 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) – Many African countries are looking for profitable business, investment and trade rather than development aid. Now Angola, a south-central Africa, has announced corporate plans to diversify its state business away from purchasing to full-fledged manufacturing of Russian military equipment for the southern African market, and possibly other regions in Africa – impeding realization of the Sustainable Development Goal 16 calling for peace and justice.
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) – Strengthening cooperation in trade, economy and culture, as well as current international and regional matters were top issues in talks between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President João Lourenço of Angola at the Kremlin on April 4.
Striking a personal note, the Angolan leader, who completed his education in 1982 in Moscow, said: “Moscow then and now are two different cities. My congratulations – you have ensured progress and development for Russia and the Russian people.”
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | ACCRA (IDN) – Environmental groups in Ghana are waging an eleventh-hour battle to stop the government of Ghana from opening the Atewa Forest Reserve – a crown jewel of biodiversity and a source of three rivers – to commercial large-scale bauxite mining.
Their resistance conforms to the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly's resolution on mining resource governance in Nairobi from March 11-15. The resolution stresses in particular Sustainable Development Goal 7 calling for 'affordable and clean energy' and Goal 12 on 'responsible consumption and production', "reminding the important contribution of mining to their achievement".
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Experts who follow the money are still scratching their heads as to how a quarter of a billion dollars vanished from the national coffers along with former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh at roughly the same time.
Before his flight into exile in 2017, Jammeh ruled the small palm-fringed country in West Africa with an iron fist. Through the army and his private mercenaries, known as “the Jungulars”, he ruled by torturing and imprisoning political opponents and human rights activists, murdering journalists and depriving citizens of their right to exist.
Viewpoint by Makeda Saba
BRUSSELS (IDN) – The Dutch Foundation Human Rights for Eritreans, an organization of exiled Eritreans, is taking legal action against the European Union. It is demanding of the EU to immediately stop funding a project in Eritrea which involves use of forced labour and enslavement.
The European Union has allocated €20 million for the project aimed at “reconnecting Eritrea and Ethiopia through rehabilitation of the main arterial roads in Eritrea”. It will finance the reconstruction of the Nefasit-Dekemhare-Senafe-Zalembessa road, the main route that allows the easy transportation of goods between landlocked Ethiopia and Eritrea.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Jihadist groups dislodged from Middle East battlegrounds are reportedly regrouping in West Africa, exploiting longstanding grievances between the Dogon farmers and the Puelh-Fulani nomadic herdsmen of Mali over access to limited supplies of land and water.
A militia in Dogon attire entered Ogossagou, a Fulani village and suspected jihadi hideout at about 4 a.m. local time and murdered over 100 men, women and children.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) - Since Cyclone Idai roared into the Mozambican port city of Beira on March 14, devastating losses are mounting exponentially yet international aid has been slow to reach all survivors.
Severe flooding produced by Idai's strong winds and heavy rains caused the rivers Pungwe and Buzi to break their banks. In the district of Buzi, thousands clung for their lives on trees and rooftops, as their villages turned into an ocean. Even as the rains have subsided and the waters are receding, the risk of flooding remains, as dams upstream reach full capacity.
By J C Suresh
TORONTO (IDN) – Stretching from the Gulf of Guinea in the west to the Rift Valley in the east, the Congo basin is the beating heart of African biodiversity. Spanning 530 million hectares across six countries – Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo – the basin contains some 70 per cent of the continent’s forest cover and is home to one of every five species on our planet.
By Lisa Vives and Sean Buchanan
NEW YORK | LONDON (IDN) – An estimated 1.7 million people in Mozambique were in the path of Tropical Cyclone Idai when it hit southern Africa on March 15, with upwards of 900,000 people affected in Malawi and thousands more in Zimbabwe.
With the World Food Programme (WFP) reporting that the scene of devastation is one of “inland oceans extending for miles and miles”, the major challenge now facing the region is how to get aid to those most affected.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – There were smiles all around in Kenya as French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta shook hands over a series of infrastructure deals worth $3.3 billion.
It was the third stop on the French president's East African charm offensive – and the first-ever visit to Kenya by a French head of state.
France wants trade and commercial relationships that are "fair and profitable for the Kenyan people," Macron said. Alluding to Africa’s many relationships with China often freighted with debt, French investments would be respectful of the receiving country's sovereignty and sustainable, he pledged.
