Category: THE WORLD

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Cancellation of the scheduled appointments of President Muhammadu Buhari and the arrangement of a 10 day trip to England for treatment of an ear infection have raised concerns that a serious health issue is afflicting the recently-elected leader.

Though it would not be the first time a Nigerian president claimed to be receiving treatment abroad but was actually at an advanced stage of a serious illness. In 2010, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was reportedly receiving treatment in Saudi Arabia for a long-standing kidney ailment when in fact he was near death and died quickly upon his return.

DAKAR (IDN | GIN) – Illegal timber smuggling is devastating the lush Casamance region of Senegal and could strip it completely within two years, predicts Senegalese environmentalist and former minister Haidar El Ali.

Casamance in southern Senegal contains the country’s last remaining forests, an area of 74,000 acres that could be depleted by 2018 as smugglers feed the demand for rosewood furniture in China, said El Ali.

Exporting timber from Senegal is illegal, so traffickers smuggle it to neighbouring Gambia for shipping to China.

HARARE (IDN | GIN) – A “Million Men” march in support of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that drew thousands in support of the aging leader failed to diminish the impact of an opposition rally last month that brought out thousands of citizens concerned with the country’s troubled economy.

Despite his advanced age, Mugabe has vowed to run for another term in office at the next election in 2018 when he will be 94.

At the “Million Men” march, Mrs Mugabe declared that her husband would rule Zimbabwe even from the grave.

The opposition, meanwhile, has been energized by a Twitter campaign called #ThisFlag, or what The Guardian newspaper called “an accidental movement for change”.

LONDON (IDN | GIN) – Digital dumping ground, world’s largest e-waste dump – whatever you call it, Agbogbloshie, a former wetland and suburb of Ghanaian capital Accra, is one the top ten “worst polluted” places on earth where tonnes of discarded electronics, refrigerators, microwaves and televisions, also known as e-waste, end up decomposing in a massive scrap heap.

“Mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic – these are the four most toxic substances [in the world], and they are found in e-waste residues in very large quantities,” Atiemo Sampson, an environmental researcher at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, who has conducted several studies of the Agbogbloshie site, said in an interview with the BBC.

Exposure to these toxins is known to cause a whole range of illnesses from cancers to heart disease and respiratory illnesses.

DAKAR (IDN | GIN) – Former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, was sentenced May 30 to life behind bars, ending a long journey for justice by his victims and victims’ relatives who filled the court.

The specially convened African Union-backed court in Senegal convicted him of rape, sexual slavery and ordering killings during his rule from 1982 to 1990.

Victims and families of those killed cheered and embraced each other in the courtroom after the verdict was read.

Analysis by Martin Plaut *

BRUSSELS (IDN) – “I have never experienced anything like it,” says Philippe Remarque, editor in chief of De Volkskrant. The paper – the Netherlands’ largest broadsheet – has been taken to court by a man Remarque describes as an “operative working for the benefit of the awful Eritrean dictatorship”. On May 13 the newspaper received a verdict in the second case in which the court ruled once more in favour of the newspaper.

There is a large, and growing, Eritrean community in the Netherlands. Eritreans flee their country at a rate of 5,000 a month – the largest number of refugees crossing from Libya to Italy. More than 38,000 made the dangerous voyage in 2015, according to the European border agency, Frontex.

Those who arrive in the Netherlands seek refugee status. They discuss their cases with the Dutch immigration agency, only to confront a problem. According to a Dutch based website, Oneworld, refugees found that they were speaking through official translators who had close links with the Eritrean government.