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News Africa Extended

2016-11-17T01:21:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

UN warns of risk of mass atrocities in South Sudan

Posted: 16 Nov 2016 10:24 PM PST

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that there has been a sharp rise in hate speech and ethnic incitement in South Sudan.

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United Nations - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns that there is a real risk of mass atrocities being committed in South Sudan, following a sharp rise in hate speech and ethnic incitement.

In a report to the Security Council released on Wednesday, Ban said that UN peacekeepers in South Sudan lack the manpower and capability to stop mass atrocities should they occur.

"There is a very real risk of mass atrocities being committed in South Sudan, in particular following the sharp rise in hate speech and ethnic incitement in recent weeks," the report states.

"While the secretariat will continue to make every effort to implement the mandated task of protecting civilians through the use of 'all necessary means,' it must be clearly understood that United Nations peacekeeping operations do not have the appropriate reach, manpower or capabilities to stop mass atrocities."

In the report, Ban repeated earlier calls on the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the country which he said is "inundated with weaponry."

He also said that government restrictions on the peacekeepers' movements have led to mission paralysis and are undermining humanitarian operations in the world's youngest nation.

South Sudan has been riven by ethnic violence since shortly after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011.

In 2013, the country was plunged into civil war broke when government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by his former vice president Machar, who is a Nuer. A peace agreement was signed in August 2015, but fighting continues. Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 2 million displaced.

Ban's report recommended that the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force first deployed in 2011 be renewed for another year.

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Mauritanians support execution of ‘infidel’ blogger

Posted: 16 Nov 2016 06:36 AM PST

Hundreds of Mauritanians are supporting the execution of a blogger accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

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Johannesburg - Hundreds of Mauritanians are supporting the execution of a blogger accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

On Tuesday, protesters in Nouakchott called for blogger Cheikh Ould Mohamed Ould Mkheitir to be put to death as Mauritania’s high court considered whether the death penalty should be carried out.

The protests were in response to a call by Muslim leaders who on Sunday declared a “fatwa” that Mkheitir be put to death, and who also organised Tuesday’s demonstration, AFP reported.

Mkheitir was initially sentenced to death for apostasy in 2014 over a blog post deemed insulting to the prophet. Though his crime was downgraded by an appeal court, the accompanying death sentence was not lifted.

The allegedly blasphemous blog post had also attacked “an iniquitous social order” in Mauritania, with an underclass descended from slaves that was “marginalised and discriminated against from birth”.

Modern-day slavery under a hereditary system of servitude forces members of the “slave” caste to work without pay as cattle herders and domestic servants, despite an official ban.

Many Mauritanians live below the poverty line while there is huge disparity between the Arabised moorish elites and the country’s black population.

A defence lawyer subsequently told AFP the court had examined Mkheitir’s case and would deliver its verdict on December 20.

African News Agency

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-16T00:50:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Zanu-PF bolstering terror machinery - MDC

Posted: 15 Nov 2016 10:03 PM PST

Zimbabwe's opposition MDC fears that the recruitment of more army personnel is a ploy by the ruling party.

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Harare - The opposition MDC, led by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has expressed fear that the recruitment of more army personnel by Zanu-PF is a ploy by the ruling party to bolster its terror machinery ahead of the 2018 elections.

The Zimbabwe National Army has been flighting adverts calling for youths between the ages of 18 and 22 to go for recruitment exercises at various barracks around the country.

In a statement on Tuesday, MDC-T national spokesperson Obert Gutu said the nationwide military recruitment exercise by the ZNA was irrational considering that government was currently struggling to pay salaries for its workers timeously.

"As a peace-loving social democratic political party, the MDC is also alarmed by the fact that the ongoing massive army recruitment exercise is deliberately targeted at building the Zanu PF regime's 'war arsenal' in preparation for the 2018 elections," he said.

Gutu said the Zanu-PF government was known for unleashing its security apparatus each time it faced possible defeat at national elections.

He said Zanu-PF had done the same during the June 2008 presidential election run-off when it unleashed soldiers and other security operatives in both urban and rural areas which resulted in an orgy of violence which saw hundreds of civilians murdered while women were raped and homesteads were set ablaze.

"Because the Zanu-PF regime is sensing a crushing and humiliating electoral defeat in 2018, it is already re-tooling and sharpening its instruments of terror, thuggery and brutality. Once again, the MDC would like to call upon SADC,the AU and even the United Nations to keep a close eye on the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe," he said.

Gutu said it was senseless to add more personnel to an already bloated civil service as revealed by a recent audit by auditors Ernst and Young.

"In fact,this audit revealed that there are no less than 75,000 ghost workers on the civil service payroll. Most, if not all,of these ghost workers are actually Zanu-PF activists who are conveniently given the job title 'ward or youth officers'," he said.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa is on record saying that more than 80 percent of government revenue was going towards salaries.

African News Agency

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Egyptian court overturns Morsi death sentence

Posted: 15 Nov 2016 04:01 AM PST

An Egyptian court has overturned a death sentence against ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

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Cairo - An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned a death sentence against ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising, official news agency MENA reported.

The Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest degree court, ordered that Morsi and five co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, will also be retried.

Morsi was sentenced to death in June 2015 in connection with a mass jailbreak during the country's 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

He, along with 129 members of the Brotherhood, was charged of assaulting a prison, killing officers and fleeing in cooperation with Palestinian Hamas movement's affiliates.

The jailbreak helped more than 20,000 criminals escape the prison and spread chaos in the country. Morsi, the first democratically elected president, was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013.

He received several prison sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, in which he appealed.

Tuesday court's ruling cancelled the only execution sentence he was facing. In another case related with violence and killing protesters outside the presidential palace in 2013, Morsi was handed his first final sentence, 20 years in prison.

Xinhua

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-15T00:59:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Zimbabwe needs migration policy - Swedish envoy
Ex-Zambian minister’s graft probe details revealed
200 children could die daily in Nigeria

Zimbabwe needs migration policy - Swedish envoy

Posted: 14 Nov 2016 10:05 PM PST

Zimbabwe needs an immigration policy that integrates migration into a broad development agenda, a diplomat says.

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Harare - Zimbabwe, with more than three million people believed to be living in neighbouring South Africa alone, needs an immigration policy that integrates migration into a broad development agenda, the Swedish Deputy Head of Mission to Zimbabwe, Maria Selin said on Monday.

Selin made the remarks in an interview on the sidelines of a Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) Project Close Out Meeting at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) offices in Harare.

She said the Zimbabwean government was being assisted by the IOM to formulate a migration policy that would integrate the issues of migration into the country's development agenda.

"IOM has also been working with government, not with Swedish funding, on producing the diaspora policy because of course a country like Zimbabwe in the region where you have got so much migration you need to have government policies that really look into all aspects and see not only the challenges but also the potential with migration so that is what the IOM has been able to assist the government with," Selin said.

Selin said SIDA was working with the IOM to promote humane migration and to see whether they could work in communities to support those that were affected by migration.

"It's quite clear that we have had a long standing relation with IOM and we have been working together for many years to support on issues of migration because it is quite an important aspect of development," she said.

Selin said the SIDA, together with the IOM, was working with different communities in order to settle various people who have had to move from their original settlements for various reasons.

"We have been trying to work with them to integrate them into the community and with our support of about $3 million for two years, one thing that we have done is set up three reception centres in Beitbridge ,Plumtree and Nyamapanda that we have now handed over to government so they continue to be fully operational in order to assess the migrants that come back to Zimbabwe," she said.

Despite having to deal with its own migration policies, which were putting a strain on the government finances, Sweden would continue to support Zimbabwe to deal with its migration problems and had availed $3 million to be used over two years.

"The Swedish government is committed to stay in Zimbabwe and we are preparing a new strategy, a five year strategy on development co-operation for Zimbabwe, so despite the fact that the national budget, has been hit pretty hard by the cost of migration, we are now fully committed that this will not have a negative impact on our cooperation in Zimbabwe for years to come," she said.

She said they had a slightly lower disbursement this year but was confident that in the next few years they would fund projects in Zimbabwe to the tune of around $25 million per year.

IOM Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, Rangarirai Tigere, said they were dealing with a number of cases of unaccompanied children, adding that the government of Zimbabwe had put in place measures to provide the necessary assistance to the affected children.

"It's quite a concern that we have been addressing together with government where we have minor children who sometimes migrate or have been separated from those with whom they are travelling with," he said. "We are quite glad that government has put in place measures to provide the necessary assistance when such cases come through the reception and support centres; for instance in Beitbridge and Plumtree, there are child centres run by the relevant ministry to provide relevant support."

Tigere said although he did not have the exact statistics of the affected children, he was convinced the figures were high enough to warrant immediate attention. He said migration affected everyone, including children, adding that the major cause of migration was the economic situation which forced families to move in search of greener pastures.

* Zimbabwe and South Africa are set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which will see the establishment of recruitment centres at the Beitbridge Border Post.

Acting Deputy Director for International Relations in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Langton Ngorima, said the recently held Bi National Commission meeting in Harare had agreed that the memorandum would be signed during the first quarter of 2017. He said Zimbabwe would also establish immigration centres at its borders that would provide information for migrants to make informed decisions before they crossed into neighbouring countries.

African News Agency

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Ex-Zambian minister’s graft probe details revealed

Posted: 14 Nov 2016 04:00 AM PST

Former Zambian minister Chishimba Kambwili is being probed on how he accumulated a personal wealth after serving the government for just five years.

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Gaborone - Former Zambian Information and Broadcasting Services minister Chishimba Kambwili is being investigated on how he accumulated a personal wealth that includes several plush villas and over 500 flats after serving the government for just five years.

Unnamed sources from Zambian State House told the “Lusaka Times” that the former minister was also being investigated for alleged irregularities in the awarding of several government and private sector contracts to his company, Mwamona Investments.

Kambwili is a director of the company, which is registered in Lusaka as a diversified holding with interests in real estate, property development, civil engineering, haulage transport services and of late, milling.

It also trades as Mwamona Invest, operating from Dumela Industrial Sites in Francistown, Botswana. A possible investigation is expected to focus on how the ex-minister is funding the construction of executive blocks of flats in the cities of Ndola, Luanshya and the capital Lusaka.

It would also examine how Kambwili accumulated a pool of 28 personal vehicles in five years, up from the three he had when he joined parliament in 2008, as well as reports that he now owns multiple properties in London, where his family lives.

In terms of alleged construction fraud, Mwamona Investments would be probed for abandoning government projects which included the construction of a market place in the town of Mwense in Luapula Province.

Other projects which were allegedly fully paid for but abandoned as incomplete, include schools, clinics and roads in Luapula. In the process, government was defrauded of up to $30 million.

Zambian Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) spokesman Timothy Moono said they would decide soon on whether or not to investigate the allegations against Chishimba.

African News Agency

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200 children could die daily in Nigeria

Posted: 14 Nov 2016 02:04 AM PST

Up to half of all children under the age of five are acutely malnourished in north-eastern Nigeria where terrorist group Boko Haram is wreaking havoc.

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Cape Town - Two hundred children could die every day from hunger in north-eastern Nigeria where Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram is wreaking havoc, charity Save the Children said Monday.

Up to half of all children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, the organisation found when screening the health of boys and girls in the region between June and October.

The figure could be even worse in areas that are out of reach because of insecurity, according to the report.

“Children are presenting in desperate conditions and facing severe malnutrition, often in combination with other life-threatening illnesses like pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea,” said Save the Children country director Ben Foot.

Violent attacks on civilians by Boko Haram since 2009 have affected almost 15 million people in north-eastern Nigeria, according to the World Health organisation (WHO).

More than 2.2 million people have fled their homes in the region, while 7 million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, the WHO said.

Roughly 3 million people lived in unknown conditions in inaccessible areas in 2015. Boko Haram’s goal is to enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as sharia. Since 2009, at least 14 000 people have died at the hands of the Sunni fundamentalists in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

dpa

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-14T01:12:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

11 000 people in detention in Ethiopia
Mugabe’s successor? Military has no say
Faint hopes over abducted Sudan refugees
Lean times for Zim as cash crisis bites

11 000 people in detention in Ethiopia

Posted: 13 Nov 2016 10:20 PM PST

Ethiopia's state of emergency inquiry board says that over 11 000 people have been detained in different parts of the country.

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Addis Ababa - Ethiopia's state of emergency inquiry board says that over 11,000 individuals suspected of inciting political unrest in different parts of the country have been detained.

Board chairman Tadesse Hordofa said the arrests were made since the start of the six-month-long state of emergency on October 9 and those arrested were being held in six detention centres and military camps around the country.

"Some 11,607 individuals have so far been detained in six prisons, of which 347 are female, in connection with the state of emergency declared in the country," he said in a statement broadcast by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC).

All those arrested were above 18 years old, with the majority being youth, farmers, and traders.

"No foreign citizen has been arrested so far," he said.

A few weeks ago, government reported the release of about 2 000 people after they had been "counselled". It is unclear whether this figure is part of the current statistics.

The board was due to release a list containing the names of detainees to all regional states starting from Saturday. All regions were required to post the list in public places so that families of detainees could easily identify their whereabouts.

A recent cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Hailemariam Daselegn saw key positions handed to Oromos, whose region has been the centre of protests. Oromia surrounds Addis Ababa on all sides.

Demonstrations spilled into the Amhara region in the north. In a bid to curb the unrest, the government, which has been in power for 25 years, declared a six-month state of emergency "because the situation posed a threat against the people of the country".

Amnesty International has reported human rights violations, including arbitrary mass arrests, and restricted media access and internet censorship in Ethiopia. Bloggers and activists have also been also arrested but the board chairman did not mention this in his statement.

Hordofa also read a long list of alleged offences committed by the arrested people, ranging from major crimes such as "attacking security forces using firearms" or "killing civilians and members of security forces" to the much more mundane "denying provision of public services" and "disrupting movement of vehicles".

Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) chairman Merera Gudina reported at a European Parliament hearing that at least 1 500 people were killed in the past year of protests by security forces while 60,000 were detained without due process of law.

"These are mass arrests targeting innocent people just because they have opposed the government and expressed their views. This needs to stop. It is spinning out of control," he said.

African News Agency

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Mugabe’s successor? Military has no say

Posted: 13 Nov 2016 06:15 PM PST

Zimbabwe’s military has no say on who should take over from Robert Mugabe, according to the country's army commander.

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Harare - Zimbabwe's military has no say on who should take over from President Robert Mugabe, the country's army commander said, as tension mounts within the ruling party over who will succeed Africa's oldest leader.

Mugabe, 92, has held power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980. But he is increasingly looking frail, stoking a scramble in Zanu-PF to succeed him.

Local media say some top military generals and a group within Zanu-PF are backing Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe. Another faction is widely believed to be manoeuvring to impose Mugabe's wife, Grace, as a possible successor.

Lieutenant-General Valerio Sibanda, the Zimbabwe National Army Commander, told the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper that the military should not get involved.

“In Zanu-PF the military has no role to play in terms of succession politics, and that is the long and short of it,” he said, in his first comments on the succession issue.

Last year in December, Mugabe warned against the country's military generals and other security services supporting different candidates, saying it could ruin Zanu-PF.

Opposition parties accuse military commanders, who fought in the 1970s independence war, of working hard to ensure Zanu-PF remains in power.

On the eve of presidential elections in 2002 and 2008, military generals said they would not salute a leader who had not fought in the battle for independence. This was seen as an attack on main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who did not participate in the liberation struggle.

REUTERS

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Faint hopes over abducted Sudan refugees

Posted: 13 Nov 2016 06:29 AM PST

Humanitarian organisations are working round the clock to ascertain the whereabouts of 32 children and women kidnapped in South Sudan.

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Khartoum - Humanitarian organisations are working round the clock to ascertain the whereabouts of 32 children and women kidnapped by armed groups in South Sudan.

It is feared they might have been killed following the recent abduction and subsequent killing of other refugees near the refugee hosting area of Lasu Payam.

The fatal shooting and machete attack by armed groups killed two and wounded five refugees from the Kordofan region.

Meanwhile, four women and 28 children are still in captivity in an unknown location following their abduction from a refugee centre in late October.

The captors entered the settlement and asked refugees to present their food ration cards for food distribution mobilisation, allegedly on behalf of the United Nations.

A UN spokesperson said they were attempting to obtain details about the whereabouts of the abducted group and their captors. Prior to the raids, Lasu hosted over 10 000 refugees. The camp is now empty.

ANA-CAJ News

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Lean times for Zim as cash crisis bites

Posted: 13 Nov 2016 01:48 AM PST

Nothing is going right for Zimbabwe right now. There is virtually no cash in the banks and millions of people are more hungry this year than at any time in the last 20 years.

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Harare - Nothing is going right for Zimbabwe right now. After so much turmoil for more than 15 years, there seems no end to the never-ending drama in Harare.

There is virtually no cash in the banks and millions of people are more hungry this year than at any time in the last 20 years.

“Zimbabwe faces one of the most severe lean seasons in the last few decades,” according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), which monitors food production and food prices in many countries.

The body says Zimbabwe is suffering from the impact of last season’s El Niño-induced drought - which was a second consecutive dry year - as well as “macro-economic challenges”.

The financial “challenges” it refers to is the lack of cash in the banks, as Zimbabwe has run out of its most popular currency, US dollars, and this week, in particular, banks reduced even further the amount it could release to customers. Many people sleep in the streets outside banks, hoping to be first in the queue, so they can withdraw their salaries or pensions, but the banks have severely slashed the amount they can release.

To ease the current shortage of cash, Zimbabwe says it will release small-denomination, specially prin-ted “bond notes” later this month. These can only be used in Zimbabwe. No one is sure where the notes will be printed.

At Old Mutual’s Central African Building Society (CABS), tellers at its most prestigious branch, north of the city centre, said this week they could only release $50, mostly in “filthy” notes, to its VIP customers. The teller at one branch on Wednesday said he was only able to serve 10 customers that day, and expected to run out of notes by mid-morning.

One customer said: “We suspect the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is scooping up as many dollars as possible so that the shortage is even worse than usual, as this will make the new bond notes much more acceptable.”

Many are worried that the bond notes will become the only currency, and prove to be as worthless as the Zimbabwean dollar was when it was abandoned eight years ago.

RBZ governor John Mangudya has been on a nationwide tour, and has allowed more journalists into his city centre office than any of his predecessors, and funded a huge publicity campaign to explain the bond notes.

He says the cash is a financial instrument, and doesn’t signal the return of the Zimbabwe dollar. He adds that the new notes are backed by $200 million from the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), of which Zimbabwe is a shareholder.

Well-placed banking sources said Afreximbank has recently released $150m into the international accounts of some of Zimbabwe’s main banks so they can pay for key imports such as medicines, food and fuel.

Mangudya says he will resign if the new cash goes the same way as the Zim dollar, which the central bank printed in ever-higher denominations until it had no value and had to be abandoned in late 2008 when civil servants went unpaid, supermarkets were empty, children had no teachers, and state hospitals could not function. Anyone with a pension fund lost it and savings accounts were wiped out.

The battered economy, which began to rebuild after the inclusive government came to power in 2009, adopted the US dollar and rand, but deteriorated sharply after Zanu-PF returned to power with a massive, if disputed electoral majority, in 2013.

Many Zimbabweans pulled their dollars from the banks and Mangudya says he understands why many people are suspicious of the bond notes: “Many lost everything and were traumatised at that time,” he told Independent Media.

Mangudya says he knows that some people and companies took massive amounts of dollars to South Africa as they scored well when the rand was collapsing in the past couple of years.

Zimbabwe imports far more than it exports and its economy is, literally, on its knees, according to a wide range of economists and bankers.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa is looking for international loans and, in his quest to secure them, paid off Zimbabwe’s debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month.

However, plans to raise new loans have so far failed, and the IMF now says there is little chance of Zimbabwe raising cash to rebuild infrastructure because it has not managed to fulfil the reform agenda it committed to in Lima last year.

The EU, which is a huge humanitarian donor to Zimbabwe, said last week that part of the deal for Zimbabwe to rejoin the international financial world was that land invasions would end so that the agriculture sector could rebuild.

Several key farms used by productive white farmers, in business with small-scale farmers, have recently been invaded.

One, a highly productive and profitable banana and tomato farm in southern Zimbabwe, was destroyed last month by invasions carried out by the Zanu-PF Women’s League, which is led by the country’s first lady, Grace Mugabe.

“The Zanu-PF Women’s League was allocated that farm,” said Zanu-PF Senator Tambudzani Mohadi earlier this week. “I didn’t take it. I have my own 3 000 hectares.”

Her husband, security minister Kembo Mohadi, also took a farm post-2000.

Phillip van Damme, EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, said in a statement released this week that the continuing invasions of productive farms was a violation of the reform agreement that Zimbabwe signed up to with the international financial world in Lima last year.

Van Damme said that all EU countries agreed that the country’s post-2000 land-reform programme could not be reversed, but accepted Zimbabwe’s commitment to “bring to an end the land-reform process”.

Both Mangudya and Chinamasa said in Lima last year that Zimbabwe’s land grab was over, and that the country would rebuild agriculture to boost the economy.

Zimbabwe never had food aid before 2000 as it produced more than it consumed until land invasions began in 2000. Even in previous droughts, such as 1991-92, Zimbabwe was able to fund imports of food.

But the World Food Programme, mostly funded by the US, is delivering emergency food aid to millions in Zimbabwe, and FEWSNET says the situation will be worse in the early months of next year, before the harvest.

It predicted rains into next year would be below average.

Independent Foreign Service

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-13T01:03:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters surrender in Chad

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 06:03 AM PST

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters and their families have surrendered in Chad in the past month, security and UN sources said.

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Dakar - Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters and their families have surrendered in Chad in the past month, security and UN sources said, in a sign the military campaign against them is making headway.

Boko Haram, which has killed and kidnapped thousands of people, had seized an area approximately the size of Belgium in northeastern Nigeria by last year but has since lost significant ground amid growing regional military pressure.

Analyst and security sources think the fighters are probably recent recruits that Boko Haram has struggled to retain as it has ceded territory. Defections of Boko Haram fighters have been reported in Nigeria but are not known to have previously occurred on such a large scale.

“They surrendered to our troops on the front line in Lake Chad,” said Colonel Mohammad Dole, Chief Military Public Information Officer for the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) headquartered in Chad's capital N'Djamena.

“The surrenders are taking place because of the firepower of our operations. The groups, many of them armed, have been arriving since September and their number keeps increasing,” he said.

About 240 fighters, most off whom are Chadian, are now being held in detention along with their families, Dole said.

The MNJTF, with troops from Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Benin and intelligence, training and logistical support from the United States, launched a regional operation in July against the group, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

It has since continued patrols around the waterways of Lake Chad - one of the world's poorest regions whose villages were last year regularly struck by fighters, sometimes aboard canoes.

Around 2.6 million people have been displaced in the Lake Chad Basin where Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon meet.

Signs that regional armies are wresting back control of the Chadian part of the lake is significant since it had been a recruitment hub, even if the group never sought to conquer territory there, said Ryan Cummings, director of consultancy Signal Risk.

“Their presence in Chad was more for recruitment and for resources. Its strikes in the country were punitive,” he said, referring to revenge attacks on regional military heavyweight Chad, which has supplied 3 000 troops for the MNJTF.

Chadian military officials are currently profiling the detainees currently housed at two detention centres in the remote town of Baga Solo, some of whom arrived this week.

Based on previous patterns, it is likely that many were abducted or forcibly recruited by Boko Haram whose name means “Western education is sinful” in the local Hausa language.

Stephen Tull, UN Resident Coordinator in Chad, said a total of around 700 people were being held, including men, women and children.

It was unclear how many were fighters, he said. Boko Haram has in the past deployed child soldiers and female suicide bombers.

“They are mostly Chadians and appear to all be more recent recruits,” he said citing information from a UN visit to the centres earlier this month.

Islamic State named Abu Musab al-Barnawi as Boko Haram's leader in August although another branch loyal to former head Abubakar Shekau is still operational. It was not clear from which branch the fighters surrendered, nor how senior they are.

Philippe Barragne-Bigot, head of the UN children's agency in Chad, said that it had set up a centre for the children, who he said should be treated as former hostages.

“We want to profile them and make sure they have the right psychological rehabilitation,” he told Reuters.

Reuters

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-12T01:30:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Zuma calls for SADC special summit on drought

Posted: 11 Nov 2016 06:01 AM PST

President Zuma wants regional leaders discuss the current drought and water shortages ravaging members states of the Southern Africa Development Community.

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Pretoria – The current drought and water shortages ravaging members states of the Southern Africa Development Community can be better dealt with if regional leaders convened a special summit on the matter, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.

Addressing visiting Botswana President Seretse Khama Ian Khama at the third bi-national commission between South Africa and Botswana, taking place in Pretoria, Zuma said their meeting has coincided with a critical phase for the regional bloc.

“We meet during a difficult period when our region faces a serious and persistent drought and water shortages. The drought will result in significantly reduced crop production throughout Southern Africa. This will have a far-reaching impact on food security and food prices,” said Zuma.

“As SADC, we need to explore the possibility of hosting a special summit to discuss the drought and solutions thereof.”

He said it was vital for the region to fast track work on the Lesotho Highlands Water Transfer Project in an effort to address the water shortage crisis.

Zuma said, as a regional bloc, SADC also had to address combating international crime and issues of peace and security.

“Critically important is also the need to enhance our cooperation in border management to combat cross-border crimes such as rhino and elephant poaching. Some of our countries in the region and continent continue to face political and security challenges,” said Zuma.

“We need to continue working together in the maintenance of peace, security and stability.”

South Africa remains one of the major trading partners of Botswana. In 2015, South Africa’s total bilateral trade with Botswana stood at R57.97 billion.

“There is a large presence of South African companies in Botswana which are involved in various sectors such as housing, food and beverages, construction, retail, hotels and leisure, banking, medical services, etc,” the South African presidency said in a statement.

“These companies continue to contribute to the growth and development of the Botswana economy.”

African News Agency

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Cecil the lion: Charges dropped against local hunter

Posted: 11 Nov 2016 03:35 AM PST

A Zimbabwean court has thrown out charges against a local hunter accused of failing to stop the killing of prized lion Cecil.

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Harare - A Zimbabwean court has thrown out charges against a local hunter accused of failing to stop the killing of the country's most prized lion by an American dentist, his lawyer said on Friday.

Walter Palmer, a lifelong big-game hunter from Minnesota, touched off a global controversy when he killed Cecil, a rare black-maned lion, with a bow and arrow outside Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe in July last year.

While Zimbabwean authorities said Palmer had legal authority to hunt, they were stung by the international outcry and charged local hunter Theo Bronkhorst, who assisted Palmer, with failing to prevent an unlawful hunt.

Bronkhorst's lawyers then applied to the High Court in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo to set aside the charge, arguing it could not have been an offence under the country's wildlife laws if Palmer had a permit to hunt.

"The court granted us that prayer yesterday - that the charges be quashed. So I cannot imagine the state coming back again charging him with the same charge," said Lovemore Muvhiringi, a lawyer for Bronkhorst.

Cecil had been fitted with a collar to track his movements but strayed outside the confines of Hwange National Park and was then shot. Bronkhorst was accused of laying bait to lure Cecil out of the park. Palmer said at the time that no one in his hunting party realised the targeted lion was Cecil.

Wildlife hunting is an important revenue source for the southern African country, which is grappling with its worst shortage of cash since it dumped its inflation-ravaged currency in favour of the U.S. dollar in 2009.

Conservationists worldwide were outraged when Zimbabwe's government announced in October last year that Palmer would not be charged over Cecil's killing because he had obtained legal authority to conduct the hunt.

But the government said Palmer would be free to visit Zimbabwe only as a tourist, not a hunter, in future, implying he would not be issued the required permits.

Reuters

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2016-11-11T01:36:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Zim hopes for better relations with the US

Posted: 10 Nov 2016 10:18 PM PST

A senior Zimbabwean official says his country is ready to work with the new US administration.

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Harare - A senior Zimbabwean official says his country is ready to work with the new US administration to restore sound bilateral relations.

This follows the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the presidential elections held on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe's Minister of Information Christopher Mushohwe was quoted by the Herald newspaper on Thursday as saying that Zimbabwe hoped the Trump administration would restore normal relations with Zimbabwe.

Relations between Zimbabwe and the United States have been frosty since 2001 when the latter imposed sanctions on the African country.

Mushohwe said Zimbabwe wanted to maintain good ties with Washington and that at no point had it tried to pick a fight.

Zimbabwe, he said, would not pre-judge the new US government, adding "it could actually be a better government than the previous one."

Xinhua

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Monsanto is hopeful Kenya will lift GMO ban

Posted: 10 Nov 2016 01:00 AM PST

American agricultural company Monsanto is hopeful that Kenya will lift a ban on genetically modified foods.

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Nairobi - American agricultural company Monsanto is hopeful that Kenya will lift a ban on genetically modified foods in order for farmers to start reaping the benefits of high yields and also to ensure food security.

According to Monsanto's representative for East and West Africa Japheth Sigei, the company is determined to demystify its operations and counter misinformation associated with genetically modified foods.

Sigei said that it was unfortunate that Kenya banned the import and planting of GMOs in 2012, due to what he described as misinformation and misunderstanding. He said it was difficult for the public to understand that foods can safely have their DNA changed and called on scientists to stand up and do their part in breaking down the information to the public.

Speaking to African News Agency (ANA) on the side lines of the Seed Trade Association of Kenya Congress in Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday, Sigei said that it would only be fair to lift the ban on GMOs in order to give farmers and consumers more choices in planting and consumption of foods.

He denied reports that GMOs were rejected in many countries because they are harmful and instead blamed competitors in the agricultural industry for fanning lies and misinformation about GMOs.

Sigei said that those countries that have adapted biotech methods of farming like South Africa, Egypt and Bukina Faso were already reaping the benefits of increased quality yields devoid of diseases that used to plague their crops.

"Biotech is a choice. Farmers should be allowed to choose to adopt biotech agriculture. If the yields are good, then the farmers demand for the same will increase," said Sigei brushing off allegations that Monsanto seeds are designed to enslave farmers by making the soil toxic to non-Monsanto seeds.

He said that Monsanto also produces "conventional seeds" which are used in Kenya and many other countries. Some of the seeds already in the market are for corn and vegetables.

Regarding the heavily criticised soil and plant chemical Roundup, Sigei said that it is simply a pesticide that effectively kills weeds. "Roundup is not harmful and has been used in many African countries for over 20 years," said Sigei adding that all Monsanto products are thoroughly tested in labs before being released into the market.

"We test to ensure that our products meet the required market quality and standards before being released in the market," said Sigei. Responding to allegations that Kenya's lax systems may be allowing in GMOs from Monsanto, Sigei said: "As of now there are no GMO seeds from Monsanto in Kenya. We respect the laws of the country."

Sigei allayed fears in the public that Monsanto would use its corporate muscle to force GMOs into the country saying, "Any product brought into this country (Kenya), goes through a process and regulators verify before it is released into the market."

According to an anti GMO group, The Non-GMO Project, most packaged foods contain ingredients derived from corn, soy, canola, and sugar beet, crops which are largely grown in North America and are genetically modified. The group calls for proper labelling of GMO foods.

In August 2015, Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto announced that the Government would lift the ban on GMOs within two months to allow biotechnology to take agriculture to the next level. Kenya is rated by the United Nations as food insecure and often suffers drought and famine leading to deaths by starvation.

GMOs were banned in Kenya in 2012 after a contentious study in France that linked GMOs to cancer. Ruto argues that after consultations with various stakeholders the government had concluded that with the tight regulations and safety measures the country could allow biotechnology to be used in agricultural production.

GMOs refer to crops whose DNA have been modified by manipulation of the genes to produce high-yielding, disease resistant and drought resistant crops.

Monsanto's Sigei said Africa, more than any other continent suffers drought and famine due to inability to mitigate climate change and would be the biggest beneficiary therefore of GMOs.

African News Agency

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2016-11-10T01:21:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

AU elections delayed for me - Senegalese diplomat

Posted: 09 Nov 2016 10:45 PM PST

Professor Abdoulaye Bathily says the Senegalese president intervened to delay the election of a new African Union chair.

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Dakar - Senegalese diplomat Professor Abdoulaye Bathily has revealed that the President of his country, Macky Sall, intervened on his behalf to delay the election of a new chair for the African Union (AU) Commission so that he could participate.

"He made sure that the election at the AU Summit in Kigali in July 2016 was postponed so I could be a candidate in the upcoming election," said Bathily on Wednesday at the official launch of his candidature for the coveted position which will be contested in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The election of the new chair to replace South African incumbent Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, scheduled for July, was postponed to January after the candidates failed to garner the required votes.

At the summit in Rwanda there were three candidates vying for the position - former Ugandan vice president Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, Botswana Foreign Minister Pelonomi Venson Moitoi, and Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy.

Moitoi is still in the running along with Kenyan Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.

Speaking at the launch in Dakar, Bathily said: "My candidacy is the culmination of an entire academic, political and diplomatic life at the service of pan-Africanism".

African News Agency

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US urges caution in Sudan

Posted: 09 Nov 2016 01:42 AM PST

The US has asked its nationals in Sudan to take caution against possible protests following hikes in the prices of fuel and electricity.

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Khartoum - The United States on Tuesday asked its nationals in Sudan to take caution against possible protests following recent government decisions to increase prices of fuel and electricity.

A release by the US Embassy in Khartoum Tuesday asked the US nationals "to review personal security plans, remain aware of your surroundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates."

"The government of Sudan recently released an announcement regarding the lifting of state subsidies on certain consumer commodities. In addition, the government has reportedly taken measures to prevent or disrupt activities to protest the measures," it said.

Some Sudanese cities reportedly witnessed various protests against the government's new economic measures.

Last week, the Sudanese government announced a package of economic decisions aiming to curb the rise in inflation rates and stop the decline of national currency.

In September 2013, the Sudanese government adopted a similar package of economic measures, which then prompted wide protests across the country.

The Sudanese economy has been suffering from difficulties as a result of the separation with South Sudan in July 2011, together with the US economic sanctions.

Xinhua

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2016-11-09T01:33:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

2 die, 5 hurt in Congo blast
'My staff spend too much time in the toilet.’
Two Zim baby elephants die before shipment to China

2 die, 5 hurt in Congo blast

Posted: 08 Nov 2016 10:51 PM PST

Five UN Indian peacekeepers remain in a critical condition following an explosion in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Johannesburg - Five United Nations (UN) Indian peacekeepers remain in a critical condition following an explosion in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on Tuesday which killed two and wounded dozens of other people.

The injured include 32 Indian peacekeepers from the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the DRC is expected to travel to Goma shortly to assess the situation on the ground, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said following the attack all of the wounded were receiving medical treatment in Goma.

He made his remarks during the daily briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

Early reports said the explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED).

A MONUSCO Quick Reaction Force and an investigation team with explosives experts were deployed to the scene.

"Our thoughts are with the family of the victims and our colleagues who were injured," said Dujarric.

The DRC is extremely rich in natural resources, but political instability, a lack of infrastructure, deep rooted corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation have limited holistic development.

In 2015 major protests broke out across the country and protesters demanded that Joseph Kabila step down as President.

African News Agency

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'My staff spend too much time in the toilet.’

Posted: 08 Nov 2016 02:10 AM PST

Former Namibian trade minister David Namalenga says workers at his textile factory spend “too much time” in the toilet.

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Gaborone - Former Namibian trade minister David Namalenga says workers at his textile factory spend “too much time” in the toilet because they do now want to work.

Namalenga's remarks were in response to a petition from the workers who alleged that his company was recording the time they spent in the toilet and deducting money from their pay for this.

Namalenga said he could not pay for time spent in the toilet because most of Namibia's defunct textile factories closed down due to laziness among the workers.

“If they [employees] spend a lot of time in the toilet and do not do the work which they are required to do, then there is no job. Now, if the client wants their stuff and people spend the time in the toilet instead of working, then there is no job,” said Namalenga.

He said most of the workers in his company had worked for several textile firms that had closed down since 1990 due to worker laziness.

Namalenga said he believed they wanted to bring their tendencies of non-performance with them, a development he vowed not to allow. “Here at Dinapama, we will not tolerate laziness. Nothing is hidden here at Dinapama, and there is no colonialism here. They [workers] can demonstrate and make noise, but the point is that we just have to work. Whoever does not want to perform must just get out,” Namalenga said.

Until 2011, the former outspoken trade unionist was the minister of trade in the Namibian government of President Hipikefunye Pohamba.

He is now the MD of Dinapama, a joint venture textile manufacturer based in the capital Windhoek.

In a petition sent to the Namibia Wholesale and Retail Workers Union, the workers accused Namalenga of deducting money - equivalent to the time they spent in the toilet - from their salaries as lost productivity.

The union also accused the ex-minister's company of “a continued disregard” of good practices and ethics in handling workers' queries.

AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

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Two Zim baby elephants die before shipment to China

Posted: 08 Nov 2016 12:54 AM PST

Thirty seven baby elephants forcibly taken from their mothers in Zimbabwe are about to be flown to Chinese zoos.

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Cape Town - Thirty seven baby elephants forcibly taken from their mothers in the wild in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park are about to be flown to Chinese zoos, despite an international outcry against previous exports

A number of baby elephants from similar shipments in 2012 and 2015 died shortly after arrival and two of the elephants now awaiting shipment have already died, says the Conservation Action Trust.

In 2012, only four elephants of the eight survived the journey and another three died shortly after arriving in China, leaving only one lonely survivor. In September 2015, National Geographic reported that elephants from a shipment in China were being mistreated and were slipping into poor health.

Export of elephants is sanctioned under Cites regulations, as long as trade in individual animals doesn't threaten the long-term survival of the species.

"Past elephants from Zimbabwe sent to Chinese zoos have died or languished in deplorable conditions," says Iris Ho, programme manager for wildlife at Humane Society International.

"Sending wild African elephants to zoos in China is either a literal death sentence or akin to life in prison to these animals."

Johnny Rodrigues of the Zimbabwean Conservation Task Force said two of the recently captured baby elephants had already died from starvation and thirst due to neglect.

China has apparently ordered 200 juvenile elephants to be captured for a variety of zoos and safari parks across the country over the next five years.

"If these elephant captures and pending transfers to China are confirmed," said Ho, "there is highly likely diplomatic consideration involved in the Chinese authorities' approval of the import."

She pointed to the Chinese president's trip to Zimbabwe last year and the wildlife 'conservation' deal signed at the time.

Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said then that China would continue to help Zimbabwe improve its capability to fund its protection for its wildlife by donating equipment, conducting exchanges of experience, and buying its wild animals. It's understood that the capture equipment for the young elephants was donated by China.

According to the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group, there are currently around 46 000 elephants in Hwange National Park and another 6 000 in adjacent communal and safari areas.

If these numbers are true, it is hard to argue that the removals would have a significant impact on numbers but as elephant biologist, Dr Keith Lindsay says: "The bigger impact is on elephant behaviour. Taking calves away from the midst of families would be very disruptive and I would not be surprised if the adult females from the affected families were very frightened and angry about people on foot or even in vehicles," he said.

"If captures occurred in communal areas, the disruption could increase the incidence of human-elephant conflict and, if they were in the national park, they could make it harder for tourist operators to get close to elephants."

Lindsay, however, says these are only the practical considerations. "The real issue is the inhumanity of stealing offspring from mothers. We know elephants grieve for companions, including calves, who have died and the effect must be similar in the case of kidnappings," he says.

David Neale, Animal Welfare Director at Animals Asia, says information from within China suggests that both Shanghai Wild Animal Park and Yunnan Safari Park are preparing for the arrival of the latest batch of elephants with Shanghai getting 17 elephants and Yunnan 15 elephants. According to Neale, there are a dozen or so other possible zoos earmarked to receive the elephants.

Conservation Action Trust

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-08T01:37:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

13 dead after angry football fan opens fire

Posted: 07 Nov 2016 11:35 PM PST

When he couldn't get in to watch a football match in a bar, a South Sudan man apparently decided violence was the only way.

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Juba, South Sudan - At least 13 people were killed when an angry football fan fired on others watching a match in a bar in South Sudan's capital Juba at the weekend, police said on Monday.

Deputy police spokesman Kwacijwok Dominic Amondoc said the death toll had risen to 13 after some of those who were injured in the shooting during the screening of an English Premier League match on Saturday night died of their wounds.

Amondoc said 10 others were still being treated in hospital.

Among the injured was Wani Patrick, recovering from a bullet wound to his hand. "When I was shot I fell down and some youths fell on me. I was unable to stand up until he finished shooting all his bullets," he said. "Many people were shot, many people died."

The gunman, who appeared drunk, grew angry after being refused free entry to the bar where patrons had paid roughly $0.50 (about R6.70) each to watch the Chelsea vs Everton match on television.

The man stormed off, "but when he came back he was carrying a gun and just started shooting randomly," said Amondoc.

The incident happened at around 9pm (1800 GMT) in Gure, a poor suburb in Juba's southwest.

The whereabouts of the shooter are unclear with "investigations under way", according to deputy government spokesman Paul Akol Kordit.

"It's very unfortunate and we as a government condemn this in the very strongest terms possible," said Kordit.

He said the government would "pledge that we will do what we can to protect our people and bringing to book such people who are killing innocent lives with no... reason at all".

Insecurity in Juba has worsened since the start of a civil war nearly three years ago, with the widespread fighting leading to an increase in criminality and armed violence of all kinds.

In July the capital became a battleground as forces loyal to President Salva Kiir clashed with those of his former deputy turned rebel leader Riek Machar.

Machar fled the capital during the clashes, which scuttled international efforts to form a unity government and restore peace to South Sudan.

Successive rounds of internationally-backed peace talks and agreements have so far failed to bring peace to the world's newest nation, which won independence from Sudan in 2011.

South Sudan has suffered more than two years of civil war, with tens of thousands of people killed and more than two million driven from their homes.

Peacekeeping efforts in the country were dealt a serious blow Wednesday when Nairobi announced it was withdrawing its soldiers from the UN's blue helmet force in the troubled country following UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's decision to fire the force's Kenyan commander.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday accused the UN of "scapegoating" Kenyan soldiers for the failings of the UN peacekeeping mission.

AFP

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2016-11-07T01:15:00.001-07:00

News Africa Extended

Nine killed while watching football on TV
Kenya denies UN report of illegal trade in Somalia
74 000 Nigerian refugees registered in Cameroon

Nine killed while watching football on TV

Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:53 PM PST

At least nine people were killed when a gunman opened fire on people watching a football match on television in Juba.

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Juba, South Sudan - At least nine people were killed and 11 wounded in South Sudan's capital, Juba, when an unidentified gunman opened fire on people watching a football match on television at the weekend, a police spokesman said on Monday.

The motive for the attack on Saturday night in Juba's southwestern suburb of Gure was not immediately clear.

South Sudan has been plagued by violence since a civil war erupted in December 2013, although it was not clear if the shooting was linked to political tensions.

South Sudan, a poor, oil producing nation, is awash with arms.

"The investigation is going on," South Sudan police spokesman Daniel Justin said. He said six people were killed at the scene and three died on the way to hospital.

Juba was the scene of fresh fighting in July between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of his rival Riek Machar.

Machar, who had returned to the capital to resume the post of vice president weeks earlier, fled Juba during that flare-up and is now abroad.

Reuters

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Kenya denies UN report of illegal trade in Somalia

Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:09 PM PST

Kenya has dismissed a UN report linking its troops to illicit charcoal trade from a port under their control in Somalia.

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Nairobi - Kenya on Sunday dismissed a United Nations report linking its troops to illicit charcoal trade from a port under their control in Somalia.

State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu condemned the allegation "in the strongest terms possible," terming it "hogwash masquerading as research."

The Kenyan troops are part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is helping the Somali government battle terror group Al-Shabaab.

"We are focused on the job that took us to Somalia in the first place, and will not be distracted by the latest hogwash masquerading as research," Esipisu told journalists in Nairobi.

A UN Monitoring Group report, published by a Kenyan daily on Sunday, said Kenyan troops in Somalia received fees for allowing illicit exports of charcoal from the port of Kismayu. The report said the Kenyan troops received US$2 per bag of charcoal at Kismayu, citing charcoal industry and non-governmental organisation sources.

The report estimated that up to 6 million bags of charcoal had been exported annually from Kismayu and Buur Gaabo, another port adjacent to a Kenyan army base in Somalia.

Charcoal exports were banned by the UN Security Council in 2012 in an effort to cut off funding for Al-Shabaab.

Esipisu said the UN report appeared as a regurgitation of reports NGOs have issued over time, with the sole agenda of "demoralizing" Kenyan troops.

Last week, Kenya was angered by the UN chief's dismissal of Kenyan Lt. General Johnson Kimani Ondieki as the commander of the UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan.

Xinhua

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74 000 Nigerian refugees registered in Cameroon

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 11:59 AM PDT

A UN report has revealed that around 74 000 refugees from Nigeria fleeing violence committed by Boko Haram have registered in Cameroon this year.

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Yaoude - Around 74 000 refugees from Nigeria fleeing violence committed by Boko Haram have registered in Cameroon this year, according to a UN report.

United Nations Coordinator in Cameroon and United Nations Development Programme Cameroon Representative Najat Rochdi said recently Cameroon had received 74 618 refugees from Nigeria by the end of October.

The refugees are settling in a secured camp in Minawa of Far North Region, which has been frequently attacked by Boko Haram since 2013.

Since the regional African forces were established by Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Benin and Niger in Feb. 2015, the activities of Boko Haram in Cameroon have been contained.

But persistent violence in northeastern Nigeria has continued to push many Nigerians into Cameroon. In 2015, the number of Nigerian refugees in Cameroon was around 60 000.

ANA-Xinhua

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-06T01:07:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Jonathan Moyo was not summoned, says Harare magistrate

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 05:03 AM PDT

Magistrate Vakai Chikwekwe has rejected a proposal that a warrant of arrest be issued for Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo.

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Harare - Harare Magistrate Vakai Chikwekwe has rejected a proposal that a warrant of arrest be issued for Higher and Tertiary Education, Science, and Technology Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo.

Chikwekwe said on Saturday that Moyo had never been summoned to appear in court and should not be issued with a warrant of arrest. Prosecutor Lovett Masuku had proposed that the court issue a warrant of arrest after Moyo failed to appear in the court where he was jointly charged with his deputy Godfrey Gandawa and Zimdef principal director of finance Nicholas Makute.

The three were facing charges of defrauding Zimdef, a parastatal in Moyo's ministry, of more than $400 000 (about R5,4 million). Gandawa and Mukute were each granted $500 bail and ordered to surrender their travel documents.

They were also ordered to report to their respective police stations three times a week and not to interfere with state witnesses. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court on Friday suspended all criminal proceedings against Moyo pending determination of a Constitutional challenge on whether the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has powers of arrest.

African News Agency

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One abducted Chibok schoolgirl found by soldiers

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 03:47 AM PDT

One of the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from their school in Chibok in 2014 has been found by soldiers.

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Lagos - One of the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram from their school in northeast Nigeria's Chibok in 2014 has been found by soldiers, a Nigerian army spokesman said on Saturday.

Sani Usman said the girl was discovered in Pulka, Gwoza Local Government Area, in Borno State, by troops who were screening escapees from Boko Haram's base in the Sambisa forest.

The girl, Maryam Ali Maiyanga, was “discovered to be carrying a 10-month-old son”, the army spokesman said.

Reuters

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-05T00:52:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Zim prosecutor seeks warrant of arrest for Jonathan Moyo

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 12:26 PM PDT

Zimbabwe’s Higher and Tertiary Education Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo, failed to appear in court to answer to charges of corruption.

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Harare - Higher and Tertiary Education Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo failed to appear in the Harare Magistrate’s Court on Friday, to answer to charges of corruption.

“Jonathan Moyo, Jonathan Moyo, Jonathan Moyo!” a police officer called out in Court 6.

Prosecutor Lovett Masuku registered his displeasure at the failure by Moyo, who is facing charges of defrauding the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZIMDEF) of more than $400 000.

Masuku proposed that the court issue a warrant of arrest for the Moyo, who is reported to have filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court challenging his arrest and appearance at the smaller court.

Masuku told the court that Moyo had breached an indemnity agreement he signed when the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission (ZACC) released him into the custody of his lawyers after his arrest on November 2.

“Accused number two was arrested on November 2 and there was an undertaking that he should appear in court today (Friday), within the 48 hours stipulated by the Constitution. The accused defaulted and I wish to apply for a warrant of arrest,” he said.

“Accused disregarded the promise he made knowing full well that he was under arrest, though in the custody of his legal practitioners.”

Masuku said the indemnity agreement signed by Moyo stated that failure to appear in court would lead to his arrest and detention.

Moyo’s lawyer, Terrence Hussein, refused to comment on the matter.

Moyo is being jointly charged with his Deputy, Godfrey Gandawa and the Principal Director of Finance for ZIMDEF, Nicholas Makute who were remanded in custody to Saturday for their bail ruling.

The two appeared before Magistrate Vakai Chikwekwe for their initial bail hearing on Friday. The State was opposed to bail for Gandawa, while bail for Makute was not being opposed.

On Gandawa, the State argued that he was facing serious charges and also that if admitted to bail, he would interfere with witnesses, most of whom were his subordinates.

The State had to call in ZACC Chief Investigations Officer, Lovemore Findi, to give evidence to buttress their argument to deny him bail.

Masuku however, said should the court consider granting him bail, it should be with stringent conditions, including a surety of property worth not less than $300 000 and should report three times a week at Highlands Police station and surrendering his travel documents among other stringent conditions.

However, Bernard Chidziva, representing Gandawa, said his client had known of his investigation by ZACC in July 2016 but had not interfered with any of his subordinates or threatened them in any manner.

He said Gandawa was a proper candidate for bail as he had shown cooperation during investigations, handing himself over to the anti-graft commission and had shown his willingness to abide by the law.

The Prosecutor, although he did not oppose bail for Makute, advocated for stringent bail conditions, which included a $5 000 bail and $10 000 surety.

He also proposed that he surrender his passport and report at the ZRP Southerton every Friday between 6am and 6pm, reside at his given address and not interfere with state witnesses.

Chikwekwe postponed the matter to Saturday for bail ruling.

African News Agency

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Zuma, Mugabe vow to strengthen ties

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 01:26 AM PDT

Jacob Zuma returns to SA after bilateral talks with Robert Mugabe - and pledges to cement “historic relations” with Zimbabwe.

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Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma has returned to Pretoria from Harare where he co-chaired the Inaugural Session of the South Africa-Zimbabwe Bi-National Commission (BNC).

On Thursday, Zuma co-chaired the BNC with his Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert Mugabe.

“In their opening remarks, the heads of state acknowledged commitments by the two governments to further cement the historic relations that exist between them and to strengthen and deepen bilateral co-operation by elevating the Joint Commission for Co-operation (JPCC) to the BNC,” said the Presidency in a statement.

“The Presidents noted that 38 Memoranda of Understanding and Agreements (MoUs) have been signed between Zimbabwe and South Africa, which cover a broad range of areas, which include among others, trade and investment, immigration and consular matters, defence, agriculture, the environment, energy, health, as well as arts and culture.”

The Presidency said Zuma and Mugabe directed the relevant ministries and departments to conclude negotiations on all outstanding agreements and memoranda.

“As part of strengthening co-operation in infrastructure development and transport, a Bilateral Air Services Agreement between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of Zimbabwe was signed by Ms Dipuo Peters, Minister of Transport, and her counterpart, Dr Joram McDonald Gumbo, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development of Zimbabwe.”

Other outcomes of the BNC included the decision to establish a Joint Trade and Investment Committee by the end of the first quarter of 2017 and the urgent need for the establishment of a One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Beitbridge-Musina.

The BNC decided to finalise the modalities for its establishment by the time of the next Bi-National Commission in 2017.

Zuma and Mugabe emphasised the importance of enhanced business-to-business interaction between Zimbabwe and South Africa and the promotion of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and joint ventures.

“Our business communities stand ready to play their part, if as governments, we create a conducive environment for ease of doing business, including but not limited to, the establishment of a one stop border post for facilitation of free movement of people, goods and services, policy certainty, among others,” said Zuma.

The BNC also discussed regional, continental and global matters of mutual concern.

Zuma and Mugabe took note of the effect of the El Nino-induced drought in their respective countries and region. They stressed the importance of adopting appropriate mitigation measures.

“Our two countries should continue to strive to become leading examples on the continent, in pursuit of a peaceful, politically stable and prosperous Africa,” said Zuma.

On the global front, South Africa and Zimbabwe reiterated their common view on the need to reform multilateral institutions, particularly the United Nations Security Council.

Zuma was accompanied by six ministers - Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Rob Davies, Malusi Gigaba, Dipuo Peters and Mildred Oliphant.

AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-04T01:19:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Mugabe: SA businesses in Zimbabwe are safe
Kenya says its general scapegoated by UN
Kenyan police fire tear gas on protesters
Kenyan policeman jailed for raping 13-year-old girl
17 accused after July rampage - South Sudan
Cameroon man jailed for SMS joke

Mugabe: SA businesses in Zimbabwe are safe

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 11:05 PM PDT

Robert Mugabe moves to reassure SA investors that their interests in Zimbabwe are safe as he discusses bilateral ties with Jacob Zuma.

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Harare - South African businesses in Zimbabwe were safe and there was need for the two Southern African neighbours to improve the flow of investments in both directions, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday.

In his opening remarks at the official opening of the inaugural session of the Zimbabwe-South Africa Bi-national Commission in Harare, Mugabe said beneficiation and value addition of products offered the two countries vast opportunities for joint ventures and investment partnerships.

“I wish to assure South African businesspeople that their investments are safe here in Zimbabwe. We wish to see more South African investments here, as much as we wish to also see more Zimbabwean investments in South Africa,” he said.

He said businesspeople in the two nations, whose bilateral relations date back to the colonial era, should look beyond the exchange of goods and services, adding they should be empowered to compete in the national and regional markets.

Mugabe, however, expressed concern that a number of the 38 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding inked since the signing of the Joint Commission for Co-operation in 1995, had not been implemented.

Among these was the agreement in 2009 to establish a One-Stop Border Post at Beitbridge, which Mugabe said was gathering dust despite its importance to trade between the two countries.

“A major priority among these is to ensure the optimal operation of the Beitbridge border through the establishment of a One-Stop Border Post at this key bilateral and regional transit point,” he said.

South African President Jacob Zuma said the two countries should utilise the bi-national commission to provide a strategic impetus to drive their co-operation to higher levels.

“We must work together to explore a variety of issues to further deepen our co-operation,” Zuma said.

He said there was a need to pay particular attention to economic co-operation, adding that business stood ready to play their part if governments played their part in improving the ease of doing business.

Zuma said there was a need for the free flow of goods and to get rid of policy uncertainty that discouraged investors.

The two countries signed the Bilateral Air Services Agreement, with Dipuo Peters, SA’s Minister of Transport, and her Zimbabwean counterpart, Joram Gumbo, signing on behalf of their governments.

AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

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Kenya says its general scapegoated by UN

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:34 PM PDT

Kenya accused the UN secretary-general of instigating an investigation of deadly attacks in South Sudan with a "preordained" outcome.

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United Nations - Kenya accused the UN secretary-general on Thursday of instigating an investigation of deadly attacks in South Sudan with the "preordained" outcome of blaming the Kenyan commander of the UN peacekeeping force who was fired after just three weeks on the job.

Kenya's UN Ambassador Macharia Kamau told a news conference that Lieutenant-General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki was sacked by UN chief Ban Ki-moon as "a scapegoat" for the systemic failures of the UN peacekeeping system.

He said the investigation was demanded "by certain current and future members" of the Security Council who wanted to protect their interests during the July attacks in South Sudan's capital, Juba. He refused to identify them.

The investigation sharply criticised the UN peacekeeping force's response to attacks on a UN compound in Juba housing 27,000 displaced people. Over three days in July, at least 73 people were killed, including two Chinese peacekeepers and more than 20 internally displaced people who had sought UN protection. The investigators also criticised UN peacekeepers for failing to respond to an attack on a private compound just over a kilometre away where UN staff, aid workers and local staff were robbed, beaten, raped and killed by armed government soldiers.

Kenya's Foreign Ministry, expressing "dismay" at Ondieki's firing and the way the investigation was conducted, announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing its 1,000 troops from the UN peacekeeping operation in South Sudan and will not contribute to beefing up the force by 4,000 troops.

"Kenya had warned that any unfair or prejudicial action taken on the basis of this investigation would compel Kenya to re-evaluate completely its engagement in South Sudan," Kamau said. "The secretary-general, in his lame-duck season, seems to have found the courage that has eluded him throughout his tenure by choosing to ignore Kenya's plea."

Ban's 10 years as UN chief ends on December 31 and Antonio Guterres will take over as secretary-general on January 1.

South Sudan, the world's youngest country, has been riven by ethnic violence since shortly after gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011. Civil war broke out in 2013 when government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by his former vice president Riek Machar, who is a Nuer. Tens of thousands have been killed, more than 2 million displaced, and despite an August 2015 peace agreement, fighting has continued.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric rejected Kamau's accusations, saying there was "no preordained conclusion" to the investigation led by retired Dutch Major-General Patrick Cammaert.

He said the investigators looked at "leadership, command decisions taken on that day," and the secretary-general fired Ondieki on the basis of their findings, which "deeply distressed" him.

"The decision to ask for his removal is an initial decision," Dujarric said. "Other decisions might be taken, but obviously the secretary-general stands by the report that Mr. Cammaert did and the way it was done."

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said "there is, of course, the system-wide accountability. We all have a degree of responsibility."

As for the firing of Ondieki, he said, "I don't want to add salt to the wound. I think that conclusions were irrefutable."

Ladsous spoke to reporters after briefing the Security Council at a closed meeting.

A council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the session was private, said the United States proposed a press statement welcoming the report and the UN's transparency, but there was no agreement because China was not willing to accept any reference to the report.

In the attacks on the UN compound, the report said confusing senior leadership and the lack of leadership on the ground, where the Chinese battalion commander had been appointed as the incident commander, "contributed to incidents of poor performance among the military and police contingents at UN House."

This included "at least two instances in which the Chinese battalion abandoned some of its defensive positions" and an "inadequate" performance by Nepalese police to stop looting by some displaced people and control the crowd, it said.

Kamau said "the sources used to inform the investigation, according to our information, were people who were ... in the direct line of command and related colleagues to the force commander.

"These individuals, who had been in position years and months before the force commander arrived, have reason to miscue information in a manner that protects them and apportions blame elsewhere," he said.

Kamau said "the investigation could not and should not have been just about the force commander."

Instead, the investigation should have centred on response to events, the failure of the peacekeeping system, and the need for collective responsibility and accountability from the UN peacekeeping department in New York to the joint operations command at the UN mission in Juba, Kamau said.

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Kenyan police fire tear gas on protesters

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 03:56 AM PDT

A Kenyan official says police fired tear gas on anti-corruption protesters demanding that the president to act or resign.

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Nairobi - A Kenyan official says police fired tear gas on anti-corruption protesters demanding that the president to act or resign.

Central Nairobi's police chief Paul Wanjama said police dispersed the group to avoid a possible clash with a separate group that supports the president.

Wanjama could not explain why other group was not tear gassed.

There were no arrests, Wanjama said.

The protests were sparked off by allegations that around $50 million has been diverted from the health ministry.

Such scandals are putting public pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking re-election next year with the pledge to eradicate corruption.

Kenya is among the most corrupt countries in the world and was ranked 139 out of 168 countries in a 2015 index by Transparency International.

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Kenyan policeman jailed for raping 13-year-old girl

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 02:25 AM PDT

A Kenyan police officer has been jailed for 20 years for raping a 13-year-old girl, despite saying they are now married.

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Nairobi - A Kenyan police officer has been jailed for 20 years for raping a 13-year-old girl, despite saying they are now married, in a case campaigners heralded as a breakthrough in justice in a country where such convictions are rare.

It is one of 11 child rape cases that Kenya's high court ordered be re-opened in 2013 after a rescue centre sued the police for failing to investigate hundreds of cases brought to them - instead demanding bribes from and even locking up girls attempting to make reports.

"This is a major breakthrough," Josephine Mongare, chairwoman of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"There is hope that nobody is above the law."

Policeman Joseph Mutua was convicted of raping the minor in 2010, despite saying they had since married in a traditional ceremony, and that he had paid dowry for his bride and they were living together in Mombasa, on Kenya's coast, with their son, according to the judgment released on Wednesday.

Sex with a girl under the age of 18 is an offence in Kenya, although child marriage is common among traditional communities.

"The accused had lured the complainant (the girl) into the sentry box at the gate to the District Commissioner's office and thereafter defiled her," the judgment said in its summary of the prosecution's case.

"She felt a lot of pain and asked him to leave her alone."

The girl's family applied to the Office of the Director for Public Prosecutions (ODPP) for the case to be withdrawn saying the couple had since married, the judgment said.

The girl and her mother testified in support of Mutua but gave contradictory evidence as to which part of the country the couple were living in.

"It is clear that (the) accused, the complainant and the complainant's mother aren't reading from the same script," magistrate Oscar Wanyaga said in his judgment.

"They can't agree on simple things like where they reside as a married couple... This is just a story created to win (the) accused his freedom."

In Kenya, it is common for victims' families to settle cases out of court, accepting money or goats as compensation - leaving the perpetrator free to reoffend.

"It all has to do with poverty and valuing money more than the life of their own daughter," said Mercy Chidi, who runs Ripples International rescue centre in Meru, 240km northeast of the capital Nairobi, and who helped the girl to file the case six years ago.

One in three Kenyan girls experience sexual violence before the age of 18, a 2012 government survey found, but they rarely report it due to stigma and lack of faith in the police.

"This is one of the cases that we had that was really tough, a police officer investigating their own," Chidi said, referring to the 11 cases that she succeeded in getting re-opened.

This is the third that has since resulted in a conviction.

Conviction rates have improved since 2011 when the ODPP became an independent office with the power to look at files before trials begin and ask for additional evidence, said Mongare of FIDA.

While Kenya's estimated 80 000 police officers often lack resources, like transport, to investigate cases, it is shifts in attitudes that are key, experts say.

"We cannot condone impunity or indiscipline amongst ourselves," said police spokesman George Kinoti.

"When this officer was convicted, it's an example to the rest that by virtue of being a police officer, you are not immune to judicial process."

Thomson Reuters Foundation

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17 accused after July rampage - South Sudan

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 01:45 AM PDT

Rape, looting and injuring a victim have been listed as accusations to be handled by a special court after an attack on a South Sudan hotel.

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Juba, South Sudan - Eight people have been accused of rape, eight others accused of looting and one accused of injuring a victim during a July rampage at a South Sudan hotel popular with foreigners, the government announced on Wednesday.

Most of the accused are from the military, it said.

It was the first word of accountability in the attack on the Terrain hotel compound. The Associated Press was the first to reveal details of the attack in which people were gang-raped, beaten, subjected to mock executions and forced to watch a local journalist being shot dead. Victims said dozens of armed men in uniform forced their way into the compound, breaking open the gate with gunshots and tyre irons and outmanning security guards.

The report of South Sudan's investigation into the attack, obtained by the AP, dismisses accounts that soldiers made anti-American remarks during the rampage, saying that "utterances made by these criminals were probably calculated to make their victims believe that they were being mistreated at the orders of the government".

The South Sudan report, which has not been publicly released, also says the only way to stop a growing trend of indiscipline within the country's military "is for the international community and friends of South Sudan, including the US administration, to stop the current war and support the new nation in the transformation of the (army)."

The report also blames the management of the Terrain hotel for "failing to take appropriate steps in order to ensure the security and safety" of people there.

Spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday the US State Department has seen the executive summary of the report and looked forward to a more detailed briefing from the UN to the Security Council on Thursday. He said the South Sudanese government bears primary responsibility for the protection of its population and other civilians from "genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and other physical violence."

Kirby encouraged the government to continue its query and "hold all perpetrators accountable through a fair and credible process".

South Sudan's announcement came a day after the United Nations made public its own investigation that found UN peacekeepers nearby did not respond to calls for help during the Terrain attack, which occurred shortly after fighting erupted in the capital, Juba, between rival groups in the security forces.

The separate South Sudan investigation came after pressure from the United States.

South Sudan's deputy justice minister, Martison Oturomoi, told reporters that soldiers "exploited the war to do their own criminal acts" and cited soldiers raping women and killing the journalist, John Gatluak, based on his ethnicity.

Four of the six members of the investigative committee are from South Sudan's military or security forces, raising concerns about impartiality.

Oturomoi emphasised that the report by itself would not be enough to convict anyone. For example, he said one woman was raped by 15 men during the attack but that it was "difficult for any person other than the victim to identify the offender."

The investigation recommended that the accusations be handled by a special court with military judges. Experts say South Sudanese law indicates that soldiers who commit crimes against civilians must be tried in a civilian court.

The July 11 attack on the compound came days after gunfire erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides in the conflict in the country, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread, the Guardian reports.

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Cameroon man jailed for SMS joke

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 12:54 AM PDT

Amnesty International has strongly condemned a 10-year sentence slapped on a Cameroonian man who joked about Boko Haram.

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Johannesburg - Amnesty International has strongly condemned the 10-year sentence slapped on a 27-year-old Cameroonian man who joked about Boko Haram.

Fomusoh Ivo and two of his friends - Afuh Nivelle Nfor and Azah Levis Gob - were convicted by a Cameroon Military court in Yaounde and sentenced to 10 years in prison for "non-denunciation of terrorist acts" linked to a sarcastic SMS about the terror group.

"Fomusoh Ivo and his two friends should never have been arrested in the first place, as they were simply exercising their right to freedom of expression," Samira Daoud, Amnesty International Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa said in a statement late on Wednesday.

"Instead of being in school like their friends, these three young men will now spend years of their lives in prison for a simple joke.

"This ruling is clear evidence that Cameroonian military courts should not have jurisdiction to try civilians. The Cameroonian authorities must quash their conviction and sentence and immediately and unconditionally release all three of them."

Ivo Fomusoh en prison depuis Dec.2014 pour avoir partager une blague par SMS au #Cameroun. Lui et ses amis attendent leur verdict demain. pic.twitter.com/qDuCXvHoxW
— Amnesty West Africa (@AmnestyWARO) October 4, 2016

The rights body said Ivo, whom it considers a prisoner of conscience, was arrested on 13 December 2014 after forwarding his friends a sarcastic SMS referring to Boko Haram. According to Amnesty's Write for Rights website, the message joked that even Boko Haram wouldn’t hire you unless you passed five high school subjects.

He was held in police custody in Douala before being transferred to Yaounde Prison in January 2015.

African News Agency

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-03T01:27:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Kenya pulls troops out of South Sudan
It's business as usual for Zuma
Zim state institutions used against me - Moyo
UN sacks head of South Sudan peacekeeping force

Kenya pulls troops out of South Sudan

Posted: 02 Nov 2016 11:47 PM PDT

Nairobi is pulling out its troops stationed in South Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping mission.

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Moscow - Nairobi is pulling out its troops stationed in South Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping mission after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon fired its Kenyan commander, local media reported on Wednesday.

Kenyan Lieutenant-General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki was fired shortly after a publication of an independent investigation report on Tuesday, criticising UN peacekeeping mission's (UNMISS) response to a July bomb attack on civilians at a hotel in South Sudan's capital, Juba.

According to the Daily Nation Newspaper, Kenya rejected the dismissal of Ondieki and announced the withdrawal of its contingent from the UN peacekeeping forces in South Sudan.

Kenyan Foreign Ministry accused the United Nations of lack of transparency as it acted without formally consulting Nairobi in sacking the commander, the newspaper said.

The civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013 after the state's President Salva Kiir Mayardiit dismissed the cabinet and accused Vice-President Riek Machar of planning a failed coup. After a short period of a fragile ceasefire and attempts to normalise the situation via signing a truce in 2015, new violence erupted in July 2016.

Sputnik

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It's business as usual for Zuma

Posted: 02 Nov 2016 10:16 PM PDT

President Jacob Zuma is visiting neighbouring Zimbabwe as he faces a sustained clamour to step down.

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Johannesburg - Embattled President Jacob Zuma appears unfazed as the noose tightens around his scandalous presidency.

Zuma, who is facing sustained clamour to step down, is leading a delegation of ministers to the inaugural session of the South African-Zimbabwe Bi-National Commission in Harare.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said Zuma was caught between “a rock and a hard place because he has to maintain business as usual (approach), appear strong, certain and confident”.

He said the president’s visit was unpredictable as it could lead to a major event such as a cabinet reshuffle.

When Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was charged with fraud, Zuma was away.

On Monday, Cosatu’s largest union, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union, added its voice to those calling for Zuma to step down, saying he could no longer be defended.

ANC structures, including some branches, regions and provinces; the business sector; civil society; and opposition parties want him to resign over the many scandals associated with his presidency, including the investigation into state capture by his close friends the Guptas and the Nkandla saga.

Zuma’s visit to Zimbabwe was aimed at cementing relations between the two Southern African Development Community countries, which have signed more than 38 memoranda of understanding and agreements.

There were also more than 120 South African companies doing business in Zimbabwe, according to Zuma’s spokesperson Dr Bongani Ngqulunga.

The businesses were in the fast foods sector, construction, banking, tourism, aviation and mining.

luyolo.mkentane@inl.co.za

@luyolomkentane

The Star

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Zim state institutions used against me - Moyo

Posted: 02 Nov 2016 12:55 AM PDT

A Zimbabwean cabinet minister has accused Robert Mugabe's deputy of using state institutions to try to arrest him.

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Harare - A Zimbabwean cabinet minister on Tuesday accused Robert Mugabe's deputy of using state institutions to try to arrest him and further his attempt to eventually become president.

Mugabe is 92 and has held power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980. But he is increasingly looking frail, stoking a scramble in his ruling Zanu-PF party to succeed him.

One faction is widely believed to be manoeuvring to impose his wife Grace as a possible successor, another backs Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has the support of war veterans.

While the two sides have traded barbs for months, Tuesday's comments by Jonathan Moyo, an outspoken higher education minister who is linked to the G40 group behind Grace, are the most overt attack on the man assumed to be her biggest rival.

Moyo, a senior Zanu-PF official, said in a public statement that Mnangagwa was illegally using the anti-graft commission to further his political career. Mnangagwa could not be reached for comment, and his aides said he was busy in meetings.

Moyo said the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission had on several occasions tried to arrest him on false graft charges at Mnangagwa's behest.

He said this was part of a plan "intended to secure that the political ends currently being pursued by the vice president are advanced in relation to what has become public knowledge about the desire to secure a front foot in succession politics".

The commission said last month it wanted to question Moyo on suspicion of abusing government funds, allegations the cabinet minister denies and says are a political plot against him.

The commission said it would study Moyo's statement and respond appropriately when it was ready, without specifying when that would be.

Political analysts say Mugabe has manipulated Zimbabwean politics to set himself up as a president for life but fear the country could suffer instability if he dies in office before the matter of his successor is resolved.

Reuters

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UN sacks head of South Sudan peacekeeping force

Posted: 02 Nov 2016 12:18 AM PDT

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has sacked the commander of the UN force in South Sudan.

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New York - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday sacked the commander of the UN force in South Sudan after a report concluded that it failed to protect civilians during an outbreak of violence from July 8 to 11.

A UN special investigation found that the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) "did not respond effectively to the violence due to an overall lack of leadership, preparedness and integration among the various components of the mission".

The UN chief "asked for the immediate replacement of the force commander," Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki of Kenya, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a press conference.

"The force did not operate under a unified command, resulting in multiple and sometimes conflicting orders to the four troop contingents from China, Ethiopia, Nepal and India, and ultimately underusing the more than 1,800 infantry troops at [UN headquarters]," according to the investigation.

On July 11, South Sudanese government soldiers went on a rampage in a compound in the capital Juba housing about 50 employees of international organisations.

The soldiers killed a journalist belonging to the same ethnic group as rebel leader Riek Machar, raped or gang-raped several foreign women, beat up dozens of staff and looted the compound, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

In the three days of violence at least 73 people were killed.

UNMISS has 16,000 troops deployed in South Sudan, which has been at war since December 2013.

Sexual violence against women has been a general feature of the military power struggle that has pitted President Salva Kiir against Machar.

The military conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 2 million people.

Kiir and Machar formed a unity government in April, but renewed violence and the sacking of Machar from the post of vice president dashed hopes of peace.

dpa

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-02T01:08:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Fishmonger crushed: Moroccan police arrest 11
S.A to push relations with Zim to higher level - Presidency
Illegal Zim immigrants a threat to SA - Zim envoy
Tanzania suspends HIV programmes for gay men
Kenya hits out ICC at UN General Assembly
Mugabe paves the way for bond notes

Fishmonger crushed: Moroccan police arrest 11

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 11:59 PM PDT

Moroccan police have arrested 11 people after the death of a fish seller whose crushing in a rubbish truck sparked widespread protests.

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Rabat - Police in Morocco have arrested 11 people suspected of involuntary manslaughter over the death of a fish seller whose crushing in a rubbish truck sparked widespread demonstrations, prosecutors said.

Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was killed on Friday in the northern city of Al-Hoceima as he tried to protest against the seizure and destruction of swordfish, which are not allowed to be caught at this time of year. His death in the Rif - an ethnically Berber region long neglected and at the heart of a 2011 protest movement for reform - has triggered outrage in other cities including the capital Rabat.

It was the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in late 2010 in protest at police harassment that sparked Tunisia’s revolution and the Arab Spring uprisings across the rest of the region the following year.

The 11 suspects were brought before an investigating magistrate on Tuesday in connection with allegations that also include forgery of public documents, a prosecution statement said.

Two interior ministry employees, as well as two fisheries officials and the head of the local veterinary services were among those arrested, said the prosecution. The five suspects as well as three rubbish collection workers were remanded into custody, it said, without identifying the rest of those arrested.

More than 20 people have been questioned during the investigation, according to the statement carried by the official MAP news agency. The probe found the driver had received a signal from a rubbish collection worker to turn the crusher power on while Fikri was in the truck with several people trying to prevent fish being loaded. The investigation found there was “no order to assault the victim by any party”.

Some protesters have accused the authorities of intentionally starting the crusher while Fikri was in the back of the truck.

Thousands attended Fikri’s funeral in Al-Hoceima on Sunday after an image of his inert body - head and arm sticking out from under the lorry’s crusher - went viral on social media. Large crowds gathered in the town again on Monday evening waving Berber flags and demanding justice for “martyr Mouhcine”.

King Mohammed VI had been quick to order a “thorough and exhaustive investigation” into Fikri’s death and sent the interior minister to offer condolences to his family. The king, the scion of a monarchy that has ruled for 350 years, relinquished some of his near-absolute power following the massive Arab Spring protests of 2011.

According to the findings of the investigation into Fikri’s death, the vendor had bought nearly 500kg of swordfish, which is subject to a fishing ban in the autumn, from fishermen in Al-Hoceima harbour. He entrusted his goods to a third party whose vehicle evaded controls at the port exit but was stopped in the city.

A fisheries official who attended the scene found violations and police informed the public prosecutors who ordered the confiscation of the fish, MAP said. A veterinary official then ordered its destruction because of the lack of certification of origin. The allegations of forgery of public documents relate to the destruction order issued to the rubbish collection company, according to prosecutors.

The Moroccan Association of Human Rights warned on Sunday of a “possible repeat” of the 2011 protests in the Rif, just a week before Morocco hosts international climate talks in Marrakesh between 7-18 November.

The Independent

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S.A to push relations with Zim to higher level - Presidency

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 11:35 PM PDT

President Jacob Zuma will be in Harare to attend the inaugural session of the South Africa-Zimbabwe Bi-National Commission, the Presidency said.

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Pretoria - South Africa is to further push relations with Zimbabwe to a higher level, the Presidency said on Tuesday.

For this purpose, President Jacob Zuma will visit Harare to attend the inaugural session of the South Africa-Zimbabwe Bi-National Commission, scheduled for November 3, presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.

South Africa and Zimbabwe have good bilateral political, economic and social relations that are underpinned by strong historical ties dating back from the years of the liberation struggle.

The two countries will henceforth conduct their bilateral relations through a structured Bi-National Commission (BNC) signed in 2015 during President Robert Mugabe's state visit to South Africa, said Ngqulunga.

“South Africa and Zimbabwe not only share strong historical relations but also economic co-operation to the extent that the economies of the two countries are historically and inextricably link,” he said in a statement.

To date, the two countries have signed more than 38 memoranda of understanding and agreements, which were co-ordinated through the then Joint Commission for Co-operation (JCC) and the Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security (JPCDS) which were established in 1995 and 2005 respectively.

The MOUs and agreements cover a broad range of areas, which include among others, trade and investment, immigration and consular matters, defence, agriculture, the environment, energy, health, as well as art and culture.

There are over 120 South African companies doing business in Zimbabwe in various sectors including mining, aviation, tourism, banking, the property, retail, construction and the fast food sector.

Xinhau

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Illegal Zim immigrants a threat to SA - Zim envoy

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 11:28 PM PDT

Undocumented Zimbabweans illegally staying in South Africa poses a security threat to both countries, a diplomat has warned.

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Harare - The huge number of undocumented Zimbabweans illegally staying in South Africa poses a security threat to Pretoria, and Zimbabwe's interests in that country, a diplomat warned on Tuesday.

Zimbabwean Ambassador to South Africa Isaac Moyo said in an interview on the sidelines of a bilateral meeting between the two countries in Harare that the majority of Zimbabweans in South Africa were there illegally.

"I think this is an issue which impacts on the security of South Africa and it also impacts on the interests of Zimbabwe because we cannot have such a large number of people carrying no known documentation at all," he said.

He said although he did not have specific figures for those that were illegally in South Africa, he was certain that they outnumbered the more 260 000 who carried Special Dispensation Permits.

Moyo said some media houses and non-governmental organisations were exaggerating the number of Zimbabweans living in the neighbouring country.

He said while most of the illegal immigrants entered the country through undesignated points, others went through proper entry points but became illegal somewhere in the process, mostly due to overstaying.

"Nobody knows the numbers of these people because most are border jumpers. Some organisation carry out studies while some newspapers just throw figures which appear exaggerated but the fact is we really don't know.The South African government doesn't know and we as an embassy don't know," he said.

Moyo said the Zimbabwean government was still in talks with South Africa to establish the fate of the 260,000 Special Dispensation Permits which expire next December. He said the issue was likely to be discussed at the ongoing bilateral meeting in Harare.

"I have no doubt that this will be one of the issues (Home Affairs Minister Ignatius Chombo will very keenly want to take up with his South African counterpart. The initial discussion did not resolve this issue but we had very good discussions," he said.

Moyo also expressed concern at the huge number of Zimbabweans in South African prisons.

"It is unfortunate that we have a couple of thousands who are also linked to crimes and that we continue to commit these crimes, some of them very serious," he said, adding the government of Zimbabwe did not condone any form of crime.

African News Agency

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Tanzania suspends HIV programmes for gay men

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 02:12 AM PDT

Tanzania has suspended community-based HIV/Aids prevention programmes for gay men, the health minister has said.

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Dar es Salaam - Tanzania has suspended community-based HIV/Aids prevention programmes for gay men, the health minister said on Monday, in the latest crackdown on the high-risk group.

Ummy Mwalimu, Tanzania's minister for health, said the government had received reports that some local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were promoting and normalising same-sex relationships as part of their HIV programmes.

Gay sex is illegal in Tanzania and punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

In September, the government threatened to ban groups that "promote" the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in its first public statement against the minority group.

"We have suspended MSM (men who have sex with men) community-based interventions pending (a) review," Mwalimu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The minister, however, said the government would continue to provide HIV/Aids services to adolescent girls, drug users and other groups.

The East African country has a reputation for being more tolerant towards LGBT people than its neighbour Uganda but recent comments have sparked fears and condemnation from activists.

There are 1.4 million people living with HIV in Tanzania, some 5 percent of the country's population, according to government statistics.

HIV prevalence among gay men is higher at 25 percent.

John Kashika, of Community Health Education Services & Advocacy NGO, said suspending HIV/Aids programmes for some LGBT groups was a blow in the fight against the virus.

"This is essentially denial of services to people who are at the highest risk of contracting HIV, there's going to be a lot of implications," he said.

Reuters

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Kenya hits out ICC at UN General Assembly

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 01:17 AM PDT

Many countries pledged support for the International Criminal Court following the announced withdrawal by three African nations.

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United Nations - Many countries pledged support for the International Criminal Court on Monday following the announced withdrawal by three African nations.

Kenya, which the tribunal is investigating, was sharply critical and questioned the court's long-term survival.

Many in the General Assembly called for talks between the ICC and the African Union in hopes of addressing the continent's concerns and reversing the decisions to leave by Burundi, South Africa and Gambia.

Kenyan Ambassador Tom Amolo didn't say whether his country would also leave, but he told the 193-member world body that his country was monitoring the withdrawals "with very keen interest."

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, as well as Senegal, the first country to ratify the Rome Statute that established the court, and Tanzania reiterated their support for the ICC, stressing the court's importance in combatting impunity for the world's most atrocious crimes, including genocide.

The ICC has been accused of bias by some African leaders because since the Rome treaty came into force in 2002, only four people have been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Three were from Congo and one from Mali. So far, it has indicted only suspects from Africa, and of the 10 full-scale investigations currently under way, nine are in Africa and only one elsewhere - in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

But the ICC is expanding its global reach. It is currently conducting 10 so-called preliminary examinations - probes to establish whether to open a full investigation - in countries including Afghanistan, Ukraine and Colombia, as well as the Palestinian territories and alleged crimes by British forces in Iraq.

ICC President Judge Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, presenting the court's annual report to the assembly, said two trials are under way and another is set to start soon. And following convictions, she said, proceedings for reparations for victims are under way in four cases.

But Kenya's Amolo called the ICC's "dismal output of tangible results ... disheartening and simply confounding."

He accused the court of having lower standards than national courts and warned that "something radical and urgent must be done if this court is to stand any chance of long-term survival as a viable and credible international institution."

The ICC indicted Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on charges of crimes against humanity for 2007 post-election violence in which more than 1,000 died. The case collapsed because of what the ICC prosecutor called threats to witnesses, bribery and lack of cooperation by Kenya's government, but it remains open.

Amolo said African countries "have tried to engage constructively" with the ICC with little success.

Tanzania's UN Ambassador Tuvako Manongi said the court's "particularly tumultuous relationship with Africa... has engendered fear of an African exodus from the court."

But he said "that need not be the case," pointing to the African Union's commitment to justice and the rule of law.

Manongi called for "confidence building measures" on how the ICC functions and interacts with the 124 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute.

"All too often avoidable misunderstandings, when left unattended or dismissed as inconsequential, grow into regrettable outcomes," he said. "Lectures and claims of high moral ground from outside the continent are unhelpful."

Senegal's Minister Counsellor Abdoulaye Barro called for dialogue and expressed hope "that a consensus can be found so that Africa will continue to play a major role in the fight against impunity."

New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard von Bohemen said "better engagement" with the AU and African nations is needed. And he expressed hope that in the coming year, before the withdrawals take effect, "there is room for meaningful dialogue on a potential resolution and to provide for a pathway back to the court."

"At the same time, we must not panic," von Bohemen said. "We need to take the challenges seriously and recognise the political realities in which the court operates... and we will need a diplomatic process to address the challenges it is now facing."

Joao Vale de Almeida, the European Union's UN envoy, put the challenge succinctly: "The world needs the ICC, and the ICC needs all countries to support it."

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Mugabe paves the way for bond notes

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 12:58 AM PDT

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe side-steps Parliament to issue a decree on the country’s controversial bond notes.

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Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has side-stepped Parliament to issue a decree clearing the way for the introduction of “bond notes” that have raised fears of a return to a domestic currency abandoned in 2009 as hyperinflation crippled the economy.

The bond notes are meant to ease biting cash shortages that have gripped the southern African nation since March but have helped fuel anti-government protests in recent months.

Mugabe late on Monday used his presidential powers to amend the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Act, designating bond notes as legal tender that will be equivalent to the US dollar, according to an official government notice.

Mugabe said bond notes, which he has previously called surrogate currency, “shall be legal tender in all transactions in Zimbabwe” just like the US dollar, British sterling pound and South African rand, which are also used in the country.

Zimbabwe was this year hit by a devastating drought that left 4 million people in need of food aid. It is facing its worst financial crisis since switching its currency for the US dollar as weak mineral commodity prices hurt its major exports, while formal unemployment remains above 80 percent.

Mugabe's decree did not say when bond notes will be introduced. The regulations will last six months, after which Parliament has to ratify or reject them.

But former finance minister and opposition leader Tendai Biti said Mugabe's decree was illegal and could be challenged in court. He criticised Mugabe for resorting to a decree when Parliament, dominated by the ruling Zanu-PF party, could have easily passed the law.

The RBZ first announced plans for bond notes in May.

“Even if assuming they (regulations) were legal, the presidential powers should only be used in extreme circumstances where there is no sufficient time to go to parliament in the interest of public safety and public good,” Biti said.

RBZ Governor John Mangudya has struggled to allay concerns of a return to the rampant money printing and inflation rates that peaked at 500 billion percent, by saying bond notes were an incentive for exporters and would not be forced on people.

Mangudya, who has previously said the new bank notes would start circulating early this month, did not answer calls to his mobile phone.

The RBZ on Tuesday started running advertisements in local newspapers and radio saying up to 5% incentive would be paid on all exports and diaspora remittances in bond notes.

REUTERS

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News Africa Extended

2016-11-01T01:35:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Cecil the lion's BFF Jericho dies
Nigeria to probe alleged rapes by army, police
Zimbabwe's evicted farmers pin hopes on compensation
Nigerian soldiers, police 'rape Boko Haram victims'
Slavery a crime against humanity - French PM
Thousands protest fishmonger's rubbish truck death
'I lost virtually everything'

Cecil the lion's BFF Jericho dies

Posted: 01 Nov 2016 12:10 AM PDT

Jericho, the lion that had formed a bond with Cecil - a lion killed in an illegal hunt in 2015 - has been found dead.

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Harare - Jericho, the lion that had formed a bond with Cecil - a lion killed in an illegal hunt in 2015 - has been found dead in the Hwange National Park, a wildlife official said on Monday.

Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson Caroline Washaya-Moyo told Xinhua that Jericho's carcass was found on Saturday.

"Jericho was found dead in the Kennedy area which was his territory. It is suspected that he could have died on October 27. 2016," she said. The death has been attributed to natural causes.

Although widely reputed to have been Cecil's brother, wildlife experts said Jericho was not, but had formed a co-operative coalition with Cecil in order to better compete with other males for both territories and prides.

Cecil, 13, was a major attraction in Hwange and was being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford. He was killed with bow and arrow in July 2015 by an American dentist in an incident that provoked international outrage and raised debate on trophy hunting.

US authorities later added two subspecies of lion, in India and western and central Africa, to the endangered species list, including Cecil's species, thus making it more difficult for US citizens to kill these lions.

A report by Andrew Loveridge and Jane Hunt of Hwange Lion Research said Jericho's carcass had been discovered at about 5pm local time during routine monitoring of collared lions by the Hwange Lion Research Project. Jericho had been fitted with a GPS collar on July 5, 2016.

The team did not see any evidence to suggest that the lion had died due to any kind of traumatic injury such as gunshot, snare and wounds from fighting and did not appear to have struggled prior to death.

A post-mortem was done and it is believed that the death was due to natural causes.

"This is very feasible because the lion was 12 and-a-half years of age (born June 2004) at the time of death, which is old for a male lion living in the wild," the report said.

The skull was removed from the carcass for safekeeping while the remains were buried at the site.

Xinhua

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Nigeria to probe alleged rapes by army, police

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 12:06 PM PDT

Nigeria's president has ordered an investigation into allegations that 43 women and girls fleeing Boko Haram were raped by police and soldiers.

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Lagos - Nigeria's president has ordered an investigation into allegations by a rights group of rapes by soldiers and police of women and girls fleeing the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement published on Monday that 43 cases of "sexual abuse, including rape and exploitation", had been documented by its researchers in July. A police spokesman flatly rejected the report.

The women and girls were housed at seven camps in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, for people displaced by Boko Haram's seven-year-old insurgency, the rights group said.

The Islamist campaign has driven more than two million people from their homes and killed some 15 000 in Nigeria's northeast.

The rights group said it was also told of abuse carried out by camp leaders employed by authorities and members of local militias set up to help the military fight the insurgents.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari was "worried and shocked" by the allegations, his spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement on Monday.

"President Buhari has instructed the inspector general of police and the state governors of the affected states to immediately commence investigations into the issue."

Four people told HRW they had been drugged and raped. Thirty-seven said they had been coerced into sex through false promises of marriage and material and financial assistance.

A 17-year-old girl said she was raped by a policeman.

"One day he demanded to have sex with me. I refused but he forced me," she said. She said he threatened to shoot and kill her when she discovered she was pregnant.

A 16-year-old who fled an attack on Baga, near Lake Chad, said she was drugged and raped in May 2015 by a local militia member in charge of distributing aid in a camp.

"There are no reported cases of infractions of law by policemen on or off duty," Don Awunah, a spokesman for Nigeria's national police force, said on Monday in response to the allegations.

An army spokesman declined to comment on allegations related to soldiers and referred the matter to the defence ministry. A spokesman for the department could not be reached by phone and did not respond to a text message.

Boko Haram, which controlled a swathe of land in the northeast around the size of Belgium early last year, has largely been pushed back to its base in the northeast's vast Sambisa forest in recent months.

Reuters

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Zimbabwe's evicted farmers pin hopes on compensation

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 08:00 AM PDT

Countless elderly white landowners are struggling to make ends meet as they wait for compensation that many fear may never come.

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Mutare, Zimbabwe - Brian van Buuren, a white former farmer in Burma Valley, eastern Zimbabwe, couldn't hide his anger as he recalled how he lost almost everything during the country's controversial land reforms.

After investing most of his money in his tobacco farm, Van Buuren was left almost destitute when his land was seized by the government in 2010.

“I lost virtually everything,” van Buuren, 80, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Today, he is one of countless evicted elderly white landowners struggling to make ends meet as they wait for compensation that many fear may never come - since the black farmers expected to stump up the cash say they don't have it.

In 2001, President Robert Mugabe introduced laws to more equitably distribute land between black subsistence farmers and white Zimbabweans of European ancestry.

The reforms were aimed at addressing colonial imbalances in which a small number of white farmers owned most of the best agricultural land in Zimbabwe.

Earlier this year, the government pledged to compensate all farmers who lost their farms during the land reform programme, in which about 5 000 white farmers were evicted from their land in often violent struggles, and at least 12 people died.

The violence and allegations of rigged elections and rights abuses - all denied by Mugabe - led to Western sanctions.

The sanctions compounded an economic crisis that had worsened since the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank suspended aid in 1999, after Zimbabwe defaulted on debts.

The country's new constitution, adopted in 2013, included a provision to compensate the white farmers who were evicted, particularly for the improvements they had made on their farms.

In September, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the government had paid $42.7 million to farmers in compensation.

“The government has taken a big step towards compensation of previous farmers,” he said. “The government is expediting the mapping and valuation of improvements on farms acquired under the land reform programme so it can compensate the farmers.”

‘Cruel irony’

Chinamasa said land rentals and levies paid by the beneficiaries of the land reforms would be used to compensate the white farmers. Part of the $42.7 million compensation had come from these funds, he said.

But today, many of the black farmers expected to fund the compensation through levies and taxes say they simply don't have the money, thereby delaying the whole process.

Very few had farming skills when the government resettled them, say experts, and can now barely make ends meet, let alone pay extra levies.

The new farmers' agricultural output is now a fraction of the level seen before 2000 when Mugabe introduced the land reform.

They are also being hammered by Zimbabwe's worst drought in a quarter of a century while also toiling under a stagnating economy that has seen banks reluctant to lend and cheaper food imports from the likes of South Africa undermining local businesses.

According to the Zimbabwe Farmers Union, a group of mostly black farmers, compensation for the white farmers must relate to land development and assets, not the land itself.

The executive director, Paul Zakariya, said compensation for the land would be “unconstitutional as it belongs to the state”.

“The new (black) farmers must be levied and this levy should used to pay the white farmers. We don't want everyone in the country to be taxed and the money used to pay the white farmers but we want those who benefited from the land reform to be levied”.

That the redistributed lands and farms are lying unused or abandoned is a particularly cruel irony for former farmers like van Buuren who put everything into their land, they say.

Having bought the farm in Manicaland province back in 1964, van Buuren turned it into a successful tobacco farming entity and later diversified into banana farming with a local company.

Over the years, he invested in irrigation equipment, tobacco barns, fruit trees, tractors and two dams, as well as other infrastructure and machinery - all of which were seized.

“They took all my equipment and I only recovered two vehicles and a bit of furniture,” he said.

Although he now owns and lives in a modest house in Mutare city, he fears for the future as his savings have run out.

“I had very few savings as I had invested all the money in the farm. We are now struggling to survive. I am worried. We just sit here. We can't afford to go anywhere,” he said.

According to Van Buuren, all 12 white farmers in the Burma Valley area lost their land in the reform programme.

“Many farmers are now destitute,” he said.

Glimmer of hope

His sentiments were echoed by another farmer, Pieter de Klerk, who had to give up Kondozi Farm, a thriving horticultural export entity in Odzi, also in Manicaland province.

One of De Klerk's sons, who also lost his land in Zimbabwe, has re-established himself as a cassava farmer in Tanzania.

“My children are now sustaining me,” De Klerk said. “It took me 50 years to build that place but all is gone.”

Another farmer, Schalk du Pless, said: “We are now supported by our children. Had it not been for that, we could have been dead.”

Du Pless and De Klerk, both in their eighties, live at a home for the elderly in Mutare. They are among many white former farmers of their generation who are struggling, said Mutare's former mayor Brian James, whose own farm was seized.

“Some are destitute, particularly the elderly. Some (farmers) are desperately looking for jobs. Others have left the country,” James said.

However, with Zimbabwe's unemployment standing at more than 80 percent, the chances of former farmers who are still able to work finding employment are slim.

While some fear the cash-strapped government won't be able to compensate all of them, others want to see a glimmer of hope.

Van Buuren said his farm, which he says had a value of almost $1 million, could still provide him with enough money for his retirement if the government pays compensation.

“Even given an opportunity to go back on my farm, at my age I couldn't do it... but I can have some compensation,” he said.

But with no sign that compensation will be paid soon, Van Buuren fears he might die before receiving any payment.

“I am 80 years old now,” he said. Soon I will be gone, but will I get the compensation (in time)?”

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION

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Nigerian soldiers, police 'rape Boko Haram victims'

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 04:37 AM PDT

Nigerian soldiers and policemen have sexually abused women and girls fleeing Boko Haram, Human Rights Watch says.

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Lagos - Nigerian soldiers and policemen have raped and sexually abused women and girls fleeing the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

Forty-three cases of "sexual abuse, including rape and exploitation", were documented in July, HRW said.

The women and girls were housed at seven camps in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, where Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency began. That insurgency has displaced more than two million people and killed some 15,000 in Nigeria's northeast.

An army spokesman declined to comment and referred the matter to the defence ministry. A spokesman for the department could not be reached by phone and did not respond to a text message. A spokesman for the Nigerian police could not be reached on his mobile phone.

The rights group said it was also told of abuse carried out by camp leaders and members of security groups set up to help the military fight the insurgents.

Four people told HRW they were drugged and raped. Thirty-seven said they had been coerced into sex through false marriage promises and material and financial assistance.

A 17-year-old girl said she was raped by a policeman who approached her in a camp.

"One day he demanded to have sex with me. I refused but he forced me," she said, adding that it happened once. She said he threatened to shoot and kill her when she discovered that she was pregnant.

Another girl - a 16-year-old who fled an attack on Baga, near Lake Chad, last year - said she was drugged and raped in May 2015 by a community security group member in charge of distributing aid in the camp.

Aid workers and soldiers have gained access to the group's former northeastern strongholds, revealing famine-like conditions which UNICEF says could kill 75,000 children over the next year if they do not receive aid.

Nigerian lawmakers in early October said they would investigate the use of government funds intended to assist displaced people, amid claims that money had been diverted .

Reuters

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Slavery a crime against humanity - French PM

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 02:58 AM PDT

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has dismissed claims for financial compensation for slavery in Africa.

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Accra, Ghana - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls issued an appeal on Sunday to overcome the legacy of slavery, dismissing claims for financial compensation while acknowledging the "horror" of the slave trade.

Valls was visiting Franklin House, a former slave hub in the Ghanaian capital Accra, on Sunday on the second leg of a three-country tour of West Africa.

"We cannot repair slavery but we can prepare the future" he said in an article published by the French daily Le Monde and the English magazine The Africa Report.

Valls rejected the idea of compensation, instead advocating for strengthened trade relations between Africa and Europe.

"It is not so much about living for the idea of reparation... as about looking to tomorrow, about strengthening the ties between our two continents on either side of the Mediterranean," he said.

"The slave trade was a disaster on a large scale. That reality must be remembered, taught and hammered home," he said, "the many atrocities, rapes and murders. It was a crime against humanity."

But Valls argued against calls for reparations, rejecting the idea that Africa's history is solely defined by slavery.

"Memory should not divide. It should, on the contrary, close fractures and bring people together, if only we do not give in to the awfulness of competing memories, hierarchies and comparing the suffering of some with the misfortune of others.

"I also know that the history of Africa is so much more than the history of slavery, to which it is too often reduced," he said, adding: "I know that Africa has the strength to free itself from that past."

French President Francois Hollande on a May 2015 trip to the Caribbean spoke of the debt France owed to Haiti, but his office later said he was referring to a "moral debt" rather than financial compensation.

France abolished slavery in all its colonies in 1848 but only recognised slavery as a crime against humanity since 2001.

Valls, who arrived in Ghana on Saturday from Togo, heads later Sunday to the Ivory Coast.

AFP

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Thousands protest fishmonger's rubbish truck death

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 01:46 AM PDT

Thousands of Moroccans attended the funeral of a fishmonger whose grisly death in a rubbish truck crusher has caused outrage,

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Al Hoceima, Morocco - Thousands of Moroccans on Sunday attended the funeral of a fishmonger whose gruesome death in a rubbish truck crusher has caused outrage across the North African country, with authorities vowing to punish those responsible.

WARNING: Twitter embed in this article contains graphic image.

Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed to death on Friday in the truck in the northern city of Al-Hoceima as he reportedly tried to protest against a municipal worker seizing and destroying his wares.

An image of his inert body - head and arm sticking out from under the lorry's crushing mechanism - went viral on social media, sparking calls for protests nationwide including in the capital Rabat.

Footage online showed thousands of people following the yellow ambulance that carried Fikri's body through Al-Hoceima in the ethnically Berber Rif region on Sunday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad condemned the incident and vowed that an investigation would be held to "determine the exact circumstances of the tragedy and punish those responsible".

"No one had the right to treat him like this.... We cannot accept officials acting in haste, anger or in conditions that do not respect people's rights," he told AFP.

The funeral procession was led by a dozen drivers in their cars - including taxis - and marchers waving Berber flags.

The ambulance headed to the area of Imzouren some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of the city, where Fikri was buried in the late afternoon.

The circumstances of his death remained unclear.

But a human rights activist told AFP that the authorities forced the fishmonger to destroy several boxes of swordfish. Catching swordfish using driftnets is illegal.

"The goods were worth a lot of money," said Fassal Aoussar from the local branch of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH).

"The salesman threw himself in after his fish and was crushed by the machine," he said.

"The whole of the Rif is in shock and boiling over."

Long neglected under the father of the current king, the Rif was at the heart of Morocco's protest movement for change in 2011, dubbed the February 20 movement.

Protests continued in Al-Hoceima late Sunday, an AFP reporter said, with protesters shouting: "Criminals, assassins, terrorists!"

"The people of the Rif won't be humiliated!"

The crowd eventually dispersed around 2130 GMT without incident.

Thousands of demonstrators - including activists for Berber rights - also gathered in Rabat, chanting "We are all Mouhcine!".

Smaller protests were held in several other Rif towns and, unusually, in Casablanca and Marrakesh.

In a statement on Sunday, the AMDH condemned the state for "having trampled on the dignity of citizens since the ferocious repression of the February 20 movement and keeping the region in a state of tension".

It warned of a "possible repeat" of the 2011 protests in the Rif, just a week before Morocco starts hosting international climate talks.

King Mohammed VI has ordered a "thorough and exhaustive investigation" into Fikri's death and the "prosecution of whoever is found responsible", an interior ministry statement said.

Crushed to death while trying to save his catch thrown in a garbage truck by officials https://t.co/jLMSBJNvf4 #Morocco #Mohssin_Fikri
— JB (@3ty3) October 30, 2016

The king - who was in Zanzibar on a tour of East Africa - sent the interior minister to "present his condolences" to Fikri's family, it said.

It was the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in late 2010 in protest at police harassment that sparked Tunisia's revolution and the Arab Spring uprisings across the rest of the region the next year.

Morocco is due to host the COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh from November 7 to 18.

AFP

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'I lost virtually everything'

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 12:37 AM PDT

Evicted elderly white Zimbabweans struggle to make ends meet as they wait for compensation.

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After investing most of his money in his tobacco farm, van Buuren was left almost destitute when his land was seized by the government in 2010.

"I lost virtually everything," Van Buuren, 80, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Today, he is one of many evicted elderly white landowners struggling to make ends meet as they wait for compensation that many fear may never come - since the black farmers expected to stump up the cash say they don't have it.

In 2001, President Robert Mugabe introduced laws to more equitably distribute land between black subsistence farmers and white Zimbabweans.

The reforms were aimed at addressing colonial imbalances in which a small number of white farmers owned most of the best agricultural land in Zimbabwe.

The violence and allegations of rigged elections and rights abuses - all denied by Mugabe - led to Western sanctions.

The sanctions compounded an economic crisis that had worsened since the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank suspended aid in 1999, after Zimbabwe defaulted on debts.

The country's new constitution, adopted in 2013, included a provision to compensate the white farmers who were evicted, particularly for the improvements they had made on their farms.

In September, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the government had paid $42.7 million to farmers in compensation.

"The government has taken a big step towards compensation of previous farmers," he said. "The government is expediting the mapping and valuation of improvements on farms acquired under the land reform programme so it can compensate the farmers."

But today, many of the black farmers expected to fund the compensation through levies and taxes say they simply don't have the money, thereby delaying the whole process.

Very few had farming skills when the government resettled them, say experts, and can now barely make ends meet, let alone pay extra levies.

The new farmers' agricultural output is now a fraction of the level seen before 2000 when Mugabe introduced the land reform.

According to the Zimbabwe Farmers Union, a group of mostly black farmers, compensation for the white farmers must relate to land development and assets, not the land itself.

The executive director, Paul Zakariya, said compensation for the land would be "unconstitutional as it belongs to the state".

"The new (black) farmers must be levied and this levy should used to pay the white farmers. We don't want everyone in the country to be taxed and the money used to pay the white farmers but we want those who benefited from the land reform to be levied".

That the redistributed lands and farms are lying unused or abandoned is a particularly cruel irony for former farmers like Van Buuren who put everything into their land, they say.

Having bought the farm in Manicaland province back in 1964, Van Buuren turned it into a successful tobacco farming entity and later diversified into banana farming with a local company.

Over the years, he invested in irrigation equipment, tobacco barns, fruit trees, tractors and two dams, as well as other infrastructure and machinery - all of which were seized.

"They took all my equipment and I only recovered two vehicles and a bit of furniture," he said.

Although he now owns and lives in a modest house in Mutare, he fears for the future as his savings have run out.

"I had very few savings as I had invested all the money in the farm. We are now struggling to survive. I am worried. We just sit here. We can't afford to go anywhere," he said.

According to Van Buuren, all 12 white farmers in the Burma Valley area lost their land in the reform programme.

"Many farmers are now destitute," he said.

His sentiments were echoed by another farmer, Pieter de Klerk, who had to give up Kondozi Farm, a thriving horticultural export entity in Odzi, also in Manicaland province.

One of De Klerk's sons, who also lost his land in Zimbabwe, has re-established himself as a cassava farmer in Tanzania.

"My children are now sustaining me," De Klerk said. "It took me 50 years to build that place but all is gone."

Another farmer, Schalk du Pless, said: "We are now supported by our children. Had it not been for that, we could have been dead."

"Some are destitute, particularly the elderly. Some (farmers) are desperately looking for jobs. Others have left the country," James said.

However, with Zimbabwe's unemployment standing at more than 80 percent, the chances of former farmers who are still able to work finding employment are slim.

While some fear the cash-strapped government won't be able to compensate all of them, others want to see a glimmer of hope.

Van Buuren said his farm, which he says had a value of almost $1 million, could still provide him with enough money for his retirement if the government pays compensation.

"Even given an opportunity to go back on my farm, at my age I couldn't do it ... but I can have some compensation," he said.

But with no sign that compensation will be paid soon, Van Buuren fears he might die before receiving any payment.

"I am 80 years old now," he said. Soon I will be gone, but will I get the compensation (in time)?"

Thomson Reuters Foundation

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-31T01:15:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Ivory Coast referendum marred by violence
Al-Shabaab fighters seize Somali town
Beware of fake exam papers, warns Kenya exam council
Al Shabaab seizes town from Somali forces

Ivory Coast referendum marred by violence

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 08:44 PM PDT

Nandi Bamba was preparing to open a polling station in Abidjan's Yopougon neighbourhood when a group of men attacked.

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Abidjan - Violence erupted at around 100 polling stations in Ivory Coast on Sunday as voters decided whether to approve a new constitution that President Alassane Ouattara argues will ensure peace in the wake of years of political turmoil.

Elections worker Nandi Bamba was preparing to open the voting when a group of young men, some of them armed with clubs and machetes, attacked her polling station in Abidjan's Yopougon neighbourhood.

“They demanded we stop working because the new constitution wasn't for the people. Then they smashed the ballot boxes, scattered the ballots. They broke everything,” she said.

Under Ouattara, Ivory Coast has made an impressive recovery since a 2011 civil war capped a decade-long crisis. The International Monetary Fund projects it will be Africa's fastest growing economy this year.

However, despite five years of peace, Ivorians remain deeply divided along political and ethnic faultlines. And both they and the investors who are now flooding in crave the stability that will allow the world's top cocoa grower to cement its status as the continent's rising star.

Opposition parties called for a boycott of the vote, arguing that the new text was designed to further entrench Ouattara's political coalition.

Some called upon their supporters to act to stop the referendum from being held - and a low turnout could rob what is expected to be a “Yes” vote of legitimacy in the future.

Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said security had to be reinforced in some areas after violence erupted at around 100 polling stations in Abidjan and western Ivory Coast.

“We think there's a group going from zone to zone that is truly well organised, which has as its mission to disrupt the vote as much as possible,” he said, adding that the incidents were not expected to have an impact on the result.

Lacking transparency?

The current constitution, drafted under military rule after a 1999 coup, was at the heart of Ivory Coast's prolonged unrest.

In its most controversial clause, it says presidential candidates' parents must both be natural-born Ivorians - a swipe at northerners, many of whom, like Ouattara, have family ties that straddle the borders with Burkina Faso and Mali.

The new constitution scraps that rule, which was used to disqualify Ouattara from a poll in 2000, and now only one parent must be Ivorian. It also creates a post of vice president and a senate. The president says all these new measures will guarantee more political stability.

“It's an opportunity but also a duty,” Ouattara said after voting in the commercial capital Abidjan. “Turning the page on the crisis born of the constitution of 2000 is essential for the future of our nation.”

The new text also allows future changes to the constitution to go ahead without a referendum and with a two thirds majority in parliament - a body now dominated by Ouattara's allies.

Turnout in Abidjan was visibly lower than during last year's presidential election when 54.6 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, a fact that opposition leader Pascal Affi N'Guessan said demonstrated the text's rejection by the people.

“Either he withdraws the proposed constitution and sets up a commission in which all Ivorians can participate and write a new, more consensual constitution, or he assumes the consequences of his policies and resigns,” he said.

The process of drafting the text and submitting it to a plebiscite was criticised by some civil society groups and diplomats as rushed and lacking transparency. Voters have had just two and a half weeks to review the 184-article charter.

“I'm not voting,” said a woman cooking at a roadside open-air restaurant in Abidjan's Cocody neighbourhood, who declined to give her name. “In just two weeks people are supposed to understand and vote on a constitution? They're imposing this.”

REUTERS

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Al-Shabaab fighters seize Somali town

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 08:44 PM PDT

Al-Shabaab fighters have taken control of a north-western town after attacking Somali government troops.

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Mogadishu - The Islamist group al-Shabaab seized a town north-west of Somalia's capital from government forces on Sunday, the latest small centre taken by the militant group trying to topple the country's Western-backed government.

Al-Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. African Union and Somali troops have driven it from major urban strongholds and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

“Many al-Shabaab fighters attacked us this morning and after brief fighting we left the town for tactical reasons,” Somali army Major Hussein Edin told Reuters from the nearby town of Baidoa. One Somali soldier was killed, he said.

Goofgaduud lies about 250km north-west of Mogadishu, the capital.

Al-Shabaab's military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, confirmed the group had captured the settlement. He said seven Somali soldiers were killed.

Al-Shabaab's casualty figures and those announced by officials often differ.

In a separate incident, Somali forces in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region north of Mogadishu freed a Kenyan woman, Loise Njoki Weru, who officials said was held by pirates since 2015.

Galmudug Vice-President Mohamed Hashi said she was now in safe hands after security forces rescued her and had spoken to her family, but he did not say when she would be repatriated.

Earlier this month, 26 Asian sailors were freed after more than four years of captivity in a small fishing village in Somalia after being held by pirates.

REUTERS

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Beware of fake exam papers, warns Kenya exam council

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 04:16 AM PDT

The Kenya National Examinations Council has warned the public about the existence of fake exams papers being circulated by conmen.

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Nairobi – The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has warned the public about the existence of fake exams papers being circulated by conmen.

The council said it was aware of the circulation of fake Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) papers and warned parents and pupils not to purchase them as there had been no leak of exam papers this year.

The KCPE is an exit national exam for all primary school children in the public education system in Kenya and is set for the first week of November.

The fake papers are said to be going for Ksh5000 each (about $50). KNEC chairperson George Magoha said in a statement the council had scrutinised the papers and found all of them to be fake.

He warned parents and teachers against buying the fake papers as they would only “distract their children from focusing on their preparations”.

“We wish to urge candidates to remain calm as they undertake their final preparations for the examinations,” he said.

The KCPE will start on Tuesday while the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) will start on November 7. Mahoga said investigations were under way to apprehend the conmen.

Meanwhile, the education ministry has asked all teachers to remain away from schools during the exam season from November 1 to 30.

The only teachers expected to remain in school were those involved in the administration of practical subjects and boarding facilities. All schools were expected to close by Friday, October 28, to pave the way for the nationwide start of the exams.

The directive is contained in a joint press statement issued by three cabinet secretaries, namely education Fred Matiang’i, interior and co-ordination of national government Joseph Nkaissery, and information, communications, and technology Joe Mucheru.

Matiang’i clarified that the only teachers required to remain in schools after October 28 were school heads and their deputies and staff necessary for the exams. This was part of government’s strategy for “clean and credible examinations in 2016”.

“We are determined to stamp out cases of irregularities associated with the poor management of our national examinations in the past so that the results obtained from the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) are valid and credible,” the joint statement said.

Mucheru said government had used technology to minimise examinations malpractices which had characterised the 2015 exams.

African News Agency (ANA)

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Al Shabaab seizes town from Somali forces

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 03:28 AM PDT

Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on the African country.

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Mogadishu - The Islamist group al Shabaab seized a town northwest of Somalia's capital from government forces on Sunday, the latest small centre taken by the militant group trying to topple the country's Western-backed government.

Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. African Union and Somali troops have driven it from major urban strongholds and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

“Many al Shabaab fighters attacked us this morning and after brief fighting we left the town for tactical reasons,” Somali army Major Hussein Edin told Reuters from the nearby town of Baidoa. One Somali soldier was killed, he said.

Goofgaduud lies about 250km northwest of Mogadishu, the capital.

Al Shabaab's military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, confirmed the group had captured the settlement. He said seven Somali soldiers were killed.

Al Shabaab's casualty figures and those announced by officials often differ.

In a separate incident, the website of state radio, radiomuqdisho.net, said on Sunday that the Somali security forces had rescued a Kenyan woman who had been kidnapped by pirates in 2015. They did not give details about the woman.

Reuters

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-29T01:22:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

No power for eight hours a day in Zambia
Man shot dead outside US embassy in Nairobi
World Bank to fund African centres of excellence

No power for eight hours a day in Zambia

Posted: 28 Oct 2016 02:25 AM PDT

Zambians have been told nation-wide load-shedding will be extended foom four to eight hours per day.

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Gaborone - The Zambian Electricity Supply Commission (Zesco) has extended the duration of its nation-wide load-shedding regime from four to eight hours per day in response to subdued generation capacity at the major hydro-electric power stations.

In a statement, Zesco spokesperson Bessie Banda said the power utility extended the load-shedding regime because generation capacity at the Kafue Gorge Power Station had dropped from 700MW (megawatts) to 600MW due to critically lowered water levels.

A further loss of 48MW in power generation at the Ndola Energy Company, as well as ongoing upgrade works on a 330kV (kilo-volts) main power line, also contributed to extended hours of load-shedding.

Banda said the 8-hour power outages would last until November 12.

"Zesco is committed to providing reliable electricity and is doing everything possible to ensure all transmission and generation constraints are mitigated in the shortest possible time. In particular, the line upgrade works will be completed by 11th November 2016, which will strengthen the capacity to evacuate power from Maamba," Banda said.

"We expect the extended load shedding (regime) to end by 12 November 2016. In view of the foregoing, ZESCO therefore wishes to appeal to its customers to use electricity more efficiently, and to use alternative sources of energy whenever possible," Banda said.

The drop in water levels in the Zambezi River has also reduced Zambia's power-generation capacity at the Kariba Hydro-Electric Power Station, which is operated jointly with southern neighbour Zimbabwe.

The use of obsolete technologies and a failure to maintain the plants have also led to breakdowns that resulted in loss of power generation.

African News Agency

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Man shot dead outside US embassy in Nairobi

Posted: 28 Oct 2016 01:37 AM PDT

A knife-wielding man was shot dead outside the US Embassy in Nairobi after he attacked and injured a Kenyan police officer.

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Nairobi - A knife-wielding man who police described as a criminal was shot dead outside the US Embassy in Nairobi on Thursday after he attacked and injured a Kenyan police officer.

The motive was not immediately clear, but no US embassy personnel were involved in the incident.

National police spokesman George Kinoti said an investigation had begun and said the man was killed by the police officer in self-defence.

"It was a lone criminal who attacked a police officer," Kinoti told Reuters. "He was armed with a knife"

A US Embassy spokeswoman confirmed there had been a "shooting incident" outside the mission, which is located in a heavily secured compound in the north of the capital.

"No embassy personnel were involved," US Embassy spokeswoman Fiona Evans said, without giving further details.

Kenyan media said the police officer had been guarding one of the entrances to the embassy compound when he was assaulted.

Reuters

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World Bank to fund African centres of excellence

Posted: 28 Oct 2016 12:29 AM PDT

The World Bank will fund 24 Centres of Excellence in eight African countries over a period of five years.

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Nairobi - The World Bank will fund 24 Centres of Excellence in eight African countries over a period of five years.

Dr Xiaonan Cao, senior education specialist at the World Bank told ANA in Nairobi that the centres were an innovative way to address the shortage of highly skilled human capital in the sciences.

Cao said that the World Bank would fund the 24 Centres of Excellence to the tune of US$148 million over a period of five years with each centre getting about US$6 million.

"A single country cannot afford to have a various centres of excellence. However, each country in the region has pockets of excellence and collectively the countries can help each other through this regional approach," said Cao.

Cao, team leader of the project, said that the priority areas as identified by the 24 Centres of Excellence included industry, agriculture, health, education and applied statistics.

He said the Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centres of Excellence Project was result of "broad consultations with various stakeholders over a two year period".

Cao said the overall objective of the project wass development with the aim of strengthening selected eastern and southern African higher education institutions to deliver quality post graduate education.

"The centres will also build collaborative research capacity in the said five regional priority areas," said Cao, adding that each centre is required to account for the financing through show of results.

Ruth Charo, senior education specialist at the World Bank, said that 92 proposals were submitted from various regional institutions and under went a "rigorous and competitive process of selection".

Charo said that out of the 92 eligible proposals submitted, 24 were selected from eight countries:

Kenya

Uganda

Tanzania

Ethiopia

Rwanda

Malawi

Mozambique

Zambia.

Speaking at the launch in Nairobi, Professor Colletta Suda, Kenya's Principal Secretary, Higher Education, said that the eastern and southern region lags behind in generating graduates in science and technology.

"We have a shortage of graduates in the fields of engineering, manufacturing and construction which translates to few skilled professionals with specialised knowledge in areas such as oil and gas, energy and railways industries," said Suda.

Suda said that it was unsustainable to send most post-postgraduate students abroad for training. Hence the region's commitment to pool existing human and financial resources for a few specialised regional centres.

African News Agency

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-28T01:16:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Why African states are leaving the ICC

Posted: 27 Oct 2016 09:40 AM PDT

Until last week, no country had withdrawn from the International Criminal Court, now, three African states have made official decisions to leave.

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Johannesburg - Until last week, no country had withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. Now, three African states: South Africa, Burundi and Gambia, have made official decisions to leave. Gambia announced its decision late Tuesday. Concerns are high that more African countries now will act on years of threats to pull out amid accusations that the court unfairly focuses on the continent. Here's a look at what it all means.

Many in the international community cheered when the treaty to create the ICC, the Rome Statute, was adopted in 1998 as a way to pursue some of the world's worst atrocities: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not all countries signed on, and as of last week, the treaty had 124 member states. Notable countries that have not joined include the United States, China, Russia and India. Some countries are wary of The Hague, Netherlands-based court's powers, seeing it as potential interference.

Only Africans have been charged in the six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has become a symbol of the limitations facing the ICC, which does not have a police force and relies on the cooperation of member states. Al-Bashir has been wanted by the tribunal for alleged genocide and other crimes in Sudan's Darfur region after the U.N. Security Council first referred the case to the ICC in 2005. Since then, however, al-Bashir has visited a number of ICC member states, including Malawi, Kenya, Chad and Congo. His visit to South Africa in June 2015 caused uproar, and he quickly left as a court there ordered his arrest. The ICC has no power to compel countries to arrest people and can only tell them they have a legal obligation to do it.

Burundi kicked off the ICC departures this month when lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to leave the tribunal, just months after the court announced it would investigate recent political violence there. President Pierre Nkurunziza signed the bill last week. South Africa last week announced it would leave as well, saying that handing a leader over to the ICC would amount to interference in another country's affairs. It's a dramatic turnaround for a country that was an early supporter of the court's creation in the years after South Africa emerged from white minority rule and near-global isolation. With one of Africa's most developed countries now pulling out, observers feared that more states would follow, and now Gambia is doing so.

Withdrawal doesn't happen when a country announces it. The country must officially notify the U.N. secretary-general of its intention to leave, and the pullout becomes effective one year after the receipt of that notice. So far, the U.N. has said it has received South Africa's notice, and the one-year countdown started Wednesday. Countries still have to cooperate with any ICC proceedings that begin before withdrawal takes effect.

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-27T01:38:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

400 000 children face starvation in Nigeria
Please don’t abandon us, Nigeria urges airlines
Africa should change ICC from within - Botswana minister
Kenyatta cancels trip after bomb leaves 12 dead

400 000 children face starvation in Nigeria

Posted: 27 Oct 2016 12:06 AM PDT

"Nigeria is facing the worst humanitarian crisis on the African continent," Peter Lundberg, acting deputy UN humanitarian co-ordinator, says.

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United Nations - "Nigeria is facing the worst humanitarian crisis on the African continent," Peter Lundberg, the acting deputy UN humanitarian co-ordinator, warned on Wednesday.

Nearly 400,000 children face starvation in the West African country.

In a news release issued here by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), wrapping up his first few weeks in his current post, Lundberg assured the Nigerian government of the international community's commitment to working closely with federal and state mechanisms to accelerate a collective response to the situation.

Many Nigerian citizens in the northeastern part of the country are suffering with little to no protection, security, food or access to clean water.

He also welcomed the recent announcement of the Inter-Ministerial Task Force and High Level Humanitarian Co-ordination Group, and the Borno state Humanitarian Response Committee and looked forward to seeing "tangible impact in the coming weeks and months."

According to Lundberg, humanitarian assistance by the government and the aid community is being provided to the millions of people in desperate need despite insecurity and access constraints. However, relief agencies should continue to maintain neutrality, impartiality and independence and continue to work where security permits.

"Needs are currently higher than the response capacity and we must ensure that we have both access and resources to scale up our humanitarian support in the months to come," he said.

Despite some very generous contributions from organisations such as the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and donations from the wider donor community, the Nigerian Humanitarian Response Plan for 2016, which requires US$484 million for life-saving interventions, has only received one third of the needed funding.

"Without the means to respond, innocent boys, girls, women and men will die," he said. "The highest priority requirement for this response remains food security which is just 25 percent funded."

He also noted that the attacks on the humanitarian convoy on July 28 and recent suicide bombing in Maiduguri on October 12 serve as stark reminders "that we must not let down our guard in such a high risk environment." Indeed, the security of humanitarian actors remains a top priority for the humanitarian community, he added.

Lundberg affirmed OCHA's commitment to support and assist international organisations with the structures and mechanisms they require to safely carry out their work. He also noted the recent improvements in displaced populations' assessment, calling this development a "springboard" that will improve access to affected populations.

Nigeria's northeast region has been a stronghold of the extremist group Boko Haram. Over the past months, the Nigerian government has launched several military operations to eliminate the terrorist group. The devastation to human lives and livelihoods by the insurgency in Northeast Nigeria is severe, with more than an estimated 20,000 persons killed, an estimated 2.4 million persons displaced and billions of naira worth of personal and public assets destroyed.

Xinhua

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Please don’t abandon us, Nigeria urges airlines

Posted: 26 Oct 2016 11:02 PM PDT

Nigeria has appealed to Emirates and other airlines not to scale down operations in the West African country.

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Abuja - Nigeria has appealed to Emirates and other airlines not to scale down operations in the West African country, arguing it was attempting to deal with a currency crisis and fuel shortages that have hit airlines' operations.

Emirates last week said it will suspend its four times a week service between Dubai and Abuja from Oct. 30.

Nigeria's Minister of State for Aviation Hadi Sirika said he had told an Emirates west African executive that the government was aware of the challenges affecting airlines and was working hard to resolve them.

He said he had asked Emirates and other airlines to reconsider their decisions due to the impact on customers.

Nigeria's naira has plunged in value against the US dollar this year due to the impact of low oil prices and a central bank move in June to scrap a dollar peg.

Domestic and international carriers have struggled with the plunge in the naira, which has made bills for imported jet fuel more expensive and squeezed profit margins as many passengers pay in the local currency.

Kenya Airways has also announced plans to suspend flights to Abuja by next month. United and Iberia both stopped services to Nigeria earlier this year.

Both Emirates and Kenya Airways will continue to serve Nigeria with a flights to and from the country's most populous city and commercial capital, Lagos.

To avert a full currency crisis, the central bank has held a two-month dollar forward auction to clear a backlog of demand from airlines and other companies.

Reuters

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Africa should change ICC from within - Botswana minister

Posted: 26 Oct 2016 04:11 AM PDT

African states unhappy with the International Criminal Court should work to reform it from within, says Botswanan foreign minister Pelomoni Venson-Moitoi.

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Johannesburg - African states unhappy with the International Criminal Court (ICC) should work to reform it from within rather than pulling out, Botswanan foreign minister Pelomoni Venson-Moitoi, a candidate to become the next African Union (AU) chief, said.

With the AU increasingly divided over the ICC, South Africa announced last week that it planned to quit, but Venson-Moitoi said she believed an African war crimes court could be beefed up to work alongside its Hague-based counterpart.

Although South Africa argued that the ICC's Rome Statutes were at odds with its laws granting leaders diplomatic immunity, other African countries see the tribunal purely as an instrument of colonial justice that unfairly targets the continent.

"I don't see why we should be pulling out. The good thing is that a few more members now, within the AU, agree that pulling out is not the solution. We should be working towards fixing," she told Reuters in an interview, without elaborating.

After she spoke, Gambia said late on Tuesday it too was withdrawing from the ICC, calling it "an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans".

Venson-Moitoi's main rival for the AU chair is Kenyan foreign minister Amina Mohamed. Kenya has also been leaning towards ICC withdrawal since charges were brought against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, over links to post-election bloodshed in 2008 in which at least 1,200 people were killed.

The cases against both collapsed for lack of evidence.

The AU is likely to choose its successor to South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at its annual summit in January.

Should she prevail, Venson-Moitoi said she would try to get the Tanzanian-based African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, which unlike the ICC currently grants immunity to sitting leaders, to "work together" with the Hague tribunal.

The outspoken 65-year-old also advocated more robust and rigorous AU monitoring of regional elections as an antidote to the controversy, disputes and violence that habitually follow polls in many African countries.

"I'm quite aware of what it takes to run a fair election, to avoid abuse, to avoid conflict," she said. "You must manage the whole process so that when the number comes out at the end, it confirms a clean process."

In its 50 years since independence, Botswana has built a reputation as a stable, peaceful and prosperous democracy with a no-nonsense political leadership.

Last month, President Ian Khama caused fury in neighbouring Zimbabwe when he told Reuters that his 92-year-old counterpart, Robert Mugabe, was too old to remain in office.

Venson-Moitoi reaffirmed the sovereignty of member states but said she would be demanding answers personally from leaders whose internal problems spilled into neighbouring states, as has happened this year with refugees fleeing violence in Burundi.

"I'm a hands-on person. I would get on the next plane and go there. That's how I work. If it means going there and talking to the refugees, I'd go there and talk to them myself," she said.

Such comments are likely to ruffle feathers in the AU, where interfering in a member nation's internal affairs remains a big taboo, but Venson-Moitoi said a dose of honesty and plain-speaking would do her, and the continent, no harm.

"That's what Africa needs. There is nothing wrong with being outspoken - if you are outspoken for the right reasons. If you are outspoken in the interests of Africa, I don't see anything wrong with that."

Reuters

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Kenyatta cancels trip after bomb leaves 12 dead

Posted: 26 Oct 2016 12:09 AM PDT

President Uhuru Kenyatta has cancelled a trip to Angola in solidarity with the families of the Kenyans who lost their lives in a hotel bomb attack.

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Nairobi - President Uhuru Kenyatta has cancelled his official trip to Angola in order to attend a local security meeting in solidarity with the families of the Kenyans who lost their lives in the Mandera attack, the State House Spokesperson Manoah Esipisu said.

Esipisu said the Kenyatta sent his condolences to the bereaved and wished the injured speedy recovery.

"The President condemns in the strongest terms this heinous attack by these depraved individuals. Our security agencies will do everything in their power to bring them to justice," Esipisu said the statement on Tuesday.

He said that Kenyans would not allow themselves to be divided along religious lines, which is what the terrorists want and added that to win the war on terror Kenyans needed to work closely with the security agents.

Kenyans woke up on Tuesday to news of a terror attack at a guest house in the remote town of Mandera town that killed 12 people.

In a statement to media, the Regional Commissioner of North Eastern Mohamoud Saleh said that at around 3.30am on Tuesday, an IED bomb exploded at the Boshari Hotel in Mandera Town and that part of the building collapsed leaving 12 people dead.

He said the government condemned "this act of terror" and that investigations were under way to establish the source of the explosion. Mohamoud said that officers on patrol responded immediately, cordoned off the area and began search and rescue operations which were still ongoing.

He said at least six people had been rescued alive from the debris and that preliminary investigations into the attack were yielding good leads for the police.

Mandera, he said, is usually under 24 hours security surveillance.

Local media reported that 10 non-locals were among the dead and had travelled to Mandera to stage plays for set books for the Form Four (equivalent of O Levels) national exams which begin countrywide in November.

Mandera is at the border with Somalia and Ethiopia and is considered a volatile area by Kenyans due to frequent attacks by Somali militias who cross the porous border between the two countries.

According to a BBC radio report, Al Shabab have claimed responsibility for the attack.

In November 2014, Al-Shabab fighters hijacked a bus in Mandera and killed 28 non-Muslims on board. In December 2014, they killed 36 quarry workers. And early this month six people were killed in a residential building in Mandera. In December 2015, gunmen sprayed a Mandera bound bus with bullets and asked Muslim passengers to help them identify the non-Muslim passengers. The Muslims refused and opted to live or die with the non-Muslims.

Witnesses said the attackers left the scene in disbelief.

Al Shabab attacks on Kenya escalated since 2011 when Kenya sent troops into Somalia to fight the militias and help the Somali government stabilise the country.

African News Agency

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-26T01:07:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

China to help Kenya recover stolen assets
Gambia becomes 3rd African country to leave ICC
Al-Shabaab kills 12 in Kenyan hotel
The case of the missing president
‘Sanctions hurting us’- Zim

China to help Kenya recover stolen assets

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 11:49 PM PDT

China has pledged to help Kenya recover and repatriate stolen assets as part of the fight against high level corruption.

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Nairobi - China has pledged to help Kenya recover and repatriate stolen assets as part of the fight against high level corruption.

Wang Lingjun, vice-minister of the Chinese Ministry of Supervision, said that the country would support the Kenyan government in the areas of asset recovery and repatriation of illicit proceeds.

He said that China would share its experience in anti-corruption and provide an opportunity for Kenya to understand the various challenges involved in fighting corruption.

Lingjun led a high powered delegation of senior Chinese government officials in a courtesy call on the Attorney General Professor Githu Muigai at his offices in Nairobi.

Muigai said that Kenya could not afford to allow illegitimate forces outside the State to control Kenya.

In 2003 the Kenyan government, under the Presidency of Mwai Kibaki, located US$1 billion in looted tax payers money hidden overseas. The money was believed to have been stolen during the administration of the former President Daniel arap Moi.

As the Kibaki administration discovered, locating the money was easier than bringing it back home even with expert services from New York's Kroll Incorporated, who were contracted to help Kenya track and recover the stolen funds.

At the time Andre Pienaar, who oversaw the African office of Kroll, told New York Times that it was a tough task to get the money back. Some of the challenges cited by the government included costly search efforts, corrupt officials fighting back and tough international banking laws.

Kroll said that the thieves used some of the most respected banks in Europe to hide their loot and also invested in prime property such as hotels, and luxury homes and cars in Europe.

Kenya was the first country to sign the United Nations Convention Against Corruption on December 9 2003. The Convention came into force in December 2005 and is rated as the most comprehensive, legally binding global anti corruption instrument negotiated by members of the United Nations.

African News Agency

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Gambia becomes 3rd African country to leave ICC

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 11:10 PM PDT

Gambia says it will leave the International Criminal Court as fears grow of a mass pullout from the body.

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Dakar, Senegal - A third African country, Gambia, says it will leave the International Criminal Court as fears grow of a mass pullout from the body that pursues some of the world's worst atrocities.

Gambia announced the decision on television on Tuesday night, accusing the court of unfairly targeting Africa and calling it the "international Caucasian court."

The move comes after South Africa, once a strong ICC supporter under former President Nelson Mandela, notified the United Nations secretary-general it would leave the court.

Early last week, Burundi's president signed legislation to leave the court as well.

Only Africans have been charged in the six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin, though preliminary ICC investigations have opened elsewhere.

Gambia's decision is also striking because the ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is Gambian.

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Al-Shabaab kills 12 in Kenyan hotel

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 12:04 PM PDT

Militants from the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab opened fire inside a hotel in north-eastern Kenya after bombing the building to gain access

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Nairobi - Militants from the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab opened fire inside a hotel in north-eastern Kenya after bombing the building to gain access, killing at least 12 people.

The assailants entered the Bishaaro Hotel in the town of Mandera with explosives and then proceeded to shoot guests in their rooms, said Mohamoud Saleh, the regional commissioner for North Eastern Kenya.

Bomb experts were combing the area, while police were following several leads, said Saleh. Police were reportedly still working to identify the bodies.

Six people were rescued from the debris of the partially collapsed hotel several hours after the attack started in the early hours of Tuesday.

“We don't know how many people are still trapped there in the rubble but efforts to reach them are ongoing,” a police officer told the Standard newspaper.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the hotel attack on pro-insurgent Somali radio station Andalus.

The extremists, who are seeking an Islamist state in the horn of Africa and are affiliated with the international al-Qaeda terrorist network, attack government facilities and hotels in Kenya and neighbouring Somalia on a regular basis.

SAPA - dpa

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The case of the missing president

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 03:40 AM PDT

Where has the president of Malawi been? Jimmy Kainja, a lecturer at the University of Malawi, takes a look at the issue.

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Where has the president of Malawi been? Jimmy Kainja, a lecturer at the University of Malawi, takes a look at the issue.

The president of Malawi, Peter Mutharika, has finally returned home after a month-long absence.

His still unexplained absence led to speculation that he had either gone awol or was hiding debilitating illness. The failure by his government to explain his whereabouts only served to fuel the speculation.

Mutharika landed in New York on September 16 for the UN general assembly, which ended on September 26. As it is always the case in Malawi, the reports about his trip were dominated by issues about the size of his entourage. Malawi’s presidents always travel with a team of cronies and hangers-on at the expense of the Malawi taxpayers.

When Mutharika finally returned on October 16, he only used his left hand to wave at and greet people who welcomed him at the airport. Given that he is right-handed, the use of his left hand and the seemingly inflexible right hand gave credence to the rumours that he had been receiving medical treatment in America.

He didn’t hold the customary press conference for Malawi presidents returning from official duties. Instead the president held a press briefing five days later. He told the nation that he was in good health and that he only used his left hand because he was diagnosed with rheumatism on his right. He was not moving it, he explained, because he had received an injection on his way back home.

One needs to understand Malawian politics in order to appreciate this bizarre episode in which a state president can be unaccounted for.

That Malawi’s vice president, Saulos Chilima, was not mentioned at all during this episode is revealing. After considerable social media pressure, Mutharika’s communication team was eventually forced to respond about their president’s whereabouts.

But the team’s response to what were serious questions on a matter of public interest question bordered on contempt. Mutharika’s spokesperson retorted that the president was running the country via Skype. Yet the vice president is supposed to assume full presidential duties in the absence of the president.

There is a dynamic behind the spokesperson’s emphasis on Mutharika working remotely. Saying this meant the vice president was not the one in control as that might have serious political implications within the ruling party. The message was that the vice president, a party outsider, did not make decisions on behalf of the president and by extension the ruling party.

Absence continues to feed speculation

Whatever the state of the president’s health, it is clear that the government has lost control over public opinion and has a huge task to regain public trust. To paraphrase James Freeman Clarke, the difference between a politician and a good leader is that a politician thinks about the next election while the good leader thinks about their country. Mutharika may yet be controlled by those who benefit from his presidency but it is his legacy that is at stake.

What was more peculiar was the fact that even the state media, which follows the president everywhere and publishes all the trivia about him, was silent this time. Speculation abounded about what was happening.

Malawians took to social media – mostly twitter and Facebook – demanding to know the whereabouts of their president, using the hashtag #BringBackMutharika.

The silence about the president’s absence continued to feed speculation, including that he was seriously ill. People are justified in their suspicions given a history of African leaders hiding illness.

The ruling party outsider

In the case of Mutharika the main fear is that his absence will result in his vice president, who is an outsider to the party, ascend to power. This is similar to the way that then out-of-favour vice president Joyce Banda succeeded the late Bingu wa Mutharika following his death in 2012.

Admitting to ill health would mean that the vice president would have to take over presidential duties until Mutharika is in a position to return to the office. As it is at the moment, this is the most plausible explanation for the information blackout.

Another reason proffered for his absence is that he was on vacation. After all, the president lived and taught law in American universities for over 40 years and his children are residents there.

The claim that he was working remotely remains doubtful given the lack of coverage of this by the state media and absence of any evidence.

The silence over his whereabouts has everything to do with internal ruling party politics. The vice president is an outsider within the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. He was picked from the corporate world to run as Mutharika’s running mate on the eve of May 2014 elections. Chilima was chosen for his youthfulness and achievements at Airtel (Malawi) where he rose through the ranks to become the company’s chief executive officer.

For the ruling party, the problem with Chilima is that no one can stop him assuming full presidential powers in absence of Mutharika, as this is constitutional. Therefore it is crucial for those wishing Chilima out to insist that Mutharika is in charge even when this may not be the case.

Ultimately, Malawi is bound to pay for such politics as it has the capacity to leave a power vacuum. At the moment Malawians are enduring daily power cuts, eight hours on average. Residents of Lilongwe, the capital city and its main commercial city Blantyre, are going days, sometimes weeks without running water.

Polytechnic, a constituent college of University of Malawi has failed to open due to fees increase stand off between students union and the university council. Yet, petty politics has taken precedence.

* Jimmy Kainja is a lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Malawi.

** The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Media.

The Conversation

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‘Sanctions hurting us’- Zim

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 01:38 AM PDT

Zimbabwe Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa claims the country's efforts to achieve Agenda 2030 goals were being hampered by economic sanctions.

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Harare - Zimbabwe Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday claimed the country's efforts to achieve Agenda 2030 goals were being hampered by economic sanctions imposed by the West.

In a speech read on his behalf by Minister of Information, Christopher Mushowe, at a function to mark the United Nations's 71st anniversary in Harare, Mnangagwa said the country was doing its best despite the limited fiscal space.

"His excellency, President Robert Mugabe, noted in his address at the United Nations General Assembly that the 16 years of illegal sanctions are hurting the economy and constraining Zimbabwe's ability to achieve Agenda 2030 goals," he said.

Mnangagwa said, however, that the country had registered significant progress in some of the Sustainable Development Goals such as universal primary education, gender equality and women empowerment.

"Going forward, Zimbabwe needs to focus on inclusive economic growth and rural development to reduce poverty," he said.

United Nations Resident Coordinator, Bishow Parajuli, said respect for rule of law and human rights were key in achieving sustainable development, adding SDGs could be achieved even under difficult circumstances.

"Achieving the SDGs, particularly ending poverty is possible even under difficult conditions if we focus on building resilience, invest in rural communities and empower the youth to harness the demographic dividend," he said.

He encouraged other stakeholders to partner government in its programmes.

AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

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News Africa Extended

2016-10-25T01:30:00.001-06:00

News Africa Extended

Deadly crash: Cameroon mourns amid anger
Nearly 3 000 Kenyan deathrow inmates escape hangman
'S Sudan president, opposition leader should step down'
African editors, press officers gather in Pretoria

Deadly crash: Cameroon mourns amid anger

Posted: 25 Oct 2016 12:24 AM PDT

Cameroon observed a day of mourning for victims of a deadly rail accident that killed at least 75 people.

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Yaounde/Eseka, Cameroon - Cameroon observed a day of mourning on Monday for victims of a deadly rail accident that has killed at least 75 people and exposed widespread frustration with one of Africa's longest-ruling presidents.

At the Eseka train station near where a packed passenger train carrying more than 1,300 people from Yaounde to the port of Douala derailed and flipped over last week, thousands of people gathered to mourn.

Many wore black and carried small branches from the local "peace tree" associated with sorrow during the inter-religious service where they sang religious hymns.

The official death toll from the accident is expected to rise further, with an unspecified number of unidentified bodies being kept in a Yaounde morgue, according to state television.

The work has been complicated by the fact there were no official lists of passengers since many did not have tickets.

"I still cannot find my brother who was on this train," said Arouna in Yaounde, who did not want to give his full name. "Nobody has been able to help me since Friday."

In Eseka, some residents said they had seen many more bodies than had been officially reported although this could not be independently verified. Around 600 people are still being treated for injuries and officials made urgent calls for blood donations to help those who still needed transfusions.

On the streets of the capital Yaounde, many openly criticised the reaction of President Paul Biya's government to an accident which they say should have been avoidable.

A train run by the same company, Camrail, a unit of French industrial group Bollore, also derailed in 2009 near Yaounde, killing five people and injuring more than 200.

"Many people are dead because they did not receive help that could have saved them at the right time," said Baudelaire Kemajou, a survivor of the crash who lost several friends in the accident and had to wait four hours for help.

A local travel agency sent cars to transport the injured before official help arrived, witnesses said.

Demand for tickets on the Camrail train had been especially high due to the collapse of a portion of a main highway on the same route and extra carriages were added at the last minute.

It is unclear whether this played a role in the crash.

Biya, who has ruled since 1982, arrived back in the country on Sunday afternoon after a 35-day absence following the UN General Assembly in New York and a "a private stay in Europe", according to his website.

While Biya is often absent for long periods, some expressed anger that he had not returned earlier to manage the crisis.

"Cameroonians are exasperated by his repeated shows of indifference during the tragedies of this country over the past 34 years," said Jean Michel Nintcheu, a member of parliament for the opposition Social Democratic Front.

Government officials have previously defended the absences, saying he does not need to be physically present to rule. Biya has called for an investigation into the crash and said the government would pay hospital fees for the injured.

Other Cameroonians said that his wife Chantal's decision to step off the plane wearing a bright pink suit jarred with the national mood of mourning.

"Her choice of clothes shows the disdain she has for the poor...She doesn't show her compassion," said Paulin, an economy ministry official who declined to give his full name.

However, Hans De Marie Heungoup, Cameroon analyst with International Crisis Group, said he doubted the incident would have major long-term political consequences for Biya.

"In Cameroonian politics there is practically no culture of accountability," he said, describing opposition to Biya as "fragile and fragmented".

Reuters

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Nearly 3 000 Kenyan deathrow inmates escape hangman

Posted: 24 Oct 2016 12:56 PM PDT

Almost 3 000 deathrow convicts in Kenya escaped the hangman’s noose after President Uhuru Kenyatta commuted their death sentences into life jail terms.

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Nairobi - A total of 2 747 deathrow convicts in Kenya on Monday escaped the hangman’s noose after President Uhuru Kenyatta commuted their death sentences into life jail terms.

In Kenya a life jail term means serving life imprisonment unless otherwise pardoned by a Presidential decree.

In a statement from State House Nairobi, the President effectively saved the hanging of 2 655 male convicts and 92 female convicts who will be now be removed from the death row to serve life sentences.

In 2009, former President Mwai Kibaki commuted the sentences of all those on death row to life imprisonment. The decision affected over 4 000 prisoners and at the time was said to be one of the largest commutation of death sentences anywhere in the world.

According to the Kenya Prisons Act, executions are to be carried out by hanging. The last hanging in Kenya took place in 1987 after the plotters of the August 1982 coup attempt were sentenced to death. Although there hasn’t been a hanging since then, scores of convicts are sentenced to death each year.

Invoking the Power of Mercy provided for under Article 133 of the Constitution, Kenyatta on Monday also signed a pardon warrant and released 102 long-term serving convicts.

The reprieve for the 102 convicts came after a thorough vetting by the Power of Mercy Advisory Committee.

The Power of Mercy is a prerogative power conferred on the President by the Constitution and entails granting pardon to reformed and rehabilitated convicted criminal offenders deserving early release from prison.

The move by the President comes soon after the launch of the second and final leg of the Kenya national public debate on capital punishment.

The debate is to solicit views from Kenyans on the administration of capital punishment and management of capital offences or what is popularly known as the death penalty.

The public discussion being spearheaded by the Power of Mercy Advisory Committee (POMAC) and National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) will be conducted in 28 Counties countrywide, within the next two months.

According to the Kenyan law, five types of offences attract capital punishment (death sentence). These are: murder, treason, and robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence and oathing with intent to commit a felony.

Present at the signing of the documents were Attorney General Githu Muigai, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery, Power of Mercy Advisory Committee Secretary Michael Kagika Prisons Commissioner General Isaiah Osugo, and Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua.

African News Agency

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'S Sudan president, opposition leader should step down'

Posted: 24 Oct 2016 04:35 AM PDT

South Sudan could disintegrate into ethnic enclaves, former deputy defence minister Majak Agot says.

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Johannesburg - South Sudan could disintegrate into ethnic enclaves if both South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former opposition leader Dr Riek Machar don't step down, according to former deputy defence minister Majak Agot.

Agot also warned that both Kiir and Machar, who is currently in South Africa receiving medical treatment, were responsible for the state of anarchy in the country, the Sudan Tribune reported on Monday.

The former deputy defence minister was arrested in 2013 for allegedly instigating fighting in the capital Juba.

South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in 2013.

In December of that year, a civil war broke out between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), supporters of Kiir who are mostly ethnic Dinka, and the armed supporters of Machar's SPLA-In Opposition (SPLA-IO) who are Nuer tribesmen.

A peace treaty was signed in August 2015 and Machar returned to Juba in April of this year but fled the country again in July when fighting once again broke out between the two sides.

In his absence, Kiir replaced Machar with Taban Deng Gai, a move that further exacerbated the fractious relationship between Machar and Kiir.

"There is a potential threat of a total breakdown of the state. It's a level of degeneration that was unexpected," said Agot.

"Policies that are being implemented are pushing people apart and destroying the social fabric," the Tribune reported Agot saying. "There is intense hate speech, ethnic mobilisation and this is leading to fragmentation."

Meanwhile, the Tribune reported that officials in South Sudan's Yei state have switched allegiance from the government to the armed opposition faction led by Machar, claiming the army in the area was no longer protecting people.

"Yei county commissioner, Bidali Cosmas Wori-Kojo, is one the state's local officials who have defected to the armed opposition faction," reported the Tribune.

The official, who defected on Saturday, was also joined and accompanied by many government soldiers. He cited the failure and unwillingness of the government to bring peace to the country.

African News Agency

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African editors, press officers gather in Pretoria

Posted: 23 Oct 2016 11:58 PM PDT

The African Union is to host a joint sitting of the Africa Editors' Forum and Press Officers in Pretoria.

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Pretoria - African Union (AU) Commission chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will host a joint sitting of the Africa Editors' Forum and Press Officers here on Monday and Tuesday.

The theme of the engagement is "Deepening Africa's narrative and capacities to deliver Agenda 2063", the South African government communication and information system (GCIS) said in a statement on Sunday.

"This is the first time South Africa will host the joint sitting of up to 80 editors from across the African continent as well as press officers under the AU banner. The previous meeting was held in Rwanda alongside the AU heads of state summit earlier this year," the GCIS statement said.

Dlamini-Zuma would address the forum for the last time as chairperson of the AU Commission and give African editors an opportunity to engage with her as she concluded her extended four-year tenure.

Elections to replace her, which failed to conclude in Rwanda in July, will now be held in January.

The GCIS said discussions with the editors will reflect on AU milestones over the past four years; create better understanding of Agenda 2063; discuss the role of African media in popularising Agenda 2063; assess the role of accurate reporting in shaping an African narrative, and advocate media ownership among Africans.

African News Agency

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