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As political tensions and uncertainty continue to rise in Chad, Ruth Lago spoke with Attorney Max Loalngar to get more insight into the situation.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
It has given rise to a myriad of challenges such as mental instability, hunger and gender based violence (GBV), street kids have not been spared by this deadly pandemic and are made to face the wrath of this global novel on their own.
During the ‘Angels for life foundation’ tour, I was alerted of many children sleeping on the pavements of Harare Central Business District (CBD) and slowly dying of hunger.
Only the so-called essential services are allowed in town and this therefore means that the street kids that were surviving from picking leftover crumps have been dealt a heavy blow as they have to scavenge for food outside the CBD
If not properly addressed there are fears that many Zimbabweans will die from hunger and starvation than from the actual pandemic cause.
I do understand and appreciate the efforts of free Aid that has been going on from the government, as well as many other foundations but, we can all agree that a lot still need to be done.
I want to appreciate the efforts of free aid coming from the government, as well as many other donors and foundations but, I strongly feel that it is still a long way before the night is over, and more should be done.
This stark warning comes from the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance ahead of the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June, at which world leaders will come together to help maintain immunization programmes and mitigate the impact of the pandemic in lower-income countries.
According to data collected by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Gavi and the Sabin Vaccine Institute, provision of routine immunization services is substantially hindered in at least 68 countries and is likely to affect approximately 80 million children under the age of 1 living in these countries.
MASS IMMUNIZATION CAMPAIGNS TEMPORARILY DISRUPTED
Many countries have temporarily and justifiably suspended preventive mass vaccination campaigns against diseases like cholera, measles, meningitis, polio, tetanus, typhoid and yellow fever, due to risk of transmission and the need to maintain physical distancing during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
About the Analysis
Vaccination Total # of with postponed campaigns as of 15 May*
Measles/ Measles 27
Measles Mumps Rubella (M/MR/MMR)
Polio 7
Bivalent oral poliovirus vaccine 26
Monovalent Oral Poliovirus Type 2 13
Meningitis A 2
Yellow Fever 4
Typhoid 2
Cholera 5
Tetanus 7
The online immunization pulse survey was conducted with over 800 immunization experts, including representatives of Ministries of Health and global health organizations across 107 countries.
Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningitis and yellow fever vaccines
The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners.
Liberia /l aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə/ ( listen), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its west, Guinea to its north and Ivory Coast to its east. It covers an area of 111,369 square kilometers (43,000 sq mi) and has a population of 4,503,000 people.[3] English is the official language and over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous tribes who make up more than 95% of the population. The countrys capital and largest city is Monrovia.
Forests on the coastline are composed mostly of salt-tolerant mangrove trees, while the more sparsely populated inland has forests opening onto a plateau of drier grasslands. The climate is equatorial, with significant rainfall during the May–October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia possesses about forty percent of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. It was an important producer of rubber in the early 20th century.
The Republic of Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States.[7] The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberias independence.[8] The U.S. did not recognize Liberias independence until during the American Civil War on February 5, 1862. Between January 7, 1822 and the American Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born blacks, who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to the settlement.[9] The black settlers carried their culture and tradition with them to Liberia. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected
It is now seven years since my colleagues and I released the Final Report of the Kenyan Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC).
In fact just the other day over 190,000 people displaced from that violence called on the Kenyan government to resettle them and implement the recommendations in the TJRC Report in order to prevent the possibility of election violence in 2022.
Dealing with all rights, not only political rights
The work of the TJRC, and our Final Report, include a number of important innovations and achievements with respect to the operation of a truth commission.
In the Report we link those violations to the more traditional violations covered by a truth commission - the killings, tortures, rapes, massacres that are both the product of these violations of socio-economic rights, and that contribute further to their violation.
The TJRC Report includes not only discussion of sexual violence (including its commission against men), but also an extensive discussion of socio-economic rights and women, including the feminization of poverty, disparities in employment, workplace abuse, lack of access to land, and reproductive health.
The outgoing chair of CARICOM, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley yesterday firmly stood by her position in relation to Guyana’s protracted elections, saying to her detractors here that “The truth hurts”.
“It is to be expected that CARICOM leaders would refrain from any actions or utterances that could undermine the legitimacy of the process and it credible conclusion,” Harmon said, while reminding that the 73-year-old Gonsalves who has led his country for 19 years is currently embroiled in an Election Petition.
“Leaders of CARICOM as a class would rather free and fair elections [and] if the government does not want to accept the results and still wants to stay in office then CARICOM will have to decide whether to suspend Guyana,” the former PM stated.
All of these came two months after the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Keith Rowley refused to allow his country’s Chief Election Officer to be a part of the CARICOM scrutineer team for the national recount, saying that the country would prefer to retain its “pristine” reputation in such matters.
They travelled to Guyana (in spite of the pandemic and the risk to themselves) and they scrutinised the recount process,” she noted, before adding that the Team was of the unshakeable belief that the people of Guyana expressed their will at the ballot box on March 2 and that the results of the recount certified as valid by the staff of GECOM led to an orderly conclusion on which the declaration of the results of the election would be made.
Lying on the Atlantic in the southern part of West Africa, Liberia is bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte dIvoire. It is comparable in size to Tennessee. Most of the country is a plateau covered by dense tropical forests, which thrive under an annual rainfall of about 160 in. a year.
Republic.
Africas first republic, Liberia was founded in 1822 as a result of the efforts of the American Colonization Society to settle freed American slaves in West Africa. The society contended that the emigration of blacks to Africa was an answer to the problem of slavery and the incompatibility of the races. Over the course of forty years, about 12,000 slaves were voluntarily relocated. Originally called Monrovia, the colony became the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia in 1847.
The English-speaking Americo-Liberians, descendants of former American slaves, make up only 5% of the population, but have historically dominated the intellectual and ruling class. Liberias indigenous population is composed of 16 different ethnic groups.
The government of Africas first republic was modeled after that of the United States, and Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Virginia was elected the first president. Ironically, Liberias constitution denied indigenous Liberians equal to the lighter-skinned American immigrants and their descendants.
After 1920, considerable progress was made toward opening up the interior of the country, a process that facilitated by the 1951 establishment of a 43-mile (69-km) railroad to the Bomi Hills from Monrovia. In July 1971, while serving his sixth term as president, William V. S. Tubman died following surgery and was succeeded by his longtime associate, Vice President William R. Tolbert, Jr.
Tolbert was ousted in a military coup on April 12, 1980, by Master Sgt. Samuel K. Doe, backed by the U.S. government. Does rule was characterized by corruption and brutality. A rebellion led by Charles Taylor, a former Doe aide, and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), started in Dec. 1989; the following
[SNA] Khartoum -The Minister of Energy and Mining, Dr. Adel Ali Ibrahim, has praised the Sudan's distinguished relations with Egypt and Ethiopia, especially in the field of electrical interconnection.
I am aware that as I write, the biggest hurdle still stands before us – getting to and getting past the eventual Declaration that the PPP/C won our March 02, 2020 elections; that for the next five years the PPP/C will be sitting in the seat of our Government, still-young Irfaan Ali our President and Retired Brigadier Mark Phillips our Prime Minister.
Hanging before us all Guyanese, and particularly the leading members and supporters of our outgoing Coalition Govern-ment, is the question of what further dangerous, destructive detours would they take our people and country through.
Recall also the various thrusts of varying forcefulness to have Mr. Granger sworn in at dawn, as our returning President on the basis of those openly blatant and outrageously fictitious Mingo declarations; the assertions and denials about the “Guyana Dossier” submitted to the USA Government – was it submitted by the Government of Guyana or the APNU+AFC parties in coalition?
We of the PPP and PPP/C and indeed all Guyanese should be forever grateful to the persistent insistence of the Ambassadors of the Western Countries and their Central Governments, former PM Owen Arthur (of Barbados) heading the Common-wealth observers, former PM Bruce Golding (of Jamaica) heading the OAS team, PM Mia Mottley (of Barbados) current Chair of Caricom and a most concerned close neighbour, PM Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago that the Guyanese people and country have so far been spared the travesty of a Mingo declaration.
Acknowledging that I came to the political stage of our country relatively recently (mid 1990) and through a side door opened by Dr. Jagan, the PPP and the PPP/C, and aware that I have no office nor authority to speak for any other but myself, nonetheless I will say for Dr. Jagan, the PPP and the PPP/C, that we will always work our hardest so as to earn the votes of approval of all our citizens, at every elections, regardless of their race, colour, class or creed or region of Guyana.
June 12: Tigray ‘rejects’ HoF mandate extension, vows to hold polls
\tTigray regional state has all but rejected the regional parliament’s mandate extension granted by the House of Federation earlier this week.
June 10: MPs back extending Abiy’s term amid election delay
\tEthiopia’s upper parliamentary chamber, House of Federation (HoF), has approved an extension to the mandate of the current parliament as well as regional parliaments and councils.
The CCI’s recommendations included that terms of office of the House of Peoples Representatives, HoPR, the HoF, state councils and the executive at federal and state levels be extended for as long as COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a threat to public health, and a current State of Emergency (SOE) remained in place.
If major opposition parties reject the recommendations from the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, “protests or election boycotts could become a reality, reducing the chances of successful competitive polls in 2021,” said William Davison of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a conflict-prevention organisation.
June 8: Abiy rejects talk of transitional govt amid delayed polls
\tEthiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Monday rejected the idea of forming a transitional government when his term of office expires in October, brushing aside fears of a constitutional crisis.
A Sudanese political analyst says Sudan will have a hard time finding the cash to pay the punitive damages imposed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In a unanimous decision Monday, the Supreme Court reinstated a lower court ruling that ordered Sudan to pay $4.3 billion in punitive damages to some of the victims of the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar el Salaam carried out by al-Qaida.
Court affirmed 2011 ruling
Nine years ago, a U.S. Federal District Court judge in Washington said Sudan should pay about $6 billion in compensation and roughly $4 billion in punitive damages for the 1998 bombings.
Sudan's Ministry of Justice said in a statement Monday that \"$7.4 billion of the total $10.2 billion against Sudan remains subject to further litigation,\" since the decision ordered the D.C. Circuit to reconsider its decision that foreign plaintiffs who sued Sudan under state law in the U.S. could not seek punitive damages.
State sponsor of terrorism designation
Analyst Himmat said Sudan must continue to resolve past charges involving acts of terrorism in order to clear its name with the U.S. government.
Dakar — Africans in Africa and Around the World in Solidarity With African-American Sisters And Brothers
A group of African singers, artists, academics, journalists, civil society and business leaders touched by the tragic killing of George Floyd issued a solidarity statement condemning police brutality and calling for renewed and increased relationship between Africans everywhere and African Americans.
No, we cannot remain silent with the cruel killing of George Floyd and the cries of citizens, black and brown and white, in the streets of cities in America and in other continents, declaring to the world that Black Lives Matter.
We are waging these struggles to advance our common causes: democratic freedoms, dignity, equality, social justice, the rights and well-being of women and all minorities, the integrity of leaders and institutions, economic independence, and finally the control of our cultural and historic destiny.
A resilient Africa carried by our communities and a dynamic and enterprising civil society, animated by a generation of young people and women determined to lift the continent from the fatality of despair, and create a future of unity in freedom, dignity and abundance.
Today, in the memory of George Floyd and millions of other black lives who mattered, we Africans in Africa, mourn our loss and honor a rich moment of shared connection.
\tDespite occasional howls from civil society, Jamaica will not see a dramatic decline in corruption – or the perception thereof – until enablers in high places are collared and locked away, insists management consultant Dr Henley Morgan as three...
Danville was a tobacco and textile town of about 50,000 residents, a third of whom were black.
In May 1883, the town’s black majority helped elect the Readjusters—a political coalition of moderate whites, Republicans, and African Americans—and blacks were appointed as aldermen and policemen.
On May 31, 1963, a group of blacks met under the auspices of the Danville Christian Progressive Association.
Like their counterparts in Birmingham, the protesters in Danville pressed for desegregated facilities, equal employment opportunities, representation in city government, and creation of a biracial commission to monitor racial progress.
The city resisted the demands of the movement, and with every strength of power, created a hostile environment which included seeking injunctions under a pre-Civil war “John Brown” statute against any person conspiring to incite the black population to uprise against the city.
The Angolan Civil War, beginning at the time of the countrys independence from Portugal in 1975, was a 27-year struggle involving the deaths of over 500,000 soldiers and civilians. Initiated at the height of the Cold War, pro- and anti-communist forces in Angola set the stage for a proxy fight between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Though the fighting officially ended in 2002, Angola remains in economic and social turmoil with a massive refugee crisis and millions of landmines impeding farming practices.
Rich in diamonds and oil, Angola was one of the last African nations to receive independence from a European power. On April 25, 1974, a Portuguese military coup d’état protesting the country’s colonial practices successfully overthrew the regime. The combined forces of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) created a transitional government with the Alvor Accord of 1974.
Within a year the government had disintegrated, and with aid from the USSR and the Cuban military, the Marxist-oriented MPLA under the leadership of José dos Santos had wrested control of most of Angola. Indirectly and through proxies, governments from the United States, Brazil and South Africa funded UNITA, providing munitions, intelligence reports, and mercenaries.
Heavy fighting continued until 1991 when a temporary agreement known as the Bicesse Accords was reached. Calling for an immediate ceasefire and the removal of both Cuban and South African troops, the agreement mandated a new national government and army, along with Angola’s first multi-party elections. A year later, MPLA candidate José dos Santos won 49% of the popular vote in the election compared to 40% for UNITA candidate Dr. Jonas Savimbi. When Savimbi disputed the outcome, UNITA resumed guerilla war against the MPLA.
In 1993 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 864 placing
