– NEWS –
South Africa riots force president to leave Commonwealth summit: South African police have fired rubber bullets at protesters as violent riots forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to cut short his attendance at the Commonwealth leaders’ summit in London. Shops were looted, roads were blocked and vehicles set alight in North West province on Friday in unrest over alleged government corruption and poor public services. At least 23 people were arrested and one man was reported to have died in sporadic violence that erupted this week in Mahikeng, the provincial capital. Protesters are demanding jobs, housing and an end to corruption. Ramaphosa has called for calm and ordered police to exercise restraint.
theguardian.com, bbc.com
Sudan’s president sacks foreign minister: Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has issued a presidential decree relieving Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour of his position, state news agency SUNA reported on Thursday. Ghandour on Wednesday asked parliament to step in and help Sudanese diplomats, who had not been paid their salaries in seven months or given funds to rent Sudanese diplomatic mission headquarters abroad. The funds requested by the foreign ministry amount to less than $30 million, he said, the first public comment by a Sudanese government official on the central bank’s inability to provide foreign currency to cover state affairs. Sudan has been largely cut off from international financing in the past decades by US sanctions, which were lifted in October. Since then, officials have been trying to attract investors to help its economy.
reuters.com
Zimbabwe fired striking nurses: Around 16,000 nurses in Zimbabwe resumed work bringing to an end one week of strikes that affected health services in the country. Zimbabwe’s health minister David Parirenyatwa said the situation had „returned to normal“ in all hospitals. The nurses were fired last week by Vice President Chiwenga who said they refused to go back to work after $17m was released to improve their pay. Hundred of the nurses offered free treatment to the public in the country’s parliament to protest their dismissal Friday. Zimbabwe’s government said at the time that the decision would not be reversed and ordered heads of hospitals to recruit new nurses to replace those sacked.
cnn.com
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan hope to break Nile dam talks deadlock: Egypt and Ethiopia are at loggerheads over the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam, a $4 billion-hydroelectric project that Cairo fears will reduce waters that run to its fields and reservoirs from Ethiopia’s highlands and via Sudan. Ethiopia, which is financing the project alone and hopes to become the continent’s biggest power generator and exporter, dismisses the claims. Sudan supports the dam because it will regulate floods and provide electricity and irrigation. Talks between the three governments have stalled for months over disagreement on the wording of a study on the dam’s environmental impact. Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry said all parties should know that Egypt would continue to defend the interests of its people regarding the Nile by several means.
reuters.com, washingtonpost.com
More than 200 child soldiers freed in South Sudan cnn.com
EU Commissioner Oettinger calls for orientation towards Africa stuttgarter-zeitung.de
– BACKGROUND –
Five years of EU forces in Mali: For more than five years the EU has been training forces in Mali as part of the European Union Training Mission to fight terrorism. German soldiers are also involved, the German parliament is currently consulting the mandate until May 2019. The „Forces armées et de sécurité du Mali“ was overwhelmed in the fight against Islamists and insurgent Tuareg. A French military intervention prevented a rise of Islamists in Bamako in 2013. But until today, the country is unstable, the peace process with the Tuareg is problematic, self-defense militias have taken control everywhere where the monopoly of power of the state is missing. In 2014, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger set up the „G5 Sahel“ group of countries to foster close cooperation in the region and tackle the major challenges that these countries face. Since then, the EU has stepped up cooperation with this African-led initiative to build a strong partnership on many fronts.
taz.de, europa.eu
Alert sounds on developing country debt: The debt burden of African countries has risen dramatically in recent years. Annually, obligations grow by 25 percent. According to the British NGO Jubilee Debt Campaign, 28 nations, or more than half of the countries on the continent, are already in or in imminent danger of a debt crisis. The International Monetary Fund considers that eight African countries are over-indebted and eight others are in the process of becoming so. The new debt has not had the anticipated lever effect on investment levels in the countries. In fact, the report indicates that only 30% of countries have seen an increase in investment similar to the increase in their level of indebtedness.
derstandard.at, euractiv.com
Investment in Africa: Africa is back on the investment map. The German Ministry of Economics organized the „Start-up Night! Africa 2018“. Volkswagen in January founded Mobility Solutions in Rwanda and plans to offer car sharing and other services in the region. Especially in the telecommunications and digital industry experts see a market with 1.2 billion customers. Expert Oliver Bell, from asset manager T. Rowe Price, has pointed out good investment prospects, especially in Nigeria and Ghana.
extra-funds.de, welt.de
– NUMBER –
Facebook has grown its African user base to 170-million, 94% of whom use mobile to access the social network. Seven out of 10 internet users in Africa now log onto Facebook, it says.
forbes.com
– QUOTE –
„My approach is: Not a single euro in corrupt channels.“
German Development Minister Gerd Müller is calling for a further one billion euros for his budget this year to support crisis countries, expand aid to Africa and help to give refugees in their home regions a perspective.
focus.de
– AT LAST –
Absolute monarch renames Swaziland ‚eSwatini‘: The king of Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarch, has changed the name of his country to the „Kingdom of eSwatini“ to mark the 50th anniversary of independence – and to avoid confusion with Switzerland. King Mswati III announced the move during a golden jubilee ceremony celebrating freedom from British colonial rule. He said the country’s new name was used by Swaziland before it was colonized. In recent years, the ruler has referred several times to the „Kingdom of eSwatini“, which means „land of the Swazis“ in the local language.
cnn.com