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.

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.

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.”

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%.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agreed on Wednesday to work toward resolving their dispute over the filling and operation of a massive dam project in Ethiopia by January 15, 2020, the US Treasury said.

In a joint statement released after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hosted talks to work out differences over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the ministers said they would attend further meetings in Washington on December 9 and January 13 to assess progress in their negotiations.

“The ministers reaffirmed their joint commitment to reach a comprehensive, cooperative, adaptive, sustainable, and mutually beneficial agreement on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and to establish a clear process for fulfilling that commitment in accordance with the 2015 Declaration of Principles,” the ministers, Mnuchin and World Bank President David Malpass said in the statement.

Egypt fears the filling of the dam reservoir on the Blue Nile tributary will restrict already scarce supplies of water from the Nile, on which the country is almost entirely dependent. Sudan is also downriver from the project.

Ethiopia says the hydroelectric dam, which will be Africa’s largest, is crucial to its economic development.

Water ministers of the three countries will hold four meetings in Washington, attended by the Treasury and World Bank, according to the joint statement.

“If an agreement is not reached by January 15, 2020, the foreign ministers agree that Article 10 of the 2015 Declaration of Principles will be invoked,” the statement said.

Such a move would require an international mediator to help resolve the dispute.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said a meeting that he held with the Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese delegations “went well.”.

In their joint statement, the foreign ministers of the three African countries “reaffirmed the significance of the Nile to the development of the people of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the importance of transboundary cooperation, and their shared interest in concluding an agreement.”

Zimbabwe police on Wednesday blocked a handful of public sector workers from marching to government offices with a petition demanding better pay, reneging on an earlier pledge to allow the demonstration.

The march had been seen as a test of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s willingness to tolerate dissent after banning recent opposition protests over the parlous state of the economy.

Government employees in the southern African nation want Mnangagwa’s administration to pay them U.S. dollar-indexed salaries to cushion them against triple-digit inflation.

This would see the least paid worker earning 7,309 Zimbabwe dollars ($475) – seven times more than the 1,023 Zimbabwe dollars they currently receive.

Dozens of police, who outnumbered protesters, confined the workers outside the offices of the Apex Council of public sector unions in Harare, saying only their leaders should deliver a petition to the ministries of finance and labor.
Apex Council leaders tore copies of the petition in protest, to cheers from the workers, and said the union would meet soon to consider their next course of action.

“The police just told us that we could no longer march to government offices because of security fears,” Charles Chinosengwa, the Apex Council organizing secretary, told Reuters as members chanted trade union songs.
Chinosengwa blamed the poor turnout by the workers on intimidation by the government.

One protester held a poster saying “Oversized prices, under age salaries,” as he taunted police after some of his colleagues breached a cordon before they were dragged back.

Zimbabwe is in the grips of its worst economic crisis in a decade, with shortages of foreign exchange, fuel, medicine and electricity, while a severe drought pummels agriculture.

Hopes that the economy would recover have faded as Mnangagwa, who took over from the late Robert Mugabe after a coup in 2017, struggles to convince the population that his economic reforms will work.

There was no immediate comment from police or the government on the aborted march.

As the Springbok team prepares to arrive home, President Cyril Ramaphosa has encouraged other African countries to train and develop their sports teams, to help the continent make a meaningful presence in the field.

This after the Boks won the Rugby World Cup at the weekend, bringing joy and a sense of pride to many South Africans. Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, vice-captain Handre Pollard and birthday boy, coach Rassie Erasmus, have been delayed in Sydney and are expected to arrive at OR Tambo International Airport at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening.

Speaking to CNBC Africa, Ramaphosa says sports has the ability to unify a nation.

“Sports can be used as a unifier and we’ve seen it in our own nation in 1995 leading up to now. Our people are energised with this victory and we want to project it as a victory for the continent. As much as SA is a top rugby playing nation on the continent, we would like to see other African countries playing rugby so that we as a continent can begin to make a meaningful presence. It will not only unify our nation but the continent as well.”

African women have waged war against various challenges they face on the continent. Over one thousand women from across the continent converged for the second annual African Women In Dialogue conference at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni.

The conference, which is hosted by the Zanele Mbeki Development Trust,  aims to ensure that women are involved in the problem solving of African problems.

Host Mojanku Gumbi, from the Trust, says the second edition of the African Women In Dialogue will focus on how women can be agents of change in achieving peace and security and alleviating poverty in Africa.

“Some of our countries still face deadly conflicts, which takes the lives of innocents and results in the displacement of civilian populations, mostly women and children as we know. Especially noteworthy is that these conflicts are started by men who, for us this underscores the need to ask difficult but necessary questions about the formulation and practical implementation of policies for peace, governance framework that support and promote peace economic development and greater social justice with Africa’s resources at the centre of the achievement of these goals.”

The event is supported by the United Nations Women. United Nations Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says they are looking to ensure gender parity.  “We are calling on civil society to work together with government but to lead a process. I must emphasise that we must galvanise a faster pace towards gender equality,” says Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Kenyan women activist, Editar Ochieng is a survivor of sexual abuse. Her ordeal has strengthened her conviction in the need to fight against gender based violence.  Ochieng founded an organsation that helps other survivors of sexual and physical abuse in Kibera,the country’s largest informal settlement. She is now a candidate of parliament in her country.

“As a sexual and gender based survivor it has been long. At the age of 6 I was defiled, again at the age of 16 I faced gang rape. At some point my life was shattered. I realised it has been happening to women but these women were silent. I could not remain silent, the only way I believe is to share our stories and talking to each other and then finding a solution and fighting gender based violence in Kibera.”

The week-long dialogue is expected to broaden and inspire the vision of African women under a common development agenda.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Sunday the death toll from protests last month had risen to 86 and urged citizens to resist forces threatening to impede the country’s progress.

“We have to stop those forces who are trying pull us two steps back while we are going one step forward,” Abiy told a news conference with local news organisations broadcast by state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting.

Supporters of activist Jawar Mohammed took to the streets on October 23 and 24 to protest after he said police had surrounded his home in the capital Addis Ababa and tried to withdraw his government security detail.

The latest death toll, which the government late last week had put at 78, included 82 men and four women, Abiy said. Most were from the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups and victims included both Muslims and Christians, he said.

There were also protests last month in several cities in Oromiya, Ethiopia’s most populous province, underscoring the spectre of ethnic violence which the United Nations  says has already left more than 2 million people internally displaced.

“I ask you to pray for all the victims of violence in that land,” Pope Francis said during his weekly Sunday address at the Vatican.

Ahead of elections in 2020, Abiy must walk a delicate line between increasing political freedoms and reigning in strongmen building ethnic powerbases by demanding more access to land, power and resources for their groups.

Since his appointment in 2018, he has initiated political reforms which have won him international praise but also lifted the lid on long-repressed tensions among the many ethnic groups in Africa’s second most populous nation with a population of more than 100 million.

Abiy won the Nobel peace prize last month for his peacemaking efforts which ended two decades of hostility with longtime enemy Eritrea.