Tag: Africa

Why scores of dogs will honour a Great Dane in Cape Town this weekend | News

Cape Town, South Africa – Just Nuisance, who died 80 years ago this week, was the first dog in the world to receive an official Royal Navy rank. Every April, humans and canines flock to the naval suburb of Simon’s Town to celebrate his life with cake, walkies and a pipe band. Last year, about 80 dogs turned up. This year’s festival kicks off at 10am on Saturday, April 6.

Cathy Salter, the curator of the Simon’s Town Museum, is thrilled that the dog’s legacy of lifting human spirits lives on: “There was an awful war going on [World War II] and most of the sailors passing through Simon’s Town were very young,” she says. “For them, it was quite a big deal that this dog wanted to hang out with them.”

“Many years ago, we were sent a photograph of Just Nuisance by a man who’d been taken POW by the Japanese,” Salter told Al Jazeera. “He wasn’t allowed any personal possessions, but he managed to smuggle that photo in and keep it with him throughout. It just shows how important Just Nuisance was to them.”

Who was Just Nuisance?

A pedigreed Great Dane born on April 1, 1937, Just Nuisance was bought by a man who worked in the naval port of Simon’s Town. “The dog took an instant liking to the sailors,” says Salter. “But only the low-ranking ones. He’d have nothing to do with officers,” whom he identified by their uniforms. While numerous sailors tried to adopt him, according to his biographer, Terrence Sisson, “Nuisance was his own master.”

‘Able Seaman Just Nuisance’ poses with his sailor comrades [Courtesy of Simon’s Town Museum, Cape Town]

At 67kg (148 pounds) Just Nuisance was “massive,” even for a Great Dane, and “almost human in concept and intelligence”, writes Sisson, an ex-sailor who knew the dog personally. After doing his business, for example, Just Nuisance would thrust out a paw to demand a “handshake” from the nearest human.

He was given his name sometime in 1938 after being “enticed aboard” the HMS Neptune, writes Sisson. He got into the habit of “sunning himself, lying full length”, in one of the busiest parts of the ship. The “exasperated crew” had to pick their way around this tangle of legs and tail, “and although they were all fond of the dog, their language directed at him was certainly not suitable for the ears of females and young children”. Just Nuisance was a sanitised version of these insults.

What happens at the festival?

Registrations commence at 9am on April 6 at Long Beach, Simon’s Town. All dog breeds are welcome.

Proceeds of the 50 rand ($3) entrance fee per pooch go to two local animal welfare charities, Tears and the SPCA. The 1.1km (0.7-mile) walk – led by a Scottish pipe band – begins at 10am, explains volunteer event organiser Esther Le Roux, adding that “biodegradable poop bags and water bowls are provided”.

The walk ends at the statue of Just Nuisance in Jubilee Square, overlooking the harbour, and birthday cake is provided on a first come, first served basis. Prizes are awarded in categories that “are made up on the spot”, explains Le Roux, and might include “most similar dog and human”, “best-dressed dog” and “closest Just Nuisance lookalike”.

“I’m so glad it falls in April,” says Le Roux, “It’s outside the silly season and the tarmac isn’t so hot as to burn the dogs’ paws.” Why should people come? “It’s such a feel-good event and there really isn’t an agenda,” she says. “Nobody’s in it for themselves.”

This year’s festival kicks off at 10am on Saturday April 6.
All dogs are welcome at the annual event, which celebrates the life of the first dog in the world to receive an official Royal Navy rank [Courtesy of Dream Images Photography]

Where can I learn more?

For those who can’t attend the event in person, there are other ways to learn about the famous canine. The Simon’s Town Museum has a very thorough section on Just Nuisance, alongside displays about Simon’s Town’s community history, including the town’s forced removals during apartheid.

A bronze statue of Just Nuisance, by local sculptor Jean Doyle, has enjoyed pride of place in Jubilee Square, overlooking the waterfront, since 1985. Doyle has a Great Dane of her own and she attends the festival when she can. A few years ago, she cast a new hat for Just Nuisance after the original was stolen. Before you snap a selfie with the famous hound, please note that the statue is “nowhere near big enough to be life-size,” says Salter.

Finally, it’s possible to visit Just Nuisance’s grave by car (turn left into the Naval Signal School at the top of Red Hill Road) or on foot. The trail starts at the top of Barnard Street, but be warned: there are more than 300 steps and the only way is up. But the views of False Bay are spectacular.

Why was Nuisance enlisted in the Royal Navy?

There is, says Salter, “a long, proud tradition of animals on Royal Navy ships. Dogs, cats, leopards, bears … you name it. But he was the only one to be given a rank.”

The reasons for this were rather prosaic. Just Nuisance got into the habit of riding the train to Cape Town with his sailor friends who, in Sisson’s words, “did not bother to buy him a ticket – thus starting a vendetta between Nuisance and the officials of the South African Railways”.

At first, the sailors tried hiding the “Hercules of Dogdom”, as Sisson coined him, under the seats but this did not work. Then they started opening carriage windows to allow Nuisance to jump on board the moving train after the conductor had done his rounds. Finally, it reached a point where the railway company informed the dog’s rightful owner that Nuisance would be put down if he continued to ride the trains.

On hearing this news, the sailors protested so vehemently that the Royal Navy’s commander-in-chief for the South Atlantic region personally decreed that “the dog Nuisance was to be officially enlisted as a member of His Majesty King George VI’s Royal Navy”. He was, Salter told Al Jazeera, “not enlisted as an ordinary Seaman but rather given the rank of Able Seaman. His trade was given as ‘bonecrusher’ and his religious denomination as ‘scrounger’.”

Once enlisted, the British Admiralty “paid for a season ticket that allowed the dog to ride to Johannesburg if he so wished”, writes Sisson.

Just Nuisance’s legacy of lifting human spirits lives on in the dogs that come to celebrate his birthday each year [Courtesy of Dream Images Photography]

What became of Just Nuisance?

“Unfortunately, over the years, the sailors got into the habit of feeding him beer,” says Salter. “While under the influence, he would jump on and off moving lorries and he ended up damaging his hind legs.”

Despite efforts to treat his injuries – Sisson writes that he was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital in Simon’s Town and “given a bed ticket and medical chart, just like a human patient” – he was eventually euthanised on his seventh birthday, April 1, 1944.

At 11.30am the following day, writes Sisson, “he was buried with full naval honours at Klaver Camp near Simon’s Town. Nuisance’s body was wrapped in a Royal Navy White Ensign and, as he was lowered into the grave, buglers sounded the Last Post and the party fired a volley over the grave. The majority of the mourners had tears in their eyes.”

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First UN food aid in months arrives in Sudan’s Darfur as famine looms | Humanitarian Crises News

Aid deliveries follow talks to reopen humanitarian corridors from Chad amid warnings that millions face acute hunger.

The United Nations has begun distributing food in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region for the first time in months amid warnings of impending famine caused by a yearlong war and lack of access to food aid.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said two aid convoys crossed the border from Chad in late March, carrying food and nutrition assistance for about 250,000 people for a month.

Food distribution is now under way in West and Central Darfur, the WFP’s Sudan spokeswoman, Leni Kinzli, said on Friday.

The deliveries on Friday were the first WFP cross-border aid convoys to reach Darfur in western Sudan following lengthy negotiations to reopen humanitarian corridors from Chad after permission was revoked in February by authorities loyal to the Sudanese army.

In April last year, a rivalry between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamad Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, broke into open conflict.

The battle is now causing one of the world’s worst hunger crises, and about a third of the population, or 18 million people, face acute hunger, UN aid agencies said.

The world body warned in March that 222,000 children could die from malnutrition in the coming months unless their aid needs are urgently met.

Situation severe in Darfur

In Darfur, the situation has been particularly severe with brutal attacks by the RSF reviving fears of another genocide. In 2003, as many as 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes, many by government-backed Arab militias.

Despite Friday’s aid delivery, the WFP has been unable to schedule further convoys.

“We are extremely concerned that unless the people of Sudan receive a constant flow of aid via all possible humanitarian corridors – from neighbouring countries and across battle lines – the country’s hunger catastrophe will only worsen,” Kinzli, speaking via a weblink from Nairobi, told a news briefing in Geneva.

Sudan’s cereal production in 2023 was nearly halved, according to a report published in March by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The sharpest reductions were reported where the conflict was most intense, including Kordofan state and states in Darfur, where FAO estimated production was 80 percent below average.

Kinzli called the levels of hunger in West Darfur alarming.

While a separate convoy of trucks reached North Darfur from Port Sudan on the Red Sea in late March, she highlighted that the route from Chad was “vital if the humanitarian community stands a chance of preventing widespread starvation” in West Darfur.

“Hunger in Sudan will only increase as the lean season starts in just a few weeks,” WFP’s top envoy to Sudan, Eddie Rowe, said on Friday.

“I fear that we will see unprecedented levels of starvation and malnutrition sweep across Sudan.”

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Why are Somalia and Ethiopia in a deepening diplomatic dispute? | Politics News

Rift comes after Somaliland deal giving landlocked Ethiopia access to the Red Sea.

A deal between Ethiopia and the breakaway region of Somaliland involving the lease of coastline and establishment of a naval base has further worsened diplomatic relations with Somalia.

Somalia’s government is furious at the agreement, which would give landlocked Ethiopia access to the Red Sea.

So far it is only a diplomatic dispute. But why is this rift worsening, and could there be wider consequences?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Samuel Getachew – political commentator specialising in Ethiopia

Sharmake Ali – activist with UK-Somaliland Alliance

Abdulkareem Jama – chair of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank based in the Somali capital, Mogadishu

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Zimbabwe introduces new gold-backed currency to tackle inflation | Business and Economy News

Zimbabweans have 21 days to convert their old cash into new money, according to the central bank.

Zimbabwe’s central bank has launched a new “structured currency” backed by gold, as it seeks to tackle sky-high inflation and stabilise the country’s long-floundering economy.

The new currency – called Zim Gold (ZiG) – will be backed by foreign currencies, gold and precious minerals, John Mushayavanhu, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, told reporters in the capital Harare on Friday.

Mushayavanhu said the ZiG would circulate alongside a basket of other currencies.

He said the central bank would also introduce a market-determined exchange rate.

“With effect from today … banks shall convert the current Zimbabwe dollar balances into the new currency,” he said.

The move is aimed at fostering “simplicity, certainty, [and] predictability” in Zimbabwe’s financial affairs, he added, presenting the new banknotes that come in eight denominations ranging from one to 200 ZiG.

The new notes feature a drawing of gold ingots being minted, as well as Zimbabwe’s famous Balancing Rocks, which already appeared on the old ones.

Zimbabweans have 21 days to convert their old cash into new money, Mushayavanhu said.

Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank Governor John Mushayavanhu introduced the ZiG banknotes [Jekesai Njikizana/AFP]

Sufficient reserves to back new currency?

The Zimbabwean dollar has lost almost 100 percent of its value against the US greenback over the past year.

On Friday, it was officially trading at about 30,000 against its more coveted US counterpart – and at 40,000 on the black market, according to tracker Zim Price Check.

Its poor performance has contributed to the Southern African country’s high inflation rate, which after climbing well into the triple digits last year, was at 55 percent in March, according to official data.

The current inflation rate has piled pressure on the country’s 16 million people who are already contending with widespread poverty, high unemployment and a severe drought induced by the El Nino weather pattern.

Soaring prices have also brought back memories of 2008, when hyperinflation was so out of control that the central bank even issued a 100-trillion-dollar note, which is now a collectors’ item.

Amid these economic challenges, analysts have questioned whether Harare has enough reserves to adequately back the new currency, and if the latter could suffer from volatility in gold prices.

On Thursday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa inspected the central bank’s vaults that Mushayavanhu – who was appointed earlier this year – said hold 1.1 tonnes of solid gold.

The bank also has almost 1.5 tonnes more abroad, as well as $100m in cash and precious minerals – such as diamonds, that if converted into gold would account for another 0.4 tonnes, Mushayavanhu said.

Altogether, the reserves’ value totals $285m, which Mushayavanhu highlighted was “more than three times cover for the ZiG currency being issued”.

Meanwhile, the central bank added that it would also adopt a tight monetary policy, linking money supply growth to growth in gold and foreign exchange reserves.

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Why are doctors striking in several countries? | TV Shows

Doctors are trying to make the field more accessible, but are they concerned about quality of care or their own prestige?

Many countries around the world are facing a shortage of qualified doctors. Several countries have taken steps in recent months to make achieving qualification as a doctor more accessible. But these attempts have been met with pushback from doctors, especially younger junior doctors, with many expressing frustration at having undertaken long and expensive degrees that will no longer have the same value. Some have taken their frustrations to extremes, with patients dying as junior doctors in South Korea strike.

Presenter: Myriam Francois

Guests:

Dr Habib Rahman – Cardiology registrar

Dr David Bhimji Atellah – KMPDU secretary-general

Dr Alice Tan – Internal medicine specialist

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What’s behind the latest US sanctions on Zimbabwe President Mnangagwa? | Corruption News

In March, the United States imposed new sanctions on 11 Zimbabwean individuals, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his wife, and other officials, following allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. It also placed sanctions on three businesses – also because of alleged corruption, human rights abuses and election rigging.

A statement from Mnangagwa’s office described the accusations as “defamatory”. It added that they amounted to a “gratuitous slander” against Zimbabwe’s leaders and people.

The move came after a review of US sanctions which have been in place since 2003. From now on, sanctions on Zimbabwe will apply to individuals and businesses listed under the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016. This Act authorises the US government to sanction foreign government officials worldwide for alleged human rights abuses, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the US on unofficial business.

By switching to the Magnitsky Act to cover sanctions in Zimbabwe, the US said fewer individuals and businesses will receive sanctions than have until now. “The changes we are making today are intended to make clear what has always been true: our sanctions are not intended to target the people of Zimbabwe,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said.

Rutendo Matinyarare, a vocal government supporter who leads the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, welcomed the change to the sanctions regime. “The real sanctions are gone now, so no more excuses. Let’s build the country now,” he tweeted on X, formerly Twitter.

Why does the US impose sanctions on Zimbabwe?

The US says it aims to promote democracy and accountability and address human rights violations in Zimbabwe.

“We continue to urge the Government of Zimbabwe to move toward more open and democratic governance, including addressing corruption and protecting human rights, so all Zimbabweans can prosper,” David Gainer, the US acting deputy assistant secretary of state said.

The US is also the largest provider of humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe, providing more than $3.5bn in aid from the country’s independence from British colonial rule in 1980 until 2020.

Do sanctions harm Zimbabwe’s economy?

Last year, Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said the country had lost more than $150bn because of sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States.

Alena Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, who visited the country in 2021, said the sanctions “…had exacerbated pre-existing social and economic challenges with devastating consequences for the people of Zimbabwe, especially those living in poverty, women, children, elderly, people with disabilities as well as marginalised and other vulnerable groups”.

A 2022 Institute of Security Studies Africa (ISS) report found that investors tend to steer clear of Zimbabwe because of the “high-risk premium” placed on the country due to the targeted US sanctions.

Some international banks have also cut ties with Zimbabwean banks because the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) penalises US companies or individuals who do business with any sanctioned individual, entity or country.

Government supporters march against Western sanctions, including ZIDERA, which prevents Zimbabwe from accessing loans and investment from international financial institutions, at a rally in Harare, Zimbabwe on October 25, 2019 [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

Are sanctions the only thing holding back the economy?

Zimbabwean economist Gift Mugano said that corruption, even more than sanctions, holds Zimbabwe back. “Zimbabwe can weaken the possible effects of so-called sanctions, but corruption is the major problem,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added that the US and others have never imposed trade sanctions on Zimbabwe. “We can trade with anybody, including the Americans and the Europeans; the measures were financial and didn’t affect trade.”

Eddie Cross, an economist who advises the government and has written a biography of President Mnangagwa, pointed to Transparency International figures showing that corruption has cost Zimbabwe $100bn since independence. “That’s more than $2.5bn a year, but combining the two [corruption and sanctions] is enormous.”

However, the US still operates the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), which the Congress passed in 2001. While the US says this is not a set of sanctions, ZIDERA prevents Zimbabwe from accessing loans and investment from international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, which experts say hampers its ability to develop economically. Some institutions had stopped lending to Zimbabwe before ZIDERA because of its poor record of servicing loans.

Cross said experts estimate that banks lose about $1bn annually in higher bank charges because of ZIDERA. “ZIDERA has been in place for 23 years, and a billion dollars a year could have easily settled our national debt.” He added that the additional costs arise when local banks go through banks other than the regular correspondent banks, which sometimes refuse to deal directly with Zimbabwean banks for fear of being penalised by the US government.

Among the conditions Zimbabwe has to meet for the repeal of ZIDERA is the restoration of the rule of law, the holding of free and fair elections, a commitment to equitable, legal and transparent land reform – including the compensation of the former farmers who lost their land to the country’s land reform programme – and the military and police withdrawing from politics and government.

Do sanctions work?

Cross argued that sanctions do not tackle corruption. He questioned why the US does not impose sanctions on countries like China, which he says is undemocratic. “They allow China free access to international financial markets, Western technology and international markets, and they allow China to borrow enormous sums of money at very low interest rates with which they have been developing their infrastructure and economy.”

Additionally, a 2022 Institute of Security Studies Africa (ISS) report concluded that sanctions have largely failed to improve democratic behaviour among the ruling elites in Zimbabwe. Human rights violations persist and political freedoms remain severely curtailed.

Amnesty International regularly highlights the threats to freedom of expression, arrests of journalists and harassment of members of the opposition police forces and members of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

Furthermore, an Al Jazeera investigation last year found Zimbabwe’s government was using smuggling gangs to sell gold worth hundreds of millions of dollars, helping to mitigate the effects of sanctions. Gold is the country’s biggest export.

Who else imposes sanctions on Zimbabwe?

The United Kingdom and European Union also imposed similar sanctions on Zimbabwe, giving the same reasons as the US. They have whittled down the measures over the years.

However, as of February, an embargo on the sale of arms and equipment that the government may use for internal repression remains in place. The EU and UK also still freeze assets held by state-owned arms manufacturer, Zimbabwe Defence Industries.

Government supporters chant slogans as they march against Western sanctions at a rally in Harare, Zimbabwe October 25, 2019 [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

What do Zimbabweans think of the sanctions?

Members of the Broad Alliance Against Sanctions have been camped outside the US embassy in Harare since 2019, demanding an end to all sanctions, including ZIDERA.

Sally Ngoni, a leader of the group, said: “All these measures are a tool to effect regime change in Zimbabwe; they want our government to fail; it’s punishment for reclaiming our stolen land from the whites.” She was alluding to the sometimes violent fast-track land reform that saw white farmers lose their farms ostensibly for the resettlement of landless Black people launched in 2000.

However, other Zimbabweans support the sanctions, saying they should remain in place until the government stops harassing and silencing opposition figures. “The measures affect those listed and not the generality of Zimbabweans,” Munyaradzi Zivanayi, an unemployed graduate, told Al Jazeera.

Some believe removing sanctions would help to expose government deficiencies. “The removal of all sanctions will expose the government’s incompetence as they cannot use the sanctions as an excuse any more,” said Harare accountant Joseph Moyo.

How have Zimbabwe’s leaders responded to sanctions?

The late President Robert Mugabe called sanctions an “interference in the affairs of Zimbabwe,” a sovereign state. In response, he declared a “look East” policy, meaning Zimbabwe would strengthen economic ties with countries such as China and Russia, which he regarded as more supportive. He also forged stronger ties with other sanctioned countries, including Belarus and Iran.

After the military removed Mugabe in 2017, Mnangagwa, the new president, adopted a “friend to all and enemy to none” approach. This saw the new government vigorously pursue re-engagement with estranged countries.

In 2019, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ballard Partners – a lobbying firm run by a Trump campaign fundraiser – after the US government renewed sanctions on 141 individuals and entities, citing continued human rights abuses and corruption.

Despite this charm offensive, it is still US policy that Zimbabwe has not addressed the issues for which sanctions were imposed. Besides corruption, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a statement announcing the new sanctions, noted: “Multiple cases of abductions, physical abuse, and unlawful killing have left citizens living in fear.”

Then-Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe signs a petition against Western economic sanctions, in Harare, on Wednesday, March, 2, 2011 [Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP]

How have sanctions affected Zimbabwe-US relations?

Sporadic verbal outbursts, accusations and personal attacks characterise the complicated relationship between the two countries.

They took another hit in February when the US protested against the deportation of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officials and contractors.

Zimbabwe’s version of the incident is that the four individuals entered the country without notifying authorities and held “unsanctioned covert meetings”. The Sunday Mail, a state-controlled weekly, reported that the meetings were held “to inform Washington’s adversarial foreign policy towards Zimbabwe”.

The US asserted that the USAID personnel were in the country legally and that the Zimbabwean government knew of their presence and mission.



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Ethiopia’s army accused of committing war crimes in Amhara region | Conflict News

Human Rights Watch says Ethiopia’s army ‘summarily executed’ several dozen civilians in the country’s northwestern Amhara region in January.

Ethiopia’s army “summarily executed several dozen civilians” and committed other war crimes in the northwestern Amhara region earlier this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said, as it called on the United Nations to launch an independent investigation.

The incident in the city of Merawi in late January was among the deadliest for civilians since fighting began between Ethiopian federal forces and Fano militia in the restive region in August, the New York-based rights group said in a report on Thursday.

“Civilians are once again bearing the brunt of an abusive army operating with impunity,” Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at HRW, said.

“The Ethiopian armed forces’ brutal killings of civilians in Amhara undercut government claims that it’s trying to bring law and order to the region.”

There was no immediate comment by the Ethiopian government or the army, but a separate investigation conducted by the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission estimated that at least 45 people were killed by government forces in Merawi.

HRW said it was unable to determine the total number of civilian killings in Merawi, adding that some accounts put the figure to more than 80.

More than a dozen witnesses, including victims and their family members, told the rights groups about the alleged abuses carried out by the army in the city.

HRW said it had also analysed and verified videos posted to social media in the aftermath of the January 29 attack and examined satellite imagery that corroborated witness accounts.

‘Pillage’ of civilian properties

HRW urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to lead the investigation into the alleged abuses.

It also called on the African Union to suspend all deployments of Ethiopian federal forces to peacekeeping missions until “commanders responsible for grave abuses are held accountable”.

“Under international humanitarian law applicable to the armed conflict in Amhara, the deliberate killing or mistreatment of civilians, and looting and pillage of civilian property are prohibited and may be prosecuted as war crimes,” HRW said.

Testimonies collected by HRW revealed that after Fano fighters withdrew from Merawi following an attack on Ethiopian forces, the soldiers shot civilians on the streets as well as during house raids over a six-hour period.

“The soldiers also pillaged and destroyed civilian property,” HRW said in a statement.

Several residents also told HRW that soldiers remaining in the town also refused to allow the community to collect and bury those who were killed.

Bader said the Ethiopian government’s “failure” to ensure accountability for abuses “contributes to ongoing cycles of violence and impunity”.

In early February, Ethiopia’s parliament extended a state of emergency introduced in August 2023 in Amhara, the country’s second most populous region.

Fano fighters took part in a week of violent protests across Amhara in April last year after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered that security forces from Ethiopia’s 11 regions be integrated into the police or national army.

Protesters felt the order was meant to weaken Amhara – the country’s second-biggest region. The federal government denied this.

The Fanos and other Amharas felt betrayed by a peace deal signed in November 2022 by the government and dissident leaders of the Tigray region – longtime foes of Amhara nationalists who claim parts of Ethiopia’s northernmost region as their ancestral lands [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]

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Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany | Environment News

President Mokgweetsi Masisi offers to send the animals as a ‘gift’ to Berlin amid a dispute over hunting trophies.

Botswana’s president has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in a dispute over conservation.

Angered by proposals in Berlin to restrict the import of hunting trophies, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said in comments published on Wednesday that Germans should try living among elephants. He claimed that an explosion in the number of the mammals roaming his country has produced a “plague”.

Earlier this year, Germany, one of the largest importers of hunting trophies in the European Union, raised the possibility of stricter limits on imports due to poaching concerns.

Masisi told German daily Bild that hunting was an important means to keep elephant numbers in check, saying that Botswana was dealing with “overpopulation”.

The proposal put forward by the environment ministry, headed by Steffi Lemke of the Green party, met scorn from Botswana, which has seen its elephant population grow to some 130,000.

It has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique, as it seeks to tackle Masisi’s “plague”.

“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world, and even for Lemke’s party,” he said.

“This is not a joke,” the president told the newspaper. Germans should “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to.”

“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi declared, adding that he would “not take no for an answer”.

Herds of elephants are causing property damage, eating crops and trampling residents, the president argued. A ban on the import of hunting trophies would exacerbate the problem and impoverish Botswanans, he claimed.

Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014, but lifted the restrictions in 2019 under pressure from local communities. The country now issues annual hunting quotas.

A spokesperson for the environment ministry in Berlin told The Associated Press that Botswana had not raised any concerns with Germany on the matter.

The ministry, however, remains in talks with African countries affected by import rules, including Botswana, the spokesperson said.

“In light of the alarming loss of biological diversity, we have a special responsibility to do everything to ensure the import of hunting trophies is sustainable and legal,” she said.

African elephant hunting trophies already require import authorisation under current rules, she noted. Discussions within the EU about harsher import restrictions are focused on extending the list of protected species.

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Why mass kidnappings still plague Nigeria a decade after Chibok abductions | Armed Groups News

Lagos, Nigeria – In the decade since the armed group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 students at an all-girls school in the town of Chibok, abductions have become a recurrent fixture in Nigeria, especially in the restive northern regions.

Just last month, on March 7, a criminal gang kidnapped 287 pupils at the government secondary school in Kuriga, a town in Kaduna state. Two days later, another armed group broke into the dorm of a boarding school in Gidan Bakuso, Sokoto state, kidnapping 17 students.

The Sokoto victims and more than 130 of the victims from Kaduna have since been released, but there is no word yet about the remaining abductees.

Meanwhile, out of the hundreds taken in Chibok in April 2014, more than 90 are still missing, according to the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF.

“I cannot believe that it is 10 years and we have not really done anything about [stopping] it,” said Aisha Yesufu, the co-convener of the #BringBackOurGirls movement pressing for the release of the kidnapped Chibok students.

Nigeria is plagued by insecurity. In the northeast, Boko Haram has waged a violent insurgency since 2009; in the north-central region clashes between farmers and herders have escalated in recent years; and acts of banditry by gunmen in the northwest are terrorising citizens.

Across the country, the targeting of vulnerable populations has been widespread, including kidnappings for ransom or to pressure the government to meet the aggressors’ demands. Experts also say that worsening economic conditions have led to an increase in abductions for ransom over the last four years.

But as Africa’s largest economy and a country with one of the strongest military forces on the continent, many have questioned why Nigeria has been unable to nip the spiralling insecurity crisis in the bud.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that there is no political will,” Yesufu said.

Bring back our girls campaigners chant slogans during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped Chibok girls who were abducted in 2014 [File: Sunday Alamba/AP]

A booming industry

Last year, charity Save The Children reported that more than 1,680 students have been abducted in Nigeria since 2014. This has significantly contributed to deteriorating absentee statistics, with one in three Nigerian children not in school according to UNICEF.

But students are not the only ones bearing the burden of the crisis as travellers, businesspeople, priests, and those perceived as being well-off are also often targets. Kidnappings have become a sub-economy of sorts, as abductors rake in millions of naira in ransom payments. Social media is also littered with public requests from people soliciting funds to buy the freedom of their abducted relatives and friends.

Since 2019, there have been 735 mass abductions in Nigeria, according to socio-political risk consultancy firm, SBM Intelligence. It said between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in 582 kidnapping cases with about 5 billion naira ($3,878,390) paid in ransoms.

This year alone SBM Intelligence said there have already been 68 mass abductions.

The abductions are not confined to the north, where banditry and armed religious groups are prevalent, but have also been seen in the south and the southeast. Even Abuja, Nigeria’s capital territory, has not been spared, and in Emure Ekiti in the relatively peaceful southwest region, five students, three teachers and a driver were kidnapped on January 29.

The roots of hostage-taking in Nigeria can be traced back to the 1990s in the Niger Delta, where the country gets most of its oil; at the time, armed groups started abducting foreign oil executives as a way to pressure the government to address their concerns about oil pollution in their communities.

But in recent times, hostage-taking has become a booming industry, said Olajumoke (Jumo) Ayandele, Nigeria’s senior adviser at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Perpetrators now mostly target socially classified vulnerable groups such as children and women, she said, to elicit public anger and press their demands for ransom payments or the release of their arrested gang members.

When a ransom is demanded, the payment is expected to be made by the victims’ relatives, or in some cases the government – and delays or non-payment can sometimes be deadly. One of five sisters kidnapped in Abuja in January was brutally killed after a ransom deadline passed, sparking a national outcry.

“The groups that have used this strategy are able to gain local and international attention to really show their strength and amplify what they want to state authorities,” Ayandele told Al Jazeera.

Although the Nigerian government has said it does not negotiate with terrorists in dealing with the spiralling security crisis, experts say this may not be true.

“We have heard and we have seen some state governments negotiating with some of these groups and some of these bandits,” said Ayandele. In many cases, this has only emboldened the criminals.

A member of the security forces holds a weapon as people wait for the arrival of rescued schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Jangebe, Zamfara [File: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters]

Why can’t Nigeria stop the abduction of pupils?

Experts say that complex, multilayered issues are at the heart of the worsening insecurity crisis. These include socioeconomic factors, corruption and a lack of cohesiveness in the security structure – where there is no rapid response to attacks and ineffective collaboration between the police and the military.

Over the last decade, Nigeria’s economic situation has all but nosedived as the country grapples with high inflation, rising youth unemployment, and the loss of currency valuation. The fortunes of citizens have hardly improved, and 63 percent of people are in multidimensional poverty. Experts say this has pushed many into criminality.

“The economic hardship during this period has only increased and different policies drive different dimensions. As a result, this has led to kidnapping being seen as a viable and profitable endeavour,” said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a research analyst at the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development.

The security architecture in Nigeria is also centralised, with authority concentrated in the hands of the federal government and no real state or regional policing independent of that. Experts say this has hindered the ease with which security agents can operate. It has also led to calls for state policing, especially amid criticisms that security agencies do not collaborate effectively.

At an army level, soldiers have complained about low remuneration and substandard weapons. The Nigerian military has been dogged with accusations of corruption, sabotage, connivance and brutality in the past, and this has fractured relationships with communities and potential sources of intelligence.

“This inability is not down to the military alone – there is a cross-government failing in security response,” Adekaiyaoja told Al Jazeera.

“There needs to be a stronger synergy in communal buy-in in securing facilities and also escalating necessary intelligence … There should be a renewed focus on necessary and frankly overdue police reform and a stronger synergy between intelligence and security agencies.”

Nigeria’s insecurity plagues all six of the country’s geopolitical zones, with each facing one or more of the following: armed fighters, farmer-herder clashes, bandits or unknown gunmen, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatists, oil bunkering and piracy. This has kept the armed forces busy.

“Our security forces are spread thin. We have six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and there is something that is always happening,” said ACLED’s Ayandele.

Nigerian students and staff who were kidnapped in March arrive in Kaduna after they were freed [File: Abdullahi Alhassan/Reuters]

What is the toll of the crisis?

Abduction victims who have been released have reported harrowing conditions while in captivity. They are often threatened with death and barely fed as they endure unhygienic, unsavoury living conditions, including sleeping out in the open and trekking long distances into forests where they are kept.

The girls especially are vulnerable to rape and even forced marriages. Adults’ testimonies claim they are routinely beaten and tortured until the captors’ demands have been met.

Experts say the experiences leave victims with serious psychological wounds and trauma.

The fear of their children being abducted has led many parents in hot zones in the northeast and northwest to pull their children out of school entirely to avoid the risk. This is despite the government’s introduction of free and compulsory basic education in schools.

According to UNICEF, 66 percent of all out-of-school children in Nigeria are from the northeast and northwest, which also represent the poorest regions in the country.

“No parent should be put in a situation where they have to make a choice between the lives of their children and getting their children educated,” said #BringBackOurGirls movement’s Yesufu, adding that education is under attack in Nigeria.

As a result, she said illiteracy is then weaponised by the political class, who use people’s lack of information and knowledge to manipulate voters during elections.

But for some girls, the consequences may be even more dire than just losing an education, Yesufu said, as some parents decide to marry their daughters off early to avoid them getting kidnapped or worse. More than half of the girls in Nigeria are currently not attending school at a basic level, and 48 percent of that figure are from the northeast and northwest.

Education is crucial to national growth and development. But Nigeria’s continuing abduction crisis is posing serious challenges to schooling in the worst-affected regions of the northeast and northwest – and experts worry it may have broader implications for the country in the near future.

“This is just a ticking time bomb because when you don’t have a populace that is educated, they can be easily radicalised or recruited into these non-state armed groups,” Ayandele said.

“We don’t know what can happen in the next 20 years if we don’t address this education problem as soon as possible.”

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Senegal’s Faye appoints ally Ousmane Sonko as prime minister | Politics News

Senegal’s youngest president appoints ally and popular opposition figure Ousmane Sonko as prime minister.

Senegal’s new president has appointed firebrand politician and key backer Ousmane Sonko as prime minister in his first act as the West African nation’s leader.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye made the announcement shortly after he was sworn into office on Tuesday, pledging systemic change after years of deadly turmoil under his predecessor, Macky Sall, a political opponent of Sonko.

Speaking after his appointment, Sonko said he would present Faye with a full list of proposed ministerial appointments for his approval.

“There will be no question of leaving him (Faye) alone to assume this heavy responsibility”, Sonko said.

Faye took the presidential oath in front of hundreds of officials and several African heads of state at an exhibition centre in the new town of Diamniadio, near the capital, Dakar.

Faye, 44, has never previously held elected office. He swept to a first-round victory on a promise of radical reform just 10 days after being released from prison.

Lena Sene, an economist based in Dakar, told Al Jazeera that Faye faces a “very difficult” challenge as president.

“You cannot change an entire administration in one day. He understands that he has to put systems in place in order to fight corruption. He is ready for that,” she said.

Sonko, 49, was at the centre of a two-year standoff with the state that triggered bouts of deadly unrest.

Popular among Senegal’s youth, he was disqualified from running in the March 24 presidential race due to a defamation conviction, and picked Faye as his replacement on the presidential ballot. He denied any wrongdoing.

Campaigning jointly under the slogan “Diomaye is Sonko,” Sonko urged supporters to vote for his top lieutenant, Faye, who ultimately won with more than 54 percent of the vote in the first round.

Economic challenges

Faye, a former tax inspector, is Senegal’s fifth president since independence from France in 1960.

Acknowledging the country’s desire for “systemic change”, he pledged to strengthen the country’s democracy and establish an independent judiciary.

Working with his populist mentor, Faye now faces the challenge of carrying out national reconciliation, while easing the cost-of-living crisis, fighting corruption and appearing as someone not subservient to Sonko.

He has also promised to restore national sovereignty over key assets such as the oil, gas and fishing sectors.

The new government also needs to create enough jobs in a nation where 75 percent of the 18 million population is aged under 35, and the unemployment rate is officially 20 percent.

Campaigning jointly under the slogan ‘Diomaye is Sonko,’ Sonko urged supporters to vote for his top lieutenant, Faye, who ultimately won with more than 54 percent of the vote in the first round [Luc Gnago/Reuters]

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