NEWS - The African Mirror

Jul

01

2021

Burkina Faso president takes on defence role amid security crisis

NEWS

BURKINA Faso's president Roch Kabore has taken over the role of defence minister in a cabinet reshuffle aimed at stopping a wave of jihadist attacks that has plagued the West Africa country in recent years, according to a presidential decree. Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State originally based in neighbouring Mali have embedded themselves across north and eastern Burkina Faso, launching regular attacks on civilians, including one this month that killed more than 130 people, the worst in years. Pressure has increased on Kabore to win back control and end a humanitarian crisis in which more than 1…

Apr

18

2021

By The African Mirror

Battle to contain Cape Town fire, man arrested

NEWS

SOUTH African emergency workers have started evacuating three 17-storey residential buildings overlooking Cape Town city as a wildfire fanned by strong winds continues to burn out of control along Table Mountain, city officials said today. The fire started early Sunday morning on the slopes of Devils' Peak, another part of Cape Town's mountainous backdrop, forcing University of Cape Town students to evacuate residences as runaway flames set several campus buildings ablaze, including a library housing historic books and scripts. Around 250 firefighters are battling to control the blaze, as strong winds ground helicopters normally used in firebombing sorties. A thick…

Jun

30

2021

By The African Mirror

It’s been difficult but I’d do it again – Zondo

NEWS

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER CHAIRING a judicial commission that has unearthed corruption running into billions and led to the arrest of individuals has been a difficult task for Deputy Judge President Raymond Zondo but one that he does not regret and one that he would do again. This is what Zondo has said at a press briefing to discuss the work of the commission, adding that appropriate security measures were in place for his personal safety and his family. Zondo said: “It’s been difficult for myself and my family, but there is a job to be done and I accepted this…

Apr

19

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID GRAFT: Malawi fires minister, arrests officials

NEWS

FOURTEEN people, including senior officials, have been arrested in Malawi and Labour Minister Ken Kandodo has been sacked over misuse of COVID-19 funds, President Lazarus Chakwera and police have announced. Chakwera said in a televised address he had commissioned an audit into how 6.2 billion Malawian kwacha ($7.95 million) intended for the country's coronavirus response programme had been spent, and that this had identified that funds had vanished, been misused and left idle. "As I speak, over a dozen individuals suspected of committing the crimes exposed by this audit report have been arrested," he said, adding this included an arrest…

Apr

19

2021

By The African Mirror

Eleven dead, 98 injured after train derails in Egypt

NEWS

ELEVEN people were killed and 98 injured yesterday in a train accident in Egypt's Qalioubia province north of Cairo, the health ministry said in a statement. The train was heading from Cairo to the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when four carriages derailed at 1:54 p.m. (1154 GMT), about 40 kms (25 miles) north of Cairo, Egyptian National Railways said in a short statement. The cause of the accident is being investigated, it added. More than 50 ambulances took the injured to three hospitals in the province, the health ministry said. The derailing is the latest of several recent railway…

Apr

20

2021

By The African Mirror

Two killed in blast in Ethiopian capital blamed on hand grenade

NEWS

TWO people died and a third was critically injured in an explosion in Ethiopia's capital on yesterday, Addis Ababa's police said. The police blamed the explosion on a hand grenade that went off in the Lidetta area of the city in the afternoon and said they were investigating. Ethiopia sent its troops to the northern region of Tigray in early November to fight against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, then the regional ruling party, which had attacked army bases in the region. The TPLF withdrew from the regional capital Mekelle before the end of the month, and the Ethiopian government…

Apr

20

2021

By The African Mirror

U.S. embassy to withdraw staff as Chad rebels advance

NEWS

THE United States has ordered its non-essential staff in Chad to leave the African country as rebel fighters approached the capital on Sunday after early election results showed President Idriss Deby on course to extend his three-decade rule. Deby, who seized power in 1990 at the head of an armed rebellion, is a staunch ally of France and the United States in the fight against Islamist militants in the arid Sahel region. "Due to their growing proximity to N'Djamena and the possibility for violence in the city, non-essential U.S. government employees have been ordered to leave Chad by commercial airline,"…

Apr

19

2021

By The African Mirror

Cape Verde votes, PM seeks second term

NEWS

JULIO RODRIGUES CAPE Verde held parliamentary elections yesterday, with the ruling party Movement for Democracy (MpD) pitted against its main challenger, the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). A cluster of 10 volcanic islands 570 km (350 miles) off Senegal, Cape Verde stands out as a pocket of relative stability in the region, having held democratic elections since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975. "I voted to change the situation here. We need to have new policies for health and security," said Flavia Andrade, a young voter in the capital Praia. With a quarter of the…

Apr

19

2021

By The African Mirror

Tunisian president draws security powers into dispute with PM

NEWS

TAREK AMARA TUNISIAN President Kais Saied said on Sunday that his powers as commander of the armed forces also cover the internal security forces, not only the army, in the latest escalation of his dispute with the prime minister. Saied's comments threaten to draw the sensitive Interior Ministry into the political arena and potentially divide the security establishment as Tunisia's young democracy grapples with a coronavirus-induced slump as well as militant Islamists. Tunisia's 2014 constitution has until now been widely interpreted as putting the internal security forces and the Interior Ministry under the control of the prime minister. "The president…

Jun

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Togo culls birds, after avian flu outbreak

NEWS

TOGO has culled hundreds of birds, quarantined a poultry farm, closed a local bird market and banned the movement of poultry following an avian flu outbreak, the government has announced. The statement did not specify the type of flu but said hundreds of birds had been incinerated and eggs destroyed to stop its spread.