in sub-Saharan Africa? (AllAfrica)

No gathering hosted by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is ever dull, and the Thirteenth Ordinary Session of the African Union, concluding in Sirte, Libya today has not disappointed. (AllAfrica)

A day ahead of this year’s African Union summit in Libya, the 11th meeting of the forum of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) took place in the sweltering seaside town of Sirte. Reports emerging from those who attended threw up few surprises and some lingering concerns. (AllAfrica)

African leaders in Libya were on Friday hotly debating a draft resolution by the African Union (AU) which will, if adopted, deal a major blow to the efforts of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war criminals in Africa. (AllAfrica)

THE Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo and his staff are locked in a cold war with MPs in the parliamentary select committee over the constitutional reform process, further jeopardising the exercise. (AllAfrica)

In Africa billions of dollars from oil, gas and mining revenues go missing, leaving populations dependent on international assistance, according to a new report on natural resource use on the continent. (AllAfrica)

Although some countries within East Africa and the Horn region have scaled up their influenza A (H1N1) contingency plans, overall pandemic preparedness remains "relatively inactive", a UN agency has said, as the first cases were reported in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. (AllAfrica)

A law against female circumcision will soon be enacted, President Yoweri Museveni has said. (AllAfrica)

Gayle Smith, a senior foreign policy adviser to President Obama and senior director for relief, stabilization and development at the National Security Council, addressed the closing plenary of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria's annual conference in Washington DC. Excerpts from her speech: Thank you so much for inviting me here. I want to start off by saying congratulations. I remember when this organization started. It was a great idea at the time - and that was not too long ago - but still, a time when making the case that there is a strategic, integral linkage between business and health was in a lot of places an uphill struggle. The content of what you have been and will be discussing is remarkable, so my hat goes off to all of you. (AllAfrica)

United Nations-backed Congolese armed forces conducting intensified military operations in eastern and northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have failed to protect civilians from brutal rebel retaliatory attacks and instead are themselves attacking and raping Congolese civilians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. (AllAfrica)

Protestant churches in Kenya have dispatched one of their leaders to the International Criminal Court at The Hague to deliver a one-million signature petition urging investigations of post-election violence. (AllAfrica)

The co-chairperson of the Parliamentary Select Committee on constitutional reform, Douglas Mwonzora, on Friday said comments made by Robert Mugabe that the new constitution must be anchored on the Kariba Draft, were just a reflection of Mugabe's personal view point. (AllAfrica)

International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Lui Moreno Ocampo on Friday asked Kenya for a 12-month plan showing how the country intends to bring key culprits of the 2007 election violence to justice. (AllAfrica)

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia has finally concluded public hearings and submitted a report of its works with recommendations. (AllAfrica)

Male circumcision has become an important factor in the spread of HIV in Tanzania, health officials have said, naming regions where it is not practised as the worst affected by the pandemic. (AllAfrica)

The Board of Directors of the World Bank has approved a total of US$535 million to support three credit facilities aimed at helping improve economic governance and stabilizing Ghana's economy. (AllAfrica)

Claims that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is "targeting" Africa, and is in the service of Western interests, are the result of disinformation, according a Brazilian ICC judge, Sylvia Steiner, interviewed in Friday's issue of the independent daily "O Pais". (AllAfrica)

The 22 people who are taking their former employer to court for having been tested for HIV without their consent, wants to be compensated for the damage they suffered, said Linda Dumba Chicalu, project lawyer at the Legal Assistance Centre's (LAC) AIDS Law Unit, which will represent them in court. (AllAfrica)

John Morlu came to the position of Auditor General of Liberia with clean records and credentials having won the admiration of the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf with the backing from the international community. (AllAfrica)

Electrogaz, Rwanda's public utility, is considering water rationing due to shortages caused by a prolonged drought in parts of the country, officials said. (AllAfrica)

Two member-states of the East African Community, Kenya and Uganda have confirmed cases of influenza A, H1N1 virus popularly known as swine flu. (AllAfrica)

Following allegations by rights watchdog Human Rights Watch and western media over a reproductive health bill that is currently before parliament, parliament has strongly denied the existence of articles of compulsory HIV testing and sterilisation. (AllAfrica)

BASED on President Umaru Yar'Adua's request to the Revenue, Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) on February 10, 2009, on the need to slash the allowances of certain political, public and judicial office holders, the Commission yesterday announced some measures in this regard including the cancellation of the 300 per cent severance gratuity allowances of the President and the Vice-President with effect from July 1, 2009. (AllAfrica)

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday met United States Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs Mr Johnnie Carson and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo on the sidelines of the 13th Ordinary Session of the African Union General Assembly here. (AllAfrica)

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Federal Republic of Ethiopia and the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania will be honoured for their contribution in liberating Rwanda, 15 years ago. (AllAfrica)

A former Rwandan investigator for the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the mass killings that engulfed the small African nation in 1994 was found guilty today by the same court of leaking protected information. (AllAfrica)

America's President Barack Obama has, for the first time, this week talked about Kenya's political leadership. In an interview whose content has been published elsewhere in this paper, President Obama was livid about the slow pace of political and economic reforms and reconciliation efforts. (AllAfrica)

One Saturday 40 years ago, Kenya's most promising leader, Tom Mboya, was gunned down in a busy Nairobi street. (AllAfrica)

A two-day sub-regional durbar, to deliberate on the issues of trade between Ghana and Burkina Faso, has been held at Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana District of the Upper East Region. (AllAfrica)

The African Union halts co-operation with the International Criminal Court over its charges against the Sudanese president. (BBC News)