Month: November 2024

Mauritius’ Prime Minister said he has ordered an independent review of an agreement with the United Kingdom which returns control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Navin Ramgoolam told parliament that the findings would be tabled before the cabinet for consideration.

Under the deal which is yet to be signed, the UK would surrender the Islands to Mauritius but keep Diego Garcia which houses a major base for US and UK troops.

The deal was agreed in October before Ramgoolam shot to power with his Change Coalition in elections in November.

During campaigning, Ramgoolam and his allies criticized the agreement as ‘sell-out’ by former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth.

The Chagos islands, an archipelago of about 60 islands have been under British control since 1814.

In a 2019 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice determined that the U.K. had illegally divided Mauritius, prompting a UN resolution criticizing London’s ‘colonization’ of the islands.

The deal, which paves the way for the potential return of people who were forcibly removed from the islands has been criticized by the UK opposition.

At least 100 people, most of them women, were missing after a boat transporting them to a food market capsized along the River Niger in northern Nigeria, authorities said Friday.

The boat was taking the passengers from Kogi state along the river to neighbouring Niger early Friday morning when it capsized, Niger State Emergency Management Agency spokesman Ibrahim Audu told The Associated Press.

At least eight people were confirmed dead at the scene while local divers were trying to rescue others, the local Channels Television reported, citing eyewitness accounts.

Authorities have not confirmed what caused the sinking. However, local media reported that the boat was carrying more than 200 passengers, suggesting it might have been overloaded. Overcrowding in vehicles is common in remote parts of Nigeria where the lack of good roads leaves many with no alternative routes.

Officials in Kogi are yet to locate the exact location of the incident and were seeking assistance from other agencies, according to Justin Uwazuruonye, who is in charge of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency operations in the state.

Such deadly incidents are increasingly becoming a source of concern in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, as authorities struggle to enforce safety measures and regulations for water transportation.

Most of the accidents have been attributed to overcrowding and the lack of maintenance of the boats, often built locally to accommodate as many passengers as possible in defiance of safety measures.

Authorities have not been able to enforce the use of life jackets on such trips, often because of lack of availability or cost.

South Africa is poised to take over the leadership of the G20 on Sunday.

This is the first time an African country is taking the presidency of a Group of 20 countries.

Johannesburg will be tasked to lead the group until the end of 2025 when the United States will take over the helm of G20 leadership.

The G20 group is targeting to address inclusive growth and climate change risks bumping up against the hard reality of trade wars and diplomatic tensions.

Leaders of the world’s 20 major economies had gathered in November and made several declarations.

The document, which includes calls for a global pact to combat hunger, more aid for Gaza and the end of the war in Ukraine, was heavy on generalities and short on specifics.

The joint statement was endorsed by group members but fell short of complete unanimity. It also called for a future global tax on billionaires and reforms allowing the eventual expansion of the U.N. Security Council beyond its five permanent members.

At first, the suggestion to try farming maggots spooked Mari Choumumba and other farmers in Nyangambe, a region in southeastern Zimbabwe where drought wiped out the staple crop of corn.

After multiple cholera outbreaks in the southern African nation due to extreme weather and poor sanitation, flies were largely seen as something to exterminate, not breed.

Experts from the government and the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, broached the idea. But many stepped back when told it was about being trained to farm maggots for animal feed and garden manure.

“When this concept was introduced to us we were just coming out of the Covide19 pandemic and people were excited thinking that donors had brought food aid,” says Choumumba.

“But after realising that this was about black soldier flies and maggots most people then began to shun the idea because the misconception was that all flies cause cholera.”

Fast forward 12 months, and the 54-year-old walks with a smile to a smelly cement pit covered by wire mesh where she feeds rotting waste to maggots — her new meal ticket.

After harvesting the insects about once a month, Choumumba turns them into protein-rich feed for her free-range chickens that she eats and sells.

And maggot farming is good for the environment too.

“Nowadays, nothing goes to waste or is thrown away, whether it’s corn leaves, banana skins or orange peels,” she says.

“Instead of throwing that away and littering the environment, we tell our fellow villagers to bring that to us, we have good use for it, it is food for our maggots,” she adds.

From bare survival, it is becoming a profitable venture.

After harvesting the insects, Choumumba mixes them with drought-tolerant crops such as millets, cowpeas, and sunflower and a bit of salt.

With 15 kilogrammes of maggots harvested every 21 days, she can produce about 375 kilogrammes of chicken feed.

Choumambo sells eggs and free-range chickens to restaurants, and some of the feed to fellow villagers at a fraction of the cost charged by stores for traditional animal feed.

Before rural farmers took up maggot farming, 80 per cent of chicken production costs were gobbled up by feed. But the United States Agency for International Development says this has now dropped by about 40 per cent.

The maggots are offspring of the black soldier fly, which has a life cycle of just weeks, during which it lays between 500 and 900 eggs.

The larvae devour decaying organic items, from rotting fruit and vegetables to kitchen scraps and animal manure, and turn them into a rich protein source for livestock.

“This is an enabler because the black soldier fly maggots, or the meal, in terms of protein composition alone, is between 55 to 60 per cent crude protein,” says Robert Musundire.

He is a professor specialising in agricultural science and entomology at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe, which breeds the insects and helps farmers with breeding skills.

Donors and governments have pushed for more black soldier fly maggot farming in Africa because of its low labour and production costs and huge benefits to agriculture, the continent’s mainstay that is under pressure from climate change.

Five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance, a heart medication known as TMZ.

Swiatek failed an out-of-competition drug test in August, and the International Tennis Integrity Agency said Thursday (Nov. 28) it accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional.

It was caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues with jet lag and sleeping.

Swiatek who shared a video on her Instagram account explained how investigating the contamination was a tough period for her since she was unable to defend her ranking and play tournaments in Asia.

The 23-year-old tenniswoman thanked her supporters and rejoiced at the idea of being able to play again soon.

Chad’s government is ending a defense cooperation agreement with France, its former colonial ruler, to redefine the nation’s sovereignty.

The decision marks a historic turning point after the Central African nation gained independence more than six decades ago, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abderaman Koulamallah said in a statement Thursday.

It said the decision to end the agreement would allow Chad to redefine its strategic partnerships in line with national priorities.

There was no immediate response from France’s government.

Chad was one of the last countries in the region in which France maintained a large military presence, having been ousted in recent years from Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso after years of fighting Islamic extremists alongside regional troops. Those countries have inched closer to Russia, which has mercenaries deployed across the Sahel, the vast expanse below the Sahara desert.

Chad’s interim president, Mahamat Deby Itno, seized power after his father, who ran the country for more than three decades, was killed fighting rebels in 2021. Last year, the government announced it was extending the 18-month transition for two more years, which led to protests across the country.

Analysts say Deby has mistrusted France for a while, and the decision creates an opportunity for other nations, notably Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

“Deby has been seeking to diversify its security partnerships away from exclusive deals. He doesn’t trust (French President Emmanuel) Macron. … He can also not ignore widespread anti-French sentiment,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at Konrad Adenauer foundation in Mali.

France has maintained about 1,000 troops in Chad, and the statement didn’t specify when they have to leave.

Chad said the decision in no way calls into question the countries’ historical ties and that it wants to maintain relations in other areas of common interest.

France still has 350 troops in Senegal, another former colony, which remains a security partner in the region. But the French military presence there also appears to be under threat.

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal said that it was “obvious” that soon there won’t be any French soldiers on Senegalese soil, in an interview with Le Monde which was published hours after the declaration by Chadian authorities. Faye added that the relationship with the former colonizer had to be redefined.

“It’s not because the French have been there since the slavery period that it’s impossible to do otherwise,” he said.

Nigerian economist, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was unanimously reappointed on Friday for a second four-year term as Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Trade sources said her early reappointment could be seen as an effort to avoid a veto by incoming United States president Donald Trump, a suggestion the WTO has dismissed.

In 2020, his previous administration sought to block Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment, and she only secured US backing when President Joe Biden succeed him in the White House.

Trump has a history of hostility towards the WTO as a place for resolving trade disputes.

He has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China when he returns to office in January.

This will violate US trade commitments and ratchet up trade tensions with both friendly and adversarial nations.

Okonjo-Iweala says the WTO is looking forward to working with the new administration and plans to take a very constructive and creative approach.

The former Nigerian finance minister says she is committed to delivering results that ultimately improve the lives of people around the world.

The Nigerian President Tinubu began his three-day state visit to France on Thursday in a bid to strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries.

The visit is symbolic to Nigeria’s leadership as it marks the first appearance of a sitting president at Champs-Élysées in two decades.

Paris is seeking to renew its ties with Africa, especially the English-speaking countries. France has seen its influence diminish in the French-speaking countries following the coups that took place in the Sahel countries.

France is seeking to strengthen economic ties with Africa, as the visit sets up the two presidents for meetings at the “Franco-Nigerian Business Council” forum.

The forum was meant to boost the economic cooperation and investments between the two countries.

Tinubu is graced with some of the highest-ranking officials in his government including popular business moguls like Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote.

Ties between France and the continent are beginning to falter after Niger’s military junta banned the French aid group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, or Acted, from working in the country in mid-November.

The Ministry of the Interior signed a decree withdrawing the nonprofit organization’s license to operate, without providing reasons for the decision.

Niger had been the West’s last reliable partner in the region in battling jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

President Macron last visited Nigeria in 2018 during the tenure of the then President Buhari. The visit to Nigeria then marked a return to familiar territory for Macron. He spent six months in Abuja as an intern at the French embassy in 2002.

Franca has been seen to be courting the English-speaking regions and countries in Africa to replace the French countries after his fallout with some of them like the Sahel countries. Macron visited several countries in Africa including Kenya and Ethiopia in 2019, South Africa in 2021, and Nigeria in 2018.

According to the latest data, Nigeria is the leading trading partner for France in Africa followed by South Africa.

It has been a rocky season for football star Kylian Mbappé, who missed a penalty during Real Madrid’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool on Wednesday. While the club’s head coach Carlo Ancelotti conceded that Liverpool deserved the win, he stated that Mbappé was in need of support.

“This has happened before (in my career) many times”, Ancelotti told the press.

“I think when you’re a striker you want to score. You get a bit disappointed in yourself [when you don’t do that.] I think that there’s a medicine which is to be patient. To be patient because I think it’s a difficult moment [for him]. Everybody we’ve got to give him our support and he’ll soon be fine”, added Ancelotti.

Madrid has lost three of its last five games overall, sitting in 24th place this season. Asides from the Liverpool match, the club lost at home to Barcelona 4-0 and AC Milan 3-1.

This summer, Mbappé signed with the club for an undisclosed sum—many have claimed it was football’s most expensive free transfer. The 25-year-old called this “a dream come true.”

Earlier in the season, Mbappé took a break from France’s Nations League matches against Israel and Belgium, focusing on recovering from his thigh injury.

However, headlines soon shifted away from this injury and towards Swedish media speculation, which tied Mbappé to a rape allegation in Stockholm, filed shortly after the player’s trip to the city in October.

Ancelotti previously stated that Mbappé was not “affected at all” by these reports. Meanwhile, Mbappé called these reports “false and irresponsible”.

Mbappé led France to a World Cup title when he was only a teenager, in 2018.

Real Madrid’s captain Luka Modric knows first-hand the pressures that the club’s players face. He stated that although Mbappé was experiencing a difficult transition, this was by no means a fixed feat.

“It is never easy to make your start at Madrid, the first seasons are tough,” Modric said. “But he is a player with a lot of experience. He is a star, and has been one of the best players in the world for several years now.”

Mbappé and Madrid could have a good opportunity to get back to winning when they host Getafe in La Liga on Sunday.

“He has our backing and he knows how to get through this: By not losing confidence and working every day,” Modric said. “I am sure that he will find a way to pull through this and demonstrate why he is here.”

At least 15 people have died and 113 others are missing after landslides buried homes in six villages in eastern Uganda, police said Thursday.

Another 15 injured people have been rescued and admitted to Buluganya Health Center.

The Uganda Red Cross Society said Thursday that 13 bodies had been recovered after landslides buried 40 homes and the rescue effort was continuing. Local media reported that authorities expect the death toll could rise to 30.

Heavy rains triggered landslides in the mountainous district of Bulambuli, 280 kilometers east of Kampala, the capital, on Wednesday night.

Local officials told a journalist in the area that an excavator would be brought to assist in the rescue efforts, but the roads were covered in mud and rain was still falling.

The impacted area is about 50 acres with homesteads and farmlands spread downhill.

Photos and videos of people digging through mud in search of victims were shared on social media. Some of the houses were completely covered by mud while others only had a roof showing above the ground.

The Daily Monitor newspaper reported that most of the bodies recovered so far were those of children.

Bulambuli District Woman MP Irene Muloni said that the government intends to relocate residents from the landslide-prone area.

“Waterfalls are everywhere, and the rainfall is excessive. Let people be evacuated immediately,” she said, urging everyone to seek refuge with relatives and “leave this dangerous place.”

The prime minister’s office issued a disaster alert on Wednesday stating that heavy rains across the country had cut off major roads.

Two rescue boats capsized on Wednesday during a rescue mission on River Nile where Pakwach bridge was submerged.