A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective “I won’t complain. They can kill my children with witchcraft.” Donor- funded development programmes in five extremely poor regions -of which two post-conflict- in Africa have benefited mainly the rich. An African Investigative Publishing Collective team that went on the ground in north Uganda (post Joseph Kony), Kinshasa in the DRC, Kibera township in Nairobi, western...
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective “I won’t complain....
African investigative journalists and development aid workers from the West who work on the continent are strange bedfellows. Both groups feel sadness and outrage when they see Africans starve, work under inhuman conditions, or don’t have access to medicines when sick. Both often work together, for example in protest against polluting multinationals that evade tax, or pharmaceuticals that prioritise ‘western’ diseases in their research. Both want the best for suffering communities. But with being...
African investigative journalists and development aid workers from the West who work on the continent are strange bedfellows. Both groups feel sadness...
Several months ago ZAM published a nuanced report on the operations of ruby multinational Gemfields in Mozambique. Whilst highlighting forced removals of villagers and murders of artisanal miners by local police, the article took care to do justice to Gemfields. Ethical mining in a country ruled by a criminalised and ruthless regime was surely a challenge. To our surprise, instead of engaging on the issues, Gemfields has consistently attacked us and our reporters ever since. At times I have felt...
Several months ago ZAM published a nuanced report on the operations of ruby multinational Gemfields in Mozambique. Whilst highlighting forced removals of...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. He had flown there from exile in Dubai to share information on Boko Haram with the authorities. The journalist, who was often under suspicion of ‘terrorist sympathies’ only because he had sources in Boko Haram, was recently declared ‘wanted’ again. He had then offered to come voluntarily to Nigeria to assist the authorities and had received the message that all the military wanted was to ‘talk.’He was arrested on Monday....
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. He had flown there from exile in Dubai to share information on Boko Haram with...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. When Nigerian journalist and ZAM network member Ahmad Salkida writes of the "Tears of Maiduguri,” he is writing about his own tears. Salkida spent his childhood in this town, the main stronghold of Boko Haram. As a boy growing up in a Christian family, he climbed trees together with Muslim friends. When it was time for their Islamic ritual washing, he helped fetch their buckets; in turn, they waited for him next to the church...
Journalist and peace activist Ahmad Salkida has been arrested in Nigeria. When Nigerian journalist and ZAM network member Ahmad Salkida writes of the...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Bill Gates is not making malaria better, but worse. The fight against terror is creating more and more terrorists in East and West Africa. Witches are no fairy-tale creatures: they operate powerful mafia-type rackets in Cameroon and other countries. Ruthless elites in Mozambique treat villagers far worse than a multinational company ever could. Good civil servants risk their lives fighting corruption in Ghana and Nigeria. These are some of the conclusions of the six...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Bill Gates is not making malaria better, but worse. The fight against terror is creating more and more terrorists in...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Witches are real. They exercise political power in West African societies Witchcraft pervades some developing societies up to the highest levels with devastating effects. Demonic spells, marketed as miracle cures that give wealth and power, strengthen those who wield them most violently and disempower everyone else. Once part of a spiritual belief system at the service of communities, the practice is now owned by secret societies that operate like mafias. A report...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Witches are real. They exercise political power in West African societies Witchcraft pervades some developing societies...
The ruby company writes to ZAM about ‘gross distortions’ in our story about mining in Montepuez. ZAM responds ZAM Chronicle 22’s article on human rights violations associated with ruby mining in Montepuez , Mozambique, caught the attention of the London-based majority shareholder in Montepuez Ruby Mining. Gemfields PLC wrote to us complaining about ‘gross distortions’ in the story. We wrote back and corrected some details. But the correspondence is about more than issues of journalism. It...
The ruby company writes to ZAM about ‘gross distortions’ in our story about mining in Montepuez. ZAM responds ZAM Chronicle 22’s article on human rights...
After the publication of our fifth AIPC-ZAM investigation, titled ‘The Ruby Plunder Wars of Montepuez,’ ZAM received correspondence from Mr Brian Cattell, a consultant for Gemfields, which –as majority partner in the Montepuez Ruby Mining company- features prominently in the story. In an email titled ‘Problematic article,’ Mr Brian Cattell explained that he found that the story contained “a number of major factual inaccuracies (and) gross distortions;” and that it omitted “critical facts that are...
After the publication of our fifth AIPC-ZAM investigation, titled ‘The Ruby Plunder Wars of Montepuez,’ ZAM received correspondence from Mr Brian...
After his last undercover investigation, Ghana’s judicial authority sacked twenty-one judges and nineteen judicial service workers. A portrait of Anas Aremeyaw Anas. Say what you want about undercover filming, but it has proven to be an effective tool in investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas' daily practice. Anas, a leading member of ZAM’s partner the African Investigative Publishing Collective , continues with his exposure of rot in Ghana’s and other African societies’ governance. Having...
After his last undercover investigation, Ghana’s judicial authority sacked twenty-one judges and nineteen judicial service workers. A portrait of Anas...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Conscientious African officials and their fight against corruption State structures in African countries are often inhabited by officials who rather line their pockets and please those above them than render a service to the public. But some public servants swim upstream, trying their best to do a good job even where those in power don’t want them to. In turn they risk getting fired, smeared and even shot at. An investigation by the African Investigative Publishing...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Conscientious African officials and their fight against corruption State structures in African countries are often...
The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM’s first two investigations -on failing malaria aid and the ‘war on terror’- were met with interest worldwide. From the Global Investigative Journalism Network to Spanish, Swiss, German, Dutch, South African and United States-based colleagues and media houses, tweets, follow-up queries and co-publishing partnerships were received from all these. ‘The Siren Call: how jihadi movements recruit their followers’ has already been co-published by ‘De...
The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM’s first two investigations -on failing malaria aid and the ‘war on terror’- were met with...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Presidential arms dealers and securocrats rule Africa’s ‘success story.’ Botswana is mostly known from stories about ‘authentic’ tribes living in the Kalahari desert area, rich diamond deposits, relative prosperity, democracy and books about a lovable detective called Mma Ramotswe. In reality however, the tiny country squeaks under the weight of a massive money-guzzling army that made President Khama’s brothers as rich as it made various international arms dealers....
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Presidential arms dealers and securocrats rule Africa’s ‘success story.’ Botswana is mostly known from stories about...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Let down by ruling elites, it is difficult for youth in East and West Africa to withstand the ‘siren call’ of jihadi movements A military-only approach to terrorism in East and West Africa only creates more and more terrorists. An AIPC-ZAM team discovered how in Kenya police death squads drive youth into the arms of Al-Shabaab, whilst in Mali a neglected and abandoned people is ready to join ’any party that does something for us’ and in Somalia a corrupt and weak...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations Let down by ruling elites, it is difficult for youth in East and West Africa to withstand the ‘siren call’ of jihadi...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How villagers fight a mining pact from hell in the world’s richest ruby deposit Western multinationals are often blamed for a lack of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility.’ But an investigation into ruby mining in Mozambique shows that it is hard to blame just one side when the rulers in the ‘partner’ country abuse their own citizens. In Montepuez, the richest ruby deposit in the world, a local General pockets his proceeds of an UK-Mozambique ruby mining partnership...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How villagers fight a mining pact from hell in the world’s richest ruby deposit Western multinationals are often blamed...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How donor campaigns are setting the fight against malaria back “Malaria deaths down by sixty percent,” headlined the World Health Organisation in December 2015. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation claimed the achievement as due to their and other international aid programmes. But an investigation by the African Investigative Publishing Collective in partnership with ZAM shows little evidence of a victory in the fight against the mosquito-spread fever that kills...
The 2015 AIPC-ZAM Investigations How donor campaigns are setting the fight against malaria back “Malaria deaths down by sixty percent,” headlined the...
Seven teams of African journalists and Western colleagues unearthed hidden truths in the 2015 AIPC-ZAM investigations For the first time on such a large scale seven teams of African and Western journalists jointly investigated conflict, health and governance in African countries -and how these are impacted upon by ‘the West.’ Questions arising in malaria-ridden areas in Ghana and the DRC were presented to Bill Gates’ Global Fund offices in Geneva; Western anti-terrorism programmes were scrutinized...
Seven teams of African journalists and Western colleagues unearthed hidden truths in the 2015 AIPC-ZAM investigations For the first time on such a large...
AIPC and ZAM launch seven transnational investigations The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM are proud to launch their new series of seven transnational investigations. The seven 'TI's', on subjects ranging from terror to malaria to witchcraft, were conducted over the second half of last year and the first months of 2016. They span sixteen countries of which thirteen in Africa and three in Europe. A total of twenty-four journalists (eighteen from Africa and six from AIPC partner...
AIPC and ZAM launch seven transnational investigations The African Investigative Publishing Collective and ZAM are proud to launch their new series of...
DR Congo | The ‘Virunga’ movie shows the rangers of the gorilla reserve in the DRC as heroes. The real picture is far more complex. The new Virunga movie, showing at the international documentary festival IDFA, portrays the heavily armed rangers of the gorilla reserve in the DR Congo as heroes. They protect the pristine hills of ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ -fame, the two hundred actual rare mountain gorillas and herds of antelope that live there, from plunderers, rebels and greedy oil company executives...
DR Congo | The ‘Virunga’ movie shows the rangers of the gorilla reserve in the DRC as heroes. The real picture is far more complex. The new Virunga...
A mysterious new illness affects children in Uganda's refugee camps. “We think it’s the life from the camps,” says local council leader Dickens Opar, of Pader district in North Uganda, when asked about the mysterious and devastating ‘nodding disease’ that has affected, at latest count, more than three thousand children in this region of North Uganda. “Or bombs from the insurgency.” Nodding disease, a debilitating form of epilepsy, affects mainly children Nodding disease, a debilitating form of...
A mysterious new illness affects children in Uganda's refugee camps. “We think it’s the life from the camps,” says local council leader Dickens Opar, of...
Nigeria | Investigation in Niger Delta reveals the businessmen behind the kidnappings. The recent kidnap of a group of Nigerian-Dutch visitors, on a mission to help a poor community in the Niger Delta, has brought the oil-rich region back into the international spotlight. And with a twist at that. The commonly held view of a region of downtrodden and disenfranchised people, exploited solely by foreign oil companies, is no longer the whole truth, reports ZAM correspondent Nnamdi Onyeuma. The main...
Nigeria | Investigation in Niger Delta reveals the businessmen behind the kidnappings. The recent kidnap of a group of Nigerian-Dutch visitors, on a...
