Government says attempt to break into an armoury in Freetown has been repelled and calm restored
Armed clashes erupted in Sierra Leone’s capital on Sunday after what the government said was an attack on a military armoury, as it imposed an immediate nationwide curfew.
Witnesses said they had heard gunshots and explosions in the Wilberforce district of Freetown, where the armoury and a number of embassies are located.
Continue reading...Ten of the dozen other candidates had refused to campaign and called on voters to shun the ballot
The president of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, has been re-elected in the first round of a ballot boycotted by nearly all opposition candidates, the national election commission said.
Rajoelina won 58.95% of the votes cast in the 16 November presidential election, according to figures presented by the poll body, although the result needs to be validated by the constitutional court.
Continue reading...The first amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games in 2012, he killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013
Oscar Pistorius is a former professional sprinter and a convicted murderer.
Continue reading...South African former Paralympic star jailed for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp to be freed on 5 January
South Africa’s parole board has granted early release to Oscar Pistorius, the former athlete jailed for the 2013 murder of Reeva Steenkamp, who was his girlfriend.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp, a law graduate and model, through a bathroom door in their shared home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day 10 years ago. He claimed he thought there was an intruder in the bathroom when he opened fire.
Continue reading...More than 50 people dead in Tigray and Amhara regions while UN warns of ‘crisis-level hunger or worse’ in Somalia
The regions of Tigray and Amhara in northern Ethiopia have continued to experience severe drought conditions with more than 50 people dead, as well as 4,000 cattle.
While northern Ethiopia suffers from droughts, the southern and eastern parts of the country, along with Kenya and Somalia, have been hit by flooding. Somalia suffered the worst of the flooding, with 50 people reported dead. According to the Somali disaster management agency almost 700,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.
Continue reading...More than 13,000 Nigerian villagers can bring legal claims against oil firm, rules high court
Thousands of Nigerian villagers can bring human rights claims against the fossil fuel company Shell over the chronic oil pollution of their water sources and destruction of their way of life, the high court in London has ruled.
Mrs Justice May ruled this week that more than 13,000 farmers and fishers from the Ogale and Bille communities in the Niger delta were entitled to bring legal claims against Shell for alleged breaches to their right to a clean environment.
Continue reading...‘Momentous’ breakthrough as trial finds treatment for nail infections to be highly effective for neglected tropical disease
A cheap and easily taken drug used to treat fungal nail infections has been found to work against a devastating flesh and bone-eating disease found across Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Researchers say the breakthrough offers hope to thousands of patients who have suffered decades of neglect and can face amputations if the disease is left untreated.
Continue reading...Study finds impact of heat on millions of people went unrecorded, highlighting limitations many African countries face
A record-breaking heatwave in Madagascar in October would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused global heating, a study has shown.
The extreme temperatures affected millions of very poor people but the damage to their lives was not recorded by officials or the media. Many governments in Africa lack the capabilities to record climate impacts. The scientists behind the report said this lack of information made implementing measures to avoid deaths very difficult.
Continue reading...World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.
Continue reading...Jealous Mpofu wins Tusk’s ranger of the year award for his work with a maligned and misunderstood species
When Jealous Mpofu was a boy, he overheard his father’s bosses talking negatively about painted dogs, wild African canines with distinct marble coats that are among the world’s most endangered species.
“They said they didn’t kill an animal, they grabbed the flesh. They said they were rough animals,” Mpofu said.
Continue reading...African Union and Caricom members establish global reparations fund and call for formal apologies from European nations
A global movement to seek reparations for slavery has been forged during a summit in Ghana this week, with the African Union partnering with Caribbean countries to form a “united front” to persuade European nations to pay for “historical mass crimes”.
The partnership between the 55-member African Union and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) of 20 countries will aim to intensify pressure on former slave-owning nations to engage with the reparations movement.
Continue reading...The jab, given every two months, has been offered on a non-profit basis, but it can’t compete with a cheap daily HIV-prevention pill
The South African health department says the reduced cost of a new anti-HIV injection is still three times more than it can afford to pay.
The UK-based drug company ViiV Healthcare has lowered the price from 729 rand per shot (£32) to between 540 and 570 rand (£23.66-£24.97).
Continue reading...Move would cost less than $5bn and cut toll of deaths from power outages and lack of supply, Cop28 delegates will hear
All healthcare facilities in poorer countries could be electrified using solar energy within five years for less than $5bn, putting an end to the risk of life from power outages, experts will argue at Cop28 this month.
“I would like the international community to commit to a deadline and funding to electrify all healthcare facilities,” said Salvatore Vinci, an adviser on sustainable energy at the World Health Organization and a member of its Cop28 delegation. “We have solutions now that were not available 10 years ago – there is no reason why babies should be dying today because there is not electricity to power their incubators.
Continue reading...Fast-track bill, after supreme court ruling barring deportation flights, would be ‘wildly unpopular legislation’ says Tory peer
Rishi Sunak’s target of flying out asylum seekers to Rwanda by next spring is in doubt, with opposition parties and some Conservative peers having pledged to try to block emergency legislation intended to rescue the plan.
In another blow to the prime minister, Suella Braverman, the home secretary that Sunak sacked on Monday, dismissed his ideas as “magical thinking”, setting out her own rival plan to make sure removals begin swiftly.
Continue reading...Decision to table primary legislation in parliament puts in doubt Rishi Sunak’s aim for flights to begin leaving for Rwanda by spring
Rishi Sunak’s government will present a full law to parliament to set aside the supreme court’s ban on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, setting up a probable battle with MPs and peers and putting in doubt the aim for flights to begin leaving by spring.
The law could be published within a fortnight, after next week’s autumn statement, and it will be primary legislation, meaning it will have to pass through all the normal stages of the Commons and Lords, Downing Street has said.
Continue reading...Government accused of ‘magical thinking’ and ignoring facts on the ground that led to supreme court judgment
Lawyers have said that UK ministers’ latest plans to get their high-profile Rwanda policy off the ground are unlikely to overcome the legal obstacles that defeated them in the supreme court on Wednesday.
After the five judges unanimously rejected the government’s plans to deport people seeking asylum in the UK to the east African country, Rishi Sunak said that he would ensure the flights could go ahead by legislating that Rwanda was safe.
Continue reading...Home secretary says legally binding treaty will be drafted ‘within days’ despite policy being ruled unlawful
Ministers are “absolutely determined” to get a removal flight to Rwanda off before the next election, and will finish drafting a legally binding treaty with the country “within days”, the home secretary, James Cleverly, has said, after the policy was ruled unlawful.
Cleverly, who was made home secretary in the reshuffle earlier this week, said the controversial policy was already having “a deterrent effect” on people smugglers.
Continue reading...Whitehall sources say it could take more than a year for any treaty to be passed, with next election looming
Rishi Sunak is attempting to finalise a new pact with Rwanda after a central plank of the British government’s immigration plans was ripped up by the supreme court.
A treaty, which would have to be ratified by the UK parliament, was being drawn up with the government in Kigali, the prime minister said.
Continue reading...Masaya reportedly tortured and his body dumped on outskirts of Harare after being abducted while campaigning
A Zimbabwe opposition activist has been found dead after he was abducted on Saturday during a political campaign just outside Harare, the Citizens Coalition for Change party has said. It was the second abduction in weeks of an opposition party member.
Tapfumaneyi Masaya was reportedly bundled into a vehicle by unknown men while campaigning for the CCC’s candidate ahead of byelections on 9 December, the party said.
Continue reading...A victory for the immigration and asylum policy on Wednesday will come with headaches, but a defeat could split the Conservative party
Wednesday marks a potentially pivotal moment in the government’s fortunes when the supreme court rules whether its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful.
The decision could have significant implications not just for immigration and asylum policy, but also for the future direction of Rishi Sunak’s government, and the Conservative party more widely. Here is what could follow from a government win or loss.
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