Year: 2014

Kenya to use drones to fight poachers

Kenya plans to deploy surveillance drones to help fight elephant and rhino poachers and has introduced stiffer penalties for offenders, officials said on Tuesday.

Poaching has risen in recent years across sub-Saharan Africa where well-armed criminal gangs have killed elephants for tusks and rhinos for horns that are often shipped to Asia for use in ornaments and medicines.

“We will start piloting the use of drones in the Tsavo National Park ecosystem, one of the largest national parks in the world,” said Patrick Omondi, deputy director for wildlife conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Omondi said the surveillance aircraft would be imported, but did not give details of how many or at what cost.

Tsavo National Park in the southeast is Kenya’s largest, with sweeping plains and occasional water holes dotted with wildlife, including elephants.

“We attribute the problem of poaching in Kenya and other African states to growing demand and high prices offered for rhino horn and elephant ivory in the Far East countries,” William Kiprono, Kenya Wildlife Service’s acting director general told a news conference in Nairobi.

Kiprono said Kenya had lost 18 rhinos and 51 elephants to poachers so far this year. Last year, 59 rhinos and 302 elephants were killed, compared with 30 rhinos and 384 elephants in 2012.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials display recovered elephants tusks and illegally held firearms taken from poachers. (Pic: Reuters)
Kenya Wildlife Service officials display recovered elephants tusks and illegally held firearms taken from poachers. (Pic: Reuters)

Kenyan officers seized 13.5 tonnes of ivory at the port city of Mombasa last year, mostly originating from other countries in the region. At least 249 suspects have so far been arrested this year and prosecuted for various wildlife offences.

In January, a Kenyan court convicted a Chinese man of smuggling ivory and ordered him to pay a 20-million-shillings ($233 000) fine or serve seven years in jail in the first sentence handed out since Kenya introduced a new anti-poaching law.

Conservationists hope the new law, which allows for longer jail terms and bigger fines, will deter criminal networks.

Kenya has emerged as a major transit route for ivory destined for Asian markets from eastern and central Africa.

The government says poaching is harming tourism, a major foreign exchange earner.

Text messages aim to save lives in flood-prone African areas

Text messaging may be dying out as a means of communication in many parts of the advanced world, but it may yet prove to be a vital life-saver in flood-prone African villages.

An early-warning system that aims to capitalise on the explosive growth of mobile phone penetration in Africa could soon be in place to broadcast alerts to all users at risk from natural disasters such as flooding or hurricanes.

Millions of people in Africa have only limited access to television, radio or internet but mobile phone ownership has grown exponentially, even in poor remote villages at risk from floods.

Now Spain’s Nvia, a mobile phone company, has developed the Gooard project, a technology based on geo-targeted alerts that sends text messages to a specific geographical area.

A network of satellites and weather stations will detect the threat and send a text to villagers within 15 minutes, hopefully allowing time for evacuation.

Flooded houses on March 12 2014 in Laphalale, South Africa. Hundreds of residents were left stranded after the Mogol River overspilled due to heavy rains. (Pic: Gallo
Flooded houses on March 12 2014 in Laphalale, South Africa. Hundreds of residents were left stranded after the Mogol River overspilled due to heavy rains. (Pic: Gallo)

“The technology is able to identify all the active cellphones in a certain area, such as a shopping mall, a village, or a park, and send messages straight to the terminal without any previous subscription,” Alberto Perez, Nvia’s Africa manager, told AFP.

“With the same system, we can also send vital information to people about natural disasters that can save their lives and minimise damages”.

The technology is already in use in other parts of the world for promotional purposes — bombarding consumers in a specific shopping mall with a special offer for example.

Everyone has a mobile
And even in remote Africa, mobile phone communications can reach the parts other systems can’t reach.

The International Communications Union (ITU) estimates that mobile phone penetration has risen to around 63% on the continent – and much higher in South Africa.

“In Africa, especially in poor settlements, the population has limited access to internet, radio or television, but everybody has a mobile phone. That’s why the platform can be so useful in the continent,” said Perez.

After years of research, the scheme is already fully operational in Europe and is expected to be rolled out in Kenya by the end of the year.

It is expected to work in partnership with local mobile networks such as Airtel, Vodafone, Orange, MTN and Cell-C.

Speaking to AFP from his Johannesburg office, Perez pledged that the service would be free for the population but declined to comment on how much it could cost for governments or how it would be sponsored.

“It is an expensive service, but governments know that it can be vital for its population, and it can also save a lot of money in emergency relief,” he said.

The South Africa’s environmental affairs department and the national secret services agency have shown interest in the project, and Nvia is preparing to formally showcase it to government, added Perez.

Heavy rains killed 32 people in South Africa in the first two weeks of March, in record downpours that weather experts say were the worst in more than a decade.

Natural disasters in Africa accounted for just less than a third of worldwide victims, with around 38-million people affected in 2012, according to the Catholic University of Louvain’s last Annual Disaster Statistical Review.

Natural disasters in Africa caused some $803-million in damage, the Belgian university estimated.

Kenya’s Parliament passes polygamy Bill

(Pic: AFP)
(Pic: AFP)

Kenya’s Parliament has passed a Bill allowing men to marry as many women as they want, prompting a furious backlash from female lawmakers who stormed out, reports said on Friday.

The Bill, which amended existing marriage legislation, was passed late last Thursday to formalise customary law about marrying more than one person.

The proposed Bill had initially given a wife the right to veto the husband’s choice, but male members of Parliament overcame party divisions to push through a text that dropped this clause.

“When you marry an African woman, she must know the second one is on the way, and a third wife… this is Africa,” MP Junet Mohammed told the house, according to Nairobi’s Capital FM.

As in many parts of Africa, polygamy is common among traditional communities in Kenya, as well as among the country’s Muslim community, which accounts for up to a fifth of the population.

“Any time a man comes home with a woman, that would be assumed to be a second or third wife,” said Samuel Chepkong’a, chair of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, the Daily Nation newspaper reported.

“Under customary law, women or wives you have married do not need to be told when you’re coming home with a second or third wife. Any lady you bring home is your wife,” he added.

Female MPs stormed out of the late-night session in fury after a heated debate.

“We know that men are afraid of women’s tongues more than anything else,” female legislator Soipan Tuya told fellow MPs, according to Capital FM.

“But at the end of the day, if you are the man of the house, and you choose to bring on another party – and they may be two or three – I think it behoves you to be man enough to agree that your wife and family should know,” she added.

A clause in which a partner who had promised marriage but then backed out of the wedding could face financial damages was also dropped, as male MPs argued it could have been used to extort cash.

They also argued that marriage should be based on love, and not have a financial cost placed upon it.

Parliamentary majority leader Aden Duale, a Muslim, said that men marrying more than one woman was part of the Islamic faith, but also highlighted Biblical stories to justify Christians not asking their wife before taking another.

“I want my Christian brothers to read the Old Testament – King David and King Solomon never consulted anybody to marry a second wife,” Duale told the house.

Women are not allowed to marry more than one man in Kenya.

The Bill must now pass before the president to be signed before becoming law.

Award-winning Nigerian poet seeks to reclaim the Sahara

Headlines portray the Sahara as a barren desert that claims the lives of many African migrants but Nigerian poet Tade Ipadeola had a different story to tell – and it was worth $100 000.

Ipadeola’s “The Sahara Testaments” won the most lucrative writing award in Africa, the Nigeria Prize for Literature, for his account of the history and culture of the world’s largest desert.

Tade Ipadeola signs books after he was awarded with the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature during a ceremony in Lagos on March 6 2014. (Pic: AFP)
Tade Ipadeola signs books after he was awarded with the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature during a ceremony in Lagos on March 6 2014. (Pic: AFP)

He said the Sahara’s true richness has been distorted by horrific tragedies involving migrants who have been found dead in north Africa after a failed attempt to start a new life in Europe.

In October, the bodies of 87 people, most of them children and some eaten by jackals, were found in Niger after dying of thirst in scorching temperatures while travelling north towards Algeria.

That tragedy came just weeks after a shipwreck disaster off the Italian island of Lampedusa, which saw 366 Africans perish when their boat caught fire and capsized.

Before boarding the boat, many of the migrants had to cross parts of the Sahara, which measures some 3 000 miles (4 800 kilometres) east to west and 800 to 1 200 miles north to south.

But Ipadeola told AFP: “I wanted to show that it is not just a barren wasteland.

“The Sahara was the prime location for some of the greatest literature in the world,” said the 43-year-old poet, referencing several writers from the region, including St Augustine, the 4th century philosopher born in modern-day Algeria.

“The Sahara Testaments” touches on the desert’s history, the impact of climate change, personal stories as well as some political criticism and satire.

Ipadeola targets the energy companies which he says have permanently disrupted life for the region’s indigenous people.

Despite his harsh criticism of the oil and gas sector, he applauded the sponsor of the Nigeria prize, Nigeria Liquified and Natural Gas, for giving him the honour above the 200 other applicants.

Quitting his day job
Ipadeola, who trained as a lawyer, said he began work on “The Sahara Testaments” eight years ago.

He tried to write in the afternoons and evenings after spending the days practising law in the southwestern Nigerian city of Ibadan.

Having realised that he would never finish the collection as long as he was working in law, he said he cashed in his savings and set out to explore the desert.

He went from Mauritania to Egypt, staying with friends and acquaintances, meeting everyone he could, from Tuaregs in northern Mali to market traders in Egypt.

His research was hampered by the Arab Spring revolts which swept across the region from Tunisia in December 2010, making some places too dangerous to visit.

“I couldn’t touch Libya at all,” Ipadeola said, referring to the 2011-2012 civil war that toppled the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Even though his work focused on the rich life of the Sahara, he nonetheless hoped that “The Sahara Testaments” would raise awareness about the unsustainable flow of Africans into Europe.

“Europe cannot contain the influx,” he said. “Europeans are becoming increasingly xenophobic. It is a really explosive mix.

“The failure of African leadership” was ultimately to blame for the heartbreaking accounts of migrants perishing, he argued, chastising politicians who have both failed to provide opportunities for their people and failed to stop them from embarking on borderline suicidal journeys.

“The bulk of those who leave,” he said, “are oblivious to the dangers of trying to cross that amount of distance in one of the hottest places on earth.”

Cairo University chief blames woman’s dress for sexual harassment

The head of Egypt’s leading state university has provoked furious condemnation for claiming that an on-campus sexual harassment case was the fault of its female victim, and saying that she may be punished.

The Cairo University student was surrounded on Monday by a group of male students who sexually harassed her as she walked across a busy campus. The woman was later escorted from the university by campus security, and the incident was filmed by bystanders – many of whom appear unconcerned, or eager to join in – and uploaded to social media.

One male student can be heard saying: “Guys, I’m going to upload it on Facebook – whoever wants to watch this video, come to my page.”

The university’s president, Dr Nasser Gaber, added to public outcry when he told a television talkshow the incident had resulted in part from the woman wearing colourful clothes, instead of a more conservative cloak, or “abaya”‘. He also said that she may face punishment for the incident along with her harassers, and possibly expulsion.

Gaber told OnTV, a private Egyptian network: “The girl took off her abaya inside the university and appeared with those clothes – which was a reason for what happened … we don’t require a uniform here but clothes should be within the tradition of our society.”

He added: “The girl’s mistake doesn’t justify what happened to her at the hands of those students. We referred the whole incident to an investigation and everything is recorded by the university cameras. We will find out who is guilty – whether the girl or the [other] students – and we are going to punish them with the proper punishment, which might be expulsion from the university.”

‘Insanely appalling’
Women’s rights activists reacted furiously to Gaber’s remarks. Soraya Bahgat, the founder of Tahrir Bodyguards, a group that rescues women from mob sexual assaults during protests, said: “I find it insanely appalling that the head of arguably the most important university in Egypt said that her clothes were to blame. It was very alarming – but part of me is glad that this has come out, because it highlights one of the things that is wrong with this society, which is to blame the victim [of sexual harassment] for what happened.”

Following criticism of his remarks, Gaber said he had been misunderstood. “It is clear that a false perception has been generated among some people that I placed the responsibility for what happened on the student,” he told the website of the official state newspaper. “I assure you that this is not true and I apologise for the misunderstanding.

An Egyptian protester holds up a knife during a demonstration to demand an end to sexual violence against women on February 6 2013 in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. (Pic: AFP)
An Egyptian protester holds up a knife during a demonstration to demand an end to sexual violence against women on February 6 2013 in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. (Pic: AFP)

Although Gaber said that the incident was a one-off, sexual harassment is endemic throughout Egyptian society. In the past 18 months many more people have begun to mobilise against it, but sexual harassment still remains an accepted part of Egyptian life. According to a UN survey, 99.3% of Egyptian women reported being sexually harassed, with 91% saying they felt insecure in the street as a result.

Women are frequently blamed for harassment, while the crime is not properly defined under Egyptian law, which makes prosecuting perpetrators difficult. When women try to file complaints under more general harassment and assault laws, their cases are not taken seriously by police, and only there have only been a handful of convictions.