Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) – Ougadougou! The mere sound of the name of Burkina Faso’s capital is enough to conjure up weird and wonderful images, whether you hear it in Nairobi, Lusaka or New York

This spectacularly named city, in the heart of Burkina Faso or Country of Upright Men, is many things. To begin with, it is hot as hell, 40 degrees Centigrade in February, but should you mention this to Burkinabes, they laugh at you � the real heat, they say, kicks in in March; this is cool.

The streets are dust-choked. During this season, the Harmattan wind crosses the desert, filling the skies with a perpetually grayish-blue haze, and you can stare directly at the milky white sun with the naked eye. On the streets, there is everyone from businessmen to Tuaregs complete with indigo blue robes. Hawkers fill the streets, pushing music, phone cards, and jewellery. Impossible not to marvel at are the scooters and bikes; there are thousands.

The most elegantly dressed women you could ever hope to see sit upon them in elaborately tailored West African outfits or simple and chic Western daywear, some with two or more children perched behind them, zipping across the city like beautiful earthbound bees. Occasionally, the bikes crash into each other. Strangely there are no helmets worn by anyone, but in this gentle and courteous city, which is safer than most in the world, this does not seem to worry anyone.

But more than all these things that the city is known for, Ouagadougou amply deserves its reputation as the undisputed film capital of Africa. The country is possessed, simply possessed, by the silver screen in the month of February every two years. Arguably the most important festival in the world for African film, it is here that professional networks, friendships and deals are made, here that the world comes to see what new to expect from the continent’s filmmakers and which established and emerging filmmakers have something interesting to say.

Fespaco, the Festival Pan-Africain du Cin�ma et de la T�l�vision de Ouagadougou, was created in 1969 and, though just five countries participated initially, it grew rapidly. At the heart of its expansion was a refreshing idealism that film could inform a new post-colonial identity for Burkina. Not only was it born of a stand-off shortly after Independence when French distributors attempted to raise the prices, and the government nationalised the industry in response; what makes it such an inspiration is that 40 years on, they have managed to keep the flame burning.

So here was I at the the 21st Fespaco 40 years, with my film Killer Necklace in competition. Fespaco is a conundrum. On the one hand, this poor country puts on an event of pomp and flair that far more prosperous nations don’t even dare compete with. But this is marred by the behind-the-scenes chaos that has been known to drive many a filmmaker to tears.

But all the indignation and anger over this simply melted away, and a wave of forgetfulness washed over me, as I sat in the nearly three-quarters full 4th August National Stadium. I was like a wife who had been hammered black and blue by her abusive husband and then turned to gaze at him with pure adulation moments later.

No other festival in the world holds its opening and closing ceremony in a football stadium with a 35,000 capacity. No other festival puts on a show the way Burkina Faso does. There are 10-foot tall marionettes who dance, sway and shake their booties. There is a haunting orchestra of wooden-xylophonists.
A troop of muscular men race onto the track pulling barrels on wheels resembling stallions towing race chariots, do a dazzling dance that is part ballet, part traditional and part jazz, banging on the drums like horse hooves on the ground. I look around, and most like me are so enthralled by the spectacle they can hardly speak.

And then, after an hour, the fireworks begin. They go on and on and on. By my estimation there are a good 20,000 to 23,000 Burkinabes in the stadium, and most of them get on their feet and dance as the closing song, which feels like a national anthem with a chorus about Burkina Faso, plays. It’s like nothing I have ever seen. With the exception of the last opening ceremony I attended here in this stadium in 2003, of course�

Ouagadougou is more than a film festival city. It lives for its festivals, with an arts and crafts festival, Siao (Salon International de l’Artisanat de Ouagadougou), on alternate years with Fespaco, a huge hip hop festival in the same year as Fespaco, a massive masks festival and another for puppets. It is a place that all African artists can go to have their belief in the future of art � and Africa � renewed.

Everywhere you go, you meet ordinary Burkinabes who love cinema, and should you be determined enough to tackle the Anglophone-Francophone communication barrier, you soon discover a brotherhood that you are part of, a love of African film unrivalled in the world.

Film, I believe, can be used, like Burkina used it four decades ago, to forge a new post-colonial identity.

In Ouagadougou, despite the dust, despite the chaos of the organisation of the festival, there is a sense that in merely naming themselves the Country of Upright Men in place of Upper Volta, they began to believe it and still do, much in the same way that a belief in Nairoberry has turned Nairobi, my home city, into just that � an increasingly violent, callous, unfriendly metropolis.

source.The Nation (Kenya), by Judy Kibinge

Lagos (Nigeria) – The total value of Internet fraud cases reported last year to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) rose 10.5 per cent year over year to $264.6 million.

Also in the Centre’s 2008 Internet Crime Report, the volume of cases reported to the agency’s web site rose 33.1 per cent to 275,284.

The agency’s newly released report notes that the United States (US) is the largest source of crime perpetrators for complaints with a reported location, with 66.1 per cent, followed by the United Kingdom (UK), 10.5 per cent; Nigeria, 7.5 per cent; Canada, 3.1 per cent and China, 1.6 per cent.

The most common source of fraud complaints was non-delivery of merchandise or non-delivery of payment, at 32.9 per cent of complaints, followed by auction fraud, 25.5 per cent; credit/debit card fraud, 9 per cent; confidence fraud such as Ponzi schemes, 7.9 per cent; computer fraud, 6.2 per cent; check fraud, 5.4 per cent; Nigerian letter fraud, 2.8 per cent; identify theft, 2.5 per cent; financial institution fraud, 2.2 per cent, and criminal threats, 1.9 per cent.

Ponzi schemes are usually based on investment scams that reward some investors with funds collected from new investors.

The Internet Crime Complaint Centre, commonly called IC3, notes that some of its data may be skewed by the tendency of some complainants to report fraud in overly broad terms. “In reviewing statistics contained in this report, it is recognised that consumers may characterise crime problems with an easier broad character, which may be misleading,” the report says.

For example, consumers who had been lured by an e-mail phishing scam to a fake eBay site may incorrectly report the subsequent theft of their credit card account information as an act of auction fraud, the report says.

“In such scenarios, many complainants have depicted schemes such as auction fraud even though that label may be incomplete or misleading,’ the report says.

To help counteract misleading complaints, the IC3 has launched a public web site, LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com, where consumers can get advice about how to recognise the different forms of online fraud.

The IC3 also notes that the some of the increase in complaints last year may also be related to increased efforts on the part e-commerce sites to make it easier for visitors to report suspected fraud.

“As part of these efforts, eBay and other companies have provided guidance and/or links for their customers to the IC3 web site,’ the report says. ìThis activity has no doubt also contributed to an increase in referrals regarding schemes depicted as auction fraud.”

Within the U.S. 75 perpetrators of perpetrators are male and come from either California, Florida, New York, Texas, the District of Columbia or the state of Washington. The top 10 locations by share of perpetrators are California, 15.8 per cent; New York, 9.5 per cent; Florida, 9.4 per cent; Texas, 6.4 per cent; Washington, D.C., 5.2 per cent; Washington state, 3.9 per cent; Illinois, 3.3 per cent; Georgia, 3.1 per cent; New Jersey, 2.8 per cent; and Arizona, 2.6 per cent.

The IC3, which refers complaints to law enforcement agencies, was organised in 2000 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Centre.

source.This Day (Nigeria)

Kampala (Uganda) � The future is finally here. The proverbial leaders of tomorrow, the youth, will dominate the 2011 elections, where 14.5 million voters are expected to take part.

The youth make up about 55% of the country’s total population. Statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics indicate that seven million youth will be eligible to vote by the end of next year, 1.4 million of them voting for the first time in 2011.

Population projections by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics indicate that from the six million youth who were eligible to vote in 2006, the figure has gone up to 7.4 million youth between the age of 18 and 30 years. This is 55% of the country’s total adult population.

The projections indicate that in 2011, when Uganda will be holding its next presidential and parliamentary polls, 14.5 million Ugandans will be eligible to vote. The annual population growth rate is projected to increase from an estimated 3.3% per annum in 2007 to 3.5% per annum in 2011. The total population in 2011 will be 33 million from 28 million in 2006, of which the female population will be 17 million and male 16 million.

The projections indicate that the population of Uganda is currently dominated by the youth, and will continue to be throughout the projection period due to the prevailing high fertility. It is projected that the size of the older persons – 60 years and above – in Uganda would also increase from 1.29 million in 2007 to 1.83 million in 2017.

A number of political analysts and youth representatives in Parliament argue that come 2011, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party will not have it easy with the changing voter demographics. The majority of the youth (18-35) have either grown up or were born during President Yoweri Museveni’s rule, so they will judge his government based on its record unlike the older voters who make comparisons with past governments.

“The challenge for the ruling party is to shift its campaign strategy from reminding people of what happened in the past. Guns and soldiers do not impress the new generation of voters.” said Youth MP, Joseph Kasozi Muyomba. The MPs contend that the youth have always influenced politics. They are energetic and many of them work as campaign agents or polling officials.

Makerere University History senior lecture Mwabustya Ndeebesa reasons that while older voters tend to be more compromising and accommodative, with a lot of comparisons to make, the youth demand for democracy in its full form.

“They will judge the NRM on its records of promises, delivery, or democracy, they will want full democracy,” said Ndeebesa.

UBOS report said that the size of the working population is expected to increase from 14 million in 2007 to 17 million in 2011. This is an indication of additional jobs that need to be created given the current stock of jobs. The projected working population will be 55%.

“Job creation, creation of wealth, making available loans and an enabling business environment, shall be our focus,” said Mukasa Mbidde, the Democratic Party deputy national youth chairman.

Political Science lecturer Muhammad Kulumba said that the youth are not dogmatic in certain issues and rarely follow ideologies, but look out for practical solutions to issues.

Ndebesa also points that in general terms, politics in Uganda is not issue-based, but centres on personalities and consolidation of power. Ndebesa points that the youth, who form the bulk of the population, would have rightly changed the scene in 2011, but given the current facts, most are not interested in public affairs.

“Public affairs form the basis for debate and shape elections, but the youth want to dance, have new phones and cars, rarely have they showed keen interest beyond their entertainment needs” he said.

Kulumba point that the youth in Uganda have never had much influence even in terms of policy decisions and that the youth haven’t got much of an arena in which to influence public policy leave alone political weight.

For those in Parliament, political analysts say that apart from being committed voters for the ruling party, they have not had an impact on the day-to-day running of politics in the country. In order to woo the youthful voters into their camps, politicians have to adjust their manifestos to accommodate their needs, which are different from those of the older generation.

The various political parties in the country have already embarked on a recruitment drive, opening youth offices across the country. They have also put provisions in their constitutions for a leadership position for the youth. However not much has been done in terms of wooing the youth to the party.

The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) have launched a campaign dubbed ‘Hakuna Kulala’ meaning no more sleep. Through this crusade, in which, they are traversing the country to mobilise and recruit the youth. UPC estimated that it has over 25,000 full fledged youth members and are targeting to double the number by 2011.

More optimistic about winning the youthful votes in 2011 is the Democratic Party, that has had a vibrant youth wing in last 10 years- The Uganda Young Democrat. DP is putting forward two youthful candidates for 2011; Gulu district chairman Norbert Mao and Sam Lubega, currently in the UK.

source.New Vision (Uganda)

Gaborone (Botswana) – Time flies. It is a full year since President Ian Khama took office as President of the Republic of Botswana on April Fools Day of 2008.

First year in the presidency calls for all forms of reviews and evaluation. It is only through such reviews that we can gauge whether our country is being driven in the right direction. President Khama came at a time when the world economy, although it took long to detect, had entered a difficult phase.

Big economies had entered a credit crunch, which before long had degenerated into a financial crisis. Khama’s answer to productivity and service delivery has been the setting up of various innovation hubs as the main cogs that would drive the economy. Before these hubs could be in full swing the world economy took a beating and the Botswana economy began limping.

Khama’s magic wand of innovation hubs will now have to be remodelled upon these harsh economic realities. The reality however is that we expect Khama to mobilise his team and come up with answers that can save Botswana from this harsh economic onslaught. Financial crisis or no crisis we expect Khama to conjure up a watertight economic strategy that could save this nation. If he fails history will not be kind to him merely because there was a crisis – bots khama
crises are there for foresighted leaders to wade through.

If there is any aspect of Khama’s leadership that calls for intrusive inspection it is his much trumped adherence to transparency and respect for democracy and democratic institutions.

It is ironic that on the eve of his first anniversary in office President Khama was expected to offer a statement to the DCEC on what he knows about alleged corruption in the Nchindo case in which state land was allegedly obtained corruptly. Press reports indicate that Khama has not given the statement to the DCEC. The same reports indicate that early on in the investigations Khama was made aware of the case.

We do not know why Khama failed to make a statement particularly given the seriousness of the case. We do not want to prejudge the case or make unwarranted comments on it but we are worried that the failure to produce the statement, could send a wrong signal.I n our view the President should have been forthcoming and readily availed himself to offer a statement to DCEC on what he knows on the commission or non commission of the alleged corrupt act. If Khama is not forthcoming why should any citizen be helpful when investigators and prosecutors come calling?

His call to ban cabinet ministers not to avail themselves for party, positions in the ruling party under the guise that he is broadening leadership does not wash. Khama should be worried by the emerging trend in his party where his wishes are eventually rammed down the party’s throat as some badly disguised resolutions. Asked how we view his first year in office we would say without flinching, ‘we see huge contours of a dictator with unbridled passion of having his way at all cost’.

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source.Mmegi (Botswana)