Author: Jideofor Elumogo

South Africa, economically crippled by a serious electricity crisis and repeated power cuts, plans to increase its nuclear power production, which is currently marginal, the government announced on Tuesday.

To date, Africa’s leading industrial power has only one nuclear power plant, the only one on the continent. But the Koeberg plant, near Cape Town, is only operating at half capacity.

The government announced on Tuesday that it had launched discussions with “several potential suppliers” for the acquisition of new production units. These could be conventional reactors or small modular reactors, which are less powerful but also less costly.

Zizamele Mbambo, in charge of nuclear power at the Ministry of Energy, told a press conference that he hoped to see the first reactors in service by 2032-2033.

“An important milestone”, stressed Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, which should bring an additional 2,500 MW of electricity generation capacity.

Over the past 15 years, power cuts of up to 12 hours a day have severely affected the economy and fuelled anger against the country’s historic ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), with elections due next year.

The ANC could fall below the 50% mark, according to the polls, and lose its absolute majority in parliament for the first time.

Over the past 15 years, power cuts of up to 12 hours a day have severely affected the economy and fueled anger against the country’s historic ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), as elections are scheduled for next year.

The ANC could fall below the 50% mark, according to the polls, and lose its absolute majority in parliament for the first time.

After years of mismanagement and corruption under President Jacob Zuma (2009-2018), state-owned power utility Eskom is unable to generate enough electricity for the country from its aging and poorly maintained power plants.

One unit at the Koeberg nuclear power plant was shut down for almost a year to extend the site’s lifespan by 20 years. And the second unit was shut down this week for maintenance.

All is now set for the AFCON 2023 tournament to be hosted in Ivory coast, sporting authorities in the west African nation said Wednesday as they presented recently renovated stadiums to the press.

“As you can see, COCAN’s mission is first and foremost to organise and deliver the operations and infrastructure needed to ensure the success of AFCON 2023” said François Albert Amichia, President of Ivorian Organising Committee for the Africa Cup of Nations (COCAN). “Above all, to unite the general public and the nation’s economic forces around this major event; to build a legacy in terms of services and infrastructure for sport and the people of Côte d’Ivoire ” Amichia added.

The tournament with 52 matches will be held in five cities: Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, Bouaké, San-Pedro and Korhogo, with fan zones in each host city.

“Once the AFCON has been offered, all the necessary measures will be taken to ensure security and quality of life in the city of Abidjan. For those who know Ivory Coast, there’s a saying that goes “Abidjan is sweet”. It’s universal. And so we’re going to make sure that all foreigners appreciate it. That’s at the organisational level” said Yacine Idriss Diallo, President of the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF).

This will be the second Africa Cup of Nations finals to be organized by CAF in Côte d’Ivoire.

“For about fifteen years, we had no stadiums in Ivory Coast. We had to go and play away from home for Ivory Coast matches. The President understood that it was important to offer his young people an environment and conditions in which they could flourish”.

AFCON 2023 will be held from January 13 to February 11, 2024 in Ivory coast where 24 teams will battle for the the continental title.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya on Wednesday welcomed Gabon’s transitional president Brice Oligui Nguema to Yaounde for a short state visit.

The Cameroonian leader is the latest to recieve Oligui Nguema who is on a tour of central African states asking for the lifiting of economic sanctions on his country before the 2025 elections. Nguema said he and President Biya discussed this in their closed door meeting with some officials and how to boost economic ties between both nations.

Nguema who did not share specific details of the meeting is reported by sources to have explained the reasons behind the coup, and outlined the work of the transition he is leading up to the organization of the country’s next democratic elections.

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The Gabonese strong man later met several hundred Gabonese civilians in Yaounde where he justified his rise to power, vowing it was to improve living conditions in their oil-producing nation that was ruled for 56-years by the Bongo family.

Nguema’s two hour closed door meeting with Biya ends the tour which has taken him to Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo since he seized power in August.

The general led a coup against Ali Bongo on August 30, moments after Bongo – whose family ruled the West African state for 55 years — was declared winner of a presidential election which the army and opposition declared fraudulent.

Former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Thursday urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “change course” on immigration, as his Conservative party was torn over a bill to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.

Mr Sunak is due to speak late this morning, following the resignation of Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick on Wednesday evening. Mr Jenrick explained in his resignation letter that the new version of the bill, which is due to be put to a vote by MPs next week, did not go “far enough”, adding to the pressure on the head of government just as the bill was being presented to parliament.

Suella Braverman and her allies on the right wing of the Tories, who take a hard line to prevent migrant boats arriving across the Channel, urged Rishi Sunak to “amend this bill”, which they said was doomed to failure.

“I very much hope that the Prime Minister will change course and take on board the comments” of these elected representatives, who consider the current bill to be insufficiently severe and difficult to apply, said the former minister in an interview with the BBC.

“This project will not work and will not stop the boats”, because certain clauses will allow migrants to make “a whole series of individual claims” before the courts to challenge their expulsion to Rwanda, she assured.

Suella Braverman, who was sacked by Rihi Sunak in November, wants London to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and other international conventions on human rights.

The new text should make it possible not to apply certain sections of the British Human Rights Act to deportations, but it does not go so far as to sign up to London’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.

“We must keep this key promise (to stop the boats), that’s how we’ll win the next general election” scheduled for the end of 2024, she insisted.If Rishi Sunak succeeds, “he will be able to lead us (to victory)”.

Initially championed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this controversial project to send illegal migrants to Rwanda has been blocked for months by the courts, and the Conservative government is trying to save it by any means possible, following a final setback from the British Supreme Court last month.

The Court blocked the project out of concern for the safety of migrants being deported to the African country.

In his response to Mr Jenrick on Wednesday evening, Mr Sunak said that if the UK “completely bypassed the courts, the whole system would collapse”, with the risk of Rwanda pulling out of the project.

Some 29,700 people arrived in the UK on small boats this year, compared with 45,700 in 2022.

Swiss federal authorities indicated on Tuesday that they had returned to Libya a marble head of a young woman from the Hellenistic period, around 2,000 years old, discovered ten years ago in a warehouse in Geneva.

It is an “archaeological vestige of great value” and an “exceptional testimony to Hellenistic expansion in North Africa “, according to a press release from the Federal Office of Culture.

The 19-centimeter-high sculpture dates from the period between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD and most likely comes from the archaeological site of the ancient city of Cyrene, in the Cyrenaica region in current Libya, it is also specified.

The sculpture was discovered in 2013 as part of an inspection in a customs warehouse in Geneva and was handed over to Bern on Tuesday by the director of the Federal Office of Culture at the Libyan embassy in Switzerland.

Three years after its discovery, the Geneva public prosecutor’s office decided to initiate proceedings, considering that the sculpture could have been found during “illicit excavations”.

However, the criminal proceedings did not make it possible to determine the precise place where the sculpture was discovered or how it arrived in Switzerland.

Mediterranean Basin

The marble head is entirely covered with a reddish patina which provides information on its origin, indicates the Federal Office of Culture, according to which the Cyrenaica region is one of the rare regions in the Mediterranean basin where we find “terra rossa and marble of such quality”.

“Libya, in particular its UNESCO World Heritage sites like Cyrene, are strongly threatened by looting and destruction,” explains the press release, which recalls that in 2015, the International Council of Museums published a list red flag of Libyan antiquities in danger to fight against the destruction and illegal trade of cultural property.

Both Switzerland and Libya, a country plunged into chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and governed by two rival executives, are parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Prohibition of Import, Illicit Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

A court in Dakar will examine on December 12 whether Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko should be reinstated on the electoral rolls, on which his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections depends, Africanewsguru.com learned on Tuesday from a judicial source.

On November 17, Senegal’s Supreme Court overturned a ruling handed down in October, which had put Mr. Sonko back in the running for the presidential election by overturning his removal from the electoral roll following his conviction in a vice scandal.

The court ruled that the case should be retried by the Dakar court.

This “special” hearing has been set for December 12 at 08:30 (local time and GMT), according to a statement from the Court of Appeal received by Africanewsguru.com.

Mr. Sonko was struck off the electoral roll following his conviction in June to two years’ imprisonment for debauching a minor.

Mr. Sonko denounces this case and others against him as machinations aimed at keeping him out of the presidential election. The authorities deny any manipulation of the justice system.

Mr. Sonko’s disbarment renders him ineligible for the 2024 presidential election if confirmed. It has given rise to a legal battle led by his lawyers against the state, which has been engaged in a standoff with the opponent for over two years, triggering several episodes of deadly unrest.

Mr. Sonko was jailed at the end of July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise, and undermining state security. He is also contesting these charges.

A survivor has been rescued from a Zambian mine nearly a week after landslides trapped informal miners.

The 49-year-old man was pulled out of a collapsed tunnel at the copper mine near Chingola. Unfortunately, a body was also recovered.

The survivor is now in the hospital, and while his medical condition was not disclosed, he is able to communicate with officials.

The body was the first to be retrieved following the disaster last week. More than 30 miners may still be trapped under the rubble and debris in three separate tunnels at the Seseli mine in Zambia’s Copperbelt province.

Zambian authorities have differed on exactly how many miners they believe were trapped when the tunnels they were digging to look for copper ore late Thursday collapsed on them. Government officials have said there were more than 30 miners trapped underground in the late-night tragedy, while the district commissioner of the area said there were at least 36.

Zambia mines minister Paul Kabuswe said 25 families in the region have come forward to report missing relatives.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema visited the mine on Tuesday and said he hoped that there were survivors. A rescuer said earlier in the week that they had heard multiple voices coming from under the rubble at one of the tunnel sites.

He said rescuers believed there would be survivors, although he said there were likely to be numerous deaths, too.

Rescue teams have been working constantly since last Friday to clear debris and pump water out of the pit where the tunnels are, but the efforts have been complicated by more rain, which left one of the sites completely flooded.

Police said over the weekend that all of the miners were presumed dead and had likely drowned in the tunnels. Their public statement was criticized by the government, which said it was too early to declare that.

Zambia is among the top 10 copper producers in the world and Chingola has large open-pit mines, some of them stretching for kilometers (miles). They are surrounded by huge waste piles of rocks and earth that have been dug out of the mines. The government said debris from one of the waste piles collapsed on the miners’ tunnels.

Illegal mining is common in the area, where artisanal miners go into mines without the knowledge of the owners to try and find and extract copper deposits. The miners involved in the collapse are suspected of being illegal miners.

On his visit, Hichilema said authorities were just focusing on saving lives.

“Here there is no illegal miner. Our job is to take our people out of the pit,” he said. “Our commitment is to do everything to save the lives that are down there.”