– NEWS –
Somalia leaders fail to reach deal on elections: Somalia’s leaders have failed to break a deadlock over the country’s elections. An alliance of Somali opposition parties proposed the creation of a national council of lawmakers, opposition leaders and civil society to govern the Horn of Africa nation after the president’s term expired on Monday with no clear succession plan. Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who is seeking a second term, told parliament on Saturday his administration “made compromises on everything” to secure a last-minute agreement during talks with regional leaders in Dhusamareb. The opposition alliance said they would reject any attempt to extend Mohamed’s term and suggested the council could elect a transitional leader to govern until a new president can be chosen by lawmakers.
theguardian.com, reuters.com
Former Ugandan rebel commander Dominic Ongwen guilty of war crimes: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, convicted former Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen on Thursday of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ongwen was accused of 70 counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, sexual slavery and using child soldiers, between 2002 and 2004 in northern Uganda when he led a brigade of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a general. He was found guilty of 61 out of 70 counts. It included the first ever conviction by the Netherlands-based court for the crime of forced pregnancy. Ongwen himself was abducted by the rebels as a child while on the way to school and was forced to fight alongside them. His case is the first at the ICC to involve a perpetrator and victim of the same war crimes.
dw.com
Libya with new transitional government: The civil war parties in Libya have agreed on a transitional government. Under UN supervision, businessman Mohammed Dbeibah was elected prime minister. The conflict in Libya had evolved in recent years between a proxy war between Turkey and Russia. Experts see the EU’s role as essential to secure peace in Libya. A joint statement with the U.S., Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. said they would hold actors accountable who endangered Libya’s stability.
theguardian.com, zeit.de, taz.de
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Blockchain – Ticker – With our weekly newsletter we provide you with the most important developments in blockchain technology and scene. blockchain-ticker.net
South Africa halts AstraZeneca vaccine rollout: South Africa has put its rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on hold after a small clinical trial revealed the shot provided only minimal protection from mild and moderate illness caused by the virus variant that is widely circulating in the country. The variant, called B.1.351, appears to be better at evading the body’s immune system and has helped fuel a massive second wave of Covid-19 cases there. South Africa has received one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab and was preparing to start vaccinating people. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said his government would wait for further advice on how best to proceed with the AstraZeneca vaccine in light of the findings.
bbc.com, npr.org
UN and Ethiopia strike deal for food aid in war-hit Tigray: The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has said it has agreed to a deal with Ethiopia to expand access for aid workers and scale up operations in the war-hit Tigray region. WFP Executive Director David Beasley wrote on Twitter that the government in Ethiopia and the WFP have agreed on concrete steps to expand access for humanitarians across Tigray. 20,000 tons of food would be transported to 1.3 million people. Beasley also announced that WFP accepted a request from the government to augment the transportation capacity of the government and partners to deliver humanitarian assistance into and within Tigray. The conflict erupted in November after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against Tigray’s former governing party before declaring victory almost a month after. Thousands of civilians are believed to have died and millions have fled their homes.
africanews.com, news.un.org
WTO has its first female leader: The path has been cleared for Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to become the first woman and the first African to lead the World Trade Organization (WTO) after South Korea’s candidate pulled out of the race for the job. Okonjo-Iweala, an economist and former finance minister of Nigeria, already enjoyed broad support from WTO members, including the EU, China, Japan and Australia. In a statement on Friday, the Office of the US Trade Representative said Okonjo-Iweala was widely respected for her effective leadership and had proven experience managing a large international organization with a diverse membership. Having survived the murky waters of politics in Nigeria, where her mother was kidnapped to send her a message, and rising to number two at the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala should have no trouble dealing with international trade negotiators in her new job at the WTO.
cnn.com, nytimes.com, bbc.com
Tigray conflict: fragile alliance between Ethiopia and Eritrea heise.de
Attack on Doctors Without Borders vehicles in Cameroon doctorswithoutborders.org
Nigeria central bank orders cryptocurrency accounts to close bloomberg.com
Egypt: Researchers discover special mummies in search of Cleopatra’s grave news.artnet.com
– BACKGROUND –
Rich countries block India, South Africa’s bid to ban Covid vaccine patents: The World Trade Organization (WTO) talks on a proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily suspend intellectual property rules related to Covid-19 vaccines and treatments hit a roadblock on Thursday after wealthy countries balked at the idea, Germany’s dpa news agency reported. India and South Africa had approached the global trade body in October, calling on it to waive parts of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). The suspension of rights such as patents, industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information would ensure „timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of medical products essential to combat Covid-19,“ they said. The proposal was vehemently opposed by wealthy nations like the US and Britain as well as the EU, who said that a ban would stifle innovation at pharmaceutical companies by robbing them of the incentive to make huge investments in research and development.
dw.com
China profits from Africa’s shortage of vaccines: Nothing in the world right now is in as much demand as the coronavirus vaccine. The available BioNtech-Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines come in short supply and have been purchased by countries with the thickest wallets. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, vaccines will not be available in most African countries until April 2022 at the earliest. China plans to fill the gap. The Asian giant, with deep pockets and generosity, has already signaled its intentions of becoming the first global powerhouse to deliver free vaccines to Africa. At the moment, the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm is not in major use in Africa. And even if Pfizer suddenly had enough vaccines available, it wouldn’t solve Africa’s problem. „These vaccines were not made for developing countries. They have to be frozen,“ Eric Olander, founder of the information platform China-Africa-Project, said. „These vaccines are in many ways useless to most developing countries because the infrastructure to store them is not in place,“ Olander told DW. On the other hand, China and Russia emphasize that their vaccines are already available and can easily be stored in a common refrigerator or freezer.
dw.com
South Africa′s tourism suffers as Covid-19 rages: South Africa’s government started a 1.2 billion rand fund aimed at reviving the ailing tourism industry. The Tourism Equity Fund will be used in particular to help black entrepreneurs start businesses and projects in the sector, Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said. The cash will come from government, lenders and the Pretoria-based Small Enterprise Finance Agency, she said. Tourism-dependent businesses have been particularly hard hit during the Covid-19 pandemic as border closures and travel restrictions prevent the usual flow of holidaymakers from Europe and elsewhere. The identification of a new coronavirus variant in South Africa late last year only exacerbated the situation, putting the country on many nations’ lists of places to avoid.
bloomberg.com, dw.com
Germany continues to deport Ethiopians despite Tigray crisis: December 28, 2020, was a day Mimi T. is not going to forget. All her hopes were dashed after she was forced on a flight back to Ethiopia with four German police officers in tow. According to advocacy groups, Mimi had come to Germany in 2009 after facing prosecution by the Ethiopian government for being an opposition member. She had also suffered from sexual abuse and arrest. In German, Mimi was treated for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mimi T. wasn’t the only asylum-seeker deported back to Ethiopia last year. In late November, 10 people were flown to Addis Ababa on a chartered Ethiopian Airlines flight. The German government says that all legal provisions were followed. But critics disagree.
dw.com
– NUMBER –
The private aid ship „Ocean Viking“ is allowed to bring 422 migrants rescued from distress at sea to the Mediterranean island of Sicily.
tagesschau.de
– QUOTE –
„First they suck the market dry and then they block poor countries that want to produce. That is colonial and absolutely disgusting.“
Kate Elder, vaccine expert at the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, sharply criticized the action of Western governments against initiatives to repeal patent rules in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
rnd.de
– AT LAST –
Gesture of resistance: son of former government adviser comes out as gay: The son of a homophobic Nigerian politician has come out as gay in a dazzlingly defiant social media post. Bolu Okupe, the 27-year-old son of Nigerian presidential advisor Doyin Okupe, wrote “Yes I’m Gay AF,” on Instagram, captioning a photo of him holding the Pride flag and posing in rainbow-colored shorts.
attitude.co.uk, queerty.com