JOURNALISTS IN BOTSWANA WORKING IN ‘PERSISTENT CLIMATE OF FEAR’
“Outsiders have a general perception of Botswana as a free, open, and democratic country. But there has been noticeable regress in freedom of speech and expression under President Ian Khama,” INK Centre for Investigative Journalism’s Managing Partner Joel Konopo tells Pen America.
Zimbabwean consumers boycott Choppies
Problem Masau*
Zimbabwean consumers are boycotting to buy groceries in giant retail supermarkets, Choppies in protest of Vice President Phekezela Mphoko’s continued stay in a leafy hotel at the expense of the taxpayers. Choppies is a Botswana multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Gaborone.
Editor charged with sedition for publishing story of Botswana President’s car crash
The Lobatse high court will soon hear a bizarre sedition case against a prominent Botswana newspaper editor, which is damaging the country’s standing as a bastion of democracy and media freedom in Africa.
Exceptional diamond deal suggests flaws in De Beers, Botswana relationship
An exceptional diamond agreement revealed by Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based offshore service provider, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, raises questions about the secrecy that shapes Botswana’s diamond industry.
Panama papers and the Choppies connection
A network of proxies assisted Farouk Ismail, one of the wealthiest men in Botswana and his family to secretly set up a property company in the tropical heaven of the Bahamas, documents contained in the Panama Papers show. INK Centre for Investigative Journalism reporters Joel Konopo and Ntibinyane Ntibinyane report
Inside Kirby’s offshore investments
The president of Botswana’s highest court, Ian Kirby, has invested in seven offshore companies domiciled and registered in a tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, writes NTIBINYANE NTIBINYANE.
The Panama Papers – Botswana Connection
In the next days, weeks and months Ink Centre for Investigative journalism, working closely with International Consortium for Investigative Journalism, African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting and select local news organizations will reveal names of Botswana companies and individuals that have invested millions of Pula in tax heavens around the world.
Deadly borders…
…BDF stirs tension with its lethal policy on suspected Namibian poachers.
Doctors who examined the body of a suspected Namibian poacher found something disturbing. Tileni Mgundhi, Joel Konopo and Ntibinyane Ntibinyane examine the consequences of Botswana’s shoot to kill policy through the eyes and voices of the survivors and the families of the dead.
I hid in the swamps, Samati
In the early morning, when the sun was nibbling at the Linyanti floodplain close to Singobeka, a sleepy Lozi village 90km south-west of Katima Mulilo, a Botswana Defence Force helicopter swooped on Stongo Island in the Linyanti River that divides northern Botswana and Namibia.
‘BDF killed my son’
“I’m feeling pain. Four years after my son was brutally executed for alleged poaching activities I am still in pain. It’s a pain that will never end. It’s a pain that will surely lead to my death,” said Sicho Richard Nyambe.
