One could mistake Kanduwa Sande for a contractor hired to clear up the once-dilapidated public football pitch in Machinga.

But Sande is an officer at the Machinga Police Station — and has a passion for sports.

The 42-year-old sub-inspector, also an athletics coach, has volunteered to turn a once-forsaken pitch into a sports complex with facilities like a track, netball court and climbing walls for children.

He says the aim is to help develop sports and reduce crime such as rape and sexual assault now rampant in his community.

“One of our responsibilities as police officers is also to reduce crime — to prevent people from doing crime,” Sande said. “So, when one is idle, surely that person will indulge him- or herself in other bad behaviors like committing crimes.”

Sande has been doing voluntary work since 2011 using savings from his monthly salary and working during his free time.

“I don’t spend my lunch hour (break), one hour and 30 minutes, eating only,” Sande said. “No. I also work for maybe 50 minutes. Every day of my lunch hour is sacrificed for voluntary work.”

Over the years, Sande ignored insults from people who didn’t understand the motive behind his work, with some calling him crazy. He asked his wife to also ignore them.

Sande said, “Because I knew people would say so many things to my wife: ‘Are you allowing this one to do this job? Are you married to this person, this mad person?’ So, I said, ‘Don’t tell me anything you hear from other people that will derail me from doing this.’” 

In 2017, his dedication to volunteer work earned him an innovation award for sports, which involved a month-long visit to China, where he learned how best to proceed with his initiative.

Soon after, he purchased and began using machinery to fast-track his initiative.

Government sports officials and community leaders sometimes visit the facility to express appreciation for the work he is doing.

Charles Mandela is the village chief of the area Sande picked to build the sports complex. 

Mandela  said, “Ours is just an appeal to other well-wishers to help Sande in areas he can’t do on his own, like constructing a fence around the ground so that all the sporting activities should be done inside the fence.”

The Ministry of Sports and the Machinga district council will run the facility because it remains government property.

Sande said the sports complex is now nearly complete and expected to officially open to the public at the end of December.
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Security is worsening in Burkina Faso with the deadliest attacks by Islamist militants in the West African country in years on civilians and security forces. People are protesting the failure of Burkinabe and international forces to stop the violence, with some calling for change at the top. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Camera: Henry Wilkins
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From navigating shopping centers to government offices, South Africa’s ‘little people’ say public spaces aren’t designed to be accessible for them. One advocacy group in Johannesburg is calling for better support to help people live independently. Linda Givetash has the report. Camera – Zaheer Cassim.
…

Botswana’s government has lost a bid to overturn a 2019 court ruling that decriminalized same-sex relations. Human rights groups have welcomed the decision, saying it opens the door to challenge what they say are other discriminatory laws in Botswana.

The five judges on Botswana’s Court of Appeal were unanimous in upholding the June 2019 landmark decision which recognized homosexuality.

Court of Appeal president Ian Kirby said criminalizing same-sex activities violates the constitutional right of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender persons.

He said the offending sections of the penal code have outlived their usefulness and only serve to encourage law enforcement agents to become keyhole peepers and intrude into the private space of citizens.

The government wanted the 2019 court ruling overturned, arguing that the majority of people in the country did not agree with it.

Representing the LGBTQ community, lawyer Tshiamo Rantao said the matter has been finally laid to rest.

“It is indeed a great victory for the nation, for the lovers of human rights, for my clients. It is a decision of the highest court that will reverberate around the world. It did not have its impact [only] in Botswana but all over the world because the issues before the court were not just local but universal issues. It is a victory that will live with us as a nation for many, many years to come,” said the lawyer.

Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (or LEGABIBO) chief executive Thato Moruti said the development will add impetus to advocacy on human rights issues.

“What is quite interesting and evident is that Botswana needs to realize even more the importance of adhering or understanding human rights first. Specifically to today’s judgment, I am quite excited because I believe this judgement has not only challenged us as a people in Botswana, but has also challenged leadership from an engagement perspective, and even from a policy standpoint,” said Moruti.

Moruti said the judgement will spur them to challenge what they say are other discriminatory sections of Botswana’s laws.

“We are continuing with the war. From an organization standpoint, there are legislations or litigations opportunities that we have identified and we are working around the clock to ensure that after this we look at what is next,” said Moruti.

The Southern African Litigation Center executive director, Anna Mmolai-Chalmers, said the court victory is not just for the LGBTQ community, but all vulnerable groups.

“What it [the judgement] does as well is, [it has] given the activists the tool to talk to the public to change public opinion, to talk to traditional and religious leaders. There are a lot of human rights clauses that also talk to persons with disabilities, to use the case, because it is not just for LGBTQ, it’s for a whole vulnerable community,” she said.

Under the previous law, those caught engaging in same-sex activities faced up to seven years in imprisonment.

Homosexuality remains forbidden in most African countries. 
…

Israel’s government on Sunday approved the immigration of several thousand Jews from war-torn Ethiopia, some of whom have waited for decades to join their relatives in Israel.

The decision took a step toward resolving an issue that has long complicated the government’s relations with the country’s Ethiopian community.

Some 140,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel. Community leaders estimate that roughly 6,000 others remain behind in Ethiopia.

Although the families are of Jewish descent and many are practicing Jews, Israel does not consider them Jewish under religious law. Instead, they have been fighting to enter the country under a family-unification program that requires special government approval.

Community activists have accused the government of dragging its feet in implementing a 2015 decision to bring all remaining Ethiopians of Jewish lineage to Israel within five years. 

Under Sunday’s decision, an estimated 3,000 people will be eligible to move to Israel. They include parents, children and siblings of relatives already in Israel, as well as orphans whose parents were in Israel when they died.

“Today we are correcting an ongoing injustice,” said Pnina Tamano Shata, the country’s minister for immigration and herself an Ethiopian immigrant. She said the program was a response to people who have waited “too many years to come to Israel with their families” and to resolve a “painful issue.”

In a joint statement with Israel’s interior minister, she said the decision came in part as a response to the precarious security situation in Ethiopia, where tens of thousands of people have been killed over the past year in fighting between the government and Tigray forces. 

It was not immediately clear when the airlift would begin. The government appointed a special project coordinator to oversee the effort.

Kasaw Shiferaw, chairman of the group Activists for the Immigration of Ethiopian Jews, welcomed Sunday’s decision but said there was still a long way to go.

“On one hand, this decision makes me happy. Three thousand people are realizing a dream and uniting with their families,” he said. 

“But it’s not a final resolution. Thousands are still waiting in camps, some for more than 25 years. We expect the government to bring all of them,” he said.
…

Cameroon says lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are increasingly becoming victims of violence and brutality. The central African state’s government made the comment this week after Human Rights Watch reported degrading treatment of LGBTI people and called on Cameroon to hold perpetrators accountable.

About 15 people are shouting and beating a person they claim is homosexual. In the video widely circulated on social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube, the mob forces the naked person out of a room, pulling their legs apart and saying the person is a man dressed and behaving like a woman.

Human Rights Watch said in a November 20 dispatch that the video is that of a violent mob humiliating a 27-year-old intersex person in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.

Paul Abbo said he witnessed the assault on the intersex person. Abbo said he hopes the humiliation of the individual will dissuade homosexuals and lesbians from what he said is a practice that does not honor Africa.

“I learn that in Gabon the Senate and the Assembly adopted the law for homosexuality or lesbianism, but in Cameroon we know that a family has a man and a woman not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. The man is the head, the woman is a subordinate to the husband, and they merge to form a family.” said Abbo.

Abbo said he was surprised when lawmakers in Gabon’s Parliament voted to decriminalize homosexuality in June 2020.

Rights groups say Gabon is one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to remove a law that punishes sexual relations between people of the same sex.

Human Rights Watch central Africa researcher Ilaria Allegrozzi said the perpetrators of the Yaoundé abuse filmed the attack, which lasted for several hours.

This week Cameroon said attacks on lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are increasing in the central African state.

Rene Sadi is communications minister and government spokesperson. He said although gay sex and practices are illegal in Cameroon, no one has the right to abuse a suspect.

“Homosexuality, it must be reiterated, remains a sexual orientation that is suppressed by our laws because it is contrary to our realities, our convictions and our culture as well as to the requirements of procreation. But for all that, it is not up to each and every one of us to take the place of justice in punishing those who might be found guilty of homosexuality. It is an insult, an assault which is also punishable by law,” he said.

Sadi said only Cameroon law has the right to establish and punish lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex offenses.

Cameroon has not given further details on how many LGBTI people have been attacked.

However, Human Rights Watch said in a report in April that LGBTQ people are suffering a fresh wave of persecution in Cameroon, where same-sex relations are illegal.

The group said police in February detained 12 youths in the eastern town of Bertoua for homosexuality, beat them and locked them in a police station. Police in Douala, a commercial city, detained Loic Njeukam, known as Shakiro, and Roland Mouth in February for wearing women’s clothing while eating at a restaurant.

Cameroon law prohibits sexual relations with a person of the same sex with a penalty of between six months to five years imprisonment.

Rights groups say Cameroon’s police tend to target public gatherings of LGBTQ people. Human Dignity Trust, a group that defends the rights of LGBTI people, reports that there is an uptick in police action against LGBT in Cameroon. It says at least 24 people have been arrested, beaten, or threatened by security forces for alleged consensual same-sex conduct or gender nonconformity since February.
…

Zimbabwe’s government says the country is very prepared to handle the new COVID-19 variant – omicron – first reported in neighboring South Africa. The World Health Organization says a fourth wave of the pandemic is most likely to hit Africa.

Zimbabwe’s Vice President Constantino Chiwenga – who doubles as the country’s health minister – has asked the nation not to be concerned about omicron.

“The country should not panic because we are very prepared. The ramping up of our vaccination program in the past month has seen marked increase in the vaccination uptake. That is the prevention which we are going to have for our people if any other variant comes. At least when your body is protected it is much better than when you are found naked,” said the vice president.

Zimbabwe has fully inoculated about 2.8 million people since February, when it began its vaccination program to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has a target of vaccinating at least 10 million Zimbabweans — or 60% of the population — by the end of the year, a figure which might be difficult to reach given the scarcity of resources and short time left.

Itai Rusike, head of the nonprofit Community Working Group on Health, said Zimbabweans should panic about the new variant – initially named B.1.1.529 – since the country shares porous borders with South Africa and Botswana.

“And this new variant is coming at a time when the festive season is upon us. A whole lot of Zimbabweans, they use undesignated entry points. That poses a serious health challenge as they would not be properly screened and monitored as they come back to the country. What we want to encourage the government of Zimbabwe, is for them to strengthen their surveillance and monitoring system especially the land borders and make sure that the screening and monitoring at the entry points is also strengthened,” said Rusike.

Meanwhile, Humphrey Karamagi, a medical officer at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, said on the WHO Twitter account that a fourth wave of COVID-19 is likely to hit the continent.

“A fourth wave in Africa is almost a certainty, as long as we have these factors in play, which is new variants coming up and the fact that people can be reinfected. And also, if we are getting new population who may not have been exposed. We would then have subsequent waves. Vaccination helps a lot in terms of reducing the severity of the disease [and] also reducing the risk of infection. The vaccine is not a magic bullet. So the vaccine is to work together with the public health measures to reduce the potential and risks of subsequent waves,” said Karamagi.

The WHO says COVID-19 has infected about 6.1 million people in Africa and claimed 152,113 lives. The world health body also says more than 227 million vaccine doses have been administered in Africa.
…

The United States praised South Africa on Saturday for quickly identifying the latest coronavirus variant, omicron, and sharing this information with the world.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with South Africa’s international relations and cooperation minister, Naledi Pandor, and they discussed cooperation on vaccinating people in Africa against COVID-19, the State Department said in a statement.

“Secretary Blinken specifically praised South Africa’s scientists for the quick identification of the omicron variant and South Africa’s government for its transparency in sharing this information, which should serve as a model for the world,” the statement said.

First detected in South Africa, the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was deemed by the World Health Organization a “variant of concern” on Friday.

Earlier Saturday, Pandor’s office issued a statement saying that the country is being punished for detecting the new variant as more countries rush to enact travel bans and restrictions.

By Saturday, more than a dozen countries had announced temporary travel restrictions on South Africa and other countries in the region after cases were reported in Europe and the Middle East. 
…

Sudan’s army said Saturday several soldiers had been killed in an attack by armed groups and militias linked to the Ethiopian military in a disputed fertile border region. 

Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa have soured over Al-Fashaqa, a border zone long cultivated by Ethiopian farmers but claimed by Sudan. 

“Our forces tasked with securing the harvest in Al-Fashaqa … were attacked by groups of Ethiopian army forces and militias, who sought to intimidate farmers and spoil the harvest season,” Sudan’s armed forces said in a statement. 

Sudanese troops “repelled the attack” and “inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment” on the Ethiopian side, it said. 

But the attack left “several killed” among Sudanese forces, the army added. 

Ethiopian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Al-Fashaqa, which also borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region, has seen sporadic deadly clashes between the two sides over the years, but escalated last year. 

Tensions rose after fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020, which sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into Sudan.

Khartoum and Addis Ababa have since been locked in a tense war of words over the region, trading accusations of violence and territorial violations. 

The border dispute feeds into wider tensions in the region, including over Ethiopia’s controversial Blue Nile dam. 

Sudan, along with Egypt, has been locked in a bitter dispute over Ethiopia’s mega-dam for a decade. 

Both downstream countries, dependent on the river for most of their water, see the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam as an existential threat. 

 
…

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said Saturday he dismissed the chief of police, Lieutenant-General Khaled Mahdi Ibrahim Al-Emam, and his deputy.  

Lieutenant-General Anan Hamed Mohammed Omar was appointed as the new police chief and Major General Muddathir Abd al-Rahman Nasr al-Din as his deputy, Hamdok added in a post on Twitter.

 
…

A challenge to Malawi’s 2020 presidential elections has been dismissed by the country’s constitutional court. The opposition Democratic Progress Party had asked the court to rule on voting results, which put President Lazarus Chakwera into office.  Party officials have not yet decided their next move.

Reading the final judgment Friday, chairperson of a five-judge panel Sylvester Kalembera faulted the opposition Democratic Progress Party’s argument that Attorney General Chakaka Nyirenda was not supposed to handle the case because he was not yet sworn into his position.

“Our finding is that the framers of the constitution did not intend for the attorney general to take an oath of office,” said Kalembera. “We have found that the attorney general is properly before us.”    

Kalembera said the DPP’s court challenge was irregular on seven grounds.

“Six, the claimant being precluded from benefiting from its own illegality,” said Kalembera. “And seven, the proceeding being frivolous, vexatious and abuse of court’s process. The claimant actions have been struck out. The claimant has been condemned in the attorney general’s costs. This is the ruling of the court.”

Attorney General Nyirenda, who is also the defense lawyer in the case, said the ruling was not a surprise.

“This is what we expected,” said Nyirenda. “From [the] word go we said that it’s a hopeless case, so I am happy that I am vindicated.”

Public reaction to the closely followed case has been swift.  Rhoda Chigalu, a resident of Ndirande Township in Blantyre, says the judge has saved the country from spending a lot of money on the case.

“And I applaud the court because the DPP should not take Malawians for granted. And this is the small country,” said Chigalu. “Why do we have to be doing elections now again. And I think the court is standing for the people, protecting Malawians who pay taxes”

However, political analyst George Phiri says both sides could have saved time by addressing the issue without involving the court.

“The hiring of commissioners and firing of commissioners is a process, especially on the appointment, it’s a process,” said Phiri. “And the process went through well. Why didn’t they object to the appointment right at the time of the appointment and not through the court, just like it has happened?”

Charles Mhango is the lead lawyer for the DPP.  He says the party will decide whether to appeal the judgment after going through the detailed judgment document. 

“At the moment, the only thing that I can say is that yes, our client’s case has been dismissed, and we are going to consult with our client because we want to read through, reflect on a sober manner on the issues they have raised,” said Mhango.

The court says it will release a detailed judgment on December 30.

The DPP petitioned the high court in June to nullify results of last year’s rerun presidential election, and the court had been considering the case since September.

The party’s court challenge came soon after the high court quashed the appointment of four DPP commissioners, saying their appointment was invalid and unconstitutional.

The party also wanted the court to invalidate the rerun election because it was managed by commissioners who it says were wrongly appointed.

Former president Peter Mutharika appointed commissioners Jean Mathanga, Linda Kunje, Steven Duwa and Arthur Nanthuru during the 2020 re-run presidential elections.

DPP lawyers argue that Malawi’s Constitution does not recognize an election that was presided over by undeserving commissioners.

During a preliminary hearing on the case in September, however, Attorney General and government defense lawyer Nyirenda, asked the court to dismiss the case, saying it lacked merit.

Nyirenda accused the DPP of trying to benefit from the mistake it made by wrongly appointing its own commissioners. He said the DPP cannot be rewarded for its own irregularities.

He also argued the election result challenge should have been filed by the candidate, Peter Mutharika, who represented the party in the presidential election, and not by the party itself.

 
…

Protesters in Niger blocked a French military convoy  Saturday shortly after it crossed the border from Burkina Faso, where it had been stuck for a week due to demonstrations against the former colonial ruler there, France’s army said.

French soldiers and Nigerien military police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from approaching their vehicles, before the convoy was able to continue on its way toward the capital Niamey, said army spokesperson Colonel Pascal Ianni.  

Anger about France’s military presence in its former colonies has been rising in Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries in West Africa’s Sahel region, where France has thousands of troops to fight local affiliates of al-Qaida and Islamic State.

Last weekend, hundreds of people in the Burkinabe city of Kaya blocked French armored vehicles and logistics trucks, protesting against the failure of French troops to stop escalating violence by Islamist militants.

The convoy, which is on its way from Ivory Coast to northern Mali, was finally able to leave Burkina Faso on Friday. It ran into new protests less than 30 kilometers across the border in western Niger town of Tera, where it had stopped to spend the night, Ianni told Reuters.

“Protesters tried to pillage and seize the trucks,” Ianni said. “There were warning shots by the Nigerien gendarmes and French soldiers.”

Video shared by a local official showed the protesters, mostly young men, shouting “Down with France!” as black smoke rose from a burning barricade.

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back militants who had seized the desert north, before deploying soldiers across the Sahel. While it has killed many top jihadist leaders, violence has continued to intensify and spread in the region.

In the demonstrations in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, protesters have cited conspiracy theories that France is secretly supporting the militants to justify its continued military presence in its former colonies.

 
…

As the world grapples with the emergence of the new highly transmissible variant of COVID-19, worried scientists in South Africa — where omicron was first identified — are scrambling to combat its lightning spread across the country.

In the space of two weeks, the omicron variant has sent South Africa from a period of low transmission to rapid growth of new confirmed cases. The country’s numbers are still relatively low, with 2,828 new confirmed cases recorded Friday, but omicron’s speed in infecting young South Africans has alarmed health professionals.

“We’re seeing a marked change in the demographic profile of patients with COVID-19,” Rudo Mathivha, head of the intensive care unit at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital, told an online press briefing.

“Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.”

She said urgent preparations are needed to enable public hospitals to cope with a potential large influx of patients needing intensive care.

“We know we have a new variant,” said Mathivha. “The worst-case scenario is that it hits us like delta … we need to have critical care beds ready.”

What looked like a cluster infection among some university students in Pretoria ballooned into hundreds of new cases and then thousands, first in the capital city and then to nearby Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.

Studying the surge, scientists identified the new variant that diagnostic tests indicate is likely responsible for as many as 90% of the new cases, according to South Africa’s health officials. Early studies show that it has a reproduction rate of 2 — meaning that every person infected by it is likely to spread it to two other people.

The new variant has a high number of mutations that appear to make it more transmissible and help it evade immune responses. The World Health Organization looked at the data on Friday and named the variant omicron, under its system of using Greek letters, calling it a highly transmissible variant of concern.

“It’s a huge concern. We all are terribly concerned about this virus,” Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute, told The Associated Press.

“This variant is mostly in Gauteng province, the Johannesburg area of South Africa. But we’ve got clues from diagnostic tests … that suggest that this variant is already all over South Africa,” said Hanekom, who is also co-chair of the South African COVID Variant Research Consortium.

“The scientific reaction from within South Africa is that we need to learn as much as soon as possible. We know precious little,” he said. “For example, we do not know how virulent this virus is, which means how bad is this disease that it causes?”

A key factor is vaccination. The new variant appears to be spreading most quickly among those who are unvaccinated. Currently, only about 40% of adult South Africans are vaccinated, and the number is much lower among those in the 20- to 40-year-old age group.

South Africa has nearly 20 million doses of vaccines — made by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson — but the numbers of people getting vaccines is about 120,000 per day, far below the government’s target of 300,000 per day.

As scientists try to learn more about omicron, the people of South Africa can take measures to protect themselves against it, said Hanekom.

“This is a unique opportunity. There’s still time for people who did not get vaccinated to go and get the vaccine, and that will provide some protection, we believe, against this infection, especially protection against severe infection, severe disease and death,” he said. “So I would call on people to vaccinate if they can.”

Some ordinary South Africans have more mundane concerns about the new variant.

“We’ve seen increasing numbers of COVID-19, so I’ve been worried about more restrictions,” said Tebogo Letlapa, in Daveyton, eastern Johannesburg. “I’m especially worried about closing of alcohol sales because it’s almost festive season now.” 

 
…

Anxious-looking travelers thronged Johannesburg international airport and stood in long queues on Friday, desperate to squeeze onto the last flights to countries that had just shut their doors to South Africa.

Many cut short their holidays, rushing back from safaris and vineyards when Britain announced late Thursday night that all flights from South Africa and its neighbors would be banned the following day.

A flurry of nations — including the United States, Canada and several European countries — have followed suit, concerned about the discovery of a new coronavirus variant, renamed omicron, with several mutations fueling an infection resurgence in South Africa.

United Kingdom citizen Toby Reid, a 24-year-old trader in London, was camping on Cape Town’s Table Mountain with his girlfriend when the ban was announced.

“At about 5:30 a.m., we got up to see if we could catch the sunrise, and at six in the morning, we found out that there was still a possibility to get back,” he told AFP while standing in line for check-in at the Johannesburg airport just hours later.

The couple managed to grab the last two seats on an evening flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

Others who were not so lucky discussed options at ticket counters, eyes widening at proposed prices and convoluted itineraries.

“There should have been more notice,” muttered Christian Good, 50, returning to Devon, England, via Frankfurt with his husband after a beach holiday.

By chance, the pair had originally planned to return on that flight, meaning they would arrive home before mandatory hotel quarantine begins on Sunday — a requirement for citizens returning from “red list” countries.

“It’s ridiculous. We will always be having new variants,” his husband, David, exclaimed, passports in hand.

“South Africa found it, but it’s probably all over the world already,” he told AFP.

The variant has so far been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.

‘Tired of this’

At the airport, red “canceled” signs flashed next to London-bound flights listed on the departures board.

Other destinations were still in limbo.

A KLM flight to Amsterdam was delayed by several hours after passengers were suddenly compelled to produce negative COVID-19 results.

Rapid PCR tests were offered at the airport, with results guaranteed in two hours, but at a cost of $86, compared with the standard fee of around $52 for results delivered in roughly 12 hours.

An AFP correspondent observed Some African passport holders being told they would not be allowed to fly to Europe.

Earlier, travelers milled around a closed Air France check-in desk, waiting to find out whether an evening flight to Paris would take off as scheduled, just hours after France announced its own ban.

Among them were U.K. citizen Ruth Brown, 25, who lives in South Africa and had planned to return home for the first time since 2019 next week.

Britain kept South Africa on its red list until early October, meaning many of its citizens have been unable to travel back since the pandemic started because of the costly hotel quarantine.

They had only a few weeks of leeway before the status was revoked.

“We are tired of this situation,” said Brown, who spent the morning on the phone trying to change her flight.

“Apparently (this one) is full, but we are trying to see if we can still get seats,” she sighed.

Further down the line, Elke Hahn cradled a toddler.

She had traveled to South Africa with her partner to adopt the child and was desperate to get back to their home in Austria.

The child’s paperwork was only valid for a specific flight route that had since been changed.

“We will have to get another flight, but I don’t know how that will work,” she said. 
…

Nigeria has designated armed groups blamed for hundreds of abductions and killings in northern areas as terrorist organizations, a major swing in response to a key security challenge facing Africa’s most populous country. 

The office of Nigeria’s attorney general, Abubakar Malami, said in a statement Friday that the designation was made by a court following an application by the federal government. The court made its decision Thursday. 

The decision will allow authorities to charge suspected members of the groups with terrorism-related offenses, which some believe will lead to a more effective crackdown on their activities. 

The Nigerian government argued in court documents that the groups’ activities should be considered terrorist acts as they “can lead to a breakdown of public order and safety and [pose] a threat to national security.” 

The groups mostly consist of young men from the Fulani ethnic group, who had traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders and are caught up in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over access to water and grazing land. 

They often plunder villages in the northwest and central parts of the West African country, where they have killed thousands and have kidnapped hundreds of travelers and schoolchildren for ransom. The attacks have sometimes taken on religious dimensions. 

In many remote communities in northern Nigeria, the gunmen outnumber and outgun security forces. When troops deployed to respond to attacks end their operations and depart, the groups return. 

Some of the gunmen — who often operate in bands of more than 100, hiding out in abandoned forest reserves — have been joining forces with Islamic extremist rebels, security analysts and residents say.

Assaults on villages can often last hours. Last week more than 40 people were killed in the northwest Sokoto state in an attack that lasted through the night. 

In the first half of 2021, at least 2,500 people were killed in the northwest and central states, mostly as a result of such attacks, according to an analysis of media reports collated by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

The gunmen, often referred to in Nigeria as bandits, have also abducted about 1,400 children from their schools over the last year and more than 100 of them have yet to be released. Sixteen children have died in the attacks. 

The troubles in the northwest come in addition to the 10-year Islamic extremist insurgency in northeast Nigeria. 

Prosecution of the gunmen in the northwest is rare even when the military announces that dozens of them have been arrested. Umar Gwandu, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s attorney general, said that part of the challenge was that the groups had not been banned as terrorist organizations. 

“The security agencies can now lawfully declare war on the bandits,” he told The Associated Press on Friday.
…

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed vowed Friday to “bury the enemy” in his first message from the battlefront, according to state media, as the U.N. warned the yearlong conflict has left millions short of food.

As Tigrayan rebels report major territorial gains, claiming this week to have seized a town 220 kilometers (135 miles) from Addis Ababa, international alarm over the escalating conflict has deepened, with foreign countries urging their citizens to leave.

State media reported Wednesday that Abiy, a former lieutenant colonel in the military, had arrived at the front line to lead a counteroffensive against the rebels, handing regular duties to his deputy.

In an interview shown Friday on the state-affiliated Oromia Broadcasting Corporation channel, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner said he was certain of achieving victory against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group.

“Until we bury the enemy … until Ethiopia’s independence is confirmed, we won’t reverse course,” he said.

He added that the military had secured control of Kassagita and planned to recapture Chifra district and Burka town in Afar region, which neighbors Tigray, the TPLF’s stronghold.

“The enemy doesn’t have the standing to compete with us. We will win,” he said.

The interview was broadcast hours after the government announced new rules Thursday against sharing information on battlefield outcomes that was not published by official channels, a move that could bring sanctions against journalists.

Hunger crisis

The war has exacted a huge humanitarian toll, with the U.N.’s World Food Program saying Friday that the number of people requiring food aid in the country’s north had surged to more than 9 million.

Hundreds of thousands are on the brink of famine as aid workers struggle to deliver urgently needed supplies to desperate populations in Tigray, Amhara and Afar.

The WFP said the situation had sharply deteriorated in recent months, with an estimated 9.4 million people facing hunger “as a direct result of ongoing conflict,” compared with around 7 million in September.

“Amhara region -– the front lines of the conflict in Ethiopia — has seen the largest jump in numbers with 3.7 million people now in urgent need of humanitarian aid,” WFP said.

“Of the people across northern Ethiopia in need of assistance, more than 80% (7.8 million) of them are behind battle lines.”

This week, aid workers were able to distribute food in the Amhara towns of Dessie and Kombolcha for the first time since they were captured by the TPLF nearly a month ago, the WFP said, adding that it was granted access to its warehouses only last week.

The risk of malnutrition has also increased across the three regions, with screening data showing rates between 16% and 28% for children, it said. 

“Even more alarmingly, up to 50% of pregnant and breastfeeding women screened in Amhara and Tigray were also found to be malnourished.” 

Fighting has also damaged more than 500 health facilities in Amhara, the U.N.’s humanitarian agency OCHA said late Thursday. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “expressed grave concern about worrying signs of military escalation” in Ethiopia during a telephone conversation with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday. 

He also “emphasized the need to urgently move to negotiations” on the conflict, according to a statement from the State Department. 

Airstrikes

As the war has dragged on, the government has stepped up its use of air power against the TPLF — one of the areas where it enjoys a military advantage. 

On Friday the TPLF and a hospital official reported two airstrikes in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle. 

Dr. Hayelom Kebede, research director at Mekelle’s Ayder Referral Hospital, told AFP the bombings occurred about 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) and 12:30 p.m., with the first one destroying two homes. 

“Still waiting for the casualty report,” he said.

Sources told AFP the first strike hit close to the house of a rebel commander and near a hill with an anti-aircraft machine gun. 

Much of the conflict-affected zone is under a communications blackout and access for journalists is restricted, making battlefield claims difficult to verify. 

Abiy’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, said she had no information about any drone strikes in Mekelle, which was recaptured by the rebels in June before they expanded into Amhara and Afar. 

The war erupted in early November 2020 when Abiy deployed troops into Tigray, bringing to a head a long-simmering row with the TPLF, the region’s ruling party. 
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European Union states have agreed to suspend travel from southern Africa after the detection of a new COVID-19 variant, the presidency of the EU said Friday.

A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter. 

Restrictions will apply to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said on Twitter.

An EU official said that EU governments have also been asked to discourage travel to those countries.

Each of the 27 EU countries is free to apply the new measures when it prefers. Some are already applying restrictions.

EU officials said that no decision had yet been made on other countries in other parts of the world where cases were detected, which include Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium, an EU country.

Global alarm

The new coronavirus variant, first detected in South Africa, has caused global alarm as researchers seek to find out if it is vaccine-resistant.

Marc Van Ranst, the virologist who detected the new variant in Belgium, told Reuters it was more likely the infected woman had contracted the variant in Belgium rather than while traveling outside Europe.

She had been in Egypt earlier in November but developed symptoms only 11 days after her return to Belgium. She is not vaccinated.

Switzerland imposed on Friday a requirement of 10-day quarantine and a negative test for travelers from Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong, in addition to travel bans on southern African countries.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday classified the B.1.1.529 variant detected in South Africa as a SARS-CoV-2 “variant of concern,” saying it may spread more quickly than other forms.

Preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection and there had been a “detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology,” it said in a statement after a closed meeting of independent experts who reviewed the data.

Infections in South Africa had risen steeply in recent weeks, coinciding with detection of the variant now designated as omicron, WHO said.

“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other (variants of concern),” it said.

Omicron is the fifth variant to carry such a designation. “This variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage,” the WHO said.

Current PCR tests continue to successfully detect the variant, it said.

Earlier, the WHO cautioned countries against hastily imposing travel restrictions linked to the variant of COVID-19, saying they should take a “risk-based and scientific approach.”

Global authorities reacted with alarm to the new variant detected in South Africa, with the EU and Britain among those tightening border controls as scientists sought to find out if the mutation was vaccine-resistant.

“At this point, implementing travel measures is being cautioned against,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “The WHO recommends that countries continue to apply a risk-based and scientific approach when implementing travel measures.”

It would take several weeks to determine the variant’s transmissibility and the effectiveness of vaccines and therapeutics against it, he said, noting that 100 sequences of the variant have been reported so far.

People should continue to wear masks whenever possible, avoid large gatherings, ventilate rooms and maintain hand hygiene, Lindmeier added.

Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergency director, praised South African public health institutions for picking up the signal of the new variant.

But he warned that while some countries had systems in place to do this, the situation elsewhere was often unclear.

“So, it’s really important that there are no knee-jerk responses here. Especially with relation to South Africa,” he said. “Because we’ve seen in the past, the minute that there is any mention of any kind of variation, then everyone is closing borders and restricting travel.”

 
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Kenya has not banned travel to southern Africa but its Ministry of Health says it will carefully screen people arriving from South Africa, Botswana, and Hong Kong for the new COVID variant discovered in South Africa.

The Kenyan government directs passengers arriving from southern African countries to take the COVID test before being allowed into the country.

South Africa and Botswana have reported a new variant in their countries that scientists say is highly transmittable and vaccine resistant.

Kenya’s Director General for Health Patrick Amoth told VOA his country is on high alert to combat the new variant.

“We are working to ensure that our surveillance system is top-notch and looking specifically at people coming from South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong to put them through a robust surveillance system,” said Amoth. “We insist on having you fully vaccinated before you come to the country. And you also need to have a negative PCR test taken 96 hours before your arrival in the country.”

This week, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta traveled to South Africa, where he signed deals to boost trade and economic cooperation between the two countries,  

To combat the spread of the virus in the population, the East African nation launched a ten-day mass vaccination campaign Friday. Kenya has vaccinated at least 6.5 million people.

Amoth says they have enough vaccines to inoculate even more.

“It’s part of the ongoing vaccination process and we wanted to scale up in view of the events that are happening in Europe and the rest of the world,” said Amoth. “So to ensure we reach herd immunity and the entire population is protected and now we have more vaccines available we thought to be able to scale up so that we can be able to reach more people.”

Amoth expressed confidence that more Kenyans will get vaccinated.

“For example, yesterday we vaccinated close to 111,000 people from the previous daily rate of about 50,000-60,000,” said Amoth. “So Kenyans are enthusiastic to be able to take the vaccine and also now this emerging information we believe will sway the public opinion towards going for the vaccine instead of vaccine hesitancy.”

Kenya has a policy of not providing government services to unvaccinated people as a way of encouraging them to get inoculated.

Kenya hopes to vaccinate 10 million people by the end of the year.
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Italy imposed an entry ban Friday on people who have visited any one of eight southern African states in the last 14 days, because of the spread of a new COVID-19 variant there.

Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza signed an executive order banning entry of travelers from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini.

“Our scientists are studying the new B.1.1.529 variant. In the meantime, we will adopt the greatest possible caution,” Speranza said.
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In Zimbabwe, a former boxing champion is using his skills to teach the next generation and hopefully help keep impoverished young people away from drugs and crime.

Anthony Possible Mapako, 24, trains at the Mosquito Boxing School of Excellence with founder and coach Zvenyika Arifonso.

The former street fighter and drug user from the poor suburb of Mbare in Harare says things have changed since he joined Arifonso’s school.

“l always say, ‘Thank you, Coach.’ . . . [H]e is not just a teacher of boxing, but he can change even your mind about the bad things you think to do — he can change you. Like what he did to me. He changed my mind because I was just thinking of beating people around this ghetto of Mbare and have a popular name of being a street fighter. But he changed my mind and said, ‘You can be a boxer, and you can be a champion.’”

Arifonso, 44, started the academy after he left boxing. As a fighter, he was known as “Mosquito” for the way he would “sting” his opponents. Now, his focus is on helping troubled youth in Mbare township.

“I’m in this project because l wanted to remove kids from drug abuse and womanizing and stealing, because there is a lot of crime committed by these young guys,” he said. “When you are drunk, dozed by those drugs, it’s very bad. So I decided to open this club to rehab them, to teach them life. They have got life. When someone is not schooling, it’s very hard to deal with. The moment he catches up to what you are saying, then he will come back to sense.”

Arifonso now has about 120 students, divided into three groups per day. He hopes some become professional boxers.

Shingai Gwatidzo, from the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe, said substance abuse among youths is a “scourge” that needs to be dealt with soon as possible.

“As such, we are trying to do a lot of work to reduce supply and demand,” Gwatidzo said. “In terms of supply, we are working with law enforcement agencies to try and curb illicit substances coming into the country. In terms of demand, we are trying to educate members of the public around the dangers of engagement in illicit substance abuse. This is a multiple stakeholder problem that we need to address.”

Arifonso is working to get assistance so he can set up programs in other poor townships and pull more youths away from drugs.

 
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Aboubacar shared tea and sugary snacks with his colleagues gathered on a mat at a United Nations camp in battle-scarred Mali.

He speaks plainly but with a hint of irony about his transformation from a tour guide with 14 years of experience, until 2014 when he became a front-line military interpreter.

After the war upended his business, he sought work as a translator for the British contingent of the U.N.’s mission in Mali, MINUSMA.

“Before we were protecting the white tourists, but now it’s the whites who protect us in the bush,” he said with a smile.

There are dozens of others like him who work with the British blue helmets every day, speaking Tamasheq, Songhai or Arabic.

He pulled a scarf over his nose, donned dark glasses and became almost unrecognizable.

“It’s very different from what we did before, but the goal is the same: to show the country to foreigners,” said Aboubacar, an alias to protect him and his colleagues.

There were numerous tour guides in the region during the golden age of tourism in the 1990s and 2000s.

They took visitors to see the famed mosque at Djenne, the manuscripts of Timbuktu and to bathe in the Banfora waterfalls in Burkina Faso, among other places.

But they lost their livelihoods in the 2010s when separatist movements and jihadi groups unleashed a cycle of deadly violence that made the region, rich in heritage and natural beauty, too dangerous for tourists.

Most did not find other work.

From tourists to troops

After several years of unemployment, Aboubacar followed a friend’s advice and used the English he learned guiding tourists to approach the U.N. He flew to their base at Gao, which is home to the peacekeepers as well as French forces.

Now he is an intermediary with the local population, dressed in a large army jacket and weaving in and out of the bush in armored vehicles.

He makes introductions, explains the armed foreigners’ mandate and the significance of their U.N. blue helmets.

A day later, under a leafy tree offering the only shade around, Aboubacar’s colleague Moussa approached armed men whose firearms permits the force wanted to check.

Jovial and tactile, he held the shoulders of one member of the armed group, giving the impression more of a gathering of old friends than a tense encounter colored by suspicion.

Essential to UN’s job

Having the translators “is absolutely central for us to do our job,” said Pierre Russell of the British Army Long Range Reconnaissance Group.

“We go out and speak to the local population and without their ability to communicate in up to five or six different languages we wouldn’t be able to do our job.”

The total number of interpreters working with foreign forces is unknown. The dozen who spoke to AFP described a translator corps several hundred in number.

Back at the U.N. base, there were lively discussions.

There is nostalgia for a simpler era, when “life was good” and whites came with cameras in hand.

There are some in Mali who have criticized the intervention of the U.N. and France in a country where the presence of foreign forces has previously proved controversial.

“Obviously we see things, but we keep our opinions to ourselves,” Moussa said.

‘Feed our families’

There is also fear that once the foreign forces leave, the Malian interpreters could face a similar fate to those who supported Western forces in Afghanistan and were suddenly left to their fate after the Taliban takeover.

In the Sahel, “either we resolve the problem and are congratulated … or the jihadists will still be there after the departure of the foreigners and we’ll have to leave,” Youssouf said, wistfully.

He now runs a small business employing interpreters who served with the British blue helmets.

The mood turns when the interpreters recount how some of their number have been accused of being traitors.

Some hide their work from their families, allowing them to believe they simply work in the U.N. camps as contractors like many other local people.

“We have to feed our families,” Youssouf said. 
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A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province, Health Minister Joe Phaahla announced Thursday.

The coronavirus evolves as it spreads, and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could make the virus more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.

South Africa has seen a dramatic rise in new infections, Phaahla said at an online press briefing.

“Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise,” he said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the spike in cases. Scientists in South Africa are working to determine what percentage of the new cases have been caused by the new variant.

Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.

The WHO’s technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet.

The British government announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon (1200GMT) Friday, and that anyone who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a coronavirus test.

U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were concerns the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the dominant delta strain and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective” against it.

‘Constellation’ of mutations

The new variant has a “constellation of new mutations,” said Tulio de Oliveira, from the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, who has tracked the spread of the delta variant in the country.

The “very high number of mutations is a concern for predicted immune evasion and transmissibility,” de Oliveira said.

“This new variant has many, many more mutations,” including more than 30 to the spike protein that affects transmissibility, he said. “We can see that the variant is potentially spreading very fast. We do expect to start seeing pressure in the health care system in the next few days and weeks.”

De Oliveira said a team of scientists from seven South African universities was studying the variant. They have 100 whole genomes of it and expect to have many more in the next few days, he said.

“We are concerned by the jump in evolution in this variant,” he said. One piece of good news is that it can be detected by a PCR test, he said.

After a period of relatively low transmission in which South Africa recorded just more than 200 new confirmed cases per day, in the past week the daily new cases rapidly increased to more than 1,200 on Wednesday. On Thursday, they jumped to 2,465.

The first surge was in Pretoria and the surrounding Tshwane metropolitan area and appeared to be cluster outbreaks from student gatherings at universities in the area, said Phaahla, the health minister. Amid the rise in cases, scientists studied the genomic sequencing and discovered the new variant.

Seriousness required

“This is clearly a variant that we must be very serious about,” said Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “It has a high number of spike mutations that could affect transmissibility and immune response.”

Gupta said scientists in South Africa needed time to determine if the surge in new cases was attributable to the new variant.

“There is a high probability that this is the case,” he said. “South African scientists have done an incredible job of identifying this quickly and bringing it to the world’s attention.”

South African officials had warned that a new resurgence was expected from mid-December to early January and had hoped to prepare for that by getting many more people vaccinated, Phaahla said.

About 41% of South Africa’s adults have been vaccinated and the number of shots being given per day is relatively low, at fewer than 130,000, significantly below the government’s target of 300,000 per day.

South Africa has about 16.5 million doses of vaccines, by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, in the country and is expecting delivery of about 2.5 million more in the next week, according to Nicholas Crisp, acting director-general of the national health department.

“We are getting in vaccines faster than we are using them at the moment,” Crisp said. “So for some time now, we have been deferring deliveries, not decreasing orders, but just deferring our deliveries so that we don’t accumulate and stockpile vaccines.”

South Africa, with a population of 60 million, has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID-19 cases including more than 89,000 deaths.

To date, the delta variant remains by far the most infectious and has crowded out other once-worrying variants including alpha, beta and mu. According to sequences submitted by countries worldwide to the world’s biggest public database, more than 99% are delta.
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Cameroon’s largest lake, Lake Ossa, has been invaded by salvinia molesta, an aquatic fern native to Brazil that hinders navigation, makes fishing impossible and blocks water access. Now, to combat the spreading plant, a local aid group is training fishermen to harvest the fern and transform it into organic coal. Anne Nzouankeu reports from Dizangué, Cameroon.
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