– NEWS –
Eritrea reopens embassy in Addis Ababa: Eritrea reopened its embassy in Ethiopia on Monday in further evidence of a rapid thaw between two countries that a week ago ended two decades of military stalemate over a border war in which tens of thousands died. Thousands turned out in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, under tight security to welcome Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, whose visit is the latest step in ending a state of war. Afwerki and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed re-opened the embassy in a brief ceremony. The rapprochement could help Ethiopia, a landlocked country of 100 million people with the largest economy in East Africa, by making access to Eritrea’s ports possible. Some Ethiopians have compared the restoration of relations with Eritrea, one of the world’s most closed-off countries, to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Telephone links have opened, and strangers in both countries have begun randomly dialing others across the border.
reuters.com, nytimes.com
Attackers target Somalia’s presidential palace: The Sunni terrorist group Al-Shabaab attacked the presidential palace in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Saturday. Somali security forces shot dead three extremists wearing soldiers’ uniforms, foiling the attempted al-Shabab attack on the palace that began with a car bomb exploding, police said Saturday. Six people were dead in all including a suicide car bomber, Capt. Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press, saying the situation had calmed and security in the area was being tightened. In past incidents, al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab have used car bombs to target government buildings in the capital. The attack on the palace came a week after an attack on the nearby interior ministry compound in Mogadishu killed at least nine people, again raising questions about the state of security in the most sensitive areas of Somalia’s capital.
washingtonpost.com, reuters.com
Uganda’s youth protests against social media tax: Violent protests in Uganda have forced the government to review a controversial tax imposed on social media use in the country. Uganda passed a new set of laws taxing online services and mobile money transactions in the country in May. Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda in a statement Wednesday said the bill would be amended taking into consideration the concerns of the public, and presented to the country’s parliament on July 19. Ugandan police used tear gas and bullets to break up protests against the tax. Two protesters were arrested in downtown Kampala, the capital, after a scuffle in which some policemen were assaulted. The protest was organized by a popular lawmaker, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, a pop star who is one in a group of singers who say the tax will have negative impact on the marketing of their music. Police broke up the protest because Ssentamu did not notify them of his plans, said a police spokesman.
cnn.com, cbsnews.com
German minister calls for EU Commissioner for Africa: German development minister Gerd Müller has called on the EU to reform its Africa policy. „Europe is just about to miss the opportunity of the century in Africa“, he explained in an interview, saying the EU needed a Commissioner for Africa. This commissioner could cover all the areas of a coherent Africa policy, with economic interests being a priority. In the minister’s opinion, the EU is missing out on a „continent of opportunity“. The EU budget for 2021 to 2027 currently only provides 39 billion euros to Africa – this shows how little the EU is prioritizing the continent, Müller said. Things are different in China and Russia, these countries are investing heavily in Africa and securing scarce resources such as Coltan and lithium.
zeit.de
German refugee support group Pro Asyl doubts that the Libyan Coast Guard could be suitable for maritime rescue proasyl.de
Gunmen kill 14 civilians in northeast Mali village reuters.com
China-Africa military ties have deepened washingtonpost.com
– BACKGROUND –
Obama’s Africa trip: Former US President Barack Obama arrived in Kenya on Monday, his father’s home country, in what was expected to be a lower-profile visit than the ones he made to the country as senator and president. Obama traveled to Kenya to promote the opening of a sports and training center that his half sister, Auma Obama, founded through her charitable foundation. Obama attended a meeting at State House in Nairobi with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto. Obama also held talks with opposition leader Raila Odinga who recently agreed to work with Kenyatta after a prolonged and highly contested election period in 2017. During his visit in South Africa, Obama is set to make a speech marking the legacy of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela. He will also meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa. Later, he will take part in a town hall with 200 new leaders of the Obama Foundation in Africa.
nytimes.com, africanews.com, independent.co.uk, cnn.com
Trade helps: Food imports from Europe to Africa have drawn criticism. Food chemist and non-fiction author Udo Pollmer has taken a closer look at this argument. His conclusion: Cheap imports of wheat and meat from Germany to other countries do not exist. German food is too expensive for the African market, so low-price imports often come down to other countries such as Brazil. Africa consumes only two percent of the goods exported by Germany. And less than one hundredth of these goods are agricultural products. Donations and development aid are much more problematic to assess than trade. When food is being distributed for free, agriculture cannot get back on its feet. For a long time, African intellectuals have demanded that „Africa should finally be left alone“: Trade could help the continent more than aid.
deutschlandfunkkultur.de
– NUMBER –
France’s trade volume with Africa has sunk to 54 billion US dollars within only five years. In 2013 the trade volume was 73 billion US dollars.
wallstreet-online.de
– QUOTE –
„The majority have felt little of this growth. The people want democracy, something that we have barely known in this country. But they also want a better life.“
Economist Bisrat Teshome has pointed out that 20 percent of Ethiopia’s population is poor despite economic growth in the country.
taz.de
– AT LAST –
Scientists hope lab-grown embryos can save rhino species from extinction: Rhino embryos created in a lab are raising hopes that high-tech assisted reproduction may help save the northern white rhino, the most endangered mammal in the world. Only two of these rhinos are still alive, both females living in a sanctuary in Kenya and protected around the clock by armed guards. The last male, a rhino named Sudan, died in March. But before the males died off, wildlife experts collected and froze sperm. Now, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists say they successfully have used this stored sperm to fertilize eggs taken from a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros. While this kind of assisted reproduction is used for other large mammals, including horses and cows, this is the first time lab-grown rhino embryos have reached the point they could be transferred into a uterus.
npr.org