Angola probes football stampede that killed 17…Read full details

PHOTO:AFP

Angola on Saturday announced an investigation into a stadium stampede that killed at least 17 and injured scores in what was described as the southern African country’s worst football tragedy.

The government set up a commission to probe Friday’s crush in the northern town of Uige, the national Angop news agency reported, with children among the victims.

Another body will be set up to help the families of the victims and assist in organising funerals after tragedy struck the domestic league match between host team Santa Rita de Cassia and Recreativo de Libolo on the opening day of the season.

“Several children have been killed,” police spokesman Orlando Bernardo told AFP.

“There was a blockage at the entrance to the January 4 stadium,” he said. “This obstruction caused multiple fatalities — 17 deaths, and there are 56 injured in the hospital.”

Police said hundreds of fans had tried to enter the already packed stadium to see the match, causing a crush that pushed some people to the ground.

Many of the dead were trampled to death or suffocated.

“While the players were on the field, outside fans were trying to get into the stadium and a gate probably gave way to the pressure of the crowd causing several people to fall who were literally trampled on by the crowd,” the Recreativo de Libolo club said in a statement on its website.

The club called it “a tragedy without precedent in the history of Angolan football”.

– Crowd control –
Some witnesses said many fans did not have tickets to the match.

Sergio Traguil, the host side’s coach, told the Diario de Noticias newspaper: “Nobody inside the stadium was aware of what was happening outside.”

Images shown on Angolan television backed up the claim, showing thousands of spectators sitting around the pitch in a stadium with no stands.

Oil-rich Angola is slowly rebuilding its skeletal infrastructure, ravaged by decades of civil war.

The Portuguese news agency Lusa reported that the president of the host team said security forces were to blame for not properly controlling the crowd.

“There was serious police error in letting the people so close to the field,” it quoted Pedro Nzolonzi as saying.

“Many of them did not want to pay and those who had tickets could not get in. Then the confusion began,” he said.

“It is all the fault of the police. It was easy to avoid. They just need to extend the safety cordon.”

Angola, ranked 148 in the FIFA world rankings, is a minor power in African football.

The country has been relatively closed to the outside world under the authoritarian President Jose Eduardo dos Santos who has ruled since 1979.

Football has a tragic history of stampedes and stadium deaths, often blamed on lack of crowd control, dangerous venues and spectator behaviour.

In 2009, poor crowd control in Abidjan caused 19 deaths before a 2010 World Cup qualifier between hosts Ivory Coast and Malawi.

A stampede at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana in 2001 resulted in 127 deaths.

At that game, supporters angered by their team’s defeat threw projectiles and broke chairs. Police threw tear gas grenades, triggering a stampede.

Britain renovated its football grounds after 56 people died in a fire in a wooden stand in 1985 and 96 Liverpool supporters died in a crush during an FA Cup semi-final in 1989.

17 dead in stampede at Angolan football stadium…Read full details

Panic spread through the crowd at a football match in the town of Uige, Angola, resulting in a stampede that caused the death of at least 17 people, police said ©ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP/File)<br />

At least 17 football fans died in a stampede at a stadium in northern Angola on Friday, police said, adding that scores of other spectators were injured, some of them seriously.

Panic spread through the crowd at the match in the town of Uige between Santa Rita de Cassia and Recreativo de Libolo in Angola’s domestic league season.

“There was a blockage at the entrance to the January 4 stadium… this obstruction caused multiple fatalities — 17 deaths, and there are 56 injured in the hospital,” police spokesman Orlando Bernardo told AFP.

He added that there were an unknown number of children among the dead, and that hospitals were still treating those injured.

Police said hundreds of fans had tried to enter the already packed stadium to see the match, causing a crush that pushed some people to the ground.

Many of the dead were trampled on or suffocated.

In 2009, poor crowd control in Abidjan caused 19 deaths before a 2010 World Cup qualifier between hosts Ivory Coast and Malawi.

A stampede at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana in 2001 resulted in 127 deaths.

Fistfight in South African parliament as guards eject MPs…Read full details

South African opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Leader Julius Malema looks on after he was removed from the Parliament during the ceremony of the State Of The Nation Address (SONA) at the parliament in Cape Town, on February 9, 2017. A violent brawl broke out in South Africa's parliament Thursday as guards exchanged punches with opposition lawmakers who had shouted down President Jacob Zuma as he tried to deliver his state of the nation address. In chaotic scenes, about 30 guards dressed in white shirts forcibly ejected about 25 members from the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party who had prevented the president from speaking for about an hour. PHOTO: Schalk van Zuydam / POOL / AFP

A brawl broke out in South Africa’s parliament Thursday as guards exchanged punches with opposition lawmakers who shouted down President Jacob Zuma as he tried to deliver his state of the nation address.

In chaotic scenes, guards in white shirts forcibly ejected about 25 members from the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party who prevented the president from speaking for about an hour.

“We have been patient with you, we have been trying to give you an opportunity to express yourselves but… it is being abused,” Speaker Baleka Mbete told the EFF lawmakers before they were thrown out.

The president’s annual address to parliament in Cape Town has descended into mayhem for the past three years as the EFF — dressed in red workers’ overalls and berets — attempt to disrupt Zuma’s speech.

Zuma, head of the ruling ANC party, appeared unbothered by the violence unfolding in the chamber and finally took to the podium with his trademark chuckle.

Shortly before the guards moved in, EFF leader Julius Malema described Zuma as “an incorrigible man rotten to the core”.

Malema also turned his ire on Speaker Mbete, telling her: “Your conduct has failed you. You are irrational, impatient, partisan.”

– Stun grenades outside parliament –

Police fired several stun grenades outside parliament to keep rival ANC and EFF supporters apart.

A huge security presence was mobilised on Thursday evening to stop a repeat of last year when clashes erupted on the streets of Cape Town.

Zuma, 74, has faced growing public criticism over a series of damaging corruption scandals, worsening unemployment levels and slowing economic growth.

In December he beat back an attempt by at least four ministers to oust him, following local elections that delivered the ANC’s worst-ever results.

He is set to step down as party leader in December, before the general election in 2019 that will mark the end of his two-term reign as national president.

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, expanded by about 0.4 percent last year. Inflation hit 6.8 percent in December and unemployment has risen to a 13-year high of 27 percent.

Increased numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have urged Zuma to resign.

“You must know that as a nation we no longer have confidence in your leadership,” Sipho Mila Pityana, leader of the Save SA action group, said on the eve of Zuma’s speech.

However Zuma retains strong loyalty among many rank-and-file ANC party members and its lawmakers.

EU gives ‘bankrupt’ Gambia $240m aid…Read full details

The Gambian President Adama Barrow (left) and the country’s Chief Justice, Justice Emmanuel Oluwasegun Fagbenle (right) during the swearing-in of the president in The Gambian Embassy in Senegal.

The European Union announced aid worth 225 million euros ($240 million) on Thursday for The Gambia’s new government as President Adama Barrow said his nation was “virtually bankrupt” due to economic mismanagement by the former regime.

The EU froze assistance to The Gambia in December 2014 over the dire human rights record of ex-president Yahya Jammeh, whose security services were accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Barrow’s victory in December’s election is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights and the rule of law to be better respected in the tiny west African nation.

Neven Mimica, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, hailed “a peaceful democratic change in The Gambia” and said it was “fully committed to engage with President Barrow and his government”.

Immediate financial assistance of 75 million euros would target food insecurity, unemployment and the poor condition of the nation’s roads, the European Commission said in a statement.

Further aid worth 150 million euros would be disbursed following a future visit by an EU delegation, it added.

President Barrow said in a speech given at the signing of the aid deal that his nation had just two months of foreign exchange reserves left, and described “an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue.”

“Most public enterprises are debt-ridden and underperforming including the energy sector,” Barrow said, adding that youth unemployment had rocketed.

Jammeh is accused by Gambians of land grabs and taking over businesses for his personal gain, while new Interior Minister Mai Fatty alleged last month the ex-president took $11 million from state coffers before heading for exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Meanwhile Foreign Minister Ousainou Darboe said human rights concerns would be “speedily addressed” by the new administration, and that the process of rejoining the International Criminal Court would soon begin.

The Gambia notified the United Nations in November it would withdraw from the legal body on Jammeh’s orders.

Over 200 cars are missing, says Ghana’s presidency…Read full details

The vehicles were assigned to former government officials and appointees under the previous administration of president John Dramani Mahama, whom Akufo-Addo beat in elections last December.

Ghana’s new government has set up a special task force to track down more than 200 missing vehicles that should have been handed back when President Nana Akufo-Addo took office.

Presidency spokesman Eugene Arhin told reporters on Wednesday that an audit of vehicles indicated that many appeared not to have been returned.

He said officials could only find: 74 of the presidency’s 196 Toyota Land Cruisers, 20 out of 73 Toyota Land Cruiser Prados, 11 out of 24 Mercedes, two out of 28 Toyota Avalons and two out of six BMWs.

“The president of the republic currently has virtually only one vehicle at his disposal,” said Arhin.

“This is the vehicle which was purchased in 2007 during the Ghana at 50 celebrations. It is a BMW.”

The vehicles were assigned to former government officials and appointees under the previous administration of president John Dramani Mahama, whom Akufo-Addo beat in elections last December.

Presidency chief of staff Akosua Frema Osei-Opare said in a statement that the retention of state assets was illegal.

“Persons with state properties unlawfully in their possession should endeavour to contact the task force and make arrangements to surrender (the) same with immediate effect,” he added.

There was no immediate response from Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) party but the party faced a similar situation when it took power in 2008.

Hepatitis E outbreak kills 11 in Chad, threatens hundreds more…Read full details

A boy stands near a replica of the Hepatitis virus, a part of an awareness. PHOTO:AFP<br />

Hundreds of people in southeastern Chad are at risk of dying from a worsening hepatitis E outbreak which has killed 11 people since September, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday.

Some 885 people in the Salamat region have been treated for symptoms of jaundice, which can indicate hepatitis E, MSF said.

Most, if not all of the patients, are likely to be suffering from hepatitis E, a liver disease which spreads through water contaminated with faeces, the aid group said.

It has recorded 70 cases and 11 deaths, including four pregnant women, to date.

However, the death toll from the outbreak could be higher due to cases which may not have been treated in health facilities, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than 600 MSF staff are working alongside Chad’s health ministry to test for new cases, treat patients and improve water supplies and sanitation in the regional capital of Am Timan.

The aid group said it had also rolled out a large scale chlorination campaign at the 72 water points in Am Timan, and is holding education sessions to explain the importance of hand washing with soap and chlorinated water.

In a statement, MSF’s head of mission in Chad, Rolland Kaya, called for more aid agencies to step in to improve water sanitation in the region amid mounting cases of the disease.

“As a medical organisation, it is not usually MSF’s job to intervene on a large scale in water chlorination activities, but with no other options to help stop the spread of the virus, we are obliged to fill this gap,” Kaya added.

Hepatitis E affects an estimated 20 million people around the world each year, with typical symptoms including jaundice, dark urine and pale stools, abdominal pain and tenderness, nausea and vomiting, fever, and an enlarged tender liver.

For most people, the infection runs its course with a few long-term complications, but the mortality rate for pregnant women is about 25 per cent.

An effective vaccine for the virus is currently only licensed for use in China.

South Africa introduces $260 monthly minimum wage…Read full details

PHOTO; AFP

South Africa will introduce a national minimum wage of 3,500 rand (261 dollars) per month in 2018, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, following protracted negotiations between the government and labour unions.

Supporters of a minimum wage say it can stimulate growth as workers can spend more, as well as reducing inequality.

Critics say it could lead to increased unemployment as employers will be unable to afford higher wage bills.

Credit ratings agencies have said agreeing a minimum wage would help Africa’s most industrialised economy hold onto its investment-grade rating by stabilising the labour market and reducing the number of strikes.

“The balance we have sought to strike is that it must not be too low, so that it doesn’t affect the lowest paid workers, but not too high that it leads to massive job losses,” Ramaphosa told a news conference.

Ramaphosa said the national minimum wage, which equates to 20 rand (1.50 dollars) per hour, would come into effect in May 2018.

Businesses that are unable to afford the minimum wage would be permitted to apply for an exemption of up to 12 months, Ramaphosa said.

The Treasury had also thrown its political weight behind the policy initiative.

Chief economist at Nedbank Dennis Dykes said the agreement was a sign of an improving relationship between labour, business and government, but warned that its implementation needed to be monitored.

“It is by no means certain this will lead to job creation.

“It needs to be watched carefully for any negative effects,” Dykes said.

South African troops deployed for state of nation address…Read full details

PHOTO:AFP

South African President Jacob Zuma prepared to deliver his annual state of the nation address on Thursday after deploying more than 440 soldiers to prevent a repeat of violent clashes outside parliament.

Zuma, 74, has faced growing criticism since his last address over a series of damaging corruption scandals, worsening unemployment levels and slowing economic growth.

In December, he beat back an attempt by at least four ministers to oust him from power, following local elections that delivered the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s worst-ever results.

The president said the military deployment was to maintain “law and order” outside parliament in Cape Town, but the move was condemned by the main opposition Democratic Alliance party.

“The DA will not stand by and allow for the ‘people’s parliament’ to be turned into a security-state show of force, meant to intimidate opposition both inside and outside of the ANC,” it said in a statement.

Zuma’s state of the nation address has been hit by regular protests in recent years.

In 2016, lawmakers from the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) — dressed in their uniform of red workers’ overalls and hard hats — noisily interrupted his speech before eventually being ordered out of the chamber.

Outside on the streets of Cape Town, police fired stun grenades to disperse angry protesters.

The city, a stronghold of the DA party, has been under a tight security clampdown this week.

The 2015 state of the nation address degenerated into chaos as protesting EFF lawmakers were violently evicted by bouncers.

The EFF, led by firebrand Julius Malema, has not said whether it will try to shout Zuma down this year, but it described the use of soldiers as a “declaration of war on citizens”.

– Zuma heads to exit –
Zuma is set to step down as leader of the ANC in December, before the general election in 2019 that will mark the end of his two-term reign as national president.

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, expanded by about 0.4 percent last year.

Inflation hit 6.8 percent in December and unemployment has risen to a 13-year high of 27 percent.

“The party is more unsure of itself, they appear overly paranoid,” Daniel Silke, an independent political analyst, told AFP.

“Deploying the military shows the increasing frustration within ANC after the last two years of disruptions.”

Zuma, a traditionalist leader who came to power in 2009, is widely seen as being at loggerheads with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a reformist respected among international investors.

South Africa’s highest court last year found the president guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers’ money used to refurbish his private rural house.

He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.

A separate probe by the country’s top watchdog uncovered evidence of possible criminal activity in his relationship with the Guptas, a business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

Increasing numbers of anti-apartheid veterans, ANC activists, trade unions, civil groups and business leaders have called for Zuma to resign.

“You must know that as a nation we no longer have confidence in your leadership,” Sipho Mila Pityana, leader of the Save SA action group, said on the eve of Zuma’s speech, which is scheduled to start at 1700 GMT.

“You are not trusted by the people. You are not trusted by civil society. And, increasingly, you are not even trusted by your own party and its allies.”

However Zuma retains strong loyalty among many rank-and-file ANC party members and its lawmakers.

Gambia to boost press freedom in constitution overhaul…Read full details

The Gambia’s press is set to win unprecedented freedom when its new government overhauls the constitution of former leader Yahya Jammeh, its freshly appointed justice minister has said.

Abubacarr Tambadou, a former UN assistant prosecutor, said Tuesday on being sworn in that he hoped to remove restrictive laws on the media.

“We will be starting a constitutional review process with a view to ensuring that our constitution is relevant and serves the purpose for which Gambians adopted it,” Tambadou said.

Reform “particularly in the criminal justice sector and media law reform,” were priorities, he said.

Journalists were regularly slapped with crimes including sedition, slander and publication of false news under Jammeh, offences described as “catch-all” by Amnesty International, and many served jail time.

Liberia bars official travel for two months to cut costs…Read full details

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf PHOTO: AFP

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has barred all official visits abroad for two months, following protests over soaring prices as the local currency depreciates, the information minister said Tuesday.

“Except in case of emergency, no official will be allowed to travel,” the minister, Eugene Nagbe, told AFP.

“Exceptions will only be granted by the president herself,” Nagbe said, adding that official visits abroad would remain suspended for 60 days.

The decision came a week after business owners and civil society groups staged a protest demanding that parliament take action to stop a surge in prices as the Liberian dollar depreciated to the US dollar.

Sirleaf — Africa’s first elected female head of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011 — also accused some businesses of hoarding US dollars, triggering a shortfall on the market.

The US dollar has coexisted with local currency since 1847, when Liberia became the first African nation to proclaim its independence as a modern republic.

Previously, it had been a protectorate of the United States.

“Whenever the US (dollar) rate goes up, prices follow suit,” economics professor Prince Bagoon told AFP.

In a statement Saturday, the presidency said the central bank had also been “mandated to review the alarming situation of capital flight and strengthen its regulatory measures so as to curb the illicit repatriation of foreign currency from the country”.

The central bank and the finance ministry are also seeking to stabilise the exchange rate, the statement said.

These efforts “have begun to yield positive results with the steady decline of the rate in favour of the Liberian dollar”, it added.

Somalia to elect president amid security, drought woes…Read full details

Somalia is to hold its presidential election on Wednesday after numerous delays, with ongoing security concerns and warnings of famine topping the agenda for the new administration.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is seeking re-election against 22 other candidates.

The troubled Horn of Africa nation, which has not had an effective central government in three decades, had been promised a one-person, one-vote election in 2016.

However political infighting and insecurity, mainly due to Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants who control swathes of countryside and strike at will in Mogadishu, saw the plan ditched for a limited vote running months behind schedule.

The presidential election had been due to take place in August, four years after the previous vote in which just 135 clan elders chose MPs who then voted for the country’s leader.

Elections instead began in October with an electoral college system that excluded ordinary citizens and instead involved 14,025 delegates voting for candidates for both parliament and a new upper house.

The elections were marred by widespread allegations of vote-buying and intimidation.

In a report on Tuesday, Somalia-based anti-corruption watchdog Marqaati said the elections “were rife with corruption”. Repeated delays meant the new lawmakers were only sworn in in December.

– Delays and disillusion –
The tortuous process has left some disillusioned. “I really don’t care who becomes president. We just need to be free to attend to our business,” said Qoje Siyad, a Mogadishu day labourer.

“This thing is taking too long,” said housewife Samiya Abdulkadir. “People will be relieved to see an end to this drama.”

While falling well short of the election that was promised, the process is more democratic than in the past and is seen as a step towards universal suffrage, now hoped for in 2020.

Wednesday’s voting will see members of the 275-seat parliament and 54 senators cast ballots inside a hangar within the heavily-guarded airport.

No candidate is expected to get the two-thirds majority needed for a first-round win, with two further rounds permitted before a winner is declared.

In the absence of political parties, clan remains the organising principle of Somali politics.

All 23 candidates are men after the only declared female candidates dropped out.

And each one has paid the $30,000 (28,000-euro) registration fee although few have any serious chance of winning.

One of them is the current president, a 61-year-old former academic and civil society activist from the Hawiye clan.

Also in the running is ex-president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a fellow Hawiye and 52-year-old former leader of the Islamic Courts Union which pacified Somalia before being driven out by US-backed Ethiopian troops.

The leading Darod candidates are Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Shamarke, 56, and a former premier Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmajo’, 55.

Both hold dual nationalities having lived for years in Canada and the US respectively.

– Famine looms again –
The overthrow of president Siad Barre’s military regime in 1991 ushered in decades of anarchy and conflict in a country deeply divided along clan lines.

The clan rivalries and lawlessness provided fertile ground for the Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab to take hold and seize territory, frustrating efforts to set up a central administration.

Shabaab has been in decline since 2011 but still launches regular, deadly attacks against government, military and civilian targets in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere.

Security and overcoming Somalia’s adversarial and divisive politics will top the agenda for whoever wins the vote as will dealing with a growing humanitarian crisis.

The UN warned last week of “possible famine” in Somalia as a severe drought has pushed nearly 3 million people to the edge of starvation.

After two failed rain seasons, aid workers fear a repeat of a 2010-11 drought which left more than 250,000 dead.

“The levels of suffering in the country, triggered by protracted conflict, seasonal shocks and disease outbreaks, are typically hard to bear, but the impact of this drought represents a threat of a different scale and magnitude,” the UN’s office for humanitarian affairs said in a statement last week.

Malawi, Tanzania to revive lake dispute talks…Read full details

Lake Malawi straddles Tanzania and Malawi PHOTO: ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/File

Malawi and its northern neighbour Tanzania have agreed to revive talks to resolve a long-running border dispute, President Peter Mutharika said Tuesday after meeting Tanzania’s foreign minister in Lilongwe.

The two east African neighbours are at odds over the ownership of Lake Malawi which straddles both countries with Tanzania claiming the top half of Africa’s third largest freshwater lake — a claim contested by Malawi.

“The mediation efforts will be resuscitated towards a logical conclusion of the Lake Malawi border dispute,” Mutharika said in a statement.

Mediation to resolve the dispute has been stalled since 2012, but will be revived under the supervision of former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.

Tanzanian foreign minister Augustine Mahiga told journalists after meeting Mutharika that “the lake issue has festered for some time”, confirming the resumption of talks under Chissano.

The 54-year-old dispute stems from colonial-era border lines drawn around the 29,600 square kilometres (11,400 square miles) of Lake Malawi.

The lake is in the Great Lakes system stretching along the East African Rift and is a major tourist attraction that straddles one-third of Malawi.

Based on an 1890 colonial accord, Malawi claims ownership of the whole of the lake except for a portion controlled by Mozambique.

Tanzania insists that half the lake falls within its borders and blames maps drawn up by British and German authorities for the dispute.

“The British and the Germans left different kinds of maps that show the border in between,” Mahiga said.

“It is not a new map, but it is an inherited map which I think needs clarification.”

The border dispute resurfaced after Lilongwe in 2011 awarded British company Surestream Petroleum a licence to drill for oil and gas on the northern part of the lake.

Tanzania has in the past demanded that Malawi should halt exploration activities to allow for a diplomatic solution.

Tribunal hears Ghana, Ivory maritime dispute…Read full details

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo

An international tribunal on Monday began hearing arguments in a dispute between Ghana and Ivory Coast over a contested maritime boundary that cuts through lucrative offshore oil fields.

The area is believed to hold the biggest hydrocarbon resources discovered in west Africa over the last decade.

The neighbours have asked the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to rule on where the border lies exactly, with Ghana arguing there is no need to deviate from a decades-long “mutually agreed and recognised” boundary line based on equidistance.

Ivory Coast, however, claims the border is not properly demarcated and accuses Ghana of carrying out oil exploration activities in Ivorian maritime zones.

Both sides will lay out their case in oral hearings over the next two weeks, with Ghana kicking off the proceedings on Monday.

“The boundary lies in the region of some of the most significant oil reserves in west Africa,” Ghana’s justice minister Gloria Akuffo told the court in her opening statement.

“A fairly drawn agreed line does not suddenly become unfair simply because one state decides it would be economically more advantageous for it if the line were drawn somewhere else.”

A tribunal spokeswoman told AFP that a judgement in the case is not expected until “later this year”.

The two countries brought their spat before the tribunal in 2014 after months of fruitless negotiations.

In a setback for Ghana in 2015, the court’s special chamber ordered it not to carry out any new oil drilling in the disputed waters until the matter was resolved.

But the court rejected Ivory Coast’s demand that Ghana suspends all ongoing oil exploration and exploitation in the area, ruling that such a move would cause the country “considerable financial loss” and could harm the maritime environment by allowing equipment to deteriorate.

Several oil companies including France’s Total, Russia’s Lukoil and the UK’s Tullow Oil have reported significant finds in the contested area in recent years.

The dispute carries echoes of another maritime border row on the continent between the eastern nations of Kenya and Somalia.

The UN’s highest court in The Hague agreed earlier this month to hear their case, which will determine the fate of offshore oil and gas projects in the Indian Ocean waters.

Despite the tensions, both Ghana and Ivory Coast — West Africa’s second and third-largest economies — have insisted they remain on good terms.

“The relationship between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire remains cordial, a testament to the strength of our relationship,” Akuffo told the court.

Ghana is a major producer of gold and cocoa and began commercial oil production in 2010 following the discovery of the Jubilee oil field, which produces 100,000 barrels per day.

Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cocoa, has a daily oil production of some 45,000 barrels and is aiming to increase its output to 200,000 barrels per day by 2020.

Africa remains continent of hope, says Guterres…Read full details

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres shakes hands with new US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at the United Nations on January 27, 2017 in New York.<br />Bryan R. Smith / AFP

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says Africa remains a continent of hope in spite of the obvious crises and underdevelopment currently ravaging the region.

Guterres, in a commentary entitled: “A Continent of Hope”, following his visit to the region on Monday to participate at the 28th Summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa, said there are many success stories in Africa apart from crises and underdevelopment.

“Far too often, the world views Africa through the prism of problems. When I look to Africa, I see a continent of hope, promise and vast potential.

“I am committed to building on those strengths and establishing a higher platform of cooperation between the United Nations and the leaders and people of Africa. This is essential to advancing inclusive and sustainable development and deepening cooperation for peace and security.

“That is the message I carried to the recent African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — my first major mission as United Nations Secretary-General.

“Above all, I came in a spirit of profound solidarity and respect. I am convinced that the world has much to gain from African wisdom, ideas and solutions. I also brought with me a deep sense of gratitude.

“Africa provides the majority of United Nations peacekeepers around the world. African nations are among the world’s largest and most generous hosts of refugees. Africa includes some of the world’s fastest growing economies,” he said.

The UN chief added that the recent resolution of the political crisis in The Gambia once again demonstrated the power of African leadership and unity to overcome governance challenges and uphold democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

“I left the Summit more convinced than ever that all of humanity will benefit by listening, learning and working with the people of Africa. We have the plans in place to build a better future,” he stated.

He said the global implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was an all-out effort to tackle global poverty, inequality, instability and injustice and noted that Africa has adopted its own complementary and ambitious plan: Agenda 2063.

For the people of Africa to fully benefit from these important efforts, he said, these two agendas need to be strategically aligned.

“It starts with prevention. Our world needs to move from managing crises to preventing them in the first place. We need to break the cycle of responding too late and too little.

“Most of today’s conflicts are internal, triggered by competition for power and resources, inequality, marginalisation and sectarian divides. Often, they are inflamed by violent extremism or provide the fuel for it,” Guterres said.

He pledged the UN’s commitment to work hand-in-hand with partners wherever conflict or the threat of conflict endangers stability and well-being.

He noted that prevention goes far beyond focusing solely on conflict adding, the best means of prevention and the surest path to durable peace is inclusive and sustainable development.

“We can speed progress by doing more to provide opportunities and hope to young people. More than three out of five Africans are under 35 years of age.

“Making the most of this tremendous asset means more investment in education, training, decent work, and engaging young people in shaping their future,” the UN chief said.

According to him, however, Africa must also do its utmost to empower women so they can play a full role in sustainable development and sustainable peace.

He added, “I am pleased that the African Union has consistently placed a special focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment. I have seen it again and again: When we empower women, we empower the world.”

Guterres said he travelled to Africa as a “partner, friend and committed advocate for changing the narrative about this diverse and vital continent. Crises represent at best a partial view.

“But from a higher platform of cooperation, we can see the whole picture – one that spotlights the enormous potential and remarkable success stories in every corner of the African continent.

“With that perspective, I have no doubt we can win the battle for sustainable and inclusive development which are also the best weapons to prevent conflict and suffering, allowing Africa to shine even more vibrantly and inspire the world.”

Angola’s long-time president, Dos Santos, to step down…Read full details

(FILES) This file photo taken on July 03, 2015 shows Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos waiting for the arrival of his French counterpart at the presidential palace in Luanda.  AFP PHOTO / ALAIN JOCARD

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos confirmed Friday he would step down ahead of elections due in August, signalling the end to his 37-year long reign, and naming Joao Lourenco as the candidate to run in his place.

The autocratic Dos Santos, 74, became president in September 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving leader — one month short of Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

His reign has seen the end of civil war and an investment boom, but has also been criticised as secretive and corrupt with Angola’s citizens suffering dire poverty as his family became hugely wealthy.

Dos Santos told a meeting of the ruling MPLA party in Luanda that “the party approved the name of the candidate heading the list in the August elections as (Defence Minister) Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco”.

Lourenco, a former general, emerged as the probable successor late last year at another meeting of the MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola).

Earlier in the year, Dos Santos had said he would step down in 2018.

The MPLA recently issued a statement denying widespread reports that Dos Santos was seriously ill.

After constitutional changes in 2010, Angola does not directly elect a president, but the leader of the winning party automatically becomes head of state.

Congo at crossroads as opposition chief Tshisekedi dies…Read full details

Supporters of late opposition chief Etienne Tshisekedi are gathered in front of his house in Limete near Kinshasa, on February 1, 2017, following the announcement of his death earlier today. DR Congo opposition chief Etienne Tshisekedi, who died aged 84, spent a lifetime in the vast African country's politics, first as ally-turned-enemy of despot Mobutu Sese Seko, then as rival to the father-son Kabila dynasty that followed. / AFP PHOTO / JUNIOR D.KANNAH

Longtime DR Congo opposition chief Etienne Tshisekedi died Wednesday at the age of 84 in Brussels, as talks aiming to end the nation’s political crisis were under way in Kinshasa.

“President Tshisekedi died today… in Brussels,” Bruno Tshibala, an official from his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party, said of the burly figure who had remained largely out of sight in recent years due to frail health.

Tshisekedi, who had only flown from Kinshasa to the capital of former colonial power Belgium on January 24, for medical treatment, died at 5:42 pm (1642 GMT), Tshibala said.

After two years of medical treatment in Belgium, Tshisekedi had made a triumphant return in July with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets to welcome him home.

The opposition coalition he headed is negotiating the next steps in a power-sharing deal agreed on New Year’s Eve to avoid fresh violence after President Joseph Kabila refused to step down at the end of his mandate in December.

Tshisekedi’s death swiftly brought the country’s tensions to the fore in Kinshasa as police fired tear gas on a crowd of his supporters who had gathered to mourn.

About 100 supporters were out in the open when security forces moved in, and dozens took refuge inside his party’s headquarters to escape the gas, an AFP journalist said.

Eventually those inside were forced to leave after a police officer threatened to open fire at them.

– ‘Our leader is dead’ –
The Tshisekedi supporters were struggling to take in the news their chief was gone.

“Our leader is dead. We have no other leader, like Tshitshi, who can fight without the need for guns. How could he die in Belgium?” asked UDPS activist, Yves, using Tshisekedi’s nickname.

The power-sharing deal, brokered by the country’s influential Roman Catholic bishops, allows Kabila to stay in office until late 2017 in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier, yet to be agreed.

Before his death, the UDPS said Tshisekedi would return to DR Congo soon to “take up his historic responsibilities” but there had been great concern for “the Old Man”, as he was affectionately known

Voters in DR Congo were originally to have chosen a new president in 2016, but the authorities said the electoral registers must be revised, a huge enterprise in a country almost the size of western Europe.

And in a highly controversial ruling, the constitutional court said Kabila could remain in office until an election was held.

The ruling fed opposition fears that he planned to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term.

Kabila, 45, has been in power, in one of the least developed countries in the world, since the 2001 assassination of his father Laurent at the height of the Second Congo War.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders described Tshisekedi as a “remarkable political figure”.

His “last fight (…) for the constitution and democracy culminated in the New Year’s Eve agreement,” Reynders said in a statement, adding that “Belgium joins forces with the Congolese people in their grief and their desire to see his work bear fruit”.

Zimbabwe protest leader detained at Harare airport…Read full details

Evan Mawarire "was escorted into another room by three men even before he went through immigration or customs", his sister Telda Mawarire told AFP.

The Zimbabwean pastor who led protests last year against President Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian government was arrested at Harare airport Wednesday as he returned to the country after several months abroad.

Evan Mawarire “was escorted into another room by three men even before he went through immigration or customs”, his sister Telda Mawarire told AFP.

Last year, Mawarire emerged as leader of the #ThisFlag protest movement that quickly grew into the largest street demonstrations against Mugabe in several years.

The pastor fled to South Africa in July and then to the United States in fear for his life after being publicly denounced by Mugabe, whose ruthless security forces crushed the protest movement.

The cash-strapped government has struggled to pay civil servants and the military on time as the economy has suffered a severe meltdown with more than 90 percent unemployment.

Mawarire was also detained last July for allegedly trying to overthrow the state, but a court dropped charges against him — triggering rare celebrations on the streets of Harare.

The 92-year-old president, who is increasingly fragile, has vowed to stand for re-election in 2018, though ZANU-PF party seniors have long been jockeying to step into the role when he dies.

The national flag became a symbol of anti-government protests after Mawarire, a little-known evangelical pastor, posted a Facebook video last April in which he appeared with the flag wound around his neck as he bemoaned the country’s worsening economic crisis.

South Africa and EU spar over chicken meat ‘dumping’…Read full details

AFP PHOTO/KHALED DESOUKI

South Africa’s poultry industry says it is on the brink of collapse due to hotly-denied accusations that the European Union is dumping cheap chicken in the country in a dispute over free trade.

Workers, former workers and company managers from the South African poultry sector will march on the EU headquarters in Pretoria on Wednesday, furious over cheap imports and mounting job losses.

But the EU has accused the industry of using it as a “handy scapegoat” for domestic production problems, and said volumes of EU chicken imported to South Africa were too small to be responsible for the crisis.

Organisers of the march said that 4,000-5,000 jobs had already been lost, and that 110,000 more were at risk in the industry, plus 20,000 in the feed supply sector.

RCL Foods, South Africa’s largest poultry producer, last month laid off 1,350 employees — 20 percent of its workforce — and is selling 15 of its 25 farms.

“This issue has been growing since the EU started to send more and more leg quarters to South Africa at what we consider dumped prices,” RCL Foods managing director Scott Pitman, who will join the march, told AFP.

“Not only have we taken a financial burden over the last five years, but the loss has got so big that we are going to go bankrupt if we don’t cut the size of our business.”

The South African poultry industry alleges that the EU dumps off-cuts of “dark meat” — chicken thighs and drumsticks — in South Africa at below-cost prices because the European market prefers breast meat.

– ‘Waste disposal’ –
“This is a form of waste disposal,” Kevin Lovell, the boss of the South African Poultry Association (SAPA), told AFP.

South Africa is struggling with slow growth at just 0.4 percent last year and unemployment is stuck stubbornly high at 27 percent — posing a major challenge to the ANC government.

On Monday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe suggested the government should intervene by buying poultry farms that are closing down and finding new markets for their produce.

In the face of damaging accusations of dumping, the European Union has fought back, saying the South African poultry industry was blaming others for its own failures.

“When people are losing livelihoods, trade deals can be a handy scapegoat,” EU Ambassador Marco Cornaro told reporters on Tuesday.

“It is a distortion… to think that it is the EU trade policy which is the origin, let alone the main source, of the current woes of the SA chicken industry.”

According to EU figures, EU exports account for less than seven percent of total South African chicken consumption, and EU imports of “dark meat” account for only 14 percent of local market consumption.

Cornaro said a lack of competition, a severe drought pushing up feed prices, rising electricity costs and injecting brine (salt water) were causing South African industry’s problems rather than EU imports.

The EU said it would welcome marchers into their delegation offices on Wednesday to discuss their concerns.

Brazil was the biggest poultry importer to South Africa in the first half of 2016, followed by Netherlands, Britain and Spain.

Trade Minister Rob Davies told Bloomberg News last week the poultry sector was in “distress”, adding “we will not have an industry to raise the competitiveness” if imports continue to flood the market.

On top of tough avian flu restrictions, South Africa has imposed anti-dumping duties on EU importers and, in December, also introduced an extra “safeguard” tariff to try to protect the industry.

The EU is South Africa’s biggest trading partner, and the dispute marks a tricky start to the economic partnership agreement (EPA) between the two sides that came into force last year.