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...
It's two-and-a-half thousand dead rhinos vs. three-hundred-and-sixty-three dead poachers in the Kruger Park Many of the Mozambicans were poachers. But perhaps not all. “This is the route we use to walk to South Africa”: a story of migration, smuggling, cannon fodder and rural villages donned with luxury mansions. First time visitors to the village of Magude in Maputo province, and its sister towns Massingir and Chokwe in Mozambique’s Gaza region, will be surprised at the many mansions and expensive...
It's two-and-a-half thousand dead rhinos vs. three-hundred-and-sixty-three dead poachers in the Kruger Park Many of the Mozambicans were poachers. But...
Expensive 'fair' chocolate does not benefit cocoa farmers In a six-month transnational project led by the Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR), journalists hailing from Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and the Netherlands investigated the alleged benefits received by cocoa farmers in West Africa via the FAIRTRADE label. Their conclusions are shocking: whilst the chocolate consumer in the West pays a significant mark-up for 'honest' chocolate, these benefits amount to little or no...
Expensive 'fair' chocolate does not benefit cocoa farmers In a six-month transnational project led by the Forum for African Investigative Reporters...
Dulcie September and Anton Lubowski In April 2013, it has been 25 years since the murder of South African ANC representative Dulcie September and 20 years since ANC's guerrilla leader Chris Hani's death. The truth about their murders will have remained buried for just as long, at least internationally. An in-depth investigation revealing arms trade links to both murders was published only in the Netherlands, in a language largely foreign to the international community. The history of a story that...
Dulcie September and Anton Lubowski In April 2013, it has been 25 years since the murder of South African ANC representative Dulcie September and 20...
