President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government says Zimbabwe is now food secure and will not import food until next year. As The government claims are in sharp contrast to aid organizations saying that millions are food insecure.

Zimbabwe has been known for years to rely on international aid agencies for food relief, but that is now changing according to Monica Mutsvangwa, the information minister.

She said about 544,000 metric tons of food, comprising 467,000 metric tons of maize and 77,000 metric tons of traditional grains had been delivered by farmers to the country’s Grain Marketing Board (GMB) which buys harvested crops in Zimbabwe.

“The available grain will last for 11 months at a consumption rate of 49,295 metric tons per month. Wheat stocks at GMB stand at 179,218 metric tons, and this will provide 8.5 months’ cover at a consumption rate of 21 000 metric tons per month,” she said.

The harvest of Zimbabwe’s staple crops starts in March 2023, while wheat is harvested later in September and October. But it is mainly corn that many Zimbabweans rely on for their staple food called sadza or isitshwala — a thick porridge covered in relish before being eaten.

The U.N. World Food Program in Zimbabwe says with funding from the USAID, it is importing corn from neighboring Zambia to some rural districts.

On Wednesday, it said it would not stop its program for food insecure people until their next harvest.

“This is a positive development. However, food availability does not equity to food security since not every Zimbabwe has access or can afford grain,” said Tatenda Macheka from the WFP in Zimbabwe, commenting on Mutsvangwa’s announcement. “The rural Zimvac estimates that 3.8 million people will be cereal insecure at the peak of the lean season. WFP has been providing food assistance since the start of the lean season in October and continuous work with the government to assist those in need. At peak WFP will reach 700 000 people with food assistance while the government will support 3.1 million with cereal.”

Recently, the government released the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee or ZimVAC, which confirmed the figures Macheka talks about.

However, the government is projecting optimism and talking about making Zimbabwe food secure.

“Cabinet would like to highlight the following areas planted for the major crops this year compared to same time of the previous season: Maize, 465 707 hectares compared to 215 481 hectares; when it comes to soyabeans, 7 578 hectares compared to 8 948 hectares; when it comes to sorghum, 59 481 hectares against 12 210 hectares; when it comes to cotton, 88 856 hectares compared to 13 166 hectares; and finally, tobacco, 75,758 hectares versus 64,155 hectares planted last year,” said Mutsvangwa.

Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of the region, has been an economic basket case for more than 20 years now. The government attributes that mainly to drought and western sanctions, while critics say it is because experienced commercial farmers were pushed off their land and replaced with peasant farmers starting in 2000.

It seems the government believes the good old days in Zimbabwe are set to return.
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The U.S.-Africa summit kicked off Tuesday in the nation’s capital with a full agenda. Topics ranged from climate adaptation and energy transition to peace, security and governance. A special forum highlighted African youth and the role of the diaspora. VOA’s Mariama Diallo attended the summit and has this report.
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At least 50 people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa after heavy rains unleashed floods and caused landslides, the city’s police chief Sylvano Kasongo said on Tuesday.

Entire neighborhoods were flooded with muddy water, and houses and roads ripped apart by sinkholes, including the N1 highway that connects Kinshasa to the chief sea port of Matadi.

“We are already at around 50 deaths and that is not yet final,” Kasongo said.

Images posted on Twitter by Congo’s government spokesman Patrick Muyaya showed a major road that appeared to have subsided into a deep chasm, with crowds staring at the damage.

Muyaya said “several dozen compatriots” had died. He added that the prime minister, governor and other officials were on the ground making assessments and would give a final toll later.

The prime minister’s office said in a statement that the N1 highway, which connects Kinshasa to other cities, was cut in two in the Mont-Ngafula district.

The road should be reopened in 3-4 days, it said.

“On the National Road 1 there is a big hole. Only pedestrians can pass. We do not understand how the water cut the road,” said local resident Gabriel Mbikolo.

Once a fishing village on the banks of the Congo river, Kinshasa has grown into one of Africa’s largest megacities with a population of around 15 million.

Poorly regulated rapid urbanization has made the city increasingly vulnerable to flash floods after intense rains, which have become more frequent due to climate change.

At least 39 people died in Kinshasa in 2019 when torrential rain flooded low-lying districts and some buildings and roads collapsed.

In addition to damaged infrastructure, each day of flooding costs households a combined $1.2 million due to the large-scale transport disruption, according to a 2020 World Bank paper.
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Zimbabwe’s government has reacted following the addition of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son

on a U.S. sanctions list for corruption and human rights abuses.

Officials in the southern African nation say the sanctions are hurting the country’s economy. The U.S. disagrees, saying corruption and wrong priorities are the problem.

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it added four Zimbabwean nationals and two Zimbabwean companies to the sanctions list. One of the individuals is Emmerson Mnangagwa Jr., the son of the Zimbabwean president.

Another 17 individuals were removed from the list.

The additions include two companies, Fossil Agro and Fossil Contracting, which the U.S. says were involved in opaque, multimillion dollar deals with Zimbabwe’s government.

George Charamba, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s presidency, said he was not surprised by the latest U.S. designations. 

“The intention was never to attack individuals, who do not matter anyway in terms of interstate relations,” he said. “The intention has always been to cripple the Zimbabwean economy and it’s not fortuitous that they have picked on suppliers of key inputs to a critical sector of our economy, namely agriculture. They did it before and I can assure you they will do it in future.”

Charamba said the U.S. is pushing for a “compliant” Zimbabwe, while Zimbabwe insists on “an independent national policy which is not influenced by foreigners.”

Gift Mugano, an economics professor at Durban University of Technology, said the sanctions are making it difficult for Zimbabwe to attract investors and get capital for essential projects such as power plants.

At the same time, he said, Zimbabwe has a problem with large-scale corruption. 

“When you are under sanctions, you must be more careful and prudent when using your resources. The case in point is the 35 million US dollars which is being given to members of parliament and ministers, the package which they have been given. But we do not have basics in the hospitals. Thirty-five million dollars for Zimbabwe can be a game changer,” Mugano said.

Not everyone agrees Zimbabwe is hurting its own economy. Gibson Nyikadzino, an independent analyst, said the sanctions are having a real impact on the economy.   

“Because there is failure to access foreign capital, capital markets, there is failure even to import critical equipment. So, the whole idea of sanctions, it is to ensure that the economy of Zimbabwe is to scream and that is the first essence on why the West imposed sanctions and even to today, the economy is being hurt,” Nyikadzino said. 

U.S., British and European Union officials have long rejected those accusations, saying that the sanctions target individuals and certain companies rather than state institutions.

Recently, James O’Brien, the U.S. State Department’s sanctions coordinator, said U.S. sanctions are not hurting Zimbabwe’s economy, as they do not affect banks.

A much bigger problem, he said, is the tax revenue lost from billions of dollars in black market, cross-border transactions that take place each year.

Piers Pigou, senior consultant for southern Africa human rights watchdog, International Crisis Group, said: “There is no doubt that the sanctions have an impact on aspects of the economy. In some instances directly as it relates to individual entities and individuals that are on the list. What is difficult is to calculate the extent of that impact. Particularly in a context where there are multiple other factors relating to delinquencies and governance.”

Zimbabwe held an Anti-Sanctions Day on October 25, asking regional bloc SADC (Southern African Development Community) and the African Union to support it in calling for removal of the sanctions, which were imposed in the early 2000s following alleged election rigging and human rights abuses.

Zimbabwe’s government is still being punished for its land reform program under the late President Robert Mugabe, in which white commercial farmers were pushed off their properties. 

 
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With dozens of African leaders descending on Washington this week, the Biden administration is offering a not-so-subtle pitch in its economic competition with China on the continent: The U.S. offers a better option to African partners.

Ahead of Tuesday’s start of the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves acknowledged that the U.S. has fallen behind as China has surged past American foreign direct investment in Africa but argued that the U.S. remains the “partner of choice” in Africa.

“We took our eye off the ball so to speak, and U.S. investors and companies are having to play catch up,” Graves said at an event hosted by the news outlet Semafor. He added, “We’re bringing the best technologies and innovations, the highest standards…. The U.S. helps to build capacity in our partner countries as opposed to exploiting those countries.”

Heads of states from 49 African nations and the African Union have been invited to take part in the summit that has been billed as an opportunity for President Joe Biden’s administration to re-engage the continent’s leaders.

The continent, whose leaders often feel they’ve been given short shrift by leading economies, remains crucial to global powers because of its rapidly growing population, significant natural resources, and a sizable voting bloc in the United Nations. Africa remains of great strategic importance as the U.S. recalibrates its foreign policy with greater focus on China — what the Biden administration sees as the United States’ most significant economic and military adversary.

Even before the summit officially began, the White House announced Biden’s support for the African Union becoming a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations and that it had appointed Johnnie Carson, a well-regarded veteran diplomat, to serve as point person for implementing initiatives that come out of the summit.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday also said that the administration would commit to spending $55 billion in Africa over the next three years on “a wide range of sectors to tackle the core challenges of our time.”

“If you compare what the United States is committing over the next three years to what any other country is committing, I think we stack up extremely favorably,” Sullivan said.

And while the administration has tried to minimize concerns about China’s deepening presence on the continent as a driving force at this week’s talks, Beijing’s shadow over the biggest international gathering in Washington since the start of the pandemic nearly three years ago looms large.

Without direct mention of China, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo on Monday sounded the alarm about petering private investment in middle- and low-income countries, particularly in Africa. The infrastructure finance gap, or money needed for essential projects like lighting homes and businesses, responding to the COVID pandemic and to making communities resilient against extreme weather, sits at $68 billion to $108 billion per year, Adeyemo said.

At the same time, Adeyemo lamented that huge amounts of private capital among the wealthy nations around the globe remains untapped.

“There is a clear disconnect between the large amount of available private sector capital and the urgent need to fund critical infrastructure projects in Africa and elsewhere. The question for us is: how do we connect this massive supply of savings with high-quality infrastructure projects in Africa?” Adeyemo said at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Trade between the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa was $44.9 billion last year, a 22% increase from 2019. But foreign direct investment into the region fell by 5.3% to $30.31 billion in 2021. Trade between Africa and China last year surged to $254 billion last year, up about 35% as Chinese exports increased on the continent.

The Biden administration, as it addresses criticism that Africa has remained an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy, has taken veiled jabs at China.

During his visit to Nigeria last year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “too often, international infrastructure deals are opaque, coercive” and “burden countries with unmanageable debt.” The language — while tough — may have been more restrained than the Trump administration’s rhetoric; Vice President Mike Pence at the time accused Beijing of “debt diplomacy” in Africa and elsewhere.

China’s ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang, pushed back on Monday against the Chinese debt trap notion and made the case that China has long been “sincere” in approaching Africa as the vibrant emerging market of the future.

“We are not interested in the views of any other countries on China’s role in Africa,” Qin said at the Semafor forum.

Asked whether Biden administration officials would directly approach U.S. concerns about Chinese involvement in Africa during this week’s meetings, officials bristled.

“It’s not going to be about China,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added. “It’s going to be about Africa.”

But the Pentagon has acknowledged that China’s increasing efforts to set up military bases in Africa and forge stronger economic ties across the continent fuel U.S. security concerns that will limit how much the America’s military can work with countries that have growing ties to Beijing.

Officials said in the run-up to the meetings that while America can’t and won’t tell African countries to turn away from China, the administration is making it clear that allowing Chinese bases on their soil and using Chinese telecom systems could hurt U.S. military relations with them.

“We have a particular type of security and military and defense relationship … with African partners, and that could be jeopardized if they were to have Chinese basing in their region just because of the type of exercises, the type of work, the type of collaboration and training that we do with them,” Chidi Blyden, the deputy assistant defense secretary for African affairs, told reporters last week.

Speaking at a defense forum put on by George Washington University’s Project for Media and National Security, Blyden said the use of China’s Huawei communications network “makes it hard for us to be able to work with African partners.” She said it impacts the ability of the U.S. to communicate on a “clear and secure channel.”

The comments underscore longstanding concerns among military commanders that the U.S. must not only keep pace militarily with China in the Indo-Pacific, but in other regions of the world also. Those include Africa, South America and the Middle East, where China is eyeing military and economic expansion.

U.S. officials have also expressed concerns that China is looking to establish a military base on the western coast of Africa.

“China’s Huawei network, which is very robust across the continent, makes it hard for us to be able to work with African partners who may adopt some of these systems,” she said.
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It’s a rare moment in the Middle East when the public’s voice roars louder than those of the governments. But Morocco’s surprise string of wins at the World Cup in Qatar have stirred a joy and pride among Arab fans that have, at least for a moment, eclipsed the region’s many political divisions.

Perhaps most striking is the love fest between Palestinians and the Moroccan team, despite the Moroccan government’s normalization of ties with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The Moroccan team waved a Palestinian flag after its victory over Spain last week, thrilling Palestinians. Throughout the tournament, the Palestinian flag has been unfurled all over, carried by Arab fans and some non-Arabs — so much so that the running joke is that Palestine is the 33rd team at the World Cup.

Palestinians see it as a sign of Arab public support still runs strong for their cause even as they feel Arab governments have abandoned them, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan also normalizing ties with Israel.

“I didn’t expect this. It’s spreading the word and showing that Palestine is not just a political issue, it’s a human issue,” said Ahmed Sabri, a young Palestinian in Doha after watching Morocco’s win over Portugal on Saturday. He had the Palestinian flag draped over his back.

His Egyptian friend, Yasmeen Hossam, wrapped in a Moroccan flag, said, “This is the first World Cup in the Middle East and the first one FOR the Middle East.”

Morocco is the first Arab and African team to make it this far in a World Cup, playing a semifinal Wednesday against France. Part of the Arab embrace of the team has come simply from having something to celebrate in a region where many countries are mired in economic crises, armed conflicts and political repression.

For some, it’s gratifying to see their culture displayed in a positive way on a massive international stage — whether it’s the Moroccan team doing a quick Muslim prayer during huddles or Morocco winger Soufiane Boufal dancing with his mother on the pitch after the quarterfinal victory over Portugal.

“We are all clinging to this Moroccan team as some sort of source of hope and happiness in a time where I think we all could really use some good news,” said Danny Hajjar, a Lebanese American music writer.

The excitement with each victory has crossed boundaries and political divisions.

Algerians joined in, even though their government cut ties with Morocco last year. The two countries have a long-running conflict over Western Sahara, which Morocco annexed in 1975 and where Algeria long supported Sahrawis in the Polisario Front seeking independence. Algeria was angered by the U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in the territory in exchange for normalization with Israel.

At Morocco and Algeria’s often tense border, fans lined up on both sides and cheered to each other across no-man’s land, videos on social media showed. In the French city of Nice, diaspora Algerians and Tunisians joined Moroccans in cafes and in each other’s homes for the matches, setting off fireworks in celebration on the famed Mediterranean boardwalk Promenade des Anglais.

In contrast, Algerian state TV has not even reported on Morocco’s wins, leaving them out of daily World Cup reports.

For Palestinians, the games have been a breath of fresh air. The peace process with Israel has long moldered in a jar on the shelf; a far-right government in Israel is poised to take office; tensions have risen in recent months with several deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel, near daily Israeli raids in the West Bank and increasing harassment by Jewish settlers.

At the same time, many Palestinians feel they have been forgotten by Arab governments; besides the Abraham Accords, countries like Egypt and Jordan have largely gone silent on the Palestinians’ future while increasing cooperation with Israel.

World Cup host Qatar has been a vocal supporter of Palestinians and a major economic lifeline for the Gaza Strip, governed by the Hamas militant group and under Egyptian and Israeli closure for years.

Ahmed Abu Suleiman, a soccer coach from the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, said he feels proud seeing the Palestinian flag so much among fans in Doha.

“Regimes change, but the people remain unchanged. They are thinking about the Palestinian issue, about the Palestinian wound,” he said.

Thousands of people packed a Gaza City sporting hall with a large screen donated by Qatar to watch the Morocco-Portugal match. Many held posters showing the Palestinian and Morocco flags and the slogan, “One People, One Country.”

“It’s an indescribable feeling. I swear it’s as if it’s Palestinians that were playing,” said one fan, Ibrahim al-Lilli. “All of us are Morocco.”

Scenes of jubilation also took place across the West Bank after the win. In east Jerusalem, two men stood atop the Old City’s Damascus gate holding a red Moroccan flag while hundreds below cheered and chanted, “God, Morocco, Jerusalem is Arab.”

The Moroccan victory also reverberated in Israel, home to hundreds of thousands of Jews of Moroccan descent. Many Israelis, including ones attending in Doha, were rooting for the team.

Avi Nachmani, a spokesman for the Israel-based World Federation of Moroccan Jewry, said many Israelis of Moroccan origin maintain a strong connection to their roots. “This flourishing of the team really adds to the affinity,” he said.

He said scenes of players celebrating with their mothers reminded him of the way Moroccan Jews honor their parents. “They don’t forget where they came from,” he said.

But some were dismayed by shows of the Palestinian flag. In Israel and east Jerusalem, police moved quickly to tear down any display of the flag, though it is not specifically banned.

Rudy Rochman, an Israeli of Moroccan descent, said he felt a connection to the Moroccan team. But he called the unfurling of the Palestinian flag “intentionally offensive to Israel.”

On social media, some said Arab enthusiasm for Morocco erases the large ethnic Berber population that is equally if not more a part of the country’s identity. Other voices said Morocco’s hold on Western Sahara and discrimination felt by many Sahrawis were lost in the cheers.

Lebanon may be the most complicated, as sectarian divisions seep into soccer loyalties. While Lebanese are overwhelmingly Brazil or Germany fans, many have adopted Morocco and rejoiced in the streets after the win over Portugal.

The semifinal with France is more divisive. Much of the Arab world sees a chance for a former colony to give its one-time colonizer its comeuppance. But some in Lebanon feel cultural affinity with France, particularly Christians.

After the Portugal game, scuffles broke out in Beirut after a group of Morocco fans from a Muslim-majority neighborhood rode through a Christian area on motorcycles, some hoisting Palestinian flags and chanting “God is the greatest.” They were accosted by a group of men from the area who saw the convoy as a sectarian provocation.

Given the history of divisions and the 15-year civil war, the music writer Hajjar said he wouldn’t be surprised if there was more street friction around the semifinal. But, he said, he was “hoping that we can all just enjoy the match for what it will be.”
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Police officials in southeast Nigeria say operatives killed three armed men on Monday when a gang attacked the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC — one of several attacks on the commission’s offices ahead of Nigeria’s polls in February. INEC officials have said attacks on facilities will not deter the commission from conducting the elections, but political observers say the attacks are already having an impact on the process.

Imo State police spokesman Michael Abbatam told journalists Monday that officers repelled an early morning assault on an INEC facility in Owerri, the state capital, killing three of the attackers and arresting two others.

He said the police also recovered firearms, improvised explosive devices and some vehicles.

The attackers threw explosives into the facility, destroying part of the building and some vehicles before the officers halted the attack.

This was the third attack on INEC facilities in Imo state in the past two weeks, following similar attacks on a facility in nearby Orlu district last week and another one on the local office in Oru West at the start of December.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but authorities have in recent past blamed an outlawed separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB, for increased restiveness in the southeast. IPOB has denied involvement.

“Between 2019 and now there have been over 53 attacks and the attackers are becoming more daring. We’re concerned about how this would impact on citizens’ confidence, even on the part of INEC. We have seen the devastating impact on this in the elections in 2019 that INEC even had to delay elections in some quarters,” said Paul James, election program coordinator at the Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement, a non-profit group that monitors elections in Nigeria.

Imo state is one of the strong bases for the Biafra separatist movement and attempts by authorities to crackdown on separatists have led to an increase in violence there.

INEC facilities in Ebonyi, Osun and Ogun states have also been recently targeted and attacked.

“Why these attacks are increasing is the fact that INEC is insistent on trying to improve the processes of the elections. The INEC chair has mentioned that they’re going to deploy technology for the election. This is just an attempt to distract INEC. This election is going to be competitive. if these coordinated attacks continue it will affect their confidence to even induce the process in those states that are affected,” said James.

INEC spokesman Festus Okoye said in a statement that no critical election materials were destroyed in Monday’s attack.

The commission on Monday officially started the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and the process will run through January.

However, Godbless Otubure, leader of another pro-democracy group, the Ready to Lead Africa Initiative, says the attacks are affecting voter confidence ahead of next year’s polls.

“People are calling us saying they don’t want to go get their PVCs anymore. They just don’t want to die. Our responsibility is to engage Nigerians on the need to vote and participate. We don’t control the security apparatus. I cannot guarantee any Nigerian right now that I can call the military to respond to anything because I’m not in authority,” said Otubure.

Nigerians go to the polls on February 25 to elect a leader that will succeed Muhammadu Buhari, who’s exiting after two terms office.

INEC says it will be relying on technology to electronically transmit results and assured Nigerians that the attacks on facilities will not affect the 2023 general polls.
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Zambian police Sunday found the bodies of 27 men, believed to be migrants from Ethiopia, dumped in a farming area on the outskirts of the capital after they died from suspected hunger and exhaustion, authorities said.

A sole survivor was found alive in the early hours of Sunday morning and rushed to a Lusaka hospital for treatment, while the dead were transported to the mortuary for identification and postmortems to determine the exact cause of death, police said.

Preliminary police investigations showed the victims were all males aged between 20 and 38 and had been dumped along a road by unknown people.

“Police and other security wings have since instituted investigations into the matter,” Danny Mwale, police spokesman, said in a statement after police were alerted to the gruesome scene by members of the public.

Ethiopian migrants often use Zambia when traveling to countries such as South Africa, though reports of deaths in transit there are rare. 
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Morocco’s World Cup heroics have won it support from across Africa and the Arab world, but in its neighbor and geopolitical rival Algeria, things are a little more complicated.

The Atlas Lions have become the first African or Arab team to reach a World Cup semifinal after knocking out a procession of higher-ranked European teams, winning accolades from Dakar to Dubai.

Many ordinary Algerians have also cheered their neighbor’s success, whether in a genuine spirit of North African solidarity or from the universal instinct of soccer fans around the world to seek a share in sporting glory.

“I feel like I must support Morocco — neighbors, brothers and Muslims,” said Mehdi Belkassam, 25, a kebab seller in Algiers.

But after years of icy relations and a long, difficult history marked by recriminations, Algeria’s government has ignored Morocco’s soccer exploits this winter, with television channels even censoring some of the team’s victories.

As other Arab and African countries have offered formal congratulations, Algeria’s government, which broke off ties with Rabat in 2021 after years of worsening relations, has been notably silent.

The two countries differ most bitterly over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, seen by Morocco as its own but where Algeria backs an armed independence movement.

There have been other disputes too, including over Morocco’s normalization of ties with Israel and allegations of spying. This year there were even arguments over the design of an Algerian soccer shirt.

One people

“If we focus on politics, Morocco is an enemy after choosing Israel as its friend. But soccer is not about politics. That’s why I’ve supported Morocco this World Cup,” said Miloud Mohamed, a taxi driver in Algiers.

With Morocco now due to play France, the former colonial power that ruled both countries and is home to hundreds of thousands of people claiming North African heritage, the stakes for North African soccer fans have risen once more.

For the kebab seller Belkassam, the Algerian heritage of several leading French players did create a dilemma for his choice of support, he said. “But I will support Moroccans against France,” he added.

For Abdallah Shikh, 65, the colonial history meant the choice was clearer. “We are all with Morocco,” he said.

Among the many Algerians and Moroccans who have spent time in France, sharing an experience of life in a foreign land where they are sometimes exposed to racism, there was camaraderie in the idea of a semifinal against “Les Bleus.”

“You can’t find a difference between Moroccans and Algerians in Paris because it’s a city that mixes Casablanca and Algiers, a city of at least a million people from the Maghreb region,” said Rachid Oufkir, from Morocco, who had lived there for 12 years.

In Rabat, where ecstatic Moroccans have been basking in the triumph of their team and the congratulations of fellow fans across Africa and the Middle East, people were glad to think that soccer might bring them and Algerians closer together.

“This win and the spontaneous celebrations that followed are strengthening Moroccan-Algerian brotherliness,” said Oumar Id Tnain, a museum employee.

“For us, Algerians and Moroccans are one people,” he said.
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A Mauritanian man who received a death penalty in Mali for involvement in attacks that killed dozens, including an American, in 2015 was extradited to the United States to face a six-count indictment related to the same crime, the U.S. Justice Department said Saturday.

Fawaz Ould Ahmed was taken into custody by the United States and brought to New York Friday, the Justice Department said in a statement. Ahmed received a death penalty in Mali after pleading guilty to planning and executing the deadly attacks targeting Westerners.

Ahmed, 44, faces charges including the murder of U.S. citizen Anita Ashok Datar and conspiracy to provide support to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun, according to the Justice Department.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James R. Cho ordered that Ahmed be detained pending trial.

Ahmed “now faces justice in a U.S. courtroom for the carnage that was carried out allegedly at his direction,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in a statement.

Ahmed told a Malian court in 2020 he carried out an attack on La Terrace restaurant that killed five and that he was also involved in planning a raid at Hotel Byblos in the town of Sevare and another at Bamako’s Radisson Blu hotel.

The Justice Department said a total of 38 people had died in the three incidents.

“The defendant’s alleged actions — inhumanely plotting and carrying out ruthless terrorist attacks — were not forgotten and will not be forgiven,” said FBI assistant director-in-charge Michael Driscoll.

The attacks in 2015, just months after Islamist militants in Paris stormed the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shot dead 12 people, marked a brazen new phase in jihadi operations across West Africa. The campaign hit top hotels and destinations frequented by Western tourists, aid workers and diplomats.

Ahmed told the Malian court he did not regret the attacks and that he had been seeking revenge for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad printed in Charlie Hebdo.

He was captured in Bamako in 2016 as he was preparing to carry out another attack armed with grenades and a suitcase filled with weapons on behalf of al-Mourabitoun, Reuters has reported, citing local authorities.
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China has constructed numerous ports, bridges and other coastal projects throughout the developing world in recent years in what’s been dubbed by Beijing the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” – part of President Xi Jinping’s greater Belt and Road Initiative to build infrastructure.

But while some projects help developing economies increase their capacity for trade, there are environmental downsides to China’s coastal infrastructure, according to an academic study published this week in the journal One Earth, with Africa among the most negatively affected regions and Caribbean Island nations also facing high risk to marine habitats.

The study, by researchers from Boston University Global Development Policy Center, University of California Santa Barbara, Colorado State University and the University of Queensland, looked at the risks from 114 Chinese-funded coastal development projects over a 10-year period until 2019. The projects studied were funded by either the China Development Bank or Export-Import Bank of China and totaled some $65 billion in financing. China is the biggest bilateral funder of coastal infrastructure overseas, surpassing Japan and multilateral institutions like the Asian Development Bank.

“‘The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ has enormous potential to propel economic prosperity … but there are growing concerns regarding the potential deleterious impacts of this initiative on the environment and local and indigenous communities,” the study said.

Study findings

For example, in “Angola and Mozambique, more than 2,000 [square kilometers] of marine habitats face high impact risks,” the research found. However, just a few months ago, Chinese upgrades to a port in Angola were lauded by Chinese state media the Global Times, which said the project is designed to benefit the community in several ways including meeting “local demand for import and export of goods.”

While infrastructure such as bridges and power plants can also threaten the environment, it is port developments that represent the greatest risks to marine systems, researchers found.

“Ports rank as the highest-risk sector for coastal construction, because of the many possible avenues for environmental and social impacts: beyond the noise, light, and habitat disruption from the construction itself, they also bring the potential for significant changes in local ecosystems through the introduction of invasive species who ‘hitchhike’ on incoming ships and the depletion of local fish stocks from new fishing fleets who may come to use the port,” Rebecca Ray, senior researcher in global development policy at Boston University, told VOA.

African ports, such as those in Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Angola, Mozambique and Djibouti, are prominent regional risk hotspots. The study found that as well as affecting marine life and biodiversity, such projects can negatively impact indigenous coastal communities.

This was particularly stark in West Africa, it said, where “seas surrounding coastal indigenous communities in Western and central Africa are disproportionately at risk, which could result in negative effects in seafood consumption and local livelihoods.”

Ivory Coast, for example, has some of the greatest risks to their seas and also has some of the highest levels of seafood consumption.

Balancing environment with development

In Mauritania’s capital, a Chinese-built port brought with it a fishing deal with a Chinese fleet, which then outdid local fishermen, Ray told VOA.

“In the case of the Nouakchott Friendship Port, small-scale fishers claim that over-fishing from Chinese fishing boats has not only damaged the local ecosystem but also their own ability to continue to make a living by fishing at small, sustainable scales,” she said.

In recent years, China has been balancing its environmental commitments with its economic goals.

“We need to care for the ocean as we treasure our lives,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said last year, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“Efforts will be made to develop ‘blue partnerships’ and expand cooperation with coastal countries in terms of marine environment protection, scientific research and maritime rescue,” the article stated.

Xinhua also talked about China’s vision for more maritime connectivity and trade, mentioning the Mauritanian port as an example of China’s economic vision, saying China’s aid “improved the handling capacity and alleviated cargo congestion and delays in the port, making it an important logistics node along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.”

In Southern Africa, researchers found that the renovation and expansion of the Beira Fishing Port in Mozambique by a Chinese engineering company presented one of the greatest risks within 10 kilometers of marine habitats of all the projects examined in the study.

“The impact of potential overfishing is why the Beira fishing port is ranked so high in risk among projects: it is the only port in the dataset developed explicitly for fishing purposes,” Ray explained.

During the inauguration ceremony of the renovated port last year, then-Chinese Ambassador Su Jian as well Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, said the port project would help with economic development, reported Xinhua.

“We believe that over the coming months we will continue to open more Chinese-funded projects,” Nyusi said.

However, not all African leaders are so welcoming of Chinese ports. In Tanzania, late President John Magufuli pulled the plug on a Chinese-planned port in 2019, saying the Chinese demands surrounding the development had been “exploitative.”

China’s green BRI initiatives

The study in One Earth recommends that China mitigate marine risks in its BRI developments.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not reply to VOA’s request for comment on this story. However, Beijing has become more environmentally conscious when handling infrastructure projects, including banning new coal-powered projects abroad.

In 2021, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued guidance for its Belt and Road Initiative partners to “[foster] economic, social, and environmental development in a balanced and integrated manner.” The guidance also mentioned promoting “environment-friendly and resilient infrastructure through, inter alia, enhancing climate and environmental risk assessment on projects.”

Early this year, Beijing announced new green finance guidelines for its banks to manage risks, including environmental concerns.
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A protection site for internally displaced persons in South Sudan is facing severe overcrowding following an influx of new arrivals. The site, which is protected by U.N. peacekeepers and designed to host 12,000 people, now has more than 37,000 occupants as thousands more continue to be uprooted by violence in Upper Nile state.

The fighting that sparked the influx is between two armed groups in Upper Nile state, in northeastern South Sudan.

The violence around villages in Kodok and Fashoda counties has raged for months and has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people. Another 20,000 have been displaced.

Paul Awan, the relief and rehabilitation coordinator in Upper Nile state, describes the situation as a massacre, which is unfolding amid floods.

“… There is a lot of death, seeing children die in water is also happening, and when people are killed, its takes time to collect the bodies,” he said. “Now bodies are in the water, in the bush and the worst part is that the bush is being burned.”

Caught up in the fighting are defenseless civilians like Lucia Oluok. Oluok said she and her eight children had to trek for seven days to reach safety.

Others were not able to escape. Weda Jerim, for example, left behind her injured husband.

She said she ran to the bush without knowing where she was going, to an area without food or water. She said there’s no place for sleeping, and she and others sit under trees. They’ve been in the bush for five months, she said.

The swelling number of civilians escaping the violence is now straining resources at the U.N. Protection of Civilians Site in the town of Malakal.

The protection camp in Malakal, which was designed to hold 12,000 people, is now at three times its capacity. Those who cannot be accommodated here are being forced to cross to neighboring Sudan, a country already grappling with high number of refugees.

Charlotte Hallqvist, UNHCR external relations officer in South Sudan, said a thousand people have arrived at the camp in the last week. The new arrivals are occupying schools in the camp, but she said these are now full.

The camps, said said, lack many things. Inaccessible roads and armed conflict have slowed humanitarian aid. Desperate people are seeking refuge in villages along the rivers, she said. Flooding makes it difficult to leave those areas, and people seeking to flee need canoes to reach safety, she said.

The humanitarian community in South Sudan has strongly condemned the ongoing violence in Upper Nile State, saying the insecurity is hindering partners from saving those displaced by the fighting. 
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