Violent protests against President Blaise Compaore broke out on October 30th. The protests led to the rapid collapse of the government as well as to the presidents resignation just one day later. According to the aritcle, the protest begun after the President proposed before the assembly a constitutional amendment eliminating presidential term limits. He was attempting to extend his 27-year rule by making himself eligible to run for a fifth term in 2015. Responding to the sudden outbreak of protests against the President, General Honore Traore who is the chief of staff of Burkina Faso’s armed forces, dissolved the government and the parliament so that he could usher a period of military rule. The opposing politician, Zephirin Diabre encouraged protestors to apply pressure and demand a democratic process. While announcing his resignation, Compaore expressed his support for democratic elections. General Traore assumed the position as head of state and also declared that he would be in charge of overseeing the transition of power to the election process.
New Theory about the “US hyping up Ebola”
Susanne Posel, the chief editor of Occupy Corporatism told press TV that the US has an alternative reason for talking so much about the Ebola epidemic. She says, ” The Ebola ‘hype is to distract everyone from what is actually happening'”.The United States is sending about 4,000-strong US force to Liberia, a region that is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, and will be joined by hundreds more British troops in a mission aimed at building medical centers and training healthcare workers. Posel expresses concerns about this, stating that they were using the Ebola outbreak as an excuse and a cover to go to the region, which recently discovered natural gas and oil, in order to obtain the natural resources, ” ‘There is a country that has natural resources that IMF, World Bank, the United States and the UK want control over,’ Posel said, referring to Liberia”. This theory seems possible because of the past exploitation of Africa’s natural resources, and it is an interesting topic that should be further investigated.
African Leaders Push to Tackle Climate Change Impacts
Many African countries are feeling the consequences of climate change. The article discusses how the climate negotiators from African Union countries are dealing with how they may adapt to climate change that is occurring in their countries. THe issue is whether to focus on adaptation or to focus on mitigation. According to the World Resources Institute, The African continent only contributes 3% to the global greenhouse gas emissions. However it will be a region that will be most severely affected by climate change. The African climate change negotiators are particularly concerned with the fate of Africa’s forests, which account for 17% of the world total and helps absorb a great amount of global carbon dioxide emissions from polluting countries. According to the World Resource Institute more must be done to protect the forests by securing land rights for the communities that depend on the forest, and help manage them. Muyangwa at the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Africa Program says that in order to help the climate impact on Africa, steps need to be taken to develop the necessary International Partnerships and garner the necessary resources to get the action that is required to better the situation. The whole issue of climate change is not restricted to Africa, in order to solve it, it will take the efforts of many other regions.
Kruger National Park tries to sell Rhinos to safety
In attempts to save the Rhinos from poachers The Kruger National Park is inviting bids. This is all being done under a plan to move 500 Rhinos to safety and to combat a recent wave of poaching for their horns. The government is turning to private ranchers because the national park has become a main poaching ground for Rhinos. In 2013 more than 1,000 Rhinos were poached for their horn. The demand for Rhino Horn has risen because it is used as an ingredient in traditional medicine in China and Vietnam. This year 821 Rhinos have been killed illegally and out of those 531 of them were killed in the Kruger National Park by trespassing poachers. In order to stop those poachers, the Rhinos need to be placed in a safe environment.
Art Exhibition remembering the Transatlantic slave trade
After reading and learning more about the Atlantic slave trade, I felt compelled to blog about it. I was very much impacted by the fact I read in the textbook and was originally going to dedicate a blog post to the chapter, however upon doing some research on my own I came across the article Powerful Exhibition on Transatlantic Slave Trade about an art exhibition I felt that this deserved to be written about. now a days, when discussing the Atlantic Slave Trade many look back and only see numbers and facts. Sculptor Stephen Hayes was inspired by the famous Brookes slave ship plan, which was first published in 1788 and portrayed slaves arranged at the bottom of the boat. He realized that he, like probably many other, did not know much about the transportation of the slaves and the conditions on the boat. He wanted to create something that reminded everyone about what those people went through, and so he created the exhibition titled “Cash Crop”. In his exhibition he sculpted 15 figures chained and shackled to ships. He sculpted 15 life-size figures to represent the 15 million human beings kidnapped and transported by sea during the transAtlantic slave trade and to allow the audience to momentarily put themselves in their position.
Gay Friendly Mosque opens in South Africa
Mr. Hargey, a professor at the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in the Uk opened the doors to a mosque that was meant to help counter growing Islamic radicalism. In the article Cape Town pro-gay mosque opens in South Africa , Mr. Hargey is quoted saying, “We are opening the mosque for open-minded people, not closed-minded people” This mosque is a look into the future of acceptance and equality amongst the muslim culture. The mosque will accept openly gay muslims, who are usually treated as outsiders. The mosque is also letting women lead prayers, which is opening the door for gender equality as well. I believe that the opening of this mosque will introduce a sort of revolution that will pressure religions to treat all of their members with the equality and respect they deserve. There have been some muslim groups openly opposed to the mosque, claiming that Hargey is going against Muslim teachings. They have turned to social media and publicly criticized the Hargey and the mosque. However Hargey continues to fight for what is right and in his sermons he puts down the increasing hatred in the world between Muslims and Chrisitans. He aims to revive “The original mosque of the Prophet Muhammad, where there were no barriers.”
Video: Issues facing Indigenous People in Africa
There is a fairly current issue that is not a main topic of discussion in many News stations in the United States. In the video Issues Facing Indigenous Peoples In Africa Get Spotlight published by South-South News, we get a look into some of the human rights issues that Native Africans are fighting for. The video shows a forum held in the United Nations headquarters where they outlined the issues the people want to be dealt with. The forum lasted two weeks and dealt with issues on culture, education, underscoring the human rights perspective with a focus on youth, boosting partnerships with international financial institutions. I decided this video was significant because the indigenous people are facing human rights issues that hinder their culture and way of life, and I believe this issue should be better known.
Chapter 1 of Short “The Idea of Africa”
When thinking of Africa there are many assumptions and stereo types that have been embedded through news, stories, comics, and television in general. Those preconceived and false notions that Africa is a country, that all Africans are white and that all the people there are struck by disease and poverty have blinded us to learning and seeing the realities. The reality is that African is a continent filled with countries, and each has its own history and contribution to the advancement of the world. According to this book, African history is a relatively new topic because their history was considered to non existent or irrelevant in the eyes of those who looked at Africa as a primitive continent. However we see in this chapter that this is not the case, with one of the most important discoveries ever made that is the discovery of Jenne-Jeno. With this amazing discovery alone we can see how rich the culture and the history in Africa truly is.
African Studies 