The former president of South Africa Jacob Zuma has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court after he failed to appear before a corruption inquiry earlier this year. The inquiry is examining allegations of high-level graft during Zuma’s period in power. Judge Sisi Khampepe said: 'I am left with no option but to commit Mr Zuma to imprisonment, with the hope that doing so sends an unequivocal message … the rule of law and the administration of justice prevails'
Continue reading...Category Archives: Africa
Former South African president Jacob Zuma sentenced to 15 months in prison
Zuma found to have been in contempt of court when he defied an order to appear at corruption inquiry
Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court after failing to appear before a corruption inquiry earlier this year.
Zuma, 79, who was the president for nearly nine years until 2018, was not present to hear the South African constitutional court deliver its ruling and sentence.
Continue reading...Tigray rebels vow to drive out ‘enemies’ despite ceasefire declaration
Celebrations on streets of Mekelle after soldiers and officials appointed by Ethiopian government flee city
Dissident leaders of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region have dismissed a government ceasefire declaration and vowed to drive out “enemies” from the region, after rebel fighters advanced on the Tigrayan capital.
In a dramatic development in the nearly eight-month-old conflict, which has been marked by large-scale atrocities, federal security forces and officials from the central government appointed interim administration fled Mekelle on Monday night. Residents took to the streets in jubilation, firing celebratory gunfire and fireworks into the sky.
Continue reading...‘You can’t cancel Pride’: the fight for LGBTQ+ rights amid the pandemic
Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return
This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.
It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.
Continue reading...Coastguard seizes half a tonne of cocaine floating off Algeria coast
Fishermen alerted authorities to ‘suspicious’ items floating in the sea
The Algerian coastguard has seized almost half a tonne of cocaine after fishers alerted authorities to “suspicious” items floating off the north-west coast.
The coastguard fished out 490kg (1,080 pounds) of cocaine split up into 442 packages from the water six nautical miles (11 kilometres) off Oran’s Cap Carbon on Saturday evening, a defence ministry statement said on Monday.
Continue reading...Interim government of Tigray flees as rebels seize capital
Spokesperson for Tigray People’s Liberation Front says Mekelle is ‘under our control’
The interim government of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region has fled as rebel fighters advanced into the region’s capital and the national government announced a “unilateral ceasefire”.
Witnesses said federal soldiers and police were also abandoning Mekelle late on Monday, and fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard as Tigrayan fighters took the city’s airport and other key positions.
Continue reading...‘It opened my eyes’: Lesotho ski resort goes off-piste to keep workers
The pandemic has hit tourism but retraining and a range of initiatives have enabled staff to stay and even hit the slopes
Masiane Nthina made her way nervously from the kit room to the slopes. Shuffling with skis on her feet for the first time is not easy.
Nthina, an intern at the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation, lives close to Afriski Mountain Resort, but had never visited it. She had always viewed the resort as the preserve of the elite and thought that on her meagre wages she could not afford to go.
Continue reading...Malawi’s LBGTQ+ community celebrates first Pride parade
Homosexuality remains illegal in the country, where a conviction carries a jail term of up to 14 years
For a few hours over the weekend the streets of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, were covered in rainbows, as about 50 members of the country’s persecuted LBGTQ+ community took part in the country’s first Pride parade.
The risks to those who took part are high. Homosexuality remains illegal in Malawi, and those who identify as anything other than heterosexual face arrest and imprisonment.
Continue reading...South Africa expected to tighten Covid rules as third wave gathers pace
Economic heartland hit by rise in infections driven by Delta variant and faltering vaccination campaign
Authorities in South Africa appeared set to impose new restrictions on Sunday in a belated attempt to stem a rise in Covid-19 that is ravaging the country’s economic heartland.
The wave of infections has been driven by the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant, weak countermeasures and public fatigue with existing restrictions.
Continue reading...Car bomb injures 13 UN peacekeepers in Mali
Attack occurs in Gao region where insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active
Thirteen UN peacekeepers have been wounded in northern Mali by a car bomb, the UN mission said, while Mali’s army said six of its soldiers were killed in a separate attack in the centre of the country.
The attack on Friday in the north targeted a temporary base set up by the peacekeepers near the village of Ichagara in the Gao region, where Islamist insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active.
Continue reading...Three aid workers found dead in Tigray, says Médecins Sans Frontières
MSF says it condemns attack on colleagues ‘in strongest possible terms’ after bodies found near car
Three aid workers who had been working in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have bee found dead, their organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières, announced on Friday.
MSF said it had lost contact with the workers while they were traveling on Thursday afternoon. Their bodies were found near their empty car this morning.
Continue reading...‘We were never a priority’: Zimbabwe Covid ‘hotspots’ face strict lockdown
Tighter restrictions in 12 mostly rural areas come as health service struggles to cope with third wave of infections
Zimbabwe’s government has designated 11 rural areas across three provinces Covid-19 hotspots this week after a sharp rise in cases. The measures come as the country battles to contain a third wave of coronavirus.
Mashonaland West, Masvingo and Bulawayo provinces have been put into strict localised lockdowns to contain the spread of the virus. The government had already declared hotspots in three other regions, the first in May and two others in early June.
Continue reading...Isis-linked groups open up new fronts across sub-Saharan Africa
Military victories combined with new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforce militants’ position across much of continent
Islamic State’s affiliates in Africa are set for major expansion after a series of significant victories, new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforced their position across much of the continent.
Following recent gains in Nigeria, the Sahel, in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Isis propaganda published by the group’s leadership in its heartland in the Middle East is increasingly stressing sub-Saharan Africa as a new front which may compensate the group for significant setbacks elsewhere.
Continue reading...Africans ‘dangerously exposed’ by lack of Covid jabs, says WHO
Third wave could be Africa’s worst yet, official says, with health systems in some parts close to overwhelmed
The World Health Organization has made a new appeal for vaccines for Africa, saying a “fast-surging” third wave of Covid-19 is outpacing efforts to protect populations, “leaving more and more dangerously exposed”.
“The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. This is incredibly worrying. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa’s worst yet,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Scores killed in Ethiopian airstrike on Tigray market
At least 64 people dead after strike on Tuesday that left at least 180 injured, say local officials
At least 64 people have been killed and 180 injured in an Ethiopian airstrike on a market in the war-torn Tigray region, according to local health officers, doctors, local residents and witnesses.
“The airstrike was in the market area, so many, many people were injured,” said Mulu Atsbaha, an adviser to the Tigray regional administration on maternal and child health on Thursday.
Continue reading...Burkina Faso says most of attackers in village massacre were children
More than 130 people were killed in attack carried out by mostly by children as young as 12
A massacre in north-east Burkina Faso in which more than 130 people were killed this month was carried out mostly by children between the ages of 12 and 14, the country’s government and the UN have said.
Assailants raided the village of Solhan on the evening of 4 June, opened fire on residents and burned homes. It was the worst attack in years in an area plagued by jihadists linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida.
Continue reading...Rich countries ‘deliberately’ keeping Covid vaccines from Africa, says envoy
Questions raised over failure of Covax scheme to provide promised doses to the continent
African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa has accused the world’s richest nations of deliberately failing to provide enough Covid-19 vaccines to the continent.
Masiyiwa, the union’s special envoy to the African vaccine acquisition task team, said the Covax scheme had failed to keep its promise to secure production of 700 million doses of vaccines in time for delivery by December 2021.
Continue reading...Violence towards refugees at Libyan detention centres forces MSF to pull out
Medical charity says abuse and attacks have escalated as more migrants are intercepted at sea and camps become increasingly overcrowded
Increasing violence towards refugees and migrants held in Libyan detention centres has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations at two facilities, the medical charity said.
MSF said its teams witnessed guards beating detainees, including those seeking treatment from MSF doctors, during a visit to the Mabani detention centre in Tripoli last week.
Continue reading...Libya talks set December date for national elections
Conference in Berlin also calls for phased withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country
Foreign powers and Libya’s new interim government of national unity have called for nationwide elections on 24 December and the phased withdrawal of all foreign forces, starting with some mercenaries in a matter of days.
There are thought to be as many as 20,000 foreign fighters in the country on both sides of its civil war, including Syrians under Turkish control, Turkish government forces, Russians in the Wagner Group and Sudanese forces.
Continue reading...Sadia Hussein: the FGM survivor who is saving girls from the knife
Being cut, aged 10, led to extraordinary pain and complications in childbirth. Now Hussein’s campaign to end mutilation has led to a staggering change in attitudes
Sadia Hussein had been in labour for three days when she felt she could take no more. She could hear her mother crying in the distance, pleading with God to save her daughter’s life.
But even though things were clearly not progressing as they should have been, the women in her small Kenyan village were resistant to the idea of sending her to hospital. Her mother told her that doctors would “tear her apart” with a pair of scissors; that, at home, they could at least use a razor. “So now, on top of the overwhelming pain of labour, there was this continuous cutting,” Hussein recalls.
Continue reading...