– NEWS –
Ethiopia and Eritrea declare an end to war: Ethiopia and Eritrea formally restored relations on Monday. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed a Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship, as well as agreements to open embassies in their respective capitals, restore flight services and use port facilities in Eritrea. The signing took place in Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, before Abiy flew back to Ethiopia. Abiy arrived in the Eritrean capital of Asmara on Sunday. After talks with his counterpart Afwerki, a series of deals were announced, including Ethiopia’s access to an unnamed Eritrean port on the Red Sea, the reopening of embassies in both countries and the restoration of telephone lines that have been severed for two decades.
npr.org, cbsnews.com, cnbc.com
EU considers migrant camps in Africa: EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini did not share any details. She merely emphasized that the so-called landing sites would not violate international law or human rights. The idea behind the camps is to stop migration across the Mediterranean Sea. People who are migrating to Europe illegally should be stopped in time.
stern.de
UN team finds atrocities in Congo and Yemen: Rebels and government troops in Congo have committed atrocities including mass rape, cannibalism and the dismemberment of civilians, according to testimony published on Tuesday by a team of UN human rights experts. The team investigating a conflict in the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of Congo told the UN Human Rights Council last week that they suspected all sides were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their detailed 126-page report cataloged gruesome attacks committed in the conflict. Meanwhile, fighting in a port city in Yemen has forced around 2,000 high school students to flee to the Houthi-held capital Sanaa to sit exams. The students are now staying in schools or with friends and relatives and their reception is an example of how Houthi authorities are trying to ease social frustrations in the territory they control.
reuters.com, hrw.org (Congo), reuters.com (Yemen)
Italy promises billions of euros to Libya if it accepts the return of migrants: Italy and Libya have agreed to reactivate a friendship treaty signed a decade ago that allowed migrants to be returned to Libyan territory. Libya’s foreign minister Mohamad Siala hailed the agreement reached during his first visit to Tripoli as significant and promising. The original treaty was signed by former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and Italy’s then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, as they sought to turn a page on 40 years of stormy relations between the North African country and its former colonizer. But the deal was suspended in February 2011, after the start of the uprising that saw Gadhafi forced from power and killed. The original treaty envisaged unlocking 4.2 billion euros of Italian investment in Libya as compensation for colonisation by Rome. In exchange, Libya would work to stop illegal migrants embarking from its shores and receive those sent back to it. In Tripoli on Saturday the two ministers did not say if the text of the reactivated treaty had been amended.
euronews.com
French say cockpit fire likely caused 2016 EgyptAir crash, contradicting Egypt reuters.com
At least nine killed in al-Shabaab car bomb attack in Somalia theguardian.com
Two billion people will live in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050 idw-online.de
– BACKGROUND –
Media crackdown in Tanzania: Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has relapsed from a media darling to a typical African leader cracking down on media to maintain his grip on power. He has been taking action against journalists, bloggers, website and internet forum operators. This includes newspaper shutdowns, hefty fines imposed on television stations and the disappearance of an investigative journalist, Azory Gwanda. Directives on online forums, blogs and streaming websites tell people to register with the government and comply with legislation. The goal is to remove anonymity from the internet. The regulations, which were originally issued in March, set high registration fees that require bloggers and forum hosts to pay an initial fee of 484 dollars and an annual fee of 440 dollars. Failure to comply with these regulations can carry a prison term of up to 12 months and fines of up to 5 million Tanzanian shillings, around 2,000 US dollars.
southerntimesafrica.com, taz.de
German firms promised tax breaks for African projects: Germany plans to use public money to support companies which invest in Africa, part of a new „Marshall Plan“ with which it hopes to tackle the roots of the ongoing refugee crisis. The aim is to reintroduce a scheme from the 1980s which made it easier for companies to write off losses on investments in Africa in order to moderate initial investment risks, Development Minister Gerd Mueller said. He also plans to push for provisions made for African investments to get more favorable tax treatment.
reuters.com
– NUMBER –
100 million people live in Ethiopia. 5.5 million live in Eritrea. With the resumption of economic relations between the two countries, small Eritrea gains access to a huge market.
taz.de
– QUOTE –
„The social media users have no right to squander the dollars I earn from my coffee, my milk etc by endlessly donating money to foreign telephone companies through chatting or even lying and, then, they are allergic to even a modest contribution to their country whose collective wealth they are misusing.“
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni responds to public uproar against his social media tax and the tax on mobile money transactions. The taxes came into effect on Sunday, July 1.
observer.ug
– AT LAST –
Museveni’s mobile money tax: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has defended the country’s new social media tax, saying Ugandans were using such platforms for „lying“, and squandering the nation’s hard currency on fees to foreign-owned telecoms firms. In May Uganda’s parliament passed new tax laws that introduced a levy of 200 shillings per day for access to a range of online services. The platforms that have been identified by the country’s revenue service for the tax include Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, YouTube, Skype, Yahoo Messenger and many others. The tax, collected by mobile phone internet service providers since July 1, is equivalent to about 20 percent of what typical Ugandan users pay for their mobile phone data plans.
reuters.com