african countries 24

Thirteen French soldiers fighting jihadists in Mali were killed in an accident between two helicopters, the French presidency said on Tuesday, the single biggest loss of French troops in combat in the region since intervening there in 2013.

France has more than 4,500 troops countering Islamist insurgencies in the Sahel region, where violence by militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in the sparely-populated area has proliferated in recent years.

“The president announces with deep sadness the death of 13 French troops in Mali on the evening of Nov. 25, in an accident between their two helicopters during a combat mission against jihadists,” the statement from the president’s office said.

The militants use central and northern Mali as a launch pad for attacks across the largely desert region.

Hong Kong’s democrats scored a landslide majority in district council elections, which saw a record turnout after six months of anti-government protests, increasing pressure on the Chinese-ruled city’s leader on Monday to listen to calls for democracy.

Sunday’s elections marked a rare weekend lull in the sometimes violent unrest, with pro-democracy candidates securing nearly 90% of the 452 district council seats, broadcaster RTHK reported, despite a strongly resourced and mobilized pro-establishment opposition.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, Carrie Lam, said in a statement the government respected the results and wished “the peaceful, safe and orderly situation to continue”.

“There are various analyses and interpretations in the community in relation to the results, and quite a few are of the view that the results reflect people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society,” she said.

The government would “listen to the opinions of members of the public humbly and seriously reflect”, Lam said.

Results showed upset wins for democrats against heavyweight pro-Beijing opponents when they started trickling in after midnight on Sunday, causing some voting centers to erupt in loud cheers and chants of “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution Now” – a slogan used by many protesters over the past six months.

Pictures posted online showed people celebrating outside polling stations and on the streets of Central, the city’s business district, popping bottles of champagne.

Regina Ip, a member of the Hong Kong government’s leading advisory body and a former security chief, was loudly heckled in Central by lunchtime protesters.

“In general, I think the election results do reflect that the public is very dissatisfied with the government,” she told reporters.

The voting ended with no major disruptions across the city of 7.4 million people on a day that saw massive, though orderly, queues form outside voting centers.

“This is the power of democracy. This is a democratic tsunami,” said Tommy Cheung, a former student protest leader who won a seat in the Yuen Long district close to China’s border.

“This district election shows that the central government needs to face the demands of a democratic system,” Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai said. “Today’s result is the first step of our long way to democracy.”

In self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, the Presidential Office expressed “great admiration and support” for the election result.

“The election fully demonstrates Hong Kong people’s absolute will to pursue freedom and democracy,” it said.

The pro-democracy camp only secured around 100 seats at the previous polls four years ago. Almost three million people voted, a record turnout of more than 71% that appeared to have been spurred by the turmoil, almost double the number last time.

Starry Lee, chairwoman of the city’s largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, apologized for her party’s performance.

“For this major defeat, we do not want to find any excuses and reasons,” said Lee. She said the party rejected her offer to resign earlier on Monday.

‘PATH OF STRUGGLE’

Hong Kong’s district councils control some spending and decide a range of livelihood issues such as transport. They also serve as an important grassroots platform to radiate political influence.

“I believe this result is because there are a lot of voters who hope to use this election and their vote to show their support for the (protest) movement, and their five demands, and their dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong government,” said former student leader Lester Shum, who won a seat.

The protesters’ demands include full democracy, as well as an independent inquiry into perceived police brutality.

“The district council is just one very important path of struggle. In future, we must find other paths of struggle to keep fighting,” Shum said.

China’s foreign ministry, asked about the election, said stopping violence and restoring order in Hong Kong were the paramount tasks.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency announced the completion of the election, but did not say which side had won.

“Rioters, in concert with external forces, have continuously committed and escalated violence, resulting in social and political confrontation,” it said. “…Months of social unrest have seriously disrupted the electoral process.”

Demonstrators are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula for the autonomy of Hong Kong put in place in 1997. Police say they have shown restraint in the face of potentially deadly attacks.

Sophie Richardson, China Director of Human Rights Watch, said the results showed “a commitment to peaceful political participation” and called on Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to address “legitimate grievances”.

A passenger plane with about 17 passengers on board crashed on Sunday in the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing several people, the provincial governor’s office said.

The plane, operated by the local company Busy Bee, crashed during takeoff for a flight to the city of Beni, North Kivu Governor Carly Nzanzu Kasivita’s office said in a statement. The number of fatalities was not yet clear.

Air accidents are relatively frequent in Congo because of lax safety standards and poor maintenance. All Congolese commercial carriers, including Busy Bee, are banned from operating in the European Union.

A cargo plane departing from the same airport crashed an hour after take-off in October, killing all eight passengers.

The United States and France are boosting Saudi Arabia’s radar systems following crippling drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure in September, which Washington blames on Iran.

The chief of the US Central Command and France’s defense minister, whose countries have taken divergent approaches to Iran, also touted rival versions of maritime missions to protect Gulf waters at a Bahrain security forum on Saturday.

More than two months after the biggest assault on Saudi oil facilities, Riyadh and Washington have yet to provide concrete proof linking Iran to the attack while Saudi Arabia has provided few details about how it is addressing gaps in its air defenses.

Tehran denies involvement in the strikes that initially halved the crude output of the world’s top oil exporter and led the United States to send thousands of troops and military hardware to the kingdom.

“We continue to refine information on the attack against (Saudi state oil firm) Aramco and that will be released principally through the Saudis,” said General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees operations in the Middle East and South Asia.

“We are working with the Saudis to increase the networking of their systems. That will make them better able to defend against this type of threat,” he told reporters.

McKenzie said boosting the US military presence at Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh, in addition to large bases in Qatar and Bahrain, would “complicate an adversary’s ability to target you”.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly said Paris was separately sending Riyadh “a robust package of advanced warning”, including radars, to confront low-altitude attacks.

“It will be in Saudi Arabia in the coming days so it will be operational very, very rapidly. But there is an analysis to be done in order to better identify how to fill the gap,” she later told reporters.

“COOLING TEMPERS”

The September 14 strikes heightened regional tensions following attacks on tankers in Gulf waters and other Saudi energy assets in the summer that Washington also blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denies.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir told the IISS Manama Dialogue that Riyadh was consulting with its allies about what measures would be taken against Iran after the investigation concluded. He gave no timeframe.

The event focused mostly on the Iranian threat but included no representatives from Tehran. It underscored differences between Western allies over how to deal with Iran since the United States quit a 2015 international nuclear pact.

France wants to salvage the agreement, which Saudi Arabia and other U.S.-allied Gulf states oppose for failing to address Iran’s ballistic missiles program and regional interference.

“We have seen a deliberate, gradual U.S. disengagement,” Parly said, citing also U.S. inaction over a 2013 chemical attack in Syria and this year’s downing of an American drone by Iran.

She said it was time to “reinvent deterrence”, mentioning France’s efforts to form a European-led maritime mission, unassociated with the U.S. maximum pressure campaign on Iran, to help “cool down tempers”.

Parly told reporters the initiative could start early next year and around 10 European and non-European governments would join pending parliamentary approval.

Only Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom have so far joined the US-led International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), which McKenzie said would “shine a spotlight on nefarious activity”.

International Relations say there is no confirmation that South African citizens are part of a ship’s crew that has been kidnapped off the coast of Equatorial Guinea.

In a statement the government of Equatorial Guinea says earlier this week a supply vessel called ‘ The Warden ‘, belonging to Exxon Mobil, was attacked by pirates.

The navy was deployed to assist and found seven of the 15 crew members hiding aboard the vessel.

Eight crew members had been kidnapped by the pirates.

The government says the crew consisted of citizens from South Africa, the Philippines, Serbia and Cameroon.

The statement did not confirm if any South Africans were among those kidnapped.

DIRCO spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele says: “I can confirm that as DIRCO we are aware of the incident that took place in the coast of Equatorial Guinea. We are working with the government of Equatorial Guinea to establish if indeed South Africans are involved so that we can be able to assist with the consular services.”

Bolivia’s interim government filed a criminal complaint on Friday against former President Evo Morales for alleged sedition and terrorism, the interior minister said, as authorities began probes of his allies that they accuse of corruption and fomenting unrest.

Interim President Jeanine Anez, a former senator and opponent of Morales, has faced a wave of demonstrations by his supporters since taking office in a power vacuum last week.

Morales and his vice president stepped down under pressure from security forces and anti-government protesters on Nov. 10,amid reports of irregularities in the Oct. 20 election.

Morales fled to Mexico and says he was toppled in a coup. At least 29 have been killed in clashes since he resigned.

Interior Minister Arturo Murillo said he asked the public prosecutor’s office to open an investigation into Morales, based on audio in which, from Mexico, Morales allegedly directed plans for road blockades in Bolivia to destabilize the interim government.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the audio,which was played to reporters at a news conference earlier this week.

Morales’ former health minister, Gabriela Montano, called the audio “fake.”

Murillo told journalists outside the prosecutors’ office in La Paz: “The evidence is clear. We’ve presented it.”

Morales could not immediately be reached for comment. He said on Twitter that authorities should be investigating the death of protesters instead of going after him on the basis of what he described as fake evidence. It was unclear if prosecutors would investigate Morales or eventually file charges.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Blocking roads is a common form of protest in Bolivia and much of South America, though intense blockades by Morales supporters in the past week have cut off fuel and food to some cities.

Authorities have transported some 1 400 tonnes of food by plane in less than a week to the cities of La Paz, El Alto, Oruro and Sucre due to blockades, Productive Development Minister Wilfredo Rojo told journalists on Friday.

Anez pleaded with protesters to end an ongoing blockade at a natural gas plant that supplies La Paz. Eight people died in clashes after the military forcibly cleared access to it briefly on Tuesday.

“I ask for reflection from brothers who are carrying out this unnecessary blockade,” Anez said at the presidential palace on Friday.

“We’re all Bolivians. You can’t punish the city of LaPaz.” Anez reiterated that she will only stay in power long enough for there to be new elections.

But her critics say her cabinet have overstepped the bounds of a caretaker government by making changes to foreign policy and threatening to punish Morales’allies.

Under Anez, authorities have alleged that several of Morales’ allies have taken part in criminal activity, including the former culture minister, the former vice president’s brother, and the vice president of his Movement to Socialism (MAS) political party.

Murillo said on Friday that he was also asking prosecutors to investigate Morales’ former presidency minister, Juan Ramon Quintana, for sedition and terrorism for allegedly telling a news outlet that Bolivia would become a modern Vietnam.

Reuters could not verify the accuracy of his quoted comments or immediately reach him for a response.

A lawyer affiliated with opponents of Morales, Jorge Valda, said he planned to ask authorities to issue an arrest warrant for Morales’ 25-year-old daughter, Evaliz Morales, on Tuesday for alleged sedition and corruption.

Evaliz could not immediately be reached for comment.

Nigeria’s economic growth rose to an annual rate of 2.28% in the three months to the end of September after the production of its main export commodity, crude oil, rose to a more than three year high, the statistics office said on Friday.

The economy, Africa’s largest, expanded by 0.17% in the previous quarter and 0.47% in the same period a year earlier. The country has struggled to shake off the effects of a 2016 recession that ended the following year.

Growth rates in Nigeria have been bouncing back this year, though from a low base, after the oil sector, which accounts for around two-thirds of government revenue and 90% of foreign exchange, shrugged off its negative performance in the first quarter.

Crude production in the third quarter stood at 2.04 million barrels per day, its highest since the first quarter of 2016, the statistics office said.

Friday’s data release comes ahead of the central bank’s announcement of its main interest rate on Tuesday and days after the statistics office said annual inflation was at a 17-month high in October.

Nigeria recorded the highest quarterly growth in September since the last quarter of 2018 as the oil sector rose 6.49%. The non-oil sector rose 1.85% during the period.

Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered, welcomed the oil sector performance but added that it raises concerns that Nigeria could come under more pressure to adhere to its OPEC quota.

The non-oil sector is showing signs of recovery but is inadequate for Nigeria’s potential, Khan said.

“Given the hoped-for faster passage of the 2020 budget and efforts to boost private sector credit, we expect more of a recovery to emerge all-round in 2020,” Khan said.

The central bank has been trying to boost growth by forcing commercial banks to lend to stimulate the economy but it has also kept benchmark interest rates high and liquidity tight in a bid to support the currency and wade off inflation.

The central bank has forecast growth of 3% for 2019 while the IMF expects the year to finish off at 2.3%.

U.S. Navy warships twice sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea in the past few days, the U.S. military told Reuters on Thursday, at a time of heightened tension between the world’s two largest economies.

The busy waterway is one of a number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which include a trade war, U.S. sanctions, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Earlier this week during high-level talks, China called on the U.S. military to stop flexing its muscles in the South China Sea and adding “new uncertainties” over democratic Taiwan, which is claimed by China as a wayward province.

The U.S. Navy regularly angers China by conducting what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations by ships close to some of the islands China occupies, asserting freedom of access to international waterways.

The littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords traveled within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef on Wednesday, Commander Reann Mommsen, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, told Reuters.

The destroyer Wayne E. Meyer challenged restrictions on innocent passage in the Paracel islands on Thursday, Mommsen said.

“These missions are based in the rule of law and demonstrate our commitment to upholding the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all nations,” she said.

China’s military confirmed on Friday that the two U.S. warships had sailed through the contentious waterways and said it tracked the passage of the American ships.

“We urge (the United States) to stop these provocative actions to avoid any unforeseeable accidents,” the spokesman for China’s Southern Theatre Command said in a statement. “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and its surrounding area.”

China claims almost all the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, where it has established military outposts on artificial islands. However, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the sea.

The United States accuses China of militarising the South China Sea and trying to intimidate Asian neighbors who might want to exploit its extensive oil and gas reserves.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper met Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe earlier this week for closed-door talks on the sidelines of a gathering of defense ministers in Bangkok.

Wei urged Esper to “stop flexing muscles in the South China Sea and to not provoke and escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” a Chinese spokesman said.

Esper has accused Beijing of “increasingly resorting to coercion and intimidation to advance its strategic objectives” in the region.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Tuesday appointed former Interior Minister and ambassador to France Chakib Benmoussa as head of a committee to tackle social inequality and poverty, the Royal Palace said in a statement.

The King said the committee was intended to design a “new development model” to reform areas such as education, health, agriculture, investment and taxation.

The monarch acknowledged that infrastructure achievements of recent years, such as highways, high-speed railways, ports, renewable energy and urban development had not been felt by all sectors of society.

Morocco is 123rd in the UN Human Development Index, as rural areas lag behind in access to education and health services.

The number of poor Moroccans, or those at risk of poverty, stands at nearly 9 million, or 24% of the population, according to a World Bank Report last month.

Due to a decline in agricultural output, the International Monetary Fund expects Morocco’s economy to grow 2.8% in 2019 after 3% in 2018, a rate that cannot create enough jobs in a society where one in four young people is unemployed.

Some economists say there’s room for the Reserve Bank to lower the repo rate shortly.

They say this is because inflation is at its lowest in eight years.

On Wednesday, Statistics South Africa announced that the headline consumer price index fell to 3.7 per cent in October, down from 4.1 per cent the month before.

In September, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent following a 25 basis points cut.

The South African Reserve Bank’s policy committee is meeting on Thursday for the last time in 2019.

A senior US diplomat told lawmakers on Wednesday that President Donald Trump expressly ordered him and others to help pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival of the president, providing some of the most significant testimony to date in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.

In testimony that also put Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the center of the Ukraine controversy, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said Pompeo was “fully supportive” of the efforts to push Ukraine into carrying out two investigations that would benefit Trump politically at home.

Sondland, a wealthy hotel entrepreneur and Trump donor, said he worked with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine issues on “the president’s orders,” further detailing Trump’s active participation in a controversy that threatens his presidency.

Giuliani’s efforts earlier this year to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son “were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit” for the Ukrainian leader, Sondland said, using a Latin term meaning to exchange a favor for another favor.

Sondland described Trump in May telling him along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and then-US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker to work with Giuliani on Ukraine policy at a time when the former New York mayor was working to get the Ukrainians to do the politically motivated investigations.

“Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the United States,” Sondland told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which is spearheading the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.

“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the president’s orders,” Sondland said.

Giuliani held no formal US government job.

The inquiry focuses on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s Zelenskiy to carry out two investigations. One involved Biden and his son Hunter, who had worked for Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The other involving a debunked conspiracy theory promoted by some Trump allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election.

Trump is seeking re-election in 2020. Biden, the former vice president, is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to face Trump.

POMPEO FOCUS

The investigation could lead the House to approve formal charges against Trump – called articles of impeachment – that would be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial on whether to remove him from office. Few Republican senators have broken with Trump.

Sondland’s comments cast more light on the role of Pompeo, a close Trump ally who has declined to defend State Department witnesses who have been attacked by Trump and other Republicans for cooperating with the impeachment inquiry.

Sondland provided correspondence showing that he and Pompeo communicated about his effort to get Zelenskiy to commit to undertake investigations as a way to free up $391 million in security aid for Ukraine that Trump had withheld. The aid eventually was provided in September.

“All good. You’re doing great work; keep banging away,” Pompeo told Sondland in early September, according to email correspondence cited in his testimony.

“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said.

Sondland said that even as late as Sept. 24 – the same day the House launched its impeachment inquiry – Pompeo was directing Volker to speak with Giuliani.

Democrats have accused Trump of using the frozen aid and Zelenskiy’s desire for an Oval Office meeting as leverage to pressure a vulnerable US ally to dig up dirt on political adversaries.

Sondland said Trump never told him directly that the aid to Ukraine was conditioned on Ukraine announcing an investigation.

“I think we know now … that the knowledge of this scheme was far and wide and included among others Secretary of State Pompeo as well as the vice president,” said Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.

Schiff said Pompeo and Trump “have made such a concerted and across-the-board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry. They do at their own peril.”

Career U.S. diplomats have portrayed Sondland in their testimony as a central figure in what became a shadow and “irregular” Ukraine policy operation, undercutting official channels and pressing Kiev to investigate the Bidens.

Sondland said he was “adamantly opposed” to any suspension of aid to Ukraine because Kiev needed it to fight against Russian aggression.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, called the inquiry a witch hunt and assailed some of the witnesses including current White House aides.

Sondland was tapped as Trump’s envoy after he donated $1 million to the president’s inauguration. In October, Trump called him “a really good man,” but after Sondland’s amended statement to House investigators this month the president told reporters at the White House, “I hardly know the gentleman.”

According to Reuters/Ipsos polling, 46 percent of Americans support impeachment, while 41 percent oppose it.

At least 10 workers were killed and 35 wounded in an air strike that hit a biscuit factory in Libya on Monday in what a senior UN official said was a possible war crime.

The majority of those killed in the strike in Wadi Rabea, 21km from the centre of Tripoli, were apparently migrants, while two were Libyans, UN Libya envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council.

Pictures posted by authorities showed several wounded people in bloodstained civilian clothes lying on beds in ambulances or medical facilities.

Tripoli has been under attack since April from forces loyal to east Libya-based commander Khalifa Haftar. The offensive by his Libyan National Army (LNA) quickly stalled, and both sides have used drones and fighter jets to carry out air strikes amid sporadic fighting.

LNA air strikes have often hit civilian areas in Tripoli. Officials in eastern Libya contacted by Reuters on Monday said they had no information about an air strike by their forces.

“Regardless of whether the attack deliberately targeted the factory or was an indiscriminate attack, it may constitute a war crime,” Salame said.

He also accused the LNA of causing civilian casualties by increased air strikes with unguided bombs, according to a transcript of his speech released by the UN mission in Libya.

The LNA had conducted more than 800 drone strikes, Salame said, while forces allied to the Tripoli government had carried around 240.

Salame said there had been intensified artillery fire directed at some Tripoli districts, although he did not name the LNA. He blamed a recent rise in violence on the growing use of mercenaries and private military contractors.

He did not identify these forces but diplomats and Tripoli officials have said that hundreds of Russian mercenaries have been fighting on Haftar’s side since September.

More than 200 civilians have been killed and 128 000 displaced in the conflict, Salame said.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between rival political and military groupings based in Tripoli and the east.

Haftar has received backing from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia, as well as some support from Western powers. The Tripoli government has been backed by Turkey.

Last week the United States called on the LNA to halt its offensive on Tripoli, warning against Russian interference.

Salame said Germany’s attempts to hold a conference to bring an end to the conflict in Libya were continuing with another preparatory meeting planned for Wednesday. He did not give a date for the main event.

Senior US officials told impeachment investigators in Congress on Tuesday they were concerned by President Donald Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to investigate a political rival, with one White House official calling it a shock.

The third day of impeachment hearings conducted by the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee marked the first time that officials from inside the White House publicly expressed their misgivings about a freewheeling pressure campaign that now threatens Trump’s presidency.

The White House’s top Ukraine expert, wearing his Army dress uniform, said Trump had made an “improper” demand of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call that has become the centerpiece of the Democratic-led impeachment probe of the Republican president.

“Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was probably an element of shock that maybe, in certain regards, my worst fear of how our Ukrainian policy could play out was playing out,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman said.

As he was testifying, the White House’s official Twitter account his judgment – undermining the same man the administration appointed to lead its European affairs brief at the National Security Council.

Two other senior White House aides, Jennifer Williams and Tim Morrison, also said during Tuesday’s hearings, which spanned 11-1/2 hours, that they were concerned by the political nature of that phone call.

Williams told the hearing that Trump’s call with Zelenskiy was unusual and inappropriate because “it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.”

Morrison said he did not see anything improper in the call but was concerned that its contents could leak, hurting bipartisan support for Ukraine. “I wanted access to be restricted,” he said.

During that call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to carry out two investigations that would benefit him politically, including one targeting Joe Biden, the former vice president who is a leading Democratic presidential contender to face Trump in next year’selection, and his son Hunter Biden.

The other involved a debunked conspiracy theory embraced by some Trump allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election.

Kurt Volker, a former US envoy to Ukraine, said he believed those two concerns were “conspiracy theories.” He added that allegations of corruption involving Biden and his son, who was a director of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, were “not credible.”

Trump has said his call with Zelenskiy was “perfect,” while Republican lawmakers criticize the impeachment process as unfair.

“What’s going on is a disgrace, and it’s an embarrassment to our nation,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s a big scam.”

Republican US Representative Francis Rooney told reporters: I don’t think there’s been a crime proven yet. But I want to see what happens. There’s still a lot of water to go down this creek.”

The South African Energy Forum has called on Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to make public all documents and video interviews related to the interview and assessment process regarding the appointment of the new Eskom CEO.

The Forum which is comprised of experts from Energy, Civil Society and the Business Community described the process, which ended in the appointment of Andre De Ruyter, as flawed and questionable.

In an open letter, the South African Energy Forum (SAEF) questions how a candidate with no energy or utility experience could be appointed.

It also expressed concern about De Ruyter’s relationship with Finance Minister Tito Mboweni who is a former Nampak chairperson.

De Ruyter will be leaving his post as Nampak CEO to take over at Eskom on January 15, 2019.

Click related video below:

Absolutely shocking a guy with no @Eskom_SA experience who destroyed Nampak is appointed Eskom CEO🤡 what is wrong with PG @DPE_ZA. No to #Andre @SAFTU_media @_cosatu @Numsa_Media @NEHAWU @BlackBCouncil @BEPA_SA @BMFNational @LandNoli @pulemabe @_AfricanSoil @MYANC @KhuselaS pic.twitter.com/ZET6p0eibL

— SAEF (@SAEF_ZA) 18 November 2019

Businesswoman Bridgette Motsepe-Radebe has challenged her detractors in Botswana to produce evidence that she was involved in money laundering in that country.

This comes after two major banks in South Africa told her that they are not aware of any account where she is a signatory and that was used for money laundering.

Motsepe-Radebe has been fingered by the state in Botswana to be co-signatory to the accounts alongside a Botswana citizen.

The businesswoman has called for an investigation into the matter.

Click on the video below for more on the story: 

Former Business Unity South Africa (Busa) CEO Jerry Vilakazi says unravelling corruption allegations and recouping of lost funds should not be limited to the Gupta family.

Vilakazi was speaking after Monday’s testimony by British lawmaker Lord Peter Hain at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

Hain, an anti-Apartheid activist, raised questions over international banking institutions turning a blind eye to alleged corrupt activities by the Gupta family and high ranking officials.

He name dropped a number of international banks, claiming that they helped the Guptas hide the source of their funds, by allowing them to transfer illicit funds into accounts.

Vilakazi says, “It looks to me, and it is the point that Peter is raising, sometimes you get a sense that there is a global gentlemen’s agreement. The reality is that we have all stood up at this point because when we saw and read and heard what the Guptas are alleged to have done. It sparked an anger that suddenly has made us stand up. But even beyond this environment we are still not looking beyond the Guptas.”

WATCH BELOW:

Indian police said they briefly detained around 50 students in New Delhi on Monday as protests against proposed fee hikes at a prestigious public university entered a second week and degenerated into clashes.

Police erected barricades around the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as hundreds of students marched down the campus seeking the rollback of a hike in annual fees they say would make education there unaffordable for many.

JNU has produced some of India’s most prominent academics and has a history of left-wing activism. Many at the university have also rallied to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of curbing free speech.

On Monday, students tried moving out of the campus towards central Delhi, but baton-wielding police pushed them back. One student had blood pouring down his face after a scuffle.

“This isn’t just about JNU, we need to reject fee hikes at all government universities,” said protester and languages student Kushal, saying many would be unable to finish their studies if the proposed raises went through.

Another languages student Shivraj Jagtap said university costs would be roughly tripled, reaching 12,000 rupees ($167) per month for some.

VICE-CHANCELLOR URGES RETURN TO CLASSROOM

With students refusing to leave until detainees were released, a police official in Delhi, M.S. Randhawa said they were being freed later on Monday.

University authorities could not be reached for comment on Monday’s unrest or the fee hike proposals.

But vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar on Sunday urged students to return to university for approaching exams.

The government’s Human Resource Development ministry, which oversees public universities, has appointed a three-member panel to address the student concerns.

The protests began at JNU a week ago, with some students injured when police fired water cannons to disperse them.

Nearly half of the university’s students come from families with incomes of less than 144,000 rupees ($2,018.22) annually, according to the JNU Students Union. That means many students from poor and low-income families would not be able to afford the new costs, the union says.

The students are also protesting against what they say are “regressive” hostel rules on clothing and timings and are demanding that the vice-chancellor be sacked.

“The vice-chancellor isn’t meeting us,” said Abhimanyu, a Ph.D student at JNU who like most preferred not to give a last name for fear of being identified.

“The administration hasn’t spoken to us even once.”

Students at other Indian universities have expressed solidarity with JNU colleagues, though the protests have not spread.

The last remains of 157 people killed aboard an Ethiopian Airlines plane in March were interred at the crash site this week, farmers and families told Reuters, but some relatives were upset they had been unable to take part in the ceremony.

Nadia Milleron, whose daughter Samya Stumo was killed, said an email was sent to some families — but not all — notifying them of the burial just two days before it happened.

“By the time the burial took place I was just wiped out; I was just glad they were doing it. I was tired of it not being done,” said Milleron. “But a lot of people didn’t feel like that. They hadn’t been aware of what was happening.”

Ethiopian Airlines did not return calls seeking comment about why some families were not told in advance.

Families have been begging the airline to fill in the crater left by the March 10 crash, which still contained remains too small to be recovered.

Milleron said on Saturday that locals had been burying remains exposed by rains in small mounds of earth. She herself found a bone at the site when she visited Ethiopia to collect her daughter’s remains in October, which she told the airline about in an email.

The force of the impact meant no complete bodies were recovered; partial remains were tested for DNA and finally returned to families last month.

As the burial took place on Thursday, a US embassy representative present kept Milleron updated by text: “Now they’re laying the coffins down, now they’re putting earth on them…”

“I became a blubbering mess,” she said.

Milleron said the lack of notice of the burial ceremony had raised tensions between the families and Ethiopian Airlines.

Representatives of the airline and of Boeing and some embassy employees were there. The Boeing representatives were on a prearranged trip to discuss community projects, Milleron said.

Boeing manufactured the 737 MAX 8 plane, which nosedived shortly after take-off. A preliminary investigation pointed to a malfunctioning anti-stall system known as MCAS, which was also implicated in the crash of a Lion Air plane in Indonesia five months earlier. All 189 people on board that flight were killed.

Tesfaye Mulatu, a farmer near the crash site, said he had seen a helicopter arrive and cars bring caskets on Thursday. The crater left by the impact has been filled in, he said.

“Now, the area looks a football field,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Some bereaved families have formed associations and hope to use funds from Boeing to build a memorial. The manufacturer will make $100 million available, with half going to families and half to projects in local communities.

“We continue to offer our deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 and we are committed to helping those affected by these tragedies,” Boeing spokesman Chaz Bickers said.

Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has advised that government – as a South African Airways shareholder – not get involved in matters relating to the strike faced by the national carrier.

Employees affiliated to NUMSA and the Cabin Crew Association are striking over a wage dispute, among other issues. BLSA CEO, Busisiwe Mavuso, says the SAA board is accountable for the ailing state-owned enterprise.

“It is the Board that is charged with the duties to ensure that these organisations are run the way they are supposed to be run. It is the Board that is going to be held accountable. So shareholders should never get involved in the issues of salary disputes and the issues of operations… they have nothing to do with them. When you look at SAA, this is an ailing organisation that is at the brink of collapse. Demanding that Board signs off the 8% increase to employees doesn’t generate enough income from operations. I think is tantamount to the Board being derelict of their duties,” says Mavuso.

Watch related video below:

Sri Lanka’s former wartime defence chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa established a lead over his main rival in a presidential election, months after deadly militant attacks in the island, early results showed on Sunday.

Millions of Sri Lankans voted on Saturday to elect a new president to lead the country out of its deepest economic slump in over 15 years, following Easter Sunday suicide bombings that sapped investor confidence and hurt its tourism sector.

Rajapaksa, who oversaw the military defeat of Tamil separatists under his brother and then president Mahinda Rajapaksa 10 years ago, has promised strong leadership to secure the island of 22 million people, the majority of whom are Sinhalese Buddhists.

With a quarter of total votes counted, Rajapaksa had 48.2 percent, while his main rival government minister Sajith Premadasa stood at 45.3 percent, the election commission said.

Rajapaksa held a commanding edge in the Sinhalese-dominated southern part of the island, as well as postal ballots. Premadasa, who campaigned on policies to help the poor, was leading in the north where minority Tamils are predominant.

The election commission has said it expects results to be clear by late Sunday and a new president will be sworn in within a day.

Tamil political parties are strongly opposed to Rajapaksa, who has faced allegations of widespread human rights violations of civilians in the final stages of the war against the separatists in 2009.

Rajapaksa and his brother deny the allegations.

Muslims, the other large minority group, say they too have faced hostility since the April attacks on hotels and churches in which more than 250 people were killed. Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Health authorities in eastern Congo have introduced a new Ebola vaccine produced by an American medical company, aid group MSF said on Thursday, to help combat the world’s second-worst outbreak of the virus on record.

New tools including vaccines have helped contain the outbreak, second only to the 2013-16 West African outbreak that killed more than 11 300, despite public mistrust and conflict affecting the response in parts of the region.

The new vaccine, which has passed clinical trials but has never been tested in a real-world setting, will be administered to 50 000 people in Goma, a city of two million on the Rwandan border, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement.

The vaccine, which requires two injections eight weeks apart, will be rolled out alongside another manufactured by Merck, which only requires a single shot. The Merck vaccine has been administered to over 250 000 people since the start of the outbreak in August 2018.

Congo’s epidemic has infected over 3 000 people and killed nearly 2 200 people, however, the number of reported new infections has fallen steeply since June.

Sri Lankans trickled into polling centers early on Saturday to choose a new president for the island-nation still struggling to recover from Easter Sunday attacks on hotels and churches that have heavily weighed on its tourism-dependent economy.

Former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who oversaw the military defeat of Tamil separatists 10 years ago, and government minister Sajith Premadasa are locked in a close fight, politicians and analysts say.

Rajapaksa has vowed to overhaul national security, playing on the fears of the majority Sinhalese Buddhists following the April attacks claimed by Islamic State that killed more than 250 people.

Premadasa has sought to fire up the countryside with promises of free housing, school uniforms for students and sanitary pads for women – touching on a topic rarely discussed in public anywhere in south Asia but which has drawn women to his rallies.

Police said a group of unidentified men opened fire on buses carrying Muslims to a polling station in Anuradhapura district in central Sri Lanka. There were no injuries but witnesses said there were tires burning.

At a polling station in Colombo, M. Gunasekera, a 41-year-old homemaker, said the most important problem was widespread corruption and the lack of accountability of politicians.

About 16 million people are eligible to vote, with the ballot allowing voters to choose up to three candidates in order of preference.

Votes will be counted soon after polling stations close but the results are not expected before Sunday.

Muslims who make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population, say they have faced hostility ever since the April attacks.

That division has come on top of long-standing grievances of ethnic Tamils, who say they are still to get justice stemming from the human rights violations during a 26-war civil war with Tamil rebels that ended in 2009.

The unions affiliated to South African Airways (SAA) employees currently on strike is briefing the media in Johannesburg.

The post WATCH LIVE: NUMSA and SACCA brief members on mediation with SAA appeared first on SABC News - Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader..

With rents in the centre of Libya’s capital soaring as those displaced by fighting on its edge seek housing, 35-year-old IT engineer Moataz Saleh al-Fagih says he has been unable to find anything he can afford.

Since forces holding much of the eastern part of the country launched an offensive on Tripoli in early April, more than 120 000 people have been displaced, according to UN Estimates.

A wide buffer zone was created behind the front lines, from which most residents were evacuated. Many flooded into the centre of the city of three million and have remained there as the offensive stalled.

The cost of renting a furnished two-bedroom apartment has risen to about $2 140-$2 855 per month, said real estate broker Abdulmajid Ben Mansour.

Tenants are also being asked to pay six months rent as a deposit, usually in cash.

Though a liquidity crisis has eased slightly since last year, salary payments are often long delayed and it can still be hard to withdraw cash from banks, and Ben Mansour said some people are selling belongings including cars or jewellery to cover the advance.

Outside his office in the downtown Zawiyat al-Dahmani neighbourhood, dozens queuing to find a cheap apartment to rent were being turned away disappointed.

Housing supply through new construction has been limited by repeated bouts of fighting that have hit Tripoli since the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The purchase price for a two-bedroom apartment has more than tripled since 2014, Ben Mansour said, with some of the rise also down to Libyans based abroad taking advantage of cheap black market to invest.

Alongside those already displaced, some have sought housing in central Tripoli because of the fighting.

Sami Zayed Sobkha, a resident of the Mashroa al-Hadba area south of the centre in his 50s, said he wanted to move but could not afford. “There’s more shelling on the area where I live and I am trying to keep my family away from danger.”

Fagih said the state should be capping rents but the weakness of successive governments had prevented that.

Scandal-hit South African retailer Steinhoff International said on Friday it had sold Blue Group, owner of Bensons for Beds and Harveys Furniture, to Alteri Investors for an undisclosed price.

Steinhoff, which has been grappling with the fallout of an accounting scandal worth an estimated $7 billion since revealing holes in its accounts in 2017, said in August its only way to survive was to slim down and sell assets.

“The sale of Blue Group is the latest in a series of planned divestments by Steinhoff as we continue with our announced strategy of simplifying the group’s portfolio and deleveraging our balance sheet,” Steinhoff CEO Louis du Preez said.

The company, which added the transaction was subject to regulatory approvals, did not disclose its value. Blue Group was a relatively minor part of Steinhoff’s operation, contributing just under 5% of revenues in the six months ended March 31.

Alteri Investors, a specialist investor focused on European retail, was launched in 2014 as a joint venture between Alteri’s management and funds managed by affiliates of alternative investment manager Apollo Global Management.

Its founder and CEO Gavin George said the purchase was exactly the kind of opportunity it was launched to find – a trusted brand with strong management and the potential for profitable growth.

“We… are confident that our operational capabilities, alongside the injection of fresh capital, can help to build a market leading, vertically integrated business,” he said.

The Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump moved forward on Thursday with preparations for the appearance of another central figure – former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch – in the investigation’s second public hearing.

Two career U.S. diplomats, William Taylor and George Kent, testified on Wednesday in the first televised hearing of the House of Representatives inquiry that threatens Trump’s presidency even as he seeks re-election in November 2020.

Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, offered an account that linked the Republican president more directly to a pressure campaign on Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit him politically, including one into Democrat Joe Biden.

The public hearings follow weeks of closed-door interviews with current and former U.S. officials about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The House Intelligence Committee on Friday is due to hear in a public session from Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump abruptly removed from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani at the time was working to convince Ukraine to investigate Biden and the former vice president’s son Hunter, who had served as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma, as well as a debunked conspiracy theory embraced by some Trump allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

The focus of the impeachment inquiry is a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the investigations.

Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kiev.

The money, approved by the US Congress to help a US ally combat Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country, was later provided to Ukraine. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

‘FALSE CLAIMS’

Yovanovitch, who has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations, told lawmakers behind closed doors on Oct. 11 that Trump ousted her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives” after she came under attack by Giuliani.

She also denied allegations by Trump allies that she was disloyal to him and said she did not know what Giuliani’s motivations were for attacking her.

Yovanovitch said Giuliani’s associates “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

Trump called Yovanovitch “bad news” in the phone call to Zelenskiy, according to a White House summary.

The hearings may pave the way for the Democratic-led House to approve articles of impeachment – formal charges – against Trump. That would lead to a trial in the Senate on whether to convict Trump of the charges and remove him from office.

Republicans control the Senate and have shown little support for Trump’s removal. Three more public hearings are scheduled for next week.

On Wednesday, Taylor offered a new disclosure that indicated Trump’s keen interest in the investigations in Ukraine, saying a member of his staff overheard a July 26 phone call at a restaurant in which Trump asked about the probes he had asked Zelenskiy to conduct.

After the call between Trump and Gordon Sondland, a former political donor appointed as the US envoy to the European Union, the staff member asked Sondland what Trump thought about Ukraine, Taylor said.

“Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” Taylor testified.

Trump told reporters after the hearing that he knew”nothing” about the call with Sondland. “It’s the first time I heard it,” he said.

The staffer cited by Taylor is David Holmes, a Taylor aide who has been subpoenaed to testify in the inquiry on Friday behind closed doors, said a person familiar with the issue. Republican lawmakers called Taylor’s account hearsay.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Thursday that Sondland did not explicitly link the security aid to an investigation into the Bidens, Interfax Ukraine reported.

“Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and certainly did not tell me, about a connection between the assistance and the investigations. You should ask him,” Prystaiko said.

Trump said that he will release on Thursday a transcript of another call he had with Zelenskiy in April, when the former comedian was elected Ukraine’s president.

The relevance of that call to the impeachment inquiry remained unclear. TV viewership ratings for Wednesday’s hearing are expected to be available on Thursday, giving both parties a reading of public interest.

Zimbabwe is banning the installation of new electric water heaters in a bid to save power, energy regulations published on Wednesday showed, at a time when the country is enduring rolling blackouts lasting up to 18 hours a day.

Power cuts have been exacerbated by low dam water levels at Zimbabwe’s biggest hydro plant following a severe drought and constant breakdowns of coal-fired generators, hitting mines, industry and households.

The government has previously said electric water heaters consume up to 400 MW of power a day in Zimbabwe where daily production on Wednesday totaled 563 MW, against demand of 1 200 MW.

New regulations published in an official gazette said that as of Wednesday the country’s electricity supplier will no longer be allowed to connect power to premises without solar water heaters.

“No owner of the premises after the effective day of these regulations shall connect electrical geysers but may, at his or her own expense, install and use solar water heating systems,” the regulations said.

There is a strong police presence at the South African Airways (SAA) headquarters in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg, where striking workers affiliated to National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the Cabin Crew Association have started to picket.

The workers have embarked on an indefinite strike after wage negotiations deadlocked. They are demanding an 8% salary increase and have rejected SAA’s wage offer of 5.8% – calling it a sham.

Numsa says SAA has continued to spend R 25 billion in procurement annually at the expense of staff.

The unions have also come out against any retrenchments at SAA after the airline said it planned to implement its restricting plans which will result in cutting more than 900 jobs.

In KwaZulu-Natal, operations are running normally at the King Shaka International Airport in Durban despite the nationwide SAA strike.

King Shaka spokesperson Collin Naidoo says contingency plans in place in case the situation changes.

“Everything is normal, the airport is fully operational, passengers are at the airport checking in for flights. There has been no disruptions or any major operational delays, and we’re hoping that it will stay this way… but we have contingencies in place, and we’re working very closely with the airlines affected to make sure passengers are put in other airlines and to make sure that no passengers are left stranded in airports.”

In the Eastern Cape, there are are no visible signs of the strike by SAA employees at the Port Elizabeth airport. Passengers have been  checking in at the counters of the other airlines.  SAA flights have not been displayed on the notice monitors.

All the other airlines operating at the airport have scheduled flights arriving and departing.

Meanwhile, the strike has negatively affected some passengers. They are complaining that they have to buy other tickets to fly out of the country. Amongst them is a man whose sister was supposed to fly to Kinshasa in the DRC but, is now stuck in South Africa.

“Her visa is expiring today (Friday) – she was supposed to leave the country. If she can’t leave the country she will be into trouble. We are now trying to communicate with them if they can take her to the immigration and explain to them. They say they can’t do anything now, we have to wait until they finalise everything. We understand they are striking, but the visa is expiring today, and they can’t help. Now we have to find  money and buy a ticket so that she can fly. That is the problem we are having right now.”

Click below to watch related videos:

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Wednesday he was open to new alterations in US military activity on the Korean Peninsula if it helped enable diplomats, who are trying to jump-start stalled peace efforts with North Korea.

Esper did not predict whether he might end up “dialing up or dialing down” such activity, as he spoke to a small group of reporters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on his way to South Korea after North Korea threatened to retaliate if the United States goes ahead with scheduled military drills with South Korea.

Tensions are growing on the peninsula ahead of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s year-end deadline for Washington to show more flexibility in denuclearisation talks.

Esper declined to detail what kinds of activity could be altered but did not rule out a further reduction in US military exercises with South Korea, which US President Donald Trump ordered scaled back last year.

The North brands such US-South Korean exercises as hostile and still strongly objects to them, even in their current form and earlier on Wednesday, Pyongyang threatened to retaliate if the United States goes ahead with scheduled military drills with South Korea.

“I think we have to be open to all those things that empower and enable our diplomats to sit down with the North Koreans, alongside with our South Korean partners, and move the ball forward to a negotiated settlement of the issues that we put on the table,” Esper said, declining to detail what specific kinds of options he might consider.

Asked whether he took Kim’s year-end deadline seriously, Esper said: “I think that when any foreign country, foreign leader, says something, I take it seriously.”

Still, Esper stressed the need to maintain the readiness of the 28 500 US troops deployed to South Korea. Pentagon officials say they have been able to preserve sufficient capabilities of US and South Korean forces, despite scaling back the military drills.

Esper said such decisions are made in consultation with Seoul.

“As we consider adjusting – either dialing up or dialing down exercises and training, we want to do that in close collaboration with our Korean partners. Not as a concession to North Korea, or anything, but, again, as a means to keep the door open to diplomacy,” Esper said, without explicitly saying whether that was currently being considered.

Guinea President Alpha Conde announced on Monday that he was replacing his security minister following deadly protests against suspected efforts by Conde to extend his mandate.

Conde, 81, is due to step down next year when his second and final five-year term expires, but he has refused to rule out running again and asked his government in September to look into drafting a new constitution.

Conde’s opponents fear a new constitution could be used as a reset button on his presidency, allowing Conde to run again like other African leaders who have amended or changed constitutions in recent years to stay in power.

Protests in Conakry, the capital, and the bauxite-mining north against such a move have resulted in at least 13 deaths over the past month.

The presidential statement read on national television on Monday evening did not provide a reason for the sacking of Security Minister Alpha Ibrahima Keira, but a senior government official told Reuters it was related to Keira’s “difficulty managing the socio-political crisis.”

Government spokesman Damantang Albert Camara will replace Keira as security minister. Conde also announced that he was replacing his health and justice ministers.

The government has said it would investigate the deaths during the protests, which opposition leaders and residents said were caused by security forces’ opening fire on demonstrators.

Conde’s first election victory in 2010 raised hopes for democratic progress in Guinea after decades of authoritarian rule. But his critics accuse him of cracking down on dissent and violently repressing protests – charges he denies.

A dozen opposition and civil society leaders were sentenced to prison last month for their role in organising the protests.

South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled all its domestic, regional and international flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

The decision follows an announcement by the South African cabin crew Association and union NUMSA that their members will embark on industrial action Friday morning.

The unions have issued SAA with a 48 hour strike notice over wage disputes and the planned restructuring of the airline that could see over 900 workers losing their jobs.

Only flights operated by South African Airways will be affected.

All flights operated on SA Express, Mango, SA airlink and all codeshare partners will not be affected.

SAA has advised customers not to go to their departure airports during the planned disruption.

SAA Spokesperson, Tlali Tlali says: “We decided to cancel flights for two days with effect from Friday. That means all our flights will be cancelled for Friday and Saturday. We have decided to make this decision so that we are able to give our customers a reasonable notice in order for them to make arrangements for travel based on other means and other flights.”

South African Airways operations affected by industrial action. South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled all domestic, regional and international flights for Friday 15 November and Saturday 16 November (THREAD)

— SAA – South Africa (@flysaa) November 13, 2019

The cancellations follow an announcement by the South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) that their members will embark on industrial action from Friday.

— SAA – South Africa (@flysaa) November 13, 2019

Only SAA operated flights will be affected. All flights operated on partner airlines, including SA Express, Mango, SA Airlink and all codeshare partners, will not be affected.
Only the following international flights would be operating: pic.twitter.com/dSivgaZb4i

— SAA – South Africa (@flysaa) November 13, 2019

South African Airways apologises for the inconvenience and encourages all customers to visit our website https://t.co/caOVeQTzKn for up to date information. Customers are requested not to travel to their departure airport unless in possession of a rebooked itinerary.

— SAA – South Africa (@flysaa) November 13, 2019

Meanwhile, the unions say they will challenge any attempt by SAA to interdict the planned strike.

SACCA’s Zazi Nsibanyoni-Anyiam says: “As workers we have every right to embark on industrial action to seek fair wages. I mean I’ll be shocked if any court in this land will rule against us.

We don’t believe it will be successful and we are ready for them. Its unfortunate that they are willing to spend you know millions once again to fight us.”

Related Video below

SABC Reporter, Nozintombi Miya has more below

Venice was hit by the second highest tide recorded in the lagoon city on Tuesday, which flooded its historic basilica and left many of its squares and alleyways deep underwater.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said he would declare a state of disaster and warned of severe damage.

City officials said the tide peaked at 187 cm at 10.50 pm, just short of the record 194 cm set in 1966.

“The situation is dramatic,” Brugnaro said on Twitter. “We ask the government to help us. The cost will be high. This is the result of climate change.”

Saint Mark’s Square was submerged by more than one metre of water, while the adjacent Saint Mark’s Basilica was flooded for the sixth time in 1 200 years.

Four of those inundations have now come in the last 20 years, most recently in October 2018. There was no immediate word on any damage inside the Church. In 2018, the administrator said the basilica had aged 20 years in a single day.

Video on social media showed deep waters flowing like a river along one of Venice’s main thoroughfares, while another showed large waves hammering boats moored alongside the Doge’s Palace and surging over the stone sidewalks.

“A high tide of 187 cm is going to leave an indelible wound,” Brugnaro said.

Much of Italy has been pummelled by torrential rains in recent days, with wide spreading flooding, especially in the southern heel and toe of the country.

In Matera, this year’s European Capital of Culture, rainwater cascaded through the streets and inundated the city’s famous cave-dwelling district.

Further bad weather is forecast for the coming days

Zimbabwe has fired more than 200 public sector doctors who have been on strike for more than two months demanding better pay to protect them from soaring inflation.

The doctors were dismissed after disciplinary hearings held in their absence, as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government takes a hard line against a restive labour force.

Other public workers say they cannot go to work because they have no money. Police on Wednesday blocked a handful of public sector workers from marching to government offices with a petition demanding better pay.

Junior and middle level doctors from state hospitals have been on strike since September 3.

They want their pay indexed to the US dollar to stop their earnings being eroded by triple-digit inflation.

The doctors defied a court ruling last month that their action was illegal and they should return to work.

Patients are being turned away from hospitals because there are no doctors to treat them.

Four more companies have been liquidated through the High Court in Pretoria in the ongoing process to recoup money lost by creditors and depositors in the liquidated VBS Mutual Bank. This brings the total number of liquidated companies to 18.

They include Vele Investment Proprietary. An estimated R2.7 billion is believed to have been stolen from VBS coffers.

VBS Mutual Bank Curator, Anoosh Rooplal says they are continuing with civil litigation against certain directors, managers and entities.

“We succeeded in having four further companies liquidated in the Pretoria High Court yesterday (Monday). They were Bonulog, Bonuspace, Bonusec and Bonuset PTY Limited. This brings the total number of companies we have liquidated to 18. We will continue to pursue civil litigation against certain directors, management and related entities that were beneficiaries of the fraudulent scheme.”

The Hawks Spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi says they have concluded the first leg of their investigations. He says they are only waiting for instructions from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

“We are working very closely with the NPA. There are different legs that we are looking at, some of which have been completed with the NPA. We are just waiting for their instructions. If there are any in terms of information that might be needed, so there are also other investigations that are going to take some time to finalise.”

Watch the related video below for more on the story: 

Israel killed a top commander from the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in a rare targeted strike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, while militants responded by firing rockets at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv.

In the most serious escalation in months, an Israeli missile attack also targeted the home of an Islamic Jihad official in Damascus, killing two people including one of his sons, Syrian state media said.

Islamic Jihad said the target was the home of political leader Akram Al-Ajouri.

Hours later, sirens sounded in central Israeli cities, including the commercial capital of Tel Aviv the military and witnesses said, warning of possible rocket launches from the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s home-front command ordered schools shut across southern and central Israel, and instructed civilians to stay at home and not go into work unless it was vital and public shelters were opened.

There were no immediate reports of casualties. Israeli media reported that some of the rockets were intercepted.

The slaying of Baha Abu Al-Atta in his Gaza home looked likely to pose a new challenge for Gaza’s ruling Hamas faction, which has mostly tried to maintain a truce with Israel since a 2014 war.

Israel said Al-Atta had carried out a series of cross-border attacks and was planning more.

Zambia is committed to ensuring that debt is contained within sustainable levels through continued austerity measures, President Edgar Lungu said on Friday.

Zambia, Africa’s number two copper producer is struggling with high debt levels and shrinking foreign currency reserves, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said growth is likely to remain subdued over the medium term.

Lungu said at a media conference that the government is implementing several policy measures to protect the vulnerable and reduce the cost of running the government.

“The medium-term debt strategy has been developed to inform the path for debt sustainability,” Lungu said.

The government has suspended some infrastructure projects and was also curbing travel expenditure of senior officials, Lungu said.

Lungu said the government was also trying to ensure that only genuine employees were on the public sector wage bill.

Zambia has made progress in its energy sector reforms, intended to leave fuel imports to the private sector and to increase electricity tariffs to cover the cost of producing the power, he said.

Lungu said Zambia could generate adequate resources internally to meet its development needs but this was being compromised by low tax compliance levels.

Hong Kong police opened fire and wounded at least one protester on Monday, witnesses and media reports said, a fresh escalation of violence as anti-government demonstrations enter their sixth month.

Police fired live rounds at protesters on the eastern side of Hong Kong island, Cable TV and other Hong Kong media reported. Cable TV said one protester was wounded when police opened fire.

Video footage showed a protester lying in a pool of blood with his eyes wide open. Police also pepper-sprayed and subdued a woman nearby as plastic crates were thrown at officers, the video shared on social media showed.

The Hospital Authority told Reuters a 21-year-old man suspected to have been wounded during the incident in Sai Wan Ho was admitted to hospital on Monday and was undergoing an operation.

Cable TV reported the unidentified protester was in a critical condition.

Police said in a statement radical protesters had set up barricades at multiple locations across the city and warned the demonstrators to “stop their illegal acts immediately”.

They did not comment immediately on the apparent shooting.

Police first began using live rounds as warning shots in August and have shot an 18-year-old protester and a 14-year-old, both of whom survived.

Anson Yip, a 36-year-old Sai Wan Ho resident, said protesters were throwing rubbish to create a road block when police, possibly from the traffic department, ran to the scene.

“They didn’t fight and the police ran and directly shot. There was three sounds, like ‘pam, pam, pam’,” Yip said.

“They (the protesters) are against the government, that’s why the police just shot them,” he said.

A Reuters witness said police later fired tear gas in the same area where the protester was shot. After police forensic teams left the scene, protesters and local residents formed a barricade of polystyrene boxes around the bloodstain next to a pedestrian crossing.

A 24-year-old man, one of several office workers gathered at the scene after the shooting, said: “When I arrived the road was blocked and people were yelling at the police, calling them murderers.” The man gave only his surname of Wing.

ANGRY PROTESTERS

Protests have occurred at times daily, sometimes with little or no notice, disrupting business and piling pressure on the city’s beleaguered government.

Protesters are angry about what they see as police brutality and meddling by Beijing in the former British colony’s freedoms, guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” formula put in place when the territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China denies interfering and has blamed Western countries for stirring up trouble.

The latest violence comes after a student died in the hospital last week following a fall as protesters were being dispersed by police.

Violence flared at several university campuses throughout the morning as news spread of the shooting, with witnesses reporting tense standoffs between students, protesters and police. Police fired teargas and rubber bullets, witnesses said, while protesters hurled homemade petrol bombs at police at one location.

“I am worried about my safety but I will still come out,” said Anson, a 20-year-old student at Hong Kong Polytechnic University who only gave his first name. “I am willing to sacrifice my life for Hong Kong.”

Services on some train and subway lines were disrupted early on Monday, with traffic snarled and riot police deployed near stations and shopping malls.

The Labour Department urged all employers on Monday to be understanding and flexible regarding work arrangements.

Hong Kong’s stock market HSI fell 1.6% in early trade, outpacing losses of 0.7% in other parts of the region.

Activists blocked roads and trashed shopping malls across Hong Kong’s New Territories and Kowloon peninsula on Sunday during a 24th straight weekend of anti-government unrest.

South African business magnate Allan Gray has died aged 81. The founder of the investment firm named after him died as a result of a heart attack at the weekend while in Bermuda.

Gray was born in East London in 1938. After completing high school at Selborne College, he studied accounting at Rhodes University and went on to earn an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1965.

Gray is survived by his spouse Gill and son William.

Mauritius’ ruling Militant Socialist Movement (MSM) has won more than half of parliamentary seats, securing incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth a five-year term, interim election results showed on Friday.

Thursday’s vote was dominated by calls for fairer distribution of wealth on the prosperous Indian Ocean island of 1.3 million people which touts itself as a bridge between Africa and Asia and has a flourishing financial sector.

MSM won 35 of the 62 seats up for grabs while its rivals, the Labour Party and the Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM), garnered 15 and 10 seats respectively, the election commission said.

Two seats on the island of Rodrigues were won by the Organisation of the People of Rodrigues (OPR) party.

Jugnauth, 57, became prime minister in 2017 when his father stepped down from the post, and has already introduced a minimum wage to try and improve wealth distribution.

The three parties campaigned on further strengthening the welfare state and improving equality in one of Africa’s most stable and wealthy nations.

Final results were expected later on Friday evening, Electoral Commissioner Irfan Rahman said.

Some 723,660 voters, 76.84 percent of those eligible, turned out for the ballot, officials said.

The turnout was 2% higher than the last election.

Mauritius expects its economy, which is dependent on tourism and financial services, to expand by 4.1% next year, up from a forecast 3.8% this year. Analysts expect economic diversification to proceed regardless of who wins the election.

The challenger parties, arguing that the Jugnauth family’s rule has been marked by nepotism and corruption, had appealed to voters to choose change.

Foreign direct investment in Mauritius totaled 10.68 billion rupees ($295 million) in the first six months of 2019 against 8.84 billion the same period a year earlier, according to official figures.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party said the opposition Labour Party would spend an extra 1.2 trillion pounds ($1.5 trillion) over the next five years if it wins power in an election on December 12, British newspapers reported on Saturday.

The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times newspapers quoted Conservative finance minister Sajid Javid as calling Labour’s spending plans “truly frightening” that would push Britain close to bankruptcy.

However, Labour’s would-be finance minister, John McDonnell, dismissed the Conservative estimates as “ludicrous” and a “mish-mash of debunked estimates and bad maths”.

Labour has not yet published full policy proposals, and the Sunday Times said the Conservative Party based the 1.2 trillion pound figure on Labour’s manifesto for the 2017 election and more recent policy pledges.

Britain’s top civil servant barred the finance ministry from publishing a costing of Labour’s policies last week, saying it would breach political impartiality rules.

McDonnell said in an interview for the Sunday’s Independent that the party’s manifesto would be “the most radical ever” and include a pilot for a universal basic income, and reiterated his desire to block expansion of London’s Heathrow airport.

The Conservatives currently enjoy a sizeable lead in opinion polls over Labour at the start of the campaigning for December ‘selection, which Johnson called early in a bid to break the parliamentary impasse over Brexit.

Separate polls for the Mail on Sunday and Observer newspapers both put the Conservatives on 41% and Labour on 29%,while a Sunday Times poll put the Conservatives on 39% and Labour on 26%.

Both Javid and McDonnell unveiled significant spending plans last week.

Javid, a 49-year-old former Deutsche Bank financier, said he would rewrite the country’s fiscal rules so he can spend an extra 20 billion pounds per year, raising borrowing for infrastructure to 3% of economic output from its current 1.8%.

McDonnell, 68, promised to borrow and spend even more – 400billion pounds over 10 years. He said interest payments on government borrowing should not exceed 10% of tax revenues.

Like in many advanced economies, British government borrowing costs are currently close to record lows.

But on Friday credit ratings agency Moody’s assigned a negative outlook to Britain’s sovereign rating, blaming Brexit-related policy uncertainty and a lack of political will to reduce debt.

Britain’s public debt currently stands at around 1.8trillion pounds, more than 80% of economic output – though below equivalent amounts in the United States, Japan and France.