Ghana's oilfields and Rwanda to become Africa's high-tech hub, special reports on BBC today... and South Africa put Africa on the map for the race into space... where is Madagascar???

Ghana's oilfield: $4.6bn drilling project 3and1/5km below the surface. The BBC interviewed the GNPC's director , the institution protecting Ghana's interest. Question:how significant is the Jubilee field to Ghana's economic development? We are talking about billions of barrels of oil, specifically 1.5 billion barrels beneath the surface, the current production is at 130, 000b/d, in 2-3 years increasing to 240,000b/day, with an objective of 400.000b/d.
From the current production figures, Ghana will benefit from 55% of the oil . Some laws are already implemented... The president's desire : to make the oil a blessing not a curse as opposed to Nigeria.

Rwanda, to become a high-tech powerhouse: million of computers are arriving in Kigali. 5 years ago, Rwanda began building a fiber-optic cable across the country. The Government of Rwanda is investing large sums in high-tech fiber-optic cable linking up with East Africa. 15 years ago this country has seen genocides. A knowledge economy is to be implemented, advanced softwares used in the banking world are taught at universities with the belief to attract major call centers in the financial services industry. Computers are accessed in elementary schools. .. Primary schools are benefiting from 1 Laptop/child Project. Thousands children across the country are getting access to these computers.

Accra, Ghana: wide range of medical screening & treatments, bamboo & hot stone massage, hydrotherapy, bio-therapy, bubbling massage. The clientele of the holistic centre situated on the bank of river Delta is increasingly international. Hospitals across Accra offer a wide range of surgical services. Advanced facilities are available but not at reach of most Ghaneans. Western-trained doctors + tax breaks. Increasing the gap between the haves & have-nots. But Accra's goal is to combine health-care & tourism

South Africa, the wine industry: it managed to export 400 million litres of wine last year despite the crisis. The wine festival is raging now in South Africa.

South Africa put Africa on the map for the race into space: Special Reports on Africa 2 weeks ago : South Africa joins the space race. The "SumbandilaSat" micro-satellite, took off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome on 17 September 2009. A project funded by the South African government, it was developed by the Sunspace lab, a local space technology firm on the Western Cape that develops satellite technology, mostly for the telecoms and agriculture industries. At Sunspace, the satellite was developed by students at South Africa's Stellenbosch University.

Social Networking Unites African Activists

Online communities build democracy, demand accountability

 

By Laura Henderson
Staff Writer

Washington — “Africa’s future is up to Africans,” President Obama told an audience in Accra, Ghana, on July 11. A global audience, including many members from Africa, has responded to that statement on the Department of State’s America.gov eJournal Facebook site.

“You have the power to hold your leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people,” Obama said. In Africa as elsewhere, social networks are providing an opportunity for people to work together to do just that.

During Obama’s and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s separate trips to sub-Saharan Africa, and at the president’s meeting with African leaders at the United Nations in New York, the message about the importance of good governance, and the conviction that Africa’s future is up to Africans, were central. In August, Clinton made her way across sub-Saharan Africa, meeting with leaders of seven African nations, and telling audiences in Kenya, “The U.S. cannot solve Kenya’s problems. … We cannot dictate to you how to run this government; it is not up to us. … The answers to Kenya’s challenges lie with Kenyans.”

Internet users from across the globe followed the progress of Clinton’s tour through the America.gov Facebook page, taking part in a worldwide conversation on the most significant challenges facing Africa today. Throughout the month, fans of eJournal USA posted more than 700 comments, responding to questions about the roles of U.S. citizens and Africans in the continent’s development.

Of those participating in the conversation on the site, 57 percent said that the most important challenge Africans face is establishing good governance. Many participants urged the United States to pressure their governments to curb corruption and promote greater transparency. They also discussed the economic and social implications of more open governments, free and fair elections, and stable regimes.

The conversation was lively and pointed. In answer to the question “What is good governance?” participants responded:

• “Good governance depends on transparency, accountability, and equality in ways that are responsive to the needs of the people.”

• “Good governance to me is the act of living in peace of the people, having the heart of the people you are leading, thinking about what to do that other who are under you power may benefit from it.”

• “Good governance means the greatest good for the greatest number.”

• “Good governance begins with me.”

The full conversation, gathered in an online publication, can be viewed at http://bit.ly/AF_Comments (PDF, 2.4MB).

EXPANDING CIVIL SOCIETY INTO CYBERSPACE

Many credit Obama’s ability to galvanize grass-roots support via online tools as an important factor in his primary and general election victories in 2008. As president, he continues to use Internet forums and inspire a social movement in which citizens can discuss policy and government actions. Civil society has expanded into cyberspace, helping democratize political debate.

The use of new communication technologies and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and MySpace is gaining ground in Africa, and Africans have discovered that social networks are useful tools for promoting change.

One Facebook group, This African Can, connects Africans to other Africans to exchange ideas and encourage active participation in the development process. The group posts discussions on such topics as “informing your city mayor, state governor or local governor,” “developing strategic relationships” and “submitting business ideas,” and members share African blogs and Internet resources.

The creator of the group, Kim Hannah Moran, said, “I believe and rely on what Africans do best naturally, and that is networking. … This is a natural thing with Africans; cyberspace has just made it simpler, better and faster for them.”

A recent campaign by Nigerians, “Light Up Nigeria,” used social networks to reach the Nigerian diaspora to bring attention to inadequate electrical infrastructure and to demand change. Through a Facebook site, Twitter and blogs, they assembled a virtual global community to take action on an issue. Find out more about this effort on the America.gov blog entry “Can Nigeria Live Up To Its Promise?“

Social network platforms have learned that they can adapt to low-bandwidth environments. According to data collected by O’Reilly Media Inc., from January to April, the number of African Facebook users grew by 86.9 percent. In August, Facebook launched Facebook Lite, a version for users with less reliable Internet connections, offering the potential to open up many low-bandwidth areas to the opportunities that Facebook offers for hosting intra-African and cross-border dialogues. Facebook also recently introduced a Swahili version of its site.

The discussion on democracy, good governance and related issues continues on the Department of State Facebook page and on America.gov blogs, where all ideas are welcome.

Article translated in:

 Français

 عربي

More Coverage

• New Technologies Strengthening Africa’s Economy
• Mobile Phones Change Ways Africans Live and Do Business

Tell us what you think about this article.

');

Tell us what you think about this article.

Mobile Upload -
Every sunday morning near Ankatso Bus station (Sans Dizina - 119) you can watch this ... Lemon Football Show. A famous street sport in Antananarivo, mostly near Car Parkings.
While you watching those amaizing guys, you can also taste the "Mokary aux Coco" (kind of local sweet blinis with coconut taste) for 50 ariary each and drink some ... Limonade :

Warnning: Don't do this at home in a Highway

This song is pretty much one of my favorite Môta song ... because it is dedicated to Robert Nesta Marley, alias Bob Marley ... and it's a Jazz song from Madagascar :)
More at : http://www.myspace.com/motamd
and http://www.madajazzcar.mg/

Gabon’s bloggers struggle to take hold

By Andriankoto Harinjaka Ratozamanana

It’s been a couple of weeks since I left Gabon, and a month since elections to pick a successor to Omar Bongo, who ruled Africa’s fourth-largest oil producer for 41 years. There are unresolved questions about the ballot count and the number of people killed in post-election violence. 

Riot police confront journalists in Libreville during an August opposition protest. (Andriankoto Ratozamanana)

Until this summer, I did not know much about Gabon, except for a random tidbit—that the nation of 1.4 million had a GDP matching Portugal. Things changed after July 3 when Lova Rakotomalala and I, both bloggers from Madagascar, received an e-mail from Alice Backer, a former French editor of Global Voices Lingua, about covering Gabon’s presidential elections scheduled for August 30.

 

I accepted because I need fresh air. After all, as a citizen blogger of Global Voices teny Malagasy, I had already experienced covering the bitter political crisis tearing apart my Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. With crisis reporting platform Foko-ushahidi, which allowed ordinary citizens to send testimonies via SMS, real-time reporting on Twitter, and local Web sites such as Topmada, Lova, myself and other citizen journalists helped cover all sides of the unfolding crisis. Citizen media reports were even quoted by international media as the Malagasy media was divided into partisan political positions.

Gabon, on the other hand, is not known as a “wired” country in tech speak. Less than 6 percent of the population has access to the Internet, according to InternetWorldStats. While intense public outcry opposed our former president’s closure of rival’s TV station and eventually led to his toppling from power, government censorship of media appeared to be the accepted norm in Gabon for many years, according to press freedom organizations.

Nevertheless, as I left the winter-season cool temperatures of Madagascar for the hot and humid air of Gabon’s seaside capital of Libreville, just above the Equator, I knew the elections would be historic, if not for the unprecedented role of new media technologies.

Twenty-three candidates were contesting the elections, many with appealing campaign Web sites such as Ali9, Mamboundou, AndreMbaObame or Moubamba. Candidates were also aggressively campaigning on social networking sites. One of the candidates for instance, Franco-Gabonese journalist Bruno Ben Moumbamba, was among the most active on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. Ali Ben Bongo, the ruling party candidate, even distinguished his campaign by sending on two separate occasions a personal SMS message to the customers of Gabon’s three main mobile carriers, Zain, Libertis, and Moov.

In the many bars (commonly called “makis”) of downtown Libreville’s Louis district, people discussed everything around the local beer “Regab” and braised fish dishes. With Bongo’s monopoly of state media, most local radio stations oriented toward religious and entertainment programming, and a handful of partisan TV stations controlled by the elite in politics, business, and the clergy, most Gabonese turned to international media for objective news. Unfortunately, the print and broadcast media’s coverage of the elections was limited by censorship, intimidation, and violence against reporters.

When I arrived in Libreville, I quickly detected that people were reluctant to freely express their views in public to someone they do not know. Even the barber I went to for a haircut politely declined to share his views on the elections, when I put the question to him as the TV in his salon was blaring Africa 24’s coverage of the polls. Bizarre.

At first, many young people I met did not seem very interested in the Internet. In fact, the most educated told me they used the Web exclusively to check e-mail and visit chat or dating sites. Others appeared motivated by the idea of blogging, but wanted to be paid to do it. Nevertheless, with help, a few people took their first steps in using the Web as social media, and a handful of new citizen voices slowly emerged. Journalist and activist Gaston Asséko shared his experience on voting day on YouTube. Roger Edima Mavoungou Wilson, a communications professional, started a blog and is actively tweeting. Régis Ngoma, a local comedian, even started a YouTube channel with videos satirizing the elections.

Regardless, there were many difficulties in my reporting. I remember being unable to text after the mobile companies suspended SMS service during the elections. As a result, a crisis reporting platform deployed by a Gabonese diaspora movement based in France called The Guardian Angels of Gabon on Ushahidi never took off. Nevertheless, social media facilitated the flow of information between the Gabonese diaspora and those living home. “#Gabon” even jumped to the top tag on francophone Twitter following the announcement of elections results, according to Twirus.

Doubts persist over the results of the presidential elections and with a recount of the votes in progress, journalists are still under pressure. Just last weekend, local caricaturist and blogger Patrick Essono was detained for drawing a cartoon of two policemen. A day before, the editor of state daily L’Union, Albert Yangari, was detained for questioning after publishing interviews with residents of Port-Gentil that suggested more people had been killed in post-election violence than reported by the government. This week, there were reports that the house of Jonas Moulenda, the journalist who carried out the interviews, was searched by security agents, and that he has received death threats.

Andriankoto Harinjaka Ratozamanana, is co-founder of the Foko Blog Club, which trains Malagasy citizens in citizen journalism. He blogs on Posterous. 

Le dessinateur de presse gabonais et auteur de bandes dessinées, Patrick Essono, dit "Pahé", a été arrêté vendredi soir et libéré dimanche dans la matinée après avoir caricaturé deux gendarmes dans un bar de Libreville, a appris l'AFP dimanche auprès de Pahé.

 

Le dessin de Pahé, publié sur son blog (http://dipoula.paquet.li/), met en scène un gendarme en civil et un autre en tenue camouflée, avec la mention" Aux 2 buveurs de Guinness. Bonne soif".

"Je voulais leur offrir le dessin (...), mais finalement cela ne leur a pas plu. Et les choses ont pris une tournure bizarre. Ils voulaient m'arrêter", a affirme Pahé. Après des échanges verbaux, les gendarmes ont appelé des collègues en renfort, menotté le dessinateur et l'ont emmené de force, selon Pahé, qui affirme aussi avoir été giflé.

Il a passé la nuit de vendredi à samedi à la gendarmerie de Gros Bouquet à Libreville et celle de samedi à dimanche à celle de Cap-Esterias (nord-ouest de Libreville), où est affecté un des gendarmes "croqués".

Pahé affirme avoir été "bien traité" après son interpellation, mais souligne qu'on ne lui a ni demandé "sa version des faits", ni "pris sa déposition".