Doris Lessing dies aged 94

Doris Lessing with her prize insignia of the 2007 Nobel prize in literature. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images

The literary world mourned on hearing that Doris Lessing, the Nobel-prize winning author of The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, among more than 50 novels covering subjects from politics to science fiction, had died peacefully at her London home aged 94.
Her younger son, Peter, whom she cared for through years of illness, died three weeks ago.
The biographer Michael Holroyd, her friend and executor, said her contribution to literature was "outstandingly rich and innovative". He called her themes "universal and international … They ranged from the problems of post-colonial Africa to the politics of nuclear power, the emergence of a new woman's voice and the spiritual dimensions of 20th-century civilisation. Few writers have as broad a range of subject and sympathy.
"She is one of those rare writers whose work crosses frontiers, and her impressively large output constitutes a chronicle of our time. She has enlarged the territory both of the novel and of our consciousness."
The American author Joyce Carol Oates said: "It might be said of Doris Lessing, as Walt Whitman boasted of himself: I am vast, I contain multitudes. For many, Lessing was a revolutionary feminist voice in 20th-century literature – though she resisted such categorisation, quite vehemently. For many others, Lessing was a 'space fiction' prophet, using the devices and idioms of the fantastic to address human issues of evolution and the environment.
"And for other readers, Lessing was a writer willing to explore 'interior worlds', the mysterious life of the spiritual self. Though it is perhaps a predictable choice, my favourite of her many novels is The Golden Notebook. And my favourite of her many wonderful stories is her most famous – To Room Nineteen."
Nick Pearson, her editor at HarperCollins/4th Estate, said: "I adored her."
Born in Iran, brought up in the African bush in Zimbabwe – where her 1950 first novel, The Grass is Singing, was set – Lessing had lived in London for more than 50 years. In 2007 she came back to West Hampstead, north London, carrying heavy bags of shopping, to find her doorstep besieged by reporters and camera crews. "Oh, Christ," she said, on learning that at 88 she had just become the oldest author and the 11th woman to win the Nobel prize in literature. Pausing rather crossly on her front path, she said: "One can get more excited", and went on to observe that since she had already won all the other prizes in Europe, this was "a royal flush".
Later she remarked: "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off."
The citation from the Swedish Academy called her "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".
Pearson, her editor at the time, recalled the doorstep moment vividly: "That was what she was like. That was vintage Doris.
"When I took over looking after her books, she had a fairly formidable reputation, and the first time I went to meet her I was terrified, but she was always completely charming to me. She was always more interested in talking about the other writers on our list, what the young writers were working on – and reading – than in talking about her own books."
Lessing's last novel, although several earlier books have since been re-released as e-books, was Albert and Emily, published in 2008. Pearson said: "That was a very interesting book for her, revisiting the early life of her mother and her father and how they had been touched by the first world war.
"At the time she said to me 'this is my last book', and we accepted that. She was already at a great age, and I could see she was tired."
The publisher's UK chief executive, Charlie Redmayne, added: "Doris Lessing was one of the great writers of our age. She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in. It was an honour for HarperCollins to publish her."

Doris Lessing dies aged 94

Doris Lessing with her prize insignia of the 2007 Nobel prize in literature. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images

The literary world mourned on hearing that Doris Lessing, the Nobel-prize winning author of The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, among more than 50 novels covering subjects from politics to science fiction, had died peacefully at her London home aged 94.
Her younger son, Peter, whom she cared for through years of illness, died three weeks ago.
The biographer Michael Holroyd, her friend and executor, said her contribution to literature was "outstandingly rich and innovative". He called her themes "universal and international … They ranged from the problems of post-colonial Africa to the politics of nuclear power, the emergence of a new woman's voice and the spiritual dimensions of 20th-century civilisation. Few writers have as broad a range of subject and sympathy.
"She is one of those rare writers whose work crosses frontiers, and her impressively large output constitutes a chronicle of our time. She has enlarged the territory both of the novel and of our consciousness."
The American author Joyce Carol Oates said: "It might be said of Doris Lessing, as Walt Whitman boasted of himself: I am vast, I contain multitudes. For many, Lessing was a revolutionary feminist voice in 20th-century literature – though she resisted such categorisation, quite vehemently. For many others, Lessing was a 'space fiction' prophet, using the devices and idioms of the fantastic to address human issues of evolution and the environment.
"And for other readers, Lessing was a writer willing to explore 'interior worlds', the mysterious life of the spiritual self. Though it is perhaps a predictable choice, my favourite of her many novels is The Golden Notebook. And my favourite of her many wonderful stories is her most famous – To Room Nineteen."
Nick Pearson, her editor at HarperCollins/4th Estate, said: "I adored her."
Born in Iran, brought up in the African bush in Zimbabwe – where her 1950 first novel, The Grass is Singing, was set – Lessing had lived in London for more than 50 years. In 2007 she came back to West Hampstead, north London, carrying heavy bags of shopping, to find her doorstep besieged by reporters and camera crews. "Oh, Christ," she said, on learning that at 88 she had just become the oldest author and the 11th woman to win the Nobel prize in literature. Pausing rather crossly on her front path, she said: "One can get more excited", and went on to observe that since she had already won all the other prizes in Europe, this was "a royal flush".
Later she remarked: "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off."
The citation from the Swedish Academy called her "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".
Pearson, her editor at the time, recalled the doorstep moment vividly: "That was what she was like. That was vintage Doris.
"When I took over looking after her books, she had a fairly formidable reputation, and the first time I went to meet her I was terrified, but she was always completely charming to me. She was always more interested in talking about the other writers on our list, what the young writers were working on – and reading – than in talking about her own books."
Lessing's last novel, although several earlier books have since been re-released as e-books, was Albert and Emily, published in 2008. Pearson said: "That was a very interesting book for her, revisiting the early life of her mother and her father and how they had been touched by the first world war.
"At the time she said to me 'this is my last book', and we accepted that. She was already at a great age, and I could see she was tired."
The publisher's UK chief executive, Charlie Redmayne, added: "Doris Lessing was one of the great writers of our age. She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in. It was an honour for HarperCollins to publish her."

Midwest tornadoes: death toll rises as huge storm system wreaks havoc

Washington, Illinois, firefighters stand in the middle of Devonshire Street. Photograph: Steve Smedley/AP

Ferocious weather pounded the midwest on Sunday with tornadoes, intense thunderstorms and giant hail threatening 53 million people across 10 states and leaving tens of thousands without power.
A county coroner said two people were killed when a tornado hit their home in rural southern Illinois. Washington County coroner Mark Styninger said the elderly man and his sister died on Sunday afternoon in their farmhouse in the town of New Minden, about 50 miles southeast of St Louis. Another person was reported killed in the town of Washington. Emergency officials also said that two more people were killed in Massac County, Illinois, on the Kentucky border where a twister devastated several neighborhoods. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency confirmed one other death, Associated Press reported.
With communications difficult and many roads impassable, it remained unclear how many people had been killed or hurt by the unusually strong late-season tornadoes.
According to the National Weather Service's website, 65 tornadoes struck, most of them in Illinois. But meteorologist Matt Friedlein said the total might fall because emergency workers, tornado spotters and others often report the same tornado.
The National Weather Center said the storm had created tornadoes in Bone Gap and Miller City, Illinois, in Mount Carmel, Noblesville and Vincennes in Indiana, and in Paducah, Kentucky. By mid-afternoon there were reports of 59 tornadoes, 128 reports of damaging winds and 36 reports of large hail. The storm paths threatened major cities including Chicago, Cinncinatti, Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky.
Storms caused extensive damage in several central Illinois communities. Washington, a community of more than 15,000 people, appeared to have been particularly hard hit. State official said emergency crews were racing to the area amid reports of people trapped in buildings.
In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Washington resident Michael Perdun said: "I stepped outside and I heard it coming. My daughter was already in the basement, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her, crouched in the laundry room and all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway and my house was gone. The whole neighborhood's gone, [and] the wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house."
"Literally, neighborhoods are completely wiped out," a local Republican congressman, Aaron Schock, told Fox News. "I'm looking at subdivisions of twenty to thirty homes and there's not a home there."
"The entire town of Washington is devastated," he added.
"We have reports of homes being flattened, roofs being torn off," Sara Sparkman, a spokeswoman for the health department of Tazewell County, Illinois, where Washington is located, said in a telephone interview with Reuters. "We have actual whole neighborhoods being demolished by the storm.
Sparkman said the storm had caused damage in Washington and Pekin, south of Peoria.
A National Football League game between the Baltimore Ravens and Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago was suspended amid high winds and heavy rain. Winds of over 70mph lashed the city.
The Chicago Department of Aviation, which manages O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport, said that as of 1.15pmm central time both facilities were at a ground stop, meaning flights were neither arriving nor departing.
National Weather Service officials said several tornadoes has touched down in Illinois and Indiana. One hit near East Peoria in central Illinois where the Peoria Star Journal reported that 37 people were being treated for tornado-related injuries at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. Tens of thousands of residents have been left without electricity.
The weather service confirmed at least four tornadoes in Indiana. The storms have left at least 13,000 people across Indiana without power, according to Duke Energy.
Strong winds and atmospheric instability were expected to sweep across the central plains before pushing into the mid-Atlantic states and north-east by evening. Many of the storms were expected to become supercells, with the potential to produce tornadoes, large hail and destructive winds.
A Washington homeowner moves debris next to a set of stairs that once lead to the second floor of his home. Photograph: Steve Smedley/AP "People can fall into complacency because they don't see severe weather and tornadoes, but we do stress that they should keep a vigilant eye on the weather and have a means to hear a tornado warning because things can change very quickly," said Matt Friedlein, a weather service meteorologist.
Friedlein said that such strong storms are rare this late in the year because there usually is not enough heat from the sun to sustain the thunderstorms. But he said temperatures Sunday are expected to reach into the 60s and 70s, which he said is warm enough to help produce severe weather when it is coupled with winds, which are typically stronger this time of year than in the summer.
"You don't need temperatures in the 80s and 90s to produce severe weather [because] the strong winds compensate for the lack of heating," he said. "That sets the stage for what we call wind shear, which may produce tornadoes."
He also said that the tornadoes this time a year happen more often than people might realise, pointing to a twister that hit the Rockford, Illinois, area in November 2010.

Threat from NSA leaks may have been overstated by UK, says Lord Falconer

Former lord chancellor Lord Falconer said he was sceptical that the Edward Snowden leaks had done as much damage as intelligence chiefs claimed. Photograph: David Levene

Britain's intelligence chiefs may have exaggerated the threat posed to national security by the leaking of the NSA files, according to a former lord chancellor who has questioned whether the legal oversight of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ is "fit for purpose".
Lord Falconer of Thoroton said he was sceptical of the claim by the heads of GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 that the leaks represent the most serious blow to their work in a generation, and warned that the NSA files highlighted "bulk surveillance" by the state.
Falconer, who also said he deprecated attempts to portray the Guardian as an "enemy of the state", pointed out that 850,000 people had access to the files leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Falconer, a close ally of Tony Blair who served as lord chancellor from 2003-07, told the Guardian: "I am aware that the three heads of the agencies said what has been published has set back the fight against terrorism for years. Sir John Sawers [the chief of MI6] said al-Qaida would be rubbing their hands with glee. This is in the context of maybe 850,000 people literally having access to this material."
Falconer, who is in charge of Ed Miliband's preparations for government, added: "It seems to me to be inconceivable that the intelligence agencies in the US and the UK were not aware that it would not be possible to keep secret these sorts of broad issues for any length of time. If the position was that the USA and the UK were intending to keep the general points I have been talking about secret then that seemed to me to be a very unrealistic position.
"Although I take very seriously what they say [about the importance of secrecy] I am sceptical that the revelations about the broad picture have necessarily done the damage that is being asserted."
In his Guardian interview Falconer, who described himself as a strong supporter of the intelligence agencies from his time working with them during his decade in government:
• Warned of "very, very serious questions" about whether the law has kept up with the rapid pace of technological change which has permitted what he describes as "bulk surveillance".
• Hit out at the former Tory defence secretary Liam Fox, who has written to the new director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to ask her to assess whether the Guardian has breached counter-terrorism laws by publishing details from the leaked files.
Falconer said: "I think it is thoroughly wrong that, in the light of the disclosures that have been made, the Guardian is being treated in a similar way to an enemy of the state. Far from being an enemy of the state an organ like the Guardian, or indeed the New York Times, is part of the functioning of our democracy that makes the state as strong as it is."
• Praised the Guardian and the New York Times, which have formed a partnership to report on the leaked files, for working in a responsible way by alerting the agencies before publication. "From all that I can see the Guardian and the New York Times have taken immense trouble to avoid any individual operative or operation being endangered." The Guardian has spoken to the NSA and GCHQ before publishing details from the leaked files.
Falconer is one of the most senior figures to question the account given by the intelligence chiefs this month to parliament's intelligence and security committee (ISC). Sawers told the committee that the Snowden leaks had put operations at risk, adding that Britain's adversaries were "rubbing their hands with glee".
The Sunday Times quoted a Tory MP describing the joint appearance by Sawers, the GCHQ director, Sir Iain Lobban, and the MI5 director general, Andrew Parker, as a "total pantomime" after it emerged that they were told of questions in advance as part of a secret deal with the committee.
Lobban told the committee that his agents collect, though do not intercept, "innocent communications from innocent people" when they gather what he called the "haystack" of metadata.
Falconer said: "The material which has been revealed through the Snowden revelations about the NSA raises very, very serious questions about whether or not the United Kingdom's legal framework for oversight of the intelligence services' work in relation to the interception of communications and the obtaining of communications data from mobile telephone and other providers is fit for purpose."
Falconer, who spoke out in August against the detention of David Miranda, the partner of the then Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, under anti-terror laws, said he was struck by the intervention during the ISC hearing by the former cabinet secretary Lord Butler of Brockwell. Butler asked whether the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) of 2000 is still "fit for purpose" given that technology has moved on so rapidly in the last 13 years.
Falconer said: "If you look at the codes of practice and the Ripa 2000 act, they both proceed on the basis that the warrant issued by the secretary of state for interception – ie listening in or looking at emails, their content – will be based upon individual cases. The agencies' right to get metadata about communications is also, I think, to be done on an individual basis even though no warrant is required.
"What the NSA data reveals is in effect bulk – and I use this word advisedly – surveillance. What the agency chiefs were saying to the ISC appeared to be in relation to that communications data: it is the way that we create the haystack within which we look for the needle.
"It may well be that the way that that is policed is adequate. But the current arrangements involve there being no decider other than the agencies as to what communications data shall be sought from servers and mobile telephone providers. In particular there is no warrant required from a secretary of state and there is no judicial permission given, albeit that the judge responsible for looking at the intelligence services generally will look at it on an annual basis."
Falconer said that three changes should be considered:
• The publication of goals from the agencies to allow applications for communications data or interception warrants to be judged against the goals.
• A new body – a judge or a minister – to give "consent to massive communications data exchange". Falconer said Britain should consider replicating the foreign intelligence court (Fisa) which oversees surveillance in the US.
• Handing powers to approve interception – as opposed to communications data – to the interception commissioner. This would strip the home secretary and foreign secretary of these powers.
Falconer said he was alarmed by attempts to portray the Guardian as an enemy of the state after Miranda's detention and by calls for prosecutions and attacks on the Guardian for endangering operations. He said: "I completely understand why the agency chiefs are keen that there should be appropriate confidentiality. I completely support them in relation to that. But I really deprecate the way the Guardian is being treated as the enemy of the state. That is not the right way to look at it.
"A reputable media outlet like the Guardian should be regarded as part of the landscape within which the agencies operate.
"And to abuse it publicly and to use the powers to be used against terrorists against it I think weakens the ability of our state to deal with change."
Asked about Fox's call for the CPS to investigate the Guardian, Falconer said: "We need to trust the media more. If the response of the state is immediately to go into criminal investigation mode then you chill badly investigations like this.
"I don't want to encourage people to break their obligation to the state – ie those who are employed by the state. But I think you have got to recognise that where there is an issue such as this where there has been a fundamental change in technology leading to the question of whether or not the balance is right between the ability to intrude and the need to protect the state – that is plainly a legitimate area for journalistic endeavour."
Falconer stressed that he strongly supports the work of the intelligence agencies. "I am a supporter of the intelligence services. I understand their importance and centrality to fighting terrorism.
"When I dealt with them as a minister I was always impressed by them." He said politicians and the media should support them in two senses – accept their importance in fighting terrorism and properly protect their operations.

News World news Qatar Series: Modern-day slavery in focus Previous | Next | Index modern day slavery new small badge Qatar 2022 World Cup workers 'treated like cattle', Amnesty report finds

The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, said Qatar was in the process of amending its labour laws. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

A damning Amnesty report has raised fresh fears about the exploitation of the migrant workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, amid a rising toll of death, disease and misery.
The report – published a week after Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, met the country's emir and declared Qatar was "on the right track" in dealing with workers' rights – claims that some migrant workers are victims of forced labour, a modern form of slavery, and treated appallingly by subcontractors employed by leading construction companies in a sector rife with abuse.
The report, based on two recent investigations in Qatar and scores of interviews, found workers living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation exposed to sewage and sometimes without running water. It found that many workers, faced with mounting debts and unable to return home, have suffered "severe psychological distress", with some driven to the brink of suicide. Discrimination is common, according to the report, which says that one manager referred to workers as "the animals".
It describes one case in which the employees of a company delivering supplies to a construction project associated with the planned Fifa headquarters during the 2022 World Cup were subjected to serious labour abuses. Nepalese workers employed by the supplier said they were treated like cattle. Employees were working up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, during the summer months when temperatures regularly reach 45C.
Qatar's labour laws stipulate a maximum working day of 10 hours and say no one should work between 11.30am and 3pm during the summer months.
Last month Fifa was forced to address the issue of workers' rights after a Guardian investigation showed that dozens of Nepalese workers had died in recent months, prompting warnings from trade union organisations that 4,000 could be killed before the start of the football tournament.

Link to video: Qatar: the migrant workers forced to work for no pay in World Cup host country Blatter promised to travel to Doha to meet the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and said he would raise the issue of workers' rights. But after the meeting and a presentation from the 2022 World Cup supreme committee, which includes many senior government representatives, Blatter said he was reassured by the progress that had been made on the issue.
That will not pacify human rights organisations, which have called for improvements to living and working conditions and for urgent action to reform the kafala sponsorship system that ties migrant workers to their employers. Amnesty said the sponsorship system "permits abuse and traps workers".
In November 2011, the Fifa general secretary, Jérôme Valcke, met Qatari officials to address the issue of workers' rights and the Qatari authorities promised to take the issue seriously.
But Amnesty's report, The Dark Side of Migration: Spotlight on Qatar's Construction Sector Ahead of the World Cup, is based on inspection visits in October 2012 and March 2013 and suggests change is nowhere near fast enough, despite a new charter introduced by the supreme committee, which applies only to the World Cup stadiums and not to infrastructure.
Amnesty said many workers had reported poor health and safety standards at work, including some who said they had not been issued with helmets on sites.
It quoted a representative of Doha's main hospital saying that more than 1,000 people were admitted to the trauma unit in 2012 after falling from height at work. Some 10% were disabled as a result and the mortality rate was significant.
Researchers also found migrant workers living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation with no air conditioning, exposed to overflowing sewage or uncovered septic tanks. One large group was found to be living without running water.
The organisation has also documented cases where workers were effectively blackmailed by their employers to get out of the country and others where they were not allowed to leave.
Researchers witnessed 11 men signing papers to get their passports back to leave Qatar in front of government officials, falsely confirming that they had been paid.
The company for which the men worked, ITC, had cashflow problems and 85 workers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka were left in accommodation with no electricity or running water, with sewage leaking from the ground and piles of rubbish accumulating. Their salaries went unpaid for up to a year and they were forced to sign away any claim to the money before being allowed to leave.
"It is simply inexcusable in one of the richest countries in the world that so many migrant workers are being ruthlessly exploited, deprived of their pay and left struggling to survive," said Amnesty's general secretary, Salil Shetty.
"Our findings indicate an alarming level of exploitation in the construction sector in Qatar. Fifa has a duty to send a strong public message that it will not tolerate human rights abuses on construction projects related to the World Cup."
Amnesty, which carried out interviews with 210 workers and held 14 meetings with Qatari authorities, said that multinational construction firms profiting from the $220bn (£137bn) construction boom in the tiny gas-rich state could not ignore the actions of the web of subcontractors employed to do the work.
"Construction companies and the Qatari authorities alike are failing migrant workers. Employers in Qatar have displayed an appalling disregard for the basic human rights of migrant workers. Many are taking advantage of a permissive environment and lax enforcement of labour protections to exploit construction workers," said Shetty.
Amnesty found that some of the workers who had suffered abuses were working for subcontractors employed by global companies, including Qatar Petroleum, Hyundai E&C and OHL Construction.
"Companies should be proactive and not just take action when abuses are drawn to their attention. Turning a blind eye to any form of exploitation is unforgivable, particularly when it is destroying people's lives and livelihoods," added Shetty.
Following his meeting, Blatter said Fifa could look forward to "an amazing World Cup" in Qatar. "What was presented to us shows that they are going forward not only today but have already started months ago with the problems with labour and workers. The labour laws will be amended and are already in the process of being amended."
The Qatari authorities insist they are being proactive and say the World Cup can be a catalyst for change

Monetary union achieves legal clearance

Arusha. The draft East African Monetary Union (Eamu) has been cleared for approval and signing by regional leaders yesterday during the East African Community (EAC) Heads of State Summit slated for Kampala on November 30.

• The EAC Sectoral Council on Legal and Judicial Affairs during its meeting on Friday adopted and cleared the legal content of the draft Protocol the Secretariat said in a statement. It recommended that the Summit approve and sign the document.

The Attorneys General, Solicitors General as well as ministers responsible for judicial and constitutional affairs directed the Arusha-based Secretariat to use the draft document to draft the legal instrument establishing the institutions to support the envisaged Monetay Union.

The Sectoral Council noted that whereas Article 2(2) of the Treaty provides that the Customs Union and Common market are transitional and integral parts of the Community, the EAC Treaty also requires the Partner States to establish a Monetary Union pursuant to Article 151 of the Treaty.

The Sectorial Council further noted that the Monetary Union will commence upon ratification and coming into force of the Protocol for all five Partner States.

However, the realisation of the Monetary Union shall be progressive. At least three Partner States can commence a single currency in accordance with the relevant provisions of the protocol.

Addressing the Sectoral Council, the EAC Secretary General, Dr Richard Sezibera, reiterated the critical role of the Sectoral Council in ensuring that policy matters, including all programmes and projects of the Community, were pursued “in strict conformity with the Treaty and relevant legislation”.

The draft of the EA Monetary Union Protocol was adopted by the EAC Council of Ministers, the policy organ of the Community, in the middle of July this year.

The passing of a leading activist

Dar es Salaam. Ndigwako Bertha Akim King’ori (affectionately referred to as Bertha), Tanzanian educator, scholar and women development advocate, has passed away. She died in Kenya on November 4, this year as a result of various ailments, including stroke and diabetes.

She was one of the leading women in her country of birth, scoring firsts as student, teacher and leader – member of the pre-independence legislator (Legico), Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT) executive secretary, and member of the East African University Council.

Born on November 19, 1930 in Tukuyu, Rungwe District, Mbeya, to the late Subila Kabonga and the late Akim Mwakosya, Bertha was everything a woman would want to be. Defying the stigma of sending a girl child to school, Bertha notched up to become a renowned scholar, educator and advocate for women’s involvement in the community in East Africa.

She was one of a few girls from Tukuyu to go to school, progressing to Tabora Girls’ School in Tanzania; and on to Uganda where she attended Gayaza High School and King’s College Budo, before entering as the first Tanganyika woman the prestigious Makerere College in 1954. At Makerere she was awarded a Diploma in Education (Mathematics).

After posting to Loleza Girls’ School in Mbeya, Bertha won the Van Leer and Atlanta Fellowship in 1956, which allowed her to attend any college in United States for further professional development for one academic year. Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, was on her sight. Keen on child studies and the development of African children, she graduated in child psychology and sociology.

On returning to Tanzania, Bertha taught at Mpwapwa and Butimba Teacher Training colleges; and was later appointed Headmistress of Bwiru Girls’ Secondary School in Mwanza.

Meanwhile, in the last days of independence struggle, Bertha could not escape the attention of the outgoing colonial government, as well as that of the successor Uhuru government under Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu).

She was the first African woman nominated as member of the Legislative Council of Tanganyika (Legico) in 1957.

Later, Mwalimu Nyerere appointed her Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (UWT) executive secretary in 1967. Bertha was also appointed member of the East African University Council in 1965.

Above all these responsibilities, Bertha was a loving mother and spouse. She married her college sweetheart, the late Peter Gathura King’ori on November 29, 1958 in Tukuyu.

Bertha and Peter distinguished themselves teaching in schools and colleges in Tanzania and Kenya. They were blessed with five children, two of whom have sadly passed on.

Having moved to Kenya with her family, Bertha and Peter carried on with their teaching career; Bertha has taught at Machakos High School, Kenyatta College and Coast High School. A devout Christian, Bertha also served on the National Christian Council of Kenya (NCCK) and became the first African woman representative in the Anglican Consultative Council in 1973.