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Category: Africa
The 10 largest islands in the world
Greenland in the North Atlantic With an area of 2,175,597 square kilometers, Greenland is by far the largest island in the world. For centuries it was a Danish colony, but now it is self-governing and is only represented externally by Denmark. Just under 56,000 people live on the huge land mass, which is largely covered…
Zimbabwe 2009
Yearbook 2009 Zimbabwe. It was not until February 2009 that the unifying government could be formed under which President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed an agreement as early as September 2008. By then, Parliament had first adopted a constitutional amendment that created a new post as prime minister, weight for Tsvangirai, and…
Zambia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Zambia. The news from Zambia in 2009 was a lot about corruption. Former President Levy Mwanawasa was praised for his fight against corruption, but since he died in 2008, the problems seem to have increased again. While former president’s wife Regina Chiluba was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for buying several properties…
Western Sahara 2009
Yearbook 2009 Western Sahara. Moroccan authorities in November denied human rights activist Aminatou Haidar from Western Sahara to return home after a visit to the United States where she received a prize for her fight. She flew to the Canary Islands where she hungered for more than a month to draw the world’s attention to…
Uganda 2009
Yearbook 2009 Uganda. Despite a finalized peace agreement between the government and the rebel movement The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), there was no peace in 2009. The LRA demanded that the agreement be renegotiated in order for leader Joseph Kony to sign it. According to countryaah, the rebels are expelled from Uganda but still operate…
Tunisia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Tunisia. After 23 years in office, incumbent President Zayn al-Abidin Ben Ali won his fifth straight presidential election on October 25. He received 89.6 percent of the vote, which was less than in any previous election. According to countryaah, the turnout was 84 percent. One of the opposition’s strongest candidates, Nejib Chebbi of…
Togo 2009
Yearbook 2009 Togo. According to countryaah, the authorities claimed in April to have averted a coup attempt staged by the president’s half-brother. President Brother Kpatcha Gnassingbé, former Defense Minister, was arrested when he tried to enter the US embassy to apply for asylum. The day before, soldiers had stormed his residence, killing at least two…
Tanzania 2009
Yearbook 2009 Tanzania. According to countryaah, authorities apparently made half-hearted attempts to curb the wave of murders of people with pigment deficiencies, albinos, which have been going on since 2007 and claimed at least 40 people’s lives. In January, the government revoked the licenses for traditional healers, who were suspected of using the decoctions on…
Sudan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Sudan. In the war-ravaged western region of Darfur, the situation calmed down in 2009. Combat activity subsided, especially since the leading rebel movement JEM (the Justice and Equality Movement) signed a standstill agreement in February. However, the more than two million internally displaced persons remained equally vulnerable, and their situation worsened since the…
South Africa 2009
Yearbook 2009 South Africa. According to countryaah, the ruling party ANC leader Jacob Zuma was elected as expected in May, after the ANC again took a big victory in the parliamentary elections. This time, however, the party did not get the two-thirds majority it needed to be able to change the constitution on its own….
Somalia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Somalia. When the outside world thought that the situation in Somalia was as bad as it could be, things got even worse in 2009. According to countryaah, the Ethiopian forces that invaded the country in December 2006 returned home in January, having failed to secure control of the Somali government. The Ethiopian gaps…
Sierra Leone 2009
Yearbook 2009 Sierra Leone. According to countryaah, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone began planning its settlement after the final three cases were closed. The three highest surviving leaders of the former rebel movement Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were found guilty of a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity and were sentenced…
Seychelles 2009
Yearbook 2009 Seychelles. In January, Seychelles President James Michel appealed to foreign lenders to write off half of the country’s foreign debt. According to countryaah, already in the spring of 2008, the people of Seychelles had noticed an economic downturn. This was exacerbated by the international financial crisis in the autumn of 2008, which among…
Senegal 2009
Yearbook 2009 Senegal. According to countryaah, nine Senegalese men were sentenced in January to each eight years in prison for homosexuality, which is banned in Senegal. The men, including the chairman of an organization that combats HIV/AIDS, were convicted of “unnatural homosexual acts” and of membership in a criminal organization. The latter was aimed at…
Sao Tome and Principe 2009
Yearbook 2009 São Tomé and Príncipe. In February, the government said it had averted a coup attempt. About 30 people were arrested, including MP Arlecio Costa from the Christian Democratic Front. According to countryaah, Costa had previously been identified as one of the people responsible for a coup in 2003, which however was quickly defeated….
Rwanda 2009
Yearbook 2009 Rwanda. A few thousand Rwandan soldiers entered Congo (Kinshasa) in January, unlike previous occasions at the invitation of the neighboring government to jointly attack with the Congolese army the Rwandan hutumilis that has plagued the civilian population of eastern Congo for 15 years. After five weeks of offensive, the soldiers returned home. The…
Republic of the Congo 2009
Yearbook 2009 Congo. According to countryaah, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was re-elected by a large majority in July. According to the Election Commission, he received 78.61 percent of the vote. Several of his twelve counter-candidates protested and refused to approve the result. The suspicion was mainly directed at voter participation being said to have been over…
Nigeria 2009
Yearbook 2009 Nigeria. The unrest in the oil-producing Niger Delta declined since President Umaru Yar’Adua in June repeated an offer of amnesty to the rebels who have attacked oil facilities for several years, leading to significantly reduced production. According to countryaah, the government released rebel group MEND (Nigerian Liberation Movement) leader Henry Okah, who has…
Niger 2009
Yearbook 2009 Niger. In January, French mining company AREVA signed a contract worth over SEK 10 billion to build what will become the world’s second largest uranium mine in northern Niger. According to countryaah, work started in May, and when the mine is ready to be put into operation in 2012, it is estimated to…
Namibia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Namibia. Like many other commodity-rich African countries, Namibia is overseen by foreign major companies. In June, the Russian group Gazprom signed a US $ 1 billion contract with Namibian energy company Namcor to build a gas power plant designed to keep both Namibia and neighboring South Africa with electricity. Through the power plant,…
Mozambique 2009
Yearbook 2009 Mozambique. According to countryaah, President Armando Guebuza has invested heavily in infrastructure projects to promote in-country communications and mineral extraction. Two major rail projects to transport coal to the sea from mines in the Tete Province received their funding. The European Investment Bank lent EUR 65 million for a railway to Beira and…
Morocco 2009
Yearbook 2009 Morocco. According to official sources in September, about 138,000 people had moved from slums to newly built apartments in the framework of the government’s initiative “Cities without slums”. The investment was aimed at creating 298,000 new homes at a cost of US $ 3 billion. The target group was people without property and…
Mauritius 2009
Yearbook 2009 Mauritius. In June, the government promised to eradicate extreme poverty in the country. In its budget for the year, the government spent $ 47 million on measures that would lift the extremely poor, that is, people living on less than a dollar a day. The money would be used for social programs as…
Mauritania 2009
Yearbook 2009 Mauritania. According to countryaah, the military junta, which took power in Mauritania through a coup on August 6, 2008, promised in January 2009 that elections would be held June 6 of that year. The coup had put an end to a burgeoning democracy that held its first democratic election as late as March…
Mali 2009
Yearbook 2009 Mali. Again, the conflict between the state and Tuareg rebels flared up, despite previous peace agreements. The army offensive caused by grenade attacks against Tuareg government officials in the city of Gao in northern Mali at the turn of the year became a relatively short story. After the army captured several rebel bases…
Malawi 2009
Yearbook 2009 Malawi. According to countryaah, President Bingu wa Mutharika was re-elected in May for a second five-year term with 66 percent of the vote. In the parliamentary elections, his party Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) got its own majority. The DPP was formed by Mutharika as late as 2005, when he broke out of the…
Madagascar 2009
Yearbook 2009 Madagascar. At the beginning of the year, dissatisfaction with President Marc Ravalomanana and his government increased. The discontent was channeled through the capital Antananarivo’s only 34-year-old Mayor Andry Rajoelina, who criticized restrictions on freedom of speech and the government’s decision to lease vast agricultural land to the South Korean industrial group Daewoo. At…
Libya 2009
Yearbook 2009 Libya. On February 10, the EU offered Libya € 20 million to fight immigration from sub-Saharan countries. The offer, which was part of a larger EU-Libya support package, was presented by EU Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner during a visit to the country. Many refugees suffered severe pain. As an example, more than 200…
Liberia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Liberia. According to countryaah, an invasion of larvae caused so much damage to crops in mainly the northern part of the country that the government announced a state of emergency in the affected areas and appealed to the outside world for help. The larvae also spread to neighboring Guinea and threatened Sierra Leone….
Lesotho 2009
Yearbook 2009 Lesotho. According to countryaah, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili was subjected to an attempted murder in April when a group of men opened fire on his home early one morning. Mosisili escaped unharmed, but four of the attackers were shot dead in a firefight with the prime minister’s security force. The motive for the…
Kenya 2009
Yearbook 2009 Kenya. The bloody aftermath of the 2007 presidential election dominated the 2009 New Year in Kenya. Nearly 1,500 people were killed and hundreds of thousands were driven away from their homes when the kikuyu and luo ethnic groups at the beginning of 2008 rallied in violence that was fueled by politicians and businessmen….
Ivory Coast 2009
Yearbook 2009 Ivory Coast. Despite repeated peace agreements after the civil war of 2002–03, the Ivory Coast also failed in 2009 to return to real peace and a people-elected democratic government. While the rebels in the north in May handed over the administration of the districts they controlled to civilian officials appointed by the unifying…
Guinea-Bissau 2009
Yearbook 2009 Guinea Bissau. According to countryaah, Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Júnior and his African Independence Party for Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which won the parliamentary elections in November 2008, formed a new government on January 2. Later that month, Army Chief General Tagme Na Waie was shot by soldiers from the Presidential Guard….
Guinea 2009
Yearbook 2009 Guinea. Following the death of President Lansana Conté at the end of 2008, a military junta, the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), took power under the leadership of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. Militants were in majority in the new government that took office in mid-January. They also held most of the…
Ghana 2009
Yearbook 2009 Ghana. The days following the New Year, John Atta Mills was declared a winner in the December 2008 presidential election. He received 50.23 percent of the vote in the second round, compared to 49.77 percent for Nana Akufo-Addo of the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) government party. The election of former Vice President…
Gambia 2009
Yearbook 2009 The Gambia. Few African regimes have a more repressive attitude to the media than the Gambian. Seven of the country’s most well-known journalists were arrested in June, five of them in raids against the press association’s premises, and charged with rioting and defamation. In several newspaper articles, they had questioned President Yahya Jammeh’s…
Gabon 2009
Yearbook 2009 Gabon. In February, French authorities blocked Gabon’s President Omar Bongo’s accounts in French banks, after Bongo refused to obey an order from a Bordeaux court to repay the equivalent of just over SEK 4 million that he should have received in the bribe of a French businessman. He had been jailed in Gabon…
Ethiopia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Ethiopia. In January, Ethiopia withdrew the army from Somalia, where it entered December 2006 to crush Islamist militia. The government felt that the Somali provisional government now had control over the country. Just a few months later, the Ethiopian government acknowledged that “covert associations” had re-entered Somalia, where the Islamists had once again…
Eswatini 2009
Yearbook 2009 Swaziland. Amnesty International and the international legal community in January criticized the anti-terrorism legislation that Swaziland introduced the year before. According to countryaah, the critics claimed that it threatened human rights and violated both international law and the country’s own constitution. According to Amnesty, it led to violations of freedom of expression, association…