Broken elephant tusk found in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, by Terry Feuerborn

With Kenya being the perennial opposition for any trade in ivory, it is no surprise that most opposition is coming from conservation groups in this country. Additionally, Kenya has renewed their push to have a 20 year moratorium on the sale of ivory after this same proposal resulted in pushing the moratorium for only 9 years after the 2008 one-off ivory auction by four southern Africa states. Kenya's media has picked up the story. NTV Kenya has a video on YouTube titled, Wildlife Worries.

The Baraza blog published the content of the proposals that Zambia and Tanzania have put forward and Kenya's opposing proposal. Maina explains on Baraza

On the one hand is the anti-trade range states consisting of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone. On the other hand, each with it’s own proposal is Zambia and Tanzania, who want to be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles come the March 13-25 Doha  meeting – the 15th CITES  Conference of Parties (CoP15). Both sides have sent their proposals to the CITES secretariat and the secretariat has generously posted the proposals on their website.

In a different blog post on Baraza, Paula writes about the UK's resolve to vote against the two proposals:

The UK has said no to ivory sales. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last night: “At the CITES meeting in March, the UK will vote against the proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to sell ivory stocks, and we would urge other countries to vote against such a sale.

Paula writes on Ban Ivory - a new blog at WildlifeDirect dedicated to the campaign against ivory - asking “Are elephants worth more than their teeth“. She asks: ”Are elephants just a source of a valuable commodity, ivory? Or do elephants deserve special treatment?”

Paula points out that inspite of all the support that Africans can expect from outside, the battle for the elephant will have to start with Africans. She says:

At the end of the day the protest against the trade in ivory will have to be led by Africans if the rest of the world is to take any notice which makes Kenya’s campaign so powerful. But as long as the Chinese and other Asians markets continue to provide markets for ivory trinkets and refuse to implement domestic enforcement, a renewed ban on trade in ivory will fail and we will continue to lose elephants.

A group known as the Kenya Elephant Forum is leading the Kenyan civil society in the protest against ivory trade resumption and have produced fact sheets on the issue. Harvey Croze, blogging on the Amboseli Trust for Elephants pages says

ATE is against the trade. We have been working with like-minded NGOs and individuals under the aegis of the Kenya Elephant Forum (KEF) to provide strategic information to a body of sympathetic African elephant range states called the African Elephant Coalition (AEC).

In this blog post, Harvey has included links to the KEF Fact Sheets that you may want to read in order to understand the ivory problem and the likely implication of the Tanzania/Zambia proposals.

Liberia is gradually transitioning from the nearly 15 years of intermittent civil war that ended in 2003 and moving towards mainstream development. The barriers that remain are great. Nearly 250,000 people were killed during the war, and several hundred thousand were exiled in neighboring countries or in Europe or the United States.

The effects of war on youth
The effects of the war on children are well documented. When the fighting began, different military groups searched for soldiers in the ranks of children. Perhaps as many as 20,000 children, some as young as 6-years-old, were recruited, often forcibly. “They were forced to kill friends and family members including their parents, rape and be raped, serve as sexual slaves and prostitutes, labor, take drugs, engage in cannibalism, torture and pillage communities,” says the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia. Women and girls also suffered greatly. Liberia’s TRC received nearly 7,000 reported cases of sexual violence. Girls and women aged 15–19 make a majority of those reported cases.

Despite seven years of peace, bad news can still cascade out of Liberia like a waterfall. Three out of four Liberians live on less than one dollar a day; only half the country's children attend school; Fifty percent of households in the capital Monrovia are classified as food secure. The economic prognosis remains bleak and repatriating young people – some of them former child soldiers – into the economy continues to cause the government problems. This can be especially troubling because half of Liberia’s population is under 20.

On the Ceasefire Liberia blog, a Rising Voices project, Stephen R. Johnson writes:

Liberia’s youth face many challenges in gaining an education that delivers them the right set of skills and knowledge to become productive in today’s labor market. As a result, the transition from school to work is more often than not unsuccessful and youth end up either unemployed or underemployed in the rural, suburban and urban informal sectors.

Yet, the country and its people are determined to put the past behind them. The country’s economy has been growing and the government is modernizing its infrastructure. Groups like the YMCA have been training ex-combatants for employment or to start their own businesses.

Poverty and tough decisions
However, the continuing economic problems have created a ripple effect in other areas. Poverty has forced many women into making difficult and dangerous decisions regarding their sex life, says Jerry B. Tarbolo Jr, from the Federation of Liberian Youth. He said this combination has helped intensify the HIV/AIDS transmission rate in Liberia’s urban areas. If this continues, the disease will mainly affect the younger generation, he says, which is one of Liberia’s great resources.

The connection between economic survival and sexual violence has a legacy in Liberia. A 2008 UNFPA study of women in Liberia’s Lofa County found that during the war, nine out of ten women had lost their livelihoods, 96 percent had lost shelter and nearly 75 percent had lost a relative. More than half of the women were victims of sexual violence, and of those women, half of them reported providing sex for some form of favors.

Misconceptions of HIV/AIDS
Pauline Wleh, a nurse counselor at a Monrovia-based YMCA Youth Centre, says one thing young Liberians today need is education regarding sexual health. She spoke to a writer for Merlin, an international NGO that builds health services in fragile states.

“Years of conflict here disrupted our formal schooling system and broke up health services so that youths today know very little about HIV and AIDS. Because of the lack of knowledge, there is a lot of stigma and misconceptions surrounding AIDS now. Youths are too scared to talk to their parents and there is a lack of accessible information. But they can discretely drop in on me between basketball games or after a trip to the computer lab to ask questions, access services and get advice.”

She says some changes in attitudes have become apparent.

“In the two years since the centre opened, I have seen thousands of young people but only given 291 HIV tests. Although people are keen to talk to me, they are rarely convinced to take an HIV test because they are scared.”

The majority who opt out of the testing, claim they will ‘come back later,’ or more honestly ‘don’t want to know my status, because I don’t want to worry.’

The fight for awareness
This social avoidance is what programs like “Let’s Talk About Sex” are designed to educate against. The weekly 30-minute show, funded in part by UNFPA, provides listeners with 30 minutes of information and conversation about sex and reproductive health issues, all tailored toward young people. Each program is researched and written by the four young hosts, who control all the programming, including research, writing and performing each episode.

“My work as co-host of the LTAS show gave me a working knowledge on the actual realities faced by my fellow Liberian youth in the fight against HIV,” Mahmud Johnson writes. He says you can’t separate Liberia’s economic problems from issues regarding sexual health.

As the show’s outreach team usually traveled to leeward communities and villages to teach the youth there about HIV, I became aware, first hand, of the economic and traditional issues many people are faced with, and how those issues contribute to the spread of HIV in Liberia. I also became aware of some bizarre myths young people harbor on HIV spread and treatment. A very huge percentage of the youth population in Liberia has practically no knowledge about the transmission and prevention of HIV, and this phenomenon is due in no small part to the country’s spiralling illiteracy rate. Even the youth who go to school have minimal information about HIV, as such reproductive health issues are not taught in Liberian schools. Hence, many myths abound amongst Liberian youth about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, prominent amongst which is the myth that smoking pot prevents HIV infection. Because of these potentially dangerous myths, the radio show’s team developed a ‘Myths vs. Reality’ segment, in which (in colloquial Liberian language) we addressed several of those myths on a weekly basis.

The show offers a useful medium for young people to learn about the virus. And, of course, talk about sex.

Today, the LTAS radio show is aired all over Liberia, and uses other reinforcement channels such as brochures, dramas, road shows, focus groups discussions, and peer training to spread the message about HIV transmission and pregnancy prevention. The show is so popular that the Liberian populace have even used the show to coin a joke in response to the recent shortage of chicken eggs on the Liberian market: chickens in Liberia now listen to ‘Let’s Talk About Sex!’ and practice safe sex! I am aware of the reality that not every single youth in Liberia will heed the health messages disseminated on the show. But even if one person’s life is changed in the process, that would a phenomenal success for me as a pioneer host on the LTAS show.

Zeinobia wrote here about the Egyptian victory saying:

The victory wasn't only celebrated here in Egypt. In Qatar, Qatar Living wrote here about the victory, and the expected sleepless night in Doha:

An Egyptian blogger living in USA, Egyptian Wish, wrote a new post here saying:

Also in Palestine, Hamas didn't miss the opportunity, and congratulated the Egyptians on their seventh Championship. Kelmety wrote about it here:

Zeinobia wrote another post here, about the Egyptian president's sons, who went to Angola to support the Egyptian football team:

Another blogger, My Oblivia, had a different point of view here:

And finally, the Egyptian national team usually adds a new star on their jersey every time they win the African Cup of Nations. But Adel Ghaly was wondering here if we have any place left for an extra star:

Emmanuel Sobilika of Malawi Digest writes:

In a press statement issued on Wednesday made available to Malawi Digest, the State House says that President Mutharika is expected to marry Chimombo on 1st May, 2010.

However, before the official marriage itself, the two will have their traditional custom engagement on 14th February, 2010. 14th February is the world’s Valentines Day where people commemorate love with their loved ones.

The official statement discloses that both Dr Mutharika and Miss Callista Chapola Chimombo are a widower and widow respectively. State House says that both Dr Bingu wa Mutharika and Chimombo are devout Roman Catholics.

Journalist Kondwani Munthali congratulates the president for what he calls:

leading the way by announcing their intentions for Holy Matrimony, adding hopefully we will find a card for the event and share with many of my freinds here the pictures.

Callista was spoted at several state functions sitting next to the president. She earlier on denied the love story. State house officials also refused to explain the protocol and justify the former minister's closeness to the president at the state functions. Richard Chirombo in Malawi's commercial capital Blantyre wrote:

Chimombo has since mid-December 2009 been seen sitting next to Mutharika, a position reserved for high government officials and trusted pals. Instead, Chimombo says it is the president who chooses who to sit next to him, and as such it was “just a previlege” that Mutharika has allowed her to sit next to him.

This will be the second state wedding in Malawi after Bakili Muluzi's in 1999.

SourceForge justifies the move saying they are only following American law. Which is more or less the same argument Chinese government spokespeople make when questioned about their country's Internet censorship.

SourceForge has been blocked by China before. Hearing word of this new Great Firewall of America left some Chinese coders wondering if they might now start getting blocked from the other end and what can be done about it.

Photo from William Lone's Moonlight Blog.

At CNBeta on the day the news broke, ugmbbc wrote:

在今天，开源精神遭到了践踏，SourceForge会因为他们被要求屏蔽流氓国家而去美国国会抗议么？

这是个棘手的问题，难道仅仅因为这几个国家的极少数的一部分人的极端行为，就要整个国家遭到惩罚么？开源软件为这些受到压迫和发展中的国家提供了重要的基础设施。希望美国政府能够看到对这些国家基础设施和羽翼未丰的产业带来的打击。

Over at geek community Solidot, free-as-in-freedom notes that this move by SourceForge follows earlier restrictions on users from these five countries, allowing them to browse the site and download source code, but barring them from contributing any. Comments there include:

Alpha.Roc:
SourceForge 还是要遵守美国法律的呀？

alvan:
SourceForge为什么一定要遵从自由软件精神？软件只是代码，所以可以自由中立；但是网站是离不开服务器的，你的服务器放在哪个国家，就要遵从这个国家的法律——这个天经地义呀。

pynets:
这是人家的自由

erlv at his technical blog LingCC looks at the implications of politics encroaching upon the open source movement:

每个喜欢互联网技术，拥护开源的人都不想让开源沦为政治工具，但这是一个政治主导的世界，你得听政府的，政府是老大，你在政府的地盘上混，管你什么道义，什么自由，什么开源，统统只是工具。

我不是在鼓吹网络长城多么利国利民，但我们确实需要一种手段，让我们与国外能自由交流的同时，能摆脱对他们的依赖。正如现在国内，开源爱好者们都很乐于将自己的代码贡献出来，给开源社区，但当它变成政治工具的时候，我们如何取得该属于我们的权利？

SourceForge.net好像在国内还没有官方的镜像服务器. 如果我们的官老爷们真的为我国的信息产业处心积虑，鞠躬尽瘁的话，倒不如拿支持防火长城项目1%的钱，作为政府鼎力支持，在国内建几个开源镜像服务器，这样，至少我们还能有所有的源码，至少我们有了独立自主！

SuperSport, the provider of pay-television sports coverage across the continent of Africa, has a team of sports bloggers discussing Afcon 2010. Here is a short roundup of posts from SuperSport Afcon 2010 Blogs:

David knows kung fu and he's Googled you!, begins a post by Thomas Mlambo's post about Afcon 2010 suprises:

David knows kung fu and he’s Googled you!

Well, well, well, talk about an Afcon of surprises. For many years now, in football anywhere in the world, the traditional superpowers, or so-called Goliaths, have dominated and pretty much bullied the minnows, or as I will refer to them, the Davids of the game, except in the odd friendly match.

But in keeping with the way the world is now, “David” has recently purchased himself a gym contract, consults a personal trainer , does yoga every morning and rides his mountain bike on weekends, all while going to martial arts class every Tuesday, just as a way of keeping fit. David is now fit, focused and prepared. He’s not a scared boy with a rock in his hand anymore.

The end result? A nation like Malawi has won a first ever Africa cup of Nations finals match, destroying Fifa 2010 World Cup qualifier Algeria 3-0 on the second day of the tournament.

Burkina Faso then had me watching a game in Cabinda against Cote d’Ivoire where it was clear that their coach, Paulo Duarte (known as the Mourinho of Africa, as he was once “the special one's “ assistant ), had used the Internet to study the superstars they would face and had found a website called “KeepDrogbaQuiet.com”.

“Have playing standards plummeted at the Afcon?,” asks
Mark Ouma, a football analyst on Soccer Africa on SS3:

When Hassan Shetata says the competition standard at the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations has dropped, it triggers an increased desire to take a closer look at proceedings in Angola.

Ever since taking charge of the Egyptian Pharaohs, coach Shehata has been a man of very few words. So something special must have triggered his comment. Three inter.pretations come to mind.

First, at face value, there is a measure of merit in Shehata’s words. The African teams in Angola who will be going to the World Cup in June — Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire — failed to win their opening matches in Angola. It could be argued that each showed the lack of commitment that drove them to prevail in Africa’s most rigorous World Cup qualifying contest. Subsequently the five teams won their second match.

Now they are all through to the quarterfinal. Going forward there are valid lessons for each of the World Cup-bound teams. The level of competition at the World Cup will be far more stringent.

Thomas Mlambo believes that “goalkeepers really can give you an upset stomach“:

I wasn’t going to write a new blog for a few days still but it’s the only thing I can do to try relieve the foul mood that watching Zambia lose to Cameroon put me in.

I’d just had a great dinner during the break between matches and had eased into my favourite position on my most comfortable chair so that I could fully concentrate on a match that would see the fluid, stylish Chipolopolo try upset the rather poor, and so far relatively toothless, lions

Then I was given indigestion…

Goalkeepers really can give you an upset stomach,

Kennedy Mweene‘s (one month) late Christmas gift to the Cameroonians, spoilt my evening.

I mean, I’m not Zambian, but still the sight of that “granny power” hopeful of a shot from Geremi actually crossing the line to bring the Lions level literally gave me heartburn.

It had me reaching for my phone to call both Ponga (Liwewe) and Mamadou (Gaye) just so that I could vent my frustration. Damnit, it’s not easy to watch football home alone; there’s nobody there to swear at when such upsetting things happen.

Mamadou Gaye, one of the most popular and controversial sports commentator in Africa, did not believe that the Super Eagles will get far in the tournament:

It’s bye bye Super Eagles Bonjour a tous, I would like to start by presenting my sincere apologies to my dear friend, the Big Boss Keshi, and all of you. Keshi is a good friend of mine, I could not control myself to see him failing, but I had no intention to undermine his qualities or character.

During his tenure as the Malian national coach I visited him at least seven times to give him my support. Once again, I say sorry to all of you that got hurt. I promise you that I will never repeat it again. Thank You.

I feel very honored and humbled by the messages you keep sending to me. I appreciate your understanding and passion for our common game of football.

At last the group stage of the 27th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is over. With it come tears of joy and sadness. My predictions had mixed results.

For now the Super Eagles can say bye bye Angola 2010, after managing to beat the two greatest underachievers of the Nations Cup: Benin and Mozambique, who never won a single game in their history of the Africa Cup of Nations.

You might be asking yourself, why I am insisting on retiring some players? We know as a fact that in our continent most players cheated in their age.

When Angola, the host nation, was eliminated by Ghana, Lubango was so quiet even dogs did not bark that night, reports Thomas Kwenaite from Lubango, Angola:

Lubango went to sleep early on Sunday night. The hosts of the 27th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations — Angola — have been eliminated by Ghana, who defeated them 1-0 in the quarterfinals. There were no motorbikes that skidded and screeched their tyres across the tarmac or the blaring of car hooters. I couldn’t even hear a dog bark!

Thomas also writes about his experience traveling in Angola:

We arrived in Lubango in the most dramatic fashion. Again, I must confess that I do not harbour a negative attitude towards Angola but really, to undertake a journey of 35 minutes in 10 hours and five minutes is unacceptable, with no one bothering to inform us that the plane had been delayed.

In fact, since our arrival in Angola three weeks ago, every time we undertook a trip to the provinces of Cabinda, Benguela and Lubango, we arrived at the airport as early as 7am but would reach our destination any time after 6pm and sadly, much as my Angolan friends try to make it sound as if I whine a lot, that is unacceptable. Their airline needs to jack up its act.

I am not trying to be funny but for a domestic flight to be delayed by seven hours without anyone from officialdom attempting to notify you as to what went wrong is shocking. I accepted the first day, when it took us eight hours for a 40-minute flight, that perhaps the volume of people in the country is a new experience to them and makes it impossible for them to ferry their passengers around on time.

Nigeria has secured a spot in the semi-finals after beating Zambia's Chipolopolo boys. But does Charles Anazodo still believe that the god of football is Nigerian?