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As political tensions and uncertainty continue to rise in Chad, Ruth Lago spoke with Attorney Max Loalngar to get more insight into the situation.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
[Nation] Sudan's transitional government is set to sign a peace deal with rebel movements to formally accommodate the fighters in the mainstream administration.
Africas worst drought of the century occurred in 1992, and, coupled with the devastation of civil war, Somalia was plunged into a severe famine that killed 300,000. U.S. troops were sent in to protect the delivery of food in Dec. 1992, and in May 1993 the UN took control of the relief efforts from the U.S. The warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid ambushed UN troops and dragged American bodies through the streets, causing an about-face in U.S. willingness to involve itself in the fate of this lawless country. The last of the U.S. troops departed in late March, leaving 19,000 UN troops behind.
Since 1991 Somalia has been engulfed in anarchy. Years of peace negotiations between the various factions were fruitless, and warlords and militias ruled over individual swaths of land. In 1991, a breakaway nation, the Somaliland Republic, proclaimed its independence. Since then several warlords have set up their own ministates in Puntland and Jubaland. Although internationally unrecognized, these states have been peaceful and stable.
In Aug. 2000, a parliament convened in nearby Djibouti and elected Somalias first government in nearly a decade. After its first year in office, the government still controlled only 10% of the country, and in Aug. 2003, its mandate expired. In Oct. 2002, new talks to establish a government began; in Aug. 2004 a 275-member transitional parliament was inaugurated for a five-year term. Parliament selected a national president in September, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the president of the breakaway region of Puntland. The new government, however, spent its first year operating out of Kenya—Somalia remained too violent and unstable to enter—eventually settling in the provincial town of Baidoa.
In May 2006, the countrys worst outbreak of violence in 10 years began, with Islamist militias, called the Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC), battling rival warlords. On June 6, the Islamist militia seized control of the capital, Mogadishu, and established control in much of the south. Somalias transitional
Maputo — The Gaza provincial court, sitting in the southern Mozambican city of Xai-Xai, on Thursday sentenced two police officers, who were members of the death squad that murdered civil society and election observation activist Anastacio Matavel on 7 October last year, to lengthy prison terms.
Judge Ana Liquidao sentenced the man who drove the death squad's car, Edson Silica, to 24 years imprisonment, and his colleague, Euclidio Mapulasse, to 23 years.
The court found that the commander of the Gaza unit of the GOE, Tudela Guirrugo, was the \"moral author\" of the crime (that is, he had ordered it) and gave him a 24 year sentence.
The court acquitted a seventh accused, Ricardo Manganhe, a teacher from the municipality of Chibuto, who had lent the getaway car to the death squad.
Menete argued that the state is responsible - the murder was a state crime, carried out by police officers, using police guns.
Raising the Bar, Unity Gospel House of Prayer and local college students organize community mourning event
MILWAUKEE – (June 30, 2020) – Raising the Bar, Unity Gospel House of Prayer and local college students unite to offer a “Moment of Mourning” for the public on July 4 at 10 a.m. at Unity Gospel House of Prayer, 1747 N 12th St. This event will offer a space for community members to remember lives lost recently due to COVID-19, racial injustices and violence in Milwaukee.
“A Moment of Mourning is a peaceful campaign create to provide our Milwaukee community with the space to unite in solidarity and mourn the recent loss of lives across the nation due to COVID-19, racial injustice, and violence,” said La’Ketta Caldwell, Raising the Bar, event organizer and founder.
After the program, college students will lead a peaceful march to demonstrate intergenerational unity against racial inequalities and social injustice.
“As a college student, I wanted to organize an opportunity for people from every generation, race, ethnic group and religious background to unite and march against the current racial injustices plaguing our county,” said Destini Tomlin, march organizer.
Raising the Bar provides opportunities to youth and adults to succeed regardless of their economic or social status.
Daniel arap Moi , in full Daniel Toroitich arap Moi (born 1924, Sacho, Kenya Colony [now Kenya]), Kenyan politician, who held the office of president (1978–2002).
Moi was educated at mission and government schools. He became a teacher at age 21 and in the early 1960s, as Kenya began to move toward independence (1963), was appointed minister of education in the transitional government. Although he had originally been cofounder and chairman of the Kenya African Democratic Union, a party composed of minority peoples, he joined the Kikuyu-dominated Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 1964. That same year Moi was appointed minister of home affairs.
Named vice president in 1967, Moi became president in 1978 following the death of Jomo Kenyatta. He quickly consolidated his power, banning opposition parties and promoting his Kalenjin countrymen to positions of authority at the expense of the Kikuyu. He also curried favour with the army, which proved loyal to him in suppressing a coup attempt in 1982. His continuation of Kenyatta’s pro-Western policies ensured significant sums of development aid during the Cold War (1947–91), and under Moi’s stewardship Kenya emerged as one of the most prosperous African nations.
In the early 1990s, however, Western countries began to demand political and economic reforms, leading Moi to legalize opposition parties in 1991. The following year he won the country’s first multiparty elections amid charges of electoral fraud. Riots and demonstrations marred the 1997 elections, and hundreds of Kenyans, mainly Kikuyu, were killed. Easily elected to his fifth term as president, Moi promised to end government corruption and implement democratic and economic reforms. In an effort to combat corruption, in 1999 he appointed Richard Leakey, the popular and respected anthropologist, the head of the civil service and permanent secretary to the cabinet, a position Leakey retired from in 2001.
Required by the constitution to resign in 2003, Moi backed Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo Kenyatta, as
This makes it imperative for governments to apply social assistance programme for the poor and vulnerable .
According to the World Bank, per capita spending on social assistance programmes is lower in low- and middle-income countries (less than $1,000) than in high-income countries ($4,000-$5,000).
It reports that Nigeria's total spending on social assistance programmes is 0.28% of GDP and covers only 7% of the population.
This is aimed at financial support for the poor and vulnerable whose incomes or livelihoods are at risk due to natural, human or economic crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdown.
Others include youth employment and community social development projects, like the home-grown school feeding programmes to address poverty and hunger.
The new clauses are included in the Written Laws Miscellaneous Amendments No 3 of 2020, which were approved under a certificate of urgency before Parliament was dissolved this week to pave the way for the October General Election.
The Bill was rushed through Parliament despite an outcry from civil society over its constitutional compatibility.
In a private write-up, prominent Tanzanian law professor, Issa Shivji, described the new clauses as an attempt to “amend the Constitution through the back door” by abolishing public interest litigation and conferring sovereign immunity on top public officials.
“Under these new clauses it is virtually impossible to sue the heads of the three branches of state even if they are alleged to have breached the constitution or the law of the land in the performance of their constitutional duties.”
In an online petition, a coalition of Tanzanian civil society organisations said the amendment was aimed at “instigating blatant violations of the national constitution” and called for strong public support against the Bill before it became law.
THE RELEASE of ‘The Local Green-Blue Enterprise (LGE) Radar: A Tool for Community Enterprises’ by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) is expected to support COVID-19 economic recovery that is fair, environmentally sustainable, low-carbon and resilient.
CANARI said the toolkit, developed in collaboration with the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), is “a simple but effective tool that can help community micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) assess how they are doing and where they can improve in delivering on the triple bottom line benefits of economic, environmental and social sustainability, as well as good governance”.
“As we commit to transforming Caribbean economies coming out of the COVID-19 crisis, practical and easy-to-use tools, like the LGE Radar, are necessary to empower these MSMEs to understand their role in this economic transformation,” she added.
Since 2010, CANARI has been engaging Caribbean stakeholders in dialogues to explore ‘green economy’ and ‘blue economy’ in the Caribbean context, and the pathways for transformation of our economic development models to ones that are more environmentally sustainable, inclusive and resilient.
This toolkit was developed and piloted with support from two regional projects being implemented by CANARI – #GE4U: Transformation Towards an Inclusive Green Economy in the Caribbean and Powering Innovations in Civil Society and Enterprises for Sustainability in the Caribbean, which are both funded by the European Union.
The Congo, in west-central Africa, is bordered by the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one-quarter the size of the U.S. The principal rivers are the Ubangi and Bomu in the north and the Congo in the west, which flows into the Atlantic. The entire length of Lake Tanganyika lies along the eastern border with Tanzania and Burundi.
Transitional government.
Formerly the Belgian Congo, this territory was inhabited by ancient Negrito peoples (Pygmies), who were pushed into the mountains by Bantu and Nilotic invaders. The American correspondent Henry M. Stanley navigated the Congo River in 1877 and opened the interior to exploration. Commissioned by King Leopold II of the Belgians, Stanley made treaties with native chiefs that enabled the king to obtain personal title to the territory at the Berlin Conference of 1885.
Leopold accumulated a vast personal fortune from ivory and rubber through Congolese slave labor; 10 million people are estimated to have died from forced labor, starvation, and outright extermination during Leopolds colonial rule. His brutal exploitation of the Congo eventually became an international cause célèbre, prompting Belgium to take over administration of the Congo, which remained a colony until agitation for independence forced Brussels to grant freedom on June 30, 1960. In elections that month, two prominent nationalists won: Patrice Lumumba of the leftist Mouvement National Congolais became prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu of the ABAKO Party became head of state.
But within weeks of independence, the Katanga Province, led by Moise Tshombe, seceded from the new republic, and another mining province, South Kasai, followed. Belgium sent paratroopers to quell the civil war, and the United Nations flew in a peacekeeping force.
Kasavubu staged an army coup in 1960 and handed Lumumba over to the Katangan forces. A UN investigating commission found that Lumumba had been killed by a Belgian
Tolbert was ousted in a military coup on April 12, 1980, by Master Sgt. Samuel K. Doe, backed by the U.S. government. Does rule was characterized by corruption and brutality. A rebellion led by Charles Taylor, a former Doe aide, and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), started in Dec. 1989; the following year, Doe was assassinated. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) negotiated with the government and the rebel factions and attempted to restore order, but the civil war raged on. By April 1996, factional fighting by the countrys warlords had destroyed any last vestige of normalcy and civil society. The civil war finally ended in 1997.
In what was considered by international observers to be a free election, Charles Taylor won 75% of the presidential vote in July 1997. The country had next to no health care system, and the capital was without electricity and running water. Taylor supported Sierra Leones brutal Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in the hopes of toppling his neighbors government and in exchange for diamonds, which enriched his personal coffers. As a consequence, the UN issued sanctions against Liberia.
In 2002, rebels—Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)—intensified their attacks on Taylors government. By June 2003, LURD and other rebel groups controlled two-thirds of the country. Finally, on Aug. 11, Taylor stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria. By the time he was exiled, Taylor had bankrupted his own country, siphoning off $100 million and leaving Liberia the worlds poorest nation. Gyude Bryant, a businessman seen as a coalition builder, was selected by the various factions as the new president.
When a 77-year-old Black retired St. Louis Police Department captain David Dorn was shot and killed by Black looters, there was no comparable outrage by Black and White Democratic Party national political leaders.
It’s readily apparent that “Black Lives Matter” only applies to those Blacks killed by police or other Whites — not by Blacks!
Many in the media who say there is systemic racism in police departments turn a blind
eye to the lack of Blacks in their newsrooms and on their editorial boards.
In their minds, police departments’ roles are to protect them from “those people” regardless of how they do
it— until they see it with their own eyes, as was the case with George Floyd.
He was referring to Amy Cooper, the White woman walking her dog in Central Park, who called the police because a Black male told her to put a leash on her dog.
Officials from the UN, West Africa and the African Union (AU) have met an influential Muslim cleric behind demonstrations against Mali's beleaguered president, the coalition behind the protests said on Monday.
Tens of thousands of people joined a rally in Bamako last Friday to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was re-elected in 2018 for a second five-year term.
The alliance which organised the protests said \"a delegation from the international community met Imam (Mahmoud) Dicko\" on Sunday.
Its members came from the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA; the AU; and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), a 15-nation bloc that includes Mali, it said in a statement.
MINUSMA spokesperson Olivier Salgado said the head of the peacekeeping mission, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, \"along with representatives from regional organisations, met certain organisers (of Friday's rally) but also with representatives of national authorities... to find ways of renewing dialogue.\"
The Covid-19 pandemic has multiplied the socio-economic hardships in our country and magnified the disparities, National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise said as she introduced a virtual public lecture on Africa Day on Monday.
OPINION | Africa Day: A continent united in its battle against Covid-19
\"We observe Africa Day today – and remind ourselves of the value and strength in our joint and collective fight against our shared and common threat to life and livelihoods.
Turning back to South Africa, she said the Budget was the \"most powerful instrument by which government can implement its priorities to correct, adjust and change lives\".
\"We observe Africa Day today in a reflective mood – uncertain of the lives we will continue to lose to this coronavirus, uncertain of socio-economic impact on the morale of our people.
Cyril Ramaphosa: The solutions to Africa’s problems reside within Africa itself
\"We remain firm in our conviction that we will endure as South Africa; as sons, daughters and citizens of Africa, because we have always placed value on human life above economic gain, and on our inherent commitment to collective action.\"
Many were waiting for Ivorian opposition leader Henri Konan Bédié to speak, but instead it was FPI's P ascal Affi N'guessan who spoke for the opposition parties.
N'guessan confirmed they rejected the October 31st vote , and stated once more the opposition no longer recognized Alassane Ouattara as the country's president.
\" The Ivorian opposition political parties do not recognize the election of october 31st 2020. They note the end of president Ouattara's mandate as of October 31st 2020, and call on the international community to duly record it.\"
\"Therefore, the Ivorian opposition political parties demand the opening of a civilian transition, in order to create conditions for a just, transparant and inclusive presidential election \" N'guessan said.
Affi N'gessan also called for a transitional government to be instaured shortly with all opposition forces.
In the meantime, partial results have arrived at the electoral commission , which, department after department, continues to gather reports.
\" The key point tonight remains the turnout rate of this vote . This is what everyone is waiting for \" added Africanews' Abidjan correspondant Yannick Djahoun.
The U.S. criticized Tanzania’s arrest of eight opposition leaders during their party meeting on Wednesday, saying the action stifles democratic norms.
Political tensions are rising in Tanzania ahead of the October general elections in which President John Magufuli plans to seek re-election.
These actions follow a disconcerting pattern of intimidation toward opposition members, civil society and media outlets.
The government also closed the Tanzania Daima newspaper following coverage critical of Magufuli’s administration.
“These actions follow a disconcerting pattern of intimidation toward opposition members, civil society and media outlets,” the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said in a statement on its Twitter account.
The African Development Bank this week announced the 100 finalists from the #AfricaVsVirus Challenge ideathon to find solutions to challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.
Some 25,000 participants from across Africa and beyond, joined the online platform to pitch their ideas for innovative solutions to the health and economic challenges caused by the virus.
\"The quality of ideas and the level of engagement from participants during the online challenge showcases that innovation and a passion to find solutions are among Africa's greatest resources,\" said Dr. Jennifer Blanke, the Bank's Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development.
Through the African Development Bank's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab Platform, the Bank will now act as an enabler to match the most relevant solutions to the initiative's 140+ partners.
The AfricaVsVirus Challenge is implemented by the Bank strategy Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab (https://bit.ly/2wtWect) as well as the Youth Entrepreneurship & Innovation Multi-Donor Trust Fund (https://bit.ly/30q7Mu4) working together with implementing partners Seedstars (www.Seedstars.com) digital agency WAAT (https://WAAT.eu) and development consultants Luvent Consulting full list of the Top 100 Solutions finalists will be posted to the #AfricaVsVirus website, www.AfricaVsVirus.com.
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced on Tuesday that he would hold talks on establishing a new unity government, after weeks of escalating criticism from the country’s political opposition.
On Tuesday, Keita said he would “begin consultations for the formation of a government of national unity,” in an apparent overture to Mali’s political opposition.
However, the constitutional court caused controversy in Mali in April when it overturned several results for parliamentary seats in the recent elections.
In a move that triggered protests in several cities, Mali’s constitutional court in April overturned the results in some 30 seats, which saw about a dozen candidates from the presidential party take parliamentary seats.
Keita’s decision to form a new government of national unity also comes after speculation in Bamako political circles about whether the president would dissolve the parliament.
