Xavier Bettel says his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some countries
Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has confronted Arab leaders over the repression of gay rights, telling them his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some of their countries.
The conference room at a summit of EU and Arab states fell silent when Bettel made his statement, according to a German TV journalist.
Continue reading...At least 25 people have been killed and dozens more injured after a train crashed at high speed into a barrier at Cairo’s main station, causing its fuel tank to explode and triggering a huge fire.
Egypt’s transport minister, Hisham Arafat, resigned hours after the prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, promised a tough response if any negligence was found. Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems and poorly maintained railway lines.
Continue reading...Economic fears raised as online subscriptions plummet in months following launch of levy created to curb ‘gossip’
Millions of people in Uganda have abandoned the internet after punishing taxes were imposed on social media use and money transactions using mobile phones.
A daily levy, introduced in July to tame “idle talk” online and raise revenue, affects more than 60 online platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. To use such sites, Ugandans are expected to pay a tax of 200 Ugandan shillings (4p) a day.
Continue reading...The incumbent is declared the winner by the electoral commission but the opposition rejects outcome
Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has been declared the winner of the country’s election after results showed that he claimed 56% of the vote.
Related: Nigeria election: ‘Mr Honesty’ tainted by failure to tackle corruption
Continue reading...Mining group agrees to walk away from Simandou project, with all legal actions ceasing
The mining group controlled by the controversial tycoon Beny Steinmetz is to walk away from a massive iron ore project in Guinea as part of an agreement that settles a long-running corruption dispute with the west African nation.
Development of Simandou – one of the world’s biggest iron deposits, containing billions of tonnes of high-grade ore – has been hindered by years of legal wrangling as well as the enormous cost of the required infrastructure, estimated at more than $20bn (£15bn).
Continue reading...A report laying bare the abominations associated with conflict in the world’s youngest state will shock the most hardened observer
There are wars that seem to slip under the wire almost unnoticed – where human rights abuses are rife and you would expect them to command far greater global attention.
Last week’s UN report into South Sudan is a case in point. An almost endless litany of human rights abuses, its 200-plus pages make for the most dismal reading, a portrait of the world’s youngest state as one of the latest additions to the category of failed state.
Continue reading...Thousands of Nigerian women could be expelled or left homeless as Salvini decree abolishes protective measures
Princess stares out of the window of a welcome centre an hour outside Rome, watching the sky turn red. She clutches her three-month-old child tightly. The baby is all she has left after Nigeria stole her freedom, and Italy her hope.
Princess, 31, born among the muddy streets and shacks of Benin City, left everything to come to Italy in 2008. Now she is one of the thousands of women trafficked into the country who could soon find themselves on the streets, or deported back to Nigeria, under a decree that cements the populist government’s hardline immigration stance.
Continue reading...Days after Egypt executed men who said they were tortured into confessions of killing the country’s former top prosecutor, Europe’s heads of state are enjoying the hospitality of its president. The resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is hosting the inaugural summit of the European Union and the Arab League. Donald Tusk, president of the European council, is co-chairing with Abdel Fatah al-Sisi; Britain’s Theresa May is among the guests.
If the event itself is a first, the approach is familiar. As Mr Sisi entrenches his rule, presiding over what Human Rights Watch calls Egypt’s worst human rights crisis in decades, European countries murmur about their “quiet diplomacy” on such issues. Then they carry on building ties and providing the air of international legitimacy that he needs given his grim record since seizing power in 2013’s coup. Mr Sisi’s recent spate of executions is instructive: he must have felt confident there would be no repercussions for putting people to death so close to the summit – despite their blatantly unfair trials.
Continue reading...Asking about the importance of cocoa in Ivory Coast feels a little like making enquiries about the value of grapes in Burgundy. When I put the question to N’Zi Kanga Rémi, who has for the last 18 years beengovernor of the rural department of Adzopé, north-east of the sprawling port city of Abidjan, he leaned forward in his chair and fixed me with an amused stare.
His booming voice went up a decibel to fill the administrative offices on whose walls his own portrait alternated with that of his nation’s president. “It doesn’t make sense to ask an Ivorian what cocoa means to him!” he said. “It means everything! It’s his first source of income! My education was funded by cocoa! Our houses are built with cocoa! The foundations of our roads, our schools, our hospitals is cocoa! Our government runs on cocoa! All our policy focuses on sustaining cocoa!”
Continue reading...Reports of attacks and gunfire in some areas as voters go to polls to elect president
Nigeria’s long-awaited presidential election went ahead on Saturday, marred by heavy gunfire in the north-east, killings in the south and reports of technology failures and vote buying across the country.
Some voters arrived at polling stations at 3am to ensure their ballot was counted in an election dominated by the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, and a former vice-president Atiku Abubakar.
Continue reading...Clashes between police and protesters break out as Omar al-Bashir announces measures
Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has appointed a new prime minister, but left the country’s current defence, foreign and justice ministers in place following a declaration of a one-year state of emergency.
Just hours after announcing that he would dissolve the country’s central and state governments, Bashir appointed new state governors who were all from the military, according to a presidency statement.
Continue reading...Nigerians are hoping vote will go ahead following delay over unspecified ‘challenges’
Nigerians are preparing to go to the polls again, hoping the presidential election will go ahead on Saturday morning after last weekend’s 11th-hour postponement.
The incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari, and his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar, resumed campaigning this week after the announcement by the independent national electoral commission (INEC) at 3am last Saturday, five hours before polling stations were due to open, that the vote was being pushed back.
Continue reading...The city has has endured much through the years, but as cartoonist Tayo Fatunla grew up saying: ‘Eko oni baje’ or ‘Lagos cannot be destroyed’
Continue reading...Decision prompts anger as high court asks for more time to consider evidence
Judges in Kenya have postponed a long-awaited landmark ruling that could have led to sex between men or between women decriminalised.
The attempt by LGBT campaigners to have colonial era legislation struck out has been closely watched by activists across Africa.
Continue reading...Decision has implications for rest of continent, where LGBT people face widespread discrimination
Judges in Kenya’s high court will decide on Friday whether to repeal laws criminalising homosexuality, in a potentially historic decision that has implications for the rest of Africa, where LGBT people face widespread discrimination.
“Everyone all over Africa is paying attention. Whatever happens in Kenya will have a direct impact on us all,” said Frank Mugisha, an activist based in neighbouring Uganda, where homosexuality is outlawed and authorities have attempted to impose harsher sentences on gay people in recent years.
Religious groups in Kenya have opposed any softening of its colonial-era laws, which punish sexual acts deemed “unnatural” with up to 14 years in prison, but pro-repeal campaigners say they are optimistic.
Lawyers acting for LGBT activists have argued that the laws contravene Kenya’s 2010 constitution.
“Our constitution is very progressive but there is legislation in place that is not. Repealing the laws would mean equal recognition … with rights such as the freedom to exist, to associate, to be free from discrimination. All these rights will finally be recognised for queer people in Kenya,” said Lelei Cheruto, of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC).
Hate crimes against gay people – including physical and sexual assault, blackmail and extortion – are common, but most victims are too fearful to go to the police, rights groups say.
“It is a challenge to be gay here because of society. You can be attacked whenever, wherever. There will be protests if we win,” said Mombo Ngua, an activist in Nairobi.
Kenya arrested 534 people for same-sex relationships between 2013 and 2017.
According to the NGLHRC, one of the petitioners against the law, there have been more than 1,500 attacks against LGBT Kenyans since 2014.
Pattern seems to confuse flies, researchers who dressed horses up as zebras find
The mystery of how the zebra got its stripes might have been solved: researchers say the pattern appears to confuse flies, discouraging them from touching down for a quick bite.
The study, published in the journal Plos One, involved horses, zebras, and horses dressed as zebras. The team said the research not only supported previous work suggesting stripes might act as an insect deterrent, but helped unpick why, revealing the patterns only produced an effect when the flies got close.
Continue reading...More than 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation and about 3 million more are at risk every year. Africa has the highest numbers, but its young people are fighting back
Photographs by the Girl Generation
Continue reading...A clinic making artificial limbs in CAR – the country’s only centre of its kind – is changing lives devastated by conflict
Exaucé Bagaza can’t keep his eyes off his feet. A moment ago the five-year-old boy had one foot and now he has two: they are tucked into a pair of white tennis shoes adorned with flecks of green glitter.
Wobbling a little, the child presses his right hip on to his new leg, a prosthesis made of polypropylene. His physiotherapist leans forward, reaching for his hands: “Come here,” he says.
Continue reading...Communities clash over natural resources as arrivals from South Sudan and DRC plunder environment for fuel and construction
The cutting down of millions of trees has sparked angry clashes in parts of Uganda between local people and refugees who have been fleeing conflict in neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The timber is being used for house construction, fuel and to make charcoal. In the north and west of the country, where an estimated 1.1 million refugees are living, massive deforestation is drawing protests by local communities.
Continue reading...The latest World Health Organization report on measles epidemics shows that cases jumped by 50% last year. In one of the poorest and least connected countries in the world, Madagascar, nearly a thousand children are reported to have died after a measles outbreak in the countryside. The real figure is likely to be much higher, because of difficulties of reporting. An emergency programme of vaccination seems to have contained that epidemic for the moment but it is a reminder of how devastating the disease can be against unprepared populations. In the rich world, meanwhile, previously prepared populations are having their defences dismantled from the inside.
The discovery of ad campaigns against vaccination on Facebook that are carefully targeted at pregnant women is unusually worrying. It shows how the widespread availability of sophisticated advertising techniques is going to give considerable power to people who previously had no way of getting their message across to large numbers. In the most recent US campaigns against vaccination, 147 different advertisements have been used and some viewed more than 5m times. There is an arms race under way, whether we like it or not.
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