South Africa coronavirus cases top 500,000: government

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa has now registered more than 500,000 cases of coronavirus, the health ministry announced Saturday, making it by far the hardest-hit country in Africa.

The country has become the epicenter of the deadly pandemic on the continent, accounting for more than half of Africa's diagnosed infections.

"Today, South Africa has exceeded the half-a-million mark with a cumulative total of 503,290 confirmed COVID-19 cases recorded," Heath Minister Zweli Mkhize said in his daily update.

More than a third of positive cases are in Gauteng province -- South Africa's financial hub.

So far, the number of fatalities stands at 8,153, although local researchers have recorded a jump of nearly 60 percent in the overall number of natural deaths in recent weeks, suggesting a far higher toll of coronavirus-related fatalities than officially recorded.

An analysis by the respected South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) suggested an excess of 22,000 natural mortalities between May 6 and July 21 compared to same period in 2019 and 2018. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa said Saturday South Africa's case fatality rate stood at 1.6 percent -- "significantly lower than the global average".

"While South Africa has the fifth highest number of total COVID-19 cases globally, we have only the 36th highest number of deaths as a proportion of the population," said Ramaphosa.

CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS

South Africa's case load has been rising rapidly in recent weeks.

Health authorities have been expecting a surge in cases after the gradual loosening of a strict lockdown that was imposed on March 27, during the early stage of the pandemic.

But the recovery rate has so far been a high 68 percent.

South Africa has one of the best health care systems on the continent, but it has been rocked by alleged corruption in the supply of personal protective gear for health workers in public hospitals.

Ramaphosa's spokeswoman Khusela Diko last week took leave pending a probe into her husband's alleged links to unlawful contracts for personal protective equipment.

Diko and her husband have maintained their innocence, saying the contract was never finalized.

The health minister for Gauteng province Bandile Masuke was sent on forced leave this week pending a probe into suspected graft in the purchase of protective equipment and other medical supplies.

"It is unconscionable that there are people who may be using this health crisis to unlawfully enrich themselves," Ramaphosa said in his statement Saturday.

South Africa has embarked on an aggressive testing and tracing exercise, conducting more than three million tests since the first case of the virus was recorded there in early March.

Agence France-Presse

Coronavirus accelerates across Africa

DAKAR, Senegal — When Daniel Khan Mbuh died in a hospital in northern Cameroon, the hospital declared the cause of death to be COVID-19 — then released the body to the family instead of arranging for a safe burial, his daughter Stella said.

Mbuh said she was told the house where she had been caring for her father in the city of Bamenda would be disinfected. Nobody came. When she tried to get tested, the hospital refused, saying there were not enough test kits. And she was never advised to self-isolate, so she simply imposed her own two-week quarantine on herself and her siblings.

“They said they are following contacts,” Mbuh said of health officials, “but I am one of the contacts. And I am not being followed.”

The spread of the new coronavirus is now accelerating in many countries in Africa, where medical resources are stretched, rumors are rife and efforts to stop the pandemic are sometimes haphazard.

Public health experts have warned that Africa could become the next epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organization said last week that confirmed cases in Africa had doubled in 18 days to reach 200,000; the first 100,000 took 98 days.

“Even though these cases in Africa account for less than 3% of the global total, it’s clear that this pandemic is accelerating,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a video briefing last week.

She said that until there was a vaccine available, the continent would have to live with a steady increase of cases.

Most African nations staved off the initial spread of the virus for several months, partly by closing borders early, banning public gatherings and, in some countries, effectively tracing contacts using past experience of infectious diseases.

But the time this bought was not enough to bolster weak health care systems and to prepare for the predicted explosion of cases.

And now that many African countries, like others across the globe, are lifting their restrictions in order to restart their economies, the virus has new opportunity to spread and potentially, to overwhelm health care systems.

Nigerian doctors announced a nationwide strike starting on Monday over the lack of personal protective equipment in government hospitals and hazard pay for treating COVID-19 patients. Dozens of Nigerian health care workers have been infected, partly because they had no protective gear.

Epidemiologists at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of a “catastrophic shortage” of health care professionals, and a drastic reduction of medical supplies because of border closures, price increases and restrictions on exports imposed during the pandemic.

“Africa needs to intensify its efforts to slow the spread of the pandemic,” they said in an article published last week in the journal Nature. They said that the continent needed financial support to stop the pandemic and tackle its economic and humanitarian effects.

The early spread of the pandemic in many African countries was driven by foreigners and the economic elite: people from Europe, and those with the means to travel there.

It has continued to spread among elites. Ghana’s health minister caught the virus “in the line of duty,” the country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, said on Sunday. Four people in the Kenyan president’s office tested positive and have been taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the office.

However, what has often been perceived in Africa as a foreigners’ disease is increasingly reaching all sections of society. Testing is still extremely limited in most countries, so it is impossible to know how widely the pandemic has taken hold. But a month ago, the WHO predicted that between 29 and 44 million Africans could become infected in the first year.

Truckers are carrying the coronavirus across borders, just as truckers had also spread HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Countries now have set up border controls, which can intensify the points of contact and possible spread of infection.

In the border town of Garoua-Boulaï in the Central African Republic, dozens of truck drivers jostled outside a tarpaulin tent waiting to get tested for the coronavirus. Some wore masks, but many did not, or had pulled them down below their chins.

They had to wait for many days for results until their samples could be driven 370 miles across the country to the capital, Bangui. But as they waited, other citizens crossed back and forth at the border without being checked. No truck, no problem.

Rumors and lack of information have also contributed to the spread. In Tanzania, President John Magufuli said that the country had eradicated coronavirus “by the grace of God.” His government stopped releasing any data on cases after April 29.

In Nigeria, most of the public health messages have been released in English, which many Hausa speakers in the north do not understand.

-Ruth Maclean, The New York Times-

Egypt confirms first COVID-19 case in Africa

CAIRO - Egypt's health ministry on Friday announced the first confirmed case of the new coronavirus in Africa.

The sufferer was not Egyptian, the ministry said in a statement, without specifying the nationality. 

"The ministry has taken preventative measures and is monitoring the patient... who is stable," said health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed.

Egyptian authorities had notified the World Health Organization and the patient been placed in quarantined isolation in hospital.

The death toll from the epidemic virus has neared 1,400 cases, almost exclusively in China where it was first identified.

Deep trade links with China and often overstretched healthcare systems have raised concerns about the capacity of African countries to respond to an outbreak.

Earlier this month, Egypt suspended all flights on its national carrier to China. They will remain grounded until the end of the month.

Three hundred and one Egyptians were evacuated from Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus in China, and have remained in quarantine for 14 days.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Document trove shows how 'Africa's richest woman' stole fortune: ICIJ

LONDRES — An award-winning investigative team published a trove of files Sunday allegedly showing how the daughter of Angola's former president -- dubbed Africa's richest woman -- siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars of public money into offshore accounts.

The New York-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) worked with newspapers such as Munich's Suddeutsche Zeitung to reveal the "Panama Papers" tax haven scandal in 2016.

Its latest series called "Luanda Leaks" zeros in on Isabel dos Santos, the former Angola president's daughter.

Angola's prosecutors last month froze the bank accounts and assets owned by the 46-year-old businesswoman and her Congolese husband Sindika Dokolo.

Dos Santos called it a groundless political vendetta at the time.

"Based on a trove of more than 715,000 files, our investigation highlights a broken international regulatory system that allows professional services firms to serve the powerful with almost no questions asked," the ICIJ wrote.

The group said its team of 120 reporters in 20 countries was able to trace "how an army of Western financial firms, lawyers, accountants, government officials and management companies helped (dos Santos and Dokolo) hide assets from tax authorities".

Dos Santos's lawyer dismissed the ICIJ findings as a "highly coordinated attack" orchestrated by Angola's current rulers.

"It is obvious that our client is the subject of a highly coordinated attack on both her reputation and business," the lawyer said in a statement quoted by The Guardian newspaper.

Dos Santos herself told BBC Africa the file dump was part of a "witch hunt" meant to discredit her and her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

The former president's daughter headed Angola's national oil company Sonangol. Forbes magazine last year estimated her net worth at $2.2 billion.

Her father's successor Joao Lourenco forced her out of the oil company after becoming president in 2017.

Dos Santos said on Wednesday that she would consider running for president in the next election in 2022.

WESTERN CONSULTANTS 

The ICIJ investigation said Western consulting firms such as PwC and Boston Consulting Group were "apparently ignoring red flags" while helping her stash away public assets.

"Regulators around the globe have virtually ignored the key role Western professionals play in maintaining an offshore industry that drives money laundering and drains trillions from public coffers," the report said.

Its document trove included redacted letters allegedly showing how consultants sought out ways to open non-transparent bank accounts.

One confidential document allegedly drafted by Boston Consulting in September 2015 outlined a complex scheme for the oil company to move its money offshore.

It published a similar 99-page presentation from KPMG.

None of the companies named issued immediate statements in response to the investigation.

Agence France-Presse 

Reinhard Bonnke, the 'Billy Graham of Africa,' dies at 79

The Rev. Reinhard Bonnke, a German-born Pentecostal faith-healer whose open-air revivals in Africa attracted so many followers that in one case people were trampled to death hoping to be cured of their afflictions, died at his home in Florida on Dec. 7. He was 79.

The evangelical organization that he founded in 1974, Christ for All Nations, confirmed the death but did not give a cause of death or specify where he lived.


In a petition for prayers posted on his personal Facebook page last month, Bonnke said he had undergone “a right femur bone surgery” and was “learning to walk again.” Followers from Nigeria to India responded with 41,000 prayers.

"Heavenly Father, remember this man, a great general of the faith," wrote one follower, Nugari Mugi-Irenge, from Kikuyu, Kenya.

From the time he left his home in Hamburg for the kingdom of Lesotho in 1967, by his account, Bonnke felt called to bring the word of God to the people of Africa. Often called the "Billy Graham of Africa," he asserted that he had inherited the mantle of a healing evangelist from the British preacher George Jeffries (1889-1962), whom he had encountered in London.

"From Cape to Cairo for Jesus" was a rallying cry on which Bonnke founded Christ for All Nations, which grew to become a multimillion-dollar operation that claims to have brought more than 79 million people to follow Christ, first in Africa and later in Asia, Europe and North America. It also claims to have brought a dead man back to life.

"I am interested in bringing Africa to the foot of the Cross," Bonnke said in an interview with The New York Times in 1984. "I believe that the preaching of the living word of God is something that Africa hungers for."

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria said in a statement posted on Twitter that Bonnke’s death was a loss "to Nigeria, Africa & entire world."

Reinhard Bonnke was born on April 19, 1940, in the historically Prussian city of Königsberg. (Today it is known as Kaliningrad, Russia.) His father left the military for the ministry after World War II, and the family settled in northern Germany. Mesmerized by tales of 19th-century missionaries like David Livingstone, Bonnke studied at The Bible College of Wales.

From the earliest days, technology was part of his preaching. His sermons, held in the 1980s in a giant tent that seated 35,000 and stood seven stories high, incorporated flashing lights and videos shot by camera teams that would accompany his journeys throughout Africa.

The videos were sold to followers eager to take the message home with them. The advent of the internet allowed him to increase his outreach through daily messages posted on social media, and a 10-part film series recounted his journey of faith.

But his refusal to take a political stance against repressive African leaders earned him criticism as well as praise. While living in and maintaining his ministry’s headquarters in an all-white area of Johannesburg in the 1970s and ’80s, he refused to join South African church leaders in speaking out against the country’s apartheid regime, insisting that politics and faith did not mix.

As many as 1.7 million Africans at a time would flock to one of his revivals, requiring them to be held in open-air locations. Many of those attending were ailing with AIDS, cancer and other maladies, drawn by promises of being healed.

In 1991, at least eight people died in violence that broke out in the northern Nigerian city of Kano after thousands of Muslims took to the streets to protest a decision by the police to grant Bonnke permission to hold a revival meeting. In 1999, also in Nigeria, at least 14 people were trampled to death trying to reach the stage to receive Bonnke’s professed healing powers.

Two years later, a Nigerian minister, the Rev. Daniel Ekechukwu, was pronounced dead after the car he was driving smashed into a stone pillar. His wife, saying she had a vision, took her husband’s body in its coffin to the basement of a church where Bonnke was preaching. During his sermon, the man’s wife said, her husband sat up in his coffin and spoke.

"The raising of Daniel from the dead is a story that will offend some people," Bonnke wrote in his book "Raised From the Dead" (2014). "I can guarantee it."

He added: "I tell of the miracle now because it towers over my life and ministry like the steeple of a great cathedral. It points to the heavens, and to the God I serve."

In 2013, at the age of 73, he took his ministry to the United States, which for decades was the source of most of his organization's funding. Although he never attracted a following in America as large as he had in Africa, he made regular appearances on Christian television and spoke to conferences. The Associated Press reported in 2014 that he lived in a roomy $3 million Ritz-Carlton condo near West Palm Beach, Florida with prime ocean views.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ann (Sülzle) Bonnke; their three children, Kai-Uwe, Gabriele, and Susanne; and eight grandchildren.

Bonnke’s organization is now led by Daniel Kolenda, an American living in Florida whom Bonnke designated as his successor in 2001.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

At least 265 dead in floods, landslides as rains batter East Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya - Two months of relentless rains have submerged villages and farms and sent rivers of mud crashing into houses across East Africa, with at least 265 killed, according to an AFP tally, as meteorologists warn of more to come.

The extreme downpours have affected close to two million people and washed away tens of thousands of livestock in Kenya, Somalia, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia.

With a tropical storm headed for Somalia and more rain forecast across the region in the coming weeks, fears are rising over waterborne diseases and the prospect of hunger as crops are destroyed.

In Burundi, 38 people died on Wednesday night after heavy rains triggered landslides that swept through hillside communities in the northwest of the country, according to a provisional police toll on Thursday.

"It happened in the night, when everyone was at home, and landslides hit three very steep hills and buried everything in their path," a witness told AFP.

"Whole families were buried alive in their homes or in the fields. It was terrifying."

Kenya has been hard hit with 132 killed and 17,000 displaced, schools, roads, and health centers flooded, and water systems clogged across the country, government spokesman Cyrus Oguna said in a statement on Tuesday.

The "weather forecast has indicated that the current rains are not expected to cease until the end of December 2019," the statement said. 

In South Sudan, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said nearly a million people have been affected by floodwaters which submerged whole towns, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation after six years of war. 

Flooding has also affected 570,000 people in Somalia, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The European humanitarian agency ECHO meanwhile warned of a tropical storm due to hit northeastern Somalia on Friday, bringing the threat of more flash floods.

'Multiple landslides'

In Tanzania, 55 people have died, according to an AFP tally of police figures, including 30 in flash floods in the northeast in October, 15 whose car was swept away by floodwaters in the town of Tanga, and 10 who drowned last month in northern Mwanza.

In Uganda, eight people have died and over 80,000 have been displaced by flooding and mudslides this week, Disaster Preparedness Minister Musa Ecweru said in a statement.

Days of heavy rainfall on Mount Elgon on Tuesday caused "multiple landslides in... Bududa district killing four people, injuring five and displacing over 6,000 people".

In Sironko district, also on Mount Elgon, "two adults and two children were killed" and over 4,000 people affected.

"The risk of more flooding and landslides is real," the minister warned.

Ethiopia has also been affected, with 22 people dying in a landslide in the south of the country in October.

Djibouti has also experienced unusually heavy rains, with a joint government and United Nations press statement reporting that some areas received "the equivalent of 2 years of rainfall occurred in one day" in heavy downpours two weeks ago.

"Some 10 people (7 children) have reportedly been killed," said the statement, adding that 250,000 were affected countrywide.

Warm Indian Ocean waters to blame

The extreme weather is blamed on the Indian Ocean Dipole -- a climate system defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern areas of the ocean.

At the moment, the ocean around East Africa is far warmer than usual, resulting in higher evaporation and moist air flowing inwards over the continent as rain: the hallmarks of a "positive" dipole.

Scientists say the strength of this dipole is of a magnitude not seen in years, perhaps even decades.

These waters around East Africa have been about two degrees warmer than those of the eastern Indian Ocean near Australia -- an imbalance well beyond the norm. 

The heavy rains have also wrought destruction in central Africa, with scores killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including 41 in the capital Kinshasa last week.

In the Central African Republic, OCHA says around 100,000 people have been displaced.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Thousands rally worldwide against abuse of women

PARIS - Tens of thousands have rallied across the world to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as France unveiled new measures to combat domestic violence.

Demonstrators on Monday gathered in countries as diverse as Guatemala, Russia, Sudan and Turkey, where riot police in Istanbul blocked the path of roughly 2,000 protesters before firing tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse them.

The French government announced it would make it easier for doctors to share information on vulnerable women and write into law the concept of psychological "entrapment", following massive rallies in France over the weekend.

Roughly 87,000 women and girls were murdered across the world in 2017, according to the United Nations.

Monday's rallies -- animated by growing anger over the failure of justice systems to punish offenders -- follow a weekend of protests against what is being termed femicide.

Crowds marched through the streets of Moscow to highlight the government's failure to pass laws protecting women, and hundreds of Sudanese women chanted "freedom, peace and justice" as they gathered in Khartoum in the first such protest in decades.

In Mexico City, masked demonstrators with sledgehammers smashed glass panes of bus stops, spray-painted monuments and clashed with riot police Monday to protest authorities' failure to halt soaring rates of femicide and rape in the country.

'Sexist, patriarchal attitudes'

Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in Madrid on Monday evening following a weekend of protests. Spain's long-standing laws against gender violence have not halted the problem -- 52 women have been killed by their partners or ex-partners since the start of 2019.

South Africa has one of the worst records of any country on gender violence and the government has faced several rounds of mass protests on the issue.

President Cyril Ramaphosa used Monday's events to launch a campaign to improve victims' access to justice and urge men to drop their "sexist and patriarchal attitudes".

The UN warned that more action was needed around the world, singling out Afghanistan as a country where too little is done to counter sexual violence and rape.

And in a rare move, global police cooperation agency Interpol launched an international appeal to find eight men suspected of murdering or committing violence against women.

'Electric shock'

The French government is among those to face sustained pressure for reform -- at least 117 women have been killed by their partner or former partner since the start of the year, according to a count by AFP, compared with 121 women last year. 

Also, 213,000 women have suffered physical or sexual violence carried out by their partner or ex-partner, according to the latest official figures. 

The lights of the Eiffel Tower were switched off for one minute at midnight to mark the day.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he hoped his new measures would deliver an "electric shock" by focusing on ending "absurdities" and "dysfunctional aspects" in the law.

He said the measures, to be put to parliament in January, would be backed by 360 million euros ($400 million) of additional funding.

Advocates for women's rights broadly welcomed Philippe's announcement but called for more concrete help.

"What is needed is to bolster special measures such as offering sanctuary and then supporting the victims," said Francoise Brie, who heads the National Federation of Women's Solidarity.

Equality Minister Marlene Schiappa promised that the new measures would be funded, but also stressed in a newspaper interview that the "fight against marital violence is not just a question of money".

An AFP examination this month of every case of femicide in France showed how the justice system had failed to act in the face of warning signs of the potential for violence.

But in an open letter Monday, more than a dozen top French judges urged women to keep faith in a system that is "improving and adapting itself."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

UN agencies: 45-M people in southern Africa facing food crisis

CAPE TOWN - A record 45 million people across southern Africa face severe food shortages in the next six months, with around a quarter of them currently enduring drought-induced "crisis" food insecurity, three United Nations agencies warned on Thursday.

The 16-member Southern African Development Community is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique earlier this year.

"We've had the worst drought in 35 years in central and western areas during the growing season," said Margaret Malu, acting regional director for southern Africa at the World Food Program (WFP).

"We must meet the pressing emergency food and nutrition needs of millions of people, but also invest in building the resilience of those threatened by ever more frequent and severe droughts, floods and storms," Malu said in a statement.

WFP, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) appealed jointly for urgent funding to help mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa.

Southern Africa's temperatures are rising at twice the global average, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, and the region includes six of the nine African countries set to be hardest-hit by adverse weather in coming years - DR Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

"With the region so prone to shocks and afflicted by high rates of chronic hunger, inequality and structural poverty, climate change is an existential emergency which must be tackled with the utmost urgency," said Robson Mutandi, IFAD Director for the Southern Africa hub said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ghana loses US grant after gov't scraps deal with firm that includes Meralco

Meralco said Power Distribution Services, where it has a 30-percent stake, acted 'in good faith.'
ACCRA, Ghana -- The United States has cancelled $190 million in grants to Ghana under the "Power Africa" initiative in response to the Ghanaian government's termination of a contract with a private utility provider, the US embassy said.

The Millennium Challenge Corp (MCC), a US government foreign assistance agency, agreed in 2014 to provide $498 million in funding to Ghana's power sector to help stimulate further private investment.

The financing was the largest by the United States under Power Africa, which was launched in 2013 by then president Barack Obama and aims to bring electricity to tens of millions of households in Africa.

One reform under the agreement involved handing over operations at state-run Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in March to Ghana Power Distribution Services (PDS), a consortium led by Philippine electricity company Meralco.

But Ghana's finance minister informed US officials on Saturday that the government was cancelling the 20-year concession it had signed with PDS, saying payment guarantees provided were not satisfactory.

Meralco, which has a 30-percent stake in PDS, told the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday that the demand guarantees were invalid because they were issued "without due authorization and in excess of the mandate" of the Qatari insurer, Al Koot Insurance and Reinsurance.

"PDS has maintained that it procured the Demand Guarantees in good faith and that it has no knowledge of any issue with same until the suspension of the concession," the Filipino utility said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the US embassy said the decision to terminate the contract was unjustified and that the MCC was therefore cancelling $190 million in grants.

The remaining $308 million will still be disbursed.

"The United States underscores the importance of contract sanctity as essential to a conducive investment climate and a pre-condition for inclusive economic growth," it said.

Ghana's Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah told reporters on Wednesday that the US announcement did not represent "a crisis of confidence" between the two governments.

"It has been a difference in opinion which we have mutually agreed to respect," he said.

Meralco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

-- with a report from ABS-CBN News

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Zimbabwe ex-president Mugabe dies aged 95

Robert Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe with an iron fist from 1980 to 2017, has died aged 95, the country's president announced Friday.

First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony of Rhodesia of white minority rule, Mugabe used repression and fear to hold on to power in Zimbabwe until he was finally ousted by his previously loyal military generals.

"It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe's founding father and former President... Robert Mugabe," Emmerson Mnangagwa said in a tweet.

"Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people. His contribution to the history of our nation and continent will never be forgotten."

Mugabe had been battling ill health, and his humiliating fall from office in November 2017, his stamina seeped away rapidly. He was hospitalized in Singapore for months for an undisclosed ailment, Mnangagwa had confirmed earlier this year.

No further details were immediately available about the circumstances of his death, or where he died.

The Mugabe years are widely remembered for his crushing of political dissent, and policies that ruined the economy.

The former political prisoner turned guerrilla leader swept to power in the 1980 elections after a growing insurgency and economic sanctions forced the Rhodesian government to the negotiating table.

In office, he initially won international plaudits for his declared policy of racial reconciliation and for extending improved education and health services to the black majority.

But that faded as rapidly as he cracked down on opponents, including a campaign known as Gukurahundi that killed an estimated 20,000 dissidents.

The violent seizure of white-owned farms turned Mugabe into an international pariah -- though his status as a liberation hero still resonates strongly in most of Africa.

Aimed largely at placating angry war veterans who threatened to destabilize his rule, the land reform policy wrecked the crucial agricultural sector, caused foreign investors to flee and helped plunge the country into economic misery.

All along, the Mugabe regime was widely accused of human rights violations and of rigging elections.

The topic of his succession was virtually taboo during Mugabe's decades-long rule, and a vicious struggle to take over after his death became clear among the ruling elite as he reached his 90s and became visibly frail.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pope goes to Africa

Pope Francis waves as he boards an aircraft on his way to Maputo, Mozambique, in Rome's Fiumicino International airport on Wednesday. Pope Francis heads this week to the southern African nations of Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, visiting some of the world's poorest countries in a region hit hard by some of his biggest concerns: conflict, corruption and climate change. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Africa's richest man withdrew $10 million just to look at it

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast--Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, known as Africa's richest man, told a forum in Ivory Coast on Saturday how he once took $10 million in cash out of the bank just to look at it and get it into his head that this was real money, not just figures on paper.

"When you're young your first million is important, but after, the numbers don't mean much," Dangote, a manufacturing tycoon with a range of companies spanning cement to flour, told the Mo Ibrahim forum in Abidjan.

"One day, I cashed 10 million, put them in the boot of my car I put it in my room. I looked at them and thought 'now I believe I have money' and took it back to the bank the next day," he told his audience.

Anecdotes aside, Dangote said that the 2 most promising sectors for Africa's future were agriculture and new technologies. But he advised young African entrepreneurs not to get carried away by the first flush of success.

"Often in Africa we spend our projected incomes. There are ups and downs" in business, he warned.

Dangote said he regretted the customs and administrative problems that hamper business development throughout the continent.

As an example he cited the difficulties his cement group faces in exporting to Benin from Nigerian factories 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border. Benin imported "more expensive" cement from China instead.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama speech to mark 100 years since Mandela's birth

JOHANNESBURG -- Former US president Barack Obama will deliver a speech to a crowd of 15,000 people in South Africa on Tuesday as the centerpiece of celebrations marking 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth.

Obama has made relatively few public appearances since leaving the White House in 2017, but he has often credited Mandela for being one of the great inspirations in his life.

He will deliver the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at a cricket stadium in Johannesburg in an address which will urge young people to fight to defend democracy, human rights and peace.

Mandela, who died in 2013, remains a global icon for his long struggle against white-minority apartheid rule and for his message of peace and reconciliation after being freed following 27 years in prison.

Obama met Mandela only briefly in 2005 but gave a eulogy at his funeral saying Mandela "makes me want to be a better man" and hailing him as "the last great liberator of the 20th century".

Tuesday's speech comes on the eve of "Mandela Day" -- his birthday, which is marked around the world every year on July 18.

The "Mandela 100" anniversary has triggered a bout of memories and tributes to the late anti-apartheid leader, as well as a debate over his legacy and South Africa's fate since he stepped down in 1999.

LEGACY THREATENED?

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he would mark the day by donating half his salary to charity to honor "the great sacrifices he made and his tireless commitment to improving the lives of the most vulnerable."

But F.W. de Klerk, the former president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, told AFP: "I'm convinced that President Mandela would be deeply concerned, as I am, about the present state of affairs in South Africa."

"His vision of a reconciled South Africa has become almost non-existent within the (ruling) ANC at the moment," he said.

Before arriving in South Africa, Obama paid a brief visit to Kenya, his father's home country.

He opened a youth center run by his half-sister and visited the home of his step-grandmother in the village of Kogelo, where his father was born and was buried.

Obama will also host a town hall event in Johannesburg on July 18 for 200 young leaders selected from across Africa to attend a five-day training program.

Mandela was imprisoned under apartheid rule in 1962 and only freed in 1990, when he went on to lead the African National Congress party to victory in the first multi-race elections in 1994.

The anniversary includes a string of other events such as a walk in Johannesburg led by Mandela's widow Graca Machel, the release of letters Mandela wrote from his prison cell and the printing of a commemorative banknote.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Medical delivery drones take flight over Rwanda

"Three, two, one, launch!" And with that, catapulted from a ramp, the small fixed-wing drone buzzes into the air towards its pre-programmed destination, the Kabgayi hospital two kilometers away.

On Friday Rwanda inaugurated a drone operation that its backers hope will kickstart a revolution in the supply of medical care in rural parts of Africa, in the first instance by delivering batches of blood to 21 clinics in the west of the country.

Maternal mortality rates in Africa are among the highest in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), largely due to postpartum hemorrhage caused by lack of access to simple blood transfusions.

Rwanda is no exception, and the situation here is worsened by the topography of a country dubbed "the land of a thousand hills" as well as intense seasonal rains making the transport of blood by road often long and difficult.

Blood "is a very precious commodity so you cannot just stock a lot of it in every single heath center," said Keller Rinaudo, CEO of Zipline, a California-based robotics company that designed the 15 drones and the base housing them in Muhanga, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of the capital Kigali.

FASTER, MORE EFFICIENT
Rinaudo hopes his drone delivery system will "allow the Rwandan government to instantly deliver life-saving transfusions to any citizen in the country in 15 to 30 minutes."

US package-delivery giant UPS and global vaccine alliance Gavi have invested $1.1 million (one million euros) in the Zipline project, one of a handful on the continent seeking to harness the potential of delivery drones to overcome poor infrastructure.

For the Rwandan government blood delivery by drone is not cheaper, but it promises to be much faster.

The drones dubbed "Zips" are shaped like a fat-bellied miniature plane with a two-metre (six-foot) wingspan.

They are battery-powered with a range of around 150 kilometers, weigh 13 kilos (29 pounds) and can carry a cargo of about 1.5 kilos, or three bags of blood.

Flying at up to 70 kilometers per hour, it is predicted each drone could make as many as 150 deliveries a day.

At the tent that serves as a launch station, Zipline technicians monitor the drones from laptops while others prepare the payload: small cardboard boxes with paper parachutes that will hold the transfusion blood and be dropped from a height of around 20 meters.

As the test flights were carried out curious residents peered through the fence, watching as the drones were flung into the air, returning after dropping their cargo at the hospital, and landing on an inflatable mattress.

Zipline plans to open a second base in Rwanda next year meaning the whole of the tiny country will be within range.

"These flights will save lives," said Gregg Svingen, head of communications at UPS. "Today it is blood, tomorrow it will be vaccines."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama challenges Kenya on gay rights, corruption

NAIROBI, Kenya -- US President Barack Obama on Saturday called for gay rights in Africa during his landmark visit to Kenya, comparing homophobia to racial discrimination he had encountered in the United States.

In a joint press conference after talks with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Obama also pushed a tough message on Kenyan corruption, the civil war in South Sudan, controversial elections in Burundi and the fight against Somalia's Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab militants.

Obama arrived in Kenya on Friday, his first visit as president to his father's birthplace and the first to the East African nation by a serving US leader.

"I've been consistent all across Africa on this. When you start treating people differently, because they're different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode. And bad things happen," he said after talks with the Kenyan leader, in response to a question on gay rights.

"As an African-America in the United States I am painfully aware of what happens when people are treated differently under the law. I am unequivocal on this," Obama told a joint news conference, openly disagreeing with Kenyatta.

He said that the notion "a law-abiding citizen... will be treated differently or abused because of who they love is wrong, full stop."

Homophobia is on the rise in Africa, and espousing evangelical Christian values is a major vote winner in many countries. Kenyatta replied by repeating the view that gay rights were "a non-issue."

"There are some things that we must admit we don't share. It's very difficult for us to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept. This is why I say for Kenyans today the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue," Kenyatta said.

A presidential visit to Kenya had been delayed while Kenyatta faced charges of crimes against humanity for his role in post-election violence seven years ago. The International Criminal Court has since dropped the case, citing a lack of evidence and accusing Kenya of bribing or intimidating witnesses.

- 'Get tough on corruption' -

Kenyan Vice President William Ruto, whose ICC trial continues, is also vocally homophobic and recently described gays as "dirty". Obama nevertheless shook his hand on arrival at State House.

Obama also had firm words for Kenya on civil rights and corruption, describing endemic graft as "the single biggest impediment to Kenya growing even faster," and saying people were being "consistently sapped by corruption at a high level and at a low level."

Obama said there was a need for "visible prosecutions" to show citizens action was being taken.

"They don't have to be a forensic accountant to know what is going on," Obama said, giving the example of officials driving expensive cars or building houses far above what their salaries would allow.

The two leaders also pledged greater cooperation against Somalia's Shebab, who have also been at the top of the list of security concerns during the visit.

Nairobi has witnessed massive security operations involving at least 10,000 police officers, with parts of the usually traffic-clogged capital locked down until Obama's scheduled departure late Sunday for neighbouring Ethiopia.

Shebab fighters have staged a string of suicide attacks and bombings on Kenyan soil, including the April massacre at Garissa university, in which 148 people died, and the 2013 assault on the Westgate shopping mall in central Nairobi that killed 67.

"We have systematically reduced the territory that Al-Shebab controls. We have been able to decrease their effective control within Somalia and have weakened those networks operating here in East Africa. That doesn't mean the problem is solved," Obama said.

Earlier Obama laid a wreath at the memorial site of the former US embassy destroyed in an Al-Qaeda attack in 1998, standing in silence in memory of the 224 killed in the twin bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania.

He wrapped up the evening with a state dinner with Kenyatta, with the atmosphere lively and friendly.

- 'Africa on the move' -

Obama also called for an end to the 19-month-old civil war in South Sudan, urging the country's warring leaders to "put their country first." The conflict there is set to be high on the agenda for the next stage of his visit to Ethiopia, also the seat of the African Union.

This week's elections in the central African nation of Burundi, which delivered a controversial third term to President Pierre Nkurunziza, "weren't credible," Obama said.

Despite the areas of disagreement, the president said he was delighted to be back and praised Africa's entrepreneurship at a business summit earlier Saturday.

"It is wonderful to be back in Kenya," Obama said. "Obviously this is personal for me. My father came from these parts."

Barack Obama Sr was a pipe-smoking economist who the US leader has admitted he "never truly" knew. He walked out when Obama was just two and died in a car crash in Nairobi in 1982, aged 46. Obama still has extended family in western Kenya, who he dined with on Friday evening.

"I wanted to be here, because Africa is on the move, Africa is one of the fastest growing regions in the world," he said, drawing cheers and applause from delegates.

"People are being lifted out of poverty, incomes are up, the middle class is growing and young people like you are harnessing technology to change the way Africa is doing business."

He also vowed to return, sketching plans for philanthropic work once he leaves office.

"The next time I'm back, I may not be wearing a suit," he joked.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

On Easter, Pope calls for end to war

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis, in his Easter address before a huge crowd, on Sunday denounced the "immense wastefulness" in the world while many go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Africa.

 "We ask you, Lord Jesus, to put an end to all war and every conflict, whether great or small, ancient or recent," he said in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message.

Francis, marking the second Easter season of his pontificate, celebrated a Mass to an overflowing crowd of at least 150,000 in St. Peter's Square and beyond.

The crowd stretched back along all of Via della Conciliazione, the boulevard between the Vatican and the Tiber River.

Speaking under a sunny sky after a midnight rainstorm soaked the tens of thousands of flowers that bedecked the square, Francis weaved his message around the suffering of people across the globe.

He prayed to God to "help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible".

Since his election as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis had made defense of the poor a hallmark of his papacy, often criticizing developed nations and the excesses of capitalism and consumerism.

The 77-year-old pope, wearing white vestments for the service, prayed for the protection of those members of society who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and abandonment - women, children, the elderly and immigrants.

Easter is the most important day on the liturgical calendar because it commemorates the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead after his crucifixion and the Church sees it as a symbol of hope, peace and reconciliation among peoples and nations.

Bold peace negotiations
The pope called on the international community to "boldly negotiate the peace long awaited and long overdue" in Syria, where more than 150,000 people have been killed in the civil war, a third of them civilians. Millions have fled the country.

"We pray in a particular way for Syria, that all those suffering the effects of the conflict can receive needed humanitarian aid and that neither side will again use deadly force, especially against the defenseless civil population," he said.

Francis asked God to "enlighten and inspire the initiatives that promote peace in Ukraine so that all those involved, with the support of the international community, will make every effort to prevent violence and, in a spirit of unity and dialogue, chart a path for the country's future."

He also asked for an end to violence in Iraq, Venezuela, South Sudan and the Central Africa Republic.

Francis appealed for more medical attention for the victims of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and care for those suffering from many other diseases spread through neglect and dire poverty.

He called for a "halt to the brutal terrorist attacks" in f Nigeria, an apparent reference to Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which earlier this month abducted some 130 girls from a school in the north of the country.

The Easter Sunday services were the culmination of four hectic days of Holy Week activities for the pontiff.

Next Sunday, he will canonize Pope John Paul II, who reigned from 1978 to 2005, and Pope John XXIII, who was pontiff from 1958 to 1963 and called the Second Vatican Council, a landmark meeting that modernized the Church.

Hundreds of thousands of people are due to come to Rome for the canonizations, the first time two popes are be made saints simultaneously and the first canonizations of a pope since 1954.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

McDonald's to give out free McMuffins on March 17

MANILA – More than 300 branches of McDonald’s in the Philippines will give out free McMuffins on Monday next week to mark the second National Breakfast Day in the country.

Each branch will give away 1,000 free McMuffins – or a total of around 320,000 – to customers on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 6 a.m. on March 17. These will be available for dine-in, take-out or drive-thru.

The event will coincide with similar promos in McDonald’s branches in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

“We were so encouraged by our customers’ resounding response in the region last year, we are bringing back National Breakfast Day to remind people about waking up to better mornings with breakfast,” said Andrew Hipsley, chief brand officer of McDonald’s for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

“Breakfast is a significant business for McDonald’s. And we know the convenience of a hot McMuffin on-the-go makes breakfast so much accessible for people who are often caught up in the morning rush,” Hipsley added.

The McMuffin comes in egg and sausage variants. Here in the Philippines, McDonald’s Philippines also serves local items such as the ham pan de sal and longganisa with rice.

The first National Breakfast Day was held in the country on March 18, 2013.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

In new homage, Obama to view Mandela jail cell

JOHANNESBURG - President Barack Obama will Sunday stare into the stark cell where Nelson Mandela spent years as prisoner of a racist regime, in a visit paying homage to his hero after he left Johannesburg without seeing the ailing icon.

The US leader will fly to Cape Town and then visit the jail on Robben Island, now preserved in searing tribute to the sacrifice and unbreakable strength of the anti-apartheid leader, who now lies critically ill in hospital.

"For me to be able to bring my daughters there and teach them the history of that place and this country ... that's a great privilege and a great honour," said Obama, marvelling at a recent outpouring of love for the ailing icon.

Obama will also build the keynote speech of his three-nation Africa tour at the University of Cape Town around Mandela, and will cite his unifying legacy of a blueprint for a new generation in emerging Africa.

Mandela's illness placed Obama in a tricky political spot, forcing him to balance his desire to push for a new economic relationship with Africa, with the need to properly honour his hero as the world braces for his passing.

On Saturday, Obama and his wife Michelle called Mandela's wife Graca Machel, and the president then privately visited several daughters and grandchildren of Mandela, to offer support and prayers.

But he decided against rolling up in his massive entourage at the Pretoria hospital where the 94-year-old Mandela lies, worried that he would disturb his peace.

"I expressed my hope that Madiba draws peace and comfort from the time that he is spending with loved ones," Obama said in a statement using the 94-year-old Mandela's clan name.

Machel said she drew "strength from the support" from the Obama family.

The example of Mandela, South Africa's first black president, drew Obama into politics for the first time in the 1970s, putting him on a path that would make his own piece of history as America's first black president.

"The struggle here against apartheid, for freedom, Madiba's moral courage, his country's historic transition to a free and democratic nation, has been a personal inspiration to me," Obama said.

"It has been an inspiration to the world," Obama said.

South Africa President Jacob Zuma said after talks with Obama Saturday that Mandela remained in a "critical but stable" condition with a recurring lung infection.

And he said that Obama and Mandela were "bound by history" after breaking racial barriers to rise to power.

"You both carry the dreams of millions of people in Africa," Zuma, who also spent 10 years on Robben island, told Obama.

South Africa's last apartheid president FW de Klerk meanwhile cut short a visit to Europe because of the ailing health of his co-Nobel prize winner.

Obama's warm welcome was not universal. Riot police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at around 300 hundred anti-Obama protesters in the township of Soweto, once a flashpoint in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Many Soweto residents, however, see Obama, the son of a white American mother and a Kenyan father, as a "fellow African".

"To me, Madiba represents an older and perhaps more traditional generation of black leaders, while Obama represents the new generation," Tshepo Mofokeng, 43, told AFP. "I'm sure he will be welcomed here as an African."

Not far from the protest, Obama held a town hall style meeting with 600 young African leaders with a video link up to young people in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

Africa "is in your hands" Obama told the youngsters and urged them to use Mandela as a model for political leadership.

"Think about 27 years in prison ... there were dark moments that tested his faith in humanity, but he refused to give up."

Obama's tour of Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania is aimed at changing perceptions that he has neglected Africa since his election in 2008, while also countering China's growing economic influence in the resource-rich continent.

On Sunday, a day ringing with political symbolism, the US president will be walking in revered footsteps when he gives the speech at the University of Cape Town -- those of slain US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy.

RFK gave his famed "ripple of hope" speech at the same venue in 1966, which was a call for non-violent change and equality, at a time when America was still dealing with the racial discrimination which stained its own history.

Kennedy gave the speech only two years after Mandela was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Robben Island.

"Given the difficult moment we are in with his current health, it makes it that much more profound and significant with the president being here in South Africa," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy US national security advisor.

Mandela, once branded a terrorist by the United States and Britain, was freed in 1990 and became president after the first fully democratic elections in 1994.

Also Sunday, Obama, accompanied on his tour by his wife and daughters Malia and Sasha, will visit an HIV/AIDS Center named for another icon of South Africa's emancipation struggle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

China pledges $20 billion in credit to Africa

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday pledged African governments $20 billion in credit over the next three years and called for more China-Africa coordination in international affairs to defend against the "bullying" of richer powers.

Hu made the lending pledge during the opening ceremony of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing. The credit line is double the amount offered in 2009 at the last forum held in Egypt.

Hu promised more Chinese help for African countries in building agricultural technology centers, training medical and other personnel, and digging wells to expand access to clean water. China will encourage investment and assistance in infrastructure that facilitates trade within Africa, he said.

China has emerged as Africa's main trading partner and a major source of investment for infrastructure, pouring billions of dollars into roads and developing the energy sector across the continent.

Trade between the two sides hit a record $166 billion last year, a three-fold increase since 2006.

But China's presence in Africa has also sparked concerns about labor abuses and corruption. Some observers see Chinese investment in Africa as an unequal partnership between an emerging economic giant and the world's poorest continent and accuse Beijing of offering no-strings-attached investment for repressive regimes.

In his remarks, Hu stressed China's status as a still-developing nation and noted Africa is the region with the world's largest number of developing countries. He said both should jointly work to defend their interests in global forums such as the United Nations.

"China and Africa should increase coordination and cooperation in international affairs," Hu said. "We should oppose the practices of the big bullying the small the strong domineering over the weak and the rich oppressing the poor."

source: philstar.com

'World's most expensive coffee' now offered in Davao civet farm

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (PNA) – Civet coffee, the “world’s most expensive coffee” being sold at an average of P1,000 per 100 grams, is now in this city.

For coffee lovers, the taste and aroma of civet coffee is all that matters even if they knew it came from the intestinal tract of the civet cat.

The civet cat is of the family Viverridae of Africa and Asia, having anal scent glands that secrete a fluid with a musky odor which is even used in the manufacture of perfumes.

Local trader Philip Dizon said the civet coffee industry is moving so fast that he never regretted engaging into such kind of business.

Dizon said a mere 25 grams of civet coffee can sell for more than $150 to $200.

But despite the price, coffee lovers seem to cannot get enough.

However, he said maintaining a half-hectare civet coffee farm in Kapatagan, Davao del Sur, a foothill of the country’s highest peak, Mount Apo, is not all for money.

Dizon said civet cats are farm pests that farmers hate so much because of the destruction it brings to their crops.

This hatred has led farmers to kill the civet cats unmindful that these mammals are a source of big money and the world’s most valuable coffee.

It is from this scenario that Dizon started his civet coffee farm by caging the civets not only for money but also to help the farmers benefit from the civet coffee industry.

From being an enemy, the civet cat now became the best friend of farmers because it helped uplift their lives.


Source: mb.com.ph