african countries 24

The United Nations Security Council has extended its sanctions regime, including an arms embargo on South Sudan for one year but without the consensus of the entire 15-member body.

All three African states joined by Russia and China abstained on the draft resolution allowing its passage with 10 members in favour of maintaining the arms embargo.

South Africa criticised the sanctions on the war-torn country, arguing they were not helpful to the current complex political process led by the regional Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD).

The US-drafted resolution garnered 10 votes in favour, surpassing the 9-vote threshold for resolutions in the absence of any vetoes. It renews the arms embargo until 31 May 2020 in addition to assets freezes and travel restrictions on eight nationals over their roles in fueling the conflict.

US Envoy Jonathan Cohen criticised the African states in the Council saying, “We are disappointed that this resolution did not receive support from the three African members of the Security Council. Just three months ago, this Council passed a resolution to “Silence the Guns in Africa” with strong AU support.  Today, we regret that these abstentions show an unwillingness to stop the flow of weapons to one of the continent’s deadliest civil conflicts.  The measures renewed in this resolution are designed to protect civilians and reduce violence in a country that has borne witness to unspeakable atrocities.”

South Africa called for the international community to support the IGAD process and lamented what it saw as undue external pressure from the international community.

“South Africa is of the firm view that sanctions should be seen as a tool to encourage continued cooperation and progress to the political process and not as a punitive measure. Furthermore, sanctions should be a used as an incentive to create stability and build an environment that is conducive to finding political agreement in support of lasting and durable peace,” says SA Ambassador Jerry Matjila.

Meanwhile, since the latest peace agreement signed in September last year, President Salva Kiir agreed to again set up a government of national unity with opposition leader Riek Machar, but the implementation of that agreement has been delayed for six months.

“When there is a volatile political process on the table, it should be safeguarded and exempt from external pressures which could aggravate the situation. Nevertheless, the process of making peace has never been, nor will it ever be an easy task as it is not a linear process but it has many layers to it.  Lastly, like many delegations, we remain concerned with the precarious humanitarian situation that still prevails in South Sudan. We call on all parties to redouble their efforts towards improving the humanitarian situation and to protect all those in vulnerable situations.”

The United States indicated it remained ready to consider adjustments to the sanctions regime in light of progress or a lack thereof in South Sudan.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called the renewal “the right step towards ending illegal attacks on men, women and children in a war where civilians have been the main victims of the violence.”

Digital industry leaders are calling for increased access to the Internet across all sectors of society.

Speaking at the IAB Summit19 held at the Johannesburg Theatre, CEO of Project Isizwe, Dudu Mkhwanazi says data has become an essential service for every South African.

She says the high data costs in the country rob the majority of South Africans their right to access and ability to partake in digital economy.

Mkhwanazi says every South African home need to be connected in the next 10 years, otherwise the 4^th Industrial Revolution will only benefit the wealthy minority and cause greater inequality.

According to Mkhwanazi, the country’s 7.5 million lower-income earners are paying 80 times more for Internet access than their rich counterparts.  “Only 10% of South African homes have fixed affordable Internet,” she says.

Mkhwanazi believes it’s every South Africa’s responsibility to bridge the digital divide.

A charge supported by Accenture Digital South Africa’s Wayne Hull.

Hull says digital transformation is critical to improve not only businesses but also the lives of South Africans.

“Digital Transformation could change South Africa forever. It could unlock R5 trillion of value in the country in the next decade.”

Hull says coding skills are future jobs.

The man dubbed, Rebel with a Cause and Mkhwanazi  say while it is important for infrastructure to be built to ensure Internet access for all, the public also has a duty to ensure this becomes a reality.

“Digital Transformation will improve health outcomes and create jobs. It must start at an early age with children being taught coding skills even at home,” says Hull.

The head of social media at Joe Public Connect Kalibree Kamore says lack of access is delaying innovation the country could be experiencing.

She was part of a panel discussing how digital companies can balance the power the space offers.

They believe this could be done through ethical leadership, transparency on how consumer data is being used as well as educating customers on the space they are using.

Content manager and diversity advocate, Kirigo Kamore says digital literacy is needed for responsible usage of the power of digital media. She’s hailed government for its role in ensuring this and says brands should also play their part in educating customers on what online privacy means.

“We’ve seen instances where customers have said they want privacy yet expose their children online.”

Brand strategist, Dali Tembo says government should enforce its data policy to keep companies on the straight and narrow.

“Brands should protect their customers. They should be transparent on what they use customer data for. They should also test the security aspect of applications before testing them on users and offenders should be blacklisted.”

Speakers also touched on what the private sector can do to adapt to the digital age as well as create valuable experiences for users. Items showing how digital technologies can change the world were also showcased.

#IABSummit19 Our last speaker for the day takes the stage, @hiseanice Group CEO of @BluFlamingoUG pic.twitter.com/yUwC7K3RVN

— IAB South Africa (@iab_sa) May 30, 2019

China accused the United States (US) of “naked economic terrorism” on Thursday as Beijing ramps up the rhetoric in their trade war.

The world’s top two economies are at loggerheads as trade talks have apparently stalled, with President Donald Trump hiking tariffs on Chinese goods earlier this month and blacklisting telecom giant Huawei.

“We are against the trade war, but we are not afraid of it,” vice foreign minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing to preview President Xi Jinping’s trip to Russia next week.

“This premeditated instigation of a trade conflict is naked economic terrorism, economic chauvinism, and economic bullying,” Zhang said.

“There is no winner in a trade war,” he warned.

China has hit back with its own tariff increase while state media has suggested that Beijing could stop exports of rare earths to the US, depriving Washington of a key material to make tech products.

“This trade conflict will also have a serious negative impact on the development and revival of the global economy,” Zhang said.

China and Russia have broad consensus and common interests on the trade war issue, he said.

“China and Russia will certainly strengthen economic and trade cooperation, including cooperation in various fields such as economic and trade investment,” Zhang added.

“We will certainly respond to various external challenges, do what we have to do, develop our economies, and constantly improve the living standards of our two peoples.”

Hundreds of travellers remained stranded in the Sudanese capital on Wednesday as bus terminal staff stopped work for a second day in support of protesters demanding the ruling generals step down.

In a bid to step up the pressure on the military council which took power after ousting longtime president Omar al-Bashir, the Alliance for Freedom and Change protest movement called for a two-day general strike starting on Tuesday.

Thousands of employees of government offices, banks, private sector firms and the docks of Port Sudan observed the strike on Tuesday, insisting that only civilian rule can lift Sudan out of its political crisis.

On Wednesday, the capital’s airport began to return to normal after scores of staff stopped work on Tuesday. But the flights of Sudanese airlines Badr, Tarco and Nova remained suspended.

At the main bus terminal, stranded passengers were looking for private transport to reach their destinations as bus company staff remained on strike.

“This is the second day I came to the bus terminal with my family and I am still unable to travel,” said Mohamed al-Amin, who was trying to reach the eastern state of Kassala.

“Now I’m trying to hire a car with some other passengers.”

Several newspapers were unable to bring out their editions because their printers were on strike.

“My newspaper is not on strike but we were unable to print the edition because the technicians were on strike,” the owner of Al-Mjher newspaper, Al-Hindi Ezzeddine, tweeted.

Ahead of the two-day strike, protest leaders had said medics, lawyers, prosecutors, and staff from the electricity, water, public transport, telecommunications and civil aviation sectors were set to take part in the strike.

The army ousted Bashir in April after months of protests against his autocratic rule, including a sit-in by tens of thousands outside Khartoum’s military headquarters.

However, the generals, backed by key Arab powers, have resisted calls from African and Western governments to step down.

Thousands of protesters remain camped outside army HQ.

Before suspending talks last week, the two sides had agreed on many aspects of the political transition, including its duration and the bodies that will oversee it.

However, negotiations broke down over the protesters demands that a planned new sovereign council to replace the current generals have a civilian head and a civilian majority.

SAA has announced a reduction in flights between Johannesburg and East London due to low seasonal demand. The airline has been receiving financial bailouts from the government to settle its debt that runs into billions of rands.

SAA Spokesperson Tlali Tlali says the flight reduction is a cost-saving measure to help make the carrier financially sustainable.

“SAA has not been profitable. We have to re-organize ourselves to put a strategy in place to put a reason why we have not been profitable. We are trying to become financially self-sustainable and not bother government. So based on what we have at the moment, we are adjusting the capacity we have deployed in East London to match the demand. It doesn’t matter if we have too many flights a day to East London when there is not too much demand because we are going to operate at a loss,” says Tlali.

Local businesses say this will hit them hard, as director of the Border-Kei Chamber of Business, Les Holbrook explains, “We have a problem with the decision taken. Bring those costs down. Don’t tell us East London is not a profitable route. It can be profitable if your structure was right. If they want to attract business they must actually meet and work with business,” explains Holbrook.

Israel announced on Wednesday it had tightened restrictions on Palestinian fishing off the blockaded Gaza Strip after more balloons fitted with firebombs were floated from the enclave into its territory.

The zone where it allows Gaza fishermen was reduced to a maximum of 10 nautical miles from 15, the Israeli defence ministry unit that oversees such regulations COGAT said.

The move came just days after Israel restored the fishing limit to the 15 nautical mile maximum after a previous cut in response to fire balloons last week.

Palestinians in Gaza have frequently floated balloons fitted with firebombs over the border to damage Israeli property and have succeeded in setting fire to large areas of farmland.

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, run by Islamist movement Hamas, have fought three wars since 2008.

Tippex, once the favourite tool of office workers who had to cover up typing mistakes, has become an analogue-era peril to presidential elections in Malawi.

The correction fluid was widely used on tally sheets in last Tuesday’s elections, prompting the main opposition to file a lawsuit.

A court ruling issued at the weekend blocked the electoral commission from releasing further results until any irregularities are resolved and a third of voting districts are recounted.

The head of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Jane Ansah, admitted that Tipp-Ex or a similar fluid had been used on some result sheets at polling stations.

“This is worrying because it is widespread, from Chitipa to Nsanje,” she said, citing two districts at opposite ends of the southeastern African country.

The commission did not supply any correction fluid as part of the election material, she said.

The role of correction fluid has become one part of a battle over alleged interference in the election.

“We are equally surprised as to where this Tippex is coming from, so we have to find out where it is coming from and why they used it despite our emphasis that they should never use it,” chief elections officer Sam Alfandika told AFP.

“We are curious to know what actually happened.”

In the election, President Peter Mutharika, who heads the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is fighting a strong challenge from opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

In its court papers, the MCP cited irregularities in the vote counting that point to the alleged fraud.

Party spokesman Eisenhower Mkaka told AFP said there is “a lot of tippexing (of) the results,” adding there also appeared to be “the same handwriting on tally sheets coming from different polling stations.”

“This is a serious red flag. It is an indication that someone was trying to tamper with the results,” Mkaka said.

Paul Chibingu, a party official of the United Transformation Movement, a smaller opposition party, said that the use of correction fluid “shows that they are trying to rig the elections by altering figures.”

Michael Jana, a Malawi politics specialist at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, warned that Malawi faced a major test of its democracy after the high court had postponed indefinitely the release of final results from the presidential vote.

“Such cases raise fears of rigging and affect the credibility of the elections,” he said.

The results should be announced by Wednesday, but the High Court reserved its judgement until an unspecified date.

Parliamentary and local elections, which took place on the same day as the presidential ballot, have not been affected.

The PIC Inquiry continues.

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The United States is not seeking regime change in Iran, President Donald Trump said Monday, as tensions between the two countries rise with Washington deploying troops to the region.

“I know so many people from Iran, these are great people, it has a chance to be a great country, with the same leadership,” Trump said at a press conference in Tokyo where he is on a state visit.

“We’re not looking for regime change, I just want to make that clear. We’re looking for no nuclear weapons.”

“I’m not looking to hurt Iran at all,” added Trump.

The United States on Friday said it was deploying 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East to counter “credible threats” from Tehran, the latest step in a series of military escalations.

Tensions have been rising between Washington and Tehran since Trump’s decision last year to withdraw from an international nuclear deal with Iran and re-impose sanctions on the oil producer.

The US president reiterated Monday his criticism of that “horrible Iran deal” but said he was open to new negotiations.

“I think we’ll make a deal,” he said at the press conference alongside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Hours earlier, Trump had insisted: “I do believe that Iran would like to talk, and if they’d like to talk, we’d like to talk also.”

Trump sounded a similarly conciliatory tone on North Korea, a key topic of his discussions in Japan, which views Pyongyang as a major threat.

The US leader, who has had two rounds of talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, described him as a “very smart” man who knew he needed to denuclearise.

“He knows that with nuclear… only bad can happen. He is a very smart man, he gets it well,” said Trump, who repeated that North Korea has “tremendous economic potential”.

And he once again dismissed missile launches earlier this month by Pyongyang that National Security Advisor John Bolton has said were a violation of UN resolutions.

“My people think it could have been a violation… I view it as a man who perhaps wants to get attention,” Trump said.

Abe reiterated his willingness to meet with Kim himself, in particular to raise the issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang, and said Trump backed his push to hold direct talks.

In addition to North Korea, Trump and Abe have been focused on trade, with Washington and Tokyo locked in negotiations to reduce what the US president calls an “unbelievably large trade imbalance”.

Trump has said a final deal will not come until after Japan’s upper house elections in July, but said he expected an agreement that would “benefit both of our economies”.

He also said that Japan has “just announced its intent to purchase 105 brand new F35 stealth aircraft”.

“This purchase would give Japan the largest F35 fleet of any US ally,” Trump added.

The US president said he there was a “very good” chance of clinching a trade deal with China, despite recent retaliatory measures between the world’s top economies.

“I think sometime in the future, China and the US will have a great trade deal and we look forward to that,” Trump said.

The head of Sudan’s ruling military council arrived on Saturday in Cairo, where he is to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian presidency said. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is on his first trip since taking power following the April ouster of president Omar al-Bashir after months of protests. His visit comes after Sudanese protest leaders announced a two-day strike from Tuesday, as talks with the military over installing civilian rule remain suspended.

The Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella movement is at odds with the generals over whether the transitional body to rule Sudan should be headed by a military or civilian figure. Their negotiations have been on hold since Monday.

Egypt, whose President Fattah al-Sisi currently chairs the African Union, has voiced backing for Sudan’s military council. Egyptian presidential spokesperson Bassam Radi said Sisi had received Burhan at the capital’s Ittihadia Palace. In April, he hosted a summit where African nations urged the regional bloc to allow Khartoum “more time” for a handover to civilian rule.

Protest leaders were set to hold meetings with demonstrators at a sit-in outside the army headquarters in Khartoum on Saturday to discuss how to resolve the deadlock. On Friday they said their strike at “public and private institutions and companies,” accompanied by civil disobedience, was “an act of peaceful resistance with which we have been forced to proceed.”

Thousands of protesters remain at the sit-in to demand the departure of the generals who seized power after ousting al-Bashir. Protest leaders have also called for people to march Sunday from residential areas of Khartoum towards the sit-in.

Several rounds of talks have so far failed to finalise the makeup of the new ruling body, although the two sides have agreed it will hold power for a transitional period of three years.

Western nations have called on the generals to hand power to a civilian administration, while the ruling army council has received support from regional powers including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; both close allies of Egypt.

Tens of millions of Europeans will vote on Sunday as 21 countries choose their representatives in a battle between the nationalist right and pro-EU forces to chart a course for the bloc.

Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, and Cyprus were the first to open their polling stations at 0400 GMT.

Seven EU member states have already voted, and provisional results will be released late on Sunday once the rest of the union has taken part in the European parliamentary election.

Eurosceptic parties opposed to the project of ever closer union hope to capture as many as a third of the seats in the 751-member Strasbourg assembly, disrupting the pro-integration consensus.

The far-right parties of Italian deputy PM Matteo Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen will lead this charge, and anti-EU ranks will be swelled by the Brexit Party of British populist Nigel Farage.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has taken it upon himself to act as figurehead for the centrist and liberal parties hoping to shut the nationalists out of key EU jobs and decision-making.

“Once again Macron is daring us to challenge him. Well let’s take him at his word: On May 26, we’ll challenge him in the voting booth,” Le Pen told a rally in France on Friday.

Meanwhile, the mainstream parties are vying between themselves for influence over the choice of a new generation of top European officials, including the powerful president of the European Commission.

And Brussels insiders are closely following the turnout figures, fearing that another drop in participation will undermine the credibility of the EU parliament as it seeks to establish its authority.

Britain and the Netherlands were first to vote, on Thursday, followed by Ireland and the Czech Republic on Friday and Slovakia, Malta and Latvia on Saturday, leaving the bulk of the 400 million eligible voters to join in on Sunday.

At the last EU election in 2014, Slovakia had the lowest turnout of any country, at less than 14%, and centrist president Andrej Kiska is worried that the far-right is poised to profit.

“We see that extremists are mobilising, we see a lot their billboards and activities all over Slovakia. We can’t let someone steal Europe from us. It’s our Europe,” Kiska told reporters.

But the right and the far-right have not had everything their own way so far.

In the Netherlands, the centre-left party of EU vice president Frans Timmermans won the most votes and added two seats to the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) bloc in parliament, according to exit polls.

A day later, the S&D’s centre-right rival the European People’s Party (EPP) was buoyed by exit polls suggesting that Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s pro-EU Fine Gael party was in the lead in Ireland.

If Britain leaves the European Union on October 31, the latest deadline for Brexit, then its MEPs will not sit for long in the EU parliament but could still play a role in the scramble to hand out top jobs.

Thursday’s votes from Britain won’t be counted until after polls close in Italy, but Farage’s Brexit Party appears on course to send a large delegation to a parliament its wants to abolish.

Macron is pinning his hopes on his Renaissance movement joining with the liberal ALDE voting bloc and other centrist groups to give impetus to his plans for deeper EU integration.

But much will depend on who gets the top jobs: the presidencies of the Council and the Commission, the speaker of parliament, the high representative for foreign policy and director of the European Central Bank.

The 29 EU leaders have been invited to a summit dinner on Tuesday to decide how to choose the nominees, and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to back the lead EPP candidate Manfred Weber for the Commission.

Macron and some other leaders oppose both Weber, a German conservative MEP with no executive experience, and the idea that the parliament should get to choose one of its own for Brussels’ prime post.

But whichever way the leaders’ council leans, there will be no immediate decision. Instead, Council president Donald Tusk will take note of how the debate went and draft the nominations before a June 21 EU summit.

Botswana’s former president Ian Khama on Saturday quit the governing BDP which has ruled since independence more than half a century ago, citing a fall-out between him and his successor.

It is the first time in Botswana that an ex-president has abandoned the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in the history of a 57-year-old organisation which has ruled Botswana uninterrupted since independence in 1966.

Khama told thousands of supporters in his rural home town of Serowe that he made a “mistake” in choosing Mokgweetsi Masisi as his successor in the diamond-rich country which has enjoyed a carefully-crafted reputation for stable government.

“I came here today to tell you I am parting ways with the BDP. I am throwing away my BDP membership card,” said Khama as he trashed his card.

“I don’t recognise the BDP anymore”.

Thousands of people who thronged the meeting at the town’s showgrounds also threw away their BDP membership cards.

Khama, whose father Sir Seretse Khama was the founding president of Botswana serving from 1966 to 1980, said he did not have a party yet but will support the opposition parties fight the BDP.

Khama and his successor have fallen out publicly, with Masisi reversing some policies introduced by his predecessor – including most recently the lifting of a ban on elephant trophy hunting.

Botswana has a two-term presidential limit and in 2018, Khama had picked his then-vice president Masisi to succeed him after serving the maximum ten years in office.

But Masisi has moved to break with the past and establish his own authority since his inauguration a year ago.

Masisi will contest his first election in October this year, which analysts warn will not be a tough run for the BDP.

A British climber too weak to descend from Mount Everest died on Saturday, officials said, the eighth climber to die on the world’s tallest mountain and the 18th in Nepal’s Himalayas during the current climbing season.

Hiking officials attributed most of the deaths to weakness, exhaustion and delays on the crowded route to the 8,850-metre (29,035 feet) summit. Robin Haynes Fisher, 44, died in the so-called “death zone” known for low levels of oxygen on descent from the summit, Mira Acharya, a tourism department official, said.

He is the eighth fatality on Everest in the current climbing season that ends this month. He died because of weakness after a long ascent and difficult descent. Murari Sharma of the Everest Parivar Treks company that arranged his logistics told Reuters.

He was descending with his sherpa guides from the summit when he suddenly fainted.” Fellow guides changed Fisher’s oxygen bottle and offered him water, but could not save him, Sharma said.

Garrett Madison of the U.S. based Madison Mountaineering company that sponsors climbers to Mount Everest said many were not “well qualified or prepared climbers” and were without the support necessary to ascend and descend safely.

“If they were with a strong and experienced team they would have likely been fine, but with minimal support, once something goes wrong it’s tough to get back on course,” Madison told Reuters.

Mount Everest can also be climbed from Tibet and casualties have been reported from there this season too.

The leader of the Central African Republic (CAR) proclaimed three days of mourning starting on Thursday for more than 50 people killed this week in a massacre attributed to an armed group called 3R.

The public display of sorrow was to honour the victims of the killings that took place on Tuesday in villages near the north-western town of Paoua, close to the border with Chad, as well as the murder of a 77-year-old French-Spanish nun in the southwest of the country whose beheaded body was found on Monday, according to the decree by President Faustin-Archange Touadera.

The slaughter near Paoua was the biggest single loss of life since the government and 14 militias signed a deal in February aimed at restoring peace to one of Africa’s most troubled countries.

The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the CAR, MINUSCA, revised its death toll from the northwest massacre to more than 50, from a previous count of more than 30.

According to one UN source, the 3R group, which gets its initials from “Return, Reclamation and Reconciliation” and claims to represent the Fulani, one of the country’s many ethnic groups, hosted a meeting with the villagers and then gunned them down indiscriminately.

MINUSCA and the country’s authorities on Wednesday gave the 3R group until the end of the week to hand over the suspected perpetrators of the massacre.

In a statement on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned “the attacks against villages in western Central African Republic”.

Guterres noted that the attacks “were attributed to 3R”, which is a “signatory to the peace agreement signed on 6 February in Bangui”.

“He urges all the signatory armed groups to immediately cease all violence in line with their commitments in the peace agreement,” the statement said.

The State Capture Commission of inquiry will continue to hear testimony of Roberto Gonsalves of the China North Rail consortium when proceedings resume on Friday morning in Parktown, Johannesburg.

Gonsalves was part of the China North Rail consortium after Transnet awarded the company the tender for 232 locomotives.

The commission is also expected to hear the testimony of Chief Information Officer of Transnet Port Terminal, Sharla Chetty.

On Thursday, Gonsalves said that when Transnet asked for the relocation of the locomotives manufacturing  plant from Pretoria to Durban costs ballooned from R9.7 million to R647 million.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday announced she will step down as Conservative leader on June 7 after failing to convince MPs to support her Brexit deal.

“It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit,” May said in a statement outside her Downing Street residence.

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Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika has so far taken 40.44% of votes cast in the May 21 Presidential Election, with 75% of the vote counted, the Electoral Commission said on Thursday.

Mutharika, who came to power in 2014, could face a tough battle to hold onto office in Tuesday’s election, after his presidency was damaged by corruption allegations.

Lazarus Chakwera, who heads the opposition Malawi Congress Party, has 35.34%, while Deputy President Saulos Chilima has secured 18.35%, the commission told a news conference.

Malawi also held parliamentary elections on Tuesday.

The South African Reserve Bank is forecasting another contraction in GDP in the first quarter of this year largely due to electricity supply constraints and a strike in the gold mining sector.

The Bank has again lowered its 2019 growth forecast from 1.3% to 1%.

The Bank’s governor, Lesetja Kganyago, has raised concerns about the impact of the higher international oil prices and electricity supply constraints on inflation.

On Thursday, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee left the repo rate unchanged at 6.75%.

Kganyago said the Bank expects to cut the repo rate next year.

“The implied path of policy rates generated by the quarterly projection model is for one cut of 15 basis points to the repo rate by the end of first quarter of 2020. As emphasised previously, there remains a guide which could change from meeting to meeting in response to new development and changing risks,” says Kganyago.

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British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected on Friday to announce the date of her departure, triggering a contest that will bring a new leader to power who is likely to push for a more decisive Brexit divorce deal.

After a crisis-riven premiership of almost three years, May is due to meet the chairman of the powerful Conservative 1922 Committee, which can make or break Prime Ministers.

May will remain in office during a Conservative Party leadership election lasting about six weeks.

The contest is likely to start on June 10 after US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain, The Times reported.

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South Africa will extradite Mozambique’s former Finance Minister Manuel Chang, who has been held since December on a United State arrest warrant, to face corruption charges.

Justice Minister Michael Masutha says Chang will be extradited to stand trial for his alleged offences.

63-year-old Chang was arrested at the OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg in December at the request of US authorities over alleged involvement in fraudulent loans to Mozambique state firms worth $2-billion.

Masutha has said the interest of justice will be best served by acceding to the request by the Republic of Mozambique.

Mozambique has accused Chang of receiving $17-million in kickbacks in a scam which creamed off hundreds of millions.

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A US oil producer is teaming up with a company working to grab planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) straight from the air in a bid to extract more oil from the ground in a greener way, the companies said on Tuesday.

Occidental Petroleum is partnering with Canada-based Carbon Engineering to build a new multi-million-dollar direct air capture (DAC) plant in the Permian Basin, the largest US shale oil field, located in West Texas and south-eastern New Mexico.

The CO2 sucked from the air will be used to push out hard-to-reach oil from ageing fields, Steve Oldham, Carbon Engineering’s chief executive, said on the side-lines of theCO2NNECT 2019 meeting in Wyoming.

Oldham said the plan will mean as much CO2 will likely be captured as will be released in both the drilling of the oil and its subsequent use to heat homes or power vehicles.

It is possible the plant will do even better than breaking even and grab more CO2 than is produced, he said.

Construction is expected to begin in 2021 and take two years, Carbon Engineering said.

“It’s not so much that the fossil is the enemy here, it’s the carbon contained in it,” Oldham said.

“You can offset that the way we’re doing (it).”

Oldham said the plant would be 100 times larger than any other direct air capture plant in the world and will be powered by a mix of natural gas and renewable energy.

Carbon Engineering, which has been removing CO2 from the atmosphere since 2015 at a pilot plant, has been leading the market, alongside Swiss firm Clime works and US-based Global Thermostat.

The International Energy Agency says capturing carbon will be needed to limit a global rise in average temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times by2060.

CO2 captured as part of the partnership would provide Occidental with “CO2 at a lower cost than our organic CO2 that we use today,” said Vicki Hollub, the company’s chief executive officer.

Occidental Petroleum is an investor in Carbon Engineering.

Kurt Waltzer, who is managing director of environmental advocacy group Clean Air Task Force, welcomed the announcement as one that “couldn’t happen too soon.”

But he warned that scaling the technology worldwide as climate change marches on would prove challenging.

“I like to step back a bit. The $25 trillion global energy infrastructure that we have to eliminate all the emissions from in 30 years, that’s unbelievably hard,” he said.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dismissed as “fake” exit polls predicting a clear election victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a day before the scheduled release of results.

A slew of exit polls released after the world’s largest election ended on Sunday projected that Modi and his allies would return to power with between 282 and 313 seats out of 543 in parliament.

“My dear Congress party workers. The next 24 hours are important. Stay alert and vigilant. Don’t be afraid. You are fighting for the truth,” Gandhi, head of the Congress party, said on Twitter.

“Don’t get disappointed by the propaganda of fake exit polls. Keep faith in yourself and the Congress party. Your hard work won’t go to waste. Jai Hind (Bow to the motherland),” he wrote.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) welcomed the predictions and Indian stock markets rose strongly on Monday, but exit polls in India are notoriously unreliable.

In 2004 they predicted that Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee’s BJP-led government would be re-elected but results showed the opposite, bringing a Congress-led alliance to power under Manmohan Singh.

In the last election in 2014, the BJP won 282 seats, the first time a party had won a majority on its own in 30 years. It then cobbled together an alliance with a commanding 334 seats.

Counting of the roughly 600 million votes cast was due to begin at 8:00 am (0230 GMT) on Thursday. If there is a clear trend this should be evident by around midday.

 Voting machine doubts

Party volunteers on Wednesday joined armed police to guard strongrooms containing the four million electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in the vote before counting begins.

On Tuesday more than 20 opposition parties had called on the election watchdog to ensure the machines were not manipulated after video clips emerged on social media purporting to show irregularities.

The Election Commission moved swiftly to refute the reports, saying voting machines were “absolutely safe in strongrooms”, and those shown in video clips were reserves.

Amit Shah, president of the BJP, said Wednesday that the opposition was rattled by their likely defeat and were “tarnishing” India by raising questions about the electoral process.

Vijay Singh, an election agent for the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow — capital of the key state of Uttar Pradesh — was one of those keeping an eye on the strongroom, a common practice during election, despite the baking heat.

“We sit there in shifts of eight hours. The administration has provided a tent where we camp round the clock,” Singh told AFP.

“We are the foot soldiers of the party and are always ready to serve our party under any circumstances. And we are there around the strongroom to ensure there is no security breach.”

Libya is on the brink of a civil war that could “lead to the permanent division of the country,” a top UN official warned the Security Council on Tuesday as he urged the world body to stop countries that were fuelling the conflict with weapons.

UN Libyan envoy Ghassan Salame did not name any countries supplying arms to the UN-recognized government of national accord (GNA) or rival eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).

But, he referenced recent arms deliveries to both parties. Libya has been subject to a UN arms embargo since 2011, however, the government is allowed to import weapons and related materiel with the approval of a UN Security Council committee.

“Without a robust enforcement mechanism, the arms embargo into Libya will become a cynical joke. Some nations are fuelling this bloody conflict; the United Nations should put an end to it,” Salame told the Security Council.

Any action by the UN Security Council is unlikely as it has been deadlocked over how to deal with the latest violence.

The most recent flare-up in the conflict in Libya – which has been gripped by anarchy since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011 – began in early April, when Haftar’s LNA advanced on the capital Tripoli. The LNA is now bogged down in southern suburbs by fighters loyal to Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj’s GNA.

GNA-allied forces received a shipment of armoured vehicles and arms on Saturday. Pictures and videos posted on their Facebook pages showed what appeared to be dozens of Turkish-made BMC Kirpi armoured vehicles in Tripoli’s port.

Salame described the delivery as a “blatant and televised breach of the arms embargo,” adding that the LNA had been receiving “ongoing deliveries of banned modern weaponry.”

Since 2014, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have provided Haftar’s LNA with military equipment such as aircraft and helicopters, according to UN sanctions monitors. They reported earlier this month they were investigating the likely use of an armed drone by the LNA or a supporting “third party” in a recent attack on GNA-affiliated forces.

“Many countries are providing weapons to all parties in the conflict without exception,” Salame told the Security Council.

The UAE and Egypt see Haftar’s forces as a bulwark against Islamists in North Africa.

However, Salame warned the focus of Haftar’s forces on Tripoli had created a security vacuum in the south that was being exploited by Islamic State and al Qaeda militants.

“Libyan forces that had in the past courageously defended their country against these terrorist groups are now busy fighting each other,” he said.

More than 600 workers who were fired from Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) for participating in an unprotected strike have until Tuesday to appeal their dismissals.

Amplats says it was left with no choice but to sack them after they violated a court interdict and refused to return to work.

General Industrial Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) Mametlo Sibiya says, “The mine was taken over by Anglo Platinum sometime late last year and they became the majority of our shareholders with the managing rights from Glencore. It was supposed to be a take-over of business as a going concern and I think legally the mine has maintained that, but what our members have been arguing is that there has been a number of changes in terms of conditions of employment which legally do not have to be. The business has been taken over as a going concern, now mine workers are saying if it is really a take-over of business as a going concern there shouldn’t be any changes.”

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The US government is moving ahead with plans to seize land to build a border wall with Mexico, but south Texas landowners are not giving up without a fight.

The US government has started giving notice to many homes and businesses in the Rio Grande Valley, telling them that it wants to acquire their land. A law called eminent domain allows them to do it.

It’s part of President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. The aim is to keep undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers out of the United States.

But many living along the US side of the border, some for generations, could pay the biggest price.

Landowners who grew-up along the Rio Grande River said they fished in the river, swam in it, and picnicked along its banks. A wall, they say, would end that, completely cutting them off from the Rio Grande.

The little white chapel of La Lomita, adorned with its simple cross, sits tucked away in deep, south Texas near the City of Mission. It is peaceful. La Lomita has a connection, personally and spiritually, to just about everyone in the city, says Father Roy Snipes.

The little chapel sits about a mile from the Rio Grande River and the border with Mexico. Placing a barrier to stop the flow of undocumented migrants and drug traffickers has been discussed for more than a decade. Only now, it seems more imminent than ever. And if it’s built atop the levee, La Lomita Chapel would be cut off from the people who have worshiped there for generations.

La Lomita is not the only place threatened by the possibility or perhaps the probability of a wall.

Along the border, hundreds of miles are dotted with homes, businesses, and tracts of land that could be taken by the U.S. government for its wall. Eminent domain gives the government the power to take private land or property.

Ruben Villareal is the former mayor of Rio Grande City. “We’re entitled to rights as property owners. So here you have the federal government taking people’s property for a questionable technology that’s going to cost billions of dollars that may or may not secure the border,” he said.

While eminent domain is supposed to require the government to pay a fair price for seized property, Villareal says that isn’t happening.

Nayda Alvarez, a school teacher and homeowner in Starr County, says the government is doing just that to her.

“They come in and say the only thing we can discuss is the price – a price, really? And they start at a hundred dollars. That’s where they start off with. If you look at the paperwork, it says nominal.

They use the word nominal. So they don’t care. They just want us out of here,” she said.

The National Butterfly Center sits about two miles from the border with Mexico, where hundreds of species of butterflies and birds make their home. But the wall could cut a huge swath through the sanctuary. About 70% of it would be wiped out.

The National Butterfly Center went to court to stop the seizure of its property. The case was dismissed, but they’ve filed an appeal. What’s happening on the border, as Trevino-Wright says, is a travesty.

Legal scholars say the power of eminent domain gives the government the upper hand. Over time it may well prevail, but lawsuits by landowners could tie things up in the courts for years.

The South African Ambassador to Egypt Vusi Mavimbela has confirmed that 22 of the 25 South Africans who were in a tourist bus when a bomb exploded in Egypt will return home on Monday morning.

Three other South Africans remain in hospital. This is after earlier reports that there were seven South Africans  hospitalised.

Mavimbela informed the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Lindiwe Sisulu of the exact numbers of South Africans involved on Sunday evening. In a statement, Department of International Relations and Cooperation Consular Services says it is in touch with all stakeholders and families.

“All logistics are being coordinated together with their families.”

Minister Sisulu has wished those admitted in hospital a speedy recovery.  “The Minister has directed the Ambassador to give them all necessary support.”

Former Transnet Electrical Engineer, Francis Callard has told the State Capture Inquiry that McKinsey’s final business case for the costs associated with the purchase of 1064 locomotives was deliberately misleading.

He says McKinsey’s final business case did not state the possible costs in escalated foreign exchange costs, borrowing costs and other costs.

Transnet’s 1064 locomotive purchase was approved for R38 billion but costs subsequently escalated to R54 billion, leaving Transnet in a dire financial position.

Callard says the approving authority were misled in the real cost of the acquisition and therefore did not have all the facts to make a decision on the matter.

Austria’s president on Sunday recommended a new election be held in early September, saying he wanted to restore trust in the government after a video scandal led to the resignation of the vice chancellor.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz pulled the plug on the coalition and called for a snap election on Saturday after his deputy, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, quit over a video showed him discussing fixing state contracts in return for favors.

It is most important that Austrians are given the chance of a new start to rebuild trust in its government, President Alexander van der Bellen said in a statement at his Hofburg residence in Vienna.

“This new beginning should take place quickly, as quickly as the provisions of the Federal Constitution permit, so I plead for elections… in September, if possible at the beginning of September,” the president said.

Strache has described the video sting as a “targeted political assassination” and said it never led to any money changing hands. He insisted the only crime that took place was illegally videotaping a private dinner party.

Van der Bellen and Kurz said at their joint news conference that stability was a main priority for them for the coming months.

Kurz repeated that he saw the snap elections as the only way to solve the crisis. “The new elections were a necessity, not a wish,” he said.

The make up of a caretaker government remained unclear a day after the 18-month-old coalition of conservatives and the far right collapsed.

Seven South Africans who were on the tourist bus in Egypt when a bomb exploded, have been admitted to hospital. Twenty-five South Africans and other nationalities were on the bus when the explosion took place near a new museum being built close to the Giza pyramids.

The bus was carrying the tourists from the airport in Cairo to the pyramids. Meanwhile, a 24-hour call centre has been opened to assist the families of South Africans in Egypt, following the bus explosion.

The public can contact 012 351 1000 if they would like to verify the whereabouts of their loved ones. Click below for more on the story: 

The PIC Inquiry continues.

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President Donald Trump has declared himself “strongly Pro-Life”, days after two United States (US) states passed tough new restrictions on abortions but said exceptions should be made for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

The US president spelled out his position on abortion, set to feature prominently at next year’s election, in his first comments on the hot-button issue since Alabama‘s governor signed a near-total ban on the termination of pregnancy.

“As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the life of the mother — the same position taken by Ronald Reagan,” Trump tweeted late Saturday.

Trump, who is seeking to expand on his conservative support ahead of his re-election bid, added: “The Radical Left, with late term abortion (and worse), is imploding on this issue.

“We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020.”

Alabama’s governor on Wednesday signed a near-total prohibition on abortions widely seen as the country’s most restrictive ban and the Missouri legislature on Friday made the procedure illegal from eight weeks of pregnancy.

Neither make exceptions for rape or incest, only for cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

Republican-led legislatures in Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa and North Dakota have also enacted laws banning abortion from the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Supporters hope that legal battles over the laws will reach the Supreme Court, as they pursue the long-sought conservative goal of overturning its landmark 1973 abortion ruling, known as Roe v Wade.

Roe v Wade guarantees women’s rights to abortion as long as the fetus is not viable, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Trump, a bombastic, twice-divorced billionaire, won over the evangelical vote during his 2016 campaign by promising to appoint anti-abortion justices at the Supreme Court.

He has since brought two conservative appointees to the highest court in the land, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, shifting the balance of the nine-person bench.

In a series of tweets on the deeply polarizing issue, Trump said the US had “come very far in the last two years” on abortion, and praised “two great new Supreme Court Justices”.

On Sunday, defenders of women’s reproductive rights are set to march in protest against Alabama’s new abortion law in four of the Southern state’s cities, including the capital Montgomery.

“People should have the right to make the decisions that are best for their bodies without state interference,” organizers said on Facebook.

Heavy floods have claimed 15 lives in the Malian capital Bamako along with serious property damage on Thursday, authorities said.

A statement said the flooding claimed a “provisional toll” of 15 dead and two injured.

“Teams are in place to rescue the distressed people,” the government said, calling on residents to be “prudent” in the face of the disaster.

Flooding is common in Mali, located in the semi-desert Sahel region.

Transnet’s Acting Group Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Mahomedy says Regiments Capital and Trillian were paid R220 million and R93 million respectively in upfront commission for loans obtained by Transnet from a consortium of banks.

He says the two companies were paid despite the fact that they didn’t have a contract in place with Transnet.

Mahomedy argues that payments to Regiments and Trillian were unwarranted as Transnet had the skills and capacity internally to facilitate the loans.

He adds that it was unclear what Regiments’ role was in the transaction with the banks, as Transnet officially had already started engaging with the banks before Regiments’ participation in the transaction.

Mahomedy is appearing before the State Capture Commission of Inquiry in Parktown, Johannesburg.

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Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage on Friday, as thousands of demonstrators outside parliament cheered and waved rainbow flags, despite deep divisions over marriage equality.

Lawmakers from the majority Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) backed the Bill, which passed 66 to 27, though the measure could complicate President Tsai Ing-wen’s bid to win a second term in presidential elections next year.

Despite heavy rain, some demonstrators outside parliament in Taipei, the capital, embraced tearfully while others hailed the vote with chants of “Asia’s first,” and “Way to go, Taiwan!”

The Bill, which offers same-sex couples similar legal protections for marriage as heterosexuals, will take effect after Tsai signs it into law.

“Today, we have a chance to make history and show the world that progressive values can take root in an East Asian society,” Tsai wrote on Twitter before the vote.

“Today, we can show the world that #LoveWins,” added Tsai, who campaigned on a promise of marriage equality in the 2016 presidential election.

It was not immediately clear, however, if same-sex couples are entitled to key rights, such as adoption and cross-national marriage, with parliament continuing to discuss the measure on Friday.

The vote followed a years-long tussle over marriage equality that culminated in a 2017 declaration by the democratic island’s constitutional court giving same-sex couples the right to marry and set a deadline of May 24 for legislation.

Taipei’s colourful gay pride parade, one of Asia’s largest, puts on display every year the vibrancy of the island’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

CHALLENGE FOR TSAI

However, Friday’s measure could prove a challenge to Tsai’s bid for a second term in a January presidential election, after a poll defeat last year for her DPP was blamed partly on criticism of her reform agenda, including marriage equality.

Late last year, Taiwan voters opposed same-sex marriage in a series of referendums, defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, while seeking a special law for such unions.

“How can we ignore the result of the referendums, which demonstrated the will of the people?” John Wu, a legislator from the opposition Kuomintang party, asked parliament before Friday’s vote.

“Can we find an appropriate compromise solution? We need more dialogue in society.”

Conservative groups that oppose same-sex marriage said the legislation disrespected the people’s will.

“The will of some seven million people in the referendum has been trampled,” one group, the Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation said in a statement. “The massive public will strike back in 2020.”

Australia passed laws allowing same-sex marriage in 2017, but such unions are not recognized by Hong Kong and neighbouring China, which regards Taiwan as a wayward province to be brought back into the fold by force if necessary.

Sudanese protesters voiced regret on Thursday at an army decision to suspend crucial talks on installing civilian rule, but vowed to press on with a sit-in despite being targeted in fresh violence.

Army generals and protest leaders had been expected to come to an agreement on Wednesday over the make-up of a new body to govern Sudan for three years.

The issue is the thorniest to have come up in on-going talks on reinstating civilian rule after the generals took over following the ouster of longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir last month.

But in the early hours of Thursday, the chief of Sudan’s ruling military council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced the talks had been suspended for 72 hours as security in Khartoum had deteriorated.

He demanded that protesters dismantle roadblocks in Khartoum, open bridges and railway lines connecting the capital and “stop provoking security forces”.

The Alliance for Freedom and Change, the group leading the protest movement and negotiating the transfer of power with the army rulers, called the move “regrettable”.

“It ignores the developments achieved in negotiations so far… and the fact that Wednesday’s meeting was to finalise the agreement, which would have stopped the escalations such as roadblocks.”

The protest movement vowed to press on with the sit-in and called on its supporters to launch rallies heading to the protest camp later on Thursday after breaking the Ramadan fast.

SEVERAL ROADBLOCKS REMOVED

Protesters said the army was trying to provoke them.

“They want to provoke the people by delaying the negotiations… but the negotiations will resume now that the roadblocks have been removed,” said Moatassim Sayid, a protester at the sit-in.

On Thursday morning, several roadblocks in downtown Khartoum had been taken down, an AFP correspondent reported, adding that troops from the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) were deployed in some areas.

Roadblocks on key thoroughfares are being used by demonstrators to pressure the generals to transfer power to a civilian administration.

The talks began on Monday and achieved significant breakthroughs, but have also been marred by violence that left five protesters and an army major dead and many wounded from gunshots.

Protesters allege that members of RSF were behind the violence.

But Burhan said there were “armed elements among demonstrators who were shooting at security forces.”

He defended the paramilitary group, saying “it had taken the side of the people” during the uprising that toppled Bashir on April 11.

The British ambassador to Khartoum said Sudanese security forces had fired at protesters on Wednesday when eight were reported wounded near the sit-in, where thousands remain camped demanding the generals step down.

“Extremely concerned by use of live ammunition by Sudanese security forces against protesters in Khartoum today, with reports of civilian casualties,” Irfan Siddiq wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

US BLAMES GENERALS

Washington blamed the generals for the bloodshed that left six dead on Monday.

“The tragic attacks on protesters… were clearly the result of the Transitional Military Council trying to impose its will on the protesters by attempting to remove roadblocks,” the US embassy said.

The French foreign ministry urged the two sides to resume the dialogue “to establish a transitional civilian government” and to “preserve the peaceful nature of the transition”.

The protest movement said the generals wanted the demonstrators to restrict themselves to the sit-in area.

Protesters are demanding a civilian-led transition, which the generals have steadfastly resisted since bowing to their demands and toppling Bashir.

During the first two days of talks, the two sides had agreed on an overall civilian structure, including a three-year period for the full transfer of power to a civilian administration.

They had also agreed that parliament be composed of 300 members for the transition, with around two-thirds from the alliance and the rest drawn from other political groups.

The make-up of the new sovereign council has been the toughest part of the negotiations, with the two sides so far proposing different compositions of the body which is expected to take all key decisions concerning national issues.

The generals want it to be military-led, while the protesters insist on a majority civilian body.

General Yasser al-Atta, one of the members of the current ruling military council, had vowed earlier this week to reach a deal by Thursday that “meets the people’s aspirations”.

The new council is expected to form a transitional civilian government, which would then prepare for the first post-Bashir election after the three-year changeover period ends.

Swiss food giant Nestle said Thursday it is in talks to sell its skincare business to a group led by a Swedish private equity firm and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The deal to sell Nestle Skin Health is worth 10.2-billion Swiss francs (9.3-billion euros, $10.12-billion) the group said in a statement.

It said it expected talks with equity firm EQT and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to be finalised in the second half of 2019.

The deal is subject to approval by regulatory authorities and will be subject to employee consultations, Nestle said.

Like many conglomerates, Nestle is currently reshuffling its portfolio, under the direction of chief executive Mark Schneider, and it had already indicated that skin care products were one of the units that could be sold off.

Nestle Skin Health is based in Lausanne and employs 5,000 people worldwide.

It posted sales last year of 2.8-billion Swiss francs.

Nestle as a whole reported sales of 91.4-billion Swiss francs in 2018.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on five Russians for abuses including the killing of a prominent opposition leader; days after top-level talks seemed to ease tensions between the powers.

The State Department highlighted the actions against the five people, plus one entity, as it submitted an annual report required by Congress on actions taken under a law over human rights in Russia.

The law, which blocks any US assets of blacklisted people and bars them from travelling to the United States, is named after Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption accountant who died in custody in 2009.

Among the five newly blacklisted figures is Ruslan Geremeyev, an interior ministry official in the restive North Caucasus region of Chechnya who is close to its leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Geremeyev has faced accusations of involvement in the 2015 killing in central Moscow of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister turned leading critic of President Vladimir Putin.

The US Treasury Department said that Russian investigators twice tried but were blocked from bringing charges against Geremeyev as the possible organizer of the killing of Nemtsov – the most high-profile death of a dissident since Putin rose to power two decades ago.

The United States also slapped sanctions on two Russian investigators, Elena Anatolievna Trikulya and Gennady Vyacheslavovich Karlov, for allegedly concealing facts over the death and detention of Magnitsky, the accountant.

“Nearly 10-years after his death, we remain concerned by the impunity for this and other violent crimes against activists, journalists, whistle-blowers and political opposition,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

She also voiced concern about “the intense atmosphere of intimidation for those who work to uncover corruption or human rights violations in the Russian Federation.”

The sanctions came just two days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Putin in the Russian resort of Sochi, with both sides voicing optimism at finding areas on which to work together.

Pompeo said he still had deep disagreements with Putin but believed the two powers could cooperate on issues including finding a political settlement in war-ravaged Syria and seeking a denuclearization deal with North Korea.

Also, hit with sanctions were the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in Chechnya and its commander, Abuzayed Vismuradov.

The Treasury Department said that the force had engaged in extrajudicial killings and torture, including in a crackdown on gay men that has drawn international condemnation.

Cameroon has strongly objected to the holding of a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the worsening humanitarian situation in that country.

The Council met in an informal format also known as an Arria Meeting, outside of the Council chamber, amidst concerns a low-level conflict in the Anglophone regions of the Southwest and Northwest is exacerbating humanitarian needs in the country affecting some 4.3 million people.

Government has long rejected calls from separatists seeking independence rooted in long-standing claims of political and economic discrimination by francophone authorities against the minority English-speaking population.

The United States organised the meeting over the objections of the three African countries in the Council and the Cameroonian Government that argued the situation there in no way presented a threat to international peace and security.

Cameroonian ambassador, Tommo Monthe, says the objection has already been expressed by many council members.

“This Arria formula meeting does not enjoy the support of Cameroon. It goes without saying that the same objection has already been firmly expressed by many council members, in particular the African countries; and this due to its ambiguous nature which could be maliciously exploited by those who are minded to be malevolent and who choose for their own benefit to confuse this formula with formal meetings of the Council.”

But the situation in Cameroon is a complex one as it hosts close to 300 000 refugees from the Central African Republic and a further influx of people seeking safe haven as a result of the crisis affecting the Lake Chad Basin to its north.

In addition, there is a violent standoff between separatists in the Anglophone areas in the North and Southwest, leaving over half a million people internally displaced, medical centres impaired and hundreds of thousands of children out of school.

The UN’s Humanitarian Chief says they are seeking $300 million from donors while 13% of that need has so far been met.

UN Secretary-General of Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, says the crisis was one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa in 2018.

“The crisis in the northwest and southwest regions started with peaceful protests in the English speaking regions, but has now turned violent. It was one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa last year (2018). For the past three years, the population has been subjected to on-going violence and attacks by armed actors. The level of the crisis today is more alarming than ever.”

Oman Njomo runs a youth and women’s NGO known as Reach Out in the country. She says the UN could support greater efforts to encourage dialogue between the conflicting parties.

“The UN could support greater efforts to encourage talks and dialogue between the conflicting parties, who are brothers, for an eventual end to the crisis. For them to come up with a roadmap to achieving sustainable peace that builds more on our existing strength and influence.”

Human Rights Watch has called for the situation in Cameroon to be formally placed on the Council’s agenda. Cameroon Researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, says that they are asking the Council to put pressure on the Cameroonian authorities to hold those responsible for abuses accountable.

“We ask the Security Council to put now Cameroon on its formal agenda and to not only look at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Anglophone regions but also at the human rights abuses committed by both sides in the north and southwest. We are also asking the Security Council to put pressure on the Cameroonian authorities to tackle the issue of impunity and hold accountable those responsible for abuses.”

African countries have called for dialogue between the parties as the only means of addressing the current standoff and urged foreign interventions to defer to sub-regional efforts including those by the African Union.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa says investors should not be deterred from seeking investment opportunities in the country – amid the land reform debate in South Africa.

Ramaphosa was speaking at an investor conference in Westcliff, Johannesburg.

He has assured potential investors that land grabs will not be tolerated if and when land is being expropriated.

“Investors should not be worried about that. The constitution does allow for land to be expropriated, but there will never be land grabs. We will not allow land grabs to happen. We say to people do not fear. This is a process that has to address the original sin, but it takes into account the current imperatives and does it carefully in terms of the rule of law,” he adds.

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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned hate speech was spreading online “like wildfire” at a meeting with victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings Tuesday, vowing the world body will lead efforts to extinguish the problem.

Guterres visited the Al Noor mosque, one of two Muslim centres in the New Zealand city where a self-described white supremacist killed 51 people in a March 15 shooting that the attacker live-streamed on Facebook.

The UN chief is travelling the South Pacific to highlight the impact of climate change but said he also wanted to show his support for Christchurch’s Muslim community during Ramadan.

“I know there are no words to relieve the hurt and sorrow and pain, but I wanted to come here personally to transmit love, support and total and complete admiration,” he said.

He told victims of the worst mass shooting in modern New Zealand history that there had been “a dangerous upsurge in hatred” as social media was exploited to promote bigotry.

“Hate speech is spreading like wildfire in social media. We must extinguish it,” the Portuguese diplomat said.

“There is no room for hate speech -– online or offline.”

He highlighted a previously announced plan for his special adviser on genocide prevention Adama Dieng to combat online extremism.

He said Dieng’s mission was to “bring together a United Nations team to scale up our response to hate speech and present a global plan of action”.

His remarks come as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who hosted Guterres when he arrived in Auckland on Sunday, embarks on her own quest to tame social media in Paris this week.

Ardern will co-host a meeting of world leaders and tech firms to promote a “Christchurch call” aimed at curbing online extremism.

She has been highly critical of social media giants in the wake of the Christchurch killings, saying they should be “taking ownership and responsibility over their platforms”.

The government of eSwatini on Tuesday angrily denied viral online reports that King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch who has 14 wives, had ordered men to have at least two marriages or face jail.

The story, carried by the Zambian Observer and picked up by several other online publications, said that Swazi men would have to marry several wives starting from June.

As well as 14 wives, King Mswati has more than 25 children and a reputation for lavish spending while 63% of his 1.3 million subjects in the kingdom formerly known as Swaziland live in poverty.

The story, first published on Monday, said the government would sponsor marriage ceremonies and offer houses to men who entered into polygamous marriages.

It said the king “has declared in… Swaziland that men will from June 2019 be required to marry at least two or more wives or be jailed if they fail to do so”.

Government spokesman Percy Simelane called the story “malicious” and “poisonous”.

“His Majesty has not made any pronouncement to that effect as it has never been an issue raised,” by the people, Simelane said.

He said the story was “not only an insult to the monarchy and the culture of eSwatini but a disgrace to journalism”.

The government has demanded that the newspaper retract its story.

 MTN Nigeria is arranging local debt financing and plans to sell shares to new investors through a public offering, after listing its shares in Africa’s biggest economy on Thursday.

Nigeria, MTN’s biggest market with 52.3 million users in 2017, accounts for a third of the South African group’s annual core profit, but it has faced problems in the country in recent years.

In December, MTN agreed to make a $53 million payment to resolve a dispute in Nigeria. The move ended a multi-billion dollar dividend repatriation row, hitting its share prices in Johannesburg.

MTN, owned by South Africa’s MTN Group, has been one of the main beneficiaries of Nigeria’s push to liberalise its economy over the past two decades. But it has come under increased pressure from the government to boost local ownership.

MTN Group CFO, Ralph Mupita said the listing was an important step towards increasing local ownership in MTN Nigeria and building the country’s equity capital markets.

The company also said it was relying on local funding in naira to mitigate exchange rate volatility.

MTN Group said the company has received approval from the Nigerian Stock Exchange to list its shares on Thursday, giving its existing shareholders access to trade their shares on the bourse.

The company also said the Nigerian unit will raise debt, adding that the total level rose 44% to 252 billion naira ($823.66 million) in the first quarter.

“This is just the beginning, we still intend to pursue a future public offer giving more Nigerians greater access to the MTN opportunity,” Ferdi Moolman, chief executive of MTN Nigeria, said.

MTN decided to list its local company in Nigeria in 2016 after agreeing to pay a $1.7 billion fine to settle a SIM card dispute with the government. Earlier, the company said it planned to list in the first half of 2019.

MTN Nigeria said last week it would list 20.4 billion ordinary shares on the Nigerian stock market.

The company said capital expenditure in the first quarter, rose to 63 billion naira, the bulk of which went to upgrade its network, up from 18 billion naira same period last year.

Service revenue grew 13.4% to 282 billion naira in the first quarter, driven by a rise in voice and data income and the addition of 2.1 million mobile subscribers.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of operating profit, reached 150.4 billion naira ($492 mln) in the three months to March 2019, up from 123 billion naira a year earlier, MTN said.

MTN said it targets a dividend payout ratio of at least 80% of its net income in the medium term.

Bangladeshi police shot dead two suspected Rohingya human traffickers, officials said Wednesday, after rescuing 103 refugees in two days about to make the perilous sea voyage to Malaysia.

The two Rohingya men were killed outside a refugee camp in the southeast on Tuesday evening, said Prodip Kumar Das, police chief of Teknaf which borders Myanmar.

“They opened fire at the police. We fired back in retaliation,” Das told AFP.

This is the first time in four years suspected human traffickers were killed in a gunfight in Bangladesh’s southeast. It follows a rise in attempted human smuggling of Rohingya in the last few months.

People-smugglers have in recent years sent tens of thousands of Rohingya from the Bangladesh camps by boat to relatively prosperous Malaysia, usually between November and April when the seas are calmer.

But the route was disrupted in 2015 when a Bangladeshi crackdown killed dozens of top traffickers after Thai authorities discovered mass graves and overcrowded boats drifting at sea.

Now the traffickers are back, officials say, preying on the camps where 740 000 Rohingya took shelter in 2017 after fleeing a brutal military crackdown in their homeland in Myanmar.

Masud Hossain, police chief of Cox’s Bazar district, told AFP that the police alone have in 2019 rescued over 300 Rohingya, including many young girls, lured by traffickers to go to Malaysia.

On Tuesday evening Cox’s Bazar police rescued 34 Rohingya bound for Malaysia, local Police Chief Fariduddin Khandker said, a day after 69 people were rescued.

Police also intercepted 23 Rohingya teenage girls from the capital Dhaka last week waiting to be trafficked to Malaysia by air. Police suspect the girls were to be sold for forced prostitution.

Rights activists are worried about growing desperation in the camps, but said gunfights were not the solution.

“This (killing traffickers in gunfights) will never bring any permanent solution. Instead it will create a horrific environment in the camps,” prominent rights worker Nur Khan Liton told AFP.

The death toll from a May 6 tanker truck explosion near the international airport in Niger’s capital has risen to 76, state television reported late Sunday.

An earlier official report Tuesday gave 60 dead, including 55 who died at the time of the explosion a few hundred metres (yards) from the airport in Niamey.

Most of the victims were trying to collect spilt fuel flowing from the overturned truck when the blast occurred. About 40 people were injured.

Security official Hamani Adamou Abdoul-Aziz had earlier warned that the toll was likely to rise as several people had sustained severe, life-threatening burns.

The driver of the truck has told investigators that an electrical failure caused him to lose control of the vehicle and its brakes. The truck overturned by the railway track as he was trying to stop it and people then rushed to collect petrol spilling from the vehicle.

According to witnesses, a motorcyclist who had filled his cans tried to restart his bike, which caused a spark that ignited the 50,000 litres (13,000 US gallons) of fuel.

The massive explosion on route RN1 near the airport left the burnt truck’s wreckage, motorbikes and debris scattered over the road.

Nearby houses were damaged by the fire.

Niger held three days of national mourning from Wednesday to Friday in memory of the victims.