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Gambia: Release peaceful protesters and community members arbitrarily detained

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Gambian authorities must release peaceful protesters and community members, including a man in his 70s, who were arbitrarily arrested and detained last week, said Amnesty International today.  At least 40 people were arrested by police during and after a largely peaceful protest by young people and community members in the town of Kartong on Sunday 22 November 2015. The protest, against sand mining in the area, was largely peaceful although witnesses have reported that the situation between some of the protestors and the security forces appeared tense at times.

A blanket crackdown on protestors is not acceptable. The right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly must not be unduly curtailed because of the suspected unlawful behaviour of some individuals”  Sabrina Mahtani, Amnesty International’s West Africa researcher.

“The police should not arrest people on an arbitrary basis and criminal charges should only be brought against those against whom there is clear evidence.”

Amnesty International has spoken to community members and witnesses who report that police arrested people in a blanket fashion. Some of the people arrested were either peacefully protesting or not involved in the protest at all. Those arrested include a man in his seventies who is said to be in poor health. Police also arrested family members of at least one activist, although the family members were not involved in the protest.

Witness reports indicate that the police used excessive force during the arrests and some people were injured.

On 24 November, 33 of those arrested were charged with conspiracy, breach of the peace, riot, causing malicious injuries and riotously interfering with a vehicle. They were denied bail and are currently awaiting trial in the country’s biggest prison, Mile 2. Family members were not permitted to visit the detainees.

Amnesty International spoke to a local activist and a community member who fear further arrests and reprisals against activists who have voiced concerns at the harmful impact of sand mining on their environment and community.

Amnesty International is calling on authorities in Gambia to immediately and unconditionally release those detained solely because of their participation in a peaceful protest, or those detained on an arbitrary basis.

The authorities should also promptly look into the concerns expressed by the community about the negative impacts of sand mining and take action to ensure human rights are respected and protected in the context of mining activity.

“Those arrested and detained in connection with a criminal offence should have a fair trial and must have their rights in detention upheld. This includes access to their lawyers, families and medical treatment, and the opportunity to challenge their pre-trial detention” said Sabrina Mahtani.

“Any charges should be proportionate and people should not be charged with more serious crimes simply because they were taking part in a protest,” said Sabrina Mahtani.

Gambian dictator orders the court to drop charges against the Kartong 33

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Few hours after Amnesty International’s strong worded press release, and the continued advocacy of The Gambians in the diaspora, The Gambian dictator has ordered The Brikama Magistrate’s court to drop charges against the Kartong 33 with effect from Tuesday, Dec 1, 2015. The 33  including a 70 year old man were  arrested on November 24 and charged  with conspiracy, breach of the peace, riot, causing malicious injuries and riotously interfering with a vehicle. They were denied bail by Magisterate Hilary Abeke and sent to the security wing of the mile 2 central prison where family members were denied access to them.

Activists say the President’s decision came amidst pressure from the youths on the ground who were prepared to do whatever it takes to see the release of family members and friends. Eventhough the President has ordered for their unconditional release, there is no word yet on whether sand mining will continue in Kartong or not.

Meanwhile, hundreds are out in the streets of Kartong jubilating upon hearing the news.

A Son, Known for His Kindness, Is Mourned After He Is Bludgeoned to Death

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On an unassuming block of Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, Bubacarr Camara was murdered on Thursday, bludgeoned to death in broad daylight, the police believe, as he worked at his family’s clothing and odds-and-ends shop. His body was discovered behind the register.

On Friday, men gathered in solemn silence in his father’s apartment on Gerard Avenue in the Bronx, stocking-footed on a carpet of Muslim prayer rugs. To them, Mr. Camara, 26, was not simply a victim of a crime. He was a star soccer player in his homeland of Gambia, in West Africa, they said, a striker with fearsome aim who played for the team in his hometown, Numuyel.

Worker Is Killed During Attack at Upper West Side ShopJUNE 18, 2015
He was a young man called Buba who loved Gambian food, and could not get enough of the peanut butter sauce that is a staple of the country’s cuisine, particularly when cooked up by his stepmother. And he was a father whose toddler son, living in Gambia with his mother while Mr. Camara was away earning a living in America, beams in a plaid shirt in Mr. Camara’s profile on the messaging service WhatsApp.

He had immigrated to the United States only 10 months ago.

On Friday, family and friends clustered in the apartment of Mr. Camara’s father, Bangally Camara, awaiting word from the police about the hunt for the suspects. When a progress report arrived, the men gathered in the living room, some dressed in flowing caftans, perked up, as did the women, their hair covered, cooking chicken in the kitchen to eat at sunset to break the Ramadan fast. But their spirits lifted only for a moment.

“He’s still gone,” Hagie Camara, his uncle, said.

The police said surveillance tapes indicated that three men may have been involved in the murder. But as of Friday evening no one was arrested.

At the shop on Amsterdam Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets, customers gathered outside on Friday, trading stories of Mr. Camara’s kindness. The morning of the attack, said Samuel Cisneros, Mr. Camara had sold him a T-shirt, and when Mr. Cisneros was short of the cost, Mr. Camara let him leave with simply a promise to pay — a typical act for Mr. Camara, his customer said. A metal roll-down gate was pulled over the shop’s glass front, and Mr. Cisneros had filled the metal links with bouquets of flowers and signs written in English and Spanish. Behind the glass, blood could be seen on the floor of the shop.

“The owners of this store are a quiet, humble, hard-working and beautiful family,” one read. Another wished for Allah’s blessing, out of respect for Mr. Camara’s religion, said Mr. Cisneros. A field of carnations in plastic water bottles rested on the pavement; a woman stopped before the display and crossed herself, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish for Mr. Camara, she said.

In the Bronx apartment on Friday afternoon, Mr. Camara’s father stood in a corner of the kitchen, crying. Nearby, a cousin sat listening ceaselessly to voice mail messages of condolence as they poured in. Almamy Camara, 54, the young man’s uncle, had been the one to call Mr. Camara’s mother, who still lives in Gambia, to tell her that the oldest of her four children — three boys and a girl — had been murdered. He spoke to her softly in their native language of Sarahule. “She was out of control,” he said. “She fainted.”

Out in the hallway, Mahamadou Camara, 23, another of Mr. Camara’s cousin and his roommate in a different apartment in the building, leaned against a wall, his arms folded tightly around himself. He had been doing laundry the last night his cousin was alive, and stopped folding clothes to take a break to eat dinner. When he looked up from his plate, Mr. Camara was busy folding his cousin’s laundry.

“Keep eating,” he recalled Mr. Camara saying. “I’ll do it for you.”

Correction: June 26, 2015
An article on Saturday about the death of a shop worker during a robbery in Harlem misstated the surname of a customer who had visited the store the day of the attack. He is Samuel Cisneros, not Lisneros.

Source : NY TIMES : http://http://nyti.ms/1K2XqU1

AC Milan sue Yusupha Yaffa after discovering he’s aged 28 not 19

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AC Milan are reportedly taking striker Yusupha Yaffa to court because the 19-year-old is actually 28-years-old. Yaffa, who hails from Gambia, was signed by Milan in 2013 after impressing on trial and was handed a place in the club’s youth team. At the time of the deal, Yaffa told Italian immigration that he’d lost all his paperwork but was 12-years-old, born on 31st December, 1996. However, Gazzetta dello Sport say Yaffa’s real birthday was revealed after pictures and news articles about the deal were posted on Facebook.

Friends of the player recognised him and soon noted that his age was way off. His actual birthday is 31 December, 1996 – making him 21, not 12 when Milan agreed to sign him.
Yaffa is currently playing in Germany for MSV Duisburg and he’s also likely to be in hot water with them over if found guilty of fraud.

Carayol ready to play international football for the Gambia

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Middlesbrough winger Mustapha Carayol says it is the “right time” in his career to commit his international future to the Gambia.
Carayol, 26, is back to full fitness after suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury which had kept him out for 13 months.
Last month he signed a two-year extension to his contract at Middlesbrough, having been on loan at Brighton, and he says he is now focused on establishing himself as an international with the Gambia.

“I think it’s been a long time coming, I’ve had a few times when they’ve invited me but it wasn’t the right time for myself and my family,” Carayol told BBC Africa Sport.
“A few of the times I’ve had a little injury. So I didn’t really want to come and perform half heartedly. I feel like it’s the right time in my career now,” Carayol explained.
Carayol, who was born in Banjul, is targeting an appearance for The Scorpions in the forthcoming qualifiers for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.
“Obviously I’ve spoken to them. I’m looking forward to the official invite and look forward to representing the Gambia in the Africa Nations Cup qualifiers.
“All my family’s Gambian, so everyone’s excited and I’m going to have a lot of pressure when I do get the chance to play.
“But for me, it’s the experience of a professional footballer to go and represent your country. I’ve got quite a lot of support there already and I’ve not even played so hopefully I can live up to the hype when I do play and make a lot of people happy.”
The Gambia have been drawn in Group M of the 2017 Nations Cup qualifiers, along with South Africa, Cameroon and Mauritania.
Despite facing formidable opposition, Carayol believes his country can cause an upset by qualifying for the 2017 finals to be held in Gabon in two years’ time.

“I always see challenges as something you can overcome and that’s why they put challenges in front of you. “At least even if we don’t qualify, everyone can be proud of us and say that we gave it a right go. “But for me personally, I’m looking more forward to the challenge of playing international football.” The Gambia’s first 2017 Nations Cup qualifier is against South Africa next month. Before that, Carayol is concentrating on helping Middlesbrough’s bid for promotion to the Premier League. The club have a 2-1 advantage over Brentford going into the home leg of their Championship play-off semi-final. “The boys are really confident. Keep my fingers crossed and hopefully we can get over the line and I can be a Premier League player next year.”
If Carayol does reach the Premier League with Middlesbrough, he may well come up against other African icons such as Yaya Toure and Didier Drogba – players who have made their name in England’s top flight. “They’re massive role-models because as a young African player, you always look towards the people that you can actually relate to. “Oviously I’ve not had the chance to play internationals yet, but I’ve spoken to a few close friends of mine. “Albert Adomah who’s at Middlesbrough – who represented Ghana at the World Cup – and Yannick Bolasie who’s a really close friend of mine who represented DR Congo in the Africa Nations Cup just gone. “And they’ve all told me good things about playing African football, so I’m excited. I can’t wait to get the chance to go and kick a ball out there and show everyone what I can do.”

By Nishat Ladha – BBC Sport

Swiss coach Raoul Savoy ready to lead a Gambian revival

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The Gambia return to competitive action this weekend with a new coach as they travel to face South Africa in a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
Swiss Raoul Savoy is charged with reviving the Scorpions’ fortunes as they comeback from a ban that saw them miss the 2015 Nations Cup campaign.
“We can write a new history now, we are starting from zero,” he told BBC Sport. “We have a lot of new players who are just starting out and it is also a young squad with a lot of talent.”

The Gambia 2017 Nations Cup qualifiers:
13/06/15: v South Africa (a)
26-29/03/16: v Mauritania (h)
04-06/09/15: v Cameroon (h)
03-05/06/16: v South Africa (h)
23-26/03/16: v Mauritania (a)
02-04/09/16: v Cameroon (a)

The Gambia were initially banned in May 2014 for two years from all Confederation of African Football competitions for deliberately falsifying player’s ages in an under-20 match.
The ban was lifted just 5 months later after a new Gambia Football Association executive was voted in. The 42-year-old Savoy returns to Africa after previously working in Cameroon, Morocco, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Algeria and the Central African Republic.

As well as South Africa his side will play World Cup finalists Cameroon and Mauritania in Group M of the 2017 qualifiers and he is aware of the challenge ahead.
“Of course, South Africa and Cameroon are more experienced and bigger teams than us but in football you never know,” he said. “If they give us a chance to challenge them and become the surprise of the group, we’ll do it of course. “We are not saying we are victims, we know we have the potential but we are new. “That’s why we must learn match after match and we’ll see – maybe we’ll create some surprises. Why not?”

Savoy is confident that he has the raw materials to work with in The Gambia. “There is a lot of talent here; it’s a talented country,” he insisted. “It’s a small country but they also have a lot of talent based out of the country – in the United States, in Europe, in England, everywhere. “Some of them have already played for the national team, others are new now, they will get their first cap in the next week. “I think I will have a lot of work to do to go and watch all of them (across the world) and chose a better team in the coming months.”

And he hopes that his latest post can be a stepping stone to bigger things and follow the likes of Philippe Troussier and Herve Renard. “Renard was the Troussier of Zambia, I can be the Herve Renard of Gambia!”

By Mark Gleeson – BBC Sport, Cape Town

Lifestyle Example post

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Who is Seinabo Sey? Introducing the Swedish-Gambian singer inspired by her dual identity

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Source : http://ind.pn/1K3AHHm

Since the mid-2000s, it seems as though we’ve been stuck in a perpetual cycle of cultural revivalism, calling on the strongly coloured characters of the past to define and celebrate how we interpret the present.

Which is why emerging artists like Seinabo Sey (pronounced Say-na-bo Sea) are so exciting. Her influences, largely formed by her dual Swedish and Gambian upbringing, are unique.

Her sound, just as interesting – a fascinating, accessible blend of Swedish pop noir, African rhythms and down-tempo RnB.

At 23, she’s already scored No.1 hits on Hype Machine and Shazam with her debut single “Younger”. And she looks set to do the same when releases her next single, “Hard Time”, on Monday 14 July.

She’s currently in the studio in Stockholm recording her debut album with Magnus Lidehäll (Mapei, ‘Don’t Wait) – a producer she met via some pretty deft Facebook stalking. It’s out later this year.

Until then, here’s everything you need to know.

She found being a cultural ‘outsider’ was a creative blessing, but a social curse…

“We moved to Gambia from Sweden when I was six years old, because my dad was from there. It was definitely a culture shock.

“I’ve always been a little bit of an outsider where I am and I’ve had to kind of learn to understand people in order for them to understand me. To make them understand me, speak their language, or understand their culture. So it perhaps made me a little bit over-analytical about how people feel. But it helps me with my music and writing because I like to think of lots of different ways to get my message across.

“I had a hard time when I came back to Sweden and started school, because I looked different. And we moved to a really small town on the west coast of Sweden and there were no brown people around. It didn’t really get any better until I started music school at about 10 years old.”

Her earliest memory is the stuff of child nightmares…

“I went to school in this really ghetto part of Gambia, and we didn’t have any doors or things like that. I remember taking these vaccine shots [injections] and I was scared. And I remember getting the vaccine, and getting out of that room, and everyone was applauding and really proud of me. I must have been, like six years old.”

Her dad is the famous West African musician, Mawdo Sey…

“I think his career was a rollercoaster, but when I lived in Gambia as a kid he was quite famous there. I just remember maybe taking the back seat because he was sort of the star. I was around musicians all the time but the spotlight was never on me. No one really cared if I was sitting about in the corner wanting to sing or not. I was kind of shy, so nobody thought about it.

“I’ve always been very impressed by him. He had a vibe and an aura and I remember thinking, ‘People listen to him’. He’s really funny. He’s definitely my biggest idol. I wanted to be like him.”

Her school days shaped her future sound… Well. Apart from the physics.

“I got along with mostly everyone, but music school does that to you. We had to sing in a choir all the time, so we had to get along with everyone. I was really good at English, because I started school in Gambia in English and so I was ahead of everyone else for a while. Physics, weird enough!”

“I remember Alicia Keys and Usher had released a song called “My Boo” and my music teacher got me to sing a duet with a friend of mine and I remember being so nervous, because I loved to sing but I could never fathom singing by myself. And when I did that I remember how proud I was of myself. I was 12.

“I tried to push away the whole dream and thought I had to do something serious, I’m going to be a lawyer, until I was 15 or something. But then I realised I couldn’t really live in that small town so I moved to Stockholm and started music school.

She used to be a rap side-kick…

“Meeting this guy called Frank Noble, and we started this little group called Death Chronic. It was really like experimental, RnB , soulish. We made a couple of songs and got a little bit of attention here in Stockholm on all the blogs and stuff like that. And I remember tagging all the musicians I wanted to hear the song in on Facebook. And there was this rapper that picked up on it and we became friends. I went on tour with him, I became a rap sidekick for a year, it was really random. And then he had a group with the guy producing my record with (Magnus Lidehäll), and he’d produced Britney Spears before. It was a very organic thing.”

If she wasn’t on stage, you’d find her in a museum… Or in a kitchen.

“I love artistry and I’d love to run an art gallery.

“I’m quite an amazing cook, actually. I won’t even be humble about it. It’s not very classical but I can improvise. I make a mean Gambian stew with peanut butter, that you can put meat into if you want. You can convert anyone with that.”

She’s serious about her debut album. And a little concerned…

“I’ve been trying not to be too worried. But I guess a little worry and a little pressure is good. I’m trying to break genres, and not really think about it, putting in as many influences from my life and things that I’ve heard as possible and just keeping really true to my idea with the lyrics. And write about all the important aspects of life. And be quite serious about it as well because I think you need some serious music.”

She’d be a really great Indy People writer, because she loves…

“Speaking to people. How things always seem to fall with bad communication and not being able to express your emotions and I struggle with that every single day. It seems like everything is always alright if you speak up and say what you really feel.”

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French press review 19 February 2016

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By Jack Fereday

Border control occupies the opening pages of Le Monde this morning, as several European countries move to restrict the influx of migrants. Le Figaro asks whether the government will manage to pass its planned labour reform in parliament and Libération dwells on the pitfalls of massive surveillance.

Le Monde is extremely preoccupied with borders this morning.

Its article on page two reminds its readers that if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union it will probably see its border control on the French side of the Channel move back to England, bringing the migrant camps in Calais a lot closer to home.

Le Monde says that local politicians on the French side are frustrated with the treaties which have left France to do all the dirty work in dealing with the thousands of asylum seekers trying to enter the UK.

But as the Brexit scenario becomes more realistic by the day, Le Monde says the prospect of migrants being able to cross freely over to the UK is becoming an important argument for British politicians keen to remain in the EU.

On the opposite page, Le Monde reports that borders in the Balkans are becoming more and more difficult to cross, due to the increasing amount of controls and quotas being introduced.

Since January 65,000 people travelling from Greece to Germany have passed through the region but many states are now worried that thousands of people will be left stranded on their territory if their neighbors suddenly decide to close their doors.

This week Serbia sent back 200 migrants from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan who were on their way from Croatia.

And, for the first time since the migrant crisis began, Austria has announced the use of quotas to control how many people can cross its border.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now worried about a chain reaction threatening the Schengen zone and has called for a common policy on the question, according to Le Monde.

The conservative newspaper Le Figaro is more interested in France’s plans for labour law reform.

Just hours after Labour Minister Myriam El-Khomri released the first version of the bill aimed at simplifying the country’s hefty code du travail (labour code), many MPs are already up in arms.

Le Figaro quotes Socialist MP Pascal Cherki as saying that the text looks as if it was written by the Medef, France’s biggest employer federation.

The government plans to allow more space for negotiation between companies and their employees regarding working hours and salaries.

But? according to Le Figaro, many dissenting voices are starting to be heard within the ruling Socialist Party and it remains unsure whether the government will be able to pass the bill in parliament.

Le Figaro hints at large-scale demonstrations which could rattle the government in the coming months, a frightening prospect for François Hollande a year away from the next presidential election.

Pascal Cherki has called the bill an “electoral guillotine”, according to Le Figaro.

Left-wing Libération boasts a dramatic front page devoted to surveillance.

The software company Apple is refusing to collaborate with the FBI by letting them retrieve data from equipment used by suspected terrorists.

For Apple this could put it on a slippery slope, as the technology could then one day be used to spy on any of its customers.

In his editorial, Laurent Joffrin asks whether anyone will be able to guarantee security services will work within the legal framework, and answers with a quote from the English writer and politician Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt people, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

African press review 19 February 2016

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By Jack Fereday

The presidential elections in Uganda is the subject of most east African editorials today. They continue to raise questions about the electoral process. Some 40,000 tonnes of consigned Pakistani rice and a man stripping down to his underwear in a Nigerian bank complete our press review.

The presidential election in Uganda has made the headlines in many east African newspapers this morning, with many of them worried about the electoral process, as well as the shutdown of Uganda’s social networks.

As voting got underway yesterday, authorities announced that access to social media platforms such as WhatsApp or Facebook were temporarily blocked over national security concerns.

But the East African says its sources indicate that the shutdown was in fact ordered by officials in the ruling NRM party, to silence the avalanche of negative messages aimed at the incumbent president Yoweri Museveni, who is seeking a fifth term after 30 years in power.

In its editorial Kenya’s Daily Nation calls the switch-off “disturbing” and says that “open access to the media is a cardinal pillar in a democratic process”.

It adds that in the context of recent events, such as the detention of opposition candidate Kizza Besigye, the decision “feeds into a feeling that there could be a plot to manipulate the outcome of the election”.

The Daily Nation also calls on Uganda’s Electoral Commission to ensure peaceful and fair elections.

The commission owes it not only to the people of Uganda, but to east Africa and the whole continent, its editor writes.

Uganda’s Daily Monitor says it is willing to give the Electoral Commission the benefit of the doubt, despite questions raised about its integrity, and asks that the EC grasp the opportunity to redeem its image in the public eye.

In a moving editorial, the paper also condemns the acts of violence perpetrated in recent weeks, by “those who prefer to stand still as the wheel of history revolves”.

The paper implicitly blames the authorities for the violence, saying Ugandans had lost their lives at the hands of those who should instead have been protecting them.

As for the elections themselves, the editor prays that those who have planned to tamper with them fail in their endeavour, and says the country “has had enough of those who think it is theirs to do with as they please.”

“18 February,” the editorial reads, “may be recorded in history as the day when Ugandans were able to renew their faith in themselves.”

Business Daily reports that 40,000 tonnes of Pakistani rice are currently locked up in two container freight stations in Mombasa, which the Kenyan Revenue Authority has shut down over alleged dealing in contraband goods.

The Pakistan High Commission in Kenya has asked the country’s Ports Authority and Revenue Authority to release the rice, insisting the consignment was legally imported.

The stand-off is now threatening to affect bilateral relations between Pakistan and Kenya, and their leading exports of rice and tea, according to Business Daily.

Punch tells the story of a video trending in Nigeria that shows a man stripping to his boxers in a Guaranty Trust Bank to get his problem resolved.

Sat on the floor of the banking hall in a pair of underwear and a neck chain, the man tried to share his story with whoever cared to listen.

He said 150,000 Nigerian Naira (680 euros) had been illegally deducted from his account and that nothing had been done about it.

According to Punch, the trending video has elicited strong reactions from social network users, with some criticising the bank for failing to resolve the issue swiftly.

But if you get frustrated with customer service at your local bank you might want to consider other options, as in the course of the five-minute video, banking activities went on around our poor fellow without anyone paying a bit of notice.

French press review 30 November 2015

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By Michael Fitzpatrick
One single story . . . today’s opening of the heads of state at the UN Climate Conference . . . dominates every French front page this morning. It’s hard to tell if the news is good or bad.

“Can we still save the planet?” asks the main headline in Le Monde.

“There’s a glimmer of hope,” say the optimistic Catholics at Le Croix.

The communists at L’Humanité assure us, with a dubious handling of metaphor, that “The world has its back to the climatic wall.”

Press Review Example

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By Clea Broadhurst
This week the French magazines continue to dig into the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and they offer different points of view regarding how to fight the Islamic State (IS) armed group, which many French call Daesh, but also how to understand the deadly organisation. Several ask, what are the secret services doing?

Gambian Diaspora Leader Welcomes Alleged Coup Attempt

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Source : VOA – http://bit.ly/1lFXptF

The Gambian government has denied reports of an alleged attempted coup against President Yahya Jammeh.

Gunfire erupted early Tuesday in the capital, Banjul, and residents awoke to find government buildings and the main bridge into the city sealed off by soldiers.

A government statement described the reports of a coup as rumors and said peace and calm continue to prevail in the West African country.

Pa Samba Jow, the spokesman for the Democratic Union of Gambian Activists in the Diaspora, said his organization wishes the attempted coup would have been successful. Jow said Gambians want to get rid of Jammeh, who his group accuses of abrogating the rights and freedoms of Gambians for 20 years with impunity.

“I think, for this time, it was a genuine attempt to definitely get rid of this regime that has abrogated the rights of Gambians for over 20 years. I think the regime has denied Gambians all avenues, legally and constitutionally, to change the manner of their government. People are left with no other choice but to try to end it by any means necessary,” he said.

Jow described the alleged coup plotters as freedom fighters who, he said, are determined to restore democracy to The Gambia.

Jammeh came to power in a coup in 1994. His government has been heavily criticized abroad for what Amnesty International called its iron fisted repression and widespread human rights violations.

In its 2013 Human Rights Report, the U.S. State Department said The Gambia’s most serious human rights problems included government interference with the electoral process, harassment and abuse of its critics, and torture, arrest, detention, and sometimes enforced disappearance of citizens.

The rights group Civil Society Associations Gambia criticized President Obama for hosting Jammeh at the White House during the U.S.-Africa summit in August, which drew dozens of African heads of state to the U.S. capital.

Jow said everything has gone wrong under Jammeh.

“When Jammeh came to power, the reason he claimed was corruption and overstay in power by the previous regime. Jammeh made the claim that he will never introduce dictatorship in the country, that nobody will ever rule the country for more than 10 years. As we speak, he’s been in power for 20 years. As we speak, Yahyah Jammeh, who came to power a poor man, is now one of the richest people in the country, if not the whole of Africa,” Jow said.

The African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have both frowned on coups.

Jow said that had the alleged coup succeeded, the AU and ECOWAS would have no choice but to support the restoration of democracy in The Gambia.

“Gambians have not been accorded any opportunity to change the manner of their government in a peaceful, democratic way. What is important is for sure that the international community support the Gambian people and to install the restoration of democracy and to make sure that nobody in the history of that country takes the government of the people from the back of the people,” Jow said.

Jow said the Gambian media is under constant attack under Jammeh and that the government does not allow for the free exercise of democratic rights.

The French News Agency quoted an unnamed military officer as saying three suspects were killed in the violence, including the alleged ringleader, whom the officer described as an army deserter.

A US State Department spokesman said the United States strongly condemns any attempt to seize power through extra constitutional means.

Butty interview with Pa Samba Jow

Here’s what the U.S. came up with to stop a Gambian exodus: pop music.

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Source : http://wapo.st/1JtbWVf
How do you stop a historic flow of migrants to Europe?
With pop music, according to the U.S. Embassy in Gambia.

As thousands of migrants left Gambia, one of Africa’s smallest, poorest and least democratic nations, the embassy put on a concert aimed at deterring young men from making the journey to Europe. The concert, held in November, was called “No to Backway,” referring to the Gambian term for illegal migration across the Mediterranean.

As European policymakers deport migrants or debate how to disrupt smuggling networks, other efforts are being made to discourage young men and women from leaving in the first place. Banners have been hung in small villages across West Africa. Television and advertising spots have been purchased. The United Nations has been actively engaged in those campaigns around the developing world.

But the American attempt in Gambia is certainly one of the more creative. In addition to the concert, the United States paid twelve Gambian artists to write and record songs about illegal migration that would be performed live and disseminated across the country by radio and cellphone.

The singers were each paid around $270. The gross national income per capita in Gambia is $500, according to the World Bank.

“They called me and explained the motives involved. They said ‘It’s about enlightening people about the dangers involved,’ ” recalled one singer, Fattoumatta Sandeng, 21. “It sounded noble.”

The songs and the concert don’t appear to be dissuading anyone. Massive numbers of Gambians have continued leaving for Europe this year, many of them dying on the way.

“These are the kinds of things you do even though they have minimal impact,” said Demetrios G. Papademetriou, president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank devoted to the study of migration. “They give governments a sense that they’re doing something.”

Attendance was poor at the concert. Even the performers couldn’t persuade many of their friends to come. As part of the campaign, U.S. diplomats spoke to Gambian media outlets about the opportunities for young people in the country. But even by the standards of sub-Saharan Africa, those opportunities are limited.

“A lot of people are planning to go the Backway, and they didn’t see the reason to go to a concert like that,” Sandeng said.

The songs are in four languages: Wollof, Mandinka, Sarrahule and English. They range from soulful ballads to anthemic hip-hop songs. Some touched on the reasons many are leaving.

“It’s hard to survive off of $50 a month,” sang one artist, Killa Ace.

Africa exodus Tiny Gambia has a big export: Migrants desperate to reach Europe

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DAMPHA KUNDA, Gambia — The village was losing its young men. Hundreds had left their thatched-roof huts and tiny squares of farmland for the promise of Europe. About 40 had died on the way.

Susso knew nearly all of them. He had prayed at the funerals after their boats capsized or their smugglers stranded them in the desert, ceremonies with mourners but no bodies. The grim toll complicated his plan, turned it into a secret he hid from almost everyone.

He, too, was preparing to join the exodus from Dampha Kunda.
Africa has never seen such a flood of young men heading for Europe. The number of migrants crossing by sea to Italy, a top entry point, nearly quadrupled from 2013 to 2014, reaching about 170,100. Sub-Saharan Africans made up a growing percentage of the total, with around 64,600 arriving last year. This year, the figure is expected to be even higher. Gambia, one of Africa’s smallest nations, is a big contributor to that flow.

To deter the arrivals, European policymakers have proposed reinforcing their naval forces in the Mediterranean, conducting mass deportations and destroying smugglers’ boats. When Susso turns on the radio in the bedroom he shares with his wife and six children, he hears all the ways Europe is trying to dissuade him from leaving.

But it has never been so alluring — or so easy — to begin the trip. Over the past two years, sub-Saharan Africa’s smuggling networks have expanded, as Libya has descended into chaos, leaving its coasts unguarded as migrants set out for Italy, a few hundred miles away.

Stories of Gambians arriving on Italian or Spanish shores now reach even remote Dampha Kunda via Facebook and text message, like rumors of a gold rush. Most men keep their plans a secret until they leave, fearing an outcry from worried relatives or arrest by the country’s authoritarian government. Susso asked that only his last name, common in eastern Gambia, be used in this article.

In the weeks before his trip, he veiled himself in routine, waking every day at 5 and working on the rice farm of the village’s richest family. He played on the floor with his children, most of them half-clothed in torn shirts and underwear, telling them nothing of his plan.

Then, one day in May, Susso opened a drawer hidden under a yellow blanket and removed a small metal box with a silver padlock. He counted the money: 17,000 dalasi, about $500. It had taken him three years. It was enough to begin the journey north.

Twice a week, a bus called the “TA Express,” full of young men wearing sandals and carrying small bags, clatters past Dampha Kunda on its way to Agadez, a desert city in Niger that smugglers use as a way station on the route to Libya and Europe.

Soon, Susso told himself, he would be on it.

“The Western Route,” experts call the web of migrant trails from Gambia, Senegal and Mali that now lead to North Africa. But Gambians have a different name for the dangerous path to Europe: The Backway.

“Say No to the Backway,” reads a government banner near Susso’s village, with a picture of a boat capsized in the ocean.

“Backway bad way,” says a song funded by the U.S. Embassy in Gambia and played on the radio here.

Across Africa, there are different paths to Europe and different reasons for leaving. In Somalia, refugees flee the brutal al-Shabab rebels, following an “Eastern route” winding through Sudan. In Eritrea, they escape a harsh military regime.

And Susso’s reasons? He walked by them one day in the scorching heat shortly before he would depart, homes in sandy lots with numbers painted on the walls.
House number 1027, a mud-baked hut, was getting a cinderblock addition, thanks to money from a relative in Spain. House 301 boasted a flat-screen television, thanks to remittances from Germany. And House 311 had a big red tractor.

“So much money,” he sighed.
Poverty had once imposed a kind of uniformity here — every house with a thatched roof and dirt floor, every meal a small portion of rice and okra, every job tending to patches of rice on a small subsistence farm.

Then the wealth gap that had always separated Europe and Africa began to insinuate itself here. If you had a relative in Europe, you were rich. If not, you remained stuck on the edge of survival.

It filled Susso with an envy that bordered on anger. He was 39, broad-shouldered and sleepy-eyed, older and wearier than most of the men making the journey north.

Susso could afford only two meals a day for his family. He knew he would have to pull his four sons out of school in their early teens, so they could work his small rice field or make money elsewhere. He shared his two-room home with 12 people, including his brother, nieces and nephews, a bedsheet hanging where the front door should be.

Like so many Gambians, no matter how much he was willing to work, his ambition yielded almost nothing.

A growing number of Gambians are literate, but with “little chance at employment that matches their skills, just like China by the 1960s and India by the 1970s,” said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. “So they do the rational thing and they leave.”

The Gambian government hasn’t helped. Its longtime dictator, President Yahya Jammeh, has preached a life of subsistence. He has created a bizarre mythology around himself as a man who could cure AIDS and threatened to personally slit the throats of gay men. He has brushed off the thousands of young men fleeing his country as failures and bad Muslims.

But even the farmers of Dampha Kunda knew migrants were the true success stories. Twenty percent of Gambia’s gross domestic product now comes from remittances, according to the World Bank, one of the highest percentages in Africa. It’s a nation with almost no industry or valuable natural resources, where the government dominates what little private sector exists.

“The only people who can make any money in The Gambia are those very close to the president. If not, you’re making $100 a month, if that,” said C. Omar Kebbeh, an economist and expert in Gambian migration, now at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Not far from Susso’s house, there was a massive billboard with a picture of Jammeh, smiling in a white cap.

“Grow what you eat and eat what you grow,” it said.

For Susso, that policy had one palpable impact.

“We’re hungry,” he said. “We’re always hungry.”

Susso had memorized the way Dampha Kunda looked from eight feet off the ground, as he bumped through the rice fields atop a big red tractor. The new two-story houses rose above the old, mud-colored huts. Across much of the village’s cropland, plants were ailing. With the rising prices, few people could afford fertilizer.

The tractor was an extraordinary luxury in a place where almost no one owned a car. But it didn’t belong to Susso. Its owner lived in Europe.

The first major wave of Gambians left villages like Dampha Kunda in the 1990s, mostly for Spain. By 2010, there were 65,000 Gambians abroad, around 4 percent of the population. One of the men sending money home was Alagi Ceesay, the owner of the tractor.

Full story here : http://wapo.st/1IE7Rc4

Interview example

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