It’s been a month since Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, put residents on water rations after a drop in the city’s main water source, the Ruvu River. Authorities say the water supply problem is beyond their control, but critics see it as a failure to manage resources. Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Camera: Rajabu Hassan.
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Category: Africa
Africa news. Africa is highly biodiverse, it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. However, Africa also is heavily affected by a wide range of environmental issues, including desertification, deforestation, water scarcity, and pollution
Meet the Real Life ‘Woman King’
The Hollywood film “The Woman King” has received great praise for its portrayal of the fierce female warriors of Benin’s 1800s Kingdom of Dahomey. But where the kingdom once existed, the West African nation has a modern woman queen, who is still fighting for women’s rights. Henry Wilkins reports from Abomey, Benin. Camera: Henry Wilkins Produced by: Jon Spier
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Gunmen Abduct More Than 100 in Nigeria’s Zamfara State
More than 100 people, including women and children were abducted when gunmen raided four villages in Nigeria’s northeastern Zamfara state on Sunday, the information commissioner and residents said on Monday.
Kidnapping has become endemic in northwest Nigeria as roving gangs of armed men abduct people from villages, highways and farms and demand ransom money from their relatives.
More than 40 people were abducted from Kanwa village in Zurmi local government area of Zamfara, Zamfara information commissioner Ibrahim Dosara and one local resident said.
Another 37, mostly women and children were taken in Kwabre community in the same local government area, the resident added, declining to be named for security reasons.
“Right now Kanwa village is deserted, the bandits divided themselves into two groups and attacked the community. They kidnapped children aged between 14 to 16 years and women,” the Kanwa village resident said.
In Yankaba and Gidan Goga communities of Maradun Local government area, at least 38 people were kidnapped while working on their farms, residents said.
Information commissioner Dosara accused the gunmen of using abductees as human shields against air raids from the military.
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Meet Benin’s Real-Life ‘Woman King’
“The Woman King” is a rare example of an African story told in the form of a Hollywood historical epic. Around the world, it has won praise for its acting, directing, and themes of female empowerment with women, led by General Nanisca, fighting a war that men cannot.
While the film is set in the 1800s in the kingdom of Dahomey, today the same area is known as Abomey. The story of the female warriors and General Nanisca has echoed down the ages here and in the rest of Benin.
Nan Zognidi is the present-day queen mother of Abomey.
She said she teaches young people the same values as the female warriors, a mindset that shows young girls are equal to boys.
“They have the same abilities and the same competencies as boys,” she said.
Zognidi’s role of queen mother is ceremonial. As with royalty in other parts of the world, it involves attracting tourists to the kingdom. But before she took on the role, she was a women’s rights activist.
Now, she runs a program to teach girls trades that promote financial independence and the history and culture of the kingdom. She also encourages leadership among her courtiers.
Pkadomi Sylvestre, a 13-year-old courtier, said the queen mother has taught her how to work on political activities for women’s empowerment.
A statue depicting one of Abomey’s female warriors in Benin’s commercial capital, Cotonou, was inaugurated earlier this year.
The example set by the female warriors of Abomey is something Africa needs more of, according to U.N. Women, a branch of the United Nations dedicated to female empowerment.
“Women who are involved in politics are not usually positively seen by society,” said regional adviser Soulef Guessoum, noting that in Africa, only 25% of the elected assembly are women — short of the 30% target set by the U.N. in 1995 and well below the 50% that many consider the ultimate goal.
Marion Ogeto, a human rights lawyer who works with Equality Now, a non-profit working for female empowerment, said the female warriors of Abomey are inspiring.
“This community was way ahead of its time by advocating for an army that is all and only women,” said Ogeto. “That already just blows your mind and then it goes a step further and shows you that they have a woman leader, a woman king and then she’s in a position where she’s able to sit at the same table as the king as well as all the others and tell the king, ‘This is not how we handle the situation, we need to do X, Y and Z.'”
As for Zognidi, she thinks the most important lesson Abomey’s warriors must teach the world — not the least the world of politics — is that “everything that men can do, women can do today. We can’t say that women are weak, it is wrong.”
Women, she said, are as strong as men.
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Suspected Jihadis Kill Troops, Civilians in Nigeria
Gunmen attacked an army base and a town in northeast Nigeria killing nine soldiers, two policemen and civilians, security sources and residents said Sunday, in the latest violence in the region.
Riding in trucks fitted with machineguns, the fighters, suspected to be members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), stormed the town of Malam Fatori, in Abadam district, late Friday and early Saturday, they said.
“ISWAP terrorists attacked Malam Fatori and caused huge destruction which we are working to quantify,” a military officer told AFP.
“They attacked the military base and engaged troops in a fight while a second group went on a killing spree and arson in the town,” said the officer who asked not to be identified.
The first attack, near the Niger border, came at dusk Friday, leading to a fierce battle with soldiers who repelled the assault, said resident Buji Garwa.
In a predawn attack on the base and the town on Saturday, the jihadists threw explosives and killed residents, while others drowned in a river trying to flee.
Two security sources said on Sunday that nine soldiers and two policemen were killed in the base attack.
“The number of casualties sustained in the base is 11, including nine soldiers and two mobile policemen working alongside troops,” a military officer said.
The same toll was confirmed by a second security source.
“We lost nine soldiers and two policemen from the base. It is still not clear how many people civilians were killed inside the town,” said the second security source.
“It is not clear how many people were killed because we all fled the town and are now gradually returning to assess the damage,” Garwa said, adding much of the town had been set ablaze.
“We have started combing the bushes and picking (up) bodies of those killed and searching along the riverbanks to find those washed to the shores,” he said.
Another resident, Baitu Madari, said she had counted a dozen people killed in her neighborhood.
“I have no idea of the number of the dead bodies recovered in other parts of town. The destruction is really huge,” she said.
According to an intelligence officer, the attackers came from nearby Kamuya village.
“Kamuya is the largest ISWAP camp in Lake Chad area which is just 8 kilometers from Malam Fatori,” the source said.
“All the previous unsuccessful attacks on Malam Fatori were launched from Kamuya, which is well fortified with mines and heavy weapons,” he added.
Malam Fatori, 200 kilometers from the regional capital Maiduguri, on the fringes of Lake Chad, was seized by Boko Haram jihadis in 2014 but clawed back by the military in 2015.
A base was established in the town to repel attacks from ISWAP, which split from Boko Haram in 2016 and turned Lake Chad into a bastion.
In March, thousands of people who fled to Maiduguri and into neighboring Niger were returned to Malam Fatori on Borno state government orders, despite concern by aid agencies.
The conflict, which broke out in 2009 has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around 2 million.
The violence has spilled into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military force to fight the insurgents.
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Equatorial Guinea Votes with Veteran Ruler Set for Sixth Term
Equatorial Guinea went to the polls on Sunday, with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo all-but certain of winning a record sixth term in the West African country with next to no opposition.
Obiang, aged 80, has been in power for more than 43 years — the longest tenure of any living head of state today except for monarchs.
A few dozen voters had already queued up when the doors swung open at a polling station set up in a school in Malabo’s Semu district early in the morning.
“Voting is going well. Everything is normal. All citizens have to vote,” fridge repair man Norberto Ondo told AFP.
“I expect this election to bring us prosperity,” the 53-year-old added after dropping his ballot in a box at the Nuestra Senora de Bisila school.
Obiang’s re-election seems virtually assured in one of the most authoritarian and enclosed states in the world.
Running against him is Andres Esono Ondo, 61, from the nation’s only tolerated opposition party.
The secretary-general of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) is a candidate for the first time and the sole representative of the muzzled opposition.
Ondo has said he fears “fraud” during voting to elect the president, senators and members of parliament.
The government has levelled its own accusations against the politician, in 2019 accusing him of planning “a coup in Equatorial Guinea with foreign funding.”
The third candidate is Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu of the Social Democratic Coalition Party (PCSD), a historic ally of Obiang’s ruling party.
The ex-minister is running for the fourth time but has never done well in previous elections. The opposition have called him a “dummy candidate” without a chance.
‘Foiled plot’
As in every election year, security forces have stepped up arrests. State media has justified the crackdown as a bid to counter a “foiled plot” by the opposition to carry out attacks on embassies, petrol stations and the homes of ministers.
In September, after a week-long siege, security forces stormed the home of one of Obiang’s main opponents, Gabriel Nse Obiang Obono.
His house had also served as an office for his banned Citizens for Innovation (CI) party.
The assault left five dead — four activists and a policeman, according to the government.
Dozens were injured and more than 150 people were arrested, including Obono.
Leading rights activist Joaquin Elo Ayeto told AFP the incident had “discredited” the electoral process.
“The ruling party needs an ‘opposition’ to hold sham elections,” he said.
Allegations of fraud have plagued past polls.
In 2016, Obiang was re-elected with 93.7 percent of the vote.
His PDGE won 99 of the 100 seats in the lower house and all 70 seats in the senate.
In 2009, the president scored more than 95 percent of the vote.
Campaigning this year saw pictures of Obiang and his Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), the country’s only legal political movement until 1991, splashed all over Malabo.
Members of the opposition, most of whom are in exile, hold no hope for a breakthrough at the ballot box.
“Obiang’s elections have never been free or democratic but marked by widespread and systematic… fraud,” they said in a joint statement.
Despite all being obliged to vote, they urged “all citizens of Equatorial Guinea not to take part in any phase of the electoral process.”
The discovery of off-shore oil turned Equatorial Guinea into Africa’s third richest country, in terms of per-capita income, but the wealth is very unequally distributed.
Four-fifths of the population of 1.4 million live below the poverty threshold according to World Bank figures for 2006, the latest available.
The country has a long-established reputation internationally for graft, ranking 172 out of 180 nations on Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index.
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Feared Ritual Dancers in Zimbabwe Try to Revamp Public Image
Deep into the night, the sound of drums reverberated through the township of Mufakose in Zimbabwe’s capital city. Barefoot dancers pulsated to the beat in colorful clothing and gory masks. Some had their faces and heads covered with poultry feathers.
In the past, the mere sight of members of the group performing the Gule Wamkulu ritual dance would have sent shivers down the spine of many outsiders. But on this night dozens of people, including young children, squeezed in for a closer look, their cellphones lighting up the spectacle.
Previously, “even the adults would prefer to watch our dances from a distance. People were scared of us,” said Notice Mazura, organizer of the jamboree.
Long seen as a secretive, ritualistic society with mysterious connections to the spirit world, performers of the Gule Wamkulu, or “the great barefoot dance,” are increasingly opening to the public as part of an engagement drive that seeks to counter such negative impressions and rehabilitate the group’s reputation in society.
Gule Wamkulu traces its roots to the Chewa people of the countries of Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia in southern Africa. It gained a foothold in neighboring Zimbabwe in the early 1900s, when thousands of people from those countries came to what was then colonial Southern Rhodesia as migrant laborers.
The dance is mainly practiced in towns and mining and farming communities, and the exact number of practitioners is unknown due to the numerous, loosely knit groups countrywide.
In 2008, UNESCO included Gule Wamkulu on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a global roll of arts, rituals, crafts and traditions that are passed from one generation to the next. The U.N. agency describes it as a “secret society of initiated men” involved in a “ritual dance” dating to the 17th century.
Over the years, however, some unsettling reports have filtered out that colored societal impressions of Gule Wamkulu: A young man died after being buried alive as part of a resurrection miracle gone wrong. A man was assaulted and left for dead, allegedly for breaking internal rules. A teen boy was forced to eat raw chicken as part of an initiation rite.
The society’s reputation is further under threat in Zimbabwe due to the proliferation of copycat groups that commit crimes such as extortion, theft, sexual abuse and assault.
“We have to remove the stigma attached to our dance,” said Kennedy Kachuruka, leader of the Zimbabwe Gule Wamkulu Organization. “We want people to respect us and not fear us. We don’t want to push them away, but we want to charm them. That is the only way they can appreciate who we really are.”
Kachuruka, who is also president of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Dancers Association, described Gule Wamkulu as “a ceremonial dance to connect with the dead.”
Enter the public relations campaign, which operates on the hope that the more people are exposed to Gule Wamkulu, the more they can distinguish between the copycats and genuine members.
Though the dances are traditionally performed at funerals, weddings and other events involving members, they have been doing more and more public performances in recent years, including collaborating with mainstream musicians. Several festivals were organized countrywide as part of the campaign.
At the one in Mufakose, onlookers gasped as a dancer on tall stilts effortlessly incorporated into the rhythmic movements. Some in the performance wore animal masks. People in the audience threw money in appreciation.
Still, long-held perceptions can die hard.
“These people are evil,” one Mufakose resident, George Dezha, said of the spectacle. “They move around with weapons and are violent criminals.”
Much of the air of mystery surrounding Gule Wamkulu remains: The identity of those behind the masks is kept secret, and the shrines they use to change into their outfits are off limits to nonmembers. Attaining membership involves undergoing secret graveyard rituals.
“We try to maintain the rituals left to us by our fathers. The most important aspect are our secrets, without them we are nothing,” Kachuruka said. “It’s not just a dance, it’s a way of life. It’s a culture and a religion.”
Gule Wamkulu previously survived attempts to ban it by early Christian missionaries who viewed African cultural practices as evil. To adapt, some dancers joined Christian churches while continuing to practice it on the side, according to UNESCO.
Phineas Magwati, an expert on music and culture at the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe, said copycats today pose a challenge to Gule Wamkulu by appropriating the dance movements, costumes, props and instruments.
Their motive in mainly financial, inducing unsuspecting people pay for dances on the streets of townships, according to Magwati. The copycatting can dilute the Gule Wamkulu tradition to a certain extent, but he considers the threat to be minimal.
“Copycats and frauds cannot go beyond to fully unpack the ritual aspect of the dance practice,” Magwati said. “The ritual aspect can only be done genuinely by the real cultural creators.”
He called the public outreach campaign “a turning point” in demystifying Gule Wamkulu and helping outsiders appreciate it as a legitimate cultural practice.
For Kachuruka, debunking negative perceptions is key to the survival of Gule Wamkulu’s authenticity and mystical nature.
“We need the public on our side to remove suspicion and gain acceptance,” he said.
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Last-Minute Objections Threaten Historic UN Climate Deal
A last-minute fight over emissions cutting and the overall climate change goal is delaying a potentially historic deal that would create a fund for compensating poor nations that are victims of extreme weather worsened by rich countries’ carbon pollution.
“We are extremely on overtime. There were some good spirits earlier today. I think more people are more frustrated about the lack of progress,” Norwegian climate change minister Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press. He said it came down to getting tougher on fossil fuel emissions and retaining the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times as was agreed in last year’s climate summit in Glasgow.
“Some of us are trying to say that we actually have to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees and that requires some action. We have to reduce our use of fossil fuels, for instance,” Eide said. “But there’s a very strong fossil fuel lobby … trying to block any language that we produce. So that’s quite clear.”
Several cabinet ministers from across the globe told the AP earlier Saturday that agreement was reached on a fund for what negotiators call loss and damage. It would be a big win for poorer nations that have long called for cash — sometimes viewed as reparations — because they are often the victims of climate disasters despite having contributed little to the pollution that heats up the globe.
However, the other issues are seemingly delaying any action. A meeting to approve an overall agreement has been pushed back more than two-and-a-half hours with little sign of diplomats getting together for a formal plenary to approve something. Eide said he had no idea when that would be.
Concerns about emissions proposals
The loss and damage deal was a high point earlier in the day.
“This is how a 30-year-old journey of ours has finally, we hope, found fruition today,” said Pakistan Climate Minister Sherry Rehman, who often took the lead for the world’s poorest nations. One-third of her nation was submerged this summer by a devastating flood and she and other officials used the motto: “What went on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan.”
The United States, which in the past has been reluctant to even talk about the issue of loss and damage, “is working to sign on,” said an official close to negotiations.
If an agreement is accepted, it still needs to be approved unanimously late into Saturday evening. But other parts of a deal, outlined in a package of proposals put out earlier in the day by the Egyptian chairs of the talks, are still being hammered out as negotiators head into what they hope is their final session.
There was strong concern among both developed and developing countries about proposals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, known as mitigation. Officials said the language put forward by Egypt backtracked on some of the commitments made in Glasgow aimed at keeping alive the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid 19th century.
Some of the Egyptian language on mitigation seemingly reverted to the 2015 Paris agreement, which was before scientists knew how crucial the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold was and heavily mentioned a weaker 2-degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) goal, which is why scientists and Europeans are afraid of backtracking, said climate scientist Maarten van Aalst of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center.
Ireland’s Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan said: “We need to get a deal on 1.5 degrees. We need strong wording on mitigation and that’s what we’re going to push.”
‘Hope to the vulnerable’
Still, the attention centered around the compensation fund, which has also been called a justice issue.
“There is an agreement on loss and damage,” Maldives Environment Minister Aminath Shauna told the AP early Saturday afternoon after a meeting with other delegations. “That means for countries like ours we will have the mosaic of solutions that we have been advocating for.”
New Zealand Climate Minister James Shaw said both the poor countries that would get the money and the rich ones that would give it are on board with the proposed deal.
It’s a reflection of what can be done when the poorest nations remain unified, said Alex Scott, a climate diplomacy expert at the think tank E3G.
“I think this is huge to have governments coming together to actually work out at least the first step of … how to deal with the issue of loss and damage,” Scott said. But like all climate financials, it is one thing to create a fund, it’s another to get money flowing in and out, she said. The developed world still has not kept its 2009 pledge to spend $100 billion a year on other climate aid — designed to help poor nations develop green energy and adapt to future warming.
“The draft decision on loss and damage finance offers hope to the vulnerable people that they will get help to recover from climate disasters and rebuild their lives,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International.
The Chinese lead negotiator would not comment on a possible deal. European negotiators said they were ready to back the deal but declined to say so publicly until the entire package was approved.
The Egyptian presidency, which had been under criticism by all sides, proposed a new loss and damage deal Saturday afternoon and within a couple hours an agreement was struck but Norway’s climate and environment minister Espen Barth Eide said it was not so much the Egyptians but countries working together.
According to the latest draft, the fund would initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources such as international financial institutions. While major emerging economies such as China would not initially be required to contribute, that option remains on the table and will be negotiated over the coming years. This is a key demand by the European Union and the United States, who argue that China and other large polluters currently classified as developing countries have the financial clout and responsibility to pay their way.
The planned fund would be largely aimed at the most vulnerable nations, though there would be room for middle-income countries that are severely battered by climate disasters to get aid.
An overarching decision that sums up the outcomes of the climate talks doesn’t include India’s call to phase down oil and natural gas, in addition to last year’s agreement to wean the world from “unabated” coal.
Several rich and developing nations called Saturday for a last-minute push to step up emissions cuts, warning that the outcome barely builds on what was agreed in Glasgow last year.
It also doesn’t require developing countries such as China and India to submit any new targets before 2030. Experts say these are needed to achieve the more ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius goal that would prevent some of the more extreme effects of climate change.
Youth say ‘keep fighting’
Throughout the climate summit, the American, Chinese, Indian and Saudi Arabian delegations have kept a low public profile, while European, African, Pakistan and small island nations have been more vocal.
Many of the more than 40,000 attendees have left town, and workers started packing up the vast pavilions in the sprawling conference zone.
At the youth pavilion, a gathering spot for young activists, a pile of handwritten postcards from children to negotiators was left on a table.
“Dear COP27 negotiators,” read one card. “Keep fighting for a good planet.”
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COP27 Nears Breakthrough on Climate Finance in Scramble for Final Deal
Countries were considering a draft for a final COP27 climate deal on Saturday, with some negotiators saying they were close to a breakthrough in contentious efforts to compensate poor nations already burdened by costly climate impacts.
The U.N. climate agency released a new draft of the so-called cover decision on Saturday, but it was not immediately clear if all 197 governments at this year’s summit would back it.
Hours earlier, officials from the 27-country European Union said they were ready to walk away from the talks if the deal did not advance efforts to curb global warming by requiring that countries take more ambitious action in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’d rather have no decision than a bad decision,” EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said.
He expressed concern that some countries were resisting efforts to agree on bolder emissions cuts in this decade. He did not name the countries.
The outcome of the two-week conference, which was meant to end on Friday, is seen as a test of global resolve to fight climate change, even as a war in Europe and rampant consumer inflation distract international attention.
With countries still divided on a number of key topics Saturday morning, Egypt’s COP27 President Sameh Shoukry urged delegates to “rise to the occasion” and unite around a final deal.
The latest draft is not the final one, as it contains a placeholder on funding arrangements for “loss and damage” – the money demanded by developing countries suffering damage from climate-linked events like floods, drought and sea-level rise.
But countries said they were near agreement for setting up such a fund, and the U.N. climate agency released a separate draft of that language that several negotiators said was broadly supported.
Kunal Satyarthi, a negotiator for India, said he thought the loss and damage deal would “certainly” pass, and thanked other countries for their flexibility.
Norway’s climate minister, Espen Barth Eide, meanwhile, said his country was happy with the agreement to create a loss and damage fund.
Barbados negotiator Avinash Persaud called it a “small victory for humankind” that had resulted from leadership by small island nations and solidarity from the rest of the world.
“Now we need to redouble efforts behind an energy, transport and agriculture transition that will limit these climate losses and damages in the future,” said Persaud.
The idea of a loss and damage fund has been discussed for decades but had never before made the official agenda at a climate summit, as rich nations worried it could open them up to liability for their historic contribution to emissions.
Fossil fuels
The EU had boosted the discussions earlier in the week by offering to support setting up a new loss and damage fund, but only provided that large polluters including China pay into it and countries also ramp up efforts to cut emissions.
It was not yet clear if the EU’s conditions would be met.
Complicating matters, U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry tested positive for COVID-19 after days of bilateral in-person meetings with counterparts from China and the EU to Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
In line with earlier iterations, the draft did not contain a reference requested by India and some other delegations to phasing down use of “all fossil fuels.” It instead asked countries to phase down coal only, as agreed under last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact.
In an attempt to close the yawning gap between current climate pledges and the far deeper cuts needed to avert disastrous climate change, the draft also requested that countries which have not yet done so upgrade their 2030 emissions cutting targets by the end of 2023.
Some campaigners said the draft offered some positive elements but was still wanting in ambition.
“It reiterates much of what’s in Glasgow,” including the language around phasing down use of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, said David Waskow, the international climate director for the World Resources Institute.
But the possible breakthrough on loss and damage was significant, and “I don’t think that should be lost in the mix,” he said.
For daily comprehensive coverage on COP27 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here.
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Somali Media Group Concerned About Alleged Government Moves
A media watchdog in Somalia says the government is pressuring one of its leaders to stop criticizing authorities.
Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, secretary-general of the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), is out on bail after two arrests in October for what officials called “security-related charges.”
But the SJS alleges that Ministry of Information representatives approached it with an offer to drop those charges on the condition that Mumin cease his media advocacy and avoid future criticism of authorities.
The SJS said the ministry also demanded that the association apologize and agree to abide by an October 8 directive banning the dissemination of content from al-Shabab. A ministry official denied that any such conversation took place.
Representatives were sent by Deputy Minister of Information Abdirahman Yusuf Adala to present the offer at a meeting Tuesday, according to SJS lawyer Abdirahman Osman and another media advocate, who were both present.
SJS president Mohamed Ibrahim, speaking with VOA about the conditions of the proposed deal, said the first one was “that Abdalle Ahmed Mumin keeps quiet, stops media advocacy and stop criticizing the government, while the second one was that [SJS and other media associations] should publish an apology regarding their joint statement against the directive of [the] Ministry of Information.” The statement warned that the directive risked putting journalists in danger and said al-Shabab might target journalists for siding with the government.
However, the deputy information minister denied such an offer was made. In a text message to VOA, Yusuf Adala said: “We have no information about what they are talking about. The case is in court and we [can do] nothing, no (other) choice.”
The head of the SJS believes that Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Barre and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud should hold officials from the Ministry of Information accountable for what he saw as an attempt to suppress the media and free speech.
“Today, knowing that the Constitution protects the freedom of expression and media independence, it is sad that today, the Constitution is violated and is intended to suppress the media,” Ibrahim said.
Perilous for journalists
Somalia is the most dangerous country in Africa for journalists, with militant attacks being the biggest threat, media watchdogs say.
Said Yusuf, a photographer with the European Pressphoto Agency, believes the government should do more to support the media.
“As journalists in Mogadishu,” Yusuf said, “we have been facing many challenges and suppressions. We need to get a conducive environment and we ask the government to ease the suppression so that we get the freedom to look for news, and we appeal for our right to have freedom of expression, which is an essential one.”
Somali officials say directives on media coverage are part of their efforts to fight al-Shabab. Journalists warn, however, that such an approach risks limiting editorial independence and could deny the public its right to know.
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Cotton Exporter Benin Tries Local Processing to Reduce Climate Emissions
As world leaders meet in Egypt to discuss ways to combat climate change, one possible solution is brewing across the continent in Benin. Benin has built an industrial park to move the country away from exporting raw materials to making finished products. If implemented on a larger scale, activists say, the trend would cut down on emissions from shipping that contribute to global warming.
Although still under construction, Arise IIP’s Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone is already processing cashew nuts and making clothes for Western markets.
Making finished products is new to Benin, Africa’s largest raw cotton exporter, and is providing jobs to locals like Marlene Keziklounon.
She said she enjoys working at the industrial park, which was unexpected because making garments is usually a cottage industry in Benin.
“I was always interested in tailoring, so it was a goal of mine to get involved when the park opened,” she said in French.
Economists said industrial parks will shape Africa’s future as it pivots from the export of raw materials and import of finished products to local production.
If the continent can develop its own manufacturing, that means more money for African economies and lower prices for end consumers.
Processing raw materials at home is also good for the planet, said Letondji Beheton, the industrial park’s chief executive officer.
“The raw cashew is processed here and instead of going to Vietnam and then back to the European market and the American market to be sold to the consumers,” Beheton said. “That alone is allowing us to reduce the carbon footprint. Then, you take cotton. Same thing.”
The World Bank said international shipping accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling climate change.
Activists agree that cutting shipments of African raw materials for overseas processing would help reduce the damage.
Faig Abbasov is with Transport and Environment, a campaign group working to shape the European Union’s green policy.
“We tend to produce raw material in one country, transport it to another to process and then ship them to a third country to sell the final product,” Abbasov said. “If we can get to an economy where raw materials are processed closer to the extraction point, we can cut down quite a lot of unnecessary emissions.”
While the overall impact of reduced shipping is a fraction of global emissions, supporters say African manufacturing still has a role to play in the fight against climate change.
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Botswana Records Surge in Lithium Batteries Theft as Global Demand Soars
Authorities in Botswana are reporting increased thefts of lithium batteries from mobile phone towers amid a surge in global demand for the battery in electric vehicles. The southern African nation’s biggest mobile network operator says it has lost more than $100,000 worth of lithium batteries in the past week alone.
Botswana police spokesperson Diteko Motube said most of the stolen batteries are being smuggled across the border to Zimbabwe.
Motube said five suspects from Zimbabwe and a Botswanan national were arrested this week while in possession of batteries worth more than $100,000.
The batteries were stolen from Botswana’s leading mobile network service provider, Mascom.
Company spokesperson Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego said the thefts are derailing their service delivery.
“This issue is certainly a crisis and it is affecting our quality of services ambitions,” said Lebotse-Sebego. “We are working closely with the relevant law enforcement offices and other administrators, including the community to find sustainable solutions to arrest the situation.”
Electric cars fuel demand
There is a surge in global demand for lithium batteries – and their components – due to their use in electric cars.
However, Zimbabwean-born UK based economic and political analyst Zenzo Moyo said the thefts in Botswana could be the result of the frequent power outages experienced in some southern African countries.
“It is not surprising that these lithium batteries are in high demand now mainly because of the load shedding that is being experienced in southern Africa especially in Zimbabwe and South Africa,” said Moyo.
Some households use lithium batteries for solar lighting, while light industries also rely on them.
Moyo said there is a huge market for the batteries in countries — such as Zimbabwe — that are turning to alternative energy sources.
“The economic hardships that Zimbabwe face cannot be used as an excuse for any kind of theft whether these are batteries or not,” he said. “If you look at the numbers that (the police) intercepted — these are huge numbers — it indicates that the people who were carrying these batteries are either runners or were selling them. There is a huge market for them understandably but the people that were carrying these batteries cannot be people who are starving but selling because there is a market.”
Demand greater than supply
Lithium’s price has risen 13-fold in the last two years, with global demand for the metal rapidly outpacing supply.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based price reporting agency, projects, that the lithium mining market will almost double in the next eight years to nearly $6.4 billion in 2030.
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World Cup Fans in Remote Cameroon Pool Funds to Watch
The World Cup men’s football championship kicks off in Qatar Sunday with fans in Africa keen to watch five teams from the continent competing for the title. Cameroon’s national team, the Indomitable Lions, one of Africa’s most celebrated, will join teams from Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, and the continent’s champion – Senegal.
Even poor and remote villages without electricity are pooling funds to buy TV sets and access power so they too can watch the World Cup.
The sound of a generator resonates in Ouli, a village near Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria that until this month, had no power.
The Village Development Committee hired 47-year-old electrical engineer Dymbia Maurice to install the generator.
But he said the goal wasn’t to provide the village with electricity, it was to power a television so residents can watch the World Cup football games in Qatar.
He said the generator will produce enough electricity for lights, radio, and TV sets to function, but warned if villagers overload the generator with too many appliances, fuel consumption will increase. Maurice said he has installed six generators in six villages for people to watch the World Cup matches.
Villager Ousmaila Ttoukour said they bought the equipment because they yearned to see Cameroon’s national team, nicknamed the Indomitable Lions, compete at the World Cup.
Ttoukour said every villager contributed the equivalent of at least $1 to buy the gear, which included a 107-centimeter (42-inch) TV set.
Ttoukour said the generator, TV and a radio were bought from neighboring Nigeria. He said some poor villagers sold their fowls and ducks to contribute so that no one misses watching the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Ttoukour added that some villagers who wanted to contribute more money even sold their goats.
But some Ouli villagers complained to a reporter that one TV set will not be enough for the community of more than 300 people to watch.
They also said they worried the 20-liters of petrol, also bought from neighboring Nigeria, may not power the generator the full month of football matches if villagers want to watch them all.
But there is good news for these football fans in remote Cameroon.
Thirty-four-year-old veterinary technician Florence Wanja recently returned to the village from Yaoundé with a second TV set for the community.
She also promised to supply more fuel should the generator need it.
Wanja said she wants to join her parents, friends, village notables, and her entire community in cheering Cameron’s national football team. She said they’ll cheer up until the moment the Indomitable Lions win the World Cup. If Cameroon does not win, Wanja hopes another African team lifts the trophy for the first time.
No African team has ever reached a World Cup semi-final.
Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions in 1990 became the first African team to qualify for the quarterfinals of the World Cup. They were joined more than a decade later by Ghana and Senegal.
Ouli village is one of many in remote Cameroon that is getting power for the first time thanks to the World Cup.
Several local councils say they installed extension cables to scores of villages.
And Cameroon’s government has instructed the state power company, Energy of Cameroon, to make sure power cuts are avoided during the matches.
Meanwhile in Ouli, youths blast Cameroon’s team song, “Go Lions and Lift the Trophy,” as they wait to watch the games in their village for the first time.
There are five African teams competing at the Qatar World Cup – Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.
Cameroon plays its first match against Switzerland on November 24.
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COP27: How China and Africa Fit in Debate Over ‘Loss and Damage’ Fund
At COP27, the United Nations climate change conference held in Egypt this month, China has figured prominently in a debate between Africa and Western nations over financial help to developing countries suffering the effects of climate change.
This year alone the African continent has seen deadly flooding in South Africa and the worst drought in years in the Horn of Africa.
African nations at COP27 are pushing hard for rich nations to pay climate compensation and contribute to a “loss and damage” fund.
In a joint statement, China, Brazil, India and South Africa accused rich nations of double standards for using fossil fuels while pushing developing countries to go green.
“The cold reality is that none of the high-income countries achieved ‘developed’ status under any carbon constraint, yet all the developing countries now need to find a new path to achieve high income [status] under the 1.5 degree target,” Wei Shen, a climate expert at Britain’s Institute of Development Studies, told VOA.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni posted on social media accusing the EU of “Western double standards,” pointing out that some European countries are going back to coal mining.
Since the war in Ukraine and without Russian gas, Germany has had to depend more on its own coal for energy to get through the winter.
Many African governments chafe at the fact that while the continent is responsible for about 3% of global emissions, they are being asked to phase out fossil fuels that some say are badly needed for development in a region where fewer than half the people have access to electricity.
Divisions over compensation
The U.S. has pushed for China — currently the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and consumer of coal — to be included in the group of nations responsible for such reparations. As the world’s second-largest economy, China should be made to pay its share, Washington says.
But while China says it supports developing countries in their quest for funds, it will not be contributing cash because — according to World Bank criteria — it’s a developing country too.
“At COP27, China’s Climate Envoy Xie [Zhenhua] mentioned that China doesn’t have any obligation to provide L&D funding, but the country is willing to support lower-income countries for L&D caused by climate change,” Lei Alice Bian, a fellow at the London School of Economics, told VOA.
“The U.S. attempt to position China as a developed country is really not going to fly in Africa because the African side accepts … that China should be treated as a developing country,” said Paul Nantulya, an analyst at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington.
That’s because the West is responsible for the “historical and cumulative” emissions from the industrial revolution that have caused the global warming that the world is experiencing today, he said.
While many developing nations blame the West for climate change, even saying China is also a victim, Ovigwe Eguegu, an analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined, told VOA: “It is widely accepted — even by Beijing — that China’s meteoric rise to world’s second-largest economy came at a cost to the environment.”
“China finds itself in a paradox,” Nantulya said.
“It’s the world’s largest emitter … however China has also emerged as the largest investor per capita in the world in clean energy.”
Green Silk Road
Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed at the U.N. last year that his country would no longer be financing new coal power abroad, with a focus instead on clean energy, although the road to green energy has some hurdles.
The Chinese-backed Special Economic Zone in Musina, South Africa, originally included a coal-fired power station.
“Initial plans to build a coal-fired power station have been put on hold. A 1000 MW solar plant is planned to supplement the energy mix requirements … with a Chinese investor,” Shavana Mushwana, a spokesperson for the zone, told VOA by email.
However, Patrick Bond, a political economist at the University of Johannesburg, said even without the new coal power plant, the development will be a polluter, noting “there’s a huge asterisk there … since the additional power required to run such vast smelters and industrial facilities can’t come from some small-scale solar installations,” so the Special Economic Zone will still need to tap into South Africa’s excessively stretched grid.
Still, the change is indicative of what some analysts say is China’s diversifying Belt and Road Initiative in Africa — away from a focus on large infrastructure projects such as ports and railways and toward investment in green energy like solar, wind and hydropower.
Evidence of China’s “Green Silk Road” can be seen throughout the continent. In energy-strapped South Africa, a Chinese company has set up the De Aar wind farm in the Northern Cape. In Kenya, China funded a 15-megawatt solar power plant in Garissa, and in the Central African Republic, a Chinese-built solar plant completed this year provides about 30% of the capital city’s power.
“In September 2021, the Chinese president announced at the U.N. General Assembly that China was going to stop the investment into coal, into projects abroad, and they’re going to be investing a lot more into clean energy,” Tony Tiyou, CEO of the consultancy Renewables in Africa, told VOA. “They’ve actually followed up on that.”
Fifteen Chinese-backed coal projects have since been canceled, though others that were already in the construction stage are ongoing, Nantulya said.
He added that China’s banks “were very quick to respond to the change in policy. Exim Bank, for instance, issued $425 million in green bonds that were earmarked for clean energy investment.”
China invested $380 billion in clean energy in 2021, more than any other country, and accounts for nearly half of the world’s renewable energy investments.
“China is serious in engaging Africa’s renewable energy market,” Wei said.
Accusations of hypocrisy
Analysts noted Beijing’s focus on green energy comes after numerous previous cases of projects in Africa in which environmentalists have accused Chinese companies of polluting the environment and damaging wildlife habitats with their mining operations and infrastructure projects.
Even currently, China is involved in a contentious crude oil pipeline project along with Uganda, Tanzania and a French company. That’s despite opposition from the European Union, which worries the pipeline will harm the climate and environment.
Uganda’s Museveni slammed the EU for trying to intervene. Museveni is among a number of African politicians who regularly rail against what they see as Western lecturing and hypocrisy on climate change, arguing use of fossil fuels is what made the West rich and caused the climate crisis.
Rich countries, however, are divided on climate compensation.
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African Cotton Exporter Benin Looks to Local Manufacturing to Reduce Emissions
Africa’s biggest cotton exporter, Benin, has built an industrial park to move the country away from raw exports to finished products. Environmental activists say local manufacturing will also cut down on emissions from shipping that contribute to climate change. Henry Wilkins reports from Djigbé, Benin.
Camera: Henry Wilkins Video Editor: Henry Wilkins
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African Women Entrepreneurs Call for Support of Africa Free Trade
African women entrepreneurs from 35 countries have called for more support from lenders and governments to help them benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area. Meeting in Cameroon’s capital for the U.N.-sponsored African Women Entrepreneur Forum, the women say their businesses are mostly small, informal, and suffer discrimination.
More than 200 women from 35 countries are meeting in Yaounde for the second African Women Entrepreneurs Forum under the theme, “Female Entrepreneurs, Challenges and Opportunities.”
The African Continental Free Trade Area that started in 2021 brought great hope that a market of 1.2 billion people would boost women-run businesses and reduce poverty.
But while Africa’s women entrepreneurs still see opportunities, they also face many challenges.
Former Interim President of the Central African Republic Catherine Samba-Panza spoke Wednesday night at the forum.
She said many women are missing out on the opportunities of trade integration because their small businesses have low productivity and get little or no funding from governments and lenders.
Panza says as CAR’s former president and an African female leader she wants African governments and funding agencies to know that a majority of Africa’s 30% of women entrepreneurs need assistance. She says the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disruptions, persistent armed conflicts in Africa and Russia’s war in Ukraine are affecting most female-owned businesses.
Panza added that many female businesses in the C.A.R., Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria have been forced to close because of armed conflicts.
Women entrepreneurs say they often face harassment and discrimination in Africa’s male-dominated trade.
Niger’s director for the promotion of rural enterprises Bissso Nakatuma led a 15-member delegation to the three-day Yaoundé forum.
She says women who want to export their farm produce and benefit from opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area are targeted by customs and police officers who want bribes. Nakatuma says women are forced to depend on their families and communities to fund their businesses because banks refuse to give loans to female investors.
The forum demanded a stop to discriminatory practices against women entrepreneurs. It also called for more access to financing for women-led businesses, including export credits and guarantees.
Achilles Bassilekin is Cameroon’s Minister of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. He says Africa’s economic ministers are committed to solving the challenges for women that were raised at the forum.
“I am convinced that women entrepreneurs from various countries of Africa will go back to their respective countries with a clearer vision, a clearer picture of what the continental FTA [Free Trade Area] is about and how they can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, which happens to be the [African] Continental Free Trade Area,” said Bassilekin.
Despite the challenges, the forum said female entrepreneurs this year contributed an estimated $350 billion to Africa’s economic growth, about 13% of the continent’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.
The U.N. says the female economy is the world’s largest emerging market with the potential to add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025.
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UN Commissioner Urges Respect for Human Rights in Sudan’s Democratic Transition
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on a visit to Sudan has urged authorities to respect human rights as a core of the country’s transition to democracy. At the end of his four-day visit to Sudan, Volker Tuerk said justice and accountability must be expedited for victims and survivors of rights violations.
The U.N. rights chief said his office has documented serious human rights violations in Sudan in the last few years and yet no one has ever been held accountable.
Speaking at a press conference late Wednesday in Khartoum, Tuerk also cited more recent excessive use of force against protesters in Khartoum.
He said since the military coup in October last year, the use of live ammunition by security forces against pro-democracy protesters killed at least 119 people and injured more than 8,000 others.
Tuerk said his office also has verified 19 cases of sexual and gender-based violence, most of them committed by Sudanese police during the protests.
He said there were likely more that go unreported due to social stigma, lack of faith in Sudan’s justice system, and fear of reprisals.
“We have, over the years, documented violations by all security forces and by many armed actors, and it is really important to follow up on this and that is why we have established a very close cooperation in order to ensure that the national action plan for the protection of civilians gets implemented,” he said.
Tuerk said rights activists and internally displaced people in the Darfur region reported widespread impunity for rights abuses, including by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.
The U.N. rights chief said his office documented 11 large-scale clashes that left more than 1,000 people dead since January 2021.
He called on all sides involved in Sudan’s political process to work toward prompt restoration of civilian rule and stressed the need for accountability and justice.
“In my discussions with the authorities, I consistently highlighted the need for trust building measures to earn the confidence of the people,” he said. “I stressed an important point that the respect for human rights builds trust.”
Human Rights Watch researcher Mohammed Osman said the U.N. rights chief’s trip to Sudan came at a crucial time as the political transition seems stuck behind closed doors.
Osman said such a political process is likely to lack inclusivity and transparency, and most importantly, about justice and accountability for the victims of scores of violations that happened in the past.
“Quite crucial, to be honest to see the situation being placed under rights focused scrutiny that would not allow the dynamics of political experience and convenience that surrounded the previous transition and still surrounding the reported negotiations in Sudan to prevail,” Osman said.
Tuerk met late Wednesday with the head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council and military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Speaking shortly after that meeting, the head of Human Rights department at the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, Essam Mutwali, said the government was committed to respect for human rights.
Mutwali said authorities were working to expedite the political process to restore Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government.
He said during the meeting with the Tuerk, al-Burhan expressed a readiness to cooperate with the international community.
Mutwali said al-Burhan is keen and committed to all the international and regional treaties that Sudan has ratified. Most importantly, he said, those that respect human rights.
Sudan’s army chief al-Burhan led a military coup in October last year that ousted the civilian bloc from a power-sharing transitional government.
The coup was widely condemned, cut off Sudan from international financing, and sparked near-weekly street protests against military rule and in support of democracy.
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Top Ugandan Rights Groups File Case Against Internet Law
A coalition of leading Ugandan rights groups and lawyers on Thursday filed a court challenge to a controversial new internet law, which they say is aimed at curbing free speech and targeting government opponents.
The amendment to the Computer Misuse Act, signed into law by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last month, has been criticized by Amnesty International, which has called for the “draconian” legislation to be scrapped.
Nine rights groups, a former leader of the opposition in parliament and three prominent lawyers lodged the petition at the Constitutional Court on Thursday — the second court challenge to the law.
The petitioners — which include Chapter Four, Uganda’s most prominent rights group — say the law regulates online behavior in a “vague and ambiguous manner.”
Chapter Four’s acting Executive Director, Anthony Masake, told AFP that the new law’s “strict and vague authorization standards” mean that journalists will never know when they are crossing a line by collecting information on people they are reporting on.
“We know that offenses like ‘offensive communication’ have been effectively used to silence dissent and target people expressing politically sensitive views or pushing for government accountability,” he said.
Amnesty has noted that the new legislation contains some useful provisions such as the right to privacy and responsible coverage of children but added that “it introduces punitive penalties for anyone accused of so-called hate speech.”
People convicted under the law are barred from holding public office for 10 years, which Amnesty warned was a way of reinforcing state control over online freedom of expression, including by political opposition groups.
Offenders also face fines of up to 15 million Ugandan shillings (about $3,900) and prison terms of up to seven years.
Uganda has seen a series of crackdowns on those opposed to Museveni’s rule, particularly around the 2021 election, with journalists attacked, lawyers jailed, vote monitors prosecuted, the internet shut down and opposition leaders violently muzzled.
Legal experts have warned that the law will be used to target government critics who are already operating in a shrinking civic space.
Thirteen petitioners, including an online TV station, lodged the first court challenge against the law last month, but no date has been set yet for the hearing.
One of the petitioners, Norman Tumuhimbise, works for Digital TV, which in March this year was raided by security agents. Nine of its staff, including Tumuhimbise, were arrested and charged with computer misuse and spreading false information.
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Tourists Canceling Trips to Uganda Over Ebola Fears
Uganda’s tourism sector is once again being hit by effects from a deadly disease.
In 2021, it was the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, it’s the Ebola outbreak, with 141 confirmed cases and 55 deaths.
President Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday in his address to Ugandans that he had been informed that tourists are canceling trips to the country and some had postponed hotel bookings.
This comes as the outbreak has spread to a sixth district of Jinja in Eastern Uganda, a favorite destination for tourists.
“This is most unfortunate and not necessary. As you have seen, Ebola, if you follow the guidelines, it will not get you. Uganda remains safe and we welcome international guests,” Museveni said.
He also said lists of Ebola contacts are being provided to immigration officials to prevent the virus from spreading outside the country.
December is usually one of the peak months for Uganda’s tourism industry.
Scovia Kyarisima, executive director of Legends Gorilla Tours, a company that provides wildlife experiences for visitors, told VOA that several tourists have postponed their visits.
“I’ve had so far five cancellations from online tourists,” she said. “And they have pushed it to June next year. They don’t say we are not going to come anymore. But they say, considering the situation that is on today, let’s push this to next year.”
Before the pandemic, Uganda was getting a little over 600,000 tourists each year. That number nosedived to about 200,000 when COVID-19 hit in 2020, costing many Ugandans their jobs.
Gessa Simplicious, public relations officer for the Uganda Tourism Board, said that in between the pandemic and the Ebola outbreak, the tourism industry was slowly climbing out of its downturn.
He said industry operators, some of whom borrowed heavily to revamp their facilities, are now facing a crunch as tourism dries up again, while other wildlife destinations like Kenya and Tanzania remain unaffected by the Ebola outbreak.
“And you see this Ebola is only isolating us as a country. So, it means, tourists can go elsewhere for the same thing and omit Uganda,” Simplicious said.
The government has tightened measures in two of the most Ebola-hit districts of Mubende and Kasanda by extending a lockdown for another 21 days. It is also banning citizens from seeking treatment from traditional healers and trying to limit individuals’ movement in and out of the districts.
your ad hereBeing Black in Tunisia
Growing up in a working-class Tunis neighborhood, Zied Rouine didn’t think much about his skin color. Not when children insulted him at school, or when his football teammates nicknamed him Pele, after Brazil’s dark-skinned football legend.
His athletic skills and the fierce protection of his lighter-skinned brother from persecutors were tickets to acceptance. Only years later, while attending an international forum on discrimination, did Rouine realize that something was wrong.
“It was the first time I was around a group of Blacks. And honestly, it was the first time I heard someone talking about racial discrimination in Tunisia,” Rouine, now 33, recalls. “At the time, I was in denial, believing we don’t have any racism in Tunisia.”
Even among the Black people in Tunisia, or elsewhere in the Arab world, such responses aren’t surprising, according to a recent survey on discrimination in 10 countries or regions across the Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, Tunisia and Mauritania.
Published in October by Arab Barometer, a nonpartisan resource for research on the Middle East, the survey found that while most respondents considered discrimination a problem, only a minority believed prejudice against Black people was an issue.
Tunisia is a rare standout in the Middle East and North Africa to consider racism a problem. In 2018, it became the only country in the region to pass a law criminalizing racial discrimination. Yet even in Tunisia, many rights activists say there has been little progress in turning legislation into reality.
“To me, there’s no change,” says Kenza Ben Azouz, who researches discrimination in Tunisia. “We don’t talk about race. We don’t have data based on race. We don’t want to acknowledge it.”
Multiethnic community
Views on race in Tunisia are complicated, shaped by family values, geography and origin, experts say. The country’s Black community is also diverse, counting Tunisians as well as migrants and students from sub-Saharan Africa. The different groups rarely interact, members say, beyond sometimes living in the same neighborhoods.
“Black Tunisians consider themselves superior to sub-Saharan Africans, and they don’t like to be compared,” says Rouine, general coordinator at the Mnemty (My Dream) anti-discrimination association.
Rouine describes growing up with a Black father and a “white” mother. In Tunisia, people are of various skin colorations, from fair to dark.
“There was complete diversity in my family. We just loved each other,” Rouine says. “We didn’t talk about color, or why my brother was light skinned and I was not.”
Surprisingly, it was his father’s family who had the most misgivings about the interracial marriage.
“They would say, ‘Never make your father’s mistake of marrying a white woman.’ They never accepted Mom,” Rouine recalls of his Black relatives.
In a box
Roughly 10% to 15% of Tunisians are Black, many of them descended from slaves, analysts say. While Tunisia became the first Arab country to ban slavery in the 19th century, its legacy remains tangled in Arabic slurs that refer to Black people as slaves and in complicated community relationships, especially in the south.
Reem Garfi’s maternal relatives came from Sudan, although it is unclear how and when they arrived in Tunisia, she says. Her father’s fair-skinned family wanted nothing to do with her parents’ marriage. When her mother got pregnant, things only got worse.
“My paternal grandmother used the ‘N’ word in Tunisian Arabic,” says Garfi, now 25 and a freelance translator. “She said she couldn’t believe my mother would give birth to a monkey.”
Like Rouine, Garfi was teased growing up. Even today, people still wonder about her racial identity.
“When people see me, they can’t put their finger on it,” says Garfi, who has light skin and curly hair. “Only when they see my mother do they connect the dots and put me in a box.”
As in other Arab countries, few Black Tunisians hold top jobs in the media, government, or the private sector. When a Black journalist was tapped as a weather reporter on state TV a few years ago, he told local media he felt a “responsibility” to stand up also against racism.
Tunisia’s Law 50 aimed to do just that. Passed after years of campaigning, the 2018 legislation sets prison sentences of up to three years and maximum fines of nearly $1,000 for those found guilty of racial discrimination.
The law also reflects changing mindsets. Today, more than six in 10 Tunisians agree that racism is a problem, according to the Arab Barometer survey, compared to just 6% of Egyptians, for example.
But few racial discrimination cases have been filed, nor has Tunisia developed a national strategy or action plan to fight racism, rights experts say.
Jamila Ksiksi, Tunisia’s first Black member of parliament and a member of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party, says this year’s dissolution of Tunisia’s National Assembly by authoritarian President Kais Saied has removed another key check.
“The Tunisian people have no voice without a parliament,” Ksiski told the BBC recently, noting the now-dismissed legislators can no longer flag reports of alleged racism to authorities or monitor government efforts to address them.
Tunisian authorities did not respond to a VOA request for comment. But a lawmaker close to Saied’s government told the BBC the judicial system continues to apply the anti-racism law.
Mobilizing grassroots action and solidarity against racism, including by Black people themselves, also appears challenging.
Rouine says that Mnemty held a single Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 that garnered only a few hundred people.
“Black Tunisians have been trying to integrate essentially through silence,” says researcher Ben Azouz, echoing other observers like Rouine. “It’s extremely difficult to get them to acknowledge any difference between them and white Tunisians, and they don’t want to be compared to the migrant community.”
Sub-Saharans are frequent targets
A recent Sunday market in La Marsa outside of Tunis offered a snapshot of Tunisia’s multiethnic reality. Congolese traders plied cheap watches; Ivorians and Tunisians plowed through piles of secondhand clothes.
But for the tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans living around Tunis and elsewhere in the country — some studying, and others working in low-paying jobs— the boisterous interaction ends there.
“Life is less expensive here,” says Ivorian immigrant Serge Kakou, who helped start Maghreb Ivoire TV, an online TV channel. “But there are lots of attacks, and especially sub-Saharans aren’t protected here.”
Rights groups say women are especially vulnerable to sexual insults and acts, and Black Tunisian women are also targeted.
Earlier this year, dozens of migrants staged a monthslong sit-in in front of the United Nations Refugee Agency’s Tunis office protesting racist acts they endured and demanding to be relocated to another country. The protests ended after the agency relocated them to what it described as “safe shelters.”
University student Christian Kwongang from Cameroon says he and other sub-Saharan Africans studying in Tunisia are also frequent targets of racism. They have little or no interaction with migrants or with Black Tunisians, he says.
“We always have to be really careful about when and where we go out,” adds Kwongang, who heads the executive board of the Tunisian Association of Sub-Saharan Students (AESAT), which represents some 8,000 African students and interns in Tunisia. “It’s a reflection we all develop because things can go bad at any moment.”
He described multiple attacks targeting AESAT members, including a machete assault on Nigerian students in southern Tunisia as they returned home from the mosque. They suffered hand and foot injuries, but survived, Kwongang says.
Reporting such incidents to the police can be complicated, Kwongang says.
“Sometimes, they take really long to respond, or make you go around in circles to file charges,” he says. “The first thing they’ll ask for is your papers.”
Over his six years studying mechanical engineering in Tunis, Kwongang has seen little change in attitudes, including since Law 50 was passed. But along with discrimination, he also describes rare acts of support and kindness.
After a long struggle, he landed an internship with a Tunisian business, where he was treated “very, very well.”
“When you’re around people who have traveled, who have an open mind, you’re treated like everyone else,” he says.
For his part, Rouine believes time may change mindsets more powerfully, perhaps, than legislation.
“There is another Tunisia now, without the traditions,” he says. “Young people are open to the world. I think the issue of discrimination will change.”
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Climate Change Fueled Rains Behind Deadly Nigeria Floods, Study Finds
Heavy rains behind floods that killed more than 600 people in Nigeria this year were about 80 times likelier because of human-induced climate change, scientists reported Wednesday.
The floods mainly struck Nigeria but also Niger, Chad and neighboring countries, displacing more than 1.4 million people and devastating homes and farmland in a region already vulnerable to food insecurity.
Researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium said in a study that the floods, among the deadliest on record in the region, were directly linked to human activity that is exacerbating climate change.
They matched long-term data on climate, which shows the planet has warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius since 1800 as carbon emissions have risen, against weather events.
The heavy rainfall that sparked the floods was 80 times more likely because of “human-caused climate change,” according to their findings.
In addition, “this year’s rainy season was 20% wetter than it would have been without the influence of climate change,” they said.
“The influence of climate change means the prolonged rain that led to the floods is no longer a rare event,” the study found.
“The above-average rain over the wet season now has approximately a 1 in 10 chance of happening each year; without human activities it would have been an extremely rare event.”
More than 600 people were killed in Nigeria alone because of the floods from June to October this year, and nearly 200 in Niger and 22 in Chad.
The report comes as COP27 climate talks are under way in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, where developing nations are demanding rich polluters pay for climate-change linked calamities.
Africa is home to some of the countries least responsible for carbon emissions but hardest hit by an onslaught of weather extremes, with the Horn of Africa currently in the grips of a severe drought.
“This is a real and present problem, and it’s particularly the poorest countries that are getting hit very hard. So it’s clear that solutions are needed,” Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said at a WWA press conference.
The WWA publishes rapid-response reports following extreme climate events.
Their studies are not peer-reviewed, a process that can take months, but are widely backed by scientists.
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Somalia Fights Back Against Al-Shabab Attack on Education Sector
The Somali government said it plans to reopen schools in territories recently recovered from militant group al-Shabab.
Education Minister Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir says his ministry has a plan to take education to the areas seized by the government and local forces.
Somali security forces supported by local clan militias have been dislodging al-Shabab from towns and villages in central Somalia since August.
“The Somali people have risen up in support of their government, a sizable land has been liberated; we are going to reopen the schools, we are going to take the curriculum there, and we are going to send teachers there,” Abdulkadir said in an interview with VOA Somali. “The government will utilize all of its power to provide education service to the people who have not had regular or proper education for a long time.”
He said the government already sent school supplies to Hirshabelle State, which was a focal point for the offensive against the militants.
Abdulkadir said only 24% of Somalis currently have opportunity to access education.
“They [al-Shabab] have taken advantage of this lack of knowledge and ignorance, and God willing; we are going to put a lot of effort into that to change,” he said.
The minister’s pledge to revive education in areas captured from al-Shabab is not a coincidence. It comes nearly three weeks after two consecutive al-Shabab bombs targeted the Ministry of Education in Mogadishu, killing 121 people and injuring more than 330 others.
On the day of the attack, the Ministry was issuing high school certificates to some of the 35,000 secondary students who took the national exam.
After the explosions, a senior al-Shabab official, Mahad Karate, who had his bounty increased by the U.S. on Monday to $10 million, launched a stinging verbal attack on the Ministry of Education.
“Some people are asking themselves why the Ministry of Education was attacked, we say this ministry was the center for dozens of projects intended to undermine Islam,” he said in an audio published by al-Shabab media. “It’s used by the enemy for the psychological warfare against the Somali Muslims; it’s fighting Islamic curriculums and is used for spreading misguided curriculums brought in by the infidels.”
Karate, whose real name is Mahad Warsame Qaley, also accused the Ministry of Education of helping to recruit Somali students into the national army.
Al-Shabab has targeted education institutions and students for years. In a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony on December 3, 2009, a bomber killed 26 people including graduates, teachers and four government ministers. On October 4, 2011, al-Shabab detonated a suicide truck bomb as hundreds of students lined up seeking scholarships from Turkey, killing more than 100 people, most of them students.
In addition, the group has warned students and schools not to take part in government-sponsored exams. In October 2018, al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Dhere told private schools to “beware” of having relationships with the federal government.
Al-Shabab has also been trying to influence the curriculum, going so far as to introduce its own curriculum for primary schools in April 2017 and middle schools in June 2021.
The group has run its own schools to teach the curriculum in areas it controls.
“Conditions for admission is there should be at least 70 students in each institution, between 13 and 25 years of age, unmarried. Clans pay institution expenses; al-Shabab provides the teachers,” said former Al-Shabab education official Ibrahim Nadara.
He said at the end of two-year education period, the top 10 students are entered into a special institute for higher education; the remaining 90 are taken straight into al-Shabab training camps.
Nadara said al-Shabab recruits hundreds of fighters from these institutions.
“It’s the only never-ending recruitment factory,” he said.
Abdulkadir said the threats from al-Shabab “fell on deaf ears” as the government went ahead in developing its own curriculum. In 2018, it completed the primary and middle school curriculum, and in 2020 succeeded in completing the same for high schoolers.
He dismissed al-Shabab claims of foreign involvement in the government curriculum and criticized al-Shabab’s curriculum, which he said instructs children to carry out killings and explosions.
“It’s teaching people savagery,” he said.
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UN Says Nigeria’s Development Unsustainable, Urges Family Planning
The United Nations’ 27th edition of the world population prospects indicator passed 8 billion on Tuesday — 11 years after it passed 7 billion.
The United Nations Population Fund, also known as UNFPA, marked the milestone at a conference in Abuja alongside development partners, including women’s groups and nonprofits.
Officials said the population growth, despite generally declining global fertility rates, is a result of improvements in medicine and public health leading to reduced mortality rates.
The U.N. said about 70 percent of the growth is in low and lower middle-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
The U.N. estimates that countries in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to grow and contribute more than half of the global population by 2050.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and currently occupies the sixth position globally. By 2050, the country is expected to become the third most-populated nation in the world.
‘An opportunity for the global community’
Population growth must correspond with economic growth and development, said Erika Goldson, the deputy country representative for Nigeria at the UNFPA.
“One of the things that concerns us as the U.N. is that this progress is not received equally across board,” said Goldson. “There are some citizens within countries who are denied access to basic healthcare, education, the whole overall quality of life is affected negatively. We see this as an opportunity for the global community to come together to see that 8 billion of us have quality life.”
The U.N. predicts it will take another 15 years to reach the 9 billion global population mark, and that low and lower middle-income countries such as Nigeria will account for 90 percent of the increase.
Demand grows for natural resources
Aminu Zakari, founder of the Center for Climate Change and one of the conference speakers, said authorities need to monitor how population growth impacts climate change.
“As this population increases, the quest for natural resources increases,” said Zakari. “I think we also need to start looking at our carbon footprint.”
Fertility rates have been declining steadily in Nigeria from 5.84 births per woman in 2010 to 5.25 in 2020, according to Statista. But that’s still high compared to the global average.
Nigeria is struggling to meet modern needs for contraception. Experts say the government needs $35 million annually to address family planning needs.
Earlier this year, President Muhammadu Buhari launched legislation targeting high fertility rates by expanding access to birth control.
The U.N. said government action to reduce fertility would do little to slow the pace of growth over the next fifty years but might cause an overall reduction in population in the coming half century.
In 2020, the global growth rate fell to under 1 percent per year for the first time since 1950.
U.N. officials and experts say unless fertility and rapid population growth rates are accompanied by sustainable economic growth and development, many people will continue to face challenges.
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Namibia Restores Chinese Company’s Export Permit Despite Bribery Probe
Namibia has restored a Chinese company’s lithium export permit despite an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption.
Namibia’s mining authority in October banned Xinfeng Investments from exporting lithium ore until the investigation by Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission was finished. The company is accused of buying a mining license from a man who had acquired it illegally while the true owner was hospitalized with a brain injury.
Now, Namibian mining authorities have backtracked on the decision to cancel the permit. The public relations officer at the Ministry of Mines and Energy told VOA that the latest decision was necessitated by the fact Xinfeng already had a vessel en route to Walvis Bay, Namibia’s harbor town, before the export permit was canceled.
“The company will thus be allowed to transport crushed ore to Walvis Bay to export 55,000 tons as per contractual agreement for the industrial testing, which will inform whether to set up a processing plant at the mine,” the officer said.
Lithium is used in the manufacture of electric batteries and related products.
Anti-Corruption Commission spokesperson Josefina Nghituwamata told VOA the ACC was investigating allegations of bribery and corruption against certain Ministry of Mines and Energy personnel but was not in a position to reveal their names.
“The investigations in this particular case have begun,” Nghituwamata said. “At this moment in time, the ACC is not able to name any potential persons of interest or any entity. The investigation is basically focused on the complaint as it has been received.”
According to the complaint, a Namibian company, Orange River Mining, allegedly applied for and received rights to a mining area that was owned by a man hospitalized because of a car accident. The rights were granted to Orange River’s owner, Peter Shifwaku, who immediately sold them to Xinfeng Investments for a reported $3 million.
Several officials, including the former commissioner of mines and current minister of mines and energy, have been accused of taking bribes to facilitate the transfer of the license.
One of the accused is Ralph Muyamba, a cousin of Shifwaku and a former technical adviser to the minister of mines and energy. Muyamba told VOA that his cousin did benefit from a mining license issued by the ministry and came into a large sum of money as a result.
But Muyamba said he played no influential role in the process as he does not sit on the committee that recommends mining rights and licenses for allocation by the minister.
“The gentleman applied, it went to the committee; the committee assessed and recommended for granting, which came to the minister for approval, so the decision to grant the rights came from the committee,” Muyamba said. “I am not a member of the committee. How was I supposed to influence a number of seven people? Unfortunately, what happened is that it turned out to be my cousin.”
The Chinese lithium permit investigation was given as the reason for the removal of Erasmus Shivolo as mining commissioner and Muyamba’s abrupt resignation last month.
Mining remains the single biggest contributor to Namibia’s gross domestic product and accounts for about 8 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.
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