Author: pr web

He Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) conducted the first ever Session of the IGAD Statistics Committee from April 4 to 5, 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The two-day session brought together two representatives from each IGAD Member State. The group was composed of the Director Generals or Heads of the National Statistics Offices, and the Coordinators of the National Statistics Systems (i.e. the IGAD Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS) Coordinators to be). Representatives from the African Union Institute for Statistics (STATAFRIC/AUC) and The African Centre for Statistics, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ACS/UNECA), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and development partners also participated in this session.

 

Awira Anthony, Director of IGAD’s Planning Coordination and Partnership Division, said in his opening remarks: “The IGAD Statistics Committee (ISC) is a body comprising of the Heads of National Statistics Offices (NSOs) in the Member States and will be responsible for supporting formulation of policy and strategy, and for providing professional guidance for the development and implementation of statistics programmes for the IGAD Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics.”

 

The 1st session aimed to formally launch the IGAD Statistics Committee (ISC) and to discuss the implementation of the IGAD Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics at the national and regional levels; adopt the ToR for ISC; and share good practices in Statistics among the IGAD Member States.

 

Participants welcomed the success of the 1st Session of the IGAD Statistics Committee (ISC). National Statistics Offices from Member States were congratulated for their efforts. The focus was not only on building capacity as a Member State but also as a regional body.

 

The IGAD Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS) over its lifespan aims to achieve a mission to facilitate the generation, dissemination and use of high quality, reliable and harmonized statistics required for achieving peace, security and inclusive prosperity in the IGAD region. The rationale of the IGAD RSDS is: provision of data to the African Regional Integration Agenda; supply of data for development of the IGAD region; and the role of the RSDS in the African Statistical System (ASS).

 

As stipulated in the RSDS document, IGAD Statistics Committee (ISC) is key among the institutions within which the IGAD Regional Statistical System will carry out its operations. The ISC will be a body of professionals comprising the heads of NSOs in the Member States and the Secretariat. It is to be responsible for supporting formulation of policy and strategy and for providing professional guidance for the development and implementation of statistics programmes for the IRSS.

 

Source: Intergovernmental Authority on Development

JOHANNESBURG — Former South African President Jacob Zuma is pursuing private prosecution proceedings to remove the lead prosecutor in an arms deal corruption trial after failed legal challenges, his foundation said on Sunday.

 

Last month the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) torpedoed Zuma’s latest bid to have lead prosecutor Billy Downer taken off the case after accusing him of bias and leaking of confidential information to a journalist in contravention of the national prosecution act, among other complaints.

 

The SCA dismissed the application for leave to appeal on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard.

 

The spokesman of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, Mzwanele Manyi told a press briefing that Zuma’s instructions to his legal team to institute private prosecution “will now be put into operation in the next few days.”

 

He also said Zuma’s legal team has filed a reconsideration application to the president of the SCA, a petition to hear the appeal.

 

Zuma, who was ousted from the ruling African National Congress in 2018 after nearly two decades as president, has pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption, money laundering and racketeering in the long-running case over the $2 billion arms deal in the 1990s.

 

The deal case has dogged Zuma since he was sacked as deputy president of the country in 2005. He said he was the victim of a political witch-hunt.

 

On Monday the long-delayed trail is set to get underway and Zuma will be present in court.

 

Manyi said Zuma, who turns 80 on Tuesday, is applying for a postponement because “it is very clear that the conditions for a fair trail are non-existent.”

 

On Monday his team will also respond to the supplementary affidavit served by the National Prosecution Authority where they seek to introduce new evidence in the trial.

 

“All His Excellency President Zuma really wants is his day in court, in a fair trial and certainly not in a forum which is being rigged by the State,” Manyi said.

 

Source: Voice of America

PRETORIA, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa held Friday telephone talks with US President Joe Biden, a day after the continental powerhouse abstained from voting on a resolution suspending Russia from a UN rights body over its aggression in Ukraine.

 

Ramaphosa, whose government has been criticised for refusing to condemn Moscow’s bloody invasion of its neighbour, had a day earlier blasted the UN Security Council as “outdated” and in dire need of an overhaul.

 

Hours later South Africa was among the 58 countries that abstained from voting on the UN General Assembly resolution which suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine.

 

It was the third time South Africa abstained from voting on resolutions adopted over the war.

 

Ramaphosa tweeted late Friday that he had “a productive” telephone call with Biden.

 

“We shared views on the conflict in Ukraine and agreed on the need for a ceasefire and dialogue between Ukraine and Russia,” Ramaphosa wrote on Twitter.

 

Local media suggested it was Biden who initiated the phone call to Pretoria.

 

The high-profile rebuke of Russia at the UN marked only the second ever suspension of a country from the global body’s human rights council — Libya was the first, in 2011.

 

On Thursday Ramaphosa sharply criticised the UN Security Council for enabling powerful nations to use their clout to make decisions that were at times catastrophic.

 

“The current formation of the UN Security Council is outdated and unrepresentative,” he said. “It disadvantages countries with developing economies.”

 

South Africa has maintained a non-aligned stance on the conflict in Ukraine, touting negotiation as the best option to end the conflict despite international outrage and condemnation.

 

Source: NAM News Network

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Cameroonian authorities said Friday that separatists had attacked a village on the Nigerian border earlier in the week, with local officials saying they torched at least 12 homes and killed six people. Authorities say the rebels appeared to be targeting members of the Mbororo ethnic group, who the separatists accuse of collaborating with government troops.

 

The Cameroonian military said separatists shot indiscriminately in the air and torched houses in Mbonhong, a western village in Ndu district on the border with Nigeria. The military did not say how many houses were burned nor how many people were killed or wounded.

 

Separatists have shared videos of the attack on Mbonhong village on social media including WhatsApp and Facebook.

 

About 15 separatists in the videos say that they are avenging abuses committed against them by Cameroon’s military and charge the government forces are using homes, farms and cattle ranches of ethnic Mbororo and Fulani as military bases. The fighters are seen torching about eight houses.

 

Capo Daniel, deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, a separatist group, says fighters in Ndu district, where Mbonhong village is located, organized the attack.

 

“The operation [attack] that took place in Ndu, targeted the house of Mbororo who has been using his compound as a point where Cameroon military plan attacks,” Danielo said. “As the Cameroon military has been unsuccessful in reaching our camps that are located in remote areas, they have increasingly turned to Mbororo people who are working hand in hand with the Cameroon military.”

 

Daniel said the Ambazonia Defense Forces consider Mbororo people who collaborate with Cameroon government troops fighting separatists to be traitors and people who support separatist fighters as friends.

 

Nkwenti Simon Dooh, the highest-ranking government official in Donga Mantung, the division where Ndu is located, told Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV that a week hardly goes by without separatists attacking Mbororo.

 

“Armed groups benefit from the fact that the Mbororo populations are scattered over the hills to cause so many atrocities,” he said. “They [separatists] carried away many herds of their [Mbororo] cattle, looted, killed and burnt most of their structures.”

 

Dooh said that besides deploying the military to protect Mbororo, the government asked the ethnic group to create militias to collaborate with government troops in protecting goods and people.

 

Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics estimates that there are over a million Mbororo in the central African country. More than 70% of the Mbororo are cattle ranchers owning about 70% of the estimated 3 million cattle in the English-speaking regions.

 

Mohammed Umaru Abubakar, a Mbororo rights activist and member of the Human Rights Committee of the Mbororo Cultural and Development Association,

said Mbororo are victims of brutality because the ethnic group has refused to support separatists fighting to carve out an independent English-speaking state in the majority French-speaking Cameroon.

 

Abubakar said the Mbororo are one of the ethnic groups that has suffered most from separatist brutality within the past four years.

 

“Three thousand eight hundred forty-two cattle were killed or seized or killed by the separatists, and over 5,000 cows have left the Northwest to other [safer] regions, while others [cattle] left for Nigeria,” Abubakar said. “Over 195 million [have] been taken away from Mbororo people in the name of ransom. As of date, the statistics we have is about 325 Mbororo people that [have been] murdered by the separatists.”

 

Abubakar said Cameroon should compensate Mbororo who have lost their cattle and protect ethnic group members from separatist attacks, looting and killing.

 

Separatists say they do not specifically target Mbororo, but they target all individuals and groups who collaborate with the Cameroon military. The United Nations says the Cameroon separatist crisis that turned into an armed conflict in 2017 has killed at least 3,300 people, and internally displaced some 750,000..

 

Source: Voice of America

THE HAGUE/WASHINGTON — About 30 Sudanese citizens living in Europe demonstrated Friday outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, demanding that Sudanese officials surrender more individuals accused of committing atrocities in Darfur.

 

The ICC’s trial of suspected Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb got underway this week, with Kushayb pleading not guilty to 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, torture, pillaging and murder.

 

Darfur human rights activist Amaat Sefeldin, who traveled from Germany to The Hague to attend the protest, told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that she wanted Sudanese officials to turn over former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was in power during the campaign that killed more than 200,000 people in Darfur nearly 20 years ago.

“We are demanding the handover of all criminals, especially Bashir, the president, and Abel-Raheem Muhammad Hussein, and Ahmad Muhammad Harun and others,” she told VOA. “And we would also demand for the court to try the other criminals, because the genocide in Darfur and the crimes committed in Sudan are not done by those few people. It’s a long list of people who committed crimes. They have committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur since 2003.”

 

In 2012, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, former minister of defense and Bashir’s special representative in Darfur. In 2007, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former Sudan minister of state for the interior.

 

The protesters praised the ICC for putting Kushayb on trial. It’s the first trial for anyone accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Darfur conflict, which began in 2003 with a rebellion by armed groups against Bashir’s government.

 

Kushayb was a reputed leader of pro-government Janjaweed militia members who attacked and burned numerous villages in Darfur as part of attempts to crush the rebel groups.

 

Call for others’ trials

 

“Sudanese are in support of the trial and accountability for crimes committed in Darfur, but in general for crimes committed in Sudan,” said another protester, Neimat Ahmadi, president of the Darfur Women Action Group. “They also want to raise concern about the ongoing violence against protesters and the escalation of violence in areas like Darfur, South Kordofan, the Blue Nile.”

 

“Our message is also to the international community that it is important to try Kushayb, but it is more important to pursue others who have been indicted by the International Criminal Court and be brought to face the court,” Neimat told VOA.

 

Maisa Altayib, a member of the Sudanese diaspora who also attended the protest, said she wanted to see the “real criminals” brought to justice in The Hague.

 

“Not only Kushayb — he only executed orders given to him. The real criminals are in Khartoum and we will not be satisfied until they are brought here to the ICC. So Kushayb is only the beginning of achieving justice,” Altayib told VOA.

 

South Darfur-based human rights lawyer Abdulbasit Al Haj said the Kushayb trial should lead prosecutors to more evidence of crimes committed by former officials.

 

“This trial also should identify individuals who have been involved in funding and supplying the Janjaweed militia with the logistic process in Darfur,” Al Haj told South Sudan in Focus, adding “they are crimes that have touched the humanity around the world.”

However, another Sudanese human rights expert, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from security operatives, said she did not think the government was willing to hand over others accused of war crimes because they include current top officials who took power in last year’s military coup.

 

“I don’t think they will hand them [over],” the expert said. “I don’t think they will hand [over] anyone. Now, after the coup that took place, I don’t see it happening at all.”

 

Army ties seen protecting Bashir

 

Sudanese political analyst and researcher Jihad Mashamoun told South Sudan in Focus he believed military leaders running Sudan would never turn over Bashir.

 

“I doubt it,” he said. “Omar Bashir, he hails from the army, so handing him over to a foreign judiciary, that tarnishes the image or integrity of the armed forces.”

 

The ICC indicted Bashir in 2009 over alleged atrocities committed by his government. He remains imprisoned in Khartoum after being found guilty on corruption charges.

 

The U.S. State Department also praised the opening of Kushayb’s ICC trial, noting it was the first against “any senior leader for crimes committed by the Bashir regime and government-supported forces following the genocide and other atrocities in Darfur.” The statement added, “This trial is a signal to those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in Darfur that impunity will not last in the face of the determination for justice to prevail.”

 

Source: Voice of America

KONG, IVORY COAST — As Ivory Coast beefs up its border security with Burkina Faso, ethnic Fulanis say they are being labeled as supporters of Islamist militants and persecuted by security forces. Rights groups warn the heavy-handed tactics could backfire, providing fertile recruiting ground for the insurgents.

 

Since armed groups attacked military targets near the border with Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast’s government has been sending large numbers of troops to the north over the past two years.

 

In the town of Kong, near where many of the attacks took place, Boubacar Koueta was among many men arrested by recently arrived Ivorian government forces. Koueta was one of three ethnic Fulani men who described how army troops beat them and their relatives and held them for 11 days to two months without charge because of their ethnicity.

 

Koueta said he was outside one day with several other people, including women. Two large vehicles pulled up, he said, and soldiers detained them and another group of people before firing into the air and beating them. Koueta and the others were tied up, beaten and left in the afternoon sun.

 

Throughout the Sahel, there is a common misconception that ethnic Fulanis are behind attacks linked to the Islamic State and al-Qaida groups that have ravaged neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali.

 

Relations had been cordial

 

A community leader for the Fulanis in Kong, Amadou Sidibé, said they had good relations with security forces before new soldiers arrived two years ago.

 

Amadou Sidibé said that before the arrival of the new military personnel, everything was fine. He said there were no problems with the authorities or security forces. But since their arrival, he added, the Fulani are often arrested and branded as terrorists.

 

Officials with Human Rights Watch said the persecution of Fulanis in Burkina Faso and Mali is a major catalyst for recruitment by terror groups, who exploit resentment toward the state.

 

Jihadist groups rely on long-standing tensions between farmers and herder communities like the Fulanis to stoke violent conflict, analysts say.

 

Ethnic fracture

 

Lassina Diara, an analyst with the Timbuktu Institute, said he thinks that beyond the religious rhetoric, terror groups are exploiting social fractures and ethnicity. He said there is a fracture between the Fulani communities and the region’s other communities.

 

A farmer near the northern city of Korhogo, who asked that his name be withheld for safety reasons, said he resented having to erect fencing because herders allow cattle to graze cashew crops. He said the farmers bear the costs of protecting their plantations while herders do nothing because they want to see their cattle well fed.

 

Lassina Sele, who runs an NGO that aims to resolve disputes between farmers and herders, says local militiamen called dozos add to tensions. Sele says that when dozos arrest a thief who is Fulani, they are treated worse than those of another ethnic group.

 

Diara, the analyst, said he did not think the government was doing enough to relieve tensions between herder and farmer communities.

 

Ministers in charge of security and social cohesion did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

 

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — A study by the World Health Organization finds the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa to be a fraction of the true number of people infected with the coronavirus that causes the disease.

 

A new analysis of the spread and the presence of asymptomatic cases of SARS-CoV 2, the virus that causes COVID-19, finds infections in Africa skyrocketed from 3% of the population in June 2020 to 65% by September 2021.

 

The WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said the analysis of 151 studies reveals the true number of COVID-19 infections in Africa could be 97% higher than the number of confirmed reported cases.

 

“This suggests that more than two-thirds of all Africans have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus,” she said. “And this compares to the global average, where the true number of infections is about 16 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases … In real terms, this means that in September 2021, rather than the reported 8.2 million cases, there were in fact 800 million infections.”

 

The World Health Organization confirmed 11.6 million cases of COVID-19 on the African continent as of April 3, including more than 250,000 deaths. Given the new findings, the WHO acknowledged the number of actual infections is likely to be much larger.

 

Moeti said it is complicated to get accurate data in Africa because 67% of people with COVID-19 have no symptoms. She said that highlights the need to sustain high levels of routine testing and surveillance to stay ahead of the pandemic.

 

“With many social protection measures now being relaxed, it will become even more important to allow for tracking of the virus in real time, and monitoring of its evolution,” she said. “Our analysis is clear evidence of the continued significant circulation of the COVID-19 virus among the people on the continent. With this comes the heightened risk of more lethal variants that can overwhelm existing immunity.”

 

The WHO study finds exposure to the coronavirus rose sharply following the emergence of the beta and the delta variants.

 

People who become ill with COVID-19 enjoy some degree of immunity. However, Moeti said vaccination remains the best defense against infection as well as adding a level of protection against newly mutating strains of the virus.

 

Source: Voice of America