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In Chad, opposition parties do not recognise the newly declared transitional council and warn France to not meddle in the nation's political affairs.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
[MAP] Paris -- By promoting culture, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, and by proving to the whole world that we can reconcile culture and health, Morocco, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, sets an example, said the President of the Arab World Institute (IMA), Jack Lang.
BY MIRIAM MANGWAYA THE Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) is anticipating increased political tensions and contestations ahead of the 2023 harmonised election following the continued political instability in the country since the 2018 elections. In the ZRP Horizon 2025, a document which maps the organisation’s strategic plan for the next five years, the police asked government to avail funds for the acquisition of adequate equipment to manage public disorder and disaster situations. Police claim that media polarisation was fuelling political activism, resulting in security forces having to devote more time and resources to managing public disorder, thereby constraining the organisation’s crime reduction efforts. “The period 2021 to 2025 is anticipated to be punctuated by political (in)stability even though the 2018 harmonised elections left some sections of the society disgruntled,” part of the document read. “Consequently, polarisation and tension remain evident as they continue to dominate the social and mass media. Therefore, since the planning period ahead also has harmonised elections slated for 2023, an increase in tension and political contestation is expected.” Post-electoral violence plunged the country into chaos in August 2018, with army deployed to quell the unrest claiming six lives. MDC Alliance supporters took to the streets to protest delays in the announcement of presidential results in an election President Emmerson Mnangagwa was eventually pronounced winner. In 2008, the country experienced its worst electoral violence when the late former President Robert Mugabe unleashed party youths and war veterans, soldiers and the police on the opposition in a bid to overturn a first round poll defeat to the late MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai was later forced to pull out of the race “to save lives” in a wave of violence that claimed over 300 of his supporters, injuring thousands while tens of thousands were displaced. Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe said government was aware that police required adequate funding to enhance policing. “Police officers need to have modern tools of the trade and resources at their disposal if they are to outmanoeuvre criminal propensity and sophistry,” Kazembe, whose Zanu PF party is often accused of the violence, said. “Similarly, concerted efforts will relentlessly be made by the government to avail the requisite resources which include modern policing technology gadgets and equipment in order to operationalise this strategy.” In the next five years, the organisation says it will also employ advanced technologies and resources to counter terrorism. “The organisation is also alive to the fact that political extremism manifesting in the form of terrorism has now found its way into some Sadc member states. This scourge has the potential to engulf the entire region,” the ZRP said. “To this end, enhanced information sharing, use of advanced technologies, training and resource mobilisation will go a long way in countering terrorism.” Police Commissioner-General Godwin
Algeria has recalled its ambassador in France, in response to the airing of two documentaries on the anti-regime protest movement known as 'Hirak'.
The Algerian foreign affairs ministry said the decision by French television to do so was an \"insult\" to his country's institutions.
Strong reactions to the showing of Algérie mon amour, directed by French journalist of Algerian origin Mustapha Kessous, quickly appeared on social media, illustrating the stark divisions in society over the protest movement and the discussion of cultural taboos.
\"The screening of programmes such as these on French television, under the banner of freedom of expression, are in fact attacks against the Algerian people, its institutions, including the national army (ANP),\" the Algerian foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.
He was referring to statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron early on in the Hirak protest movement, calling for \"a transition of reasonable duration\" - remarks seen by Algiers as \"interference\" in its internal affairs.
Niamey is the largest city and capital of the West African nation of Niger. Niamey is located in the southwestern part of the country along the left bank of the Niger River. Niger is the largest nation within West Africa in terms of physical size, and Niamey is the administrative, economic, and cultural center of the country.
Historians debate the early history of Niamey. Some argue it was originally a Songhai fishing village named after the local Niami tree, while others maintain it was founded by a Djerma chief named Kouri Mali. Yet, most agree that the site was inhabited by small numbers of Hausa, Djerma-Songhai, and Wazi peoples before European colonization.
In the late 1890s the French began to colonize Niger. In 1902, the French built a military fort in Niamey, a small fishing village at the time. Then, in 1926, the French moved their colonial capital from Zinder to Niamey to facilitate trade along the Niger River with other French territories in West Africa.
During the colonial period, Niamey also served as an important connection point in overland trade of agricultural goods. These agricultural products were grown in Niger’s outlying areas and transported to domestic and international markets, especially Abidjan and Lagos. However, trade was hampered by a lack of railway connections through Burkina Faso and poor roads throughout the region, which were often impassable during the rainy season.
The population of Niamey remained small into the 1940s with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. After World War II the city’s population began to increase as greater African autonomy seemed near and Niamey appeared to be a likely government center. In 1960, Niger won independence and Niamey became its capital.
After independence Niamey continued to grow, attracting Hausa and Yoruba merchants from around Niger, as well as from neighboring Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. In the 1970s, Niger saw great profits from the nation’s uranium reserves, which financed Niamey’s modern infrastructure. When uranium prices
The U.S. criticized Tanzania’s arrest of eight opposition leaders during their party meeting on Wednesday, saying the action stifles democratic norms.
Political tensions are rising in Tanzania ahead of the October general elections in which President John Magufuli plans to seek re-election.
These actions follow a disconcerting pattern of intimidation toward opposition members, civil society and media outlets.
The government also closed the Tanzania Daima newspaper following coverage critical of Magufuli’s administration.
“These actions follow a disconcerting pattern of intimidation toward opposition members, civil society and media outlets,” the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said in a statement on its Twitter account.
With the reopening of the economy and more people hosting indoor and outdoor gatherings, many have an itch to hit the road for a summer vacation. However, some experts warn that staying home might prove a smarter decision.
Ivorians Tuesday paid tribute to Ivory Coast Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who died last week only three months before he was due to be the ruling party’s presidential candidate.
President Alassane Ouattara, who had considered Coulibaly his heir apparent, presided over the ceremony held at the Presidential Palace in the capital, Abidjan.
He was joined by Senegal’s President Macky Sall.
Ivory Coast’s Education Minister, Kandia Camara, said Amadou Gon (Coulibaly) was a great negotiator, who through his sense of compromise could bring about agreements from the most difficult positions. He added that when talking with civil society partners and the political opposition, he proved he had a great capacity for listening, for resilience, for compromise which allowed them to reach precious agreements.
“During the ministerial or government meetings, he had the gift and the talent to bring everyone into agreement through the power of his analysis and his summaries. He was our boss, who could stamp his rhythm, coherence, onto the government’s actions,” Camara, said.
The ceremony was broadcast live on national television and ended with Ouattara presenting the Ivorian flag to Coulibaly’s widow.
Coulibaly, who was 61, will be buried Friday in his hometown in northern Ivory Coast, officials said.
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for COVID-19 Thursday, following a week when he has met with numerous European leaders. The French and Spanish prime ministers are among those self-isolating because they had...
By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron planted a cedar tree in a forest north of Beirut on Tuesday, marking Lebanon's centenary ahead of talks with officials on ways to help extract the country from an unprecedented economic crisis and the aftermath of last month's massive blast that ripped through the Lebanese capital. The visit was Macron's second since the devastating Aug. 4 explosion — the most destructive single incident in Lebanon's history — that killed at lest 190 people and injured more than 6,000. This time Macron's visit, packed with events and political talks […]
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Darryll J. Pines may be one of the few people who understands the University of Maryland.
At least 60 people have been killed in a series of attacks on villages by armed gangs.
Possible retaliation
Last week, Nigeria's armed forces launched a series of bomb raids on camps in the northwest region in its latest attempt to curtail violence in the area.
In an apparent retaliation attack, armed gang members raided five villages in the Sabon Birni district on Monday, killing 18 people.
Rival communities in the region have been embroiled in years of violent conflict over land, with armed gangs and vigilante groups carrying out reprisal killings and ransom kidnappings.
According to the ICG, northwest Nigeria risks becoming a \"land bridge\" to jihadist groups across the Sahel region and called for stronger cooperation between Nigeria and Niger to prevent trafficking of arms on the border.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Liberia /l aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə/ ( listen), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its west, Guinea to its north and Ivory Coast to its east. It covers an area of 111,369 square kilometers (43,000 sq mi) and has a population of 4,503,000 people.[3] English is the official language and over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous tribes who make up more than 95% of the population. The countrys capital and largest city is Monrovia.
Forests on the coastline are composed mostly of salt-tolerant mangrove trees, while the more sparsely populated inland has forests opening onto a plateau of drier grasslands. The climate is equatorial, with significant rainfall during the May–October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia possesses about forty percent of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. It was an important producer of rubber in the early 20th century.
The Republic of Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States.[7] The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberias independence.[8] The U.S. did not recognize Liberias independence until during the American Civil War on February 5, 1862. Between January 7, 1822 and the American Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born blacks, who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to the settlement.[9] The black settlers carried their culture and tradition with them to Liberia. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected
GENEVA, Switzerland (CMC) The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has worsened the efforts by Caribbean countries to meet the 2020 targets on HIV/AIDS, a senior UNAIDS official said Wednesday.UNAIDS Caribbean Director Dr James Guwani, speaking at a virtual news conference, warned that the pandemic may blow the Caribbean off course.
\"There is a curfew throughout the Central African Republic from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.,\" the president announced in a statement read on national radio.
Ethiopian opposition party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has accused Prime minister Abiy Ahmed and his government of being in chaos and trying to thrive in chaos.
“It has become fashionable to blame TPLF for everything that goes wrong in the country,” Getachew Reda, a TPLF spokesman told the BBC denying that the front had any hand and or interest in the killing of Oromo entertainer Hachalu Hundessa early last week.
In a six page document titled “Context and Updates of Current Issues in Ethiopia,” the PM’s office cited two main factors for the assassination and subsequent deadly protests and mass arrests.
The document said “Unabated attempt made by aggrieved forces to perpetuate political tensions and increasing political polarization and the negative role of media in creating ethnic tensions;” were at the heart of the issues.
“It’s a flat-out lie,” Reda told the BBC stressing that the TPLF “doesn’t believe in eliminating individuals to make political scores.” The PM’s statement did not specifically mention TPLF but made inferences to them.
The paragraph that seemed to be pointing at the TPLF read: “... it should be mentioned here that the government is under constant and unrestrained pressure from disgruntled forces, organizing and supporting anti-peace elements, by using the economic and political muscles they have built over the last three decades, in order to undermine this inevitable reform process.”
Escalating war of words between PM Abiy administration and TPLF extremely dangerous, irresponsible.
Strategy of demonising TPLF deflects some of the Oromo anger but risks deepening sense of siege, victimhood in Tigray Region and stoke, potentially, new armed conflict.— Rashid Abdi (@RAbdiCG) July 10, 2020
Aside the TPLF, the governing party had also accused former Oromo rebel group of being behind the shooting of Hachalu Hundessa. Amid high security deployment, Addis Ababa and Oromia regional state remains peaceful according to reports.
Ethiopia is in the tenth day of an internet blackout that was effected the morning after the musician was killed. It is the longest blockade since Abiy came to power. A spokeswoman has defended the move.
“... if the internet is being used by certain forces to spread hate speech and vitriol, that is perpetuating and initiating ethnic, religious and communal violence, then ensuring human security supersedes,” Billene Aster Syoum told the BBC.
Since Sunday, 65 new patients have been diagnosed, including 31 locally transmitted cases in what has been dubbed a \"third wave\" of the pandemic in the global financial center.
Taxi drivers, restaurant workers, a medical clinic employee and a retirement home resident -- some of the people most vulnerable to the virus and likely to spread it -- have been diagnosed.
\"It is possible there could be a major outbreak,\" Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, the head of Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) Communicable Disease Branch said Wednesday. \"There could be a sudden exponential growth of cases.\"
Since the virus began spreading worldwide earlier this year, Hong Kong has recorded only 1,324 coronavirus cases and seven virus-related fatalities.
The city's success in containing Covid-19 has been attributed to the government's vigilant enforcement of quarantine for overseas arrivals, efficient contact tracing and residents' willingness to practice good hygiene, wear masks and practice social distancing.
While the new caseload and total number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 is very low compared to countries where the pandemic is running rampant, like the United States and Brazil, experts say the latest rise in cases shows that, despite even the most stringent anti-epidemic controls, the virus still poses a threat.
\"This virus will find every chink in your armor,\" said Dr. Sarah Borwein, a Hong Kong-based physician experienced in infectious diseases and epidemiology. \"We've seen that in Beijing, in Singapore, in South Korea and now in Israel, Australia and elsewhere.\"
Control measures had been working
Before Sunday, Hong Kong had gone three weeks without any instances of people contracting the virus locally, except for some cases directly linked to imported cases, for example, people living in the same house.
Life inside the city had mostly returned to normal, even as the virus ravaged other parts of the world. Bars and restaurants have been open for weeks, albeit at limited capacity, and gatherings of up to 50 people have been permitted since June 19.
Restrictions still apply to inbound travelers. Nearly all new arrivals to the territory are required to undergo a health screening and deep throat saliva test at a government facility at AsiaWorld-Expo, a massive convention center near the airport.
Those who test negative must spend 14 days in quarantine -- either in a government facility or at home with a monitoring wristband -- regularly checking themselves for any sign of the virus and reporting results back to relevant authorities. Positive cases are usually transferred to local hospitals, and their close contacts are sent to isolation centers.
Until this week, health officials had been able to identify and isolate the relatively small number of local cases. However, the recent rise in local transmission has prompted warnings of a community outbreak.
\"Since last weekend, the epidemic situation in Hong Kong has changed rapidly, and the situat
[VOA] Paris -- French President Emmanuel Macron will reportedly visit Kigali in coming weeks, following a report he commissioned which sheds a harsh light on France's alleged role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
[State Department] Moderator: Good afternoon to everyone from the U.S. Department of State's Africa Regional Media Hub. I would like to welcome our participants from across the continent and thank all of you for participating in this discussion.
The vote which seeks to cut the tenure of office for elected officials and allow dual citizenship was also seen as a test on the former soccer star's popularity
For many years believed to have been hiding in Kenya, Kabuga, born in 1935 in Muniga, Rwanda, is said to have been one of the perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi, in which more than a million people were killed.
Following international pressure, in 2008, then-Attorney-General Amos Wako went to court seeking orders of preservation of landed property known as Spanish Villas belonging to Mr Kabuga and his wife Josephine Mukazitoni and Kenya Trust Company Ltd (KTC Ltd) as respondents in the matter.
The AG sought orders to stop the Kabugas from selling the property until the conclusion of a case pending in the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) where Mr Kabuga was on trial.
Mr Kabuga acquired the property in 1995, and three years later KTC Ltd was contracted by the couple’s daughter, Bernadette Uwamariya, to manage it.
Investigators traced Mr Kabuga’s connection to Kenya even before the start of the genocide through a series of business deals.
By STEPHEN WADE AP Sports Writer TOKYO (AP) — Olympic 'participants' and fans arriving for next year's postponed Tokyo Games will be encouraged to be vaccinated to protect the Japanese public, IOC President Thomas Bach said Monday. Bach said it won't be mandatory, but he left no doubt it will be strongly pushed. Bach campaigned across Tokyo on Monday, his first visit to Japan since the Olympics were postponed almost eight months ago amid the coronavirus pandemic. He met support at all stops; from Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Yoshiro […]
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