Former president faces allegations he presided over vast corruption network
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma has told a judicial inquiry into corruption allegations that he is the victim of a plot by foreign intelligence agencies to seek his downfall.
Speaking on the first day of five days of testimony, Zuma denied he had presided over an immense system of corruption and patronage that drained billions from the country’s exchequer.
Continue reading...Ripping off the bandage of food aid and investing in self-sufficiency is the only way to fight malnutrition
Billions are spent on humanitarian aid, yet nearly 60 million children across Africa go to bed hungry.
Efforts to alleviate the constant cycle of droughts, poverty and war have caused new problems. The biggest of these is a crippling dependency on food aid that is undermining much of the continent’s efforts to feed itself.
Continue reading...Health experts have long feared the virus it could make its way to the city, which is on the Rwandan border
The Ebola virus has reached the Congolese city of Goma, home to two million people, for the first time since the epidemic began nearly a year ago.
The Congolese health ministry said a man who had arrived in the regional centre on Sunday had been quickly transported to an Ebola treatment centre.
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former president, will make an unprecedented appearance before a judicial inquiry for a five-day grilling this week over corruption allegations relating to his years in power.
Zuma has been accused of presiding over an immense system of corruption and patronage that drained billions from the exchequer and damaged the reputation of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) beyond repair.
Continue reading...Briton and Canadian-Somali journalist among dead in suicide bombing and shooting in Kismayo claimed by al-Shabaab
Special forces in Somalia have ended an all-night siege at a hotel raided by armed Islamic militants, officials have said.
The death toll from the attack in the southern port city of Kismayo, which began on Friday evening, has risen to 26 people, including a prominent Canadian-Somali journalist and several foreigners.
Continue reading...Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe wrongly arrested based on tipoffs from NCA and GCHQ
The acquittal of Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe by an Italian court of being a human trafficking kingpin is a major embarrassment for Britain’s National Crime Agency and the GCHQ intelligence service.
Berhe’s arrest in 2016 was trumpeted as a major coup in the battle against international people-smuggling, but unbeknown to them at the time, the Italian and British authorities had mistaken the Eritrean for one of the world’s most-wanted human traffickers, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, aka the General.
Continue reading...Judge acquits Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe of being a human trafficking kingpin
A Palermo judge has acquitted an Eritrean man of being a human trafficking kingpin, confirming he was the victim of mistaken identity when he was arrested more than three years ago in a joint operation between Italian and British authorities.
The arrest of Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe in 2016 was presented to the press as a brilliant coup by Italian and British authorities, who mistook him for one of the world’s most-wanted human traffickers, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, aka the General.
Continue reading...Scientists reconstruct extinct species using fossils found in northern Mali from ancient seaway
Some of the biggest catfish and sea snakes to ever exist lived in what is today the Sahara desert, according to a new paper that contains the first reconstructions of extinct aquatic species from the ancient Trans-Saharan Seaway.
The sea was 50 metres deep and once covered 3,000sq km of what is now the world’s biggest sand desert. The marine sediment it left behind is filled with fossils, which allowed thescientists who published the study to build up a picture of a region that teemed with life.
Continue reading...Deadly measles outbreak claims almost 2,000 lives, compounding strain on health system already reeling from Ebola
Health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have launched an urgent measles vaccination campaign in Ebola-hit regions, after almost 2,000 deaths from the preventable disease, two-thirds of them among children under five.
At least 1,981 people died from measles in DRC this year, surpassing the 1,641 deaths from Ebola, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef. The “unprecedented” humanitarian crisis is putting the health system under strain, UN staff said.
Continue reading...Top general says plotters were trying to disrupt recent truce between army and protesters
Sudan’s ruling military council has foiled a coup attempt, a top general has announced on state television, saying that 12 officers and four soldiers have been arrested.
The announcement late on Thursday closely followed the ruling military and civilian protesters agreeing to end a political impasse, after the army ousted longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April on the back of a popular uprising.
Continue reading...Helle Petersen asks trial in Morocco for ‘just’ penalty after murder of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen in Atlas mountains
The mother of a Danish student who was beheaded, along with another Scandinavian woman, while hiking in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains has called for the suspected jihadist killers to face the death penalty as their trial neared its end.
In a letter read out by her lawyer in an anti-terrorist court in Sale, near Morocco’s capital, Rabat, Helle Petersen said: “The most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve, I ask that of you. My life was destroyed the moment that two policemen came to my door on 17 December to announce my daughter’s death.”
Continue reading...Owners failed to assess environmental and community concerns, court rules, while US ambassador wades into debate in support of coal power
Kenya has been urged to halt construction of the country’s first ever coal-powered plant near the coastal town of Lamu, until an assessment is made of its environmental and cultural impact, in the latest setback to the $2bn project (£1.6bn).
Plans for the 981MW station, backed by a Chinese-led consortium, are in limbo after Kenyan judges revoked the environmental licence at the end of June. They ruled the authorities had failed to carry out a rigorous environmental assessment and to inform local people of potential impacts.
Continue reading...Defence ministry denies supplying weapons in breach of UN arms embargo
France has said some of its missiles were found at a Libyan base used by forces loyal to the military strongman Khalifa Haftar – an embarrassing admission that raises new questions about its role in the conflict.
Confirming a report in the New York Times, the French defence ministry said it had purchased the US-made Javelin missiles that were subsequently discovered at a camp south of Tripoli.
Continue reading...Four decades ago Egypt embarked on the most ambitious new cities building programme in the world. Their boom shows no sign of stopping
Seen from space, Egypt is a vast dusty land with a green Y opening into the Mediterranean Sea – a fertile valley that makes up 5% of the country yet is home to 95% of the population.
This pattern of human occupation had characterised the country for thousands of years, but in the 1970s, as ever more precious green land was eaten up by urban growth, an idea that had been taking shape in the national consciousness for decades was finally put into policy. Egypt would “conquer the desert” and redistribute its burgeoning population across the white sands of the Sahara – an Egyptian version of the 19th-century US “manifest destiny” to move west, no matter how punishing the consequences.
Continue reading...As deadly airstrikes prompt plans to release detainees, fears rise for those trapped in the country amid claims of serious abuses
Kosofo was hiding in the bathroom when a deadly airstrike ripped through the ceiling of the hall he was locked inside, in Tripoli’s Tajoura migrant detention centre last week.
“I saw the hell with my eyes. I saw things that I had seen during the Darfur war,” says the Sudanese man in his 20s, who has asked to go by a nickname for his own safety.
Continue reading...In Namibia a country of meat-lovers, vital expertise is needed to stop livestock spreading diseases
Wreathed in barbecue smoke, Vetjaera Haakuria gestures at the men butchering meat and cooking it over hot coals behind his back. “What have you learned about the risks of eating this?” he asks his young audience, spotless in their white lab coats. “It might contain drug residues, right? And what about diseases?”
It’s nearly noon in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and the market is preparing grilled meat – known locally as kapana – for the lunchtime rush. Everyone comes here, from construction workers to members of parliament. Namibians love to eat meat, and he is no exception: his tribe, the Herero, traditionally eat nothing else.
Continue reading...Cairo calls on international police agency to find head sold to unknown buyer for £4.7m
Egypt has called on Interpol to intervene and will sue over the sale at Christie’s auction house in London of a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun sculpture that may have been looted from a Luxor temple.
The 28.5cm brown quartzite head was part of a statue of the ancient god Amun with the facial features of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1323 BC. Similar statues were carved for the Temple of Karnak in the city of Thebes, now Luxor.
Continue reading...Deadly outbreak is ‘global wake-up call’, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells Guardian
The head of the World Health Organization has called the world’s second worst Ebola outbreak a “global wake-up call” to the escalating risk of disease outbreaks spreading from conflict areas neglected by the international community.
Only when there was “fear and panic” in the headlines did the international community put money into responding, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The real issue was a lack of day-to-day funding for preparedness to combat serious epidemics before they become regional or international threats, he said.
Continue reading...In 2015, the international community – led by the US and the UK – finally decided to take Bosco Ntaganda to the international criminal court to face justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ntaganda, known as “The Terminator”, became one of the most feared, powerful and brutal warlords in DRC since Rwanda, backed by Uganda, reinvaded DRC in 1998.
Related: DRC warlord 'the Terminator' convicted of war crimes
Continue reading...With the registry office facing a backlog of 280,000 applications, some people have waited close to a year to work or study abroad
Every morning for the past two months Eldah Makuvise, 35, has braved the cold winter mornings to queue for her passport at the local registry office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Each time she’s been sent away in despair.
Makuvise’s application, like others submitted a year ago, is stuck in a huge passport backlog.
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