Judges rule that Uhuru Kenyatta, who claimed BBI plan was to end country’s cycle of post-election violence, overstepped his authority and can be sued
The high court in Nairobi has overturned the president’s three-year quest to amend Kenya’s 11-year-old constitution.
In a ruling heavily critical of President Uhuru Kenyatta, five judges said he had no authority to bring forward plans to create more executive positions and parliamentary constituencies.
Continue reading...Aide of the vice-president who led last year’s coup claims both leaders have stood down while in detention
Mali’s interim president and prime minister have reportedly “resigned”, two days after they were arrested by the military in a widely condemned coup, according to an aide to the military-appointed interim vice-president.
Both civilian leaders, the president, Bah Ndaw, and the prime minister, Moctar Ouane, remained under military arrest on Wednesday in the Kati army base, outside the Malian capital Bamako, amid widespread international condemnation and promises of sanctions.
Continue reading...Defendants left in prison for months awaiting trial as staff strike over judicial system’s financial autonomy
A nationwide strike of court workers in Nigeria is paralysing the justice system, resulting in extended prison remands for those awaiting trial or sentencing and lengthy delays for everyone else.
In March last year, Taiwo Ebun*, 27, was arrested for alleged armed robbery in Lagos. Since then he has been in detention.
Continue reading...Criticism of priorities as tribute to liberation leader unveiled despite foreign food aid and lack of jobs
The Zimbabwean government unveiled a statue of the liberation heroine and anti-colonialism figurehead Mbuya Nehanda in the capital, Harare, on Tuesday amid controversy about its priorities while the economy and health system collapse.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa vowed that the government would “repatriate Mbuya Nehanda’s skull and the skulls of others from the UK”, and said discussions about this were “on course”. The human remains of Nehanda and others who fought British colonisers are widely rumoured to be held at the Natural History Museum in London.
Continue reading...Study finds children in Ghana, Nepal and Uganda in dangerous, exploitative work, with long hours and little pay
Gopal Magar’s father has had a drinking problem for as long as he can remember, but when Kathmandu went into lockdown last spring, it got worse. With five members of his family confined to a small room in the south of the city, tempers frayed and the 14-year-old saw his father beat his mother again and again. One day Gopal could stand it no longer. He fought back, and then fled, leaving his parents, and his school, behind.
Gopal now lives with his older brother on the other side of the city, and has swapped his classroom for a construction site. “I have fewer problems now, but I need to work really hard,” he says. He starts work at six in the morning and for the next 12 hours hauls sand, loads bricks and mixes concrete. He earns about £7 a day and sends some of it to his mother to help her buy food and pay the rent.
Continue reading...Charities post photographs of dead babies and toddlers said to have left Libya in dinghies in recent days
Photographs have emerged of the bodies of babies and toddlers washed up on a beach in Libya, highlighting the human tragedy of the migration crisis on Europe’s borders.
According to one of the charities that posted the photos on Twitter, the children had been travelling with their parents on one of the many dinghies that set off from Libya in recent days.
Continue reading...Data reveals Nepal, Iran and South Africa among 19 countries most at risk of running out as surging Covid cases push supplies to limit
Dozens of countries are facing severe oxygen shortages because of surging Covid-19 cases, threatening the “total collapse” of health systems.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysed data provided by the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the NGO Path and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to find the countries most at risk of running out of oxygen. It also studied data on global vaccination rates.
Continue reading...World leaders condemn ‘grave and serious’ kidnapping of Mali’s leaders as Col Assimi Goïita seizes power
Mali’s interim vice-president, Col Assimi Goïta, who led a military coup last year, has declared he has seized power from the transitional president and prime minister, after they failed to consult him about the formation of a new government.
In a statement broadcast on state television, Goïta said Mali’s civilian president, Bah Ndaw, and prime minister, Moctar Ouane, had been placed “outside of their prerogatives”, and that he orchestrated their arrests and removal to the Kati military base, outside of the capital, Bamako.
Continue reading...Analysis: jihadists regroup after Boko Haram ‘defeat’ in the north-east while secessionist forces grow in south-east
“Can our president keep us safe when we travel to any part of this country?” said Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, months before the former military dictator won the Nigerian presidency on a wave of mass anger at jihadist violence and corruption. “Is your life better today than it was six years ago?”
Halfway through his second term, the same questions are being levelled at him. As an insurgency in the north-east has persisted – and grown in recent years – security crises have proliferated around the country. Criticism has mounted against his administration, including from within his own party.
Continue reading...A community project on the Lamu archipelago trains women in preserving this vital ecosystem and provides business loans
Kenya’s mangroves have been harvested for centuries, the timber used in shipbuilding and for ornate doors and furniture as well as shipped across the Indian Ocean and around the world.
The Lamu archipelago accounts for more than half of Kenya’s mangrove forests. But across the country an estimated 40% of this precious commodity has been degraded, as more mangroves have been cut to provide construction materials and charcoal for cooking, and oil leakages from cruise liners and ships that pass along the coast kill off young saplings. The area has become one of the most degraded marine ecosystems in east Africa.
Continue reading...More than 500 homes have been destroyed by the lava that has poured into villages, officials and survivors say
At least 15 people died when torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said on Sunday.
The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the north-west in Sake, the UN children’s agency said on Sunday.
Continue reading...Thousands of residents abandoned their homes as the city of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was thrown into panic when a nearby volcano erupted. Lava from Mount Nyiragongo destroyed homes on the edge of Goma, which has a population of about 1 million people, but appeared to be slowing by midday on Sunday, giving hope that further damage could be avoided
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s administration increases pressure on government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed to end human rights abuses
Senior Ethiopian officials may face restrictions on their travel to the US, as Washington increases pressure on the government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed amid growing global concern about atrocities and famine caused by conflict in the northern region of Tigray.
Though visa restrictions are likely to target only a small number of individuals, the move signals President Joe Biden’s administration is shifting to a more direct strategy to force Ahmed to end continuing human rights abuses in Tigray and allow free flow of much-needed humanitarian aid.
Continue reading...Thousands of people head towards border with Rwanda as lava approaches outskirts of city
A river of flaming lava that poured out of the erupting Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has reached the suburbs of Goma, an eastern city of nearly 2 million people.
Officials said on Sunday that the molten stream had reached the airport on the outskirts of the city, but witnesses said the flow appeared to have halted later in the morning.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Shoei Kisen tell court container ship was wrongly allowed to enter waterway amid bad weather
The owner of a container ship that blocked the Suez canal in March says the canal authority was at fault over its grounding as it disputes the vessel’s detention and a compensation claim, a lawyer representing the owner said on Saturday.
The Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, became jammed across the canal in high winds on 23 March, and remained grounded for six days, blocking traffic in both directions and disrupting global trade.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru
Continue reading...More than 700 people have died in the Mediterranean this year. But Sea-Eye, a German charity, is fighting hard to save lives
Amani clutches her son, Mohammed, as she is pulled from an unstable wooden boat in the Mediterranean. “Please help. My baby is soaked in water and freezing,” says the 23-year-old Syrian refugee.
It’s shortly before 2am, last Monday and about 80 miles (130km) from the Libyan coast a group of maritime emergency responders from the Sea-Eye 4 are on patrol.
Continue reading...Analysis: reported death of Boko Haram’s leader will increase the influence of Islamic State affiliates
For more than a decade, Nigerian security services and their international supporters have struggled to end Boko Haram’s brutal reign of terror over north-eastern Nigeria.
But few observers of the conflict are celebrating – even though it appears increasingly likely that Abubakar Shekau, the Islamist extremist movement’s notoriously violent leader, is dead, its strongholds overrun and remaining fighters scattered.
Continue reading...Berlin wary of setting legal precedent as talks near completion on reconciliation deal for atrocities against Herero and Nama tribes
Germany has categorically ruled out financial reparations forming part of a planned formal apology to Namibia for colonial atrocities at the start of the 20th century, amid fears such payments could set a legal precedent for further claims.
Angela Merkel’s government has since 2014 negotiated with Namibia to “heal the wounds” of what historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, when between 1904 and 1908 tens of thousands of indigenous people were shot, starved, and tortured to death by German troops as they put down the rebellious Herero and Nama tribes in what is now Namibia.
Continue reading...More than a thousand women in Bargny, and many more in the other villages dotting Senegal’s sandy coast, process fish – performing a crucial role in one of the country’s largest exports
Since her birth on Senegal’s coast, the ocean has always given Ndeye Yacine Dieng life. Her grandfather was a fisher, and her grandmother and mother processed fish. Like generations of women, she now helps support her family in the small community of Bargny by drying, smoking, salting and fermenting the catch brought home by male villagers. They were baptised by fish, these women say.
But when the pandemic struck, boats that once took as many as 50 men out to sea carried only a few. Many residents were too terrified to leave their houses, let alone fish, for fear of catching the virus. When the local women did manage to get their hands on fish to process, they lacked the usual buyers, as markets shut down and neighbouring landlocked countries closed their borders. Without savings, many families went from three meals a day to one or two.
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