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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | WINDHOEK (IDN) – The Namibian government has leased four farms for 99 years to a company, Comsar Properties SA, owned by a Russian billionaire, Rashid Sardarov. Valued at USD$3 million and measuring a total 42,000 acres, the farms were registered as state property by the land reform ministry.
Land reform minister Utoni Nujoma has been flip-flopping on whether or not he was involved in the transaction, according to The Namibian.
By Justus Wanzala
NAIROBI (IDN) – Incessant humming noise emanating from air conditioners welcomes one into an in expansive warehouse at Twiga Foods pack house in Syokimau area of Kenya's capital. It is mid-morning and workers are busy sorting, cleaning and packing fresh produce ready for the market.
Established in 2014, Twiga sources produce from Kenyan farmers for sale to vendors in urban areas. It handles 14 products among them onions, bananas, capsicums, carrots, tomatoes, pineapples, pawpaws, passion fruits and mangoes. It buys produce from 8,370 farmers and sells to an estimated 5,226 vendors.
By Jeffrey Moyo
LUSAKA (IDN) – Letina Phiri waits at a bus terminus in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, as loaders carry her baggage of huge solar panels to pack on the bus.
“I will sell some of the panels as soon as I get home. Where I live, not far from Kabwe town, many people in rural communities there have started electrifying their homes with solar and I want to do the same,” 51-year-old Phiri told IDN.
Even in Zimbabwe, solar energy has started to gain ground in remote areas like Seke in the country’s Mashonaland East Province.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | HARARE (IDN) – Citing “these difficult times,” Kentucky Fried Chicken has closed its doors, prices are soaring, bread shelves are empty and fear is growing that an economic collapse is bearing down on a fragile population that was so full of hope not long ago.
Under cover of night, Zimbabwe streets fill with street vendors, supplying necessities that shops can no longer provide. But shortages have become so acute that even the street-sellers have run out of bread and fuel.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – "We urge you: spare and release these women,” begged Patricia Danzi, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Africa. .. “Like all those abducted, they are not part of any fight."
"They are daughters and sisters, one is a mother – women with their futures ahead of them, children to raise, and families to return to." Nonetheless, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a self-declared caliphate of Boko Haram, rejected their entreaties and executed 24 year old Hauwa Liman, an aide worker. The insurgents further vowed to make another captive, schoolgirl Leah Sharibu, a slave for life.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – A simmering dispute between the U.S. and Ghana appears to be resolved. Some 7,000 Ghanaians can now be deported from the U.S. and a key demand – that their Ghanaian citizenship be proven before deportation – has been dropped.
The dispute was settled at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2018.
Speaking with the press, Ambassador Baffour Adjei-Bawuah said there was no longer any dispute over the nationality of the affected persons which had been a bone of contention earlier.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – China’s influence in Africa has some leaders trying hard to please their new, rich and seemingly generous foreign partners.
Zambian authorities recently roiled the nation’s waters by deporting an influential pan-Africanist professor before he could disembark at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport and before he could address a class of graduating university seniors on the topic: “Africa in the age of China’s Global Influence and Global Geodynamics.”
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – One reason why African presidents may cling to power, even re-writing the constitution to grant them extra terms, may be the case of Angola.
Newly elected President João Lourenço is sending shivers across the continent as he relentlessly attempts to recoup billions of dollars subverted from the national treasury, including by members of the previous regime – former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, billionaire daughter Isabel and son Jose Filomeno dos Santos – aka Zenu.
The president’s son is meanwhile under arrest for the formation of a criminal organization, illegal enrichment, money laundering and corruption.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW York (IDN) – The Rwandese government of Paul Kagame has outlawed the drawing of cartoons that portray politicians/leaders in an unflattering manner.
Anyone who draws such a cartoon risks imprisonment of up to two years and a fine of up to Rwf1 million ($1,145). If the cartoon targets a session of parliament or a “top ranking official,” the penalty is doubled.
Media experts say this is a huge blow to the profession and will greatly hamper their work.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – As the clock ticked down to October 7 presidential elections in Cameroon, President Paul Biya remained tightlipped about a grisly video gone viral of two mothers and their infant children executed in cold blood by government soldiers.
The grainy video shows two women – one with a baby on her back and another holding hands with a young child – walking across a dirt patch. Armed men walk behind them, and one yells in French “You are B.H. (Boko Haram), you are going to die.” The women are forced to kneel. Shots ring out and the women fall to the ground, one with her child still strapped to her back.
