Africa News and Discussions

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Time_Traveller
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Burundi celebrates 60 years of independence in Bujumbura
6 hours ago

Burundi celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence in Bujumbura with a military parade and guests of honor from around the world.

The Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye during the ceremony hailed the new Burundi after 6 years and further advocated for a better tomorrow for the central African country.

"After 60 years, Burundi is no longer the same, it is a new Burundi, it is for this reason that we must cherish the chapter that we have started, we must not deviate from the good path that we have taken," said Evariste Ndayishimiye, Burundian president.

President Ndayishimiye further reckoned the underdevelopment status of the country linking colonizations as the root of ethnical vices like wars.

This, according to Evariste Ndayishimiye, has relegated the country to the bottom of the economic ladder. Burundi is ranked as the poorest country in the world by the World Bank.
https://www.africanews.com/2022/07/02/b ... bujumbura/
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Ghana back to IMF as economic conditions worsen
01/07

Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has authorized Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to commence formal engagements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to support the country’s economy.

A statement issued by the country’s information ministry said the order follows a telephone conversation between President Akufo-Addo and the IMF Managing Director, Miss Kristalina Georgieva, Graphic.com reported.

"At a meeting on June 30th, 2022, the cabinet indicated its support for the decision," the statement said on Friday, July 1.

"The engagement with the IMF will seek to provide a balance of payment support as part of a broader effort to quicken Ghana's build back in the face of challenges induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and, recently, the Russia-Ukraine crises".
https://www.africanews.com/2022/07/01/g ... ns-worsen/
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Germany, Nigeria to Sign Accord on Return of Benin Bronzes
July 1, 2022

Introduction:
BERLIN (AP via Courthouse News) — Germany and Nigeria are set to sign an agreement in Berlin Friday paving the way for the return of centuries-old sculptures known as the Benin Bronzes that were taken from Africa in the 19th century and displayed in German museums and elsewhere.

Governments and museums in Europe and North America have increasingly sought to resolve ownership disputes over objects that were looted during colonial times.

A British colonial expedition stole the bas-relief Bronzes along with a vast number of other treasures in 1897 from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what’s now southern Nigeria.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, an authority that oversees many of Berlin’s museums, announced last year that it was beginning formal negotiations on returning pieces that are in its collection. Many of them date from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

The memorandum of understanding will be signed by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Culture Minister Claudia Roth, as well as Nigeria’s Culture Minister Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Zubairo Dada.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/germany ... -bronzes/
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UN secretary general urges calm in Libya as protests spread
Sun 3 Jul 2022

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed for calm as street demonstrations spread across Libya in protest over power cuts and the failure to hold national elections.

Talks between the Libyan factions in Geneva convened by the UN special adviser Stephanie Williams made progress last week but without agreement on a constitution for the elections.

On Friday night, protesters stormed the parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk as anger exploded over deteriorating living conditions and the political deadlock.

“The secretary general is following with concern the demonstrations that were held in several cities in Libya, including Tripoli, Tobruk and Benghazi,” the office of Guterres said in a statement.

The UN chief called on protesters “to avoid acts of violence and on the security forces to exercise utmost restraint”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... ts-tripoli
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Sudan’s General al-Burhan Says Army Stepping Back from Government
July 4, 2022

Introduction:
(Al Jazeera) Sudan’s coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has said the army will make way for a civilian government, will withdraw from ongoing political talks and allow political and revolutionary groups to form a transitional government.

The general’s statements on Monday follow after a deadly week for Sudan’s pro-democracy movement as large-scale protests demanding an end to military rule have continued in the Khartoum area since Thursday.

Nine people have been killed and at least 629 injured by a security forces crackdown on the demonstrations, according to the Sudan’s Doctors Committee, which has tracked protest casualties.

“The armed forces will not stand in the way” of democratic transition, al-Burhan said in a televised address, affirming the military’s commitment to working towards “elections in which the Sudanese people choose who will govern them”.

The ruling sovereign council, led by al-Burhan and consisting of military and civilian members, will be dissolved after the formation of the new government, he said.
Read more here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/ ... lian-govt
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At least 14 dead in a mass shooting at a bar in Soweto, South Africa
Source: CNN

(CNN)At least 14 people were killed and nine more injured in a shooting at a bar in the South African township of Soweto on Sunday, local authorities said.

The incident unfolded shortly after midnight, when a group of men armed with rifles and 9-millimeter pistols entered the bar in the Nomzamo informal settlement near Johannesburg and started shooting "randomly" at the patrons, Gauteng Police said in a statement.

Police said 23 people were shot in the establishment -- 12 died at the scene and 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital with injuries. Two more people were declared dead at the hospital. The police have opened investigations into 14 cases of murder and nine cases of attempted murder, according to the statement.

"It's a bad scene. When you see the bodies [that] are piled up, you can see that every one of those people [was] struggling to get out of the tavern," Gauteng Police Commissioner Elias Mawela told South African news channel ENCA. Mawela said the police are yet to determine details on the motive or why the people at the tavern were targeted.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/10/africa/s ... index.html
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Climate Change, Labour Availability and the Future of Gender Inequality in South Africa
Published on line May 21, 2022 and cited by EurekAlert on July 14, 2022

Abstract:
(Climate and Development) Women in developing countries are more exposed to the adverse effects of climate change. We develop a structural model to study the long-term impacts of climate and socioeconomic changes on labour supply and the pay gap between male/female and high-skilled/low-skilled labour. We calibrate our model with empirical evidence on the impacts of increasing temperatures on labour availability in two general economic sectors with high and low exposure to rising temperatures. Using five waves of nationally representative micro-survey data in South Africa from 2008 to 2017, we find that while high-skilled labour availability is insensitive to climate change, higher temperatures have a negative impact on working hours of low-skilled labour specially among women in the high-exposure sector. We incorporate these findings in an overlapping generations (OLG) model to show that climate-induced reduction in labour availability increases the relative wages of low-skilled female labour and reduces the wage gap between male and female labour in the high-exposure sector, and between high-skilled and low-skilled female labour, in general. Considering climate change damages both on sectoral productivity and on labour availability, we project that by the end of the century, the output per adult will drop by about 11 percentage points under a severe climate scenario. This calls for more targeted adaptation policies that build on the potential benefits of climate change in reducing gender inequality and empowering women to take up more active roles in designing and implementing such policies at the local level.
Read more here: https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/ ... zMHZBzX6

And here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958647
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‘A bright life ahead’: Botswana on path to seeing no babies born with HIV

Mon 18 Jul 2022 08.30 BST

Being told her baby, Lesedi, was born without the HIV virus was “probably the happiest news I’ve heard”, says Neo Goitsemang, a street vendor. “The relief, from the guilt and fear, was unmatched.”

Lesedi, from Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in the east of Botswana, was born just months after her 35-year-old mother learned she was HIV positive. “What frightened me the most was the idea of ruining my baby’s life before she was even born, by passing the virus on to her.”

According to the World Health Organization, Goitsemang had a 15% to 45% chance of passing the virus on to her daughter.

Very few babies now born in Selebi-Phikwe to women with the virus are HIV positive thanks to a national campaign to stop mother-to-child transmissions in a country that once had the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world.

[...]

Transmission rates have fallen from 40% in 1999 to below 1% last year, which the WHO called a “groundbreaking achievement”. Seven health districts recorded no transmissions in 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... s-fall-who
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Children among dozens killed in Egypt church fire

Source: CNN

(CNN) Children are among at least 41 people killed, and 14 injured after a fire broke out at a church in Giza's Imbaba neighborhood in greater Cairo on Sunday, according to a spokesperson for the Egyptian Coptic Church citing health officials. It is unclear how many children were killed in the fire at at Abu Sefein church, but it was crowded with worshippers attending Sunday mass, Coptic Church spokesperson Archpriest Moussa Ibrahim said. One priest was among those killed, he said.

At least two officers and three civil protection service members were injured responding to the fire, Egypt's interior ministry announced in a Facebook post. The statement added that the fire started around 9 a.m. local time and was caused by an electrical failure in an air conditioning unit on the church's second floor.

Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by smoke inside church classrooms after the electric failure, the interior ministry said. Church officials also believe the fire was accidental, Ibrahim said. Egypt's Coptic community and churches have been a target of religious-based violence and attacks historically, with persecution and discrimination spiking since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak's regime in 2011.

"We are in continuous contact with the local authorities and the Health Ministry," the head of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II said, according to the church spokesperson. Mariam Malak, 23, told CNN that she had left the church shortly before the fire broke out. "I left the church after Sunday mass and was on my way to work when my mom called me, she thought I was caught in the fire. I turned back and saw [the] church in flames. I just missed it by only a few minutes.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/africa/e ... index.html
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Fire at Cairo Coptic church kills 41, including 15 children
Source: AP

By SAMY MAGDY
CAIRO (AP) — A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital on Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children.

Several trapped congregants jumped from upper floors of the Martyr Abu Sefein church to try to escape the intense flames, witnesses said. “Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead,” said a distraught witness, who only gave a partial name, Abu Bishoy.

Sixteen people were injured, including four policemen involved in the rescue effort.

The cause of the blaze at the church in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba was not immediately known. An initial investigation pointed to an electrical short-circuit, according to a police statement.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/middle-east- ... bfbe513aea
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