Lessons Unlearned: Why Another Gigantic Famine Looms in Africa

TIME | 10 Feb 2012

by Kristin Palitza | Gaet Teidouma

In Gaet Teidouma, a small village in a plain of sand and rocks more than 800 km (500 miles) east of Mauritania's capital Nouakchott, Kertouma Mint Sedatty tries to feed her 8-month-old son Mohammed in a tent made from sticks and rags. It's not going well. Mohammed sucks desperately, but Sedatty hardly has milk to feed the child. "We ran out of food a few days ago," says the 39-year-old mother of seven. "My children are hungry. Our three cows can't find anything to eat and stopped giving milk. It's going to be a very difficult year." She pauses. "Most people won't survive."

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Miracle Tree is Like a Supermarket

IPS | 25 Feb 2012

By Kristin Palitza

CAPE TOWN, Jan 25, 2012, (IPS) - When a food crisis its the continent, African countries tend to look to the international donor community to mobilise aid. But a fast-growing, drought-resistant tree with extremely nutritious leaves could help poor, arid nations to fight food insecurity and malnutrition on their own.

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Climate Change: Making a Hot Cup of Rooibos Unaffordable

Inter Press Service | 24 Nov 2011

by Kristin Palitza

CAPE TOWN, Nov 24, 2011 (IPS) - South Africa's Rooibos tea has become a popular drink all around the globe. But prices of the herbal brew could shoot up within the next decade, as the Rooibos plant can only grow in one small region in the world - which is severely affected by climate change.

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Rehabilitating Former Child Soldiers Who "Liked" Killing

Inter Press Service | 2 Nov 2011

by Kristin Palitza

BUKAVU, DR Congo, Nov 2, 2011 (IPS) - Murhula's* life changed forever when he was nine years old. It was the year that he learned to kill, torture and rape.

It was the year militia entered his school in a small village near Bukavu, South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and forced him and several others to follow them into their camps in the forest, where they trained them to become soldiers.

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Government to Turn its Back on Textile Industry

Inter Press Service | 28 Oct 2011

By Kristin Palitza, Maseru

Lesotho's textile sector - the country's largest employer - is regarded my many as the only way out of the poverty trap in a tiny kingdom where more than half of the population lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day. But what many do not know is that the government and the World Bank have unofficially turned their backs on the sector and will soon cut important subsidies.

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Conflict and abuse continue to plague eastern Congo ahead of elections

Guardian | 19 Oct 2011

The humanitarian situation in Congo's eastern provinces is unlikely to bolster regional support for President Joseph Kabila

By Kristin Palitza, Bukavu

The army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has had a rough ride since May 2009. That was when President Joseph Kabila started to integrate into the force about half of the estimated 330,000 militia who waged an eight-year civil war. Around 5 million people were killed in the conflict.

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No End to Mass Rapes: "It’s a Miserable Life"

Inter Press Service | 17 Oct 2011

By Kristin Palitza

BUKAVU, DR Congo, Oct 17, 2011 (IPS) -Angeline Mwarusena, 61, sits on a small wooden bench in front of her hut, head bent, shoulders slumped. Her voice is barely audible. Four years ago, three soldiers from the Democratci Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) entered her home, hit her and raped her repeatedly. One after the other.

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Why Zambia's Elections Will Be All About China

TIME | 19 Sep 2011

By Kristin Palitza

When Zambians go to the polls on Sept. 20, their decision on which box to tick won't be based on traditional election issues such as good governance, security or service delivery. Their votes will revolve around one key question: Are they for or against China's heavy investment in their country?

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Child labour: the tobacco industry's smoking gun

Guardian | 14 Sep 2011

In Malawi and beyond, child workers as young as five are being exposed to the toxic dangers of tobacco harvesting

by Kristin Palitza

At the height of the tobacco harvest season, Malawi's lush, flowing fields are filled with young children picking the big green-yellow leaves. Some can count their age on one hand.

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Mugabe Cancer Scare Is Old News, as Zimbabwean Strongman Clings to Power

TIME | 6 Sep 2011

by Kristin Palitza

WikiLeaks' release of a cable alleging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is dying of prostate cancer and could be gone by 2013 may have raised eyebrows around the world last week, but it's old news in Zimbabwe. Mugabe's illness has been an "open secret" for many years, says legislator Eddie Cross of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

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When Good Presidents Go Bad: The Lessons of Malawi

TIME | 18 Aug 2011

By Kristin Palitza

Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika's campaigns against poverty and corruption once made him the darling of the international donor community, and two years ago won him reelection with 65% of the vote. Today, the tides have turned. Today, in the eyes of many of his own people, Mutharika has become an autocratic ruler who lost their trust.

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Why Africa's Proudest Democracy Bailed Out Africa's Last Monarch

TIME | 16 Aug 2011

By Kristin Palitza

January's warning of an imminent economic meltdown in the tiny, landlocked kingdom of Swaziland set off alarm bells in its giant neighbor, South Africa. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the country of 1.5 million (the population of Phoenix) ruled by the continent's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, was in "a fiscal crisis which threatens external stability and the soundness of the financial sector."

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Women excluded from climate change projects in Africa, UN experts warn

Guardian | 28 June 2011

By Kristin Palitza

Of the millions of dollars spent on climate change projects in developing countries, little has been allocated in a way that will benefit women. Yet, in Africa, it is women who will be most affected by climate change.

According to United Nations data, about 80 percent of the continent's smallholder farmers are women. While they are responsible for the food security of millions of people, agriculture is

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High Drug Prices Hamper Drug-Resistant TB Treatment

Inter Press Service | 17 June 11

By Kristin Palitza

CAPE TOWN , Jun 17 (IPS) - Access to treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) remains compromised, especially in developing countries, because too few pharmaceutical companies manufacture quality-assured drugs. Lack of competition has led to skyrocketing prices and this means that public health budgets are quickly spent.

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Tobacco poisons Malawi's children

Mail & Guardian, 6 May 2011

By Kristin Palitza

At the height of Malawi's tobacco harvest, the lush fields of the country's key tobacco growing district, Kasungu, are filled with labourers picking the big green-yellow leaves. Many of them are children.

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Zanzibar's seaweedy wage earner

Mail & Guardian | 18 Febuary 2011

By Kristin Palitza

Who would have thought? Even who doesn’t like sushi regularly eats seaweed – because the algae is a source for carrageenan, a natural gelling agent used to thicken foods, especially milk products. Seaweeed is also used for the production of toothpaste, cosmetics and medication.

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Hidden addiction in Zanzibar

Mail & Guardian | 28 Jan 2011

By Kristin Palitza

As tourists stroll languidly through the narrow streets of Stone Town, the romantic city hums with life. Vendors sell oriental spices and colourful fabrics, while children play soccer between crumbling walls and men hurry in long gowns towards the mosque.

But when darkness descends over the historic town, Zanzibar's capital takes on a different life. Formerly bustling alleys are transformed into dim, shady passages where drug addicts hover to get their longed-for heroin fix. The town's dark secret: the island is a heroin stronghold.

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Rebuilding Lives

City Press | 3 Oct 2010

By Kristin Palitza

“I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was busy cooking when I heard people screaming. I ran outside to find out what’s going on. The earth shook. When I turned back, I saw one side of my house collapse,” Faida Mwenelupembe recalls the first of two major earthquakes that hit the north of Malawi in December 2009.

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Denial of Malawi Food Insecurity goes against the Grain

Mail & Guardian | 17 Sep 2010

By Kristin Palitza

While Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika insists his country doesn’t need food aid, independent agricultural experts and the countries’ small-scale farmers strongly disagree.

According to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Food Security Early Warning System, more than one million Malawians face starvation because of poor rains.

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Violence haunts refugee women and children

City Press | 12 Sep 2010

By Kristin Palitza

At the age of 13, Chantal Kifungo’s* childhood is as good as over. She is mother to a ten-month-old baby girl that she now has to take care of. It wasn’t her choice. Almost two years ago, she was raped by her stepfather – and fell pregnant with his child.

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