Tanzania’s Faustine Ndugulile Elected WHO Africa Regional Director

Wednesday August 28 2024

Dr Faustine Ndugulile. He has been elected as the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Regional Director for Africa on August 27, 2024. PHOTO | THE CITIZEN | NMG

By APOLINARI TAIRO

Dr Faustine Ndugulile of Tanzania was elected as the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Regional Director for Africa on Tuesday at the ongoing session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo.

He received 25 out of 46 votes, defeating candidates from Rwanda, Niger and Senegal. He was supported by 25 African countries, including Kenya.

A former deputy minister of Health in Tanzania, Dr Ndugulile will succeed Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti of Botswana, whose two five-year terms end at the session.

Dr Ndugulile, a medical doctor specialising in microbiology, has extensive experience in public health.

In his campaigns for the position, he said his priorities include transforming African health systems to achieve universal health coverage, improving maternal and child health and strengthening health security, innovation and research.

“My candidacy represents a collective effort to transform the health landscape of Africa. By prioritising universal health coverage, maternal and child health,” he had told The EastAfrican earlier.

He also said he would aim at strengthening partnerships between African governments and health institutions.

Dr Ndugulile emphasised the need to improve the service index for universal health coverage, which remains below 50 percent in many African countries.

Dr Ndugulile is currently the Member of Parliament for Kigamboni Constituency in Dar es Salaam and serves as Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and NEAPACOH.

Ethiopia Rattled as Egypt Delivers Military Aid to Somalia

Wednesday August 28 2024

By FRED OLUOCH

By MELVIN OMONDI

Ethiopia on Wednesday responded angrily to Egypt’s delivery of arms to Somalia, likely signalling escalated tensions between the two Horn of Africa neighbours.

Addis Ababa warned that Somalia's dalliance with 'external forces' was likely to destabilise the region, arguing the changeover is “fraught with danger.”

The statement from Addis Ababa did not mention Egypt directly, but did say the transition in Somalia from the African Union Mission in Somalia (Atmis) to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (Aussom) was being conducted without regard to the region's security interests.

“All those responsible for preparing and authorising a new support mission must take into account the legitimate concerns of countries of the region and the TCCs (troop contributing countries), Forces trying to inflame tension for their short-term objectives must shoulder the grave ramifications,” Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

“Ethiopia cannot tolerate these actions that endanger the gains made against regional and international terrorist groups."

Ethiopia has been a troop contributor to Atmis but Somalia has made it clear it won't be a part of Aussom after the two countries differed on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Addis Ababa signed with Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland.

Mogadishu protested bitterly although the two sides recently met twice in Turkey for talks. They failed to resolve the issue.

Egypt, which already has a dispute over a dam over the Nile with Ethiopia, has already agreed to deploy 10,000 Egyptian troops—5,000 for the planned Aussom and 5,000 to be based Hiiraan region bordering Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Egypt failed to agree on how to fill the dam, which Cairo argued would affect its water resources downstream.

Egypt had at one time threatened to bomb the dam, known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd), which it argues is a national security threat.

Tension between Somalia and Ethiopia has been ongoing since January when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland’s leader Muse Bihi Abdi, signed an MoU that granted Ethiopia a 50-year lease on a naval base with access to Somaliland’s Berbera port for commercial marine operations.

Somalia had made it clear that Ethiopia would not be part of Aussom, which is supposed to take over from Atmis in January 2025.

On August 23, Somalia Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre in an address to the press in Mogadishu confirmed that Ethiopian forces would not be part of Aussom unless Addis Ababa withdraws from a controversial MoU with the self-governing Somaliland, which Somalia considers as an integral part of its territory.

Ethiopia has refused to withdraw the MoU since as a landlocked country, the deal with Somaliland would give it the long-desired access to the sea after Eritrea broke away in 1993 and took the ports of Asseb and Massawa with them.

Should Egypt deploy 10,000 troops, Somalia may become part of the geopolitical tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt, given that Cairo had on several occasions threatened military action over Gerd built on the Blue Nile, which supplies 80 percent of water to Egypt.

New Mpox Strain is Changing Fast; Scientists are ‘Working Blindly’ to Respond

Tuesday August 27 2024

A nurse takes a sample from a child declared a suspected case of Mpox - an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus that sparks off a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever. POOL

Scientists studying the new mpox strain that has spread out of Democratic Republic of Congo say the virus is changing faster than expected and often in areas where experts lack the funding and equipment to properly track it.

That means there are multiple unknowns about the virus itself, its severity and how it is transmitting, complicating the response, half a dozen scientists in Africa, Europe and the United States told Reuters.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa since 1970, but received little global attention until it surged internationally in 2022, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare a global health emergency. That declaration ended 10 months later.

A new strain of the virus, known as clade Ib, has the world's attention again after the WHO declared a new health emergency.

The strain is a mutated version of clade I, a form of mpox spread by contact with infected animals that has been endemic in Congo for decades. Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and can kill.

Congo has had more than 18,000 suspected clade I and clade Ib mpox cases and 615 deaths this year, according to the WHO. There have also been 222 confirmed clade Ib cases in four African countries in the last month, plus a case each in Sweden and Thailand in people with a travel history in Africa.

“I worry that in Africa, we are working blindly,” said Dr. Dimie Ogoina, an infectious diseases expert at Niger Delta University Hospital in Nigeria who chairs the WHO’s mpox emergency committee. He first raised the alarm about potential sexual transmission of mpox in 2017, now an accepted route of spread for the virus.

“We don’t understand our outbreak very well, and if we don’t understand our outbreak very well we will have difficulty addressing the problem in terms of transmission dynamics, the severity of the disease, risk factors of the disease,” Ogoina said. “And I worry about the fact that the virus seems to be mutating and producing new strains.”

He said it took clade IIb in Nigeria five years or more to evolve enough for sustained spread among humans, sparking the 2022 global outbreak. Clade Ib has done the same thing in less than a year.

Mutating 'more rapidly'

Mpox is an orthopoxvirus, the same family that causes smallpox. Population-wide protection from a global vaccine campaign 50 years ago has waned, as the vaccinating stopped when the disease was eradicated.

Genetic sequencing of clade Ib infections, which the WHO estimates emerged mid-September 2023, show they carry a mutation known as APOBEC3, a signature of adaptation in humans.

The virus that causes mpox has typically been fairly stable and slow to mutate, but APOBEC-driven mutations can accelerate viral evolution, said Dr. Miguel Paredes, who is studying the evolution of mpox and other viruses at Fred Hutchison Cancer Center in Seattle.

"All the human-to-human cases of mpox have this APOBEC signature of mutations, which means that it's mutating a little bit more rapidly than we would expect," he said.

Paredes and other scientists said a response was complicated by several mpox outbreaks happening at once.

In the past, mpox was predominantly acquired through human contact with infected animals. That is still driving a rise in Congo in clade I cases – also known as clade Ia - likely due in part to deforestation and increased consumption of bushmeat, scientists said.

The mutated versions, clade Ib and IIb, can now essentially be considered a sexually transmitted disease, said Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, a South African epidemiologist and chair of the Africa CDC’s mpox advisory committee. Most of the mutated clade Ib cases are among adults, driven at first by an epidemic among female sex workers in South Kivu, Congo.

The virus also can spread through close contact with an infected person, which is likely how clusters of children have been infected with clade Ib, particularly in Burundi and in eastern Congo’s displacement camps, where crowded living conditions may be contributing.

Children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems may be at greater risk of serious mpox disease and death, according to the WHO.

Clade I has typically caused more severe disease, with fatality rates of 4%-11%, compared to around 1% for clade II. Ogoina said data from Congo suggests few have died of the new Ib version, but he feared some data is being mixed up.

More research is urgently needed, but three teams tracking mpox outbreaks in Africa say they cannot even access chemicals needed for diagnostic tests.

Planning a response, including vaccination strategies, without this is difficult, the scientists said.

Karim said around half of cases in eastern Congo, where Ib is particularly prevalent, are only being diagnosed by doctors, with no laboratory confirmation.

Getting samples to labs is difficult because the healthcare system is already under pressure, he said. And around 750,000 people have been displaced amid fighting between the M23 rebel group and the government.

Many African laboratories cannot get the supplies they need, said Dr. Emmanuel Nakoune, an mpox expert at the Institut Pasteur in Bangui, Central African Republic, which also has clade Ia cases.

“This is not a luxury,” he said, but necessary to track deadly outbreaks.

Women in Chad Defy Discrimination and Violence to Assert their Rights to Own and Control Land

By ROBERT BOCIAGA

3:01 AM EDT, August 28, 2024

BINMAR, Chad (AP) — When Milla Nemoudji, a 28-year-old from a village in southern Chad, divorced her husband following years of physical abuse, she found herself without means for survival. Though raised in a farming family, she struggled to get by in a community where access to land is customarily controlled by men.

With little support for women in her situation, divorce being relatively rare in Chad, she fought for economic independence. She sold fruits and other goods. During the rainy season, she plowed fields as a laborer. Last year, however, a women’s collective arrived in her village and she decided to join, finally gaining access to land and a say over its use. She farmed cotton, peanuts and sesame, making enough money to cover basic needs.

The village, Binmar, is on the outskirts of Chad’s second-largest city, Moundou, in the densely populated Logone Occidental region. Thatched-roof homes stand amid fields where women traditionally harvest the land but, like Nemoudji, have little or no say over it.

In Chad, land access is often controlled by village chiefs who require annual payments. Women are often excluded from land ownership and inheritance, leaving them dependent on male relatives and reinforcing their secondary status in society.

The struggle for land rights is compounded by the dual legal system in Chad where customary law often supersedes statutory law, especially in rural areas. While recent legal reforms mean laws recognize the right of any citizen to own land, application of those laws is inconsistent.

For women like Nemoudji who seek to assert their rights, the response can be hostile.

“There’s no one to come to your aid, although everyone knows that you are suffering,” Nemoudji told The Associated Press, criticizing the traditional system of land rights and urging local leaders to take domestic violence seriously. “If women weren’t losing access to farmlands, they would dare to leave their husbands earlier.”

Initiatives like N-Bio Solutions, the collective Nemoudji joined, are challenging those norms. Founded by Adèle Noudjilembaye in 2018, an agriculturist and activist from a neighboring village, the collective is a rare initiative in Chad negotiating on behalf of women with traditional chiefs, who then seek out residents with available land willing to lease it.

So far, Noudjilembaye runs five such collectives with an average 25 members. Although these initiatives are slowly gaining popularity, they are limited by financial resources and some women’s hesitancy to risk the little they have.

Noudjilembaye told the AP that “despite the violence and neglect, many women stay (in that situation) because of financial dependency, fear of societal judgement or lack of support.”

The efforts of such collectives have broader implications for both gender equality and sustainable agriculture in Chad. Women of Binmar have adopted sustainable farming practices including crop rotation, organic farming and the use of drought-resistant seeds, which help preserve the soil and increase productivity.

In general, women who gain access to land and resources are more likely to implement sustainable agricultural practices and improve local food systems, according to the United Nations.

But in Chad, life for women who attempt to assert their rights is especially challenging.

Chad is ranked 144th out of 146 countries, according to the 2024 Global Gender Gap Indicator Report compiled by World Economic Forum. The country’s maternal mortality rate is high at 1,063 deaths per 100,000 births in 2020, over three times the global average, according to the U.N. Only 20% of young women are literate.

For Nemoudji, her family’s response to her plight was mostly passive. They offered her a place to stay and provided emotional support but did little to confront her abuser or seek justice on her behalf.

“The system failed me when I sought help after my husband burned down my house,” Nemoudji said. When she reported the incident to the village chief, “nothing was done to solve my dispute.”

Village chief Marie Djetoyom, a woman in the hereditary role, told the AP that she was afraid to take action and risk being imprisoned in retaliation. She asserted that she must act within the customary land laws.

Despite the lack of support from traditional leaders and local authorities, women in the village of around 120 people have found strength in the collective.

“As cultural practices do not favor access to land for many women individually, the community alternative remains the best possibility to achieve the objective,” said Innocent Bename, a researcher at CEREAD, a research center based in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.

Marie Depaque, another village woman who struggled to get by after her second husband refused to financially support her children from her first marriage, added that “our fight for land rights is not just about economic survival but also about justice, equality and the hope for a better future.”

Nemoudji dreams of better educational opportunities for the children in her community so they can break the cycle of poverty and violence. She advocates in the community for changes in the land ownership system.

“Knowing my rights means I can seek help from authorities and demand justice,” she said.

Africa’s Mpox Outbreaks Result from Neglect and World’s Inability to Stop Epidemics, Experts Say

By MARIA CHENG

4:13 PM EDT, August 27, 2024

LONDON (AP) — The growing mpox outbreaks in Africa that triggered the World Health Organization’s emergency declaration are largely the result of decades of neglect and the global community’s inability to stop sporadic epidemics among a population with little immunity against the smallpox-related disease, leading African scientists said Tuesday.

According to Dr. Dimie Ogoina, who chaired WHO’s mpox emergency committee, negligence has led to a new, more transmissible version of the virus emerging in countries with few resources to stop outbreaks.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 outbreak in more than 70 countries, Ogoina said at a virtual news conference.

“What we are witnessing in Africa now is different from the global outbreak in 2022,” he said. While that outbreak was overwhelmingly focused in gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups.

And while most people over 50 were likely vaccinated against smallpox — which may provide some protection against mpox — that is not the case for Africa’s mostly young population, who Ogoina said were mostly susceptible.

Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever and body aches. It mostly spreads through close skin-to-skin contact, including sex. People with more serious cases can develop prominent blisters on the face, hands, chest and genitals.

Earlier this month, WHO declared the surging mpox outbreaks in Congo and 11 other countries in Africa to be a global emergency.

On Tuesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were more than 22,800 mpox cases and 622 deaths on the continent and that infections had jumped 200% in the last week. The majority of cases and deaths are in Congo, where most mpox infections are in children under 15.

Dr. Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, a Congolese scientist who helped identify the newest version of mpox, said diagnostic tests being used in the country did not always pick it up, making it hard to track the variant’s spread.

In May, Mbala-Kingebeni, who heads a lab at Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, published research showing a new form of mpox that may be less deadly but more transmissible. The noted mutations suggested it was “more adapted to human transmission,” he said, but the lack of tests in Congo and elsewhere complicated efforts to monitor outbreaks.

The new variant has been detected in four other African countries as well as Sweden, where health officials said they have identified the first case of a person this month with the more infectious form of mpox. The person had been infected during a stay in Africa.

WHO said that available data to date does not suggest that the new form of mpox is more dangerous but that research is ongoing.

Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands who has been studying mpox, said scientists were now seeing some significant impacts of the disease, noting that pregnant women were miscarrying or losing their fetuses and that some babies were being born infected with mpox.

Ogoina, a professor of infectious diseases at Niger Delta University in Nigeria, said that in the absence of vaccines and drugs, African health workers should focus on providing supportive care, like ensuring patients have enough to eat and are given mental health support, given the stigma that often comes with mpox.

“It’s very, very unfortunate that we have had mpox for 54 years and we are only now thinking about therapeutics,” he said.

Mbala-Kingebeni said strategies previously used to stop Ebola outbreaks in Africa might help, given the limited numbers of shots expected. He said authorities have estimated Africa needs about 10 million doses but might only receive about 500,000 — and it’s unclear when they might arrive.

“Finding a case and vaccinating around the case, like we did with Ebola, might help us target the hot spots,” he said.

Koopmans said that given the urgent need for vaccines in Africa, waiting for more doses to be produced was unrealistic.

“The short term (question) really is about, who has vaccines and where are they to be best used next?” she said.

Spain’s health ministry announced Tuesday that it would dip into its mpox vaccine stockpile to donate 20% of its supply, about 500,000 doses, to African countries battling mpox.

“We consider it senseless to accumulate vaccines where they are not needed,” Spain’s health ministry said in a statement, adding Spain will recommend to the European Commission to propose that all member states also donate 20% of their vaccine stock.

Spain’s donation alone is more than what the European Union, vaccine Bavarian Nordic and the U.S. have pledged. Last week, Africa CDC said the EU and Bavarian Nordic had promised 215,000 mpox vaccines while the U.S. said it was donating 50,000 doses of the same vaccine to Congo. Japan has also donated some doses to Congo.

Meanwhile, the U.S. on Tuesday donated 10,000 doses of mpox vaccines to Nigeria where mpox has been common, making the vaccines the first to arrive in Africa since the global emergency was declared. The country has had a few dozen cases this year.

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Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain and Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Africa Has Almost 4,000 New Mpox Cases in a Week, but the Wait for Vaccines Continues

By CHINEDU ASADU

3:12 PM EDT, August 27, 2024

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Africa is seeing a rapid increase in mpox cases with nearly 4,000 reported in the past week, the continent’s public health body said Tuesday as it repeated a plea for long-awaited vaccines whose arrival this week in the most affected country, Congo, has been delayed.

Eighty-one deaths from mpox were reported in Africa in the past week, bringing the total cases and deaths to 22,863 and 622, respectively, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told an online briefing.

About 380,000 doses of mpox vaccines have been promised by Western partners such as the European Union and the United States, he said. That’s less than 15% of the doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in Congo, the epicenter of the global health emergency.

Following mpox outbreaks outside the African continent in 2022, wealthy countries quickly responded with vaccines and treatments from their stockpiles. However, only a few doses have reached Africa despite pleas from its governments.

At the earliest, the first batch of vaccine doses promised to support the new outbreaks in Congo will arrive on Sept. 1 after delays caused by documentation and emergency authorization issues, Kaseya said.

The batch would include 50,000 doses promised by the U.S. government and 15,000 from vaccines alliance GAVI, said Dr. Ngashi Ngongo, the Africa CDC incidents manager on mpox.

“It is just a matter of now waiting on the U.S. government on the transfer of those vaccines,” Ngongo said.

Congo has also requested at least 2 million doses from Japan of vaccines that are particularly effective in protecting children, he said, with negotiations “quite advanced.”

The new mpox variant first detected in Congo and blamed for the ongoing outbreaks is already triggering “significant” community-level transmission elsewhere, Ngongo said.

For example, in neighboring Burundi, nearly 800 mpox cases have been recorded in the last month, he said.

The U.S. on Tuesday donated 10,000 doses of mpox vaccines to Nigeria, where the disease has been common. It is the first known donation to Africa since the current outbreaks. Nigeria has recorded 40 mpox cases this year, according to Nigeria’s CDC.

The Africa CDC said it is working on a unified response plan for the outbreaks which will be presented to African heads of state for consideration at a meeting in September.

So far, African countries are promoting health measures and hygiene practices that would slow the spread of the mpox virus, Kaseya said.

Experts, however, have said such measures are difficult to enforce in Congo, where millions fleeing violence are crammed in displaced camps amid a decadelong humanitarian crisis.

“Humanitarian actors are struggling to control the outbreak due to insufficient resources,” said Heather Kerr, the International Rescue Committee country director in Congo, adding that children are especially vulnerable.

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Associated Press journalist Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed.

6 Polish Students and a Lecturer Freed from Detention in Nigeria, Foreign Ministry in Warsaw Says

People wave Russian flags during a protest in Kaduna, Nigeria, Monday, Aug 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ibrahim)

8:08 AM EDT, August 28, 2024

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Six Polish students and a lecturer from the Warsaw University who were detained in Nigeria during protests there have been released, the Polish foreign ministry said Wednesday. They are in good health and will be returning home this week.

The ministry’s spokesman, Pawel Wronski, said the seven Polish citizens have had their passports, laptops and belongings returned and were staying at the university campus in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, waiting for the trip back.

The seven were in northern Nigeria to take part in a program to study the Hausa language. They were detained earlier this month in the state of Kano during a political protest, allegedly for carrying Russian flags, Nigeria’s secret service said.

Officials in Poland, which has frosty relations with Russia, said that was unlikely and that the whole situation was a misunderstanding. The seven were held at a hotel in Kano while Warsaw was actively seeking their release.

“Our students were at the wrong time at the wrong place,” Wronski said, urging people to be cautious when traveling to distant locations.

Wronski said the ministry posts warnings and advice to travelers on its website, including a warning about the Nigerian state of Kano, where it described the political situation as being “quite complicated.”

Pro-Russian sentiment is rare in the Central European nation, which has bad memories of suffering under Russian rule in the past. Polish society is today deeply critical of Russian aggression in Ukraine and strongly backs Ukraine.

The protests in Nigeria saw thousands, mostly young people, rally against the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation and against alleged bad governance that has stifled development even though the country is a top oil producer.

In several northern states, a few protesters were seen waving Russian flags, a trend that until now was only common in Africa in coup-hit countries where pro-Russian sentiments are growing off the back of coups by militaries severing ties with the West.

Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for 3 Americans Implicated in Alleged Coup Attempt in DR Congo

FILE - From left, Tyler Thompson Jr., Marcel Malanga and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, all American citizens, face the court in Kinshasa, Congo, with 52 other defendants, June 7, 2024, accused of a role in the attempted coup in Congo led by little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in which six people were killed. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

By JEAN-YVES KAMALE and MARK BANCHEREAU

2:41 PM EDT, August 27, 2024

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Prosecutors on Tuesday called for 50 people, including three Americans, to face the death penalty for what the Congolese army says was a coup attempt earlier this year.

Military prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Innocent Radjabu urged the judges to sentence to death all those on trial, except for one defendant who suffers from “psychological problems.”

The defendants, whose trial opened in June, face a number of charges, many punishable by death, including terrorism, murder and criminal association.

Six people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in May that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot for resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a U.S. citizen, and two other Americans are on trial for their alleged role in the attack. His mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and simply followed his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile.

Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a vacation, with all expenses paid by the elder Malanga. The young men had played high school football together in the Salt Lake City suburbs. Other teammates accused Marcel of offering up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo.

Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo. He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, Thompson’s stepmother said.

Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, is the third American on trial. He is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by the Africa Intelligence newsletter.

Earlier this year, Congo reinstated the death penalty, lifting a more than two-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country.

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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.

South African President Ramaphosa Transfers Shareholder Responsibility for SEOs Formerly Under DPE

Eskom will now fall under the Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, South African Airways and SA Express both falling with the Transport Minister - Barbara Creecy and Denel with Defence Minister Angie Motshekga.

Picture: GCIS

CAPE TOWN - President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially assigned shareholder responsibility for each of the state-owned enterprises that previously fell under the soon-to-be defunct Department of Public Enterprises (DPE).

The responsibilities have now been assigned to the respective line-function ministries.

Eskom will now fall under the Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, South African Airways and SA Express both falling with the Transport Minister - Barbara Creecy and Denel with Defence Minister Angie Motshekga.

But the spokesperson in The Presidency - Vincent Magwenya – said the DPE will continue to exist, at least for now.

“The president has signed a proclamation appointing the Minister in The Presidency responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation as the executive authority of the Department of Public Enterprises, which will continue to exist and operate until the human and financial resources are transferred appropriately.”

Ukraine’s Military Suffers Heavy Casualties in Kursk Area Over Past Day — Commander

"The frontline has not undergone any significant changes and yesterday our adjacent units liberated and mopped up two communities," Major General Apty Alaudinov said

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military has suffered heavy casualties in the Kursk area over the past 24 hours and is revising its combat plan, Deputy Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military-Political Department, Akhmat Special Forces Commander Major General Apty Alaudinov told TASS on Tuesday.

"The frontline has not undergone any significant changes and yesterday our adjacent units liberated and mopped up two communities," the Akhmat commander said.

"Throughout the past day and night, the enemy attacked without stopping, trying to advance in our frontline section and sustained very heavy casualties. Today, as I have realized, they have decided to revise their actions. We have had some calm since the morning," he pointed out.

The Akhmat commander reported last night that Russian troops had liberated the settlements of Nizhnyaya Parovaya and Nechayev in the borderline Kursk Region.

Russia Delivers Overnight Precision Strike at Ukrainian Military Airfields

Russia’s Battlegroup Center liberated the community of Orlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day

© Alexander Polegenko/TASS

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. Russian forces delivered an overnight strike by precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles at Ukrainian military airfields, hitting all the designated targets, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"Last night, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a combined strike by airborne long-range precision weapons, including Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles and attack unmanned aerial vehicles at critical sites of the Ukrainian airfield infrastructure. All the designated targets were destroyed," the ministry said in a statement.

Russia’s Battlegroup North strikes three Ukrainian brigades over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup North struck three Ukrainian army brigades and inflicted roughly 115 casualties on Ukrainian troops in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup North units inflicted losses in the Liptsy and Volchansk directions on formations of the Ukrainian army’s 22nd motorized infantry, 101st and 118th territorial defense brigades in areas near the settlements of Chervonoye, Vorozhba, Baranovka and Pustogorod in the Sumy Region and Liptsy in the Kharkov Region. They repelled three counterattacks by assault groups of the Ukrainian army," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to 115 personnel, three motor vehicles and an Anklav-N electronic warfare station, it specified.

Russia’s Battlegroup West improves frontline positions over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup West improved its tactical position and inflicted roughly 490 casualties on Ukrainian troops in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup West units improved their tactical position and inflicted losses on manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian army’s 4th tank brigade, 12th Azov special operations brigade [outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization], 104th, 110th and 114th territorial defense brigades in areas near the settlements of Kolesnikovka, Boguslavka and Tabayevka in the Kharkov Region and in the area of the Serebryanka forestry. They repulsed four counterattacks by assault groups of the Ukrainian army’s 43rd and 63rd mechanized brigades," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to 490 personnel, two US-made M113 armored personnel carriers, two armored combat vehicles, four motor vehicles, two British-made 155mm FH70 howitzers, a US-made AN/TPQ-36 counterbattery radar station, an Anklav-N electronic warfare station and a Kvertus jamming station, it specified.

Russia’s Battlegroup South gains better ground over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup South gained better positions, inflicted roughly 780 casualties on Ukrainian troops and destroyed a German-made Leopard tank in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup South units gained more advantageous positions and inflicted losses on manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian army’s 54th and 93rd mechanized, 110th assault and 119th territorial defense brigades in areas near the settlements of Kuzminovka, Verkhnekamenskoye and Katerinovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic. They repulsed a counterattack by units of the Ukrainian army’s 5th assault brigade," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to 780 personnel, a German-made Leopard tank, an armored combat vehicle, four motor vehicles, a US-made 155mm M198 howitzer, a 152mm Msta-B howitzer, two 122mm D-30 howitzers and an Anklav-N electronic warfare station, it specified.

In addition, Russian forces destroyed two field ammunition depots of the Ukrainian army, the ministry said.

Russia’s Battlegroup Center liberates Orlovka community in DPR over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup Center liberated the community of Orlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup Center units liberated the settlement of Orlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic as a result of active operations," the ministry said.

Russia’s Battlegroup Center inflicts 530 casualties on Ukrainian army over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup Center inflicted roughly 530 casualties on Ukrainian troops and destroyed an enemy tank and four armored vehicles in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup Center units inflicted casualties on formations of the Ukrainian army’s 53rd and 110th mechanized, 25th airborne and 109th territorial defense brigades in areas near the settlements of Vozdvizhenka, Rozovka, Novgorodskoye and Sergeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic. They repelled seven counterattacks by units of the Ukrainian army’s 150th and 151st mechanized brigades," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to 530 personnel, a tank, four armored combat vehicles, six motor vehicles, a 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika motorized artillery system and two 122mm D-30 howitzers, it specified.

Russia’s Battlegroup East inflicts 145 casualties on Ukrainian army over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup East improved its frontline positions and inflicted roughly 145 casualties on Ukrainian troops in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup East units improved their forward edge positions and inflicted losses on massed manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian army’s 72nd mechanized brigade near the settlement of Vodyanoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic. They repelled a counterattack by assault units of the 128th territorial defense brigade," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to 145 personnel, an armored combat vehicle, seven motor vehicles, a 152mm D-20 howitzer and an electronic warfare station, it specified.

Russia’s Battlegroup Dnepr strikes two Ukrainian brigades over past day

Russia’s Battlegroup Dnepr struck two Ukrainian brigades and inflicted over 85 casualties on enemy troops in its area of responsibility over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Battlegroup Dnepr units inflicted losses on formations of the Ukrainian army’s 35th marine infantry and 124th territorial defense brigades in areas near the settlements of Ivanovka and Tokarevka in the Kherson Region," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army’s losses in that frontline area over the past 24 hours amounted to more than 85 personnel, four motor vehicles, a US-made 155mm M777 howitzer, a 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system and a 105mm M119 howitzer of US manufacture and an Anklav-N electronic warfare station, it specified.

Russian forces strike Ukrainian army, equipment in 142 areas over past day

Russian forces inflicted losses on Ukrainian manpower and military hardware in 142 areas over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Operational/tactical aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian groups of forces struck massed enemy manpower and military equipment in 142 areas," the ministry said.

Russian air defenses destroy 31 Ukrainian UAVs, four Tochka-U missiles over past day

Russian air defense forces shot down 31 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and four Tochka-U ballistic missiles over the past day, the ministry reported.

"Air defense capabilities shot down four Tochka-U tactical missiles, three French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs and 31 unmanned aerial vehicles," the ministry said.

Overall, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed 640 Ukrainian warplanes, 283 helicopters, 30,564 unmanned aerial vehicles, 575 surface-to-air missile systems, 17,586 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,425 multiple rocket launchers, 13,690 field artillery guns and mortars and 25,262 special military motor vehicles since the start of the special military operation, the ministry reported.

Russia Hits Ukrainian Infrastructure and Dems Look to Ride Harris Momentum

Top stories from the Russian press on Tuesday, August 27th

© Russian Defence Ministry/TASS

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. Russia launches major assault on Ukrainian energy and military infrastructure; Dems riding Harris momentum into congressional elections; and militant activities in Pakistan threaten to unsettle whole region. These stories topped Tuesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Izvestia: Russia launches massive attack on Ukrainian energy, military infrastructure

On August 26, Russia carried out massive strikes on Ukraine’s military and energy facilities. The attack was aimed at handicapping the country’s defense industry and undermining the Ukrainian army’s combat capability, said experts interviewed by Izvestia. Reports say that high-precision weapons hit Ukraine’s drone production and military maintenance sites. Besides, the attacks also targeted electrical substations, gas compression plants and storage sites for Western-donated aircraft weapons. As a result, weapons and ammunition supplies to the line of engagement were disrupted.

"It appears that the missiles were fired from Tu-95 and Tu-22 planes. Oniks and Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from ships and, probably, submarines in the Black and Caspian Seas," military expert Gennady Alyokhin said. According to him, the strikes specifically hit repair shops for foreign-made equipment and drone production facilities in Kharkov. "Incidentally, technical experts from NATO countries, namely French, German and Polish nationals, are working there," the expert went on to say. "One of the strikes targeted the airport area in Kharkov, which hosts a hotel where French mercenaries used to stay. This location was hit earlier in the spring, but it seems they have returned," the expert noted.

According to Alyokhin, the enemy is currently redeploying troops and equipment from Kharkov to the Sumy Region, prompting Russian forces to carry out strikes on military convoys heading to the border with Russia’s Kursk Region.

The overall goal of the strikes was to cripple Ukraine’s defense industry and military command system, as well as to destroy ammunition and equipment depots so that Kiev cannot continue military operations, military expert Viktor Litovkin pointed out. "It will be possible to judge their effectiveness by the intensity of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian regions and Kiev’s ability to replenish its stocks of weapons and move reserves to the line of engagement," Litovkin explained. "Strikes on energy infrastructure are supposed to cut power to Ukrainian plants, including both private and state-owned drone production enterprises," the expert said.

Vedomosti: Harris' rising star lifts Democrats' chances of winning Congress

US Vice President Kamala Harris has changed the country’s political landscape since she replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Opinion polls suggest that voters are behind her, Vedomosti writes.

However, it won't be enough for the Democratic candidate to win the presidential election to implement her plans. Her chances of carrying them out hinge on the party taking one or both of the houses of the Congress. According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, 46.9% of voters currently support the Democrats and 45.2% back the Republicans. The Dems got a boost in late July after incumbent US President Joe Biden decided not to seek a second term in office.

The move to replace Biden with Harris has clearly benefited the Democrats’ congressional campaign, Pavel Dubravsky, head of Dubravsky Consulting, said. He believes that Harris' positive approval ratings play a big role here. Unlike Biden, she can move the needle to help key campaigns in as yet undecided electoral districts.

It will be far harder for the Democrats to win the Senate than the House of Representatives, Viktoria Zhuravlyova, head of the Center for North American Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, noted. "The Democrats are vulnerable in more states than the Republicans, which is why they have to focus on defending their positions rather than winning traditionally Republican states," the expert specified. On the other hand, the party’s chances of taking the House are higher, but far from guaranteed. According to Zhuravlyova, the Democrats’ growing chances of winning the House are due in large part to the fact that the Republicans have been unable to get much done during the two years of their majority in the legislative body.

However, if we look at historical trends and keep in mind that the hype around Harris will gradually subside, the Republicans still have a comparative advantage, Dubravsky went on to say. "Today, it seems that the House of Representatives will lean Republican by a narrow margin, by five to ten seats. This could be a residual effect from Biden’s presidency. I would also predict that the Republican party will take the Senate by one or two seats," the expert concluded.

Izvestia: Militant activities in Pakistan threaten regional stability

Separatist activities in Pakistan may spill over the country's borders, said experts interviewed by Izvestia. A major ethnically motivated terrorist attack recently occurred in the province of Balochistan, where militants from the Balochistan Liberation Army shot over 20 people, most of them Punjabis. The unrest may spread into neighboring Iran.

Terrorist acts like this are not solely driven by Xenophobia. Despite being rich in natural resources, Balochistan is Pakistan’s poorest province. Separatists are particularly angry about the fact that foreign companies have monopolized the market, leaving local residents down and out. They blame the central government for this situation. "I would say that terrorist attacks don’t stem only from ethnic and religious strife but also from the rejection of foreign presence, the province’s economic backwardness and the federal government’s inability to cope with separatism," Vladimir Sotnikov, leading researcher at the Institute Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pointed out.

It is important to note that the Balochis are a divided people: most of them (about seven million) live in Pakistan, another two million in Iran and over half a million in Afghanistan. "The Balochistan Liberation Army carries out terrorist operations in Iran’s regions, too, because the border is insufficiently protected there. This is why one can say that Baloch separatism has gone beyond Pakistan," Sotnikov emphasized.

In fact, separatism has been a problem for Pakistan since its founding, Boris Volkhonsky, associate professor at Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African Studies, noted. In his opinion, the Islamic State terrorist organization, outlawed in Russia, may be involved in the current developments as it is in search of allies among separatist movements. In any case, what is happening in Pakistan may create instability in the country, which has been in a kind of political limbo, particularly following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"Political instability persists, so any external blow may worsen things, but much will depend on what position the army takes and on whether the government will be able to take tough and quick measures to cope with the situation. All this may spill over outside the country because the Balochis also live in Iran. Some circles in the West are interested in fanning Baloch separatism. They may play this card against Iran given the clear tensions between Tehran and the West," Volkhonsky concluded.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: US rolling towards recession in 2025, Russia to avert economic fallout

By early 2025, the US will enter a recession, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes, citing Steve Hanke, founder of the Institute for Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University. Because of sanctions, Russia is not as closely connected with the US as it used to be and will suffer less damage from the recession than other countries, experts said.

According to Hanke, the amount of money floating in the US economy is currently lower than in July 2021. The US Federal Reserve has only seen a contraction in the money supply four times since 1913, and every time, it has led to either a recession or depression. According to the expert, recession in the US may begin even before January, and, given close and extensive ties between the US and many other countries, this will also affect billions of people across the world.

In fact, there are signs that the US recession has already begun, but the country’s elites are still thinking about how "to sell" this narrative to the people and reduce the negative political impact, Pavel Seleznyov, Head of the Department of International Economic Relations at the Financial University under the Russian Government, said. "A search is going on for other disasters that could help downplay the significance of the current crisis. Besides, the groups led by - conditionally speaking - Trump and Harris are fighting over how to manage the crisis. Of course, the Americans will try to shift the burden onto other countries but since Russia in many ways shut itself off from the US economy after February 2022, our country’s situation is better now in terms of potential risks," Seleznyov explained.

However, the Russian economy actively interacts with friendly countries, many of which have well-developed economic ties with the US, the expert pointed out. They are very likely to suffer from the US recession, so Russia will feel it too, even though "not as much as it would have been before 2022," the Seleznyov added.

Still, the threats from low money supply in the US should not be overestimated, financial market expert Nikolay Solabuto said. "Analysts from Johns Hopkins University are right when they say that money is the lifeblood of the economy; the US will need more money and the country’s authorities are quite capable of meeting this need. I don’t expect the US to become a source of major threat to developing countries, including Russia, in the foreseeable future," the expert emphasized.

Vedomosti: Russia's diamond industry adapts to sanctions through strengthened ties with India

Russia increased diamond exports to India by 22% between January and June 2024 year-on-year, Vedomosti writes, citing data from the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Russian supplies are growing amid an overall decline in India’s imports of precious stones. According to the Kimberley Process uniting diamond producing and importing countries, global diamond production dropped by about 8% in 2023.

About 90% of Russia’s diamond production comes from the Alrosa company. In December 2023, the European Union banned direct and indirect imports, purchase and transit of diamonds and jewelry from Russia. The US introduced restrictions in February 2024. Alrosa does not make export details public amid the sanctions but Russia has always sent most of its diamonds to India for cutting.

Boris Krasnozhyonov, head of securities market analysis at Alfa-Bank, points out that sanctions on Russia made Indian diamond cutters nervous, which resulted in surplus stock last year and an overall drop in imports in the fall of 2023. India exports polished diamonds to the US, China and many other countries, Alexander Tokmin, senior personal broker at BCS World of Investments, said.

Maxim Khudalov, chief strategist at the Vector X investment company, notes that India cuts only some of the diamonds that used to be sent to the EU, partially offsetting the decline in Russian exports. He adds that Russian diamonds also reach the Israeli and UAE markets, even though "not directly."

According to Tokmin, further increases in Russian diamond exports to India will depend on global demand for jewelry. The market remains weak at this point due to low demand and the huge supply of Indian diamond cutters, the expert said.

TASS is not responsible for the material quoted in these press reviews

Russian Armed Forces Liberate Two Settlements in Kursk Region

Two infantry combat vehicles, two armored combat vehicles, and three motor vehicles were also destroyed today in total, Deputy Head of the Main Military Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces Apty Alaudinov said

Deputy Head of the Main Military Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces and Akhmat Special Force Head Major General Apty Alaudinov Alexander Reka/TASS

© Alexander Reka/TASS

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. The Russian military liberated two more settlements in the Kursk direction, Deputy Head of the Main Military Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces and Akhmat Special Force Head Major General Apty Alaudinov said.

"I would like to happily say that the Arbat unit has completely mopped up today Nizhnyaya Parovaya and Nechaev - the two settlements, with Regiment 1427 coming there after them. So it turns out that this area has also been mopped up, with control established," Alaudinov said in a video posted on a Telegram channel.

No particular changes took place today in the situation on the line of engagement, the general said. "The enemy has huge losses today indeed. They attacked all over the day and sustained very big losses exactly because of that," he noted.

Two infantry combat vehicles, two armored combat vehicles, and three motor vehicles were also destroyed today in total, Alaudinov added.

Spain’s Leader Begins West Africa Tour in Mauritania to Tackle Irregular Migration to Canary Islands

By RENATA BRITO

5:34 AM EDT, August 27, 2024

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s prime minister embarked on a three-day tour of West Africa on Tuesday as the European nation struggled to contain the number of people making the dangerous Atlantic voyage by boat to the Canary Islands.

The Spanish archipelago — located close to the African coast and used as a stepping stone for migrants and refugees trying to reach continental Europe — has seen more than 22,000 people disembark on its shores since January, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry, more than double the number of irregular arrivals for the same period last year.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez begins his visit in Mauritania before continuing south to Gambia and Senegal. The three coastal nations have become the main departure points used by smugglers to launch overcrowded boats. Thousands of Malian refugees fleeing violence and instability are among those embarking on the perilous Atlantic route to the Canaries, as well as unemployed youth from Senegal, Mauritania and other West African nations who seek better job opportunities abroad.

There are also increasingly more teenagers and children traveling alone to the Canary Islands, which has overwhelmed the local government responsible for their care. Spanish authorities say they are bracing for even more arrivals this fall when sailing conditions in the deadly Atlantic Ocean between West Africa and the Spanish archipelago are more favorable.

To tackle the issue, Sánchez is expected to sign several bilateral agreements with his African counterparts and strengthen cooperation between Spanish and local security forces working together to combat people smuggling. Spain will also expand its circular migration program, which allows migrants to come and work in Spain temporarily in areas like agriculture. To address the root causes of migration, the Spanish government said that it would also announce longer-term investment and business partnerships in the areas of development, connectivity and education.

It’s the second time that the Spanish leader visits Mauritania this year. In February, Sánchez traveled to the largely deserted and impoverished nation alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and announced 210 million euros (around $235 million) to help the country curb migration. Seen as a beacon of stability in the volatile Sahel region, Mauritania hosts about 200,000 Malian refugees on its border.

Tunisia’s President Reshuffles Cabinet Ahead of October Election

FILE - Tunisia’s President Kais Saied casts his ballot during legislative elections in Tunis, Dec. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Slim Abid, File)

By MASSINISSA BENLAKEHAL

8:46 PM EDT, August 26, 2024

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has sacked several members of his Cabinet this week, replacing his defense and foreign ministers as campaigning kicks off for the country’s October presidential election.

Three years since Saied rewrote Tunisia’s constitution granting him full power to choose his Cabinet, the reshuffling is far from the first time in which he has fired the ministers who run the country. It comes two weeks after the appointment of Kamel Madouri, a technocrat and former social affairs minister, as the North African country’s fifth prime minister in Saied’s first term.

The latest reshuffling was announced Sunday on the presidency’s Facebook page with little explanation.

In all, 19 ministers were replaced, including those overseeing struggling sectors of Tunisia’s economy and society — environment, tourism, trade and health. The heads of the powerful Interior and Justice ministries remain unchanged.

Saied told his newly appointed ministers that the abrupt changes to Tunisia’s government were necessary to fight corruption and defend national security, Tunisia’s state news agency TAP reported. Both objectives are among those Saied has for years cited to justify his moves to target his critics in government, media and civil society.

Saied is seeking a second term in Tunisia’s Oct. 6 election. He will face only three challengers, after the country’s election agency rejected the majority of prospective candidates, including Saied’s most high-profile detractors from across Tunisia’s political spectrum — right, left and Islamist.

At least eight potential challengers have been sentenced to prison or banned from running for office since election season began last month, according to a Human Rights Watch tally.

Oba of Benin Calls for Breakdown of Barriers Hindering Nigerian Women’s Political Participation

By Newswire Law & Events 

August 26, 2024

The Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, has advocated the removal of the barriers that discourage Nigerian women from participating in politics.

Ewuare made the call yesterday in Benin, when the governorship candidate of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) for the Sept. 21 election in Edo, Patience Key, paid a courtesy call to his palace.

The monarch women should no longer be relegated to the background, especially in governance due to their strength and population.

The royal father commended the leadership of the PRP for ceding its ticket to a woman, despite the ‘patriarchal and patrilineal’ structure of human society, dominated by men. He said: “A female in our society that is patriarchal and patrilineal dominated, you came out amongst all the males to contest.

“So, I commend the party, PRP, which deemed it fit to pick you as their flagbearer, recognising the strength of a woman in the scheme of things. I have always believed that women must be recognised as important, not to be suppressed to the background.”

Earlier in her address, the PRP flag bearer commended the Oba’s efforts that drastically reduced the menace of human trafficking in the ancient city and solicited prayer and blessings from the palace. She said: “I am running for the governorship because I see repression and retrogression in our great land. I am running for the governorship because I see hunger and anger. I have come to honour that call of governance.”

Key promised to leverage her wealth of experience in the world of business if given the mandate. She said that Edo people did not deserve to live in penury if the tourism sector and agricultural resources were well harnessed for productivity.

John Mahama Calls for Pan-African Legal Framework to Address Continent’s Challenges at 2024 NBA Conference

By Newswire 

Law & Events 

August 26, 2024

Former President of Ghana, John Mahama, says there’s a need for the establishment of a Pan-African legal framework that will reflect the continent’s values and realities and help to solve the challenges facing the continent.

Mahama said that Africa must proactively adapt a legal education and practice to meet the needs of an integrated market that involves developing expertise in international trade law, cross-border disputes, and comparative African law.

The former president, who spoke at the Nigeria Bar Association Annual General Conference in Lagos, also said that lawyers have an important role to play in addressing structural challenges facing the continent.

Mahama, who spoke on the topic “The Future of Africa Amid Rising Security, Economic and Political Challenges”, said that lawyers must not only advocate for change but they must also actively shape the legal frameworks that will support the diversification and strengthening of our economies.

He also said, “The protocol on the free movement of persons is not just an economic necessity but a realization of the Pan-African dream. It is your duty as legal persons to advocate for and implement legal mechanisms that enable the free movement of our people and goods across our borders while addressing the legitimate security concerns associated with that.

“You must work tirelessly to harmonise our immigration laws, recognize professional qualifications across our member states, and establish robust systems for the mutual recognition of judgments and arbitral awards.

“For your professional implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, it opens up new opportunities and responsibilities. You must proactively adapt your legal education and practice to meet the needs of an integrated African market. This involves developing expertise in international trade law, cross-border disputes, and comparative African law.

“The recent wave of political insurrections and coups in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, reflect deep-seated issues of injustice, alienation, and marginalization. The state fragility and insecurity that have led to military takeovers have not only disrupted mutual understanding within the southwest sub-region but also exposed the limitation of current diplomatic and interventionist strategies.

“We must ask ourselves. What is the future of Africa? What are the challenges that threaten Africa’s future? And what role do you as legal professionals have in securing this future? To answer these questions, we must first examine the structural challenges that undermine our African economies and challenges that have been starkly highlighted by recent global events.

“These events have not only disrupted our economies but have also exposed the deep-rooted vulnerabilities that long existed beneath the surface of our economic frameworks. Our continent’s heavy reliance on exporting commodities and importing essential goods has made us especially vulnerable to the unpredictable fluctuation of global markets. This vulnerability is not a recent development,” he stated.

Also, speaking at the event, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said that Nigerians need a new mindset to rebuild the country.

He noted that “yesterday’s mindset took us to where we are today, and today’s mindset will take us to where we will be tomorrow.”

Akpabio asked the legal practitioners not to rest on their laurels, but that they should move forward, and welcome the future with open hands and hearts.

He said, “As we gather, let us remember that our strength lies not only in our numbers but also in our uniform.

“We are not merely a crowd. We are a very formidable force for positive change in Africa.

“We hold a call and a reflection on our collective determination to rebuild our beloved nation,” he said.

Denmark Closes Embassies in Mali, Burkina Faso

By Al Mayadeen English

26 Aug 2024 16:19

In light of the closure, Denmark will appoint a special representative for the African Great Lakes and Sahel region.

Denmark is shutting down its embassies in each of Mali and Burkina Faso as part of its newly established Africa strategy, citing the "severely limited scope for action in the Sahel region" as a result of the military coups that recently overtook both nations as the reason.

Instead, Denmark plans on opening embassies in Senegal, Rwanda, and Tunisia and reinforcing its diplomatic staff in its Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana embassies. 

A special representative will also be deployed for the African Great Lakes and Sahel region. 

This comes as Denmark and the European Union seek to become Africa's "preferred partner" amid a series of events pushing it into "orienting to the East or West," Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen explained. 

"We have a clear interest in the African countries looking towards us in Europe as they chart the course for their future," he said, adding that the alleged Russian and Chinese influence in the continent should be countered with a compelling European alternative. 

Denmark's new strategy will majorly focus on expediting trade and establishing water-based projects. 

Reportedly, the European country plans on providing up to a billion kroner [$150 million] for bilateral water initiatives, allocating 425 million kroner for 2025 alone. 

This comes as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger establish their own confederation and depart the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), accusing the bloc of being manipulated by former colonial ruler France, with Niger's Abdourahamane Tchiani calling for the new bloc to become a "community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers."

"Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS," stated Tchiani to his fellow Sahel leaders.

Sino-Zimbabwe Relations Unshakable - President

23 August 2024

The Herald (Harare)

By Zvamaida Murwira

RELATIONS between Zimbabwe and China are unshakable as the two countries have stood with each other through many challenges and are confronting the El Nino induced drought together, President Mnangagwa said yesterday.

Speaking after receiving 2 000 tonnes of food aid from China at State House in Harare, the President paid tribute to his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping for being an all-weather friend to the people of Zimbabwe.

This was the second Chinese donation over the past few months, after Zimbabwe and other countries in the region declared state of disasters following low rainfall in the past season. A third donation will be coming soon.

"On behalf of the Government and the people of Zimbabwe, we are grateful to President Xi Jinping and the Government of China for giving us this donation. This has been the case between Zimbabwe and China. Each time we have this problem of food insecurity, China has always come to our aid," said President Mnangagwa.

"I wish to extend my appreciation and gratitude to my brother, His Excellency Xi for this gesture to the people of Zimbabwe. Please convey our warmest regards and appreciation for the donation. It will be given to the most vulnerable among our communities through our Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and we are very grateful for this donation."

He said food shortages had been severe not only in Zimbabwe but in the Sadc region owing to low rainfall occasioned by the El-Nino weather phenomenon.

"Convey to him that indeed as a result of the El Nino drought, food insecurity not only in Zimbabwe but in the region is actually prevalent, but we believe that we shall continue to receive assistance and cooperation from our co-operating partners as well as from our sister Republics like China who have always stood with us in challenges of this nature.

"We are very grateful and I can assure you that our Minister of Social Welfare will make sure it will be accessed by the most vulnerable group of our people," President Mnangagwa said.

Later, he witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding and Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo for another batch of food assistance from China which will be delivered soon.

In an interview, Ambassador Zhou said China stands ready to assist Zimbabwe given that the two countries have long-standing bilateral relations.

"It is a great pleasure to join His Excellency President Mnangagwa at a handover ceremony of emergency food assistance to Zimbabwe. As we all know that China and Zimbabwe enjoy a profound and comprehensive relationship, our relationship dates back several decades. Whenever our Zimbabwean friends have some difficulties, China always provides help, it is an all-weather friendship," said Amb Zhou.

"China promised to provide food assistance when Zimbabwe experienced El Nino induced food shortages. This is the second time that I have attended a handover ceremony. Last October we provided food assistance.

"We have signed an agreement with the Minister of Social Welfare for a third batch, we will be more than happy to provide assistance. I would also want to say with the leadership of His Excellency, President Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe will be able to win the battle against hunger and China will be ready to help."

Minister Moyo said the donation would go a long way in mitigating the effects of drought.

"In Zimbabwe, right now, about 85 percent of people are using either maize meal or other traditional grains but we have found out now that we have about 15 percent of our population relying on potatoes and other non-grain foodstuff.

"So, China's supplement to what we are already doing is very vital, and we have prioritised those looking after our children, in children's homes, those who have come today, we will give them one tonne each so that they can take home. But we will be giving other vulnerable groups especially the old, those in hospitals; we will try to help them," said Minister Moyo.

‘Barcelona or Die.’ For Senegalese Dreaming of Europe, the Deadly Atlantic Route is Not a Deterrent

By MARK BANCHEREAU

6:48 AM EDT, August 26, 2024

THIAROYE-SUR-MER, Senegal (AP) — Salamba Ndiaye was 22 when she first tried to get to Spain, dreaming of a career as a real estate agent. Without her parents’ knowledge, she made it onto a small fishing boat known as a pirogue, but the Senegalese police intercepted the vessel before it could leave.

A year later Ndiaye tried again, successfully making it off the coast but this time a violent storm forced the boat to stop in Morocco, where Ndiaye and the other passengers were sent back to Senegal.

Despite her two failed attempts, the 28-year-old is determined to try again. “Right now, if they told me there was a boat going to Spain, I would leave this interview and get on it,” she said.

Ndiaye is one of thousands of young Senegalese who try to leave the West African country each year to head to Spain, fleeing poverty and the lack of job opportunities. Most head to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, which is used as a stepping stone to continental Europe.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,300 people have landed on the Canary Islands, 126% more than the same period last year, according to statistics released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.

While most migrants leaving Senegal are young men, aid workers in the Canary Islands say they are increasingly seeing young women like Ndiaye risk their lives as well.

Earlier this year, the EU signed a 210 million euro deal with Mauritania to stop smugglers from launching boats for Spain. But the deal has had little effect on migrant arrivals for now.

The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will visit Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia this week to tackle irregular migration. The West African nations are the main launching pads for migrants traveling by boat.

The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. While there is no accurate death toll because of the lack of information on departures from West Africa, the Spanish migrant rights group Walking Borders estimates the victims are in the thousands this year alone.

Migrant boats that get lost or run into problems often vanish in the Atlantic, with some drifting across the ocean for months until they are found in the Caribbean and Latin America carrying only human remains.

But the danger of the route is not a deterrent for those like Ndiaye, who are desperate to make a better living for themselves and their families in Europe. “Barsa wala Barsakh,” or “Barcelona or die” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages, is a common motto of those who brave the deadly route.

“Even if we stay here, we are in danger,” said Cheikh Gueye, 46, a fisherman from Thiaroye-sur-Mer, the same village on the outskirts of Senegal’s capital that Ndiaye is from.

“If you are sick and you can’t pay for treatment, aren’t you in danger? So, we take our chances, either we get there, or we don’t,” he added.

Gueye also attempted to reach Europe though the Atlantic route but only made it to Morocco following bad weather, and was sent back to Senegal.

Like many inhabitants of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, he used to make a decent living as a fisherman before fish stocks started to deplete a decade ago due to overfishing.

“These big boats have changed things, before even kids could catch some fish here with a net,” Gueye said, pointing at the shallow water.

“Now we have to go more than 50 kilometers out before we find fish and even then we don’t find enough, just a little,” he adds.

Gueye and Ndiaye blame the fishing agreements between Senegal and the European Union and China, which allow foreign industrial trawlers to fish in Senegalese waters. The agreements impose limits on what they can haul in, but monitoring what the large boats from Europe, China and Russia harvest has proven difficult.

Ahead of the Spanish prime minister’s visit to Senegal on Wednesday, Ndiaye’s mother, Fatou Niang, 67, says the Senegalese and Spanish governments should focus on giving young people in the West African country job opportunities to deter them from migrating.

“These kids don’t know anything but the sea, and now the sea has nothing. If you do something for the youth, they won’t leave,” Niang says.

“But if not, well, we can’t make them stay. There’s no work here,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Ndeye Sene Mbengue in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.