– NEWS –
South Africa waits for Zuma’s resignation: South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) gave President Jacob Zuma 48 hours to resign as head of state on Monday after an eight-hour meeting of the party’s top leadership. ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans to restore the values embodied by Nelson Mandela – the country’s first black president, also known as Madiba – and said those who had stolen state assets would be brought to justice. Zuma has been battling corruption allegations. He has resisted increasing pressure to quit since December, when Ramaphosa replaced him as leader of the ANC.
reuters.com, bbc.com
Sisi’s only challenger rejects accusations: An Egyptian politician emerged just ahead of a deadline on Monday as the sole challenger to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a March election the incumbent appears set to win after other candidates withdrew citing repression. Mousa Mostafa Mousa leads the Ghad party, which had endorsed Sisi for a second term and even organized events to help nominate the former military commander as recently as last week. Moussa has rejected accusations that his candidacy is simply a strategy to ensure that Sisi has (at least on paper) a rival candidate for the vote.
reuters.com
EU reveals plan to boost investment in Africa: The EU Commission has proposed to set up a new European External Investment Plan (EIP) to encourage investment in Africa. 3.35 billion euros are allocated to the European investment fund for sustainable development, which should trigger up to 44 billion euros of investments. 1.4 billion euros are committed to educational programmes in Africa from 2014 to 2020. One third of the overall foreign direct investment in Africa comes from the EU with 32 billion euros invested in Africa by EU companies in 2015.
eeas.europa.eu, ec.europa.eu
Mogadishu truck bomber sentenced to death: Somalia’s military court has sentenced a man to death for his role in the country’s deadliest bombing last year, in which at least 500 were killed. Hassan Adan Isaq was accused of leading an al-Shabab unit said to have carried out the truck attack in the capital Mogadishu on 14 October 2017. Another suspect was sentenced in absentia to life in jail, while a third man received a three-year prison term.
bbc.com
Germany to compensate Algerian Jewish Holocaust survivors: The Claims Conference Hardship Fund has announced that a new group of Jewish Holocaust survivors will be eligible for compensation from the Germany government. The group consists of Jews who lived in Algeria between July 1940 and November 1942. Those eligible for compensation will receive a one-time payment of 2,556 euros, which the German government will begin paying out in July. The Claims Conference, which represents Holocaust victims in negotiations for compensation from the German government, estimates that approximately 25,000 Algerian Jews living across the globe may be eligible for compensation.
dw.com
Boko Haram releases 13 hostages to Nigerian government bbc.com
At least 30 dead in ethnic violence in northeast Congo reuters.com
Twice as many refugees deported to Africa since Trump is in office bento.de
– BACKGROUND –
Drilling for oil in a nature reserve: Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila has recently approved the commencement of exploratory drillings in Salonga National Park. Salonga Park is Africa’s largest protected tropical rainforest and the second largest in the world. Inaccessible to humans, wooded marshes stretch for hundreds of miles and are home to bonobo wood chimpanzees, forest elephants and rare species of fish and birds. For many species this is the last place where they occur in the wild. In 2014, the German Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW) invested 3.5 million euros in the financing of the park. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) helps the Congolese conservation authority ICCN with park management.
taz.de
Tackling female genital mutilation with an app: A group of Kenyan teenagers have created an app called i-Cut to help girls affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The students, Stacy Owino, Cynthia Otieno, Purity Achieng, Mascrine Atieno and Ivy Akinyi, have named themselves ‚The Restorers‘, and will be the only Africans participating in the 2017 Technovation Challenge in Silicon Valley in August. The app will help connect affected girls to legal and medical assistance.
cnn.com
– NUMBER –
In 87 days, Cape Town will presumably run out of water. All water reservoirs will be empty on May 11th.
coct.co
– QUOTE –
„Structural causes of poverty can not be tackled sustainably. That is the big drawback of this instrument.“
Jann Lay, Acting Director of the GIGA Institute of African Affairs, has commented on the basic income experiment of the US NGO GiveDirectly in Kenya. Approximately 6,000 subjects will be paid 18 euros a month.
huffingtonpost.de
– AT LAST –
British government threatens to cut aid funding for Oxfam: The UK government has threatened to cut aid funding to charities that fall short on safeguarding and do not cooperate with authorities investigating alleged sexual abuse. International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said she was taking action to ensure charities were properly regulated following allegations that Oxfam failed to disclose the use of prostitutes by aid workers in Haiti in 2011. Concerns over exploitation by aid workers were sparked after it emerged Oxfam workers who were accused of hiring prostitutes in earthquake-torn Haiti had been able to go on and work for other aid agencies.
independent.co.uk