this is deja news africa coming up in the next fifteen minutes digital democracy with internet censorship on the rise in africa we are just how important cyber freedom is on the continent. and one of africa's great lakes is running out of fish we'll tell you why that's happening and what people are doing about it. i'm christine window welcome to news africa i'm glad you're cheated and internet censorship is on the rise in africa with many governments increasingly controlling the web in order to quote dissent this often results to people in those countries not having access to information all the outside world some of the more recent examples are in zimbabwe sudan and the democratic republic of congo way and she government protests and in elections they have restricted internet access so what

are some of the ways that this is being done for e.t.s. can i the threshold the band with with makes it impossible to share. videos sometimes. block access to social media sites like facebook and twitter all in extreme cases they completely shut down the internet like what we saw in zimbabwe last month during protests there not civil groups in zimbabwe legally challenge the internet shut down cheering those protests and then a courtroom that the government had acted unconstitutionally human rights groups were among those championing the fight against the shutdown it's here from one of them. was also it's. going to. be ordered before unvisited are. playing hide.

sometimes. so to talk more on this we've invited all of the author of the book digital democracy analog politics where she writes about how the internet era has transformed kenya in particular but she's also explored trends on the wider continent time angela it's good to see you. just how important is the internet to our democracy in africa. i think the internet is turning out to be a major site for consists of democratic politics and not just in africa really around the world we're seeing this is the new frontier not in one hand it's a place where a lot of key question conversations are happening so we're seeing a lot in the more political debates being driven on to online space is whether you're talking about social media or blogs or websites or even use those seeking much of their coverage onto their websites but on the other hand we're also seeing

its digital technologies as opening up a space for new types of political manipulation new types of misinformation new types. interference really with political processes and we've been talking about elections in africa a great deal in the last few years but there are also issues that have come up in the west as well which is you know public relations at what point does a political advertisement become a form of political manipulation these are some of the things that i look into in my book which is really about. how just the existence of the internet and the intersection between the internet and how we do politics and how we do democracy around the world is really raising some interesting and challenging questions all right and staying on that just have on the on the lie because i want to introduce. the minister of finance from zimbabwe he was basically asa question why did the government shut down the internet with the dead last month and this is how he

responded i've had complaints about always about the shipping to it being shot down look this is one of the things you do if you're trying to bring things on a part it was temporary it was talk before but you know you know now we can open the door to reform is not an easy one i'm afraid here but we are moving forward should stay for course in the result of this is in my bones together ok then jenison you here in saying they have that this is what you do to keep things under control do governments make a case when they say look we're trying to contain the spread of false news a sarah this is why we restrict the end to the internet is there a case to be made there what do you make of it. i think the key thing is what he said which is we're trying to keep things under control and the question is what things are they trying to achieve if the trial and for who spend it in most of the cases where you see into shutdowns in africa especially it's been where there's been dissent and perfectly legitimate the sense in the case of a government excess and this was the case and zimbabwe it was

a case where by people protesting what they saw as an illegitimate price rise in diligence in its increasing cost of living over a very short period of time in each of the streets to protest and what was trying to be control of the government says it's trying to control is the news that was fretting about what was happening in zimbabwe so it's not really it's in the a legitimate thing to shut down the entire internet just to control information that makes the government look bad because ultimately a good government should be able to withstand criticism from its citizens yet there is another interesting elements to the zimbabwe issue which is that they shut down the internet in a country where by and shunning money is one of the major forms of currency exchange and so it only compounded the issue further and that's why it's really interesting that the finance minister of all of them and the citizens and while we should be defending this action here the money is is for many people is the only answer that the able to access that is in a cave yes sure that is the case but very briefly had been gentleman last question

would be can't see you that ok so in many cases in africa it is state owned companies that have full control of the internet is that bad for africa. it is it is and it's without saying that private corporations are the same thing because we've seen private corporations like n.c. and dana also being implicated in the shutdowns but where the state owns the monopoly the people are particularly vulnerable to going into shutdown went on for almost two years and can't move it went on for almost all of it will be at a time another two years when there's a monopoly we see particular vulnerability because there's just not much option ordinary people to do anything about it all right now. the author of the book digital democracy and. thank you for your insights. ok so our next story is one about creating solutions it's tough for fishermen at lake victoria because stocks off wild fish are dwindling so many of them are

turning to fish farming to make ends meet but breeding fish requires flushing farms with massive amounts of clean fresh water now a team of scientists from europe are working with communities in uganda in kenya and tanzania to get around that. mohammad has been fishing off they were going to shows of literally for more than twenty five years. we no longer catch fish like we used to. be economic impact on us. right now you can sit traps and come up empty just one cut away. in the old days we would get a good catch. the main cause for the depletion of stocks over fishing pollution from industrial

activity is another problem these issues have made it harder to meet the rising demand for fish. this has prompted some ugandans to set up fish farms. one of the biggest challenges is the lack of clean fresh water. fish from outside the capital kampala. to fish farming you have to keep flushing your ponds all the time so you can imagine the amount of money that was spent just to make sure that we had water running into the different points every ten thousand. she's sticking part in a union funded project called one. of the fish from us are learning about a new technology. european and african scientists the project is led by professor john from the university of culture away in germany the team

has come up with a new system use west water order to cut costs while boosting efficiency. one develop a system for the market it's called research collating aquaculture so this is to makes use of hundred percent water reuse water recycle a sion so it's environmentally very friendly because there's no water going through and there's no nothing spoiling the environment and we make use of renewable energy in order to reduce the c o two footprint in the tunnel on the can and side of the lake a pilot project is already in place the water is filtered using what's known as membrane bioreactor technology in uganda like you are using recycled water for the last eighteen months the used water is pumped into a town from there it flows into this busines which contains toms and sun that help clean the water now wants to use recycled water to have big points too so we

already have a system and it has proved to be very efficient for us using that same water we maintain the same temperatures because that's a very crucial when you're watching exit to the into her chair so for the points that still work in progress for us to see how would be able to integrate it. would like more from us to recycle water ideally using renewable energy the professor and his team have been working on this project for the last three years so far what caused them to uganda kenya and tanzania. we want to train we want to show people and we want to see how everything develops in the future and finally very very. this we need to dept this solution for the local market so at the moment we brought a lot of ideas from europe and now we need the feedback of the local people to give

us a guidance in future how can we develop a low cost system one of the ways they're hoping to achieve that is by promoting exchange between scientists and from us the established best practices that boost fish stocks and protect the environment. ok now see the south african city off durban way a local artist is building up a collection of life sized statues of famous african icons in a way the artist and sculptor. hopes to create africa's version of the famous wax museum. he has a growing collection of african political figures and other icons in statues have already started bringing him local fame and earning him a living. a one step closer to history we would be income to get from do with the. vision museum as you can see i.

mean. because you know i'm trying to do the same thing that. we're trying to do this do shoes of. the white heroes of struggle you know different in different categories. that's news africa you can catch. on our website and facebook page or even you with images probably fasano in a fashion week with models from the south african fashion label. side by.

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