Blogging for Dollars $$$: African journalists win top blog awards

It has been awhile since I have written anything about news stories coming out of Africa. Fortunately, Africa’s growing communities of blog authors, citizen and professional journalists and writers who publish their work online have begun to garner the world’s attention over the past few years. This makes my small contribution to blogging about Africa and global issues no less important but it does help to give me and others who write about Africa inspiration.

Just today I made two important discoveries about the success of Africa’s bloggers. Global Voices Online has an update on the first African Blog Awards for Journalists which led me to dig deeper and review the work of a wonderful young investigative reporter in Uganda, Rosebell Kagumire.

Rosebell, who just last year started her personal blog, is one of the winners of the first Waxal Blogging Africa Awards for Journalists. Like Andrew M. Mwenda* and other top African journalists and news professionals who have come to our attention via the CNN African Journalists Awards and the Panos Institute in London, Rosebell Kagumire and the winners of the 2009 Waxal Blog Awards are important new voices in Africa that we should closely follow.

Here is a link to a recent interview with Rosebell conducted by the Financial Times correspondent Christopher Mason:

Radio Slience – a look at efforts to increase access to media in the developing world
The View From Uganda: Multi-platform journalism and more 02/23/09


Be sure to visit the blogs of the winners of the Waxal African Blogging Awards, particularly the work of the award-winning DR Congo radio journalist Cedric Kalonji (Radio Okapi) and the news team at the Lusaka Times. Independent press and news media is under threat in many African countries but thanks to the hard work and diligence of these brave people Africans have a stronger voice on the world stage.

Note*: Some of my readers may remember the Ugandan journalist and newspaper editor, Andrew M. Mwenda, from his excellent presentation on foreign aid to Africa made at the 2007 TED Africa: The Next Chapter conference. Following his talk in Arusha (Tanzania) Mwenda’s popularity soared in the blogosphere and in the international press. Andrew had to fight against arrest on trumped-up charges by the Ugandan government in 2007 and interference by the government with the launch of his new newspaper in Kampala, The Independent. Here is an example of the type of reporting that keeps Andrew in hot water with Uganda’s longtime ruler (23 years and counting), President Yoweri Museveni:

Museveni walking same path of African dictators by Andrew Mwenda, 02/18/09

Kevin Sites, independent war correspondent and the first video correspondent for Yahoo! News (see Kevin Sites In the Hot Zone) wrote an article for Parade Magazine about Andrew Mwenda and the difficulties and dangers faced by independent investigative reporters in Uganda.

Parade.com (Parade magazine online)
'They Can Kill Me, But They Can't Kill My Ideas' by Kevin Sites, 02/01/09


Related articles and resources

PANOS London – promoting dialogue, debate, and change
Global Voices Online – Berkman Center @ Harvard University Law School
Highway Africa – Citizen Journalism, Journalism for Citizens
TED Conferences – where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather
TED Africa Director Emeka Okafor announces new TED Fellows Program
An Introduction to Africa 2.0 and the TED Africa Conference (Ethan Zuckerman)
Deutsche Welle Best of the Blogs Awards (the BoB’s)
Reporters Without Borders – English site
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Technorati tags:Africa journalism blogging citizen journalism free press media global voices rising voices

Burma: Standing Up with the Felonious Monks of Myanmar

Breaking News Update September 27th:

The dreaded violent crackdown by the military junta in Burma is in full swing. CNN International and other major news networks report that the military has opened fire indiscriminately on crowds of protesters and bystanders with automatic weapons yesterday and today. In an effort to corral and silence the 1000’s of Buddhist monks in the capital Rangoon and elsewhere across the country the junta has rounded up hundreds of monks and carted them away in trucks for questioning (beatings and torture).

Thousands more have been locked into monasteries and temples overnight to prevent the monks and nuns from hitting the streets today and going unedited into the World Live Web (the blogosphere). Myanmar security forces are presumably working feverishly to filter and/or shut down Internet access and close Internet cafes in order to stop the images and reports of their brutality against innocent monks and peaceful protestors from reaching the world’s eyes and ears. All to no avail for the mob (the bloggers of the world) have got wind of the atrocities and are all over this story.

What is also interesting to see is that news editors and producers have (finally) woken up to the fact that the world’s bloggers can be very helpful in a crisis like this where the professional media and press have been totally barred from reporting inside of a severely oppressed country like Burma. CNN TV anchors today are using text, photos, and interviews obtained from citizen journalists and blog authors who are on the ground inside of Burma as well as from people in the region and around the world.

In the CNN.com online report ‘Myanmar junta intensifies crackdown’ the staff writer references the Burma and SE Asian news website The Irrawaddy but unfortunately links to the wrong URL. I notified CNN.com about this error more than one hour ago but the website editors have not yet fixed the problem. The correct URL for The Irrawaddy News website is http://www.irrawaddy.org/. The Irrawaddy has exclusive breaking news and eyewitness reports about the crisis in Burma and is also asking CJ’s and bloggers to contribute their reports and photos.

TIME.com published the article Monks vs. Police in Burma, an eyewitness account of the battle for Shwedagon Pagoda, the centuries-old golden domed Buddhist shrine that sits at the heart of Rangoon built by the Mon people sometime between the 6th and 10th Century (500-900 AD). This ancient holy shrine is now cordoned-off by a ring of government soldiers and riot police presumably with the orders to shoot to kill. Here is an excerpt from TIME about the Battle for Shwedagon:

“The battle for Shwedagon began in ferocious noonday heat. The authorities had locked the gates of the pagoda, Rangoon's most famous landmark, by mid-morning to prevent the monks who had led the weeklong demonstrations against Burma's military rulers from gathering. Police and soldiers guarded the entrances. The eastern gate of Shwedagon is where thousands of monks would otherwise exit to start their march into downtown Rangoon. But today, hundreds of soldiers and riot police blocked their way.

By 12:30 p.m., hundreds of monks, students, and other Rangoon residents approached the police, stood in the road and began to pray. Then the soldiers and police began pulling monks from the crowd, targeting the leaders, striking both monks and ordinary people with canes. Several smoke bombs exploded and the riot police charged. The monks and others fought back with sticks and rocks. Many others ran, perhaps four or five of them bleeding from minor head wounds. A car was set alight — by the soldiers, some protesters claimed — and then there was the unmistakable crack of live ammunition: the soldiers were shooting into the air.

"They are not Buddhists," cried one student, who clutched half a brick in his hand, running from the smoke. "They are not humans. We were praying peacefully and they beat us. They beat the monks, even the old ones." An 80-year-old monk stood with the student, bleeding from a baton gash on his shaven head. “

End excerpt. Read the complete story.
Also checkout the TIME.com photo essay Burma: 19 Years of Protest.

Another great source for reliable up-to-the-minute news and commentary about the political crisis in Burma is from the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma website. The DVB is a non-profit media organization that provides unbiased and accurate news to the people of Burma (and the world) via radio broadcasts and the Internet.

O.K., that’s it for today. I’m out of here for now.
_______________________________________________

Original post from September 26th

Today I had planned to post about a conference for black European women opening in Vienna, Austria but the images of protests coming out of Myanmar (Burma) are so powerful and inspiring that I feel I must say something about it right now.

Much of the world news this week has been dominated by the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City where over 100 “world leaders” are in attendance for the ceremonies and speeches about everything from the floods in Africa and climate change emergencies to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s disastrous and ridiculous debut at Columbia University.

But today the world’s attention is riveted to news about the 10’s of thousands of humble Buddhist monks and nuns and citizens of the oppressed nation of Myanmar who have decided that they have had enough of the brutal military regime that has ruled over them for more than 40 years. A regime that has robbed and raped the nation of Burma of precious natural resources until there is almost nothing left.

My message is for you, the defiant monks and religious leaders and citizens marching in Myanmar and those in the Burmese diaspora around the world:

Your courageous defiance of the military junta and their henchmen as you march peacefully by the thousands through the rain-soaked streets of Yangoon (Rangoon) and Mandalay and cities and towns across your country, this act has inspired millions of people around the world. We are watching and reading every bit of news that you can get out of the country at great risk to your very lives.

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that many of Burma’s revered religious leaders and activists for democracy and justice will face severe punishment from the government soldiers and the police, perhaps even death. But unlike the violence by the regime against the students and citizens of Myanmar during the uprising of 1988 that took more than 3,000 lives, today the world is listening and watching closely thanks to your bravery and embracing of new technologies such as mobile phones and cameras and access to the Internet. This time the two-legged cockroaches that have caused so much suffering in your country for so long cannot hide behind news blackouts and the brutal suppression of free speech and a free press in Myanmar. This time you the people are both the newsmakers and the news reporters and the world can follow your every word and action LIVE as it happens.

I stand with the people of Burma today and everyday until you have thrown off the chains of brutal slavery and oppression. Live free or die trying to be free from this oppression; resist and defy peacefully. People who are suffering just like you under repressive regimes the world over can learn a great deal from your courage and peaceful resistance and your sacrifice in blood for a democratic and just future for your nation.

Many of the world’s leaders who have assembled themselves at the United Nations General Assembly in New York to loudly declare their support for human and civil rights and democratic values, rights that the people of Burma have yearned for for so very long, must hang their heads in shame before a world audience due to their collective paralysis to support you now in your desperate time of need with meaningful actions and measures against Burma's military dictatorship.

All decent and freedom-loving citizens of the world must stand up with the people of Burma in their fight for freedom from oppression and injustice. Victory in the end will surely be yours, you the good and great people of Myanmar.


Related articles and online resources:

Reuters
Bush announces new US sanctions on Myanmar
China quietly reaches out to Myanmar opposition
FACTBOX – Global reaction to Myanmar protests
Chronology – 45 years of resistance and repression in Myanmar

AFP
Technology puts Myanmar protests in international eye

Associated Press
China nudges Myanmar on protests

CNN International
Myanmar crackdown, monks killed (text and video)

TIME Magazine
The Fighting Monks of Burma
Burma’s Military Solution

BBC News
Chinese dilemma over Burma protests
Burma’s hardline generals

Burmanet.org (news and opinions on Burma from around the world)

Witness.org (the human rights video journalism website)
Shoot on Sight: the ongoing military junta offensive against civilians in Eastern Burma

Global Voices Online
Myanmar: Voices from the region (reports from bloggers in SE Asia)
Myanmar (Burma) blog archives

Open Society Institute (Washington D.C.)
Burma Project / Southeast Asia initiatives

IPI – International Press Institute
World Press Freedom Review – Burma 2006

Xinhua News Agency (Chinese government-controlled news)
Myanmar issues curfew order in Yangoon
China believes Myanmar government can handle the situation

Myanmar (Burma) at Wikipedia

Profile of Burmese democracy activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi

Technorati tags: Burma Myanmar burmese human rights Burmese monks Global Voices Freedom of Speech

G8 Summit 2007 in Germany closes with a fizzle. Will Africa's voices fall silent?

Dateline Berlin 06/12/07 – Sweltering in a sudden heatwave west of Germany’s cool capital. Updates on the close of the G8 Summit with a focus on African voices.

I’m still trying to figure out what happened at Heiligendamm? Was it a success as claimed by the G8 Summit 2007 host country Germany and some members of the German press and media, or was it a bust as described by Bob Geldof and Bono and other high-profile activists and various experts? If the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm was a success then a success for whom, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel?

I’m not as disappointed and pessimistic about the outcome of these talks as some people seem to be but at the same time you have to wonder, are the G8 Summits relevant anymore? Were they ever useful in helping to solve the world’s problems? It has all become such a circus for the politicians and every group under the sun to voice their outrage and anger about all kinds of causes that have little or nothing to do with the summit agendas that one has to ask, why bother?

TIME Magazine’s Massimo Calabresi writes in the article ‘Does the G8 Summit Have a Point?’:

It's hard to get a fix on just what the 80,000 protesters who descended on the G-8 summit here in northern Germany this week actually want. Plodding through a field towards the 7.2 mile, multimillion-dollar fence designed to keep him and his unkempt peers out, Channing Jones, a 40-year-old American freelance programmer, said Wednesday his purpose was to get governments to "help the common people." Earlier in the day, the art group Dropping Knowledge had released a huge floating sculpture of a baby into the River Warnow, in a less-than-self-explanatory attempt to show that "the Western world is not really taking Africa seriously," according to one of the group's sponsors, Stefan Liske. Late Thursday afternoon, a man wearing a fluorescent pink wig and standing on stilts made up to look like enormous pink go-go boots declared he was blocking the main road to the summit "for freedom of movement for all people, and no nations and no borders!"

One priority these disparate, confused groups share, however, is bringing the annual G-8 meeting to a grinding halt. They managed to shut down all the road and rail access to the summit Wednesday, and interrupted it Thursday. Some skeptics at think-tanks and college campuses around the world have suggested that may not such a bad thing. The annual G-8 meeting is an anachronism that no longer pursues the economic agenda for which it was created, they argue; it doesn't include some of the world's most important economies (China and India are not in the club) and fails to achieve even the limited goals it sets for its members.

As a small group of protesters bounded through a wheat field on Wednesday afternoon pursued by a slightly larger group of policemen, it was hard not to wonder what the point of the whole exercise was.

Inside the fence, it turns out, some were asking the same question. In the whitewashed buildings of the elaborately restored Baltic resort of Heiligendamm, important things seemed to be happening. Russia's Vladimir Putin and President Bush strolled out past the massive beds of hydrangeas to say they had held good discussions on missile defense in Europe, with Putin provocatively proposing the use of Russian installations as a substitute for the ones the U.S. plans to place in Poland and the Czech Republic. And the G-8 leaders agreed on a putative program for addressing climate change.

But even in the highest-level delegations, there were skeptics. "They should just hold the whole thing over secure video-conference and make it every other year," said one White House aide Thursday morning. "There's a whole industry now surrounding the G-8, and two weeks from now, when it's all over here, they're going to start again for next year. In my opinion, they'd be better off sending the money to Africa."

The Germany summit cost $134 million, much of it spent on security. Measured by the organizers' outlay or by the media coverage the event receives, it appears as if the protests themselves have become the point.

End excerpt---------------

My analysis: Call the whole thing off and save the taxpayers money. The carbon footprint alone from the 10,000’s of people at this summit is enough to setback efforts to fight global warming by one hundred years. Private passenger jets and military and police helipcopters for the official delegations, gas-guzzling motor vehicles of every type for the security forces and demonstrators, and 25,000 open-air barbecue pits using ill-gotten timber (charcoal) from developing countries on a planet under ecological pressure. I mean BITTE (Please)! Get a grip on yourselves.


What news do I take home for my people? AfricaVox journalists call it a wrap at the G8.

The 9 African journalists and media professionals invited by Panos-London to attend this year’s summit are heading home this week and I must say that I will miss their contributions to open expression and the sharing of their ideas and thoughts about the G8 Summit. Unfortunately not very many other CJ’s (Citizen Journalists) who write regularly about African news and affairs bothered to stop by the AfricaVox 2007 blog to express their appreciation and welcome these journalists to our sector of the blogosphere. I find that to be sad but heck, maybe many Africa bloggers didn’t know about this great journalism project. So if you haven’t stopped by the AfricaVox 2007 blog yet then do so before it’s too late (a hint for Melissa at Africa Media and other hardworking blogger colleagues out there in the Sphere).

I’ve made myself a real nuisance at the AfricaVox 2007 comments section but Risha Chande, external relations assistant for the Panos AfricaVox project, sent me a very nice message today thanking me for my support and encouragement. Problem is that “We the Bloggers” who write about Africa need to be thanking Panos-London and this fine group of African journalists and media professionals. Africa’s bloggers need to show much more support for Africa’s professional journalists and editors and publishers so that we all can learn from one another, not compete with one another as is so often the case.

Collins Vumiria, chief news editor of Uganda’s Radio West (Mbarara), writes in her G8 summary article titled ‘What news do I take home for my people?’

As far as I can tell, everyone who's attended the G8 Summit here in Heiligendamm leaves it with mixed feelings. Some are bitter that the G8’s announcement of $60 billion to fight disease failed to mention when it would arrive. Others complain that the Gleneagles promises have yet to be fulfilled.

But out of all this, what do I have to tell my people back home in Uganda when I return? To get a steer, this afternoon I rushed down to a news conference given by two musicians who for years have been campaigning to rid Africa of poverty and disease: Bob Geldof and U2’s Bono.

I find Geldof describing the Summit as a total mess. “I do not want to see 2005 reiterated endlessly,” he tells the assembled journalists. “The richest countries of the world, trillions of dollars, swirling around that table… do me a favour! Get serious guys! This wasn’t serious. This was a farce. This was a total farce.”

All very well, I think to myself. But I need specific information for my own people, not just these soundbites. I had hoped for something more constructive to communicate to my people in Mbarara than this emotional dismissal.

Next it’s question time for the journalists. “My name is Collins Vumiria, I am a journalist from Uganda.” Faces turn to look at me. “After this summit, what news do I take home for my people?”…

Read the full article What news do I take home for my people?

More articles of interest from the very fine AfricaVox 2007 crew:
AfricaVox 2007 – African voices at the G8 Summit 2007
Africa: master of its own destiny
The G8’s $17 million dollar security fence scandal
AIDS prevention paying the price of the G8 donor circus
The sick priorities of the G8
The J9 (Junior G8+1 Summit) at the G8

openDemocracy Speaks Up for Women & Girls at the G8 Summit

openDemocracy.org’s blog project ‘openSummit – Women talk to the G8’ has a good series of posts about the G8 Summit 2007 and the Alternative G8 Summit. See the great work by Patricia Daniels and the summit summary post by Jessica Reed. The openDemocracy open blogs section has an article by Chukwu Emeka Chikezie titled Africa at the G8 Summit: déjà vu? Mr. Chikezie who works for the London-based non-profit organization AFFORD writes:

So, here we are again. Two years on from the July 2005 gathering at Gleneagles, Scotland, the acceptable face of African leadership is preparing to assemble on the steps of the Group of Eight (G8) summit at Heiligendamm, Germany for a photo-opportunity amid more heartfelt pleas to increase aid to Africa.

The presence of "this" Africa at the summit owes much to the promotion and patronage of individual G8 leaders, most notably Tony Blair. Indeed, it seems hard to think now about the African component of the G8 summit at all without considering the input of the outgoing British prime minister; he has even made Africa a central part of his valedictory tour, whose aim (according to a normally reticent BBC) was to burnish the Blair legacy for posterity.

And this is the problem. The mere fact that media commentators seem routinely to put "Blair, Africa, aid, legacy" together in the same sentence underlines the inability to "see" Africa as it really is: a living, proliferating, diverse collection of some 700 million people in fifty-three different countries, making their lives, lurching forwards, sometimes falling backwards, occasionally sideways. "That" Africa is invisible; the one that has come to dominate public perception is a meek, grateful place that provides a soft, faintly glowing backdrop to an assessment of Blair's ten years in office. The African leaders on the Heiligendamm steps are unlikely to do anything to change the focus.
………………………………………………….

Aid: from critique to reform

Two years after Gleneagles, a year after St Petersburg, it is striking how little the discourse around Africa has changed. G8 leaders, NGO activists and African leaders all seem to agree that aid is pivotal to Africa's turnaround. Germany's chancellor and host of the G8, Angela Merkel, has joined the club - promising that this time the G8 will redeem its pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010.

This approach rests on a studied evasion about why so much aid to Africa in the past has failed to deliver transformation. It thus seems more concerned to salve consciences than to bring real change. It also ignores the lively debate that is raging behind the scenes and in public forums about whether aid is really effective as an instrument of development.

A thirty-year veteran of the World Bank, Phyllis R Pomerantz contributes one valuable view to this argument (see Aid Effectiveness in Africa: Developing Trust between Donors and Governments [Lexington Books, 2004]). Pomerantz attributes much of aid's ineffectiveness in Africa to donors' failure to pay attention to culture. Monologue and one-way impositions, donor paternalism, and insensitivity undermine the trust, mutual respect and understanding that should, in Pomerantz's view, underpin aid relationships.

Pomerantz would like to see donors pay more attention to African traditions and conditions. She is aiming for trusting relationships that underpin shared purpose, commitment, reliability, transparency, and familiarity.

Such a vision - which is echoed from a different direction by Michael Edwards in his openDemocracy article on the reinvention of "development" - seems very far from the cold calculations of summit talks where the paternalism of the discourse about aid is reinforced by hypocrisy over a second potential route to African development: trade. Here, the contradiction between the rhetoric of free and equitable trade and the reality of subsidies and preferential agreements is all too established. As the United Nations human-development report of 2005 says: "The world's richest countries spent just over one billion dollars for the year 2005 on aid for agriculture in poor countries, and just under one billion dollars each day of that year for various subsidies of agricultural overproduction at home."

Read more at openDemocracy.org Africa at the G8 Summit: déjà vu?

More posts and podcasts about the G8 Summit at openDemocracy.org
Podcast Nr. 22 – G8, are you listening? by Solana Larsen
Women won’t wait by Susana Fried
G8: the aid gap by Tina Wallace
Merkel’s G8 – spot the difference by Patricia Daniel

It would appear that the G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm ain’t quite over yet but instead has only just begun. The follow-up activities from this summit to insure that what has been promised is actually done and that these initiatives and programs and processes bring the desired results for all stakeholders, depends on us. Oder?

We shall see.


Related news articles, posts, and online resources:
Guardian Online (U.K.)
Geldof hits out at G8 ‘farce’, 06/08/07

Globe and Mail (Canada)
Bono singles out Canada’s PM Harper in deriding leaders, 06/09/07
PM’s ‘laggard’ effort on Africa assailed

Bloomberg Financial News
Merkel quarrels with Bono, Geldof over Africa aid, 06/07/07

Washington Post
Geldof puts Africa on front page (BILD special Afrika edition), 06/01/07

Jewels in the Jungle
Germany: Saving the Africa Agenda at the G8 Summit 2007
G8 Summit and Tanzania (TED Global in Africa)
Circus Maximus Opens in Germany
G8 Summit and TED Global Updates II

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

More news coverage of the 2007 G8 Summit
Spiegel International (Germany)
G8 Summit in Heiligendamm special feature archive

Financial Times London
G8 Summit 2007 In-Depth special coverage
African graft is a global responsibility by Richard Murphy and Nicholas Shaxson
Why Africa needs a Marshall Plan by Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan
The rich world can help Africa by Jeffrey Sachs and Glenn Denning

New York Times
Group of 8 (G8) special coverage

Reuters and Reuters Alertnet
Interview with Kofi Anan: G8 must give Africa aid faster
No Coke, only German AfriCola at the G8 Summit (soft drink of choice since 1931)
Factbox: G8 measures to tackle African poverty
Reuters’ blogs: Who should hold the aid world to account?

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

G8 Summit and TED Global Updates II: G8 meets the J8, African voices at the G8 Summit, TED Global Africa closes with success

Dateline Berlin 06/07/07 – Outside the Bunker and on the streets
Updates on the close of the TED Global Conference in Tanzania; G8 world leaders meet J8 world leaders in Heiligendamm; South African journalist asks who is listening to the voice of African women at the G8 Summit

This is just a quick Heads Up post to keep my readers informed on what’s hot and what’s not at the G8 Summit in Germany today. First the good news:

G8 leaders meets J8 youth leaders in a roundtable discussion at Heiligendamm. No violence reported (yet).

Germany’s ZDF TV network televised a 1-hour roundtable discussion between all of the G8 world leaders and 9 members of the J8 Summit youth leaders. It’s about the best live TV news coverage you will see come out of the Circus Maximus 2007 where the world leaders go one-on-one with some of the finest young minds on the planet. All G8 countries were represented by a young person selected by members of the J8 (Junior 8) Summit in Wismar, Germany. A 17-year old young man from Tanzania represented his country and the continent of Africa and was paired with the European Commission boss from Portugal (what’s his name? José Manuel Barroso). Links to all of the related online websites and a 59 minute video available for free viewing at the ZDF website are listed at the end of this post.

Nobody’s listening to African women’s voices at the anti-G8 Summit in Germany

South African journalist Zihnle Mapumulo, a member of the AfricaVox 2007 news team that I wrote about in my previous post, is complaining that nobody is seriously listening to Africa’s concerns at the G8 Summit. However, this may change because it’s still early in the Circus Maximus and some world leaders and anti-G8 demonstrators may start to pay attention. Patricia Daniel writes in a post for the OpenDemocracy blog project Womens Open Summit - Women talk to the G8:

There is a team of award-winning African journalists here covering the G8 summit and the alternative summit, in collaboration with the Panos Institute, on their blog AfricaVox 2007 .The aim is to see whether the G8 are really listening to African voices, as the official press service claims Germany is doing.

I spoke to Zinhle Mapumulo, a reporter with the Sowetan in South Africa, who covers health issues and has a weekly women’s page. Zinhle was inspired to go into the media by the one black woman television presenter working during apartheid, Noxolo Grootboom. After finally opting for print journalism, she has previously covered youth issues, lifestyle and women in enterprise as well as spending two years in her native province of Kwazulu Natal as bureau chief for Sowetan news. So, what’s her particular motivation in covering the G8 this year?

“Firstly I wanted the opportunity to experience the whole sandwich – the demos, the debates – and to ask all the questions we don’t get to ask back in South Africa. Then, as a woman, I feel there’s never any in-depth coverage of women: I want to know how do the G8 contributions, how do their pledges benefit me and my 2 year-old daughter – and other African women and their children - how is this process going to help us?”

Zinhle went out on the demo at the airport when Bush arrived Tuesday evening. “I wanted to see the action. We don’t get to see this kind of confrontation now in South Africa – the violence, the police. I wanted to talk to the demonstrators.” But she came away with some concerns. “They say they want attention from the world about Africa’s problems. But when I asked them, they don’t know anything about Africa. I felt it wasn’t genuine, they’re doing it for the hype, just to be a rebel.” She told one of them: “Your struggle is not about us, it’s about you. You should be feeling some kind of spiritual connection with us.” (Read more at AfricanVox 2007 blog)

TED GLOBAL 2007 - Africa: The Next Chapter closes with success (and tears)

My friend and blogging mentor Ethan Zuckerman (EZ) of the Global Voices project mentioned in several of my earlier posts sums up the feeling of many of our fellow blogger colleagues who have had the privilege of attending the TED Global 2007 conference in Arusha, Tanzania. This is an event that was eagerly awaited and followed by the international blogger community that writes about and follows news and issues on Africa. The conference was attended by Bono and other world figures and was carefully monitored by Gemany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel as well (I think?). You see, TED Global 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania and the G8 Summit in Germany are tightly linked and are (presumably) very supportive of one another. Ethan writes in his blog on the closing day of this excellent meeting of minds:

Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the sort of visionary African leader everyone on stage and in the crowd would wish for Africa. She’s challenged with summing up four days of discussions on “Africa, the next chapter”.

She tells us we’re seeing changes in Africa that we never thought would happen. We’ve seen annual growth of 5%, in some cases 6-7%, up from 2%. External debt has been massively reduced. Countries are building up foreign exchange reserves, shoring up their currencies. Private investment flows are increasing, remittances to Nigeria are skyrocketing, and there’s a net inflow of capital.

But Africa needs jobs. 62% of Africa’s population is under 24. We have to figure out how to make these people productive. Nigeria is now building an opinion research organization, a way of listening to citizen voices, which she notes is a rare thing on the continent. The top issue in every survey? Jobs…

Just a few years ago, she tells us, we couldn’t even talk about “the next chapter” for Africa. There was negative economic growth. There’s been an amazing transformation, and this is something that’s allowed us to have our debate about aid versus the private sector. “It has been a simplistic debate.” It needs to be about “a partnership that involves governments, donors, private sector, and ordinary Africans.” It’s not trade or aid - “what is the combination of all these factors is going to yield results?”

African entrepeneur Mo Ibrahim dreams of the moment when Africa is giving aid. “But we’re already doing it - the UK and the US could not have been built without African aid. The resources - including human resources - have made those countries what they are today.” So when those countries are willing to give something back, we need to take it, but we need to use it effectively.

Okonjo-Iweala tells a story about growing up during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Her father was a brigadeer on the Biafran side, and her family was doing very badly, eating a single meal a day. When she was 15, her mother was ill, and her three-year old sister was deathly ill from malaria. She put her sister on her back and walked 10 kilometers to a clinic, where she’d heard there was a good doctor. When she arrived, there were a thousand people outside, trying to break down the door. She went to the side and climbed in through the window. The doctor told her she’d barely saved her sister - she gave the girl a shot of chloroquine, put her onto rehydration and within hours, she was back to health. “The ten kilometers home with her on my back, that was the shortest walk of my life.” The point of the story: “When someone is saving a life, you don’t care that it’s aid - you want the person to be alive.” (Read more at Ethan’s blog on Madam Okonjo-Iweala’s powerful address at TED.)

That’s it for today folks. The weather has finally improved considerably here in northern Germany and my Staropramen pilsner is getting a bit too warm down at the local pub. I gotta go because I’m really thirsty. Auf Wiedersehen, bis Übermorgen. Ciao Bella...Mama mia!

Related articles and online resources

ZDF TV – Heute (daily news program) G8 Spezial
G8 in Minutentakt - G8 trifft J8 (multimedia plus 59:00 min streaming video)
J8 Gipfel in Wismar: “Wir wollen gehört werden” (ZDF feature article)
J8 Youth Summit in Wismar, Germany -Official J8 Summit website

G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm official website (lots of stuff here boy)

OpenDemocracy blog – Women’s Open Summit - Women talk to the G8
Who is really listening to African women’s voices? by Patricia Daniel

AfricaVox 2007 – African voices at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm
AfricaVox 2007: “We need the G8’s help in the fight against poverty and HIV”
Articles by South African journalist Zihnle Mapumulo

TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania – TED Blog
TED Global bloggers look back at worldchanging days, 06/07/07
TED Global in Africa: Day 4, reports from the bloggers, 06/07/07
TED Global 2007 aggreagated articles from bloggers-in-residence

Ethan Zuckerman (Global Voices Online – Harvard)
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the last word on aid, 06/07/07

P.S. And what about the Bad News? There is no “Bad News” to report today. Think positive. Ciao y’all.

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

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