Category Archives: Africa

‘I’m a fighter’: WTO’s first female, African head ready for battle

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, set to be named director general, joins as global trading system facing make-or-break moment

Even for an economist, there are lots of very large numbers in the life of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. As the chair of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, she has overseen the annual immunisation of millions of children. When managing director of the World Bank, she oversaw $81bn (£58bn) worth of operations. In her stints in charge of Nigeria’s finances, she tackled Africa’s most populous country’s $30bn debt. And she has 1.5 million followers on Twitter.

There are lots of smaller numbers too: the 20 non-profit organisations that have appointed Okonjo-Iweala to their advisory boards, the major banks and corporations she has advised, the 10 honorary degrees in addition to her own doctorate, 20 or so awards, dozens of major reports authored, and the books.

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‘I won’t go back’: why Libyans are joining the boats leaving their shores

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Libya, a transit stop for migrants trying to reach Europe, is now facing an exodus of its own people

After witnessing abuse and discrimination, Sherif Targi*, 21, decided to leave Libya for Europe.

“I saw killing and massacres because of the conflicts between Tuaregs and the Tebu [ethnic minorities],” he says.

Targi is a Tuareg from the desert city of Ubari in Libya’s south-west. Under Muammar Gaddafi, Tuareg people were marginalised – not issued government IDs, and restricted from getting work and public services. Things didn’t improve after the dictator was ousted.

In October 2019, Targi left home, travelling more than 600 miles (1,000km) to the coastal city of Zuwara. From there, he and about 200 other people, mainly Syrians, Moroccans and Sudanese, crammed themselves on board an overloaded wooden boat, and set off on a dangerous 18-hour journey.

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Lack of Covid data may leave African countries behind in vaccine rush

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Experts say continent may not be seen as priority because true extent of pandemic is unknown

African countries may suffer in the global rush for vaccines because they are unable to gather statistics that reveal the true extent of the spread of Covid among their populations, epidemiologists and other experts fear.

According to data from Johns Hopkins university, there have been 3.7m confirmed cases in Africa, and the landmark figure of 100,000 confirmed deaths is likely to be reached within days.

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Ebola kills four in Guinea in first resurgence of disease in five years

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Health minister says officials ‘really concerned’ about deaths in south-east region Nzerekore

Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the health minister said on Saturday.

Remy Lamah told AFP officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic – which began in Guinea – left 11,300 dead across the region.

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Guinea enters ‘epidemic situation’ as seven Ebola cases confirmed

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Health minister says officials ‘really concerned’ after three deaths from the infectious disease

Guinea has entered an Ebola “epidemic situation” with seven cases confirmed, including three deaths, a leading health official in the west African nation has said.

“Very early this morning, the Conakry laboratory confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus,” Sakoba Keita said after an emergency meeting in the capital.

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Migrant boat sinks off Lampedusa with one dead and 22 missing

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Tunisian navy had to end rescue effort early due to bad weather but pulled one body from the water

One migrant is dead and 22 others are missing after their boat sank in the Mediterranean sea off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the Tunisian navy has said.

Bad weather interrupted rescue operations around 100 kilometres (62 miles) north-west of Lampedusa, the navy said on Saturday, adding that the body of one migrant had been pulled from the water, while 22 were missing.

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The Good American review: Bob Gersony and a better foreign policy

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Robert D Kaplan’s outstanding book makes a strong case for US engagement based on human rights and helping refugees

What adjective should describe “the American” active in foreign policy? Graham Greene chose “quiet”, as his character harmed a country he did not understand. Eugene Burdick and William Lederer used “ugly”.

Robert D Kaplan, one of America’s most thoughtful chroniclers of foreign affairs, proposes “good” to describe Bob Gersony, who in “a frugal monastic existence that has been both obscure and extraordinary” has devoted his life to using the power and treasure of the US to serve others through humanitarian action.

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Mars, Nestlé and Hershey to face child slavery lawsuit in US

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Chocolate companies are among the defendants named in a lawsuit brought by former child workers in Ivory Coast

Eight children who claim they were used as slave labour on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast have launched legal action against the world’s biggest chocolate companies. They accuse the corporations of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of “thousands” of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains.

Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and Mondelēz have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by the human rights firm International Rights Advocates (IRA), on behalf of eight former child slaves who say they were forced to work without pay on cocoa plantations in the west African country.

The plaintiffs, all of whom are originally from Mali and are now young adults, are seeking damages for forced labour and further compensation for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

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Nigerians can bring claims against Shell in UK, supreme court rules

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Ogale and Bille villagers say Shell oil operations have caused severe pollution including to their drinking water

Two Nigerian communities can bring their legal claims for a cleanup and for compensation against the oil company Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in an English court, supreme court judges have said.

In what lawyers said was a “watershed moment” for the accountability of multinational companies, on Friday the court overturned a decision by the court of appeal, and ruled that the cases against Shell could proceed.

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DRC is rich with farmland, so why do 22 million people there face starvation? | Vava Tampa

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For two decades the global community has stood by while militia groups have got away with killing, raping and looting

I was food shopping when I read the news. Nearly 22 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing starvation and malnutrition. Now. In 2021.

You have to wonder how a country with eight months of rain, more than 50% of all the rivers, lakes and wetlands in Africa, and more agricultural land than any African country, with the potential to feed up to 2 billion people, gets to the point where it is unable to feed its population of 100 million.

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Margaret Snyder obituary

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Founding director of Unifem, the United Nations development fund for women

When Margaret Snyder first started working for the UN in Addis Ababa in 1971, programmes for African women centred around healthcare and support for children. Snyder, who has died aged 91, established the first UN regional women’s programme to change that perception. She went on to launch the UN’s development fund for women (Unifem) and became affectionately known as the “UN’s first feminist”.

Her job in Ethiopia was to help establish a women’s programme at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) to support women in their roles as farmers, entrepreneurs and often family breadwinners. The programme evolved into the African Training and Research Centre for Women (ATRCW).

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Can Addis Ababa stop its architectural gems being hidden under high-rises?

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While Ethiopia’s ancient sites are valued, urban heritage is an afterthought in a city forced to expand ever upwards

Only rubble remains of the former home of Dejazmatch Asfaw Kebede, a member of Emperor Haile Selassie’s government. Built in the early 1900s, and inspired by Indian as well as Ethiopian architecture, the building was demolished in early January without the knowledge of Addis Ababa’s conservation agency, the Culture and Tourism Bureau.

Demolition and reconstruction are now the most common sights along Addis Ababa’s unrecognisably altered skeleton skyline. The collateral damage is the city’s heritage.

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Lawyers protesting against police in Tunisia allegedly attacked by officers

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The three men are said to be recovering from assaults after security forces are accused of targeting activists during unrest

Three lawyers are said to be recovering after being assaulted by police in the wake of protests in the Tunisian capital on Saturday.

According to the Tunisian Bar Association, Yassine Azaza and Rahhal Jallali were attacked by officers while they were making their way home after the demonstrations in Tunis. A third lawyer, Abdennaceur Aouini, was photographed surrounded by police officers in the city’s main street.

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Moufida Tlatli, first Arab woman to direct a feature film, dies aged 73

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Tunisian director of multi-award-winning The Silences of the Palace broke the mould with films about the trauma suffered by generations of women

Moufida Tlatli, the pioneering Tunisian film-maker hailed as the first Arab woman to direct a feature film, has died aged 73. News media said that she died on Sunday, with the news confirmed by the Tunisian ministry of culture.

Tlatli remains best known for her breakthrough 1994 feature The Silences of the Palace, a lyrical study of a woman’s return to an abandoned royal residence, which tackled the themes of exploitation and trauma as experienced across generations of Arab women. It won a string of international awards, including the Sutherland trophy at the London film festival for the most “original and imaginative” film of the year, and was named as one of Africa’s 10 best films by critic and director Mark Cousins. The film was inspired by her mother’s difficult life; in 2001, Tlatli told the Guardian she “was riven with guilt … It was so insupportable, exhausting, suffocating.”

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As a poor Ugandan farmer, white and black people ignore my advice on poverty

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The mostly white development sector only funds efforts led by more ‘legitimate’ people. We need support from the diaspora

Being poor, black and from sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest thing you can ever be. But that is what I am.

Before Covid-19 came, extreme poverty had largely become a problem of only one part of the world – sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank in 2018, the region was projected to host more than 90% of the world’s extreme poor by 2030.

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‘I will never give up’: Egypt’s exiles still dream of democracy

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Those who rose up against dictatorship believe their example will inspire another generation

Ten years ago they were overthrowing Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Now they are in exile in Britain, under threat of imprisonment by the military regime. For Cairo’s revolutionaries, it has been a long journey of high hopes and broken dreams.

“I was part of a historical moment,” says Sayed, 39. He was working in the Middle East in December 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, set himself on fire in a protest against his treatment by local officials. Fuelled by social media coverage, the incident sparked protests around the region, including in Egypt, where crowds flocked to Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding the overthrow of Mubarak.

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Dr Vera Wülfing-Leckie obituary

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Vera Wülfing-Leckie, my former wife, who has died aged 66, was a lover of Africa, a homeopath and a translator.

Vera’s father had been a Russian prisoner-of-war. Her mother had fled before the advancing Russians from what became East Germany. The cold war seems distant now, but to Vera’s parents the threat was very real. It explained their settling in Lörrach, Germany, close to the border, from where they could get quickly into Switzerland. Despite her many accomplishments, that same sense of apprehension informed Vera’s childhood, her life and her death.

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It’s time for Africa to rein in Tanzania’s anti-vaccine president | Vava Tampa

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John Magufuli’s cavalier disregard of Covid’s impact in the great lakes region is fuelling conspiracies and endangering lives

What is wrong with President John Magufuli? Many people in and outside Tanzania are asking this question.

Magufuli claimed last year that God had eliminated Covid in the east African country of 60 million people, and has since made dismissing Covid vaccines his central priority – leaving many people asking: why?

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Ebola virus kills woman in Democratic Republic of Congo, health ministry says

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Case near city of Butembo comes nearly three months after the end of an outbreak in the western province of Équateur, which killed 55

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to contain a possible Ebola outbreak, after a woman died from the virus near the eastern city of Butembo.

The woman showed symptoms on 1 February in the town of Biena, North Kivu. She died in hospital in Butembo two days later. She was married to a man who had contracted the virus in a previous outbreak.

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Vaccine strategy needs rethink after resistant variants emerge, say scientists

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Oxford vaccine shown to have only limited effect against South African variant of coronavirus

Leading vaccine scientists are calling for a rethink of the goals of vaccination programmes, saying that herd immunity through vaccination is unlikely to be possible because of the emergence of variants like that in South Africa.

The comments came as the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca acknowledged that their vaccine will not protect people against mild to moderate Covid illness caused by the South African variant. The Oxford vaccine is the mainstay of the UK’s immunisation programme and vitally important around the world because of its low cost and ease of use.

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