Circus Maximus Opens in Germany: Updates on the G8 Summit 2007 and TED Global in Africa

Dateline Berlin 06/06/07 – The Blackeagle’s Bunker
As G8 demonstrators and the Schwarze Bloc (anarchists) reach the razor wire at Heiligendamm, bloggers stay on top of the real news about the summit and Africa

As we here in Germany await the arrival of the G8 leaders and their delegations at Rostock International Flughafen today, German press and media report that some G8 demonstrators have reached the 12 Km-long razor wire fence surrounding the exclusive seaside resort of Heiligendamm and are harassing and attacking the police and other German security forces. The lean, mean Ring of Green (German Polizei) that has been battling German rioters and “foreign forces” at Rostock since the night of June 2nd has been broken (temporarily). German politicians, security forces, and military are hotly debating what their next steps should be in case the situation at Rostock and Heiligendamm ‘gets out of control’. Should the police continue use of tear gas and high-pressure water cannons and police batons or should they switch over to non-lethal (rubber) ammunition? Should they bring in the federal anti-terror shock troops (GSG-9) or the German Army? The German Supreme Court has just ruled that a planned mass demonstration by thousands of anti-G8 demonstrators from Rostock to Heiligendamm “ist Verboten!” The G8 Summit 2007 in Germany is already shaping up to be a summer to remember. This baby will make the 2005 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland look like a cakewalk. Let’s hope that it does not end as tragically as the summit in 2005 which was totally disrupted by the deadly terrorist attacks on London. We shall see.

Meanwhile, down in Africa…

The TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha is moving right along at a rapid pace. According to the latest blog posts from the White African, rock star and Africa advocate Bono is chillin’ with Dr. George Ayittey, the famed economist and firebrand critic of many of Africa’s political leaders. Jewels in the Jungle readers may remember Dr. G. Ayittey from my previous post re: TED Global 2007 - Africa: The Next Chapter and have already read his TED Q&A essay ‘Coconut Republics vs. Banana Republics’. If you haven’t done so, then do so because as you can see in the photo Bono is getting a crash course in Ayitteynomics (read the book Africa Unchained by George A.N. Ayittey).

Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder with Rebecca MacKinnon of the Global Voices Online project at Harvard Law School, is also in attendance at TED Global 2007 Arusha. EZ has written about Bono’s opening address to the conference where he carries a personal message and video greeting from Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel for the TED Global 2007 attendees. Bono opens his talk in Tanzania with a smackdown of Ugandan radio journalist Andrew Mwenda’s positions re: aid for Africa. Mwenda contends that foreign aid undermines democracy in Africa, and he ain’t alone in his thinking either.

I should mention (again) that there are over 50 top blog authors and CJ’s (Citizen Journalists) in attendance at TED Global 2007 in Arusha and the best place to keep track of their experiences and writing is at the TED Global blog and at Technorati.com (search for Technorati tags: tedglobal07 and TEDGlobal2007). I’ll attempt to keep track of breaking news out of Arusha as best I can this week as will other bloggers who are members of the Global Voices Community and other blogger networks.

Shifting our attention back to Germany, to Berlin and Rostock…

I would like to take this opportunity to personally welcome (back) to the blogosphere the Panos-London AfricaVox 2007 crew. Who’s that you ask? AfricaVox 2007 is a group of 9 top journalists, editors, and TV/radio professionals from sub-Saharan Africa who have been invited here to Germany to cover the G8 Summit 2007, that’s who. I have already stopped by earlier this week to say “Howdy” via a post by Ugandan journalist Richard M. Kavuma of the Weekly Observer. Ironically Richard and I wrote about the same news scoop (BILD Zeitung’s Afrika edition of June 1st) and published on the same day without knowledge of one another’s story until the next day. It is of course rare to share leads and kudos in the dog-eat-dog world of professional journalism and news publishing but it is an everyday occurrence in the live-and-let-live World LIVE Web (the blogosphere). Please read Richard’s article “Why Geldorf’s Image of a Rotting Africa is OK with Me” and his latest piece titled “Protesting for/against whom?” Here is the lineup of the AfricaVox 2007 G8 Summit Crew in alphabetical order:

Tigisit Kassa – Ethiopian radio journalist
Kakaire Kirunda – bureau chief of Uganda’s Monitor newspapers
Richard Kavuma – senior reporter for Uganda’s Weekly Observer
Thabo Mabaso – reporter for South Africa’s The Independent
William Mapote – journalist for Mozambique’s KFM/KTV network
Zinhle Mapumulo – reporter for South Africa’s Sowetan newspaper
Abebe Teshager – Ethiopian radio journalist
Collins Vumiria – chief news editor for Uganda’s Radio West
Francisco Xerinda – deputy editor of Mozambique’s Sanvana newspaper

And while your at it, if you are a fellow online author writing about the G8 and/or writing about African affairs, get yourself an AfricaVox 2007 button and paste the logo code into your blog or website template to show your appreciation and support. Please. Thanks.

That’s it for today. See you with more news and views later this week when the G8 Summit 2007 really heats up. Damn, are those air raid sirens again??? Ciao. I’m gone.


Related blog posts and news articles and other stuff

TED Global 2007 in Tanzania – bloggers speaking up for Africa
White African
Dropping the Bombshell on Aid Development in Africa, 06/04/07
We can take Africa back one village at a time, 06/05/07
(George Ayittey’s speaks at TED Global 2007 in Arusha)
Bono and George Ayittey at TED Global, 06/05/07
Meeting the Inventors, 06/06/07

Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices Online (My Heart’s in Accra)
Bono vs. Mwenda, 06/04/07
Getting Rowdy with Andrew Mwenda, 06/04/07

BBC News (G8 Gleneagles Summit 2005)
Africans on Africa: Debt (article by Andrew Mwenda), 07/07/05

TED Global Blog & TED Talks
Dr. George Ayittey’s critique of Coconut Republics vs. Banana Republics, 06/04/07
TED Global 2007 bloggers (aggregated blog posts and Flickr photos)

The Arusha Times (via allAfrica.com)
A meeting of geniuses: World’s brains meet in Arusha to set Africa’s new milestone

AfricaVox 2007 – African voices at the G8 Summit 2007
Panos-London Online
AfricaVox 2007 at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm
Desert Voices: an oral testimony and journalism project (desertification in Ethiopia)
Desert Voices – the photo gallery with audio files

Spiegel International (English language edition of Der Spiegel magazine)
Clashes at Heiligendamm ahead of summit: Police use water cannon on anti-G8 protestors, 06/06/07
The World from Berlin: Putin, the leader of the G’s Black Bloc, 06/06/07
G8 Rioting has Germans Second Guessing Policing Strategy, 06/05/07
Interview with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz: Bush’s Policies are Accelerating Climate Change, 06/06/07
Spiegel 360 – special feature of the 2007 G8 Summit in Heiligendamm

ZDF (Germany’s second state-sponsored national TV network)
ZDF blog at the G8 Summit (German language)
ZDF-TV online coverage of the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm

ARD (Germany's first state-sponsored national TV network)
ARD special online coverage of the G8 Summit 2007

N-TV (an independent 24-hour independent news network, cousin to CNNI)
N-TV special online coverage of the G8 Summit 2007

German and European bloggers covering the G8 Summit 2007
Davids Medienkritik – a German media watchdog
Atlantic Review – Jörg Wolf & friends on transatlantic issues and relations
A Fistful of Euros – one of Europe’s most popular group blogs


Technorati tags: Africa Germany Tanzania Nigeria development economics development aid global trade business media journalism G8 G8 Summit G8 Gipfel TEDGlobal2007 tedglobal07 Global Voices

G8 Summit & Tanzania: While they riot in Rostock, Africa gets down to business in Arusha

Dateline Berlin 06/04/07
As Germans ‘rumble in the jungle’ before the G8 Summit 2007, the TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania gets down to business

After Europe’s ‘autonomen’ (anarchists) set the city of Rostock on fire in an ‘anti-G8 dress rehearsal’ for the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm, mainstream Germans and the demonstration organizers (Attac and anti-G8 Alliance) are debating what went wrong and pointing fingers at one another. The German media has shifted from coverage of the issues to be discussed at this year’s summit to the violence in their streets. Rostock of course and the former East German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thüringen are no strangers to street violence as was demonstrated in week long siege of Vietnamese and Gypsies (the Romani people) in Rostock back in 1992. The big difference this past weekend is that it was not acts of extreme violence against Ausländer (foreigners) but instead a bloody and fiery battle between the Schwarze Block (Black Bloc) vs. the lean, mean Green Machine (German police and federal security forces).

Definition of the German term ‘autonomen’ (courtesy Spiegel Online)

The label "autonomen" refers to radical libertarian and anarchist groups in Germany, though it doesn't refer to a specific, organized group. Like many on Germany's well-established, left-wing fringe, the autonomen grew out of the leftist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. They often take part in demonstrations against atomic energy and also frequently join peace marches. They are not always welcome participants in such demonstrations due to their willingness to participate in violence. Indeed, they have also been called the "black block" because of their tendency to wear all black and to cover their faces with black masks during demonstrations to avoid being identified by the authorities. While autonomen generally recognize that complete independence of social networks is not possible, they reject outside influence as much as possible. The autonomen are considered potentially the most violent of the anti-G-8 activists and were likely behind the rioting on Saturday afternoon in Rostock.

The 2007 Rostock G8 Riots by the numbers

Approximately 1000 people have been injured, many seriously including 433 police officers and 520+ demonstrators. 130 people were arrested, 10 people were still being held in custody as of this writing, all others were released. No deaths have been reported… yet. The German government’s hard work to make the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm a success has been torpedoed by its own citizens at a cost of more than 100 million Euros and lots of injured people before the gates even open on the main event Wednesday, June 6th.

Meanwhile, down toward the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley in Arusha, Tanzania a kinder, gentler type of world event is taking place - Africa: The Next Chapter.

People who have a deep interest in really providing needed assistance to Africans are getting down to business in Tanzania. The TED Global 2007 Conference – Africa: The Next Chapter opens in Arusha today and the international media will pay little attention to this event that holds more promise for Africa’s future than that silly circus east of the Elbe River here in Germany.

In attendance at this conference are some of the world’s foremost thinkers and visionaries working alongside Africa’s future generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. At the end of this post are links to TED / TED Global online resources but first have a look at this TED TALK video featuring the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. This is the type of image of Africa that the world needs to see more often. This is what we mean, blog authors and citizen journalists and professional writers, when we say Africa is Open for Business:

"Negative images of Africa dominate the news: famine and disease, conflict and corruption. But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, says there's a less-told story unfolding in many African nations: one of reform, economic growth and business opportunity. Cracking down on corruption -- and the perception of corruption -- will be the key to its success She tells how high-ranking Nigerian officials taking money illicitly have been jailed, and how citizens and prospective business partners are getting at least a partial picture now of where money flows. "

TED Talk video featuring Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
(March 2007, 20:18 minutes)






Wasn’t that nice and informative? I do have lots of questions regarding that fine presentation by Ms. Okonjo-Iweala, especially since she left the government of former Nigerian President Obasanjo BEFORE the historic elections went down in Nigeria last month that has received the scorn and outrage of so many groups and governments. But that is a matter for another day.

The TED Blog’s Hot Topic of the Day is a scheduled talk to be given by the renowned economist and educator Dr. George Ayittey. ‘Looking back to look forward’ is the title of his presentation to the TED Global 2007 Arusha audience today and should be available at TED Talks by mid-summer 2007. In a TED questionnaire sent out to Dr. George Ayittey months before the opening of the Arusha Conference he responded in a 6-page document opening with the following:

George Ayittey's critique of 'coconut republics' (TED Global Q&A)

What are you best known for?

CONTROVERSY. But my admirers refer to me as “unorthodox,” “unscripted” or “The Cutlass (machete),” who slashes through the thicket of suffocating platitudes and excuses to deliver the bitter truth about post colonial Africa.” Personally, I regard myself as an intellectual “rebel,” kicking against the old “colonialism-imperialism paradigm” which has landed Africa in a conundrum. By this paradigm, everything wrong with Africa is the fault of somebody else -- hostile external forces (Western colonialism, imperialism, the World Bank, etc.) and never the fault of misguided leadership. Witness Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

I am known for pushing the view that the old paradigm is now obsolete. It is kaput. We need a new way of thinking or a new paradigm that stresses the importance of internal factors as well. For example, brutal political tyranny, arrant economic mismanage, rampant corruption and senseless civil wars have nothing to do with artificial colonial borders or Western imperialism. Rebel leaders do not seek to redraw boundaries; they head straight to the capital city because that’s where power lies.

What are you working on now?

To save Zimbabwe from implosion. We hope to achieve peaceful change in Zimbabwe through the convocation of a “Sovereign National Conference.” It is the same mechanism (the Convention for a Democratic South Africa -- CODESA) which was used to dismantle apartheid in South Africa. If it worked in South Africa, then it will work in Zimbabwe.

End excerpt from TED Blog post
____________________________

Throughout the week of the G8 Summit 2007 here in Germany I will be reporting on what is being discussed and blogged about at the TED Global Conference in Tanzania and comparing that with the international media coverage of the Africa Agenda at the G8 Summit 2007. Please do explore the TED and TED Conferences websites to learn more about this important foundation and their work with people in Africa and around the world.

Resources on the TED Global Conference 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)
TED Global Conferences
TED Themes – Africa: The Next Chapter (videos and discussion forums)
TED Talks – Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala ‘How to help Africa? Do business there.’

TED Blog homepage and blog posts
TED.com’s new discussion space Africa: The Next Chapter, 05/30/07
Three powerful talks from TED Conference 2007 (Monterey, California), 05/30/07
Dr. George Ayittey critique of ‘coconut republics’ in Africa, 06/04/07

Global Voices & Africa bloggers coverage of the TED Conference in Arusha
(Note: There are about 50 bloggers attending and writing from this conference)
Emeka Okafor – Africa Unchained, Timbuktu Chronicles
Ethan Zuckerman – My Heart’s in Accra – TED Africa: Introducing Africa 2.0
Jennifer Brea – Africabeat – TED Global Africa: The Next Chapter
Hash - White African - Dropping the bombshell on development aid

Global Voices Online - Blogging the G8 Summit

Technorati tags – TEDGlobal2007, tedglobal07

Businessweek March 12, 2007:
The Talk of TED by Jessi Hempel
The California conference of entrepreneurs, scientists, celebs, and politicians highlights the environment, Rwanda, and war photos, among other topics

Additional information about the 1992 Rostock Riots

TIME Magazine
Germany for Germans? 09/02/07

Human Rights Watch
Germany for Germans – Xenophobia and Racist Violence in Germany, April 1995
Foreigners Out! – Xenophobia and Right-Wing Violence in Germany, Oct 1992 (PDF)

German Anthropology Online
Die soziale Konstruktion von Fremdenfeidlischkeit by Martina Althoff (1998)

Pro Asyl - History (a leading NGO in Germany fighting for the rights of refugees)

Aspects of society and identity in the new Germany by Mary Fullbrook, Winter 1994

JSTOR – International Migration Review
Socialism, Unification Policy and the Rise of Racism in Eastern Germany, 1997

U.S. Department of State – Human Rights Report for Germany, January 1994
(Section 5: Discrimination based upon race…national/racial/ethnic minorities)

International Herald Tribune
Speak Up for the German Mainstream, 09/03/02


Technorati tags: Africa Germany Tanzania Nigeria development economics development aid global trade business media journalism G8 G8 Summit G8 Gipfel TEDGlobal2007 tedglobal07 Global Voices

Germany: Saving the Africa Agenda at the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm

Frontpage image from BILD Zeitung (newspaper) in Germany, June 01, 2007

Dateline Berlin - 01.06.07
German press sends shockwaves through the Bundesrepublik on Schwarze Freitag (Black Friday)

Yesterday I received this really nice request to help spread the word on the upcoming TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania from a young lady whose ancestors hail from Danzig (Gdansk) Poland. The TED Conference which will be attended by a number of fellow blog authors who write about Africa and by other people that I greatly admire is a news event that I intended to cover thoroughly next week along with the upcoming G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm in Germany. Jennifer Brea, a Princeton University graduate, freelance journalist, and globetrotting author of the Africabeat blog has done a very good writeup on the TED Global Conference in Arusha. I’ll write more about TED and the TED TALK featuring the former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaking before an audience at the TED Conference in Monterey, CA in March in my next post of this series.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federal President Horst Köhler are the most powerful political figures in Germany who have demonstrated in both words and deeds that they are serious about engaging the people of sub-Saharan Africa. The German Ministry for Aid and Development boss Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul has also worked hard to help African governments deal with problems like HIV/AIDS and hunger and debt relief and poverty reduction. See the German World Bank Forum and Africa Partnership Forum 2007 in Berlin for more info on what the German government is doing in Africa. I haven’t been convinced for more than two decades that respect for black Africans and a strong will to engage with sub-Saharan Africans to help solve problems and foster more balanced and fair trade with Europe is a priority for the German public. We shall see what happens after this G8 Summit under the leadership of Angela Merkel vs. the government of German Chancellor Gerhard (Blowhard) Schroeder (see Germany’s promises made at the G8 Summit 2005 in Gleneagles, Scotland).

I awoke this morning to the equivalent of a tsunami of news coverage from leading German press and media about Africa and Germany’s role in promoting Chancellor Merkel’s Africa Agenda at the upcoming G8 Summit in Heiligendamm. The first shock images and banner headlines to greet 10’s of millions of Germans today and the Ausländer (foreigners) who live here were from Germany’s leading tabloid newspaper BILD (a disgusting tabloid rag, Germany’s leading newspaper in readership). Here is a link to BILD’s website frontpage.

Africans living in Germany and in the diaspora around the world will note that these are exactly the type of images and biased reporting about the suffering, poor, diseased, corrupt, hopeless continent that African journalists and writers have been complaining about (loudly) for years. It is exactly the type of lead-in to a major story about Africa that Africans have come to hate___ no matter how good the intentions of the publishers and journalists and stars and politicians who have contributed to BILD for this issue. And to make things worse, Africa Savior Sir Bob Geldof is right at the center of this circus acting as BILD editor-in-chief for a day and conducting an interview with German Chancellor Angela Merkel titled “Frau Kanzlerin, weinen Sie fur Afrika? (Translation: Mrs. Chancellor, do you cry for Africa?) BILD has hailed this special issue of their newspaper as “Historic” but I think that it is an “historic blunder” and a disgrace to the journalism profession worldwide. BILD has screwed-up on its coverage of Africa before the start of the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm with the full support of some of Germany’s and the world’s most prominent people. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that much of it was done with good intentions but what would the people of Africa think about this type of new coverage? (Hint… that’s your cue to speak-up Africa).

Fortunately for Chancellor Merkel and President Köhler much of the international community will remain largely ignorant of this because they don’t read and/or understand the German language. BILD gets away with total BS again, just as they did with their coverage of the rebel assault on Monrovia in 2003 when their newspaper front page was covered with a huge photo of an African child soldier brandishing the severed head of one of his victims. They did receive a verbal reprimand for such racist, biased coverage of the bloody conflict in Liberia from the German Press Association… and that was it. Today’s coverage of Afrika at BILD can be seen as an… improvement.

Let’s move on to other German press and broadcast media coverage of Africa before the G8 Summit. The Frankfurter Rundschau, a national newspaper published in Germany’s financial capital (Frankfurt am Main – aka Mainhatten) with a much smaller readership than BILD, takes a more mature and intelligent approach to Africa coverage before and during the G8 Summit 2007. The Frankfurter Rundschau Editor-in-Chief Uwe Vorkötter writes in an editiorial for the newspaper’s June 2007 special issue for Afrika:

Editorial
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,

Afrika? Der Kontinent, der von Armut und Aids beherrscht wird. Der Kontinent ohne Zukunft. Der Kontinent, dem die G8-Regierungschefs in der nächsten Woche wieder Hilfe versprechen - und ihr Versprechen gleich wieder vergessen. Afrika, ein hoffnungsloser Fall?

Das stimmt so nicht. Nicht mehr. "Hier spricht Afrika" lautet das Motto unserer heutigen Ausgabe. Sie enthält nicht nur das "normale" Programm, das Sie täglich von uns erwarten. Wir schreiben zusätzlich über die Probleme Afrikas, aber auch über seine Erfolge. Wir lassen Afrikaner zu Wort kommen - Politiker, Stars und einfache Leute aus allen 48 Staaten südlich der Sahara. Wir porträtieren die erfolgreiche Präsidentin Liberias, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Wir reden mit Miss Nigeria über schwarze und weiße Schönheitsideale. Wir sprechen auch mit den Popstars Bono und Herbert Grönemeyer, deren Einsatz für Afrika kein PR-Gag ist, sondern ernsthaftes Engagement. Und den prominentesten Text der Zeitung, den Leitartikel, stellen wir einem Mann zur Verfügung, dessen Einsatz für Afrika in der internationalen Politik vorbildlich ist: Horst Köhler, Bundespräsident. Er hat unsere Einladung spontan angenommen - wir bedanken uns.

Ich lade Sie ein zu einer journalistischen Reise auf einen faszinierenden Kontinent. Lesen Sie, was unsere Reporter und Korrespondenten über ihr Afrika zu berichten haben, lassen Sie sich fesseln von eindrucksvollen Bildern.

Herzliche Grüße
Ihr Uwe Vorkötter

My (rush) translation of the editor’s introduction to “Hier Spricht Afrika”:

“Africa? The continent being conquered by HIV-AIDS and poverty. The continent without a future. The continent that the G8 bosses during this coming week will promise to help – and then soon afterwards forget their promises. Africa, a hopeless case?

That’s not correct. Not anymore. “Hier spricht Afrika” (Africa speaks out) is the motto of our special edition today. It contains not only the “normal” program that you await from us everyday. We are writing additionally today over the problems of Africa but also about her successes. We are allowing Africans to speak out – politicians, stars and ordinary people from all 40 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. We are portraying the successful President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. We speak with Miss Nigeria about black and white beauty idols. We also speak with pop stars Bono and Herbert Grönemeyer, whose campaigns on behalf of Africa (and Africans) is no PR stunt but is a serious engagement. And the most prominent text of the newspaper, the Leitartikel (feature article), places a man at your disposal whose campaign for Africa in the international political world is an example: Horst Köhler, the Federal President of Germany. He accepted our invitation spontaneously, and we thank him for this.

I invite you to a journalistic voyage on a fascinating continent. Read what our reporters and correspondents have reported about Africa and be captivated by impressive photos and images.

With warmest regards,
Your Uwe Vorkötter (Editor-in-Chief)

End of excerpt from the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper online June 01, 2006

Coming Next: The view from TED in Arusha, Tanzania and more on German press and media coverage of the G8 Summit 2007 Africa Agenda. Auf Wiedersehen und bis bald.

P.S. I wasn’t too hard on Geldoof & the BILD folks, was I? Really? Well, damn I’m really sorry.


Related articles and additional online resources

BILD Zeitung Online (Germany’s most popular daily tabloid newspaper)
Note: BILD headlines have been translated to English - all articles are “auf Deutsch”
BILD frontpage for June 01, 2007 (changes hourly and daily, sorry)
30,000 People Die Every Day in Africa from Hunger (special Afrika issue lead story)
The Angel of Ethiopia is a German Nurse
Bob Geldorf: His Day as BILD Chief-Editor
Bono: Why I fight for Africa and what YOU can do to help
This is how we can help Africa’s farmers by Michael Otto (CEO of Otto Group)

BILD Blog (a watchdog blog about the German “boulevard magazine” BILD)
Bild veradelt Bild-Chefredakteur (a piece about Geldorf - nothing on Afrika yet)

Washington Post
Geldof puts Africa on front page (BILD Afrika edition), 06/01/0

Africa Media
World’s most famous African: Bono or Madonna?

Frankfurter Rundschau Zeitung
Frankfurter Rundschau frontpage
Afrika Spezial: Hier Spricht Afrika
(Africa Special Issue - Here speaks Africa!/ Africa speaks up!)
“Ma Ellen” ist der Boss
(feature article on Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf)

Spiegel International (English version of popular German magazine)
The Power of Money: Can Africa be Saved by Private Aid?

Official website of the Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel (German, English)
Spiegel special 2005 issue “The Germans” – Germany’s next Chancellor Angela Merkel
TIME Magazine 2006 profile of Angela Merkel

Official website of the Federal President of Germany Horst Köhler (German, English)

Official website of the German Minister for Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (German only)

Official website of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (German, English)

World Bank Forum and Africa Partnership Forum in Berlin, May 21-23, 2007

Official website of the G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm, Germany
Official website of the G8 Summit 2006 at St. Petersburg, Russia
Official website of the G8 Summit 2005 at Gleneagles, Scotland

TED: Ideas worth spreading
TED Global 2007 Conferences: Africa – The Next Chapter
Africabeat: TED Global Africa: The Next Chapter

Related articles from Jewels in the Jungle and the Atlantic Review
Black History in Europe? An Introduction to the Invisible Ones
Black History Month 2007 in Europe: Updates
Black History in Month in Europe 2007: Amo’s Ghost
Black History Month 2007 in Germany at the Atlantic Review
Black History in Germany and Europe: An African-German educator speaks out (Deutsch)
Black History in Germany and Europe: An African-German educator speaks out (English)
African History in Europe: Blacks in the Renaissance Part I
African History in Europe: Blacks in the Renaissance Part II

Technorati tags:Africa Europe Germany G8 G8 Summit international politics Global Voices developing world economics poverty international business trade journalism media news

Nigerian Elections 2007: What's hot and what's not in the media coverage

Note: this is first of a rush two-part article on the 2007 Nigerian state and presidential elections. I’ll clean up any spelling errors and add tags and stuff tomorrow.

This will be a big weekend for national elections in both Europe and Africa as the voters of France and Nigeria go to the polls to elect their next president. Two elections couldn’t be more different in terms of fairness and transparency and public order in carrying out the most important right of citizens living in a democratic country, the right to choose one’s political leaders.

The international media networks have been focusing a great deal on both elections. CNN International is rolling out massive coverage of the French elections with reporting by its top foreign correspondents and anchors and including coverage by some high-profile French blog authors. Whereas the CNN coverage of the Nigerian elections on their website and on-the-air shows clearly where the CNN network executives have placed their news reporting priorities this month (Hint: it ain’t in Nigeria, that’s for sure).

I’m surprised that CNNI’s Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange and Inside Africa program host Femi Oke have not been reporting daily from Nigeria about the elections since the hotly debated coverage of the Niger Delta militia story last February and I am surprised that CNN has chosen not to devote more resources and reporters to cover these critical elections in Africa’s most populous and arguably most important nation. One out of every five Africans hails from Nigeria and what happens there is important. Inside Africa is sure to cover the Nigerian elections this weekend as the program’s host Femi Oke is a British born-and-bred Nigerian-European.

BBC Online has been publishing a series of in-depth articles on the Nigerian elections including the debacle last Saturday following the state parliamentary/gubernatorial polls and the growing anxiety and tension over this Saturday’s presidential polls. The comparison of coverage from the BBC vs. that of CNN on the Nigerian 2007 elections is rather stark___ and for many CNNI viewers it should also be very embarrassing.

The new Reuters Africa news service which integrates blog feeds from Global Voices Online’s network of worldwide citizen journalists probably has the most extensive coverage of the Nigerian 2007 elections available anywhere, online or offline. You can read more about the Reuters/Global Voices professional and citizen journalist hookup for Africa at the following great blogs:

Africa Media – Africa: Giving Reuters the Business
Global Voices – World meet Africa! A new way of reporting the continent
My Heart’s in Accra – Reuters and Global Voices new Africa coverage
Rebecca’s Rconversation – Reuters Africa: breaking new ground
Media Shift – Reuters Looks to Africa and a Decentralized Future for Media
OpenDemocracy – Reporting Africa blog by blog

I cannot think of any one group of people from an African nation that have been more influential and active in the growth of the blogosphere over the past 3-4 years than the Nigerian blog authors and their readers worldwide. When I want to learn the latest news about what’s happening down in Nigeria I automatically check with high-profile bloggers Imnakoya of Grandiose Parlor, Chippla Vandu of Chippla’s Blog, and Sokari Erkine of Black Looks. There are many, many more good online authors who hail from Nigeria and/or write extensively about Nigeria but these three people are my first GoTo bloggers for information about the country. Tobias Eigen of Saidia.org wrote about Nigerian blog authors covering the elections in his Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog post and one should not miss Nigerianbloggers.com and the The Nigerian Village Square for the latest news and opinions.

What may not be so well known to authors and readers throughout the blogosphere is the Nigerian Election Hotline initiative started by Akwe Amosu of the Open Society Institute in Washington, D.C. to cover the ongoing elections and post-election news in Nigeria. Akwe Amosu (bio) is a Senior Policy Analyst on Africa at the Open Society Institute (see *1) and has over 20 years experience in journalism, broadcasting and publishing of Africa news and affairs. Akwe joined allAfrica.com. a leading online news and news aggregator network, as its founding executive editor in 2000 and has many more outstanding accomplishments in her professional career.

Akwe wrote in an email distributed to select Africa/African blog authors on April 17th:

Colleagues,
http://nigeriaelectionhotline.com/

Please check out Nigeria Election Hotline's stories and link to them if/when you feel so moved... we put this project together to help ensure a platform for stories that might not otherwise make it into the mainstream. The content on NEH is also published by allAfrica.com. There is an RSS link to make access easy.

Akwe

The Nigerian Election Hotline news website mission statement reads as follows:

Nigeria Election Hotline is a news website that aims to publish stories on the 2007 vote that might not otherwise reach the reading public. Despite a vibrant tradition of independent journalism, many Nigerian journalists are concerned at the level of interference in the media by political interests who are seeking to control the flow of information in the press. Nigeria Election Hotline is an effort to make sure that Nigerian voters have access to the information they need to make an informed choice at the polls. Nigeria Election Hotline is moderated by the newsletter Africa Confidential and funded by the Open Society Institute. It is written by a team of correspondents from throughout the Federation. Contributions are welcomed. [End]

So my tip to Africa’s and the rest of the world’s best citizen journalists, blog authors, aspiring online journalists and media producers is, “Don’t be stupid, help these people out and quick. How often do we get a chance at this level of exposure and support to speak our minds? Zak-zak!”

Do visit the OSI Washington D.C. website to learn more about the organization and to read Akwe’s very impressive bio as well, and don’t forget to stop by the brand new Nigerian Election Hotline blog at Blogspot.com

*1- The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grant-making foundation setup to “to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.” OSI is a member of the Soros Foundation network created by the famous entrepreneur, political activist and social philanthropist George Soros. You can read more at the website http://www.soros.org/.

Part 2 coming very soon:
The Battle for Nigeria – views from America’s news media gatekeepers


Related articles and posts:

Jewels in the Jungle
Africa Open for Business: Nation-branding in sub-Saharan Africa. Perception vs. Reality
CNN International Correspondents feature Nigerian author and columnist Uche Nowrah

AfricaMedia
CNN on the Niger Delta: Not much to report

CNN – Behind the Scenes
Koinange: Big guns, big oil collide in Nigeria – 02/10/07
CNN denies Nigerian allegations of staging report – 02/13/07


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