Nelson Mandela ‘leaving hospital’ in South Africa

 South African former President Nelson Mandela is being discharged from a hospital where he spent two nights, a senior police source said. Mr Mandela, 92, is said to be in good health. He had flown from Cape Town to Johannesburg on Wednesday for what the government described as “specialised” tests. The move prompted renewed speculation about the former leader’s frail health. Friends and family visited him amid tight security on Thursday. The senior police officer said a convoy of vehicles was at the rear entrance of Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, preparing to take Mr Mandela to his home in the suburb of Houghton.

Download Youtube Video: Amanpour talks to Goodluck Jonathan

Download Youtube Video: Amanpour talks to Goodluck Jonathan.

NIGER IS THE WORST PLACE TO LIVE!

Norway is the best place in the world to live while Niger is the least desirable, according to an annual report by the United Nations.

The 182 countries were ranked according to the quality of life their citizens experienced.

Criteria examined included life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and country economies.

However the UN human development index used data collected in 2007 – before the global economic crisis.

The UN Development Programme said the index highlighted the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.

Norway’s consistently high rating for desirable living standards, are, in large part, due to the discovery of offshore oil and gas deposits in the late 1960s.

Niger, however, is a drought-prone country which has sometimes struggled to feed its people.

Other countries to reach the top spots were Australia and Iceland.

However, living standards in Iceland have changed since the data was collected, as it was one of the countries worst hit by the credit crunch.

The 2008 crisis exposed the Icelandic economy’s dependence on the banking sector, leaving it particularly vulnerable to collapse. The country’s three major banks were nationalised and Iceland had to seek international support in order to stay afloat.

Best places to live

Norway

Australia

Iceland

Afghanistan was regarded the second least desirable place to live, just below Sierra Leone in third from bottom place.

The index shows that life expectancy in Niger was 50 years – approximately 30 years shorter than for those living in Norway.

For every dollar earned per person in Niger, $85 was earned in Norway.

However, the Democratic Republic of Congo has the poorest people, where the average income per person was $298 per year.

Worst places to live

Niger

Afghanistan

Sierra Leone

China has become one of the most improved because of rising income levels and life expectancy rates.

The United States is rated as the 13th most desirable place to live, while the UK takes the 21st spot.

The index also showed that half the people in the poorest 24 nations were believed to be illiterate.

The tiny principality of Liechtenstein has the highest GDP per capita at $85,383. Its population is about 35,000.

The report’s author, Jeni Klugman, said: “Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV and Aids epidemic.

“And this was even before the impact of the current global financial crisis was felt.”

SOURCED FROM BBC

GOING TO SCHOOL ON EMPTY STOMACHS

To coin a phrase, teach a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it. ‘Please brother lap me (Carry me)’ a big eyed young boy appealed to me at the busy Oshodi bus stop this morning. Unfortunately I denied his request. I asked him to sit down next to me. ‘Pelumi’ that’s the boy’s name. A primary 5 student at St Francis primary school, Maryland in Lagos was on his way to school; sadly without the luxury of a school bus, worse still, no transport fare. He was on his way to school-hitch hiking.

Transport fares have more than doubled in Lagos following 3 weeks of fuel shortage. The time was 8.43 A.M, more than half an hour after the first school period had began. I asked Pelumi if this was usual. His response was disheartening. Every morning ‘uncle please lap me’ had become the bus ticket to school. The only difference today was his guardian had upset him, so without her usual hand to steer him through the traffic and her better accustomed pleading voice to ease accessing a ‘ticket’ on time, he had ‘vamoosed’ from home.

I offered Pelumi a counselling lesson on the consequences of vamoosing from his guardian. The sober lad looked at me nodding his clean shaven head. ‘But she hadn’t given me any money for food’. I look down at his lap, a withered black polythene bag held his breakfast and lunch for the day-two buns, alarmingly insufficient for pre-lunch snack. Pelumi’s is an orphan looked after by his grandmother; his surrogate parent’s income comes from petty trading, hardly enough to cater for the family. I sat still picturing living on hand-outs from childhood up-until adulthood- Rembrandt couldn’t have done a bleaker portrait. The young lad had waited at the bus stop for more than an hour before help came his way. The average Lagos resident is sadly and rapidly towing the frugal line of no charity-years of insecurity, neglect and debilitating economic conditions and superstition have dried many bowels of mercy-awoof (freebies) is sought after earnestly like the golden fleece. It’s suspicion first before consideration.

I paid for his lunch and watched him disembark from the bus; he waved over and over again, as he walked gingerly to school. I envied his enthusiasm and prayed for more blissful days for young head. Mathematics and dictation he said were his favourite subjects in school. But then I shuddered when I realised that it was indeed a thin line between juvenile delinquency and public school education in Nigeria. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic but think of the many children who flood bus-stops without transport fares, who go hungry to school. How many of us spoilt brats have cried all day long, sulking because someone forgot lunch box and water bottles were filled with water instead of coke. With no incentive and motivation, hunger and unending hitch hiking would buoy Nigeria’s 10 million children out of school population.

Lagos state is doing a momentous job in providing free Universal basic education. But it wouldn’t be too much in aping the philosophy of the Scandinavia that thrived in the 19^th century-for if you feed the hungry then 90% of the job’s been taken care of. Let’s start feeding the children again, let’s give them the dignity of a bus seat for it wouldn’t be wise to let these cookies crumble uneaten

Aghogho, CONNECTAFRICA

SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE TEACHER

Writing about Africa’s educational system also leaves a chalky after taste in my mouth; more rustic than the corroded roofing sheets which hide millions of school pupils in sub Saharan Africa from harsh weather elements. It is disheartening and eerie to hear that in the 21^st century Africa, the Human Development Index, being a specific comparative measure of life expectancy, education attainment, literacy and GDP per capital of nations places Africa on the lowest rung of its ladder. Noteworthy, is that Africa still runs its educational system; nursery, secondary and tertiary institutions with physical structures laid down decades ago by its colonial masters. Inadequate infrastructure has become the bane of educational development in the continent; leaking roofs, paint peeling walls, rickety chairs and no tables have become the less than ideal classroom for several students.

United the subjects have bore their pains in solidarity; agitation, protests by student and teachers to review the entire educational system have now become common place. Wide sweeping changes ranging from welfare to a new curriculum are common calls sounding from the Cape Agulhas to Drakensberg. But upon deaf ears have their shouts fallen, only to be answered by the boots, guns and sterile promises of security operatives, corrupt bureaucrats and political leaders, who appear more interested in paying lip service than shoring up the continent’s human resource base.

Last year Nigerian and Kenyan teachers were in the news when they downed tools for more than a month; they wanted their reward here on earth rather than beyond the pearly gates. The Kenyans and Nigerians are back in their classrooms but the Nigerians are warming up for a fresh round of strike this month because the Government had failed to keep its end of the deal-a classic example of the Zimbabwean teachers strike two months ago. This week it is the Tanzanian teachers that are in the eye of the storm.

The story goes like this, after an investigation conducted by a district commissioner into poor exam results in three schools, 19 primary school teachers were caned by policemen for coming to school late; their audience were their pupils. Antivus Leonard, a 33 year-old teacher at Katerero primary school, 20 miles outside the regional capital Bukoba, and one of the victims of the caning told his own tale “on Wednesday morning the district commissioner came to school. He met with the head teacher and called a staff meeting. Once we were gathered, the DC told us that they had been keeping track of the teachers who arrived late for work. He read out the names of the teachers in question, I was one of them.

I had been late for work twice in the last month. He asked each of us our reason for being late. I told him there were different reasons; it could be family problems, or if I had being feeling unwell. The DC said our lateness was causing the school to fall behind and that it was unacceptable. He said he was going to punish us now.

At first I assumed he was joking, I told myself it could not be possible. “I have been able to teach since this happened.” Once they locked the door of the staffroom and made everyone line up to receive their strokes, I knew that they meant business. Seven of my female colleagues took strokes of the cane in the palms of their hands, when it was my turn, a police officer ordered me to lie down and receive my punishment. I refused, so he kicked me and I fell down… he hit me everywhere… when it was over, I went to the hospital for treatment. I was given medicine but I still have a lot of pain in my chest…

He continued ‘My pupils did not see me take the beating but they know about it… I am married with 4 children. My wife is also a teacher at a different school, she is furious that they have done this to me.’

The Tanzanian government has ordered the suspension of the DC and a full scale investigation into the incident. However this incident has furthered fueled the growing feud between the Tanzanian government and its warring teachers. This incident is shameful especially for a continent which is already debited in this march toward meeting its MDG targets for Human and socio-economic development by 2015

emma, CONNECTAFRICA

KENYAN TEACHERS STRIKE SPREADS

A strike which has closed most of the primary schools in Kenya is going to spread, a union official says. Over 200,000 primary school teachers went on strike on Monday after negotiations with the government over pay collapsed.

Secondary school teachers will now join them from next week, the chairman of the teachers’ union said. A court in Nairobi has ruled the strike illegal and ordered union officials to restart talks with the government.

But at least 200 teachers prevented union leaders from going to the court by barricading them inside the union headquarters. The government had appealed to the strikers to return to work.

It argues it cannot afford to raise teachers’ pay as rapidly as had been previously agreed. It wants to phase in the wage increases over three years – but teachers fear an inflation rate running at around 26% a year will render the raise worthless.

The strike – which is open-ended – has closed more than 18,000 public primary schools, catering for some 8.2 million children.

SOURCED FROM BBC

KENYAN TEACHERS STRIKE SUCCESSFUL

Unions in Kenya have declared the first day of a nationwide walk-out by some 230,000 teachers “100% successful”. A BBC correspondent in Nairobi says some primary school pupils found their classes empty and so played or tried to give each other lessons.

Billed as the “mother of all strikes”, the open-ended action follows the collapse of pay negotiations. The education minister said the strike was illegal and blamed teachers, saying they kept changing their position.

On Sunday the government had urged parents to take their children to school despite the threat of industrial action. The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) said lessons had been cancelled in most of the country’s 18,000 public primary schools, which cater for some 8.2 million pupils.

BBC Nairobi correspondent Ruth Nesoba says it was all play and no work for pupils at one school she visited and parents arrived early to take their unsupervised children home.

KNUT secretary general Lawrence Majali said he had gone into hiding fearing government reprisals.

From his hideout, he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme: “The strike has been 100% successful. Teachers are not in school, students have gone and gone back home.

“We are ready to negotiate even now because it can be even off today if they so wish.”

SOURCED FROM BBC

PLEA TO HALT DRC ATROCITIES

Community groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo have made an impassioned plea for European troops to be sent to halt atrocities there. They say they have witnessed scenes never seen before in their history and that UN peacekeepers are powerless.

Meanwhile, rebel forces have begun to withdraw from some of their positions in east as promised. The withdrawal is taking place ahead of talks due between the rebels loyal to Laurent Nkunda, the army and the UN.

The letter from 44 groups is addressed to the UN Security Council and world leaders, and details how civilians have been summarily executed and corpses line the streets.

“We don’t know which saint to pray to; we are condemned to death by all this violence and displacement. We have been abandoned,” it says.

At present, there are about 17,000 UN soldiers and police in DR Congo – the biggest UN force of its kind.

SOURCED FROM BBC

RWANDA ADOPTS ENGLISH AS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

Rwanda’s parliament has decided that all education will be taught in English instead of French. Officially the Rwandan decision is a result of joining the English-speaking East African Community.

But relations between Rwanda and France have been frosty following the 1994 genocide, when France was accused of supporting Hutu militias. Rwanda has applied to join the Commonwealth, the loose association of ex-British colonies and territories.

France has consistently denied any responsibility for the genocide, in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days.

In 2006, a French judge implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the downing in 1994 of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane – an event widely seen as triggering the killings.

The decision taken by parliament on Thursday will apply from nursery schools to universities. Conversations in the capital, Kigali, are increasingly conducted in English.

A colleague who recently visited the country reported being given a brisk brush-off for asking for information in French. And the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology has for some time used English as the official medium of instruction.

SOURCED FROMM BBC

NO MORE MIXED SCHOOLING?

Bauchi State in northern Nigeria has banned co-education at all junior and senior schools. The bill, passed by the state MPs this week, listed a number of reasons including the need to fight teenage pregnancies and poor performance.

Bauchi MP Aminu Tukur said that teenagers especially had difficulty controlling their sexual urges however it is not yet clear when they will have to become single-sex institutions with school reopening next month.

Meanwhile religious leaders within the state’s minority Christian population are opposed to the ban, they argue that schools are not the only places where girls and boys socialise.

Private religious schools will not be subject to the ruling.

Several of Nigeria’s Muslim majority northern states introduced Sharia law starting in 2000, despite opposition from Christians, sparking clashes and riots between rival groups.