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The Zambian government has declared 21 days of national mourning for that country’s first president Kenneth Kaunda, who died at the age of 97 yesterday at Maina Soko Medical Centre in Lusaka, Zambia. In a statement confirming the nationalist’s demise, Zambia’s Secretary to the Cabinet Simon Miti said entertainment activities would be suspended while the …
The post 21 days of national mourning for Kenneth Kaunda appeared first on The Times Group Malawi.
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
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Opposition MPs boycotted the swearing-in of the new MP stressing that the condition of Lissu was known to the National Assembly but speaker John Ndugai defended the decision at the time, saying the absentee Lissu had breached parliamentary procedures.
Lissu, an avowed Magufuli critic – arrested a number of times prior to the 2017 attack – said the last five years of the Magufuli government had plunged Tanzania into economic, political and diplomatic difficulties.
Chadema leader attacked – AP report
\tMin opposition leader was attacked by unidentified assailants as he entered his home late at night, officials with his party said Tuesday (June 9, 2020), just months ahead of a general election and as opposition figures face alleged harassment.
Freeman Mbowe, the leader of the opposition in parliament and chairman of the Chadema party, was rushed to a health center for treatment after he was attacked overnight in Dodoma, the administrative capital, Dodoma Regional Police Commander Gilles Murotto told reporters.
A climate of fear has grown in the East African nation, rights groups and critics say, as President John Magufuli seeks a second term in the October election that shows no sign of being delayed despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The President of Namibia, Dr. Hage Geingob, has commended the African Union (AU) for achieving what some thought would be impossible - a free, democratic, self-governing and most importantly an Africa without incessant civil wars.
READ: Commemorative Message on the 57th Africa Day - the Africa We Want
He said when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed, as it was then known before it metamorphosed to AU, its primary mandate was Africa's decolonization.
Geingob noted that in light of Its commitment to freeing Africa, acting at state level, without sacrificing state sovereignty, OAU was largely transaction in nature and it was able to promote unity and cooperation amongst African states.
The Namibian president noted that in order to better fulfill its mandate, the AU placed emphasis on the need for self-financing with the understanding that if Africa aims to achieve its developmental aspirations, Africans should fund such efforts in this regard.
Geingob said this made African leaders to decide in 2016 that institutional reforms of the AU were urgent and necessary, given the AU's expected role in driving the Africa We want under Agenda 2063.
Sierra Leone Telegraph: 19 October 2020: Ten African Heads of State have issued a strong call to other world leaders to increase their funding to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) or risk jeopardizing Sustainable Development Goal targets for eradicating poverty and hunger, particularly in Africa. “We share IFAD’s vision of vibrant rural communities…
It also critically examines inequalities between the global North and the global South, the growing influence of China's trade relations with Africa and, more importantly, it unpacks the deeply absorbed capitalist globalised hierarchies and the deep structures of racial thinking in the emerging global architecture, and examines the role of the African Union and other regional influential in rescuing the bank from the clutches of western buccaneers.
America's Treasury Secretary, Steven Terner Mnuchin, on May 22, 2020 called for an independent investigation into the affairs of the African Development Bank in the twilight of the re-election of the incumbent president on the heels of the whistleblowing accounts of perceived issues of executive impropriety in the recruitment and consultancy contracts.
Furthermore, another subtle and deadly foreign policy mechanism America uses to achieve its stranglehold on other nations, particularly Africa, is the mobilisation of international shame and brainwashing by which she lobbies other states into believing that the actions of a state or a region (Africa, in this instance) is inimical to America's interest.
Once there is an open knowledge that an institution like the Africa Development Bank is acting against international norms (America's interest, in this instance), other states, particularly the 27 non-regional members, may apply diplomatic pressure to forestall the re-election of Akinwumi Adesina as the President of the Bank.
The suspicion of the United States Treasury Secretary, Mnuchin, and his principal, Donald Trump, in a letter to Niale Kaba, Chairperson of the bank, encrusted fine points which disagreed with the conclusions - in line with corporate governance systems and rules of engagement - of the ethics committee of directors and the Chair of Bureau of Governors' findings on the allegations leveled against the bank's president is to avoid her veiled agenda, which is to rubbish the sterling performance of the bank as a regional player in African intra-trade resurgence and to thwart the promise the bank holds to leapfrog development and reduce poverty on the continent.
Zambia's former president Kenneth Kaunda, 97, is being treated for pnuemonia at a military hospital in the capital Lusaka, his office said on Tuesday.
While African countries contribute relatively little to climate change in terms of carbon emissions, they are likely to be the hardest hit.
Patrice Lumumba , in full Patrice Hemery Lumumba (born July 2, 1925, Onalua, Belgian Congo [now the Democratic Republic of the Congo]—died January 1961, Katanga province), African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June–September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later.
Lumumba was born in the village of Onalua in Kasai province, Belgian Congo. He was a member of the small Batetela ethnic group, a fact that became significant in his later political life. His two principal rivals, Moise Tshombe, who led the breakaway of the Katanga province, and Joseph Kasavubu, who later became the Congo’s president, both came from large, powerful ethnic groups from which they derived their major support, giving their political movements a regional character. In contrast, Lumumba’s movement emphasized its all-Congolese nature.
After attending a Protestant mission school, Lumumba went to work in Kindu-Port-Empain, where he became active in the club of the évolués (Western-educated Africans). He began to write essays and poems for Congolese journals. He also applied for and received full Belgian citizenship. Lumumba next moved to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to become a postal clerk and went on to become an accountant in the post office in Stanleyville (now Kisangani). There he continued to contribute to the Congolese press.
In 1955 Lumumba became regional president of a purely Congolese trade union of government employees that was not affiliated, as were other unions, to either of the two Belgian trade-union federations (socialist and Roman Catholic). He also became active in the Belgian Liberal Party in the Congo. Although conservative in many ways, the party was not linked to either of the trade-union federations, which were hostile to it. In 1956 Lumumba was invited with others on a study tour of Belgium under the auspices of the minister of colonies. On his return he was arrested on a charge of embezzlement from the
The Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against COVID-19 is a joint initiative between the People's Republic of China, the Republic of South Africa in its capacity as the Chair of the African Union (AU), and the Republic of Senegal in its capacity as the Co-Chair of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
We recognize the importance of public health issues to global peace and security and the well-being of people around the world, particularly the fact that Africa is extremely vulnerable to the ravages of this virus and needs solidarity and support, including resources from various parties to bolster its response to the pandemic and to support its economic and social development.
We welcome the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on COVID-19 response, which expresses deep concerns about the negative impacts and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizes the importance of global collaboration, and calls for intensified international cooperation, unity, solidarity and joint efforts to contain and mitigate the pandemic, and to pay particular attention to the needs of people in vulnerable situations.
China commends the solidarity and support extended by African countries, the AU and other regional organizations for China's COVID-19 response and appreciates the establishment of the AU COVID-19 Strategy and the appointment of Special Envoys to mobilize international support for Africa's efforts to address the economic challenges faced as a consequence of the pandemic, and further commends the resilience African countries have demonstrated and the positive results thus achieved in curbing the spread of the virus by adopting preventive measures.
We fully recognize the positive role of China-Africa investment and financing cooperation in promoting development and improving people's lives in Africa, and call on the international community to work in solidarity and collaboration, share best practices, and provide more material, technical, financial and humanitarian support to help African countries overcome the impact of COVID-19 and achieve independent and sustainable development.
There are now more than over 90,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the continent, with a number of African countries imposing a range of prevention and containment measures against the spread of the pandemic.
According to the latest data by the John Hopkins University and Africa Center for Disease Control on COVID-19 in Africa, the breakdown remains fluid as countries confirm cases as and when.
As of May 13, every African country had recorded an infection, the last being Lesotho.
We shall keep updating this list largely sourced from the John Hopkins University tallies, Africa CDC and from official government data.
SUGGESTED READING: Africa’s COVID-19 deaths pass 1,000 mark
Major African stats: May 21 at 7:00 GMT:
\t
\t\tConfirmed cases = 95,482
\t\tNumber of deaths = 3,000
\t\tRecoveries = 38,120
\t\tActive cases = 54,362
Countries in alphabetical order
\t\tAlgeria – 7,542
\t\tAngola – 52
\t\tBenin – 130
\t\tBotswana – 29
\t\tBurkina Faso – 809
\t\tBurundi – 42
\t\tCameroon – 3,733
\t\tCape Verde – 349
\t\tCentral African Republic – 418
\t\tChad – 565
\t\tComoros – 34
\t\tCongo-Brazzaville – 420
\t\tDR Congo – 1,731
\t\tDjibouti – 1,828
\t\tEgypt – 14,229
\t\tEquatorial Guinea – 890
\t\tEritrea – 39
\t\tEswatini – 217
\t\tEthiopia – 389
\t\tGabon – 1,567
\t\t(The) Gambia – 24
\t\tGhana – 6,269
\t\tGuinea – 2,863
\t\tGuinea-Bissau – 1,089
\t\tIvory Coast – 2,231
\t\tKenya – 1,029
\t\tLesotho – 1
\t\tLiberia – 238
\t\tLibya – 69
\t\tMadagascar – 371
\t\tMalawi – 71
\t\tMali – 931
\t\tMauritania – 141
\t\tMauritius – 332
\t\tMorocco – 7,133
\t\tMozambique – 156
\t\tNamibia – 16
\t\tNiger – 920
\t\tNigeria- 6,677
\t\tRwanda – 314
\t\tSao Tome and Principe – 251
\t\tSenegal – 2,714
\t\tSeychelles – 11
\t\tSierra Leone – 570
\t\tSomalia – 1,573
\t\tSouth Africa – 18,003
\t\tSouth Sudan – 290
\t\tSudan – 3,138
\t\tTanzania – 509
\t\tTogo – 340
\t\tTunisia – 1,045
\t\tUganda – 264
\t\tZambia – 832
\t\tZimbabwe – 48
SUGGESTED READING: rolling coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in Africa II
May 27: Health Minister infected, cases pass 1,000 mark
\tLocal media portals have reported that Zambia’s health minister has tested positive for COVID-19.
Zambia virus stats as of May 24, 2020 at 13:00 GMT
Confirmed cases = 920
Deaths = 7
Recoveries = 336
Active cases = 577
May 20: Nakonde records more new cases
\tNakonde, the border town with Tanzania continues to record more cases of the virus.
The one-stop border post in Nakonde was closed last week by President Lungu amid a spike in cases.
May 14 = 654 cases (208 new cases), 7 deaths, 124 recoveries
\t\tMay 13 = 446 cases (5 new cases), 7 deaths, 117 recoveries
\t\tMay 12 = 441 cases (174 new cases), 7 deaths, 117 recoveries
\t\tMay 11 = 267 cases (0 new cases), 7 deaths, 117 recoveries
\t\tMay 10 = 267 cases, 7 deaths, 117 recoveries
\tThe town of Nakonde was declared a hot spot by the Ministry of Health on May 10 leading to the closure of the frontier with Tanzania.
On Saturday (May 9) 76 new cases were reported in Nakonde, the border town in question.
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was the first Prime Minister ofNigeria before and after Nigerian independence from Great Britain in 1960.
Born in December of 1912 in Bauchi in Northern Nigeria,Balewas father, Mallam Yakubu, was a minor official in the Native Authority,part of the British colonial administration. Balewa received his primary education in Tafawa Balewa from 1922 to1925. He then attended Bauchi Middle Schoolin Bauchi from 1925 to 1928. Followingthis Balewa attended KatsinaTeachers TrainingCollege from 1928 to 1933where he received his teaching certification. After graduation Balewa returned to Bauchi Middle Schoolas a teacher where he taught English to his pupils.
During the next ten years Balewa rose in the ranks of theteaching staff, qualifying as a Teacher Grade I in Nigeria in 1944. The following year he was admitted to LondonUniversity Institute of Education, receiving his diploma in 1946. Balewa returned to BauchiMiddle School in 1949 as Headmasterand afterwards served briefly as Inspector of Schools in Nigeria.
Abubakar Balewa entered politics after returning to Nigeria. He and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello founded theNorthern Peoples Congress (NPC) to represent the Muslim majority in Northern Nigeria. Balewa was elected to the colonys Northern House of Assembly in 1946where he gave a famous and impassioned speech calling for a radical change inthe Native Administration and its relations with Great Britain. Soon after this speech the British beganrestructuring the Native Authority for self-rule and eventually Nigerianindependence. In 1955 Balewa wasappointed Federal Minister of Works and Transport by Nigerias Colonial Governor, SirJames Wilson Robertson. When Nigeriawas granted self governance in 1957 Balewa became Prime Minister. In January 1960, Balewa was knighted byQueen Elizabeth of GreatBritain.
Following Nigerian independence on October 1, 1960 Balewacontinued in his post as Prime Minister of Nigeria in a power sharingarrangement with Nnamdi Azikiwe, the countrys first
Dozens of residents evicted by one commercial farmer in 2013 lived out in the open for months, then later in tents or shoddy housing on the fringes of a government forest reserve, with inadequate access to water and no source of livelihood or permission to cultivate land.
The court ordered the attorney general, the local government and one of the companies at issue to provide relief, including providing alternative land and compensation for rights violations.
The government should swiftly execute this order to ensure that community members have access to land and water and get help with building new homes and returning to farming.
Petitioners had sought more and requested that the court cancel the commercial farm's land title, and questioned the legality of the conversion of their land into a farm block.
The court then ordered the government to provide alternative land and compensation.
In a message to African leaders to mark the \"Africa Day 2020,\" commemorated by the African Union Commission in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), President Buhari said Africa has given the world a new hope by choosing the theme\"Silencing the Guns in the context of the COVID-19\" for this year's Africa Day.
Mr Buhari stressed the need for African leaders to ensure that every effort is made to ensure the success of silencing the guns on the continent, emphasising the need to sensitize Africans about the inseparable connection between peace and development.
\"Peace, security, unity and harmony are prerequisites for development in Africa,\" the Nigerian leader said, urging citizens all over the continent to innovate on how\"Silencing the Guns\" can be used to achieve peace and grow African economies.
He also urged regional economic groups, civil society organisations and the private sector in Africa to take full ownership of the theme of this year's celebration to strengthen collaborative efforts among member-countries of the African Union.
Africa Day is observed annually on 25 May, to commemorate the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor of the African Union, which was created on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Opinion - The African Union marks its 18 birthday on July 9, 2020. Launched to help transform Africa into an oasis of peace and development, the AU's dream for the continent is still a distant one, writes DW's Isaac Mugabi.
According to BBC’s Kennedy Gondwe report, another reason for the tension in Zambia is reports that Zambian employees at Chinese industrial facilities, are being forced to sleep at work to prevent coronavirus from spreading.
According to China’s state-run Global Times news site, “Sunday’s attack was likely to have been prompted by Zambians who misunderstood the good intentions of some Chinese firms that have recently been prohibiting employees from going home after their shifts in response to the coronavirus crisis.”
He has been organizing impromptu raids on Chinese factories reported to be mistreating locals.
Reports by BBC states that, “He has also been sharing posts on Facebook, including videos, of his impromptu raids on Chinese-owned factories where workers are allegedly being mistreated.
In one video, he confronts Chinese managers at a truck assembly plant about their policy of detaining workers and orders them to allow the Zambian workers to go home.”
May 10: Closure of border with Tanzania
\tThe Zambian government has announced the closure of its common border with Tanzania.
The president directed that with effect from Monday 11th May, 2020; “the Nakonde border will be temporarily closed.
May 8: Relaxation of lockdown measures
\tThe president in an address to the nation on Friday announced the reopening of restaurants, gyms and casinos “as he calls on Zambian scientists to find local solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic,” local news portal Mwebantu reported.
The president also challenged Zambian scientists to help find local solution to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johanneburg — Officials in Africa have expressed concern over developments in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, the black American man killed in police custody in the city of Minneapolis last week.
The head of the African Union described Floyd’s death as an act of “murder,” while South Africa’s ruling party is calling for calm in the U.S. Statements from the African continent could portend a shift in global relations — and hopefully, analysts say, make a bigger point: whether you live in Minneapolis or Monrovia, George Floyd’s death affects us all.
In Addis Ababa, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat took the U.S. government to task over the death of Floyd.
Meanwhile, U.S. embassies in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo issued rare statements of concern over Floyd’s May 25 death and called for accountability after the arrest of a police officer on third-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
This week, as fires burned across the U.S., South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party also weighed in in the mounting crisis, saying the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor show that “American society places a perilously low value on black lives.”
[New Dawn] The President of the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org), Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, has called for fair access to COVID-19 vaccines for Africans and said debt relief would help African economies recover faster and better from the pandemic.
The gruesome murder of George Floyd, an African American, while handcuffed and pinned to the ground by the knee of Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, has provoked deeper implications for the systemic racial injustice in the United States of America.
Any serious ground protests would have been crushed by various African dictatorial regimes which, like the American police, have not shown that “black lives matter.”
This economic disparity, more than any factor, accounts for why Africa continues to bear the brunt of U.S. immigration policy while the African Americans suffer the worst cases of racial injustice in the United States.
The blacks in America and Europe, on the other hand, wield ample political power to hold African leaders accountable through lobbying, especially considering that the only voices African dictators tend to hear are the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Though the sweeping reforms to mitigate racial injustice in the United States and Europe are encouraging, any attempt at a lasting solution without major socio-economic revolution within the African race is a castle in the air.
21 days of mourning declared for Zambia's founding father and "Africa's Gandhi"-- former president, Kenneth Kuanda, after he passed away at 97.
Wang Yi's visit comes just days before a new government sets up in Washington. There's concern that US-China rivalry in Africa will only escalate
There are now more than over 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the continent, with a number of African countries imposing a range of prevention and containment measures against the spread of the pandemic.
SUGGESTED READING: Africa’s COVID-19 deaths pass 100,000 mark
Major African stats: May 23 at 7:00 GMT:
\t\tConfirmed cases = 103,875
\t\tNumber of deaths = 3,184
\t\tRecoveries = 41,576
\t\tActive cases = 59,115
\t\tAlgeria – 7,918
\t\tAngola – 60
\t\tBenin – 135
\t\tBotswana – 30
\t\tBurkina Faso – 814
\t\tCameroon – 4,400
\t\tCape Verde – 362
\t\tCentral African Republic – 479
\t\tChad – 611
\t\tComoros – 78
\t\tCongo-Brazzaville – 469
\t\tDR Congo – 1,945
\t\tDjibouti – 2,270
\t\tEgypt – 15,786
\t\tEquatorial Guinea – 960
\t\tEswatini – 225
\t\tEthiopia – 433
\t\tGabon – 1,728
\t\t(The) Gambia – 25
\t\tGhana – 6,486
\t\tGuinea – 3,067
\t\tGuinea-Bissau – 1,114
\t\tIvory Coast – 2,341
\t\tKenya – 1,161
\t\tLesotho – 2
\t\tLiberia – 249
\t\tLibya – 72
\t\tMadagascar – 448
\t\tMalawi – 82
\t\tMali – 969
\t\tMauritania – 200
\t\tMorocco – 7,332
\t\tMozambique – 164
\t\tNamibia – 19
\t\tNiger – 937
\t\tNigeria- 7,261
\t\tRwanda – 321
\t\tSenegal – 2,909
\t\tSierra Leone – 606
\t\tSomalia – 1,594
\t\tSouth Africa – 20,125
\t\tSouth Sudan – 563
\t\tSudan – 3,378
\t\tTogo – 363
\t\tTunisia – 1,048
\t\tUganda – 175
\t\tZambia – 920
\t\tZimbabwe – 51
[Nation] The US government on Monday indicated it will lift sanctions imposed on Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism soon, once Khartoum pays up the $335 million it agreed to settle with victims' families.
West African leaders may lift painful economic sanctions against Mali once an interim president is inaugurated on Friday in the wake of the Aug. 18 military coup, the bloc's envoy said, praising the junta's leadership.
The African rainforest stretches across much of the central African continent, encompassing the following countries in its woods: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote dIvoire (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Except for the Congo Basin, the tropical rainforests of Africa have been largely depleted by commercial exploitation by logging and conversion for agriculture, and in West Africa, nearly 90 percent of the original rainforest is gone and the remainder is heavily fragmented and in poor use.
Especially problematic in Africa is desertification and conversion of rainforests to erodible agriculture and grazing lands, though there are a number of global initiatives in place through the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations which are hoping to mitigate these concerns.
By far, the largest number of countries with rainforests are located in one geographical section of the World — the Afrotropical region. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates these 38 countries exist mainly in West and Central Africa. These countries, for the most part, are very poor and live at the subsistence level.
Most of the tropical rainforests of Africa exist in the Congo (Zaire) River Basin, though remnants also exist throughout Western Africa in a sorry state due to the plight of poverty which encourages subsistence agriculture and firewood harvesting. This realm is dry and seasonal when compared to the other realms, and the outlying portions of this rainforest are steadily becoming a desert.
Over 90% of West Africas original forest has been lost over the last century and only a small part of what remains qualifies as closed forest. Africa lost the highest percentage of rainforests during the
In 1972, Kaunda outlawed all opposition political parties. The world copper market collapsed in 1975. The Zambian economy was devastated—it had been the third-largest miner of copper in the world after the United States and Soviet Union. With a soaring debt and inflation rate in 1991, riots took place in Lusaka, resulting in a number of killings. Mounting domestic pressure forced Kaunda to move Zambia toward multiparty democracy. National elections on Oct. 31, 1991, brought a stunning defeat to Kaunda. The new president, Frederick Chiluba, called for sweeping economic reforms, including privatization and the establishment of a stock market. He was reelected in Nov. 1996. Chiluba declared martial law in 1997 and arrested Kaunda following a failed coup attempt. The 1999 slump in world copper prices again depressed the economy because copper provides 80% of Zambias export earnings.
In 2001, Chiluba contemplated changing the constitution to allow him to run for another presidential term. After protests he relented and selected Levy Mwanawasa, a former vice president with whom he had fallen out, as his successor. Mwanawasa became president in Jan. 2002; opposition parties protested over alleged fraud. In June 2002, Mwanawasa, once seen as a pawn of Chiluba, accused the former president of stealing millions from the government while in office. Chiluba was arrested and charged in Feb. 2003.
Although the country faced the threat of famine in 2002, the president refused to accept any international donations of food that had been genetically modified, which Mwanawasa considered “poison.” In Aug. 2003, impeachment proceedings against the president for corruption were rejected by parliament. In April 2005, the World Bank approved a $3.8 billion debt relief package for the country.
In Sept. 2006 presidential elections, incumbent Levy Mwanawasa was reelected. President Mwanawasa suffered a stroke in June 2008 and died in Paris in September. Vice President Rupiah Banda took over as acting president and was elected president
