NEWS - The African Mirror

Oct

23

2022

Relatives identify victims of Chad’s bloody protests

NEWS

MAHAMAT RAMADANE TIMOTHE Sidjim left the morgue with reddened eyes and a haggard look. He had just identified the body of his 22-year-old son, Allasem, one of at least 50 people killed in the violence that erupted as people protested against Chad's government. Hundreds took to the streets of the capital N'Djamena and other cities to demand a quicker transition to democratic rule just weeks after a military junta announced it was extending its time in power by two years. Police reacted by firing live rounds on protestors, rights groups, including Amnesty International, said. Around 300 people were wounded, the government said.…

Oct

23

2022

By The African Mirror

Namibia, EU strike deal on rare earth minerals

NEWS

NAMIBIA has provisionally agreed on a deal with the European Union to sell its rare earth minerals, critical to the renewable energy sectors, mines and energy minister Tom Alweendo said. EU and Namibian officials told Reuters in July they were planning a deal on hydrogen and minerals as the bloc works to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. "In principle, we have agreed on conditions, whatever the materials, we are going to process them here," Alweendo said about the approaches being taken to ensure the southern African country reaps the benefit of its resources. Namibia has significant reserves of rare earth…

Oct

23

2022

By The African Mirror

Nigeria’s Tinubu pledges to remove fuel subsidy, deregulate gas prices

NEWS

MACDONALD DZIRUTWE NIGERIA'S presidential frontrunner Bola Tinubu promised to remove a fuel subsidy if elected next February, adding that his government would ramp up oil production and deregulate midstream gas prices within six months. Nigerians will elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, who steps down next year after serving the two presidential terms mandated by the constitution. The 70-year-old Tinubu, from Buhari's ruling All Progressives Congress, is a former state governor and senator of Lagos, the country's commercial capital. He launched his presidential manifesto in Abuja where he promised to create a Special Enforcement and Monitoring Unit to protect…

Oct

23

2022

By The African Mirror

Lesotho election body says it made a mistake over parliament seats

NEWS

MARAFAELE MOHLOBOLI ELECTORAL authorities in Lesotho have said they incorrectly allocated parliamentary seats after an October 7 election, asking the country's top court to amend the allocations and halt the legislature's first sitting, court papers showed. The populist Revolution for Prosperity (RFP), founded by diamond magnate, Sam Matekane, won the most seats in this month's vote but fell short of an overall majority in the southern African kingdom's 120-member parliament. Last week, the party struck a coalition deal with two other opposition parties as the nation strives to emerge from years of political instability under the former ruling All Basotho Convention, which had…

Oct

22

2022

By The African Mirror

Ugandan elephant poacher jailed for life

NEWS

A Ugandan court has handed a life sentence to a man caught with nearly 10 kg of elephant ivory, the country's highest punishment ever for wildlife violations, authorities said. Pascal Achiba was sentenced by the country's Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court on Thursday after being convicted for unlawful possession of protected species, the state-run Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) said in a statement. Achiba was arrested in January in a suburb of the capital Kampala alongside two pieces of ivory weighing 9.55 kg. UWA head Sam Mwandha called the sentence "a landmark achievement in the fight against illegal wildlife trade". Poaching…

Oct

22

2022

By The African Mirror

151 people killed in renewed violence in Sudan

NEWS

AT least 151 people were killed and 86 injured in fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile state over recent days, medical sources said on Thursday, the latest outbreak of violence to rock remote conflict-weary regions. Despite a peace deal signed in 2020 with some of Sudan’s rebel groups in the western Darfur region and in Blue Nile and southern Kordofan, tribal fighting has steadily increased. Analysts blame the fighting on unresolved issues of land and citizenship as well as the militarization of tribal groups. It threatens to further destabilise the country which has been in political and economic turmoil since the…

Oct

22

2022

By The African Mirror

Struggling to save a mountain forest

NEWS

BIRD STORY AGENCY STAFF 65KM east of Blantyre, a national icon rises sharply from Phalombe plains, close to the tea-growing Mulanje district; at 3002 metres tall, free-standing Mt. Mulanje is Malawi’s highest peak. The mountain and its surroundings - with numerous tea estates and a once-thick mountain forest — has been home 27-year-old David Samikwa's home for as long as he can remember. “My parents have been working in the tea estates. We have been raised here, taken to school here and even if we move out occasionally for tertiary studies, Mulanje is the place we know best,” he said.…

Oct

22

2022

By The African Mirror

Water problems: No Day Zero for Johannesburg

NEWS

BIÉNNE HUISMAN, BIRD STORY AGENCY EVERY day, residents of South Africa’s economic hub, Johannesburg, wake up wondering whether there will be water in their taps. Just more than 1,000 kilometres away, in Gqeberha, a water crisis is unfolding, too. These won't be the last African cities to worry over a looming "Day Zero" when water runs out. But there are ways to avoid it happening. Cape Town has been there and done that – and knows that without careful planning and preparation, there could easily be a repeat of 2018’s “Day Zero” crisis. “Day Zero” was to mark the onset…

Oct

24

2022

By The African Mirror

Somalia car bomb, shooting hits Kismayu hotel, nine dead

NEWS

A car bomb and shooting attack on a hotel in the Somali city of Kismayu killed nine people before security forces ended the siege at the hotel and killed the attackers, a regional official said. Gunfire erupted after an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into the gate of the port city's Tawakal Hotel. The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militant group said it had carried out the attack. "In the explosion, nine people including students and civilians were killed and 47 others were injured, some of them seriously," Yussuf Hussein Dhumal, Security Minister for Jubbaland, told Reuters. "The hotel where the explosion happened…

Oct

24

2022

By The African Mirror

Uganda says two new Ebola cases confirmed in Kampala hospital

NEWS

TWO more people in an isolation unit of Uganda's main hospital have tested positive for Ebola, bringing the total cases recorded in the facility to five, the health minister said. The five confirmed cases in Kampala are the first known transmission of the virus in the city, coming days after the information ministry said the country's Ebola outbreak was coming under control and was expected to be over by the end of the year. Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said on Saturday that three patients among 60 people in isolation at Kampala's Mulago Hospital tested positive for the disease a day earlier. She had…