South Sudan is witnessing a “new wave of repression”, global rights group Amnesty International warned Friday, with many activists now in hiding after a string of arrests in the conflict-wracked country.The world’s newest nation has suffered from chronic instability since independence in 2011, with a coalition of civil society groups urging the government to step down, saying they have “had enough”.The authorities have taken a tough line against such demands in recent weeks, arresting eight activists as well as detaining three journalists and two employees of a pro-democracy non-profit, according to rights groups.”We are witnessing a new wave of repression emerging in South Sudan targeting the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa.The clampdown followed a declaration last month by the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA) calling for a peaceful public uprising. The PCCA had urged the public to join its protest on Monday in the capital Juba but the city fell silent as the authorities branded the demonstration “illegal” and deployed heavily-armed security forces to monitor the streets for any sign of opposition.”Peaceful protests must be facilitated rather than cracked down upon or prevented with arrests, harassment, heavy security deployment or any other punitive measures,” Muchena said in a statement.The rights group noted that many activists had faced harassment since the aborted demonstration, “with some suspecting they were being surveilled by security forces”. The authorities have also shut down a radio station and a think tank in connection with the protests.’Undisguised hostility’Media rights group Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, on Friday condemned the closure of the radio station and called for “an immediate end to the harassment of South Sudanese reporters”.”The undisguised hostility of the authorities towards the media highlights how difficult it is for journalists to cover politics in South Sudan, where at least ten have been killed since 2014,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk.South Sudan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.In a statement released on Friday, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Norway urged the South Sudan government to protect “the rights of citizens… to express their views in a peaceful manner, without fear of arrest”.Since achieving independence from Sudan in 2011, the young nation has been in the throes of a chronic economic and political crisis, and is struggling to recover from the aftermath of a five-year civil war that left nearly 400,000 people dead.Although a 2018 cease-fire and power-sharing deal between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar still largely holds, it is being sorely tested, with little progress made in fulfilling the terms of the peace process.The PCCA — a broad-based coalition of activists, academics, lawyers and former government officials — has described the current regime as “a bankrupt political system that has become so dangerous and has subjected our people to immense suffering.”
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A judge in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, has ordered the arrest of a newspaper’s managers this week after FrontPage Africa allegedly failed to respond to a summons.The paper’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Rodney Sieh, told VOA that the summons was delivered Monday when no one was at the paper’s offices, and that it gave managers only 90 minutes’ notice that they were due to meet with a judge.The summons relates to the investigative outlet’s coverage of former defense minister Brownie Samukai’s conviction in a corruption case. A Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court’s verdict that found Samukai guilty of embezzling millions from the pension fund of Liberia’s armed forces.Circuit court judge Ousman Feika alleges that FrontPage Africa incorrectly reported his role in presiding over the case. “I think (Feika’s) issue was the initial case was submitted by his predecessor. That was the only discrepancy. But we did not print any false article against the judge,” Sieh told VOA.Liberia’s judiciary did not respond to a request for comment sent through its web portal. An email sent to the address listed on its website was returned as undeliverable.Sieh said that the judge wanted FrontPage Africa’s managers to meet with him to explain their coverage of the trial.  Because of pandemic restrictions, the paper’s staff currently work from home. The first they heard of the summons was when they received the arrest order, Sieh said.“The only person (in) the office was the security,” Sieh said, adding that the time the meeting was scheduled made it “nearly impossible for anyone to appear in court.”“I think the judge was very excessive in this decision to have us arrested,” he said. The publisher added that the paper has not arranged legal representation because it has still not officially received the summons.In a letter to its readers, FrontPage Africa pleaded with Liberia’s chief justice “to ensure that the judicial branch use its power for those who need it the most, and not to muzzle, intimidate or instill fears in members of the Fourth Estate.”Media rights organizations criticized the court order. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on social media it was dismayed by the order to arrest the management, and called on the judge to focus on criminals, not journalists who are exposing corruption.#Liberia: @CPJAfrica is dismayed that a court in #Monrovia today ordered that the management of @FPAfrica be arrested for their alleged failure to sign a summons to appear in court. https://t.co/vgWmU7H6tm— CPJ Africa (@CPJAfrica) August 30, 2021Liberia has a relatively stable media freedom record. The country ranks 98 out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest on the index published by Reporters Without Borders.The media watchdog has noted that Liberia moved to decriminalize defamation, but that some outlets, including FrontPage Africa, face legal harassment over investigative reporting.This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuses their people suffered back home.In interviews with The Associated Press, more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of Tigray forces striking communities and a religious site with artillery, killing civilians, looting health centers and schools and sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in the past two months.In the town of Nefas Mewucha in the Amhara region, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicines and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die.”It is a lie that they are not targeting civilians and infrastructures,” hospital manager Birhanu Mulu told the AP. He said his team had to transfer some 400 patients elsewhere for care. “Everyone can come and witness the destruction that they caused.”The war that began last November was confined at first to Ethiopia’s sealed-off northern Tigray region. Accounts of atrocities often emerged long after they occurred: Tigrayans described gang-rapes, massacres and forced starvation by federal forces and their allies from Amhara and neighboring Eritrea.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
New volunteer Mekdess Muluneh Asayehegn, right, and others receive training to become potential reinforcements for pro-government militias or military forces, in a school courtyard in Gondar, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Aug. 24, 2021.But the consequences of the call to war are already coming home.”As we came here, there were lots of dead bodies (of defense forces and civilians) along the way,” said Khadija Firdu, who fled the advancing Tigray forces to a muddy camp for displaced people in Debark. “Even as we entered Debark, we stepped on a dead body. We thought it was the trunk of a tree. It was dark. We came here crying.”It is not clear how many people in Amhara have been killed; claims by the warring sides cannot be verified immediately. Each has accused the other of lying or carrying out atrocities against supporters.Shaken, the survivors are left to count bodies.In the town of Debre Tabor, Getasew Anteneh said he watched as Tigray forces shelled and destroyed a home, killing six people.Getasew helped carry away the dead. “I believe it was a deliberate revenge attack, and civilians are suffering.”In recent interviews with the AP, the spokesman for the Tigray forces Getachew Reda said they are avoiding civilian casualties. “They shouldn’t be scared,” he said last month. “Wherever we go in Amhara, people are extending a very warm welcome.”He did not respond to the AP about the new witness accounts, but tweeted in response to USAID that “we cannot vouch for every unacceptable behavior of off-grid fighters in such matters.”The Tigray forces say their offensive is an attempt to break the months-long blockade of their region of some 6 million people, as an estimated 400,000 face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. The situation “is set to worsen dramatically,” the U.N. said Thursday.The fighters also say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to stop the war and the ethnic targeting that has seen thousands of Tigrayans detained, evicted or harassed while the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has used words like “cancer” and “weeds” to describe the Tigray fighters.Ethnic Amhara, more than half a million now displaced, say innocent people have been killed as Tigray forces move in.”I’ve witnessed with my own eyes when the (Tigray forces) killed one person during our journey,” said Mesfin Tadesse, who fled his home in Kobo town in July. “His sister was pleading with them when they killed him for no reason.”Zewditu Tikuye, who also fled Kobo, said her 57-year-old husband was killed by Tigray fighters when he tried to stay behind to protect their home and cows. “He wasn’t armed,” she said. Now she shelters with her six children in a small house with 10 other people.Others seek shelter in schools, sleeping in classrooms as newcomers drenched from the rainy season arrive. They squat in muddy clearings, waiting for plastic plates of the spongy flatbread injera to be handed out for the latest meal.And as earlier in Tigray, people in Amhara now watch in horror as the war damages religious sites in one of the world’s most ancient Christian civilizations.On Monday, the fourth-century Checheho monastery was hit by artillery fire and partially collapsed.”This is very brutal,” said Mergeta Abraraw Meles, who works there as a cashier. He believes it was intentionally targeted by the Tigray forces. They had come peacefully, he said, but then lashed out after facing battlefield losses.In the rubble of the monastery was a young boy, dead.
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Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Thursday that the terrorist group al-Shabab had killed a female employee who was abducted in Mogadishu in June. But close family members questioned the claim.Ikran Tahlil Farah, 24, worked with the agency’s cybersecurity department. She was abducted June 26 near her home in Mogadishu’s Abdulaziz district, which is close to NISA headquarters.The agency posted a brief statement on its website Thursday saying its investigation had determined that the young woman’s kidnappers handed her over to al-Shabab militants, who later killed her.The agency did not release details about when or where it believed Ikran was killed.Al-Shabab has not publicly acknowledged any role in Ikran’s disappearance. The Islamist extremist group previously has publicly executed people it accused of spying for the Somali government and for Western countries, including the United States.The security agency issued its statement several hours after VOA’s Somali Service aired a radio program that focused on Ikran’s disappearance. Colonel Abdullahi Ali Maow, a former Somali intelligence official who was a guest on the program, speculated that the Islamist terrorist group was involved in Ikran’s fate.’This is a smokescreen’But the young woman’s mother, Abdullahi Ali Maow, said she thought her daughter might be alive and detained in a clandestine location.“I do not believe that al-Shabab killed my daughter, because when she was kidnapped, she was with people she trusted in the agency,” said the mother, who was also a guest on the program. “I think she is being held somewhere, and this is a smokescreen.”Former NISA Director-General Abdullahi Ali Sanbalolshe told VOA Somali in July that “some people” told him Ikran had records about a program that secretly sent Somali military recruits to Eritrea to train. Allegations surfaced in June that those recruits have been fighting and dying in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict.Ikran “also could possess other sensitive information for which she could have been targeted,” Sanbalolshe said, noting that he hired the young woman in 2017.Opposition leaders have been pressuring Somalia’s spy agency and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble for information about the disappearance of the intelligence agency employee. 
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Music and jingles fill the air in a camp for displaced people in the capital, Abuja. The songs are addressing one problem — misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.Helen Nwoko and her team at Aish Initiative said they’re on a mission in the camp to address many who have been misled by a viral social media video that portrayed vaccines as a microchip with magnetic qualities.She said various myths and misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines are negatively affecting uptake.”From the records we get on the people who have been vaccinated in Nigeria, the percent is too low, compared to what we’re supposed to get,” Nwoko said. “Then we said, ‘Let’s start from [these] vulnerable groups. These are people who are in an enclosed place.'”Nwoko is the executive director of the nonprofit, an NGO promoting and encouraging vaccine uptake and humanitarian education in Nigeria.A man displays his Moderna COVID-19 vaccination certificate at the Gaube comprehensive primary health care center in Kuje, Nigeria on Sept. 1, 2021.The Abuja camp vaccine sensitization program is a joint effort between the nonprofit, Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, and the National Orientation Agency, and it is reaching vulnerable groups in rural areas, where authorities said it is most needed.Agnes Bartholomew was at the Abuja camp’s sensitization program and now said she is ready to take the jab.”If they bring it [vaccine], I’ll take it,” Bartholomew said. “But they said they’ve not brought it. That’s what we’re waiting for.”Fewer than 1% of Nigerians have received complete jabs against the coronavirus, though authorities were aiming for 40% this year.Officials at the Nigerian CDC said even though the country has not yet acquired sufficient vaccines, vaccine hesitancy is a serious issue.Abiodun Egwuenu is a program coordinator at an infodemic unit created at Nigeria’s CDC to dispel disease misinformation.”We’ve been noticing that there are challenges around immunity,” Egwuenu said. “There are rumors around the fact that natural immunity is better than the vaccination immunity. And then there also [are] challenges around what the vaccine does when it gets to the body.”Nigeria is seeing a new surge in coronavirus cases and fatalities caused by the deadly Delta variant.The official number of cases stands at 193,000 — low compared to many other countries — but the number is rising fast.Authorities say vaccination is the only way to ensure safety, and that the country needs to vaccinate 70% of its 200 million people to achieve herd immunity. 
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A United Nations global report on nutrition says malnutrition is to blame for more than a third of Malawian children who have stunted growth and nearly a quarter of child deaths.  To combat the problem, the U.N. and Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera launched a campaign Thursday to promote child nutrition and health.  The theme for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Campaign is “Unite to end all forms of malnutrition for sustainable human well-being and economic development.”   Launching the campaign, Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera says Malawi’s high malnutrition rate is largely because most of its citizens are overly dependent on Nsima as the only food.    Nsima is a hard porridge cooked from maize flour and often is eaten with fish, meat and vegetables.   “The painful truth is that those among us, who say, ‘we haven’t really eaten until we have eaten Msima,’ need to rethink our beliefs about nutrition and take seriously the science of how too much Nsima consumption affects our bodies,” he said.  Chakwera said the campaign has provided an opportunity for Malawi to re-engineer its society toward a more diversified diet. “As a special challenge, I am calling on all of you to replace 10% of your Nsima consumption every year with other and more nutritious food. That kind of discipline and commitment will take all of us to make malnutrition history in our country,” he said.    Dr. Alexander Kalimbira is the associate professor in nutrition at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.    He said besides the effect on a person’s health, the malnutrition also has resulted in low productivity in Malawi. 
 
“Do we have evidence? And the answer is yes, we do have evidence,” he said. “Back in 2012, a study done in Africa; Cost of Hunger in Africa, what shows in the report is that the country, in one year alone. in 2012 lost $597 million U.S. dollars. Your Excellency, this represented at that time 10.3% of our gross domestic product. These are the consequences of malnutrition.”    Chakwera said his government, however, is making efforts to address the problem.    He said this includes the allocation of budgets of local councils, placing malnutrition officers across the country, and providing specialized malnutrition services to all Malawians.    Gerda Verburg is the United Nations assistant secretary-general and also coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Movement.   She hailed Malawi for steps it is taking to end malnutrition.   Verburg asked Chakwera, who also is the chairperson of the Southern Africa Community Development, or SADC, to take the campaign beyond Malawi.   
 
“Please bring these inspirational messages and this strategy also to all SADC countries because Malawi is really a frontrunner in the strong commitment and understanding that nutrition is the engine for change and for development,”  she said.  Recent government statistics show about 1.5 million Malawians, about 8 percent of the population are currently food insecure.    
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The World Health Organization reports Africa will fail to reach the global target of vaccinating 10% of vulnerable populations against COVID-19 in every country by the end of September.
WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, blames the situation on what she says is the hoarding of life-saving vaccines by the world’s wealthier countries. She notes African countries have received more than 143 million doses and inoculated 39 million people, or less than 3% percent of the continent’s population. This, she says, compares to more than 50% in the European Union and United States. “Equally concerning is the continuing inequity in the distribution of doses. Africa accounts for just 2% of the over five billion doses given globally. This percentage, I’m afraid, has not shifted in months… If current trends hold, 42 of Africa’s 54 countries — nearly 80% — are set to miss the September target, I’m afraid.”  FILE – A COVID patient is being treated at a makeshift hospital run by charity organization The Gift of the Givers, in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 10, 2021.Africa’s third wave of the coronavirus peaked in July; however, WHO reports 24 of Africa’s 54 countries are still reporting high or fast-rising case numbers. The situation is particularly acute in west, central and east Africa. The latest WHO figures put the number of coronavirus infections at nearly eight million, with more than 214,000 new cases reported this past week.  Of the 196,000 Africans who have died from this infection, more than 5,500 lost their lives last week. Moeti says the pandemic is still raging on the continent, noting every hour, 26 Africans die of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. She warns people must not let down their guard, as they remain at risk of becoming severely ill or dying if vaccination rates remain low. “With concerns about variants and political pressures driving the introduction of booster shots and countries with high vaccination rates expanding their rollouts to reach to lower-risk groups, our hope for global vaccine equity is once again being challenged,”  she said.FILE – In this  Aug.6. 2021, photo, a Kenyan soldier guards a consignment of 182,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses received from the Greek government via the COVAX facility, at Kenya Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi.Moeti says she is encouraged the pace of vaccine shipments to Africa is picking up but adds dose-sharing arrangements must continue to be improved. She says international solidarity remains key to the global recovery from this pandemic.  
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Police in Tanzania say the gunman who killed three police officers and a security guard during a shootout August 25 was a terrorist on a suicide mission.Speaking with reporters Thursday, the director of Criminal Investigations, Camillius Wambura, identified the gunman as Hamza Mohamed, a 33-year-old Dar es Salaam resident.Mohamed was shot dead by police after he killed four people, including three police officers, a week ago in Dar es Salaam.Wambura said police investigated what motivated the gunman and found he had been active online.Wambura said the suspect was consuming a lot of online materials that showed activities of terrorist organizations like al-Shabab and ISIS. He said Mohamed’s behavior also was influenced by communications with people from countries that are known for criminal activities, such as terrorism.Wambura did not identify the countries.  Dar es Salam resident Eugene Michael says the development raises concerns about how well authorities are tracking possible terrorist suspects in Tanzania. “The information that we were told earlier was that the man was just a normal person in his community.” Michael said. “The police report creates fear for us citizens since we can’t know how many people like him that we are living with in our society.”This was the first shooting in Tanzania that authorities described as a terrorist attack. The country has been largely free of terrorism, except for the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy by al-Qaida in Dar es Salaam. That blast killed 11 people.
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Police in Nigeria’s northwest Zamfara state say they are trying to rescue 73 students kidnapped by gunmen Wednesday. Within the last week, three other groups of kidnapped students in the northwest were freed, but only after large ransoms were paid.The latest abductees included 53 male and 20 female students, all teenagers at a government secondary school in the remote village of Kaya. Police said a large number of bandits invaded the school and seized the students.Zamfara state police spokesperson Shehu Mohammed said in a written statement that police and the military are on the trail of the bandits and have reinforced security in the village.Following the attack, Zamfara state officials ordered closure of all primary and secondary schools in the state. They also imposed travel restrictions as well as a daily dusk to dawn curfew to prevent further attacks.Zamfara is not the only state taking security measures in northern Nigeria, where kidnapping is rife these days.Authorities in Kaduna, Niger and Katsina states have also introduced movement restrictions and are limiting sales of jerrycans and gasoline in a bid to stop bandits who often move around on motorcycles.Sani Shuaib, a VOA Hausa service reporter in Zamfara state, said the movement ban is already having an impact.”It involves all vehicles except military and security personnel. Immediately Zamfara announced it, Kaduna followed, Niger and then Sokoto too, I understand they’re planning to adopt similar measures and it has started biting hard,” said Shuaib.But security expert Kabir Adamu said lack of accountability is the reason attacks on schools have lingered.”The security departments don’t have monitoring and evaluation systems in place and so there’s no form of oversight or pressure on them to meet set targets. Even where there is clear failing, no one is held accountable,” said Adamu.Members of a “bandit” gang pose with weapons at their forest hideout in northwestern Zamfara state, Nigeria, Feb. 22, 2021. (Sani Malumfashi/VOA)Armed gangs have kidnapped about 1,100 students from schools in northern Nigeria since December of last year.The increase in crimes in the region is believed to be crippling economic activities and contributing to the poor standard of living there.Last Friday, gunmen released 90 pupils from an Islamic seminary in Niger state where children as young as four were abducted and held for nearly three months. 
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A popular Rwandan rapper known as Jay Polly died in custody early Thursday, officials and media reports said, the second detained musician to die in mysterious circumstances in less than two years.Polly, whose real name was Joshua Tuyishime, was being held on drugs charges and had just found out that he was due to stand trial in December.The 33-year-old was taken to Muhima hospital in the capital Kigali at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT), its director Pascal Nkubito told AFP.”He was in a bad shape and unresponsive. Doctors tried to revive him but he unfortunately died shortly after,” he said. “The cause of death is not something I want to speculate about. We will know that after the post-mortem.”The musician was arrested at his home in April for hosting a party in violation of Covid regulations and was later paraded along with other suspects in front of the media.Police said Tuyishime and other defendants were found to be drinking and in possession of marijuana and fake negative Covid certificates. He had denied the charges but requests for bail were rejected.Parties are strictly prohibited in Rwanda because of the coronavirus pandemic and thousands of people have been detained for breaking restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the disease. Some have been forced to spend the night in open-air stadiums and to listen to Covid-19 guidelines on loudspeakers, while others have been held for weeks in detention facilities.’Cultural icon’Rwandans took to Twitter to pay tribute to Tuyishime, with one describing him as a “cultural icon who contributed so much to our music.”In February last year, Kizito Mihigo, whose music was banned by the regime of President Paul Kagame, was found dead in his cell, just days after he was caught trying to flee the country.Police said Mihigo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide whose gospel songs angered Kagame’s government, had committed suicide by hanging himself from his cell window using bedsheets.Mihigo, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2015 for conspiracy against the government but later released on pardon, was captured trying to cross the border in Rwanda’s south.He fell foul of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front in 2013 after composing songs that questioned the government’s tight control of the legacy of the 1994 tragedy. His music, once popular among the ruling elite, was swiftly banned. Two years later he was accused of terrorism and raising support for an opposition political movement and sentenced to 10 years in prison.His lawyers said prosecutors had little evidence to jail him. He was released on presidential pardon in September 2018.Mihigo and Polly are not the first figures to die in mysterious circumstances while in police custody in Rwanda.Last year, a former director-general in Kagame’s office was found dead in a military jail after being sentenced to 10 years for corruption. In 2015, Kagame’s personal doctor, Emmanuel Gasakure, was shot dead in custody by police.Kagame, who has been in power since 1994, has been accused of ruling with an iron fist, clamping down on all forms of dissent and jailing or exiling opposition politicians.Human Rights Watch (HRW), among other groups, has accused Kagame’s regime of summary executions, unlawful arrests and torture in custody.
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Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with digital technology, including cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored ICT competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
Camera: Emeka Gibson        Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov 
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Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with cutting-edge digital technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored information and communications technology (ICT) competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa. Computer engineering finalist Muhammad Maihaja is set to graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria’s Kaduna state in November.  In 2019, he was part of a team of six from the school who represented Nigeria at the global Huawei ICT competition in Shenzhen, China, where they finished in third place. Huawei introduced the competition to Africa in 2014 to identify and nurture highly skilled ICT professionals — what the company says is part of its expanding talent search in Africa’s tech sector that has benefited some 2,000 African students like Maihaja.   “We have been exposed to devices and technologies we’ve never experienced before. As normal university students, we would not have experienced what we did experience in the competition. So, I’ll say … this has made me much more ICT inclined, so to say,” Maihaja said.The competition evaluates students’ competence in network and cloud technology. Maihaja and his team’s success in 2019 was a rare achievement for an African team, let alone a first-time participant. The feat inspired many other students like Hamza Atabor who tried out for the next edition in 2020. He and the other Nigerian students this time won the competition.  “I was inspired by, you know, when they talked about their stories, how they won the competition, and also when they were given their prizes and everything. I just felt, OK, this is something to actually make a sacrifice for,” Atabor said.Students like Maihaja and Atabor are meeting Huawei’s set objective, but critics say the company is only a fragment of China’s fast-paced dominance in Africa’s technology landscape. Huawei reportedly accounts for more than 70% of the continent’s telecommunications network. Mohammed Bashir Muazu, a professor of computer engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, says it’s no surprise China is gaining traction in Africa.   “Seeing the level of technological developments in China, I think what is actually happening is inevitable,” Muazu said. Concerns about China’s presence in Africa grew in 2019 after U.S. newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, reported that Huawei had helped Ugandan and Zambian authorities spy on political opponents.   Huawei denied the accusations and declined an interview on the matter. But ICT expert Samuel Adekola says China could use its competitive advantage for selfish gains. “It’s really dangerous. I cannot quantify how much they could do, but whoever has data, you can do a lot of things. You have a lot of information about a group of people, the nation,” Adekola said.As long as China continues to invest in Africa, students like Maihaja and Atabor will learn valuable skills, even though experts say Africa may have to pay a price for relying too heavily on foreign companies. 
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Four civilians were killed and dozens were taken hostage Wednesday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo when suspected Islamist militants ambushed a convoy and set fire to the vehicles, the government said. Congo’s army has freed more than 50 of the hostages in Ituri province and operations are underway to recover the remaining captives from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group, the communications ministry said on Twitter. The ministry did not say how many people were still being held hostage. A local lawmaker said earlier that about 80 people were believed to be missing after the attack on a convoy of about 100 vehicles that was traveling with army protection on the road between the cities of Beni and Butembo. Attacks by the armed groups operating in eastern Congo’s borderlands with Rwanda and Uganda have continued unabated despite the government’s imposition of martial law in Ituri and North Kivu province at the beginning of May. The installation of army generals as provincial governors was meant to quell a surge in violence that the military largely attributes to the ADF. But the number of civilians killed in such attacks has increased, according to the Kivu Security Tracker. Survivors of Wednesday’s attack recalled a hail of gunfire as the convoy passed near the village of Ofaye. “Bullets started flying in every direction,” one of the survivors, Malanda Dague, told Reuters. “Some vehicles were hit and then burned.” Jean-Paul Ngahangondi, a member of parliament in North Kivu province, where the convoy started, criticized what he said was the army’s slow response, a frequent complaint of local people. “The army just waits for the rebels to kill the population and only then pursues them without any positive results,” he said. Eastern Congo has been plagued by violence since regional wars around the turn of the century. Islamic State has claimed dozens of killings blamed on the ADF, although U.N. experts say they have not found conclusive evidence that IS has control over ADF operations. 
 
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Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has removed the justice minister but made him ambassador to Britain amid international scrutiny over the trial of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier credited with saving many lives during the 1994 genocide.   A government statement issued on Tuesday gave no reason for the dismissal of Johnston Busingye, who had served as justice minister and attorney general since 2013.   Busingye was appointed Rwanda’s ambassador to Britain, the statement said.   Kagame did not immediately name a new justice minister. Requests for comment to government spokespeople and the presidency office were not answered.   Rusesabagina was hailed as hero after he used his connections as the manager of a Kigali hotel to save ethnic Tutsis from slaughter during the genocide. He was portrayed in the 2004 Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda.”   FILE – Paul Rusesabagina, the man who was hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about Rwanda’s 1994 genocide is paraded in handcuffs in front of media at the headquarters of Rwanda’s Investigation Bureau, in Kigali, Aug. 31, 2020.Now he is accused of nine terrorism-related charges, including forming and funding an armed rebel group. Before his arrest, Rusesabagina, who was living in the United States, was a vocal critic of the Kagame government.   Prosecutors have requested a life sentence for Rusesabagina, whose family says he is in poor health and being mistreated in prison. The court is scheduled to issue its verdict on Sept. 20.In an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel in February, then Minister Busingye said the government had paid for the flight that brought Rusesabagina to Rwanda last year, which Rusesabagina’s family said resulted in his kidnapping.  Rusesabagina’s trial has drawn attention to Kagame, whom rights groups say has used authoritarian tactics to crush political opposition and extend his rule.   The government’s arrest of Rusesabagina amounted to an enforced disappearance, a serious violation of international law, New York-based Human Rights Watch said at the time.   Kagame became head of state in 2000 after he and his rebel forces halted the genocide in 1994 after 100 days of bloodletting and around 800,000 deaths of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. He won landslide victories in subsequent elections, the most recent in 2017, when he won nearly 99% of the vote. He changed the constitution in 2015, enabling him to rule legally until 2034. 
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The terrorism case against the leader of Tanzania’s main opposition party can go ahead as planned, a high court judge in Dar es Salaam said Wednesday, dismissing objections by his party.   Chadema party chairman Freeman Mbowe and his supporters have described the charges as a politically-motivated effort to crush dissent, and accused police of torturing him in custody.   His lawyers had argued that the high court’s Corruption and Economic Crimes Division where he appeared had no powers to hear the case, which was previously being handled by a magistrate’s court.   But on Wednesday judge Elinaza Luvanda said that “this court has the jurisdiction to hear terrorism cases and therefore I don’t agree with the objection made by defendants.”   The hearing took place under tight security, with some representatives from foreign embassies and Chadema’s senior leaders in attendance, but many journalists were banned from entering the courtroom by police.    Mbowe has been behind bars since July 21 when he was arrested along with a number of other senior Chadema officials in a night-time police raid hours before they were to hold a public forum to demand constitutional reform.    The 59-year-old has been charged with terrorism financing and conspiracy in a case that has sparked concerns about democracy and the rule of law under President Samia Suluhu Hassan.   On Monday, Mbowe had appeared in court to pursue a case against top legal officials, claiming his constitutional rights had been violated during his arrest and when he was charged.   His defense team says he was held without charge for five days and then charged without his lawyer being present.   The opposition has denounced the arrests as a throwback to the oppressive rule of Tanzania’s late leader John Magufuli who died suddenly in March.   There had been hope Hassan would bring about a new era of democracy after the increasingly autocratic rule of Magufuli, nicknamed the “Bulldozer” for his uncompromising style.   But Chadema leaders say the arrests reflect a deepening slide into “dictatorship.” Prosecutors say the allegations against Mbowe do not relate to the constitutional reform conference Chadema had planned to hold in the port city of Mwanza in July, but to alleged offences last year in another part of Tanzania.    Chadema has said prosecutors accuse Mbowe of conspiring to attack a public official, and of giving 600,000 Tanzanian shillings ($260/220 euros) towards blowing up petrol stations and public gatherings and cutting down trees to block roads. 
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A Congolese military court has upheld the rape convictions of eight policemen and 11 soldiers, a court official told AFP Tuesday. The judgment, which was handed down on Monday, means they will serve between 12 months and 20 years in jail. The rapes were committed mainly against minors, according to the court in South Kivu province, in the troubled far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The defendants were also ordered to pay damages and interest, sources said. “This appeal trial has been exemplary for women’s rights,” Innocent Mayembe Sangala, a top official of the South Kivu military court, told AFP. Congolese justice was “extremely rigorous regarding rape, especially the rape of children,” he said. Victims included children ranging in age from 3 months to 17 years, Sangala told AFP, adding that they included “women who were torn away from their husbands or raped in front of their brothers or children.” The atrocities were “so savage” that the court could not be lenient, Sangala said. The rapes were committed between 2016 and 2021 in several South Kivu towns. 
 
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The United Nations Environment Program on Monday marked the official end of toxic leaded gasoline use in vehicles worldwide. A company in Nairobi, where the UNEP is headquartered, is working on the next step — converting all buses and utility vehicles to electric power by 2030.Lucy Mugala goes about checking on the energy levels of battery modules lined neatly on a workshop table. Mugala is an engineer at Opibus, a privately owned four-year-old Nairobi company that converts cars and public transport vehicles to run on electricity.Today, Mugala and fellow engineer Esther Wairimu are fine-tuning plans to outfit a public transport bus with lithium batteries. Mugala said converting this bus reduces the effects of greenhouse emissions responsible for global warming.“A lot has been done currently in terms of mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases in Kenya, but very little is being done in the electrical vehicle sector, and that is the gap we are trying to fill at Opibus. We are looking at maximizing impact by targeting the largest sector, which is the public transport sector, and with this, we will be able to step by step be able to achieve a low carbon economy in Kenya and in Africa at large,” said Mugala.Douglas Agwata has been in the public transport industry for 15 years. On average, Agwata spends around $80 on fuel daily, a cost he’d like to see come down.However, Agwata said that drivers like him may find it challenging to adapt to electric vehicles.He said that converting the engines from gasoline to electric is quite costly and that one may also find that there is a scarcity of charging stations, and this may prove to be quite challenging.Joshua Anampiu is the strategy and planning manager at the National Environment Trust Fund, or NETFUND, a state corporation that raises funds for sustainable environmental management in Kenya.Anampiu said shifting toward clean energy requires investment from the government, but he argues that the investment will be worth it.“No matter how costly it looks right now, we know in the long run it will be more effective towards preserving our environment, which is an existential threat right now if we do not take care of our environment. So, yes, there are areas we need to put up infrastructure. We need to change the entire mechanisms of the infrastructure, and this obviously is costly. And so, going forward, maybe invest now, put in a bit more cash, and then we’ll reap the benefits in the future,” he said.The global end of leaded gasoline use has been lauded as a milestone by the United Nations Environment Program.Jane Akumu is a program manager at UNEP. Akumu adds that a lot more needs to be done to ensure efficacy in abolishing the use of leaded gasoline.“You know, we need a lot of awareness for people to be able to know why it’s important to have cleaner fuels or cleaner vehicles. Policymakers need to also come in, and especially … standards bodies. It’s important for them to set regulations in place because the industry is pushed by regulation. What we’ve noticed is that in some of the countries where there’s no regulation, poor fuel quality, poor vehicle qualities, are imported,” said Akumu.For Mugala and other clean energy champions, the challenge will be to reduce the costs of going electric and encourage consumers to go green. 
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The International Committee of the Red Cross says more than 48,000 people are missing across Africa, and at least 21,600 are minors. Most of the registered disappearances — widely believed to be a fraction of the continent’s wider, undocumented humanitarian tragedy — are linked to armed conflict, violence, disasters and migration across the continent.   The International Committee of the Red Cross says the number of people coming forward to report missing persons is on the rise in Africa.   Amaya Fernandez, the humanitarian organization’s adviser on the missing and their families for Western Africa, says the cause of the increasing numbers is two-fold.     “On one hand, [it’s] due to the fact we are trying to register more systematically cases of missing persons throughout the region. But also, certainly, [it’s] due to the increased violence and conflict experienced on the continent, which increases at the same time the likelihood of people going missing. Looking at our figures, almost half of the missing persons have been recorded underage and most of them are men. Among the women … we can see that the majority are minors,” she said.The ICRC finding shows that 39,360 of the 48,000 missing people are from seven countries with armed conflicts.   According to the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute, 20 countries in Africa have armed conflict. Out of the 20, 10 are witnessing high-intensity armed conflicts.   Fernandez says the ongoing conflict in some African countries has created more pain and suffering for families of missing persons. “Humanitarian consequences… caused by protracted armed conflicts are often… reflected in most of the interviews. For instance, half of the families interviewed in Nigeria reported that their relatives had gone missing in 2014-2015. [In] South Sudan, [the] majority of the families were looking for people that went missing between 2013 and 2016. In Libya, families reported that they were looking for missing relatives from the late ’70s until the present day, and the same goes for families in Ethiopia and Uganda,” she said.  Some experts see the need to train community workers and security agencies on the importance of information sharing to help locate missing persons.   Zimbabwe’s assistant police commissioner Crispen Lifa says his country and the region need a data management system to follow up on the missing person cases.   “There is a need to have a database which should be continuously updated so that all missing persons, and even those that are deceased… is captured in a database by police stations. At the end of the day, that information has to be put in place… [so] if you want to check across the country the number of missing persons, [you] would quickly get that information from a central point,” he said.  Fauziya Hussein’s brother went missing in June after a Kenyan court released him.   The 39-year-old was accused of terrorism-related issues, but the court found him innocent and ordered the police to release him. His sister, Fauziya Hussein, says they never saw him again. “I know they still have him. At every point [of his detention], my brother got a chance to make a phone call. He called my mother. So, if he was released, why didn’t he call my mother? So, I know for a fact they did not release him,” she said.  According to Hussein, police told her they released her brother.   The ICRC calls on African governments to prevent disappearances and help with search and identification, and addressing families’ needs.  
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Nigerian health officials say nearly 1,800 people have died from cholera this year, with cases found in more than 20 states around the country. To combat the bacterial disease that is spread by dirty water, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment is urging proper hygiene and organizing mass cleanups in affected areas. Timothy Obiezu reports from the capital, Abuja.Camera: Emeka Gibson
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Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday its experimental vaccine failed to provide sufficient protection against HIV in sub-Saharan Africa to young women who accounted for a large number of infections last year.The results from the mid-stage study are the latest setback to efforts to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV or human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS that had infected over 37 million people globally as of 2020.”Although this is certainly not the study outcome for which we had hoped, we must apply the knowledge learned from the … trial and continue our efforts to find a vaccine that will be protective against HIV,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Shown Less Effective Against VariantsPreliminary study at New York University suggests a second shot may help Despite the discovery of effective treatments that can put the virus in remission, experts say an HIV vaccine is critical to eradicating the virus.The mid-stage study testing the J&J vaccine included 2,600 women participants across five Southern African countries, where women and girls accounted for over 60% of all new HIV infections last year.Researchers found that 63 participants who received placebo and 51 who were administered the J&J vaccine got HIV infection, resulting in a vaccine efficacy of 25.2%.The vaccine was found to be safe with no serious side effects reported, but the study will not continue based on the efficacy data, J&J said.The trial of the vaccine was supported by the NIAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.J&J said it was studying the safety and efficacy of a different experimental HIV vaccine among men who have sex with men, and transgender persons. The trial, conducted in the Americas and Europe, is expected to be completed in March 2024.
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Kenya has hailed its efforts to crack down on poaching as it released the results of the country’s first-ever national wildlife census, calling the survey a vital weapon in its conservation battle.   According to the census released late Monday, the country has a total of 36,280 elephants, a 12% jump from the figures recorded in 2014, when poaching activity was at its highest.   “Efforts to increase penalties on crimes related to threatened species appear to be bearing fruits,” the report, which counted 30 species of animals and covered nearly 59% of Kenya’s land mass, said.   The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned in March that poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, was devastating elephant numbers across Africa.     The population of African savanna elephants plunged by at least 60% in the last half century, prompting their reclassification as “endangered” in the latest update to the IUCN’s “Red List” of threatened species.   FILE – Giraffes are seen at the Loisaba conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya.The census said the numbers of lions, zebras, hirolas (Hunter’s antelopes) and the three species of giraffes found in the country had also gone up, but did not provide comparative figures from earlier years.   The state-funded survey counted 1,739 rhinos including two northern white rhinos, 897 critically endangered black rhinos and 840 southern white rhinos, and said the tourist magnet Maasai Mara National Reserve was home to nearly 40,000 wildebeest.    FILE – Wildebeests are seen within the Kimana Sanctuary, part of a crucial wildlife corridor that links the Amboseli National Park to the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo protected areas, within the Amboseli ecosystem in Kimana, Kenya, Feb. 8, 2021.”Obtaining this level of information… allows for better policy, planning and assessment of areas that require focus in our interventions to maintain or improve our national conservation efforts,” Wildlife Minister Najib Balala said in the report.   President Uhuru Kenyatta applauded conservation agencies for successfully clamping down on poaching and urged them to find newer, inventive approaches to protect wildlife.    “The reduction in losses in terms of elephants, rhinos and other endangered species is because of the great work that KWS [Kenya Wildlife Service], its officers and men are doing”, he said late Monday.   ‘Our children’s legacy’ Special attention should be given to antelope species such as sable antelopes and mountain bongos which already number less than 100 each, the report said, warning that they could become extinct unless urgent action was taken.   Exponential growth in human population and the accompanying rise in demand for land for settlement as well as activities such as livestock incursions, logging and charcoal burning are threatening to put brakes on the recent gains, it added.   Kenya, like several of its African peers, is trying to strike a balance between protecting its wildlife while managing the dangers they pose when they raid human settlements in search of food and water.   “[Wildlife] is our heritage, this is our children’s legacy and it is important for us to be able to know what we have in order to be better informed on policy and also on actions needed as we move forward,” Kenyatta said.   “It being a national heritage, it is something we should carry with pride”, he added. 
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Scientists in South Africa say they have detected a new variant of COVID-19.The country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced Monday in a new study that the variant, which has been designated C.1.2, was first detected in South Africa in May of this year, and has since spread to seven other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the southern Pacific region of Oceania.   The scientists say the C.1.2 variant appears to have the same characteristics as that of other mutations that are more transmissible and more able to overtake a person’s immune system.The study has not been published nor has it undergone the normal peer review process. The scientists say they are still monitoring the frequency of the C.1.2 variant, and that it has not evolved as either a “variant of interest” or “variant of concern” under the guidelines established by the World Health Organization. FILE – A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Sept. 30, 2014.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the three COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in the United States remain highly effective in preventing severe disease. Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC scientist, told a vaccine advisory panel that the COVID-19 vaccine was 94% effective in preventing hospitalization for adults between the ages of 18 to 74 between April and July, when the delta variant became dominant. The vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization dropped among adults 75 and older, but was still above 80%.   Dr. Oliver told the panel the vaccines appear to be less effective in preventing infection or mild illness, which she said was due to the vaccine’s weakening over time and the more contagious delta variant.   A Dallas County Health and Human Services nurse completes paperwork after administering a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a county-run vaccination site in Dallas, Aug. 26, 2021.The advisory committee is considering whether to recommend authorizing booster shots of the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines amid a surge of new COVID-19 infections across the United States. The Biden administration recently announced it will begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine sometime next month. Both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration have recently recommended a third shot of Pfizer or Moderna for some people with weakened immune systems.  The committee unanimously voted Monday to recommend the Pfizer vaccine for Americans 16 years old and older.  In a separate development Monday, the CDC added seven new destinations to its highest risk level of its COVID-19 travel advisory list. Azerbaijan, Estonia, Guam, North Macedonia, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia and Switzerland have been designated as Level 4, which signifies a “very high” risk of contracting COVID-19. The CDC says people should avoid travel to these destinations, and advises that anyone who must travel to these spots needs to be fully vaccinated. FILE – People cross nearly empty streets in the central business district of Auckland, New Zealand, Aug. 27, 2021.In New Zealand, health officials Tuesday reported another decline in new COVID-19 cases since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern placed the country under a strict lockdown earlier this month. The health ministry posted 49 new cases on Tuesday, after reporting 53 cases Monday and 83 new cases Sunday.   Ardern imposed the strict lockdown on August 17 after a 58-year-old man in Auckland became the first person to test positive for COVID-19 since February. About 612 new cases have since been posted, with Auckland posting 597 and 15 detected in the capital, Wellington, according to Reuters.Some information for this report came from Reuters.      
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Kenya is stepping up its COVID-19 vaccination campaign by setting up inoculation centers in public spaces like malls, markets, and bus stops. Authorities hope the extra convenience will lift a vaccination rate that stands at just two percent. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi.
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Internet services in South Sudan were disrupted on Monday and security forces were deployed on the streets, which were quieter than usual as residents sheltered inside after activists had called for protests against President Salva Kiir’s government. With Kiir scheduled to address lawmakers at parliament’s opening session on Monday morning, a coalition of activist groups reiterated their call on Sunday for public rallies demanding he resign. However, there was no sign early on Monday of major street gatherings in the capital Juba. Some activists told Reuters they were in hiding for security reasons. Police said the activists had not sought permission to protest, and therefore any large demonstration would be illegal. “We deployed the forces at least to keep order in case of any problem. Those forces are in the streets for your safety,” police spokesperson Daniel Justin Boulogne said. In televised remarks to an elite unit on Sunday, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Lt Gen. James Pui Yak said authorities would not “harm anybody” to break up demonstrations. “They are just going to advise people … to go on with their normal lives, we don’t want any disruption.” Residents in Juba told Reuters that as of Sunday evening mobile data was unavailable on the network of South African mobile operator MTN Group, and by Monday morning it was also halted on the network of Kuwait-based operator Zain Group. Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors internet disruptions, said it detected “significant disruption to internet service in South Sudan beginning Sunday evening, including to leading cellular networks.” Deputy Information Minister Baba Medan told Reuters he could not comment immediately on the reported shutdown, as he was busy attending the opening of parliament. MTN did not immediately respond to a comment request. A spokesperson for Zain said he was checking with the South Sudan office. Activist Jame David Kolok, whose Foundation for Democracy and Accountable Governance is one of the groups that called for the demonstration, told Reuters that the internet shutdown was a sign “the authorities are panicking. ” The activists accuse Kiir’s government of corruption and failing to protect the population or provide basic services. Kiir’s government has repeatedly denied allegations from rights and advocacy groups of abuses and corruption.  
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