Month: June 2023

Some thirty suspected illegal miners were found dead at the bottom of a disused mine in South Africa, a month after a probable accident, in the small gold-mining town of Welkom, 250 km south of Johannesburg, the government said on Friday.

Riddled by endemic unemployment, South Africa is home to thousands of illegal miners, nicknamed “zama zamas”. Some also come from Lesotho, a small kingdom landlocked within South African territory.

Those who “try and try again”, in Zulu, go down mines that have been abandoned because they are often no longer profitable enough, and try to extract what precious metals, stones or even coal are left.

“According to our information, people suspected of also being illegal miners helped to recover at least three bodies, with 28 others still underground”, Ernest Mulibana, spokesman for the South African Department of Mines and Energy, told Africanewsguru.com.

The victims died on 18 May, according to the department, which has yet to determine the exact circumstances of their deaths. The mine, formerly operated by one of the country’s largest ore producers, Harmony Gold Mining Company, was in operation until the 1990s.

All the bodies must be brought to the surface, but the search is suspended at this stage. “Because of the high level of methane gas, it is currently risky for anyone to descend” into the mine, explained Mr. Mulibana.

Illegal prospecting is widespread in South Africa’s former gold mining regions. Fatal incidents involving illegal miners are frequent and sometimes go unreported because survivors are afraid of being arrested if they inform the authorities.

In November, South African police discovered the bodies of 21 illegal miners in a mine being used in Krugersdorp, a town west of Johannesburg. The authorities said they believed the bodies had been moved from another disused mine to the active mine by other illegal miners so that they could be discovered.

Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is opening its first office in East Africa, drawn by increased demand for engines to generate electricity from renewable sources and to power locomotives and ships.

The case for the UK engineering firm setting up in the region is compelling, according to John Kelly, its president for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. East African nations including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have a population of more than 174 million people and an economic growth rate of 6.5%, he said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Nairobi.

Business in East Africa could echo the success Rolls-Royce has seen in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, where its market share has doubled in the past three years, he said.

“It’s important for us to be in Africa, to understand Africa and to make sure that we optimize our solutions and our offerings for the market and its requirements,” Kelly said.

The company is in talks with Kenya Railways Corp. on powering locomotives, he said, without giving details. It will also focus on naval solutions and electricity requirements for data centers, a growing market in Kenya valued at about $100 million over the next three years, he said.

Sustainable Fuel

East Africa is “perfect” for the generation of sustainable fuels as it has ready access to the raw materials such as water for green hydrogen. Rolls-Royce’s engines can run on such fuels, which include hydro-treated vegetable oils, he said.

Kenya already produces 80% of its power from renewable sources such as geothermal and wind. It is considering nuclear generation, which Rolls-Royce sees as a key component of powering the world, according to Kelly.

“We want to be front and center in terms of providing those power solutions, both on the land, in terms of energy requirements, in the air, in terms of aviation,” Kelly said.

Rolls-Royce has two offices in the South African cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, a presence in Zambia’s mining industry and in Nigeria through a local representative.

Zambia has reached an agreement to restructure its debt, following talks in Paris.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema was in the French capital for an international summit on finance this week.

Zambia’s creditors have agreed to reschedule $6.3 billion, including $1.3 billion in arrears, while private sector officials are expected to do the same on the $6.8 billion owed to them.

The southern African country was the first African country to default on its debt in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lengthy discussions

The agreement comes after years of discussions between Zambia and its creditors to restructure its external debt which amounts to $18.6 billion.

The United States had previously accused China, Zambia’s biggest creditor, of dragging its feet in talks, something Beijing denies.

$4.1 billion of the $6.3 billion owed to government bodies was owed specifically to Export-Import Bank of China, according to a French official.

“We wanted to [restructure the debt], we wanted to do it with our Chinese partners, and the presence of China’s First Minster [Li Qiang] is a is a clear gesture of China’s willingness to participate in these debt restructurings,” said France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in an interview with Radio France Internationale on Thursday.

As agreed in the deal, Zambia’s debt will be rescheduled over more than 20 years with a three-year grace period during which only payments on interest are due.

The restructuring will also enable Zambia to receive the next $188 million tranche of money from the International Monetary Fun, $1.3 billion package approved in August 2022.

The President of Kenya has come to the Paris climate summit “not to ask for help” from the rich countries, but to ensure that a reform of the global financial architecture enables developing countries to “take part in the solution,” he said on Thursday.

“The current financial architecture is unfair, punitive and inequitable”, said William Ruto.

“The countries of the South pay up to eight times more interest than developed countries because they are considered risky”, said the Kenyan president, who wants to attract private investment rather than development aid.

“We are tired of this narrative” that portrays Africans as “victims of climate change”, “looking for favors” and “lamenting”, explains Mr. Ruto: “We are not asking for help, we want to be part of the solution”.

To achieve this, he argues, the IMF and the World Bank need to be reformed, the debt management of developing countries needs to be rethought, and new fair taxes need to be created at international level (on shipping, air transport or financial transactions).

In Kenya, “we pay around 10 billion dollars every year to honor our debt,” he says. If we were to use it instead for the country’s development, it would be an immediate redirection of immense resources, and it would have an enormous impact” on the energy transition, health, electrification, etc. To achieve this, all we need to do is to “get the international community to take action”.

To achieve this, all we need to do is “convert the money we were supposed to pay to the World Bank, the IMF and all the other lenders into a 50-year loan facility with a 20-year grace period,” he explains.

“The world is burning”

Faced with the climate crisis, “we don’t want the North to pay, we all want to pay”, asserted Mr. Ruto at a time when unfulfilled promises by rich countries have broken trust with poor countries, bogging down climate negotiations.

“We want to repair this trust by avoiding the mutual blame game”.

“While we continue to point the finger at each other, the world is burning”, he emphasised, referring to humanity’s delay in reducing its emissions to the level of the objectives of the Paris Agreement, due to a lack of investment to finance development away from fossil fuels.

“We don’t want to say, ‘it’s the North’s fault, they’re the greenhouse gas emitters’. That’s also true, but we don’t want to go down that road” because “today we’re all in the doldrums,” he says.

Kenyan MPs have voted in favor of doubling of the value added tax (VAT) levied on fuel to 16%, which is expected to add to the rising cost of living.

On Wednesday, ruling party coalition MPs pushed through the proposal with 184 approving the clause within the new finance bill, while 88 lawmakers opposed it.

The government, which is looking to raise about 50bn Kenyan shillings ($356m; £279m) from the additional tax, has defended the move as necessary amid a rising debt burden.

But the leader of the opposition MPs in parliament said it was punitive, terming the decision to push ahead with the fuel tax clause as “the saddest day in the history of this country”.

This week, Kenya’s parliament has been combing through clauses within the unpopular finance bill and considering and voting on amendments.

Besides the fuel tax, some of the controversial proposals include a housing fund levy to be paid by all salaried workers and an increase in taxes for social media influencers

The Nigerian government introduced an oil subsidy to cushion the effect of rising global oil prices in the 1970s. The subsidy had kept petrol prices cheap for decades in Africa’s biggest economy but it became increasingly costly for the country. The new president decision to remove a popular petrol subsidy is imposing extra burden on the masses.

Angola aims to become Science and Tech hub

Angola’s largest international technology forum, ANGOTIC 2023, is back after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The event promotes debate around current, global and future issues in information and communication technologies between government entities, it showcases innovations, as well as new trends in the sector.

The global value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) involving companies operating in sub-Saharan Africa reached $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2023, registering an 80% drop compared to the same period of 2022, according to a new report, experts blame it on the pandemic and the global recession.

Clashes resumed between Sudan’s military and a powerful paramilitary force after a three-day cease-fire expired Wednesday morning, a protest group and residents reported.

The fighting has killed thousands of people and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes to safer areas in Sudan and neighboring countries, according to the U.N. migration agency.

The U.N. said Wednesday that within the last month, it has helped truck 17 tons (15.4 metric tons) of aid to various parts of Sudan, including 50 truckloads in the first two days of the latest cease-fire.

“We will continue to deliver, cease-fire or not,” U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said at the World body’s headquarters while emphasizing that the fighting needs to stop so that the world body can reach all people in need.

438 trucks with 17K tons aid (50 of those trucks moved during first two days of the most recent cease fire).

Moreover, Haq also said the UN “is alarmed by the impact that attacks on health care are having on women and girls in the country,” and that two-thirds of hospitals are closed in areas impacted by the fighting, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

He added that several maternity hospitals are also out of action: “Of the more than two-and-a-half million women and girls of reproductive age in Sudan, nearly 263,000 are estimated to be pregnant” and “one third of them will give birth in the next three months.”

All of them, he stressed, “need access to critical reproductive health services.”

Sudan descended into conflict in mid-April after months of worsening tensions exploded into open fighting between rival generals seeking to control the African nation. The war pits the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces, a militia-turned-paramilitary force commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.3

Thousands of people escaping the ongoing conflict in Sudan have arrived in Chad amid violence in the West Darfur region.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), over 115,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to the neighbouring country since the fighting began in April.

The UNHCR’s Representative in Chad, Laura Lo Castro, spoke with the refugees who she says “described terrifying scenes, in which everyone had to flee for their lives.”

She also spoke of what the refugees described as “massacres” in which they “had to leave behind little children who couldn’t run, people who were injured and the elderly.”

Mocktar Arbab, a Sudanese refugee, told reporters of his experience fleeing Sudan.

Arbab also showed reporters where he was “shot in the back.”

The UNHCR said it is working closely with neighbouring governments and partners to provide medical care for refugees and to prepare for new arrivals as the fighting continues.

Sudan descended into conflict in mid-April after months of worsening tensions exploded into open fighting between rival generals seeking to control the African nation.

The war pits the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces, a militia-turned-paramilitary force commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

The fighting has killed thousands of people and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes to safer areas in Sudan and neighbouring countries, according the UN migration agency.

Two people were killed and 34 injured when an overnight passenger train careered off the tracks and overturned in eastern Tunisia on Wednesday, the state-owned SNCFT rail company said.

The accident occurred shortly after midnight (2300 GMT) when a train operating between Tunis and the southern city of Gabes derailed near Msaken, a town about 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the capital.

The driver and a passenger were killed while 34 other passengers were injured, the SNCFT said.

“An investigation has been opened to clarify the circumstances and causes of the accident and to determine who was responsible,” it added.

The accident comes 15 months after a collision between two trains in the south of the capital injured around 100 people.

In December 2016, five people were killed and more than 50 injured in the same area when a train and a public bus collided.

Blamed on faulty infrastructure, the accident prompted the sacking of the SNCFT’s then chief executive.

In June 2015, Tunisia experienced one of the worst rail accidents in its recent history when 18 people died in a crash between a train and a truck at El Fahes, about 60 kilometres south of Tunis.

The collision was caused by a signalling fault at a level crossing.