03 November 2022
Ethiopia/Tigray: Addis and the TPLF have agreed a truce. Though this is a major step forward, work remains to be done to reach peace. This is not the conflict’s first ceasefire, but this time the agreement goes further: the agreement includes a disarmament plan plus restoration of essential services, amongst them aid supplies. TPLF has will “disarm, demobilize and reintegrate fighters into the federal army”. The conflict started almost exactly two years ago.
BBC Africa Live 02 November 2022. 18:38
Glaciers melting: Climate change will make glaciers disappear by 2050 in Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, Rwenzori mountains and Virunga national parks. People living around there will be impacted heavily. Harvests have already started to decrease and drought periods have become longer. Hydropower generation will be affected and malaria and other tropical diseases will spread to mountainous areas. Beyond the material, “glaciers have an extremely important cultural and spiritual significance” for the communities living in those mountains.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 9:51
Glaciers: A Unesco report which makes projections based on satellite data comes to the conclusion that glaciers in a third of all world heritage sites will have melted by the year 2050. World heritage site glaciers lose 58bn tonnes of ice per year. To reduce the speed of glaciers melting requires action against global warming.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63489041
Mozambique: Arlindo Chissale, a freelance journalist and editor of an online publication covering the Cabo Delgado conflict “has gone missing after police took him into custody over the weekend”. Human Rights Watch calls on the government to locate him, inform his family and make sure he returns home safely. “Detention and forced disappearance of local journalists covering the conflict in Cabo Delgado province is common.”
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 11:55
Burkina Faso: According to Joe Biden, the USA will cease to treat Burkina as a beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) because of the country’s “lack of progress towards ‘protecting of the rule of law and political pluralism’.” Burkina has suffered a second coup d’état end-September after a first one eight months earlier.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 11:17
Glencore oil bribes: Having paid 26m USD “to officials of crude oil firms in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast between 2011 and 2016”, Glencore Energy UK will have to pay 275m £ (307m USD) in punishment for corruption. This Glencore case is evidence of how widespread this corporate corruption was, what “very substantial sums of money” were spent in bribes and how it happened over an extended period.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 12:56
Guinea: A letter by the justice minister instructs prosecutors to initiate legal proceedings against more than 180 individuals and legal entities for “corruption, illicit enrichment, money laundering, forgery and use of forgeries in public writing, embezzlement of public funds and complicity”. Amongst the more than 180 is Alpha Condé, the country’s president until he was overthrown by a coup d’état in September 2021.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 13:30
Somalia: With the drought making tax payments to al-Shabaab impossible for many, a grassroots movement has risen against the Islamist organisation which controls large parts of the country. “Small groups of nomads and farmers have periodically risen up against al-Shabab in recent years, only to be crushed mercilessly.” But now, the phenomenon takes on a more systematic character as the government provides these militias – their fighters wear skirts (called “ma'awiis”) and are known as “ma'awiisley” – with ammunition, food and fuel and some are integrated into the army. This is a key addition to the government’s anti-terrorist arsenal (which also includes “efforts to disrupt financial flows to the militants and challenge their ideology”) and it could well be a game-changer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63486013
Chagos Islands/GB/Mauritius: If Britain had decolonized comme il faut, the Chagos Islands would today belong to Mauritius. The British Foreign Secretary has now agreed to hold negotiations with Mauritius. Precondition to that will without doubt be permission for the US to continue to use the military base on Diego Garcia, the biggest of the Chagos Islands – the installation of the military base in 1966 led to the expulsion of more than 1,000 Chagossians.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 16:23
South Sudan/Floods: According to Ocha, floods following torrential rains have affected more than 1 million South Sudanese. Violence, insecurity, impassable roads or bridges, flooded airstrips and, most importantly, dearth of funds make things worse. Should upstream White Nile dams be opened to relieve pressure there, the situation in South Sudan would get even more untenable.
BBC Africa Live 03 November 2022. 15:12
02 November 2022
Migrants’ rights: Must migrants not also be able to choose where to live? Looks like no, because many “regulations and policies both implicitly and explicitly assume that along with fleeing their homes for safety, migrants are also giving up the right to make decisions about their futures”. The UK wants to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda instead of hearing their cases. And like many other laws, the 2004 Safe Third Country Agreement between the USA and Canada leaves no choice for migrants but to make their asylum claim in their country of arrival – not the country of their choice. The EU is no stranger to such rules. But, the article concludes, “if we sacrifice the capacity of some people to be treated as fully fledged human beings, we’re putting that right at risk for all.”
https://theconversation.com/migrants-deserve-the-right-to-make-decisions-about-where-they-live-192829
Congo-Kinshasa/UN: After M23 conquered Rumangabo (a military base in North Kivu/40 km north of Goma), UN forces “tactically and strategically” withdrew. But their convoy came under attack from angry crowds near Kanyaruchinya (close to Goma) with at least one UN lorry set on fire and two UN staff injured. In July, over 35 had died in protests against the UN mission in North Kivu.
BBC Africa Live 02 November 2022. 12:48
Malaria: While progress has been made of late with respect to malaria vaccines, the spread of malaria-carrying Anopheles stephensi from Asia to Africa is definitely bad news. This Anopheles species thrives in urban settings. “The mosquito has already caused cases in Djibouti and Ethiopia to rise”
BBC Africa Live 02 November 2022. 7:42