News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Travelling to Zim? Take with loads of cash

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 10:55 PM PDT

Zimbabwe, which has not had its own currency since 2009, has been hit by the shortage of its main circulation currency - the US dollar since March.

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Harare - The British government on Wednesday warned its citizens who intend to travel to Zimbabwe to carry enough money due to acute cash shortages being experienced in the southern African nation.

“You should make sure you have sufficient funds in US dollar notes for your visit or check with your tour operator that card payments will be accepted,” said an updated travel advisory issued by the British embassy in Harare.

Zimbabwe, which does not have its own currency since 2009, has been hit by the shortage of its main circulation currency - the US dollar since March, prompting authorities to limit bank withdrawals.

Currently, banks are limiting allowing withdrawals of between 100-300 US dollars per day, but customers may have to queue for hours to get cash.

The use of credit cards, travellers' cheques, and other payments, on the other hand, is not all the time guaranteed, as Zimbabwe remains a “cash-based” economy.

The British government said while credit and debit cards were increasing in circulation, British citizens needed to check in advance if a restaurant or hotel would accept them, especially outside of the capital Harare.

The warning on cash shortages comes at a time when the tourism sector has signaled that the cash crunch was beginning to impact negatively on the sector that counts Britain as one of the country's major tourist source markets.

“Right now people can't access their cash. If people cannot access money then it affects tourism in that they cannot even use the money to go for holidays,” Zimbabwe Council for Tourism President Paul Matamisa was quoted as saying in the local media.

Last week, a leading safari company in the country advised foreign tourists to bring cash with them in the wake of the cash shortages.

“With the recent cash shortage in the country and the possible introduction of bond notes, our guests are advised to travel with cash in small denominations so as to avoid disappointment and unnecessary headaches,” said Amalinda Collection, which runs some luxury lodges in Matabeleland region.

Zimbabwe is endowed with rich tourist resources, not least than the Victoria Falls which it shares with Zambia.

The 1.7km long waterfalls is one of the world's most grandiose waterfalls, on a par with the Niagara Falls on the borders of the United States and Canada.

However, the tourist arrival to Zimbabwe remained low in recent years, receiving merely 1 million tourists annually, due to poor air links, bad publicity, inadequate tourism infrastructure, and etc.

Xinhua

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Yellow fever reported in Congo

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 12:54 PM PDT

A new case of yellow fever has been detected in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation said.

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Kinshasa - A new case of yellow fever has been detected in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

The case, confirmed this week after testing by the Pasteur Institute in Dakar and the National Institute of Biomedical Research, originated from a local mosquito, said the WHO's Eugene Kabambi, and therefore was not an imported case from neighbouring Angola.

Reuters

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Six children die during baptism ceremony in Zim

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 10:45 AM PDT

Six children from the same family died during a baptism ceremony near Sadza, a town about 150 kilometres south-east of the capital Harare.

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Sadza, Zimbabwe - Six children from the same family died during a baptism ceremony near Sadza, a town about 150 kilometres south-east of the capital Harare, Zimbabwe police confirmed on Wednesday.

National police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba, confirmed the incident which took place on Tuesday and said two suspects - Maud Dzvuke, 30, and Jane Ruvinga, 34, who were reportedly in charge of the baptism ceremony - had been arrested.

She said the two had taken nine children to a nearby stream for the baptism ceremony.

“During baptism, one of the juveniles, aged four years, ran away from the stream and met another one. Both were shivering due to the coldness,” Charamba said.

She said the two were in a critical condition in hospital.

A source, who did not wish to be named, said: “They were baptising eight children from the same family. Each time the children were immersed in water, they came out shivering. But the women would say the children were possessed by demons.

“These children should have all died, but only two managed to get quick help and were taken to hospital. That’s how they got saved. The other ones were not so lucky. They didn’t make it.”

The children who died were two boys and four girls, aged between one and nine. They were Tafadzwa Dzvuke, 5, Tinotenda Dzvuke, 3, Shamiso Pfumbidza, 4, Patience Pfumbidza, 9, Blessed Muvadi, 12 months, and Emmanuel Dzvuke, 7.

After the incident, their bodies were taken to a homestead nearby where attempts were made to resuscitate them, but to no avail.

African News Agency

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Sudans leaders call for SA-style TRC

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 06:05 AM PDT

The newly-reconciled leaders of South Sudan have called for a SA-style truth commission to heal the scars of a gruesome war.

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Juba - The newly-reconciled leaders of South Sudan have called for a South Africa-style truth commission to heal the scars of a gruesome war in the world's youngest nation.

President Salva Kiir and the newly-appointed vice president, Riek Machar, a former foe, said in a joint piece in The New York Times they were committed to ensuring South Sudan never again goes through a civil war.

“Bringing South Sudan together can be truly guaranteed only through one route: an organised peace and reconciliation process with international backing,” they wrote on Tuesday.

“We intend to create a national truth and reconciliation commission modelled on those of South Africa and Northern Ireland,” they said, ruling out punitive action for past misdeeds.

“Disciplinary justice - even if delivered under international law - would destabilise efforts to unite our nation by keeping alive anger and hatred among the people of South Sudan,” they said.

After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan erupted into civil war in December 2013, when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup and sacked him as vice-president.

That set off a cycle of retaliatory killings that split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million have been driven from their homes.

The conflict has been characterised by horrific rights abuses, including gang rapes, the wholesale burning of villages and cannibalism.

The United States is pushing for the rapid creation of a special court backed by the African Union to try war crimes suspects.

The creation of the hybrid court and a separate truth and reconciliation commission was a key provision of a peace accord signed by Machar and Kiir in August last year.

But that failed to stop the fighting. In February, Kiir named Machar as his vice-president once again and Machar entered the capital Juba in May, finally paving the way for a unity government.

Kiir and Machar said the truth and reconciliation commission would have sweeping powers and be able to investigate everybody from “the poorest farmer to the most powerful politician”.

“Those who tell the truth about what they saw or did would be granted amnesty from prosecution -- even if they did not express remorse,” they said.

The two leaders said the conflict had left “South Sudan with one of the highest levels of military spending by gross domestic product in the world.”

To add to its woes, South Sudan's oil production virtually ground to a halt during the civil war after Kiir dismissed Machar as his vice president in December 2013.

AFP

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‘Bomb threat’ forces EgyptAir plane to land

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 03:44 AM PDT

An EgyptAir passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan after receiving “a false bomb threat”.

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Moscow/ Cairo - An EgyptAir passenger plane, en route from Cairo to Beijing, was forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan on Wednesday after receiving what two Egyptian aviation sources said was a false bomb threat.

All 118 passengers and 17 crew members on board the Airbus A-330-220 plane were safely evacuated, Uzbek state carrier Uzbekistan Airways said in a statement.

There was no statement from EgyptAir or official confirmation that the threat was a hoax.

The plane landed in Urgench, in western Uzbekistan, after EgyptAir received a call saying there was a bomb on board, two Egyptian aviation sources said. The plane was then searched, but no explosives were found, they said.

“The plane is preparing to resume its journey. It was a hoax, thank God,” said one of the officials.

An EgyptAir Airbus-320 jet, en route from Paris to Cairo, crashed in the Mediterranean last month, killing all 66 people on board. An investigation to determine why and exactly where it crashed continues.

EgyptAir has received a number of bomb threats since then, all of which have turned out to be hoaxes.

Reuters

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Thousands flee Boko Haram attacks

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 03:44 AM PDT

Tens of thousands fled their homes in south-east Niger following attacks by Boko Haram insurgents on the town of Bosso, the UNHCR said.

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Kampala - Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in south-east Niger following near back-to-back attacks since this past Friday by Boko Haram insurgents on the town of Bosso in the troubled Diffa region, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

“As of this morning, the situation in Bosso is unclear,” spokesperson Adrian Edwards of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the regular bi-weekly news briefing in Geneva, recalling that UNHCR had warned this past month that the security and humanitarian situation was worsening in the Diffa region.

“We have not been working directly in Bosso since February 2015, when the insurgency spread from Nigeria to Niger, but we operate through local implementing partners to deliver help,” he added.

The attacks occurred on June 3, June 5, and June 6.

Edwards said that UNHCR is working with authorities and partners on a coordinated response to the displacement, and that an emergency team will be deployed to the Diffa region this week.

The attacks follow rising violence in and around Bosso in recent weeks.

An assault on May 31 in the nearby town of Yebi that killed nine people forced an estimated 15 000 residents and displaced people to seek shelter in Bosso.

Many had been evacuated a year ago from islands in Lake Chad for security reasons, the spokesperson noted.

An estimated 50 000 people fled Friday’s attack, mainly walking westward to Toumour, about 30 kilometres west of Bosso.

Many people are traumatised and worried about their safety, and some are sleeping in the open and urgently need shelter and other assistance, Edwards said.

Some of the displaced have moved on from Toumour and are heading to the town of Diffa, which is located 140 kilometres west of Bosso, and northward towards Kabelawa, where a camp for the internally displaced is near capacity with some 10,000 people.

“The welfare of these people and others forced to flee the violence in Bosso is of great concern,” said Edwards.

“Insecurity and lack of access have long hampered humanitarian operations in parts of the Diffa region, though Bosso is the only area where we do not implement projects directly,” he added.

There are at least 240 000 displaced people in Diffa region, including Nigerian refugees, returnees and the internally displaced.

Before the latest attack on Bosso, one in every three inhabitants of the Diffa region was forcibly displaced.

Since February 2015, UNHCR has been providing protection and assistance to the displaced in Bosso through local and international non-governmental partners.

Edwards said additional support from the donor community is urgently required.

“This is a desperately poor area where the general insecurity has destroyed the socio-economic fabric. The self-reliance capacity of the displaced and their hosts is extremely limited,” he said.

The attacks on Bosso came just ahead of the start of a high-level meeting from Monday to Wednesday in Abuja to discuss the major protection challenges in the Lake Chad basin, including Niger.

Organised by the Government of Nigeria, with technical support from UNHCR, the dialogue participants include senior officials from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

– African News Agency

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Pic shows SA hunter with slain Zambian hippo

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:19 AM PDT

Zambian animal rights activists warned of the possible slaughter of up to 2 000 hippos allegedly by a South African professional hunter.

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Gaborone - Zambian animal rights activists have warned of the possible slaughter of up to 2 000 hippos along the Luangwa River allegedly by a South African professional hunter.

The outrage follows the leaking of images showing SA professional hunter Theo De Marillac of De Marillac Safaris (www.demarillacsafaris.co.za) standing over the body of a slain hippo.

Although De Marillac could not be reached for comment, other images on the website show the hippo being shot as it enters the water on a stretch of the Luangwa River, villagers skinning dead hippos and two severed hippo heads.

The images were posted by a whistle-blower called a “Friend of Wildlife” who downloaded them from the Facebook page of Kamisa Malipita, an employee of the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW).

The employee took part in the programme on May 31, 2016.

Ironically, it was Zambian authorities who awarded the South African hunter a five-year hippo cull/ trophy hunting licence.

The African News Agency (ANA) visited the Facebook page and found it to be the authentic source of the graphic images.

Information on the website of the DPNW indicates the hippo hunt contract was awarded last year as part of a culling programme aimed at managing the hippo population along the Luangwa River in the south.

However, activists have consistently opposed the programme and described it as a trophy hunting exercise disguised as a population management plan.

“There is an urgent situation arising in the South Luangwa region of Zambia. Hippo hunting license/s have been awarded to a foreign Professional Hunter (PH) with large bag limits of up to 2,000 over the next 5 years under the guise of animal management,” a whistle-blower said in a message sent to ANA from Lusaka.

“Presently, the (South African) professional hunter is busy selling hippo trophy hunts to other foreign nationals.

“At least six hippo have been killed since the ongoing programme began on May 22, 2016. There are real questions as to the legality of the original issuance of the licenses.

“There were questions raised by the new Director of DNPW that the licenses may not have been legal and were arranged under the now defunct wildlife authority last year. Despite this, DNPW have forged ahead with the contract and killing has commenced.”

The whistle-blower said since May, the department of national parks and wildlife, had held meetings with six Community Resource Boards (CRB) where they informed people that whole herds of hippo - including pregnant and suckling females, as well as their calves – would be killed.

He warned indiscriminate killings would wipe out hippos from the river and represent a contravention of Zambia Wildlife Act because they involve foreign hunters.

“To the best of my knowledge no Environmental Impact Assessment has been prepared or submitted. Local professional hunters safari outfitters were up in arms. The foreign hunter will bag 400 hippos per year,” said the whistle-blower.

“The duration of the hunting season is 4 months. In this case, a significant proportion of the hippo population in the Luangwa Valley will be wiped out.”

Further, the whistle-blower alleged that local safari operators who were initially unhappy with the issuing of the trophy hunts to a foreign company are now allowing foreign clients to hunt hippos on their concessions in return for financial benefits.

DPNW director Paul Zyambo confirmed to the African News Agency (ANA) that there was an ongoing hippo culling programme in the South Luangwa.

However, Zyambo declined to comment on the legality of the programme, which he said was planned by the Zambia Wildlife Authority sometime last year, well before it was re-constituted and re-branded as the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW) which he heads, early this year.

– African News Agency

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‘Monkey caused’ Kenya’s nationwide blackout

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:19 AM PDT

Kenya’s power generation company says a monkey that fell onto a transformer, tripping it caused a three-hour nationwide blackout.

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Nairobi, Kenya - Kenya’s power generation company says a monkey caused a three-hour nationwide blackout.

The Kenya Electricity Generation Company said in a statement late on Tuesday that a monkey climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru Power Station in central Kenya and fell onto a transformer, tripping it.

The company said this caused other machines in the station to trip, resulting in the loss of 180MW from the plant, triggering a national blackout. The statement did not say whether monkey survived.

The blackout lasted more than three hours Tuesday before power was restored.

The company said that its facilities are fenced with an electric fence, and that this was an isolated incident.

AP

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Kenya bans anti electoral body protests

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:16 AM PDT

Kenya's opposition said it would defy a ban imposed by the government on its protests against the electoral commission.

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Nairobi - Kenya's opposition said late on Tuesday it would defy a ban imposed by the government on its protests against the electoral commission after an escalation of deadly violence at rallies held every on Monday since early April.

Kenya is not due to hold its next presidential election until August 2017 but clashes are becoming more frequent between security forces and opposition leaders and their supporters who say senior officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) favour President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The opposition coalition for reform and democracy (CORD), led by Raila Odinga, Kenyatta's main rival, says the IEBC is also incompetent, citing failure of voter verification equipment in the last poll.

In a statement on Tuesday, the government said demonstrators had destroyed both private and public property worth millions during the protests.

“To avert further violence, destruction of property and loss of life, from today the government prohibits all unlawful demonstrations in the country,” the statement, issued by the interior ministry, said.

On Monday, security forces clashed with opposition supporters who were trying to march on the offices of the IEBC in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu in western Kenya.

In those riots, two people were killed and 50 people, including both civilians and security personnel, were injured, the statement said.

Dennis Onyango, CORD's spokesman told Reuters the ban meant “nothing” to them and that “protests, picketing and petitions will go on as they are protected by the Constitution”.

“Kenya is ... governed by the constitution. If the Government has suspended the constitution, it is yet to make that public,” he said.

Government critics and Western ambassadors have accused the police of using excessive force and have called for dialogue.

Businesses have also called for swift resolution to the row, saying the upheaval was taking a toll on an economy which was hit hard by the post-2007 election violence and tensions in the build up to the 2013 vote.

Reuters

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UN slams Burundi over schoolchildren expulsions

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:08 AM PDT

The UNICEF said it was concerned about the arrests, expulsions from school and injuries of students in Burundi schools.

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Kampala - The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday it was concerned about the arrests, expulsions from school and injuries of students in Burundi schools, and has called for all parties involved in the political conflict in the country to fully respect the rights of children to education and to protect them from violence.

Speaking at the regular bi-weekly news briefing in Geneva earlier on Tuesday, UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac noted that on May 26 and 27, 334 students had been expelled from two schools in Ruziba close to the capital Bujumbura, under the pretext of having defaced textbooks.

Since then, the children had been invited to go back to school, but many had not gone back.

Following this, on June 3, several high school students between 14 and 17 years old were arrested and interrogated for similar reasons, in three different schools in the Muramvya commune, about an hour east from Bujumbura, the spokesperson said.

After the incident, other students from those schools had protested in the streets against the arrests, and two of them had been injured by gunfire.

UNICEF was present on the ground and with its partners and was following developments in those cases directly, said Boulierac.

The agency was deeply concerned by those incidents, which had happened in the run-up to school exams, he noted.

The spokesperson emphasised that all children in Burundi have the right to pursue their studies and to take their exams in a secure environment, adding that schools should be respected as zones where children can find peace and refuge.

Boulierac said that UNICEF is calling on all parties to immediately ensure the full respect of children’s rights to education in Burundi and their protection from violence.

More than 300 children have been in arbitrary detention in the country since the beginning of the crisis in April 2015, with most of them being detained in prisons for adults, in deplorable conditions.

UNICEF and its partners had been continuously appealing for the release of those children, and more than 134 children have already been released to their families.

Others have been moved to centres specifically dedicated to children.

About one quarter of the children going to Child-Friendly Spaces set up by UNICEF have shown signs of trauma following exposure to scenes of violence, Boulierac said.

There are more than 25 000 internally displaced people in Burundi, 58 percent of them children.

In addition, there are more than 260 000 refugees in neighbouring countries, 54 percent of them children.

Since the beginning of the crisis, 30 children have been killed. Another worrying element was that the national education budget in Burundi has decreased by one third and the health-care budget by more than half.

More than 1 800 000 children under 5 years old in Burundi and 500 000 pregnant women have been affected by the shortage of essential drugs.

UNICEF has stepped in to provide essential drugs to cover immediate needs, but a significant funding gap remains, said Boulierac, adding that if funding is not secured, health services for children risk being jeopardised across Burundi’s 900 health centres and 46 district hospitals.

– African News Agency

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Six charged over deadly Kenya building collapse

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:07 AM PDT

Six men were charged with manslaughter over the collapse of a multi-storey building in the Huruma district which left at least 51 dead.

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Nairobi - A Kenyan court charged six men with manslaughter on Tuesday over the collapse of a multi-storey building in Nairobi's Huruma district in April which left at least 51 people dead.

The six-storey structure had been built near a river and collapsed after heavy rain. People were living in the building despite authorities having condemned it as unsafe.

Edward Oonge, one of the defence lawyers, told Reuters that five of the six men had been summoned to appear in court on June 15. The sixth was present in court as the charges were read.

In May, Kenyan authorities started evicting people from poorly built buildings and demolishing those declared unsafe.

Nairobi is struggling to find homes for its fast-growing population, and developers often put up buildings to cater for the soaring demand in violation of construction codes.

Analysts say widespread corruption means few are ever prosecuted.

Several other buildings in Nairobi have collapsed in recent years but none have killed as many people.

Reuters

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Sudan extradites suspected people smuggler

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:06 AM PDT

Sudan has extradited to Italy an Eritrean national sought since last year on accusations of international people smuggling.

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Palermo, Italy - Sudan has extradited to Italy an Eritrean national suspected of being a kingpin in an organised-crime network responsible for bringing thousands of migrants and refugees to Europe, the Palermo, Sicily, court said on Wednesday.

Medhanie Yehdego Mered (spelled “Medhane” in court documents), 35, was flown to Italy during the night after his arrest in Khartoum, Sudan, on May 24.

He had been sought since last year on accusations of international people smuggling.

It is the first time a suspected kingpin has been tracked down in Africa, where many of the smuggling networks are based, and brought to face justice in Italy since Europe's immigration crisis started almost three years ago.

“Mered is accused of being the advocate and boss of one of the most important criminal groups operating in central Africa and Libya that smuggles people first across the Sahara desert and then the Mediterranean Sea,” the court led by prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said in a statement.

Mered is suspected of working with an Ethiopian, Ghermay Ermias, who is still at large.

Between them, they allegedly raked in huge sums by bringing migrants from Libya to Italy across the Mediterranean on overcrowded and often unseaworthy boats.

Sicilian prosecutor Calogero Ferrara told Reuters last year that the two controlled an operation that was “much larger, more complex and more structured than originally imagined”.

Ferrara said they were opportunistic, purchasing kidnapped migrants from other criminals in Africa.

By his calculations, each boat trip of 600 people made the smugglers between $800 000 and $1 million before costs.

The smuggling networks have mostly eluded international law enforcement agencies because they are based on anonymous cells spread across many countries.

Italy has been on the frontline of the immigration crisis.

About 170 000 migrants reached Italy by sea in 2014 and 153 800 in 2015, according to the International Organisation for Migration. So far this year, just more than 40 000 migrants have arrived.

More than 8 000 people are also believed to have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014, some off the Italian coast and others seeking to reach Greece. Medecins san Frontieres estimated that 900 died last week alone.

Reuters

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DRC tackles criminal gangs

Posted: 08 Jun 2016 01:06 AM PDT

Democratic Republic of Congo's government said on Tuesday it would launch a fresh crackdown on criminal gangs.

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Kinshasa - Democratic Republic of Congo's government said on Tuesday it would launch a fresh crackdown on criminal gangs and defended its previous such operation against allegations from a human rights group that it executed 51 people.

Interior and Security Minister Evariste Boshab announced the new campaign at the release of a long-awaited government report into Operation Likofi, a three-month crackdown against gangs in the capital that started in November 2013.

Likofi, which means “punch” in the Lingala language, was an “exemplary success”, Boshab told a news conference.

He gave no death toll but said that even if just one person died unnecessarily the government would consider that a failure.

The new campaign would be “conducted with strict respect of the operational plan” with a view to guaranteeing respect for human rights, he said, without giving details.

The campaign would come in the context of high tension in the country because of uncertainty over the political intentions of President Joseph Kabila.

He is ineligible to stand at an election due in November after serving two elected terms.

His opponents accuse him of plotting to retain power by delaying the poll or even changing the constitution to remove the term limit.

US human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch has said police summarily executed at least 51 people during Operation Likofi and were responsible for the disappearance of at least 33 more.

The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in Congo accused the Congolese National Police of executing at least nine people in the operation and said 41 people died and 32 others have not been seen since.

Non-governmental organisations in Kinshasa criticised the government's report, arguing that it downplayed the number of killings, failed to mention those who had disappeared and had come far too long after the events themselves.

Reuters

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