Archive for the ‘Online’ Category
Cabinet reshuffle will convince some in Tahrir, says new finance minister
Hazem el-Beblawi, 1996. Photo: UN Photo/Milton Grant
Egypt’s new finance minister Hazem el-Beblawi told RFI on Sunday that protesters in Tahrir Square would be “at least partially satisfied” with the government’s cabinet reshuffle. Egypt’s Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed a list of proposed ministers to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for approval. The new cabinet is expected to be unveiled on Monday.
“The new cabinet reflects more the feeling on the street than the previous one, where some names, rightly or wrongly, were associated with the past regime,” says Beblawi.
Beblawi replaces Samir Radwan who was appointed shortly before toppled president Hosni Mubarak left.
Paris protesters call for Syria’s al-Assad to go
Demonstrators at the Place du Trocadero call for regime change in Syria, 11 June 2011. Photo: LA Bagnetto
Syrian demonstrators took to the streets of cities across the world on Saturday in protest against the Syrian regime. In downtown Montreal about 300 people gathered, chanting, “the people want an end to the regime”. While in Paris near the Eiffel tower activists were demanding for an end to corruption and tyranny.
Radio Report: Anti-Assad protests in Paris
Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou calls for post-revolutionary new world order
Amamou at L’engagement 2.0, Le Grand Salon de la Sorbonne, Paris
Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou was in Paris on Tuesday to debate the use of social networks during the Tunisian revolt, and the future of politics shaped by online activism. Amamou, the former Tunisian Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, joined four other bloggers who played a key role in the Tunisian revolution for a conference focused on the role technology played in the country’s uprising. The event, hosted by Jeannette Bougrab, the French Secretary of State for Youth and Community, comes as political parties in Tunisia and the country’s electoral commission debate over the timetable for elections. On Monday the Progressist Democratic Party and the Islamist Ennahda movement conceded a possible delay for the vote. Organisers of the ballot would like to see it moved to October.
Interview: Slim Amamou, Tunisian blogger
Congo has to take the lead in November elections, says Crisis Group’s Délétroz
Representatives of the DRC’s electoral commission in Kinshasa, 7 May. Photo: CENI
Anger and consternation dominated the feelings amongst Congolese pro-democracy activists at a meeting with representatives from the French foreign ministry in Paris on Monday. During discussions about the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 28th November polls, three themed round tables focused on the electoral process, security, justice and impunity. There are worries that the government is not ready to improve on 2006’s dismal voting conditions, and many Congolese are unhappy with French support for elections that they already see as flawed.
Interview: Alain Délétroz, Vice President, International Crisis Group
EU to give five million euros for Guinea election
EU Commissioner Piebalgs on the Forécariah bridge, 100 kilometres east of Conakry, 7 May 2011
The European Union is to provide five million euros to help Guinea run a delayed general election. Wrapping up his two-day visit to Guinea on Saturday the European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs told RFI that support for the country’s parliamentary elections is “crucial” to avoid future ethnic violence.
“Elections are crucial because countries in Africa have a lot of tribal history and it is very difficult to find any other method to avoid violence and poor representation of each and every ethnic group,” Piebalgs says.
Guinea has not had a legislature since 2008 when it was dissolved by former military junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara. A 155-member National Transition Council has been acting in place of parliament since February 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Successful Nigerian polls will echo across Africa, says Kufuor
John Kufuor. Photo: Gregory Jones
A well-organised vote as Nigerian voters go to the polls this Saturday would “resound to the good of all of Africa”, according to John Kufuor, the head of the African Union election observation mission in Nigeria, and former Ghanaian president. Kufuor spoke to RFI about what the mission has observed in the days leading up to the presidential vote.
Interview: John Kufuor, head of the AU election observation mission
African mediators want Libya truce, says Zuma aide
Jacob Zuma and Moamer Kadhafi. Photo: Elmond Jiyane, GCIS.
Top-level African Union mediators will call on both sides in Libya’s conflict to lay down their arms on a mission to the divided country starting Sunday, an adviser to South Africa’s Jacob Zuma tells RFI.
Interview: Jacob Zuma’s international relations special advisor Lindiwe Zulu
London conference on Libya successful, says OIC Sec Gen
Group photograph from the conference. CC licence: British FCO
More than 35 countries, including seven Arab states, the United Nations and Nato, gathered in London on Tuesday to discuss plans for Libya’s future. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, told RFI that the meeting was “successful” and he hopes that military intervention in Libya comes to end “as soon as possible”.
Interview: Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Sec Gen, OIC
Nouvelle Vague sprinkles couleurs on Paris
Liset Alea on stage at Le Plan, Ris Orangis, 20 March 2011
Nouvelle Vague hits the concert circuit once again to promote their new album, Couleurs sur Paris, with multi-talented singer Liset Alea. Their fourth studio album includes offerings en français such as Putain, Putain a 1983 song originally by TC Matic.
Interview: Liset Alea and Olivier Libaux
Not going to offer war crimes court a fig leaf, says Taylor’s lawyer
The front of the ICC, The Hague, March 2010. CC licence: http://www.charlestaylortrial.org
Charles Taylor’s defence lawyer walked out of the Sierra Leone war crimes court in protest on Tuesday. British attorney Courtenay Griffiths told RFI that the court is a “farce” and riding “roughshod” over his client’s rights. The ex-Liberian president denies 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Sierra Leone.
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