Category: afrobloggers

GVO: African bloggers react to ICC charges against Sudanese President al-Bashir

My next piece, co-written with John Liebhardt, is up at Global Voices Online:

Bloggers from around the world are reacting to the International Criminal Court’s recent decision to charge Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with multiple counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many of those bloggers are criticizing the indictments, claiming they are difficult to enforce and that they will bring more unrest to an already unstable nation.

Read more»

Featured in this round-up are Too Huge World, Sudanese Thinker, Sudan Watch, Emmanuel Abalo, Codrin Arsene, Nairobi Notebook, The Angry African, Victor Ngeny, Chris Blattman, Ugandabeat, Gay Uganda, Making Sense of Darfur, Daniel Sturgis and Ali Alarabi.

jackfruit of the week: march 22


A hanging Jackfruit
from TravelBlog

Lots of fun things to talk about, post-Gulu/Lira/Apac. Links while I’m getting all of my stories ready:

jackfruit of the week: march 15


A heavily fruiting jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) on the grounds of the old Hobson estate, Coconut Grove. Miami, Eila.
from Jackfruit (Purdue University)

I’m heading upcountry this weekend to check out a girls’ football tournament in Gulu. To keep you entertained while I’m gone:


linkathon

Lots of goodies this week. Commenting on them all would take more time than I have, but I want to put them out there for discussion:

  • Country Boi makes an excellent point in his comment on my post about blogging and anonymity. He’s right — blogging is self-publication, which means that you’re never entirely anonymous. Even if you blog under an assumed name and keep personal details off your site, you’re still putting your opinions in the public sphere. This gives anyone license to debate and reference these opinions and anything else you post using your pseudonym, which is exactly what Dennis did in his article — he didn’t connect anyone’s pseudonym with their real name if that name isn’t published in connection with the blog.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t take issue with some other things in the article, of which I’m only going to mention a few: The majority of bloggers do not use pseudonyms (in fact, only 28.7% do, while 92% reveal detailed personal information). Not all comment threads degenerate into snide blame-throwing. Above all: my name is not, nor has it ever been, Jack Fruity.

  • LeftVegDrunk has an brilliant post about obstacles to peace in Uganda. Go. Read. Comment.

  • There’s an all-female peacekeeping unit in Liberia (via Congogirl)

  • Uganda and Southern Sudan are signing a bilateral trade agreement. Way to through more fuel on the fire of the LRA’s complaints.

  • The Daily Monitor’s reporting that the UK planned to assassinate Amin at the 1977 CHOGM. Isn’t that old news?

Wimax? Why not?

Andy Mack and Jeremy Goldberg posted an article on Andy’s Global View about the role of emerging technology in post-conflict northern Uganda (from which I stole the title of this post):

Happily, more and more each day it seems that technology is available to help previously left behind regions get on the grid quickly — new products and services that can be deployed in a fraction of the time it would take to rebuild traditional infrastructure. In recent years a whole host of technologies have been developed that could help war-recovering Africa “skip steps” in re-development, in much the same way that the cellphone revolution has brought personal communications to Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and yes, southern Uganda.

(…)

Three years from now (or even less) I could be in a transformed Gulu, where international and local investors work together seamlessly to get work done. I could be managing my investment from a distance, speaking with my staff from a Skype phone, or perhaps working with a young entrepreneur who learned how to surf the Internet on a $100 laptop.

Mack and Goldberg mention, among other things, Wimax, which can increase wireless internet access in areas without cable or telephone networks. Infocom started installing a Wimax network in Kampala last June, and Celtel has plans to expand Wimax throughout East Africa, but no mention was made of moving this to northern Uganda. Here’s to hoping….