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Social Media Boosts Nigeria’s Polls

Elections redefined, as candidates and voters go online

By André-Michel Essoungou, African Renewal

In 2008, then US presidential candidate Barack Obama broke new ground by using social media in ways never seen before. Yet it was Goodluck Jonathan, the recently elected president of Nigeria, who took the extraordinary step of announcing his bid for the highest office on Facebook. On Wednesday, 15 September 2010, he informed his 217,000-plus fans on the world’s most popular networking platform of his intent. Twenty four hours later, 4,000 more fans joined his page. By the day of the election, on 16 April 2011, he had over half a million followers.

Mr. Jonathan’s online campaign was only one illustration of the social media fever that gripped Africa’s most populous country (with around 150 million people) during its most recent presidential, parliamentary and local elections. A report by two researchers who helped track online traffic during the month-long polls argues that the country’s use of social media reached unprecedented levels.* “Nigeria set a new record for recent African elections in the number of reports tracked using social media,” it says. In addition to the approximately 3 million registered Nigerians on Facebook and 60,000 on Twitter, almost every institution involved in Nigeria’s elections conducted an aggressive social networking outreach, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political parties, candidates, media houses, civil society groups and even the police.

The report notes that between 10 March and 16 April 2011, the electoral commission posted almost 4,000 tweets, many in response to voter queries. Using Twitter, commission officials at polling stations around the country also were able to communicate among themselves, and even confirmed the death of one of their members who had been attacked. “Twitter ultimately proved to be the most efficient way to interact with INEC,” the document authors report. The commission’s use of social media led to its website receiving a record 25 million hits in three days during the presidential election. “By using social media to inspire voters, the electoral commission has redefined elections in Nigeria,” analyzed Punch, the country’s most circulated newspaper.

The boom in use of social media during elections also helped the media expand their readerships. Shortly before the polls, the Daily Trust newspaper had 32,000 fans on Facebook. A few weeks later, the number had more than doubled to 65,000, placing its online reach beyond its print distribution of 50,000. To build up its fan base, the newspaper also used social media in its reporting. Journalists solicited and used questions from Facebook fans for interviews with the chairman of INEC. Since the elections, the Daily Trust has further increased its Facebook presence, with 95,000 fans by July 2011.

The online networking platforms reflected popular interest. Unsurprisingly, social media use reached its peak during the presidential election on 16 April. On that day, a total of 33,460 text messages and 130,426 posts on Twitter and Facebook were sent by some 65,000 voters.

The content was mixed, the authors point out. “Social media, especially Twitter, was used to report occurrences [of fraud] — truthful as well as fabricated.” Yet, they add, it played a mostly constructive role during the post-election violence by exposing unfounded rumours.

the ”Social media tools,” the report concludes, “revolutionized efficiency of election observing by increasing coverage and reporting, while minimizing costs…. They changed how information was disseminated in Nigeria. Citizens accessed information directly and more accurately, resulting in unsurpassed participation in politics during the 2011 elections.”

That upbeat assessment, however, needs to be put in context: An estimated 70,000 people posted contents online during Nigeria’s polls, but they were just a tiny fraction of the registered 73 million voters.   Still, a new trend appears to have begun.

Ghana’s cocoa farmers get advice via mobile phones

Eight thousand Ghanaian cocoa farmers in 15 communities are currently receiving practical information through mobile telephones on “farming practices, farm safety, child labour, health, crop disease prevention, post-harvest production and crop marketing,” reports the Australia-based agricultural website Ausfoodnews.

Launched by the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) and the Hershey Company, the programme, called “CocoaLink,” allows farmers to receive information from the WCF in local languages by voice mail or text messaging, as well as prompt responses to enquiries. If the pilot phase is successful, an estimated 100,000 of the country’s 700,000 cocoa farmers will ultimately benefit. “The programme offers an innovative, yet simple, way to get critical information to cocoa farmers,” says Anthony Fofie, the head of Cocobod, which oversees and supports the programme.

Some 65 per cent of Ghana’s rural people use phones (compared with the national rate of 85 per cent). In May, Deputy Minister of Communications Ernest Attuquaye Armah urged greater use of information and communications technologies to enhance the quality of life in rural  areas.

Africa’s mobile advertising up

In the three months to June 2011, Africa’s mobile advertising market grew by 21 per cent, according to the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, InMobi. The firm says advertisements sent to subscribers on the continent were viewed 4.2 billion times per month. These views (also known as impressions) were up from 3.5 billion in January 2011. South Africa is the largest national mobile advertising market, with 946 million impressions a month, 24 per cent of the continent’s total. Nigeria and Egypt come next. With almost half of the 1 billion Africans using mobile phones, the firm says that the sector “is now a must-buy media for major brands looking to grow their business on the continent.”

The growth of mobile advertising is set to continue with the use of faster broadband connections. Informa Telecoms & Media, a consulting company, predicts that broadband subscriptions, currently standing at 12 million, will hit 265 million by 2015.

Such numbers and predictions seem to confirm views from those who see Africa fast becoming a powerhouse for mobile technology. Already, the continent represents over 10 per cent of all mobile subscribers  worldwide.

Kenya government launches ‘open data’ website

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki inaugurated his government’s “open data” website in Nairobi on 8 July. The site, which offers citizens access to a wide variety of official statistics on health, education, public spending and other development and policy priorities, is said to be the first of its kind in Africa.

The site is intended to make government more efficient and transparent, officials told reporters, and support Kenya’s emergence as a leader in the booming African information technology industry. In addition to user-friendly maps, graphs and charts of commonly sought information, the site also provides raw data for programmers and analysts, who are invited to design their own software applications for the material.

Kenyan software engineers and entrepreneurs were quick to realize the potential of Africa’s enthusiastic embrace of mobile telephones. Kenyan designers have won high praise for such products as the popular M-Pesa cell phone banking service and the Ushahidi citizen reporting system that has been used to monitor elections, document political violence and locate earthquake survivors in Haiti.

Mobile telephone subscriptions in Africa have nearly quadrupled since 2005 to over 360 million, and African software engineers are competing to develop phone-based access to health, education, farming and government services. Industry analysts expect strong growth in the  African mobile market to continue.

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Lighting Up in the Morning and Cancer

People who smoke soon after getting up in the morning are more likely to develop cancer than those who light up later in the day, say US researchers.

A study of 7,610 smokers, published in the journal Cancer, said the effect was independent of other smoking habits.

Smoking in the first 30 minutes after waking nearly doubled the, already high, risk of lung cancer.

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Eating Disorders Delay Pregnancy

A new research suggests that women with a history of eating disorders may struggle to get pregnant quickly. The study also found that these women are more than twice as likely to need fertility treatment

The women had a history of anorexia or bulimia.

The research was conducted by the King’s College London and University College London and reported the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The 6.2% women with eating disorders were more likely to need fertility treatment compared with 2.7% of the general population.

However, perhaps surprisingly, more pregnancies in the group of women who had had anorexia at some point were unplanned.

Mary George of the eating disorders charity Beat said many people had no idea of the problems they could be causing in the future.

She said: “Eating disorders are very serious illnesses that are depriving the body of the nutrients that it needs.

“They can have long-term health consequences.”

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Text Messages Advance Malaria Care

Text messages could be a cost effective way of improving care for African children with malaria, according to researchers.

A six month study involving 119 health workers in Kenya, published by The Lancet, showed texts increased the number following government guidelines.

Half of children received the correct treatment at the end of the study, more than double the starting figure.

Researchers said there was “huge potential” to improve care.

There has been concern that government guidelines on malaria treatments are not always followed in the field.

Guidelines include the correct prescription of anti-malaria drugs – artemether-lumefantrine (AL) – and advice to parents.

Health workers in the study were sent text messages twice a day, five days a week, for six months.

An example of the sort of sent was: “advise mother to finish all AL doses over three days even if the child feels better after two doses”.

Improvement

At the beginning of the study, 20.5% of children were correctly managed, this increased to 49.6% after the six month study.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We need to explore ways of scaling up such intervention to all health workers in the country”

End Quote Dr Willis Akhwale Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation

The effect appeared to persist after the texts stopped. Six months after the trial ended, 51.4% of children were receiving the correct treatment.

Professor Bob Snow, who headed the research group, said: “The role of the mobile phone in improving health providers’ performance, health service management and patient adherence to new medicines across much of Africa has a huge potential.”

The cost of the texts was estimated at £1.59 for the whole six months for each worker.

However, the authors acknowledge that “we do not fully understand why the intervention was successful”.

They suspect it may act as a reminder or reinforce the importance of the messages in the texts.

Dr Willis Akhwale, from the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, said: “We need to explore ways of scaling up such intervention to all health workers in the country.”

Bruno Moonen and Justin Cohen, from the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Nairobi, said: “A combination of interventions will most likely be needed to improve adherence to national guidelines.”

The study provides “strong evidence that text message reminders can be an effective, low-cost component of such a package”.

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Ignore the African Union, Arrest Murmur Gaddafi

Commentary/African Democracy

Five months into the Libyan crisis that seeks to nurture democracy by clearing out the long-running Murmur Gaddafi dictatorial regime, the Libyan leader digs in precariously. Part of the reasons is the environment Gaddafi finds himself in – Africa, where he has like-minded leaders.

The June 29 to July 1 African Union (AU) Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea that said African leaders “will not subscribe or respect the recent arrest warrant” smacked on Gaddafi by the International Criminal Court (ICC)” for crimes against humanity is inopportune for Africa’s democratic growth.

The AU’s stand on Gaddafi isn’t surprising. The Gaddafi lobby had recruited ex-Ghanaian dictator President Jerry Rawlings, who has weak democratic credentials and was helped by Gaddafi in 1981 to topple the democratically elected President Hilla Limann, to Malabo to talk some African leaders to disregard the ICC warrant. Similar arrest warrant slapped on the Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on July 12, 2010, whose forces have killed over 300,000 civilians in Sudan’s Darfur, has not been enforced by AU members. In fact, Gaddafi had earlier arm-twisted fellow African leaders to ignore the ICC warrant whacked on el-Bashir.

African leaders do not share common democratic purpose. This is nauseating. They are tyrannical playactors against Africa’s real democratic needs – the rule of law, freedoms, social justice, equality and deep decentralization as harbingers for authentic advancement. This has made the swaggering AU a forum of unrealistic dictators at collision with realistic democrats. This is putting Africa’s emerging democracy and progress at risk.

Another bad omen for African democrats was the fact that Malabo, unlike Accra (Ghana) or Port Louis (Mauritius), wasn’t a positive democratic venue for their struggles. The dark, nightmarish undemocratic forces in Malabo were too strong for the burgeoning African democrats. The gloomy autocratic forces were able to disable the blossoming African democracy. Teodoro Obiang, the President of Equatorial Guinea, who hosted the AU summit and was elected the new chair of the AU, is horrific premonition for African democrats.

Equatorial Guinea is practically a one-party system despite multiparty democracy enshrined in its 1991 constitution. With only a population of 668,225, Equatorial Guinea may be oil rich but majority of Equatorial Guineans survive on less than US$2.00 a day. This is despite the fact that the US State Department reports, “the 2010 government revenue was about US$6.739 billion.”

Irrationally believing he is a God-sent, like Gaddafi and other African leaders, Teodoro Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea wistfully for 31 years, luckily dodging off attempts to overthrow him. With one of the worst human rights violations in Africa, Obiang tortures and has killed hundreds of Equatorial Guineans to contain opposition.

Whether in Malabo, Teodoro Obiang or Gaddafi, at issue are democratic values driven by Africans’ experiences and history. Malabo, Teodoro Obiang or Gaddafi is allergic to democratic ideals. They cannot put up with democratic daylight beamed onto their dark authoritarian practices by African democrats.

In this sense, at the heart of the tussle between the AU and the ICC are Africa’s democratic enlargement and its implications for Africa’s progress – based on Africa’s dark history of tyranny, social injustice and corruption by its leaders such as Gaddafi. The ICC incursion into Africa’s democratic growth, as Cote d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara indicated when he asked the ICC to “investigate allegations of serious human rights crimes committed during the country’s recent turmoil,” is that years of dictatorship have made the African legal system frail and at the mercy of dictators like Gaddafi.

Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that Gaddafi thinks the pro-democracy campaigners are possessed with evil spirits and should be ritually killed to cleanse Libya. But for NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Gaddafi would have engaged in mass butchering of the Libyan pro-democracy campaigners. In the fashion of African style-human sacrifice, Gaddafi had planned to purify the Libyan society with the blood of the Libyan democrats.

While the world condemned Gaddafi, most African leaders did not. The reasons are obvious, most African leaders’ mind-set aren’t different from Gaddafi. Over the years, Gaddafi has gleefully bankrolled a good number of them. Despite this some African countries and institutions such as the main opposition party in Ghana, the National Patriotic Party, has asked for global support for Libya’s pro-democracy campaigners. The grand old Liberia has sided with Libyan democrats, following the heels of Senegal and Mauritania. Chad, which has suffered over the years from Gaddafi’s disorder, too, “supports efforts to drive Muammar Gaddafi from power.”

African watchers such as the Geoffrey York, of the Toronto-based The Globe And Mail, thinks part of the reasons why African leaders are soft on Gaddafi and shown no support for Africa’s pro-democracy revolutionaries is that democratic “revolution is often a luxury of an educated middle class, and much of Africa is too rural and too poor to sustain a national uprising … Dictators in sub-Sahara Africa often defend their power through a politically loyal military …”

Gaddafi’s legendary use of his family and his Bedouin ethnic group that dominated the Libyan military to violently suppress Libyans quest for democracy and freedoms in the past 42 years is open secret. This is the African “Big Man” syndrome at work, either in the Malabo AU summit or Tripoli’s Green Square, aided by prevailing armies and an unfeeling readiness to use brutality against democracy and freedom activists.

Still, some of the motives for the muted African voices are technology and ethnic and religious. Geoffrey York argues that limited technologies such as internet make it difficult for Africans to rally for Libyan democrats (Cell phones are hugely common but other forms of technology are limited). “And the ethnic and religious rifts in many African countries are huge obstacle to the organization of national” democratic “protest.”  This has restricted civil society.

Gibril Koroma, the Sierra Leonean publisher of the Vancouver-based www.thepatrioticvanguard.com argues that by not giving higher thoughts to Africa’s democratic evolution and supporting Gaddafi’s violent attacks against Libya’s democrats, the African Union “pumps oxygen into Gaddafi.” That’s sad and inhuman considering Gaddafi’s history of brutalities against Libyans and other Africans. In Gibril Koroma’s own native Sierra Leone, Gaddafi destructively helped finance and traine the murderous Revolutionary United Front that killed, maimed, raped, fire-boomed property, looted diamonds and amputed Sierra Leoneans – cutting off their limbs, noses, ears and genitals.

Other reasons why African leaders constantly keep quiet about Gaddafi’s dictatorial attitude, Gibril Koroma, in an op-ed piece in the Toronto-based Digital Journal argued, is “Gaddafi has used Libyan money to help most of the cash-strapped African countries and has been financially supporting the political and economic unification of the continent. Most African leaders are grateful for this and will stand by him through thick and thin.”

That’s untoward for a continent which progress has been stunted by the likes of Gaddafi. The nascent African democratic experiences reveal that democracy and freedoms will bring indestructibly superior advancement for the struggling Africans. Ghana, Botswana, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Mali, South Africa and Benin Republic attest to this. But majority of other Africans are still suffering under authoritarian regimes like Gaddafi’s.

Plausibly, this makes Gibril Koroma’s other argument that African leaders are cool with Gaddafi because of his make-believe mission of a United States of America and some Western leaders are “hypocrites,” some of whom aren’t “even a signatory to the ICC agreements,” off tangent. Yes, these may be true to some points. But the critical issue is Africa’s healthier democratic fruition for its progress informed by the contemptible political records of African leaders such as Gaddafi.

For their greater progress, Africans should ignore the wobbly African Union’s stand on Gaddafi and arrest Gaddafi if they locate him anywhere on the African continent for the International Criminal Court, for his crimes against Africans.

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Party Politics and Internal Democracy in Africa- Implication for Development

Politics is a neutral game anchored in the body polity of political parties which serve as the platforms upon which political aspirants seeking for elective positions canvass for the support of the electorate. Therefore, political parties must be viable in terms of sound-minded men and women who are politically schooled in the game of politics. They ought to be guided by rules that are not  partial and fair to all, robust political culture, devoid of grandstand personalities who exude an air of personal aggrandizement, ethnically balanced, religiously unprejudiced, as well as a near-perfect structure that train and breed future leaders.

But political parties in many African countries since their independence have been reduced to mere quasi family organizations, vendetta-spots, money-making machines for hungry and upstart politicians and surrogate aspirants. Besides, they lack internal democracy- the hallmark of party politics and, they are ethnically and religiously fragmented and ideologically divided with no clue for the progress of the society. These parties are built around an individual either because he is financially empowered or s/she is charismatic. They thrive in ethnic savor and most times lack national outlook and they are not institutionalized. They run party’s activities with thugs and pugilists in a macho-manner.  As such, they push parochial agenda and programs, manipulate positions for wives and children and friends in an inheritance fashion, betray financially less-privileged candidates; while favoritism rather meritocracy, takes the driver’s seat.

The fallouts of lack of internal democracy in the conduct of political party’s affairs had led to the imposition of unpopular candidates on the electorate and the state in case they win elections, internal squabbles and political tension in the body polity. All these have grave implications for development. Above all, they undermine the strength of the party; breed unspoken animosity and breaks-away, cross-carpeting and in most cases make the party profoundly unpopular in strongholds of unsatisfied actors.

Meanwhile this also creates an avenue for the dominant party to lose elections.  Break-away further leads to the formation of new smaller political parties as alternatives. Though, multi-party politics is robust and deepens democracy the world over, in Africa it has become the harbinger of ethnic tension and post-election violence. The reason being aggrieved political defectors erroneously believe they must win elections at all costs even before they are conducted. They threaten fire and brimstones on how best they would make their countries ungovernable if elections (yet to be conducted) results are not in their favor. Good omen for development?

Political parties these days hardly come up with viable options for development in their manifestos as they lack well-rounded ideology. The only program they always rehearse is how they will stamp-out corruption and provide modern infrastructure and eradicate poverty. Nothing more! This is because the caliber of people at the helms of affairs is self-serving and they are either looking for political appointments or contracts. So, what we have in Africa are political dealers who jump into the party’s executive race to deal on party’s juicy opportunities to further personal interest. They end up with candidates who are corruption driven, unable to deliver on fake fabulous electioneering promises. These candidates would not come back to their primary constituencies, except another electioneering calendar year is near. What an affront on the electorate.

It is pertinent to know that the future development of any country practicing democracy rests on the shoulders of political parties that have strong development program which embraces corrupt-free political actors, adhere to rules and subject all party players to the same part ethics, adhere to the guiding principle of election rather than selection in party primaries, discipline any act of real misconducts, no matter whose horse is gored. When political parties fail in their duty to educate and bring forth trust-worthy and popular candidates for elections, they will not only be bashed in the process, they are laying the foundation for future demise of the parties, while they inadvertently hold their country’s development to hurtful underdevelopment.

If you like this article, I’d recommend my book “If I Was Famous, I’d Have a Lot to Say”

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After Independence, What Next for South Sudan?

Building a new nation amidst dire poverty and the scars of war

By Peter Martell, Juba

UN African Renewal

With a roaring cheer the people of South Sudan welcomed the newest nation in the world. A sea of people waved flags in a blur of colour as the south’s flag was hoisted high into the air on 9 July, marking the historic moment of formal independence from former civil war enemies in the north. Couples embraced and men cried as the new national anthem was sung for the first time ever.

“Today is the most important day for the people of South Sudan, the proclamation of whose birth and emergence as a member of the community of world nations you have just witnessed,” said President Salva Kiir, speaking in front of a giant crowd. “It is a day which will be forever engraved on our hearts and minds.… We have waited 56 years for this day. It is a dream that has come true.”

But the party is over, and now the hard work begins. “Let us celebrate today, but we must get to work right away,” President Kiir added. Achieving that dream will be no easy task. The new nation, an area about the size of Spain and Portugal combined, is left in ruins by decades of war.

“We have suffered so much over many long years of fighting,” said former child soldier turned student Mabior David. “Our baby nation has a long way to go,” he added. “But if we can be left in peace, I’m hopeful we will manage.”

Challenges

Sudan’s wars were the longest running conflict in Africa: two rounds of civil war spanning nearly 40 years, fought over ideology, religion, ethnicity, resources, land and oil. The last round, from 1983 to 2005, left some 2 million people dead and 4 million displaced from their homes.

Some in the south fought for separation. Others wanted Sudan to remain united, aiming to change a ruling regime in Khartoum that they said marginalized the majority. But the rebels also fought amongst themselves, in bitter internecine battles as bloody and as bitter as those fought against government forces.

A referendum on independence was set as part of a 2005 peace deal. When it came this January, almost 99 per cent of southerners who voted in the poll chose to split Africa’s largest country into two.

Southerners hope that the wars are now over. But formal independence will not solve overnight the massive problems left by such a long war.

“There are enormous expectations, but also enormous challenges ahead,” said Joe Feeney, who heads the UN Development Programme in South Sudan. “The people of South Sudan have suffered enormously. [The war] left a scar that is not only physical, in the infrastructure, but a scar has been left on the people.”

Six nations share a border with South Sudan, which has fewer than 100 kilometres of tarmac roads. “The vast majority of the country remains inaccessible during the rainy season,” added Mr. Feeney. “Jonglei state, just one of the 10 states in the south, is twice the size of my country, Ireland, and it has no paved roads.”

Statistics are shocking. South Sudan has lucrative oil reserves, but remains one of the most impoverished and least developed countries in the world. The UN’s World Food Programme said it helped feed about half the population last year, or some 4 million people.

The UN issues a list of “scary statistics” for visiting journalists: South Sudan has the lowest routine immunization coverage rate in the world. A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than completing school. One out of seven women who become pregnant in the south will probably die from pregnancy-related causes.

Away from the celebrations in the capital, Juba, people had little time to party for independence. Much of their lives are taken up with day-to-day survival. “The acid test of success will be what changes the people out in the states will see in their lives as a result of independence,” Mr. Feeney said.

“All of Sudan, not just the south, will face major challenges,” warns Oxfam, the UK-based aid agency. “It will need long-term support from the international community if there is to be lasting peace and development.”

In Africa's newest — and one of its poorest — nations, one out of seven women dies from pregnancy-related causes. UN Photo / Fred Noy

Trappings of a state

Football and basketball teams have been made, passports ordered, a national anthem written and sung. “Having our own team play under the South Sudanese flag is something we have waited for,” says Rudolf Andrea, secretary of the South Sudan Football Association. “It is something I never thought would be possible, to show the world we are truly a new nation.”

But creating a viable nation will take more work than the symbolic trappings of state alone. The introduction of a new separate currency for the south is just one step, with other major hurdles ahead for the fledgling economy.

Key to the success of the south will be how the government negotiates with those who still threaten the new country, from outside and within. Ethnic rivalries between multiple groups are exasperated by bitter enmities dating from the war. In the past, the north exploited rivalries by backing splinter militias distrustful of the mainstream southern leadership.

Most of the south pulled together during the war in opposition to forces from the north. But now that separation has taken place, the south must unite and find new bonds and create a nation based on a shared identity.

“Is this nation going to be an inclusive nation?” asked Jok Madut Jok, a South Sudanese academic working in the culture ministry, who is also a history professor at Loyola Marymount University in the US state of California. “Or is it going to exercise the double standard that other countries have gone in for — that you become independent and then go ahead and do the exact things that you had rebelled against?”

Ensuring economic growth

Over 2 million southerners have returned home since the 2005 peace agreement was signed. But a new wave of tens of thousands of families are now travelling from the north to south. Over 300,000 people have returned home since last October, with many more expected still to come.

“We have returned home because we had to leave the north, because our jobs were terminated,” said former civil service official Giir Thiik, who spent four weeks on a slow barge to Juba. “There is nothing here for me to do, and my money is little. I’m glad to be back in the south, but truthfully, it is a shock.”

Building an economy to construct the new nation and provide jobs will put huge pressure on the government. Up to now, many services have been provided by aid agencies and international partners.

The government budget is based almost entirely on oil revenues, as much as 98 per cent in recent years. But there is also other economic potential. The south is believed to hold large mineral and metal deposits. It has vast areas of potential farmland, forestry and even hydroelectric power from the White Nile River.

But change must reach the people on the streets and in the villages. “We just want to be able to work and make a life for ourselves,” says Mary Okech, a widow with six children, who collects rubbish. “The problems are that there are not good jobs for us, and I don’t have the money to make a business on my own. I need help for that.”

Violence

Stabilizing peace also remains a real concern. The final steps towards Sudan’s divorce have been far from easy. Key deals remain to be struck on a variety of issues: sharing the oil proceeds, dividing the US$35 billion debt and demarcating the borders. Both countries have introduced new currencies, a process that is likely to add complications to their struggling and poorly managed economies.

Despite a peaceful referendum for the south, tensions remain high with the north, after months of violence in the border areas. In May, northern troops took over the contested Abyei region, forcing over 110,000 people to flee into the south. Both north and south claim the flashpoint region of grasslands and farms about the size of Lebanon as theirs. A referendum to determine where it will belong has been blocked, and remains a source of tension between the two sides.

A deal has been struck for northern troops to pull out and Ethiopian peacekeepers to replace them. But that deal still does not provide any means for a long-term peaceful solution.

Then in June violence broke out in the northern oil state of Southern Kordofan, between the northern military and former members of the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, now the official southern army. The north claims the fighters there are backed by the south, just as the south accuses the north of backing rebels in its territory to destabilize key oil areas along the still undefined north-south border.

Each side rejects the other’s accusations. But analysts say they fear there will be no swift solution to the conflict along the border.

Countdown to South Sudan’s independence

  • 1820Egyptian army under Ottoman Turks invade Sudan, the south’s official start date of the “191-year struggle.”
  • 1955Torit Mutiny against British colonial rule, followed by an intermittent bush war.
  • 1 January 1956Independence of Sudan.
  • 1963Southern separatist Anyanya rebels step up attacks.
  • 1972Peace agreement signed between  Khartoum and Anyanya rebels, giving the south limited autonomy; but the agreement swiftly crumbles.
  • 1983Southern army officers rebel in Bor, forming the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and sparking the start of the second civil war.
  • 9 January 2005Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed to end 21 years of war.
  • 9 January 2011Week-long South Sudan independence referendum held.
  • 7 February 2011Final results released: almost 99 per cent vote for separation.
  • 9 July 2011Independence of South Sudan proclaimed.
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Pregnancy Stroke Surge in The US

The numbers of US women having a stroke during pregnancy has surged, according to doctors.

The incidents increased from 4,085 in 1994-5 to 6,293 in 2006-7, the journal Stroke suggests.

It is thought other risk factors such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes may be to blame.

The Stroke Association said it was concerned by the sharp increase. Pregnancy is a known – if small – risk factor for stroke.

This study compared data from more than 1,000 hospitals in 1994-5 with 2006-7.

More common

During pregnancy itself, the proportion of women having a stroke increased by 47%, going from 0.15 to 0.22 strokes per 1000 deliveries.

In the 12 weeks after birth there was an increase from 0.12 to 0.22 strokes per 1000 deliveries, an 83% increase.

Dr Elena Kuklina, lead researcher from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: “I am surprised at the magnitude of the increase, which is substantial. Our results indicate an urgent need to take a closer look.”

The researchers suggest that two conditions – high blood pressure and heart disease – “explained almost all of the increase” in stroke after birth.

Dr Kuklina said: “Now more and more women entering pregnancy already have some type of risk factor for stroke, such as obesity, chronic hypertension, diabetes or congenital heart disease.

“Since pregnancy by itself is a risk factor, if you have one of these other stroke risk factors, it doubles the risk.”

Many of these conditions are also increasing in the UK.

Dr Sharlin Ahmed, research liaison officer for The Stroke Association, said: “We’re concerned that this study has found such a sharp increase in pregnancy-related stroke over the past few years.

“It is so important for woman wanting to start a family to understand the risks associated with pregnancy and to take steps to make sure they are as healthy as possible before they become pregnant.”