Obadiah Moyo has been charged with criminal abuse of office over the alleged awarding of a $60m contract for Covid-19 supplies
A Zimbabwean health minister charged with corruption in connection with the awarding of a multimillion dollar contract for Covid-19 medical supplies has been fired by the president.
Obadiah Moyo was sacked by Emmerson Mnangagwa this week for inappropriate conduct by a public official.
Continue reading...Conservationists hope first known camera-trap images of species are sign of resurgence
Rare images of a group belonging to one of the most endangered gorilla subspecies in the world suggest their numbers could be recovering after decades of persecution, conservationists in Nigeria have said.
Seven Cross River gorillas including infants of varying ages can be seen in the first known camera-trap images of the species, taken in the Mbe mountains in south-east Nigeria by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
Continue reading...More than 60,000 Nigerians live in Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon after fleeing from Boko Haram. Many have PTSD and other mental health conditions because of what they endured. Here are some of their stories
Continue reading...Anti-trafficking organisations say widespread trust in white outsiders makes children an easy target for abusers from the west
Child protection organisations in Kenya say more needs to be done to protect young people from exploitation by overseas perpetrators, as the country reports a rising number of abuse cases.
The warning follows the arrest of Gregory Dow, a 61-year-old missionary, who last month pleaded guilty in a US court to sexually abusing girls at an orphanage he ran in Kenya.
Continue reading...The Leap of Dance academy has brought ballet to children in a poor district in Africa’s largest megacity
Continue reading...The peaceful sit-in taking place in Nertiti county is demanding an end to the violence and punishment for the perpetrators
Thousands of people have joined a sit-down protest in front of local authority buildings in Central Darfur demanding action against the armed groups that patrol the region.
A large number of women have joined the first peaceful demonstration – now in its second week – in Nertiti county since war erupted in 2003.
Continue reading...Decades after the 1994 genocide, the countries have contested the wording of a UN resolution to remember its victims
As the bodies piled up in the streets of Rwanda 26 years ago, no amount of spin could disguise the crime. There were no sealed camps; the massacres were in broad daylight. Yet in the UN security council the UK and US governments avoided the question of mass killing and saw only a civil war.
This bolstered arguments that nothing – they thought – could be done. It was scandalous, the Czech Republic’s ambassador Karel Kovanda told them, not to recognise that a genocide reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust was under way. Kovanda remembers a friendly arm taking him aside as UK diplomats told him such inflammatory language outside the council would be “unhelpful”.
Continue reading...Diplomatic staff given Range Rovers while ordinary people struggle amid inflation of 785%
The government of Zimbabwe has spent millions of dollars on luxury cars for senior officials despite a deepening economic collapse that has plunged its people into profound hardship.
The new cars, including dozens of Range Rovers and Toyota pick-up trucks worth more than $40,000, were distributed to ambassadors and senior civil servants. Analysts say the move constitutes a new effort to shore up support for the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power after the military coup that ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017.
Continue reading...Nestlé is big in York, but the city is fighting the brand’s decision to make life harder for African cocoa farmers
Here’s a quiz question: how many KitKats are produced in the Nestlé factory in York each year? A hundred million? Keep going. The plant makes a billion of the UK’s bestselling chocolate bars annually. That volume is one reason that the company’s shameful decision to end the brand’s Fairtrade certification will have such a devastating effect on cocoa farmers.
I visited some of the Fairtrade-certified cocoa farms in Ivory Coast last year. Seeing the difference that a measure of financial security can make to some of the poorest villages on earth is a lasting lesson in the mechanics of hope.
Continue reading...Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was shot dead in Addis Ababa on Monday night, fuelling ethnic tensions
At least 166 people have died during violent demonstrations that roiled Ethiopia in the days following the murder of popular singer Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, police said Saturday.
Pop star Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, a member of the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest, was shot dead by unknown attackers in Addis Ababa on Monday night, fuelling ethnic tensions threatening the country’s democratic transition.
Continue reading...Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds
Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.
The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.
Continue reading...Areas with a drier climate have seen greater loss of biodiversity from global warming
Dry tropical forests are more vulnerable to the impacts of global heating than had been thought, according to new research, with wildlife and plants at severe risk of harm from human impacts.
Some tropical forests are very wet, but others thrive in a drier climate and scientists had thought these drier forests would be better adapted to drought, and therefore more able to cope with the effects of the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting
One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.
At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.
Continue reading...A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report
At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.
A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.
Continue reading...Troops were deployed in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of the funeral of the popular musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, who was shot dead in a targeted killing earlier this week.
His death sparked protests that have spread from Addis Ababa to the surrounding Oromiya region and claimed more than 80 lives.
The singer's killing tapped into grievances fuelled by decades of government repression and what the Oromo, Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, describe as their historic exclusion from political power
Continue reading...After the resignation of Thomas Thabane the small south African nation could have addressed its huge political gender imbalance. What happened?
Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has always been dwarfed in size and achievements by its neighbour South Africa.
Many people around the world were not even aware of Lesotho’s existence until the beginning of this year when then prime minister Thomas Thabane and his third wife, Maesaiah Thabane, were accused of murdering Thabane’s estranged second wife, Lipolelo, in 2017.
Continue reading...Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer
As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.
The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.
Continue reading...Botswana’s government is yet to test the remains of the dead animals in what has been described as a ‘conservation disaster’
More than 350 elephants have died in northern Botswana in a mysterious mass die-off described by scientists as a “conservation disaster”.
A cluster of elephant deaths was first reported in the Okavango Delta in early May, with 169 individuals dead by the end of the month. By mid June, the number had more than doubled, with 70% of the deaths clustered around waterholes, according to local sources who wish to remain anonymous.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say there are two living suspects allegedly linked to assassination of Patrice Lumumba
Belgian prosecutors are investigating whether they can bring charges against people suspected of taking part in the killing of Congo’s first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, almost 60 years after his assassination.
Belgium’s federal prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw said on Wednesday: “We are in the process of taking stock of the prosecutions that could be launched. The facts have been qualified as a war crime, which has been confirmed by the Brussels court of appeal. This means there is no statute of limitations.”
Continue reading...Campaigners target statues of slave owners and roads named after imperial armies as protests spread to Africa
Campaigners have asked Uganda’s parliament to order the removal of monuments to British colonialists and to rename streets commemorating imperial military forces.
Uganda gained independence in 1962 after almost 70 years as a British protectorate, and more than 5,000 people have signed a petition to “decolonise and rename” the dozens of statues and street names which remain.
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