Quartz: Nigeria is preserving the wrong kind of history with plans for a Boko Haram “museum”

But in a curious move, the government of Borno state, the worst affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, says it wants to turn the home of Yusuf Mohammed, the late founder of the sect, into a museum. The government says everything “relating to the insurgency will be archived” at the house so future generations can “have first-hand information.” [...]

Mohammed started the sect back in 2002 peddling radical views about opposing western education but the group’s operations markedly turned more violent in 2009 after Mohammed died in police custody in controversial circumstances. Following his death, which Mohammed’s followers claimed was an extra-judicial killing, the crisis escalated under Abubakar Shekau, Mohammed’s successor. Shekau has proven more slippery for the government despite several claims that he’s been killed. [...]

The Borno government also says it plans to restore Sambisa forest, a former Boko Haram stronghold, as a game reserve as the state continues a slow recovery from the insurgency. Since taking office, president Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has stepped up efforts to crush Boko Haram and has successfully recovered swathes of territory previously occupied by the sect.

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Al Jazeera: Joyce Banda: Africa is not poor

Joyce Banda became the first female president of Malawi, second in African history, when she took office in 2012 following the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika.

In this week's Headliner, Mehdi Hasan asks Banda about aid and development, as well as the allegations surrounding the $250 million corruption scandal known as "Cashgate". [...]

Asked about why she argues that Africa needs more trade, Banda stated: "Africa is not poor. We are rich in our natural resources. So what we need to do, in my opinion, is to set our priorities right. Is to sit down and say how can we best use our natural resources for the benefit of our people?" 

At the time of her presidency, Joyce Banda was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by various publications. 

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Al Jazeera: Election delay sends 'bad signal' for Mali stability

Last week's decision by Mali's government to postpone regional and municipal council elections, amid concerns over security, sends a bad signal for the prospect of long-term stability in the West African country, analysts say.

The territorial, administrative and municipal council elections, planned for December 17, were postponed to April 2018 to give the government "more time to organise absolutely inclusive elections", Tieman Hubert Coulibaly, Mali's minister of territorial administration, said in a statement last Sunday.  [...]

But Marie-Joelle Zahar, a professor at the Universite de Montreal and co-author of a recent report on peacebuilding in Mali, said that holding the elections would have been the clearest indication that the state can implement the 2015 peace agreement, aimed at bringing stability and security to the conflict-ridden north. [...]

The government signed the transitional agreement with two separate coalitions of opposition groups: the Coordination of Azawad Movements, composed largely of armed groups from northern Mali, and the Platform, which includes Touareg and Arab movements. [...]

An armed uprising in northern Mali in 2012 displaced tens of thousands of people, and the area was gripped by instability as armed opposition movements clashed with state forces and pushed them out of several areas.

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The Conversation: How the same-sex marriage vote will impact on human rights and democracy

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s promise of same-sex marriage by Christmas will almost certainly be honoured. We will continue to argue for some time whether the long, expensive and emotionally charged process that’s delivered this change was worth it. [...]

Labor is managing its divisions smartly: clearly the handful of anti-marriage MPs were told they could vote no provided they did nothing to delay or water down the legislation. The same is not true of the government parties, where the marriage debate is caught up in the increasing febrile battles for control.

There will be further attempts in the lower house to introduce “religious freedom” protections into the legislation, despite the fact that it already exempts religious institutions from having to perform same-sex marriages. [...]

“Human rights” are an abstract notion, which are created, protected and destroyed by political action. Most countries do not recognise human rights as encompassing sexual orientation and gender identity. This has been the subject of increasingly heated debates within United Nations forums. [...]

But most LGBTI Australians are very much like the rest of the country. The week after the poll result the Perth Pride committee banned refugee advocates from their parade.

Although the ruling was retracted under criticism, it was a reminder that the coalition around marriage was often born of immediate self-interest. Despite the language of rights and equality, many marriage advocates have little concern for broader issues.

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Jakub Marian: Pupil–teacher ratio in primary education by country in Europe

Teachers in developing countries generally have to handle many more children than teachers in developed countries, reaching a whopping 69.5 pupils per teacher in Malawi or 62.4 pupils per teacher in Chad, while no European country has more than 20 pupils per teacher in primary education (the map is based on data by UNESCO): [...]

For comparison, here are the corresponding values for other major nations: United States 14.5, China 16.3, Japan 16.4, Brazil 20.9, India 31.5. [...]

Another thing to note that the values include teachers and students in special education. Special-needs students generally work in smaller groups and have more teachers than regular students, which drives the average under the typical rate of regular students.

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