Month: August 2023

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that he supports more countries joining the BRICS group of large developing nations, which currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Lula’s comments came hours after it was reported that Brazil had resisted expanding the group’s membership because some Brazilian diplomats voiced concern that adding more nations could lessen the influence of existing members.

“We are going to discuss the entry of new countries (to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc), and I am of the opinion that as many countries want to enter, if they are in compliance with the rules we are establishing, we will accept the countries’ entrance,” explained President Lula.

Since taking office, President Lula has repeatedly bucked the existing dominating international structure.

He went on to hail the prospects of the Chinese-backed New Development Bank, commonly known as the BRICS bank, which is currently funding infrastructure projects in Brazil.

“I think the BRICS bank needs to be more effective and more generous than the IMF. That is, the bank is there to help save countries and not to help sink countries, which the IMF often does,” he added.

The group will hold a summit in Johannesburg in August with an in-hand list of others desiring to join the group, all BRICS members are interested in trying to accept other countries, but parameters still need to be discussed.

Labour unions marched across Nigeria on Wednesday to protest the soaring cost of living under the West African nation’s new president, with calls for the government to improve social welfare interventions to reduce hardship.

Usman Abdullahi Shagari, health ministry worker:

“The removal of fuel subsidy has increased (the cost of) almost everything in the country so far, but precisely if we talk of transportation, for one to transport himself from his house to his office , or those that are in the market, everyone is complaining.”

In Abuja, hundreds , watched closely by police, marched down a main thoroughfare chanting and singing against the subsidy cuts that have led to the rising cost of petrol in the oil-rich nation.

The unions, made up of government workers, said the economic incentives announced this week by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu to ease hardship were not enough.

They also accused him of failing to act quickly to cushion the effect of some of his policies, including the suspension of decadeslong, costly subsidies that have more than doubled the price of gas, causing a spike in prices of food and most other commodities.

Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigerian Labour Congress, umbrella union body:

“The option of continuing this protest for a longer period is open to us. It depends on the approach of the Nigerian state that will determine the level that we will we do this action today.”

The demonstrations were organised by the Nigerian Labour Congress, the umbrella body of the unions.

Large numbers of protestors were reported in Lagos and the capital Abuja.

Senegalese authorities suspended the TikTok application on Wednesday until “further notice” due to the dissemination of “hateful and subversive” messages following protests against the imprisonment of opposition figure Ousmane Sonko on Monday.

They had already cut off internet access on cell phones on Monday for the same reasons.

“It has been noted that the TikTok application is the social network preferred by ill-intentioned people to disseminate hateful and subversive messages threatening the stability of the country,” said Moussa Bocar Thiam, Minister of Communication and the Digital Economy, in a statement.

Mr. Sonko’s detention on Monday on various charges, including calling for insurrection, provoked protests. Three people were killed in the south of the country and in the suburbs of Dakar.

Two other people were killed on Tuesday in Dakar in an incendiary device attack on the bus they were travelling in, without any clear link being established between the bus attack and the protest against Mr. Sonko’s imprisonment.

On Monday, Amnesty International denounced the restrictions on the Internet as “an attack on freedom of information” and called on the authorities to “restore the Internet”.

With this third procedure, which comes on top of two other convictions, Mr. Sonko, a declared candidate in the 2024 presidential elections, risks, according to legal experts, five to 20 years in prison.

The politician, who came third in the 2019 presidential election, was sentenced on June 1 in another case to two years in prison. His conviction sparked the most serious unrest in years in Senegal, which left sixteen people dead according to the authorities, and around thirty according to the opposition.

Sierra Leonean police claimed to have arrested “several” people, including army officers, who were planning violent attacks a year after deadly August 2022 riots that left more than 30 people dead.

“The security sector has been following intelligence regarding the activities of certain individuals, including senior military officers, working to undermine the peace and tranquility of the state,” police said in a statement received Monday evening by our source.

It adds that the suspects planned to use the peaceful protests planned for next week “as a pretext to unleash violent attacks on state institutions and peaceful citizens”.

Inflation and exasperation with the government provoked riots on August 10, 2022 which caused the death of 27 civilians and six police officers. Amnesty International said it collected testimony alleging “excessive use of force” and condemned internet restrictions.

Sierra Leone , a small West African state among the least developed in the world, held general elections on June 24. President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected for a second term in the first round, according to official results, which the opposition contests.

International observers noted “statistical inconsistencies” and condemned a “lack of transparency” in the counting of votes after the vote. The opposition refused to participate in any position of governance, both local and national and took the decision to boycott parliament.