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As she stepped off an evacuation boat from the besieged town of Palma in northern Mozambique, Mariamo Assane broke down, reliving the harrowing day she fled a ferocious rampage by Islamist militants.
The president also stressed the importance of keeping the economy open after months of stifling movement restrictions.
He urged citizens not to drop their guard and continue adhering to the health rules, such as wearing face masks and respecting curfew times.
South Africa has recorded just over 800,000 coronavirus infections - more than a third of the cases reported across the African continent - and over 20,000 deaths.
AFP
Black community members consistently have to worry about the use of excessive force in their interactions with the police.
After doctors diagnosed Lt. Yvan Pierre-Louis with COVID-19 in late March, the NYPD officer would go on to spend nearly six... View Article
The post NY officer returns home after 168-day stay at hospital due to virus appeared first on TheGrio.
Mozambique's health system bearing the brunt of coronavirus,
Cyclone Eloise and extremist Islamic groups in the Cabo Delgado province.
As the city, county and state governments mandated a host of restrictions last spring aimed at curving the spread of the COVID-19 virus, The New Tri-State Defender introduced readers to three Memphians navigating their way through the virus’ impact professionally and personally. The TSD has shared periodic updates on how the three – barber William […]
New Orleans has lots of strict COVID-19 guidelines in place including no dancing, but that didn’t stop the 2020 Naughty N’awlins Swingers Convention from happening on November 14th. Get Breaking News & Exclusive Contest in Your Inbox: In order to attend this year’s event, the 250 attendees were required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19…
Two Eastern Cape men have been handed heavy sentences for torturing and ultimately killing a man for money he received from the Road Accident Fund.
The community of Donald Trump supporters became a haven for white supremacists and alt-right groups promoting racist content.
Earlier this month, The Washington Post interviewed researchers with content moderation company Sentropy that found “r/The_Donald” and other right-wing subreddits had three times as much hate speech containing racist, sexist, religious and homophobic attacks as other groups and had six times as much hate speech containing white supremacist extremism.
Just as Reddit was placing a ban on the subreddit, over the weekend Trump retweeted and then deleted a video this weekend featuring a man yelling \"white power\" at a rally in Florida.
During a White House press briefing on Monday, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was not listening closely and did not hear the \"white power\" phrase.
McEnany told Fox News once Trump was notified that the man was screaming \"white power,\" he took it down, The Daily Beast reported.
… ranking Black lawmaker, want more African-Americans named to senior positions.
A …
DEAR President Emmerson Mnangagwa, BY JASMINE OPPERMAN I write this article addressing you as the immediate past chairperson of the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security. Your Excellency, I also am addressing you as a neighbour to a country which has been troubled by terrorism, wherein your country Zimbabwe has interests. This year, as the insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province has intensified, calls for regional intervention have grown louder. This is more than just talk: the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) is actively exploring ways to intervene, including some kind of military response. A virtual meeting of relevant Sadc committees on June 25-26 resulted in some progress. This included, according to sources, commitment from some countries for boots on the ground, but an overall strategy has not been locked down. Your Excellency, the process of doing so is frustrated by the reluctance of some countries to get involved; practical realities, such as who will fund an intervention; and Mozambique’s determination to remain “in charge” of the situation. There is no doubt that some kind of intervention is necessary, to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control. But caution is required. Walking in blindly — without understanding the complexities at play, and without addressing some of the socio-economic factors that underpin and exacerbate the violence — could make the situation even worse. A complex insurgency Your Excellency, the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, a coastal province in northern Mozambique, began in 2017 with an attack on a police station in the town of Mocimboa da Praia. Since then, the insurgency has gone from strength to strength, even though little is known about its motivations or intent. The insurgents go by the name Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama, and have reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. This year, both the frequency and intensity of attacks have increased, and the insurgents have gained access to more sophisticated weaponry. They are yet to attempt to set up any kind of parallel governance structure, but are showing sufficient sophistication to take on Mozambique’s security forces directly. They have also demonstrated the ability to briefly occupy towns such as Mocimboa da Praia and Macomia. Your Excellency, the response from Mozambique’s security forces has been characterised by coercive tactics and human rights abuses, which risks entrenching local grievances against the State. This is a challenge for any potential regional intervention: a close alignment with the Mozambican State could make it difficult to earn trust among affected communities, which is essential for any kind of peacekeeping effort. A recent MediaFax report noted that the Mozambican government’s hardline response had left young men in Cabo Delgado feeling sympathetic to the insurgents; they are more likely to support the insurgency in response to human rights violations by the State than out of any ideological conviction. Your Excellency, Sadc and member countries risk implicating th
The firing of a leading Black researcher on the ethics of artificial intelligence is reigniting debate over Google's treatment of employees who speak out, particularly women and people of color.
We must protect our Freedom Fighters.
We started a legal defense initiative to give legal representation to Freedom Fighters in Minneapolis paid for by Know Your Rights Camp,\" Kaepernick said in a tweet.
Already struggling with a high rate of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases, Malawi is coming to terms with increased cases of defilement and rape compelling activists and politicians alike to call for stiffer penalties for perpetrators. The latest case to have particularly incensed the nation is the defilement of a five-month-old baby by a 31-year-old in...
The post Malawi: Rape, defilement cases horrify a nation appeared first on Face2Face Africa.
Mali's interim government on Thursday announced the composition of a new legislative body for the West African country's transition to civilian rule, with the military retaining a key role.
Young army officers in the conflict-ridden Sahel state toppled president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on August 18 after weeks of anti-government protests.
Under the threat of international sanctions, the officers between September and October handed power to an interim government, which is meant to rule for 18 months before staging elections.
Coup leader Colonel Assimi Goita, who was made vice president of the interim government, was given veto power last month over the appointments to the 121-seat legislative body.
The move was seen by critics of the military-dominated interim regime as strengthening army control.
The final list for the new National Transitional Council was published by a decree from the interim president, Bah Ndaw, himself a retired army colonel.
The list of appointments was read out late Thursday on national television. Members of the defense and security forces received 22 seats.
The body will meet for the first time on Saturday and will elect its president.
The opposition June 5 Movement, or M5, last month called for \"resistance\" after it was announced Goita would have the final say on the MPs.
As interim vice president, Goita is in charge of security issues in a country which has struggled to quell a brutal militant insurgency since 2012.
The transitional government's mandate is meant to last for 18 months with a return to democratic civilian rule.
The disagreements over the assembly's composition threaten to derail plans for elections, national reconciliation and the fight against militants in the north of the country.
Anger over the seemingly endless conflict, as well as over perceived corruption, contributed to the protests which culminated in Keita's ouster.
[Nation] Dar es Salaam -- Police in Tanzania are following up on reports that the US has sanctioned a Tanzania national over his alleged role in leading a terror group in Mozambique.
In the drought-hit south of Madagascar, people are forced to fill their bellies with white clay mixed with tamarind to cope with famine. More than a year of no rain is slowing leading locals to the brink of famine. The staple food like cactus fruit cannot be produced because of the drought.
\"If we had something to eat, if our saliva was enough, we would never have eaten that. But it's true that we didn't know that white clay was edible before. We tried to mix it and it worked\", Dame Zafendraza, a charcoal producer said.
In a nearby village of Ankilomarovahetsy, 9 people starved to death in September. Toharano is a housewife. She says she's quite certain that the death of her children was due to the famine.
\"My children didn't eat for three days and then died, because I, their mother, did not manage to feed them. I'm sure it was the famine that killed them. It's not something else, it's not the disease, but famine. I left early in the morning and came back in the evening, and I saw the body of my child with his eyes open\", she said.
Children have particularly struggled to digest the clay and tamarind mixture. According to the World Food Programme (WFP) in the country this causes ''belly swelling''.
Half of the population in the southern region of the Indian Ocean Island, is currently in need of emergency food aid, the UN agency said.
Théodore Mbainaissem is head of the Ambovombe office for the World Food Programme (WFP).
\"People could not go out because of the lockdown. The trucks, the bush taxis that have to commute, were not allowed and people stayed more or less in the villages. Add to that the food insecurity caused by climate change, which has been very severe this year\", he said.
The WFP said about 31 million euros are urgently needed to feed the hungry in southern Madagascar.
Climate Change
A few kilometres away in the town of Beraketa, global charity Action Against Hunger (ACF) has put up a centre in partnership with the WFP.
The centre caters for around 50 severely malnourished children and 100 other patients every week. The children are at risk of death, especially if malnutrition is complicated by diarrhoea, respiratory infections or malaria.
While droughts are not uncommon in the area, this dry spell has been compounded by climate impact. The WFP's Mbainaissem said \"for three years in some communities, two in others, there has been no rain.\"
Rising insecurity and livestock thefts have exacerbated poverty and complicated humanitarian relief efforts. The government has deployed the military to distribute food and first aid in the area. In October, President Andry Rajoelina, his wife and son gave out rations in villages.
The local head of the WFP Mbainaissem has warned of a disaster if emergency food assistance are not provided.
Ethiopian forces blocked people from the country's embattled Tigray region from crossing into Sudan on Thursday at the busiest crossing point for refugees, Sudanese forces said.
Their account follows allegations by refugees in previous days of Ethiopian forces stopping people from fleeing the month-old deadly conflict in Tigray.
The Sudanese forces, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the events, said people tried to cross from Ethiopia around 6 a.m. to Hamdayet in Sudan but were stopped, and refugees waiting on the Sudan side became upset and began throwing rocks.
The Sudanese forces then cleared the area, and on Thursday evening they confirmed that the border crossing remained closed.
Tensions have been rising at the border in recent days as the flow of Ethiopians crossing has slowed to hundreds per day from several thousands.
A senior Ethiopian government official who has served as spokesman during the conflict did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
End fighting
The European Union's crisis management commissioner Thursday urged the Ethiopian government to restore communications in its northern Tigray region and called on both sides to cease hostilities.
\"I urge... the Ethiopian authorities to lift the communication blockade,\" Janez Lenarcic said at Um Raquba camp in neighboring Sudan, where he spoke with Ethiopian refugees who had fled their homeland over the last month.
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last month ordered military operations against the northern Ethiopian region's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), in response to what he said were attacks on Ethiopian federal army camps.
Tens of thousands of refugees have since poured into eastern Sudan, with many complaining that they have not been able to re-establish contact with those left behind or lost on the scramble to leave due to a communications blackout.
\"I spoke with a number of refugees in this camp today and what is perhaps most painful to hear is that they have zero information... about their relatives and friends who stayed behind,\" Lenarcic said.
Abiy on Saturday claimed the conflict was over after federal troops took control of the Tigrayan capital, Mekele, but the TPLF threatened a full-scale counter-offensive on Wednesday.
Lenarcic also urged Ethiopia's government to provide access for humanitarian workers and goods, while calling on both sides to \"cease the hostilities\".
Ethiopia has formally granted the United Nations access to deliver aid to Tigray.
Islamist militants terrorising remote communities in Mozambique's Muslim-majority north mounted a fresh attack on Thursday, police sources said, striking Macomia district in an early morning assault.
Despite President Filipe Nyusi's promises, neither the police nor the army, recently shored up by foreign private security companies, has succeeded in preventing attacks.
Over the last two years over 1 100 people have been left dead by the Islamist group known as \"Al-Shabaab\" that has swept through the gas-rich northern province of Cabo Delgado.
Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), affiliated with the Islamic State group, has claimed some of the attacks in the region since last June posting images of slain soldiers and seized weapons.
The jihadists have grown bolder over the past two months, stepping up attacks into towns and unmasking themselves, openly declaring their campaign to establish an Islamist caliphate in the region.
Talodi / Kadugli / Abu Jubeiha — Dozens of people were killed and injured in clashes that erupted in Talodi locality in South Kordofan on Friday.
Witnesses told Dabanga Radio on Sunday that the clashes broke out in the area of Hodeid as a result of a dispute over ownership of land.
A relative of one of the victims reported to Radio Dabanga that the cattle rustlers attempted to steal livestock in the area of El Bataha, north of Demyak village.
Six young men were injured during a protest against the Merefaeen gold mining plant in Abu Jubeiha in eastern South Kordofan on Saturday.
Radio Dabanga's editorial independence means that we can continue to provide factual updates about political developments to Sudanese and international actors, educate people about how to avoid outbreaks of infectious diseases, and provide a window to the world for those in all corners of Sudan.
[Namibian] Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa has been applauded for his leadership and effort to ensure regional peace and stability in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The Labour Party defeated Manley in 1980 and its capitalist-oriented leader, Edward P. G. Seaga, was elected prime minister. He encouraged private investment and began an austerity program. Like other Caribbean countries, Jamaica was hard-hit by the 1981–1982 recession. Devaluation of the Jamaican dollar made Jamaican products more competitive on the world market, and the country achieved record growth in tourism and agriculture. While manufacturing also grew, food prices rose as much as 75% and thousands of Jamaicans fell deeper into poverty.
In 1989, Manley was reelected, but he resigned in 1992 and was replaced by P. J. Patterson. In May 1997, the government signed a “Ship-Rider Agreement,” allowing U.S. authorities to enter Jamaican waters and search vessels with the Jamaican governments permission in order to fight drug trafficking. In 2001, violence between politically connected gangs escalated in Kingston, promoting fears that the tourist industry could suffer. In Oct. 2002, Patterson won his third term in office.
In Sept. 2004, Hurricane Ivan, the worst storm to hit the island in decades, destroyed thousands of homes.
In March 2006, Portia Simpson Miller of the Peoples National Party (PNP) became Jamaicas first female prime minister. In the countrys general election in September 2007, the opposition Jamaica Labour Party narrowly defeated the center-left Peoples National Party, 50.1% to 49.8%. The Peoples National Party had been in power for 18 years. Bruce Golding took office as prime minister days after the election.
Dozens of people died in the Tivoli Gardens section of Kingston in late May 2010 in clashes between police and supporters of drug lord Christopher Coke, who is wanted in the U.S. on gun- and drug-trafficking charges. When police entered the neighborhood to search for Coke, they were fired on by his supporters. About 75 civilians were killed. Coke was arrested in June and extradited to the U.S., where he will face trial in New York.
