Jul 16, 2008  Nigeria: Curse of the Black Gold http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/nig0807.php
    "This book lays out the dynamics of oil and development in Nigeria and Africa. It reveals the complicity in this perfect storm of international oil companies, foreign governments, corrupt oil-producing states and U.S. consumers. ... the future of oil in Nigeria is now in question in an unprecedented way. As we speak, something like 25 percent of Nigerian oil is locked in or deferred because of the attacks by militants." - Michael Watts

Jun 22, 2008  Africa: AfricaFocus Web Updates http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/web0806.php
    In the almost five years of publication of AfricaFocus Bulletin, the number of sources available to readers over the internet, by web and e-mail, has continued to grow exponentially. I am pleased that so many of you continue to find this occasional bulletin of carefully selected analysis useful.

Jun 14, 2008  Zimbabwe: African Leaders Speak Out http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/zim0806.php
    Two weeks before the presidential run-off elections in Zimbabwe, over forty prominent African leaders have released an urgent call for free, fair, peaceful, and transparent elections. The open letter was published on June 13 and June 14 in full-page advertisements in South Africa's Business Day, the Financial Times, and the New York Times. The initial signatories included 18 former presidents or prime ministers, two Nobel Laureates, musicians Youssou N'Dour and Angelique Kidjo, and former United Nations Secretaries General Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. It was sponsored by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, founded and directed by African mobile phone magnate Mo Ibrahim.

May 26 , 2008  Zimbabwe: "Democracy is Not a Privilege" http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/zim0805b.php
    "Africa waged a century-long struggle against colonialism and apartheid precisely to establish the principle that governments should derive legitimacy through the consent of the governed. Democratic institutions are therefore not privileges that may be extended or withheld at the discretion of those who wield power." - Pallo Jordan

May 26, 2008  Zimbabwe: A Dream Deferred http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/zim0805a.php
    This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the text of "Zimbabwe: A Dream Deferred," a summary report from TransAfrica Forum on the joint observer mission sent by TransAfrica Forum and Africa Action to the Zimbabwe election in March. The summary is written for a U.S. audience, to provide a progressive alternative to misleading and simplistic characterizations of the crisis in Zimbabwe, often characterizing news coverage and debate in the United States.

May 20, 2008  South Africa: Migrants under Attack http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/xen0805.php
    "Xenophobia is rife in South Africa. However, repression of immigrants, refugees and undocumented people goes beyond naked violence in poor communities. Earlier this year, police raided the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, beating up and arresting immigrants, mainly from Zimbabwe. The state systematically abuses the rights of immigrants: health workers deny treatment, home affairs officials demand bribes and police assault immigrants regularly." - Treatment Action Campaign

Apr 28, 2008  South Africa: Women, AIDS, and Violence, 2 http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ai0804b.php
    "In the Southern African region the results of a large scale household survey conducted in eight countries showed that nearly a fifth of the women interviewed reported being a victim of partner physical violence in the preceding year. ... South African based-studies have found that women who experience intimate partner violence are at long-term increased risk of HIV infection, particularly where their partners were involved in multiple concurrent, unprotected sexual relationships." - Amnesty International

Apr 28, 2008  South Africa: Women, AIDS, and Violence, 1 http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ai0804a.php
    "Despite gradual improvements in the government's response to the HIV epidemic and the adoption of a widely-welcomed five-year plan, five and a half million South Africans are HIV-infected - one of the highest numbers in any country in the world. Fifty-five percent of them are women. South African women under 25 are three to four times more likely to be HIV-infected than men in the same age group. ... the level of new HIV infections amongst women in South Africa continues to increase, while overall incidence of the disease has levelled off." - Amnesty International

Mar 31, 2008  Zimbabwe: Writing on the Wall http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/zim0803.php
    "Mugabe: The Writing is on the Wall," headlined Daniel Howden in a report from Bulawayo today in the UK Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk). He was perhaps making a risky prediction, as official results continued to be delayed. But he was also referring to the fact that a late change in the electoral law had resulted in the public posting of results in constituencies around the country, and that this had made it possible for unofficial counts to speed around the country by text message, email, and mobile phones.

Mar 20, 2008  Kenya: Post-Crisis Agendas http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ken0803.php
    "The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation between the political parties provides Kenya's leaders with a historic opportunity to step back from the brink and to reform and establish institutions that can help build long-term stability. ... However, challenges remain in ensuring that the institutions created actually deliver accountability for recent and previous violence, correct injustices ignored by previous administrations, and tackle the systemic failure of governance that gave rise to the recent crisis." - Human Rights Watch

Feb 26, 2008  Nigeria: Prison System Report http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/nig0802.php
    "Nigeria's prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. Approximately 65 per cent of the inmates are awaiting trial most of whom have been waiting for their trial for years. Most of the people in Nigeria's prisons are too poor to be able to pay lawyers, and only one in seven of those awaiting trial have private legal representation." - Amnesty International

Feb 21, 2008  USA/Africa: Images and Issues http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/usa0802.php
    As President Bush winds up his 5-day trip to Africa, the initial focus on his legacy in the fight against AIDS and malaria has been enlivened with debate on the new and highly controversial AFRICOM military command (See, for example, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/world/africa/21prexy.html), Commentators have also highlighted the contrast between Bush's itinerary (Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia) and unresolved crises in Kenya and Sudan. But from AIDS to AFRICOM, coverage of the trip was also revealing for points hardly mentioned by either Bush boosters or critics.

Feb 1, 2008  Kenya: More Pressure Needed to Stop Violence http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ken0802.php
    "The deep frustrations that are felt on all sides of the Kenyan divide are understandable. There is no doubt that much more work remains to be done for Kenya to become a more equitable and democratic society. But Kenya has come too far to throw away decades of progress in a storm of violence and political unrest. We must not look back years from now and wonder how and why things were permitted to go so horribly wrong.- Senator Barack Obama, on Kenyan radio, January 29, 2008

Jan 8, 2008  Africa: Talking about "Tribe" http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ethn0801.php
    The Kenyan election, wrote Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times in his December 31 dispatch from Nairobi, "seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya but until now had not provoked widespread mayhem." Gettleman was not exceptional among those covering the post-election violence in his stress on "tribe." But his terminology was unusually explicit in revealing the assumption that such divisions are rooted in unchanging and presumably primitive identities.

[Update January 17, 2008: Since this Bulletin was written last week, Gettleman's coverage of Kenya in the New York Times has avoided the indiscriminate use of the word tribe in favor of "ethnic group," and has noted the historical origins and political character of the continued violence in the country, as well as its links to ethnic divisions. Thanks to those AfricaFocus readers and others who contacted the New York Times about its coverage.]

Jan 8, 2008  Kenya: Causes and Solutions http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ken0801.php
    "It is the Kenyan People Who Have Lost the Election," headlined Pambazuka News in its special Kenya election edition on January 3. "But the real tragedy of Kenya," the editorial continued, is that the political conflict is not about alternative political programmes that could address ... landlessness, low wages, unemployment, lack of shelter, inadequate incomes, homelessness, etc. ... [instead] it boils down to a fight over who has access to the honey pot that is the state. ...[citizens] are reduced to being just being fodder for the pigs fighting over the trough."