Africa

Twenty aid agencies issued an open letter on 21 September urging the international community to “put people’s lives before politics if [we are] to stand any chance of aiding people suffering from the famine in Somalia”.

Considered one of the biggest slums in the world, Kibera is Nairobi’s–and East Africa’s–largest urban settlement. Over one million people struggle daily to meet basic needs such as access to water, nutrition and sanitation. In this community lacking education and opportunities, women and girls are most affected by poverty.

There is so much spin surrounding the Transitional National Council victory in Libya that it is difficult to interpret the outcome, and perhaps premature to do so at this point considering that the fighting continues and the African Union has withheld diplomatic recognition on principled grounds.

Its was expected; nevertheless, the announcement that agricultural development will be among the top cooperation priorities between Israel and South Sudan has raised fresh, deep fears in Cairo and Khartoum that intensive farming techniques and dams construction will end up depriving Sudan and Egypt from a vital portion of their Nile water sharing already scarce quotas.

Somalia is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, the UN alerted over a year and a half ago. Now the UN calls on the world to save some 390,000 starving children in famine-ravaged regions. However, those who could really help—the rich, industrialised and oil exporting countries, apparently are now too busy with the ‘promising’ Libyan business.

To begin with, Somalia is situated in the so-called Horn of Africa, bordering with Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Indian Ocean. Its territory covers over 637,000 kilometres, hosting around 10 million inhabitants who speak Somali, Arabic, Italian and English, and are mostly Muslim Sunnis.

“It looks like the more telling news on Libya has migrated to the business pages. With jubilant reporting of Gaddafi’s imminent downfall seizing headlines, it’s the financial pages that have the clinical analysis.”

The reign of Libyan Qaddafi seems to be coming to an end after anti-government fighters backed by NATO forces took control of Tripoli.

Hatred of the dictatorship and a thirst for democracy and freedom drove the uprising against Qaddafi when it first arose in February, clearly inspired by the revolutions against tyrants in Tunisia to Libya’s west, and Egypt to its east.

Propelled by oil, ‘reconstruction’ and weapons private corporations, while besieged by a deep financial crisis, European and U.S. governments have already launched a frantic race to take over Libya even before the definite fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Confronted with widespread public discontent, Tunisian Prime Minister Beji Caid el Sebsi on Thursday defended his government’s record and said it was doing “the impossible” to bring about elections.