Africa.A DEMOCRACY IS BORN (Above) It was touch and go, as the beleaguered be·lea·guer tr.v. be·lea·guered, be·lea·guer·ing, be·lea·guers 1. To harass; beset: We are beleaguered by problems. 2. To surround with troops; besiege. and war-weary citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) prepared to vote in their country's first free presidential election for four decades. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the month before, the mayi-mayi, warrior mystics who had been laying waste to much of eastern Congo for three years after the official end of the 1998-2003 civil war, began to surrender. Hundreds flooded demobilization de·mo·bil·ize tr.v. de·mo·bil·ized, de·mo·bil·iz·ing, de·mo·bil·iz·es 1. To discharge from military service or use. 2. To disband (troops). centres, handing in their weapons along with amulets that many traditionally believed made them invisible or bullet proof. On the day of the election itself, overseen by the UN (see above), voter turnout was an impressive 80 per cent. Joseph Kabila, the 35-year-old incumbent, narrowly beat his main opponent, rebel leader turned entrepreneur, Jean-Pierre Bemba. A second round was scheduled for October. The trouble started as the well-armed Bemba and his supporters rejected the election results; the prospect of another civil war loomed ominously. But in December Bemba finally accepted defeat and Kabila was confirmed President. Photo: GORAN TOMASEVIC / REUTERS HOME AT LAST (Below) Kalahari San (Bushmen) celebrated a landmark victory for indigenous rights when they won a four-year case against the Government of Botswana. In December the High Court ruled that the eviction The removal of a tenant from possession of premises in which he or she resides or has a property interest done by a landlord either by reentry upon the premises or through a court action. of the Bushmen was 'unlawful and unconstitutional', and that they had the right to live on their ancestral land inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a National Park in Botswana. and, furthermore, to hunt and gather there. The case was the longest and most expensive in Botswana's legal history, despite being brought by the country's poorest inhabitants
The game is based loosely on the concepts from SameGame. . Photo: SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FAREWELL TO FLARING (Above) Perhaps for the first time it was the mainly poor Nigerians living in the oil-rich Niger Delta who got the upper hand in their long and painful struggle against transnational oil giants. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Oil flaring, which throws up toxic fumes fumes odorous gases and other volatile materials; inhalation of irritating fumes causes coughing and, if sufficiently severe, irreversible pulmonary edema. and poisons the local environment, has been the bane BANE. This word was formerly used to signify a malefactor. Bract. 1. 2, t. 8, c. 1. of local people's lives for many years. Nigeria is the world's biggest gas flarer, the practice contributing more greenhouse gas emissions than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa combined, as well as poisoning the local area. But in April the poor Iwherekan community in Delta State won a victory in the Nigerian High Court when it ruled that Shell must stop flaring in the region within 12 months. Throughout the year other local activists pursued less legal routes. In February, saboteurs disrupted Shell's 500,000-barrel-a-day activities by dynamiting military barracks bar·rack 1 tr.v. bar·racked, bar·rack·ing, bar·racks To house (soldiers, for example) in quarters. n. 1. A building or group of buildings used to house military personnel. and a Shell oil pipeline. In October, two security guards were killed and seven foreign oil workers seized from an ExxonMobil residential compound by kidnappers demanding a $40 million ransom, bringing the number of foreign oil workers kidnapped in the region to 60 this year. In December, Shell evacuated the families of 400 expatriate staff after militants planted a car bomb in a residential compound. A Total oil facility was stormed, killing three police officers. Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ("MEND") is a militant indigenous people's movement dedicated to armed struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the people of Niger Delta and the degradation of the natural environment by foreign multinational (MEND) explained that their aim was to punish oil corporations and the government for siphoning off the region's wealth while providing nothing for the local community. Exploiting the people of the Niger Delta to boost oil company profits might not be so easy in future. Photo: GEORGE ESIRI / REUTERS JANUARY LIBERIA Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is sworn in as the country's new president, making history as Africa's first elected female head of state. She pledges a 'fundamental break' with the West African nation's violent past. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AU The Republic of Congo is to chair the African Union after strong opposition to Sudan--accused of genocide in Darfur--filling the post. MARCH SOUTH AFRICA Tsotsi tsotsi Noun S African a Black street thug or gang member [perhaps from Nguni (language group of southern Africa) tsotsa to dress flashily] wins the Oscar for best foreign film, becoming the first South African film to do so. BENIN Elects a new president, Boni Yayi, a former head of the West African Development Bank, with a 74 per cent majority. UGANDA Having changed the constitution to allow a third presidential term, President Museveni wins the first multiparty elections held in 25 years. His main challenger, Kizza Besigye, declares the results 'illegal'. APRIL WESTERN SAHARA UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says the most likely way a settlement can be reached in Western Sahara is for the Moroccan Government to negotiate directly with Polisario rebels in the region. This is seen as the UN washing its hands of an issue that it has tried and failed to resolve for the past 15 years. MAY SOUTH AFRICA As former Deputy President Jacob Zuma is acquitted of raping a family friend, the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust organizes a demonstration to promote women's rights The effort to secure equal rights for women and to remove gender discrimination from laws, institutions, and behavioral patterns. The women's rights movement began in the nineteenth century with the demand by some women reformers for the right to vote, known as suffrage, and , to offer support to survivors of rape and gender-based violence and to pose the question: 'How Free Are We?' SUDAN Despite the signing of a peace agreement between the Government and the main rebel group in Darfur, observers report that little has changed in a region crippled by attacks on civilians by armed Jan-jaweed militia. JUNE EGYPT Human-rights blogger and activist Mohammed AI-Sharqawi, arrested and tortured by police, is being denied hospital treatment for his injuries, says the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. JULY LIBYA A Tripoli court denies permission for foreign expert witnesses to testify in the trial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. . AUGUST AIDS CRISIS The Bush Administration's promotion of abstinence to combat AIDS is slated as a failure by the Gates Foundation and as 'neocolonial' by the UN Special Envoy for HIV/Aids to Africa, Stephen Lewis. SEPTEMBER COTE D'IVOIRE Imported toxic waste toxic waste is waste material, often in chemical form, that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It usually is the product of industry or commerce, but comes also from residential use, agriculture, the military, medical facilities, radioactive sources, and dumped around the city of Abidjan kills three and causes 5,000 to become ill. The ship that brought the waste was registered in Panama, crewed by Russians, managed by Greeks and chartered by a Dutch firm, Trafigura Beheer. SUDAN A new report estimates the death toll in Darfur at between 170,000 and 255,000 since 2003. The Sudanese Government, which had called for African Union peace keepers to leave, hints that they may be allowed to stay. President Bashir has repeatedly said he will not accept UN troops, accusing the West of wanting 'regime change'. UGANDA Red Pepper, a national newspaper, publishes a list of 13 women it claims are lesbians and calls for people to name others in order to 'rid our motherland moth·er·land n. 1. One's native land. 2. The land of one's ancestors. 3. A country considered as the origin of something. of the deadly vice'. OCTOBER UGANDA Cigarette giants British American Tobacco British American Tobacco Plc (LSE: BATS, AMEX: BTI, KLSE: BAT) is the second largest listed tobacco company in the world. It is based in London, England and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index with a market capitalisation of over £29 billion as of June 2005. are at loggerheads log·ger·head n. 1. A loggerhead turtle. 2. An iron tool consisting of a long handle with a bulbous end, used when heated to melt tar or warm liquids. 3. with the Government over plans to use DDT DDT or 2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-1,1,1,-trichloroethane, chlorinated hydrocarbon compound used as an insecticide. First introduced during the 1940s, it killed insects that spread disease and feed on crops. to control malaria. BAT fears the spraying programme could threaten tobacco crops. NOVEMBER MAURITANIA Citizens vote in the North African country's first election since a bloodless blood·less adj. 1. Deficient in or lacking blood. 2. Pale and anemic in color: smiled with bloodless lips. 3. coup in 2005 ended 20 years of authoritarian rule. A coalition of opposition parties wins. SENEGAL Yayi Bayam Diouf, the mother of a drowned migrant son, says that for the past two months she has managed to prevent any boats leaving her home area loaded with migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands. SWAZILAND Local gender rights groups welcome the appointment of a woman, Constance Simelane, to the post of Deputy Prime Minister A Deputy Prime Minister or Vice Prime Minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting Prime Minister when the real Prime Minister is temporarily absent. in a country that only recently granted women equal rights under the constitution. KENYA The UN climate change summit in Nairobi hears that Africa will face the worst effects of climate change and nomads in northern Kenya are likely to be the first community wiped out. DECEMBER SOMALIA Fighting intensifies between Islamic militias, who control large parts of the country, and Ethiopian troops supporting the transitional government of Somalia. The Somali Union of Islamic Courts are forced out of their strongholds, including Mogadishu. ZIMBABWE Robert Mugabe extends his presidency until 2010. In the past decade of his rule, female life expectancy Life Expectancy 1. The age until which a person is expected to live. 2. The remaining number of years an individual is expected to live, based on IRS issued life expectancy tables. has dropped to 34 and infant mortality (hardware) infant mortality - It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical has doubled. SUDAN Darfur rebel positions are bombed by Sudanese Government troops a day after a ceasefire is announced. The war has spilled over into Chad. NIGERIA More than 200 die in an oil pipeline explosion in Lagos. Most are poor people scooping fuel from a pipeline punctured by thieves. |
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