International

Nigerian security forces have rescued nearly 200 kidnap victims during raids on camps of criminal gangs in dense forests in the country’s northwest, police said. Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits have plagued northwest and central Nigeria for years, raiding and looting villages and abducting for ransom, but violence has surged over the past year. The rescued victims — 187 men, women and children — were freed in Zamfara State, where they had been kidnapped in separate bandit attacks, police said late Thursday. Police released photographs showing dozens of men, women and children sitting huddled on the ground after they were freed on Thursday. “The abducted victims who spent many weeks in captivity were unconditionally rescued following extensive search and rescue operations that lasted for hours,” Zamfara State police spokesman Mohamed Shehu said in a statement. The rescue was part of a weeks-long broader military operation in Zamfara and other northwestern states that has included telecoms blackouts to disrupt bandit communications. The army said last week that it had “neutralised” nearly 300 criminals during the operations. But violence has not stopped. On Tuesday, around 100 bandits on motorcycles besieged Kuryan Madaro village in Zamfara, killing 14 people and seizing money and mobile phones, residents said. News of attacks in the northwest often emerges slowly since authorities suspended telecommunications last month in Zamfara and parts of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna states.

Tanzania-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah  has won the Nobel Literature Prize for his unflinching portrayal of the effects of colonialism and the trauma of the refugee experience. Gurnah, 72, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but arrived in England as a refugee in the late 1960s to escape revolution, is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize. The Swedish Academy said yesterday that Gurnah was honoured “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. The head of the Academy’s Nobel committee, Anders Olsson, said his writings had particular resonance with a record 82mn people fleeing wars, persecution and violence in 2020. Gurnah told the Nobel Prize website that he was stunned to get the call from the Swedish Academy. “I thought it was a prank,” he said. “These things are usually floated for weeks beforehand ... so it was not something that was in my mind.” He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. “In all his work, Gurnah has striven to avoid the ubiquitous nostalgia for a more pristine pre-colonial Africa,” the Academy said. His itinerant characters “find themselves in a hiatus between cultures and continents, between a life that was and a life emerging; it is an insecure state that can never be resolved”, it added. The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work, with a focus on identity and self-image, also apparent in the 1996 novel Admiring Silence and By the Sea from 2001. Tanzania hailed his win yesterday as a “victory” for the country and the African continent. “You have certainly done justice to your profession, your victory is for Tanzania and Africa,” the government’s spokesperson said on Twitter. After his win, Gurnah urged Europe to see African refugees as people who “come out of need” and who “quite frankly ... have something to give”. “They don’t come empty-handed. Many are talented, energetic people who have something to give,” Gurnah told the Nobel Foundation in an interview. Born in 1948, Gurnah fled Zanzibar in 1968 following the revolution there which led to oppression and the persecution of citizens of Arab origin. He began writing as a 21-year-old in England. Gurnah is best known for his 1994 breakthrough novel Paradise, set in colonial East Africa during World War I and which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Gurnah has until his recent retirement been Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury. The Nobel Prize comes with a medal and a sum of 10mn Swedish kronor (about $1.1mn). Last year, the award went to US poet Louise Gluck. The Nobel season continues today in Oslo with the Peace Prize, followed Monday by the Economics Prize.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has vowed to stand strong and defend “Ethiopia’s honour” despite mounting global criticism over the war in Tigray, as he was sworn in for a new five-year term yesterday. Abiy’s Prosperity Party scored a landslide win in June elections that federal officials touted as the high-water mark of democratic reforms he initiated upon taking office in 2018. Yet by the time voters cast their ballots, tens of thousands had been killed in the conflict in the northern Tigray region and hundreds of thousands faced famine-like conditions, according to the UN, tarnishing the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s once-glowing reputation. Since then, fighting has spread to neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions while Tigray has fallen under what the UN describes as a de facto humanitarian blockade, spurring fears of a repeat of the mass starvation that turned Ethiopia into a byword for famine in the 1980s. It is unclear whether Abiy’s swearing-in will alter the course of the war pitting the government against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group, which dominated national politics before he took power. Abiy’s office, which blames the rebels for starting the war last November with attacks on federal army camps, has said conciliatory measures such as declassifying the TPLF as a terrorist group can only happen after a new government is formed. International partners like the United States “will be looking at this closely to see if there is any shift in position”, William Davison, senior Ethiopia analyst for the International Crisis Group, told AFP. Abiy’s government has faced withering criticism over the conflict, notably from Washington, a long-time ally, with President Joe Biden signing an executive order allowing for sanctions against the warring parties if they fail to commit to a negotiated settlement. However, yesterday Abiy struck a defiant tone, telling a crowd of tens of thousands in Addis Ababa that “any friendship shouldn’t be at the expense of sacrificing Ethiopia’s honour.” Relations between Ethiopia and the international community soured further last week when the foreign ministry announced the expulsion of seven senior UN staff, including the local heads of the UN children’s agency Unicef and its humanitarian coordination office. Those officials have left Ethiopia, said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

An Egyptian peacekeeper was killed and four colleagues were seriously injured in improvised explosive attacks on their convoy in Mali's volatile north on Saturday, the United Nations said. Confirming the toll, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attacks, which happened near Tessalit, close to the Algerian border. Guterres said attacks could constitute war crimes, and called on Malian authorities "to spare no effort" in finding those responsible. "This incident is a sad reminder of the permanent danger hanging over our peacekeepers and of the sacrifices made for peace in Mali," El-Ghassim Wane, who heads the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA), said in an earlier statement. Already battling a militant insurgency, Mali slid into political turmoil when a military coup in August 2020 installed an interim civilian government only for it to be overthrown in a second putsch less than a year later. Deployed in Mali since 2013, MINUSMA is currently the deadliest United Nations peace mission in the world, with 145 killed in hostile acts recorded as of August 31, according to UN statistics. The current force includes more than 12,000 soldiers. In April, four Chadian peacekeepers from MINUSMA were killed in a jihadist attack on their camp in Aguelhok, also in northeastern Mali. The latest violence comes amid uncertainty over the future of foreign military forces in the country. Mali's new military-dominated government took delivery Saturday of four Russian military helicopters as it considered hiring mercenaries from a Russian private security firm. The Wagner group is considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Western countries accuse it of acting on behalf of Moscow. European countries warned Bamako against becoming involved with the group on the sidelines of last week's UN General Assembly. The new regime is reportedly in the process of hiring 1,000 paramilitaries from Wagner, a move viewed with grave concern particularly by former colonial power France, which currently maintains a 5,000-strong counterterrorism mission in Mali. It was French military intervention in 2013 that helped defeat a jihadist insurgency there. But Paris is due to reduce the number of its troops in the Sahel to 2,500 or 3,000 by 2023. It wants to reorganise its presence around a tighter unit centred on targeted strikes against jihadist leaders and on supporting local armies. At the UN last month, Mali's Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga reacted to the decision by accusing France of abandoning his country. Bamako was justified in its desire to "seek other partners" to boost security, he added. French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the comments as "inadmissible" in the same week another soldier died in Mali, the 52nd service member lost there since 2013.

Ethiopia said on Thursday it would expel seven senior UN officials for "meddling" in its affairs, ratcheting up worries over the humanitarian response in the war-torn and famine-threatened Tigray region. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "shocked" by the decision, expressed full confidence in his staff in Ethiopia and said the UN was engaging with the government "in the full expectation" that the officials would be allowed to return. According to diplomats, an emergency UN Security Council meeting will be held behind closed doors midday on Friday to discuss the matter. The White House condemned the ejections of the UN staffers "in the strongest possible terms" with Press Secretary Jen Psaki calling it "unprecedented action to expel the leadership of all of the United Nations organizations involved in ongoing humanitarian operations". The expulsions, announced by the foreign ministry, came as Africa's second-most populous country held elections for dozens of federal parliamentary seats, the final round of voting before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed forms a new government next week. The seven UN officials, including the local heads of the UN children's agency UNICEF and its humanitarian coordination office, have been declared "persona non grata" for "meddling in the internal affairs of the country", the ministry said in a statement published on its Facebook page. "According to the letters addressed to each of the seven individuals listed below, all of them must leave the territory of Ethiopia within the next 72 hours," it said. Ethiopia's northernmost Tigray region has been mired in conflict since November, when Abiy sent troops to topple the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a move he said came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps. Fighting ground on for months before Tigrayan rebels retook the regional capital Mekele and government forces largely withdrew from the region. Since then, the TPLF has launched offensives into neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, while Tigray itself is receiving only about 10 percent of the aid it needs. In July, the UN warned that 400,000 people across Tigray had "crossed the threshold into famine". The situation has since deteriorated as a de-facto blockade prevents most aid from getting in. Federal officials blame the TPLF for obstructing deliveries, but a US State Department spokesman told AFP last week that access to essential supplies and services was "being denied by the Ethiopian government" and that there were "indications of a siege". Government officials offered no further explanation for the expulsions, although several of the targets have spoken out about dire conditions in Tigray. Grant Leaity, the UN's acting humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia who is on the list, warned this month that stocks of relief aid, cash and fuel were "running very low or are completely depleted" and that food stocks had run out in late August. Earlier this month, doctors told AFP that Tigray was entering a new phase of widespread starvation of the kind that turned Ethiopia into a byword for famine in the 1980s. Internal aid agency documents reviewed by AFP said mothers were feeding leaves to their children and that malnutrition cases and starvation deaths were on the rise. Expelling senior UN officials is a crushing blow to the aid response, said Dr Hayelom Kebede, research director of Ayder Referral Hospital in Tigray's capital Mekele. "Now there will be no help for malnourished children. And it's a blow. We will see a catastrophic increase in dying children in the coming days," he said. In the past week, six more children have died of starvation at Ayder Referral alone, he said. TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Twitter that the expulsions reflected a "sad but real" situation in which Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, cannot be "counselled into sanity". Last month, Ethiopia also ordered two humanitarian groups active in Tigray -- the Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council -- to suspend their activities, accusing them of "disseminating misinformation" online. Human Rights Watch said Thursday's decision would affect "millions of Tigrayans... and many other Ethiopians in need throughout the country". Meanwhile, Thursday's parliamentary elections were taking place in the Somali, Harari and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' (SNNP) regions of the country of 110 million people. Abiy's Prosperity Party already secured a new five-year term with a landslide win in June, and Thursday's contests will not tip the balance of power in parliament. In a statement after many polls closed, Abiy said the elections would "make our democracy complete" and that they unfolded "without any security problem". Abiy is due to be sworn in again on Monday. US President Joe Biden last month signed an executive order threatening sanctions against the warring parties in Ethiopia if they fail to commit to a negotiated settlement.

Hundreds of outraged Lebanese, mostly relatives of people killed in last year’s Beirut port explosion, protested yesterday against the suspension of an investigation into the blast hampered by political interference. Tarek Bitar, the judge leading the probe into Lebanon’s deadliest peacetime disaster, had to suspend his work on Monday after what the families and human rights groups said was another blatant case of political obstruction. Around 200 protesters - not even one demonstrator for each person killed by the blast - gathered at the palace of justice in Beirut under close surveillance from a heavy police deployment. “You won’t kill us twice,” read a large banner that they unfurled. Carrying portraits of their lost relatives and placards calling for justice, the protesters voiced their support for Bitar, whose summonses targeting senior officials have earned him a series of thinly veiled threats. Bitar’s predecessor Fadi Sawan was also removed from the investigation earlier this year after issuing summonses to former ministers and top brass over the explosion. “We have been suffering for 13 months from the interference of politicians and sectarian leaders in the investigation,” said Rima al-Zahid, whose brother was a port employee and died in the blast. “When I heard that the investigation was halted, I felt that we were being betrayed again, and that they were killing us a second time,” she added, breaking into tears as she spoke. The August 4, 2020 explosion of hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser at a port warehouse caused one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

The hilltop bamboo palace in southwestern Ethiopia was once a formidable power base, where the now-defunct Kingdom of Kaffa hosted extravagant festivals and stored rich reserves of gold and buffalo hides. These days, however, the royal family's descendants can scarcely pay for basic palace maintenance, while local administrators of what is now Kaffa zone complain they lack funds even for rudimentary roadworks. The decline of Kaffa -- a storied forest realm once dubbed "Africa's Tibet" -- underscores what activists and politicians in Ethiopia's diverse southern region describe as more than a century of underinvestment by the authorities in Addis Ababa. But Kaffa's leaders have a plan to fix it: A referendum scheduled for Thursday that, if successful, would carve out a new South West region -- Ethiopia's 11th -- and funnel more federal cash their way, along with control over how it is spent. "In the rest of the country, everything is growing and changing. When I compare Kaffa with other places, it's still backwards," said Girma Kidane Gallito, grandson of the last king of Kaffa, who was deposed in the late 19th century. "There are houses that haven't changed and there are roads that have not been improved" since that time, he told AFP, explaining why the referendum was necessary. Since Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, similar efforts to create new regions in the south have spurred protests and bloodshed. The tensions show how challenges to national unity go well beyond the 10-month-old war in northern Ethiopia against rebels from the Tigray region. Abiy is also contending with insurgents in the largest region Oromia and opposition politicians who dispute the credibility of his landslide election win this year. Yet officials in Kaffa are optimistic Thursday's vote will go smoothly, allowing Abiy to shore up much-needed public support during a turbulent period. - Protests and crackdowns -The debate over how best to administer the south has been shaped by the same actors fighting it out in the north. Shortly after taking power in the early 1990s, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition government divided Ethiopia into nine semi-autonomous regions organised along ethnic lines. The 1995 constitution required officials to organise a referendum for any ethnic group that wanted to form a new region, but the old government, headed by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), quashed such efforts, sometimes violently. Abiy's appointment, following several years of anti-government protests, breathed new life into autonomy bids in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' region (SNNP), where Kaffa is located. Before long, more than 10 ethnic groups had asked to hold votes to break away from SNNP, threatening to destabilise a swathe of territory that borders Kenya and South Sudan and is home to roughly a fifth of Ethiopia's 110 million people. Clashes in July 2019 between security forces and protesters in the region's Sidama zone killed at least 18 people, though a referendum went ahead there later that year, making Sidama Ethiopia's 10th region. A breakaway bid by ethnic Wolaita leaders, however, has stalled, and crackdowns there have left an untold number of protesters dead. In Kaffa, the push to form a new region has so far been peaceful. Abiy himself visited Bonga, the zone's main town, in 2019, addressing a crowd of thousands while wearing a white blazer bearing the traditional Kaffa colours of blue, red and green. Though he warned Kaffa leaders that forming a new region wouldn't magically address their development woes, a deal was soon reached to join Kaffa with five other administrative areas to form the new South West region. There is little doubt the proposal will receive overwhelming backing from the nearly 900,000 eligible voters. Abiy's outreach seems to have endeared him to the people of Bonga, where signs promoting the referendum feature six hands coming together in a circle. The previous TPLF-led government "did not have any desire to answer any kind of freedom demand", said high school administrator Berhanu Woldie. "For us it was a repressive regime, and they were not good leaders." Abiy has leaned on that goodwill during the conflict in the north. Eager to support the war effort, thousands of young men and women from Kaffa have enlisted, and residents have collected hundreds of oxen and sheep to send with them to the front, said Tekalign Haileyesus of the Kaffa zonal administration office. Along with signs promoting the referendum, the streets of Bonga feature posters of Abiy and elite military units with slogans like "I am a soldier for my country." But whether Abiy retains that support depends less on battlefield gains than on how the referendum is implemented, said Kulle Kursha, analyst and lecturer at Hawassa University in Sidama. Setting up -- and financing -- a new administration is no small task, Kulle said. "If basic infrastructure is installed and people's voices are heard, then there is no fear of disintegration," he said. But if a successful autonomy bid doesn't translate into better lives for Kaffa's people, "then instability or crisis will come".

Ten more students who were kidnapped by gunmen from a school in Nigeria two months ago have been released after ransom was paid, the school administrator said. About 150 students were missing after armed men raided the school in Kaduna state in the northwest in July, the 10th mass school kidnapping since December, which authorities attributed to criminal gangs seeking ransom. The bandits have been releasing the students in batches after getting ransom payments. Administrator of the Bethel Baptist High school Reverend John Hayab said after the latest release, 11 students remained in captivity and the school was working to ensure they were freed soon. "I am happy to tell you that 10 of our abducted students of Bethlem Baptist High school have regained their freedom but had to pay ransom," he told Reuters late on Sunday. He declined to say how much was paid. Such kidnappings at schools in Nigeria were first carried out by jihadist group Boko Haram, and later its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province, but the tactic has been adopted by other gangs seeking ransom.  

A car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near Somalia’s presidential palace yesterday, killing eight people, police said, as the Al Shebaab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack. “We have confirmed that eight people most of them civilians died and seven others wounded in the car bomb blast”, district police chief Mucawiye Ahmed Mudey told reporters. The bombing took place during the late morning within a kilometre of Villa Somalia, the presidential palace. Witnesses said the car bomb was detonated when police stopped the driver for a security check. The blaze spread to other vehicles, trapping their occupants. “They normally stop to check and clear vehicles before they can pass by the checkpoint. This car was stopped by the security guards and it went off while there were several other cars and people passing by the nearby road. I saw wounded and dead people being carried,” said witness Mohamed Hassan. Among the dead was the prime minister’s adviser for women and human rights Hibaq Abukar, officials said. Prime Minister Mohamed Roble condemned the attack and paid tribute to Abukar, whom he called “a young hard-working vibrant girl with honesty” as well as a “devoted citizen.” Roble added: “We have to co-operate in the fight against the ruthless terrorists who regularly kill our people”. Mohamed Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, are locked in a dispute over hiring and firing of security staff that threatens to further delay the nation’s presidential election set for October 10. The radical Al Shebaab claimed responsibility for yesterday’s bombing in a brief statement.The group controlled the capital until 2011 when it was pushed out by African Union troops, but it still holds territory in the countryside and launches frequent attacks against government and civilian targets in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

A suicide car bomb killed at least eight people in the Somali capital on Saturday at a street junction near the president's palace, police said, and al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab said it was behind the attack which targeted a convoy going into the palace. Police spokesperson Abdifatah Aden Hassan told reporters at the scene of the blast the casualties could be higher, since some of the dead and wounded had been taken away by their relatives. "Al Shabaab is behind the blast. They killed eight people including a soldier and a mother and two children. Al Shabaab massacres civilians," he said. Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, the government spokesperson, said among those killed was Hibaq Abukar, an advisor of women and human rights affairs in Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble's office. "She was one of the pillars of PM's office (for) women affairs," he said on his Facebook account. It was not immediately clear if Abukar was in the convoy or if she just happened to be close by when the blast happened. Al Shabaab confirmed it was behind the attack. The group, which wants to overthrow the government and impose its own strict interpretation of Islamic law, frequently carries out such bombings. "A Mujahid driving a suicide car bomb targeted a convoy of cars going into the (presidential) palace," Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab military operation spokesperson, told Reuters by phone. A Reuters witness at the scene of the attack reported seeing seven cars and three rickshaws destroyed by the blast, and the whole junction covered in blood.  

The speaker of Tunisia’s parliament Rached Ghannouchi called yesterday for “peaceful struggle” against a return to “absolute one-man rule”, a day after President Kais Saied took steps towards rule by decree. “There is no longer any alternative to struggle, naturally a peaceful struggle,” the head of the Ennahdha party said in an interview with AFP. Saied on Wednesday announced decrees that strengthen the powers of his office at the expense of the government and parliament. Ghannouchi called the moves “a step back towards absolute one-man rule” a decade after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution. “We call on the people to take part in peaceful actions to resist dictatorship and return Tunisia to the path of democracy,” he said. The provisions come almost two months after the president sacked the Ennahdha-supported government of Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament, presenting himself as the ultimate interpreter of the constitution. Ennahdha, the biggest party in the divided legislature, condemned the July 25 moves as a “coup d’etat” and a violation of the country’s hard-won 2014 constitution. Ghannouchi, 80, camped out for 12 hours in front of parliament in Tunis after Saied’s power grab. “The situation is worse now than it was before July 25,” he said in the interview. Before that “there were no arrests over blog posts, no thousands of Tunisians banned from leaving the country”, he added. Tunisia has seen years of political deadlock since its 2011 revolution, with fractious coalitions and short-lived governments proving unable to resolve pressing social and economic crises. Elections in 2019 produced another fragmented parliament that once again allowed Ennahdha to dominate the government. The resulting legislative deadlock, crippling a country hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, meant Saied’s July power grab enjoyed significant public support. But civil society groups have warned against a slide towards authoritarianism that would wipe out Tunisia’s democratic gains a decade after the revolution toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Explosions killed at least five people and injured 50 in Burundi’s largest city Bujumbura on Monday night, the prime minister and a health worker said after the latest in a string of attacks in the east African country. The Interior Ministry said on Twitter that “unidentified terrorists” were responsible. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the grenade attacks. Two grenade explosions hit a bus parking lot in the city centre, according to seven eyewitnesses, while a third blast hit Jabe market in the Bwiza neighbourhood, according to another witness. Five people were killed and about 50 wounded, a health worker helping to care for the injured told Reuters yesterday. The witnesses and the health worker requested anonymity. A man in a bus hit by a grenade explosion said it killed at least three people including a woman. The blast injured his leg, he told Reuters while awaiting treatment. “I saw people running in all directions, some crawling to find cover,” said a witness to the second explosion at the bus parking lot. During a visit to the wounded in hospital, Prime Minister Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, told reporters the attacks had killed four and promised government help for those wounded. On Sunday, a grenade attack in the administrative capital Gitega killed two, according to local media.

South Africa’s highest court yesterday stood by its order to imprison Jacob Zuma, accusing the former president of “litigious skullduggery” in a scathing ruling that accused him of undermining the courts. The case however does not affect Zuma’s release on medical parole earlier this month, which sparked an uproar amid allegations of irregularities in the parole process. His jailing in July sparked the worst outbreak of political violence since the end of apartheid, as his supporters staged violent protests that devolved into widespread looting of malls and warehouses. The 79-year-old had asked the Constitutional Court to rescind its decision to sentence him to 15 months in prison for refusing to answer questions in a corruption investigation. “The application for recision is dismissed,” said Justice Sisi Khampepe. Zuma’s lawyers had argued that the decision should be rescinded because he had not attended the proceedings. “The majority emphatically reject any suggestion that litigants can be allowed to butcher of their own will a judicial process which in all respects has been carried out with the utmost degree of regularity, only to later plead the absent victim,” Khampepe said. The ruling accused Zuma of “litigious skullduggery” in seeking to set aside his prison sentence. This case did not consider Zuma’s release on medical parole on September 6. Zuma, who retains pockets of support with the ruling African National Congress, was president from 2009 to 2018. He took office after being acquitted of raping a friend’s adult daughter and his administration was plagued by multiple scandals. His time in office became known as “state capture” for allegedly giving out political favours and mis-spending, which are the focus of a three-year public inquiry. Zuma’s refusal to appear before the inquiry is what led the Constitutional Court to order his 15-month imprisonment. Because the court’s orders cannot be appealed, Zuma sought to have it “rescinded.” Zuma’s claims “are devoid of merit,” the judge said.

West African leaders met Guinean coup leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya in the capital Conakry yesterday, where they pushed for elections within six months, but apparently failed to receive firm commitments. The meeting between Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara and Doumbouya came after a regional summit on Thursday, which urged swift elections and sanctioned Guinea’s putschists. On September 5, special forces led by Doumbouya assaulted the presidential palace and ousted president Alpha Conde, sparking international condemnation. After earlier suspending Guinea over the coup, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) on Thursday called on the junta to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within six months. The 15-nation bloc also imposed a travel ban on junta members and froze their financial assets. The Ghanaian and Ivorian presidents travelled to Conakry the next day where they met Guinea’s strongman in the city’s Sheraton hotel. But the results of their meeting appeared inconclusive. Asked by reporters whether Doumbouya had accepted the proposed six-month transition period, Akufo-Addo responded: “we are talking”. Ghana’s president added that Doumbouya is awaiting the conclusions of his own internal consultation on restoring civilian rule. Ouattara, for his part, simply said the talks had gone “very well”. The putsch has fuelled international concerns over democratic backsliding across west Africa and drawn parallels with Mali, which suffered two coups since August last year. Doumbouya began a four-day series of talks on Tuesday designed to sound out the country’s political and civil-society leaders on the path towards civilian rule. But he has so far refused to commit to a timetable. “The only timetable that counts is that of the Guinean people who have suffered so much,” the former French legionnaire told political leaders in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. When faced with a similar coup in neighbouring Mali last year, Ecowas imposed economic sanctions, but lifted them after the military committed to restoring civilian rule within an agreed timeframe. However, more than a year since the putsch in Mali, the army is still in power. There are also increasing doubts about a pledge to hold elections in February next year. On Thursday, after the regional summit focused on Guinea, Ecowas Commission President Jean Claude Kassi Brou insisted that the country’s transition must be “very short”. Junta sanctions are designed to send a “strong signal to all those who are tempted to have this type of idea,” he added. Public discontent in Guinea had been brewing for months before the coup over the leadership of Conde, 83. A former opposition figure, Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015. But last year, he pushed through a controversial new constitution that allowed him to run for a third term in October 2020. The move sparked mass demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed. Conde won the election but the political opposition maintained the poll was a sham. The military is holding the former president, despite international calls for his release. Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Thursday that he and Ouattara had been permitted to visit Conde that day. Guinea’s junta has agreed to the principle of freeing the deposed president, but the issue remains sensitive. Opposition groups are also opposed releasing him, for example, citing the danger he might try to regain power. A poor nation of 13mn people, Guinea has abundant deposits of iron, gold, diamonds and bauxite, the ore used to make aluminium. Mining is the driver of the economy.

Deposed Guinean president Alpha Conde is in good health, envoys from West Africa bloc Ecowas said during a mission to the country organised after last week’s coup. Guinea’s ruling military has been coming under growing diplomatic pressure after special forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya seized power on Sunday and arrested Conde. Ecowas suspended Guinea this week. On Friday, the African Union (AU) followed suit. The pan-African body tweeted that it had decided “to suspend the Republic of Guinea from all AU activities and decision-making bodies.” Mediators from Ecowas — the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States — landed in the Guinean capital Conakry on Friday. They met coup leader Doumbouya, who arrived at the hotel where the envoys were staying flanked by special forces commandos. Ecowas Commission President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, who was part of the delegation, said that mediators had seen Conde in the city’s junta headquarters. “President Alpha Conde is well,” he told reporters. Burkinabe Foreign Minister Alpha Barry, another delegation member, confirmed that the 83-year-old former leader was in good health. After the visit, Guinea’s stand-in foreign minister Fanta Cisse spoke of an agreement “in principle” to release Conde. She said it was “difficult to answer immediately a request” to free the ex-president, however “the principle is recognised”. Increasing pressure on Guinea comes amid rising fears of democratic backsliding across West Africa, where strongmen are an increasingly familiar sight. Guinea’s putsch has drawn parallels with its neighbour Mali, which has suffered two coups since August last year led by Colonel Assimi Goita, who was also a special forces commander. On Wednesday, Ecowas called for Conde’s “immediate and unconditional release.” It also urged “the immediate return to constitutional order” and demanded that the security forces “maintain a constitutional posture.” The US embassy in Conakry on Friday stated that Guinea should “immediately restore democracy.” Guinea’s putschists have formed a junta named the CNRD, which has dissolved the government and the constitution. Doumbouya appeared on television hours after the coup and accused the Conde government of “endemic corruption” and “trampling on citizens’ rights”. He has pledged to open talks on forming a new government, but it is not yet clear when, or under what form, these may take place. When faced with a similar predicament in Mali last year, Ecowas imposed economic sanctions, but lifted them after Mali’s ruling military committed to restoring civilian rule. Public discontent in Guinea had been brewing for months over a flatlining Covid-hit economy and the leadership of Conde, who became the first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015. But last year, Conde pushed through a new constitution enabling him to run for a third term in October 2020. The move sparked mass demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed. Conde won the election but the political opposition maintained the poll was a sham. After the coup, the junta freed about 80 political activists detained under Conde and banned ex-ministers from leaving the country.

DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has called for a review of mining contracts signed with China in 2008 by his predecessor, saying he wanted to get fairer deals. The central African nation is seeking what it says is a fairer share of its vast mineral wealth, much of which is plundered by rebel groups, militias and corrupt officials. A statement after a cabinet meeting on Friday said Tshisekedi called for the “technical and financial details of Sino-Congolese contracts” at the next meeting. “DR Congo is sorely lacking in infrastructure and this hampers its development,” a statement following the cabinet meeting said, adding that the contracts signed with China in 2008 were aimed at financing giant infrastructure projects. Former president Joseph Kabila, who held power from 2001 to 2019, negotiated a highly contentious agreement with the Chinese in 2008 – copper and cobalt in exchange for infrastructure for $9bn. But the deal was reduced to two thirds of that amount under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, which noted the severe impact it had on the country’s finances. To date, about $2.74bn has been disbursed by the Chinese so far. During a visit to the mining town of Kolwezi in May, Tshisekedi announced his intention to renegotiate mining contracts, particularly those concluded by his predecessor Joseph Kabila. “It is not normal that those with whom the country has signed exploitation contracts are getting richer while our people remain poor,” he said. “It is time for the country to readjust its contracts with the miners in order to seal win-win partnerships.”

At sunset, a buffalo calf’s distressed grunts reverberate through the bush. But it’s a trick. The grunts are blaring from a loudspeaker, designed to lure lions to a tree and let a South African wildlife reserve carry out a census of its apex predator. As an added enticement, the carcasses of two impalas are affixed to a tree. The scent promises a fresh meal. In the headlights of a 4x4, armed rangers with night binoculars and torches watch over the scene. “We know our lions, but with this process, we verify them,” says Ian Nowak, head warden at the Balule Nature Reserve. A wildlife researcher next to him listens intently, her ears tuned to clues from the nocturnal sounds. That’s how she knows a rumbling is from elephants grazing in the tall grass. And that’s how she knows when to raise her camera to photograph lions, looking for distinctive scars or peculiar ears — anything that identifies them for the count. This job requires patience. The team once spotted 23 lions ripping into the bait. “They growl and they fight. Then they lie down and eat,” Nowak whispers. “It can be quite a frenzy on the bait. They smack each other and then settle down.” At 55,000 hectares (136,000 acres), Balule is huge — yet it connects with an even bigger ecosystem that, all told, is almost the size of Belgium. Balule and other nearby game farms have transitioned into nature reserves, joining up with the Kruger National Park to create a vast territory without internal fences, covering 2.5mn hectares, that extends to Mozambique. To create such enormous space for wildlife is a rare success story these days. Conservationists meeting in Marseille, southern France, are deeply worried for Africa’s “big cats”, facing loss of habitat and human encroachment as well as poaching. Balule is so big that its census-takers have to criss-cross the terrain to make the count as thorough as possible. “Sometimes they’ve eaten. If they’re full, they don’t come,” Nowak said. “Especially the males, they’re lazy as hell.” Twenty years ago, Balule was mostly farmland and lions were few. Last year, the census found 156 of the lordly beasts. “Lions are doing incredibly well, mainly because there’s a large enough space to operate,” Nowak says. Overall, the news is good for lions in South Africa, thanks to government conservation efforts — helped by the inducement of tourists who are willing pay to see the animals. Private investors have also stepped in. A years-long drought has also been a boost. Antelopes and buffalo did not have enough to eat, making them easier prey for large carnivores. The loudspeaker rumbles again with the recording of the injured buffalo calf. This time, a small jackal appears, hoping for a nibble. At the slightest sound, it dashes away. The wildlife researcher detects another movement in her thermal binoculars. The headlights flash back on, illuminating the majestic mane of a lion approaching stealthily, careful but calm. “He’s initially cautious,” says Nick Leuenberger, one of the regional wardens. “He doesn’t know if he’ll be walking in on another pride.” “Lions defend their food, they don’t share,” he adds. “Here the lion tolerates the jackal. He knows he’s not a major threat to his food source.” Suddenly, the lion leaps up to one of the suspended impalas, biting into its belly. After his meal, he lies at the foot of the tree. Now the team can move on. No other animals will dare approach. The next night, seven hyenas take turns snipping at the fresh impala, without a lion in sight. But on the way back, the 4x4 slams the brakes. To the left, a hippo roars furiously, its mouth wide open. To the right, seven lionesses raise their heads above the grassline. A magical sight, but no danger to the hippo. Nowak says it would take at least twice as many lions to threaten the hippo. The tension eases. A lion emerges from the brush and walks along the trail. A lioness joins him, and the 4x4 follows them slowly until they disappear into the night.

Twelve people have died and thousands have fallen ill after a river in southern DR Congo was polluted by toxic waste from a diamond mine, the government said. Pollution of the Kasai River came to light in July, when local residents said its waters had turned red and dead fish were seen floating at the city of Tshikapa, near the Angolan-owned mine. In addition to 12 fatalities, whose cause of death is unknown, 4,502 cases of diarrhoea and skin-related illness have been recorded, Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba said. “This catastrophe was caused by an Angolan mining company, which has acknowledged the facts,” she said, reporting on the findings of an expert bilateral commission of inquiry. In July, Bazaiba linked the pollution to a “spill of toxic substances by an Angolan factory specialising in industrial diamond mining”. Local officials also saw dead hippos in the Kasai, a major tributary to the Congo, the second longest African river after the Nile. Four out of the five administrative territories in Kasai province have been affected by the disaster, totalling 968,000 people, the probe found. The provincial authorities banned consumption of the river water, but it was too late to avoid some people falling sick. The government said 40 tonnes of medication is being sent to the area and the national water company is taking steps to increase supplies to those affected. “Compensation should be paid to those who are victims, on the basis of the polluter-pays principle,” the government said.

South Africa’s Health Minister Joe Phaahla has said that scientists had told the government that at this stage the C.1.2 coronavirus (Covid-19) variant detected locally was not a threat. The C.1.2 coronavirus variant was first identified in May, and has now been seen in all of the country’s nine provinces. It contains some mutations associated in other variants with increased transmissibility and reduced sensitivity to neutralising antibodies, leading researchers to flag its detection to the government and the World Health Organisation (WHO). “At this stage they (scientists) have assured us it’s not really a threat, they are just watching it,” Phaahla told a news conference, noting that the C.1.2 coronavirus variant had only been detected in small numbers so far. He added that it was almost certain that the country would face a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections around the end of the year. The WHO this week designated the C.1.2 coronavirus variant as one for further monitoring, a category that reflects that it may pose a future risk but that the evidence is currently unclear. It has not been designated as a “variant of interest” or “variant of concern”, categories considered more serious and notated by letters of the Greek alphabet. South African researchers are currently running laboratory tests on how the C.1.2 coronavirus variant responds to antibodies generated by vaccines or prior infection, but it could be weeks before those results are out. Genomic sequencing data from South Africa this week showed that the C.1.2 coronavirus variant accounted for 2.4% of genomes sequenced in August, versus 2.5% in July and 1.2% in June. The highly-infectious and highly-virulent Delta variant accounted for roughly 95% of sequences in August. Delta is the fastest spreading variant the world has encountered so far, and it is upending assumptions about Covid-19 even as nations loosen restrictions and reopen their economies. South Africa was the first country to detect the Beta variant, one of only four currently labelled a variant of concern by the WHO. The Beta coronavirus variant is believed to spread more easily than the original version of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, and there is evidence vaccines work less well against it, leading some countries to restrict travel to and from South Africa.

In a satellite town of Senegal’s capital Dakar, 25kg sacks of onions are piled up on pavements, ignored by passers-by. The West African country is in the middle of a supply glut, with prices plummeting and heaps of the pungent vegetables left to rot by the roadside. Farmers are in despair. “I’m going to give some to the local women,” says farmer Diongue Masseye, 71, gazing despondently at his onions. He is standing inside a 450sq m (5,000sq foot) warehouse in Bambilor, an onion-producing town about 30km (20 miles) northeast of the capital Dakar, where his unsold produce has started to sprout. Gloomy farmers – who produce about 450,000 tonnes of onions a year – blame the problem on increased foreign competition and a lack of storage capacity. However, the government also argues that farmers have overproduced this year, flooding the market with onions and depressing prices. Masseye said prices had nearly halved. A 25kg sack of onions fetched the equivalent of about €13 ($15) a few months ago, he said, but are now worth about €7 ($8). The bulbous vegetable is a lifeline to many in the nation of 16mn people, where it is a key ingredient in the national fish-and-rice dish, thieboudienne, as well as Yassa chicken. Amadou Abdoul Sy, the director of Senegal’s market regulation agency, said that some 200,000 farmers are employed in the onion sector. “Everyone is producing at the same time,” he told AFP, explaining the glut. Senegal’s onion sector has long been plagued by problems. Almost one-third of the crop is lost every year, Sy said. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) noted in a 2018 report that the use of low-quality seeds by Senegalese farmers contributes to the problem. Often, producers also harvest their onions too early to try to get ahead of the competition, leaving the vegetables wet. This leads to significant losses and makes onions difficult to store, the FAO said. Consumers are shying away from the damaged goods. Trader Daouda Mbaye, in a market in a village in western Senegal, demonstrated sacks of poor-quality onions and said buyers were more interested in other vegetables. However, to the dismay of local farmers, many people will buy imported onions. The president of Senegal’s onion producers association, Boubacar Sall, said that the government suspended onion imports in January in a bid to help struggling locals. However, foreign-owned farms in Senegal are still producing onions, he explained. They are often larger than Senegalese farms and have better storage facilities. The farmer is calling for laws to protect small producers who fall “prey to unfair competition” from larger ones. Lack of storage facilities are a chronic problem in Senegal, according to farmers, where a warm climate means vegetables quickly go bad. Amadou Abdoul Sy, the director of the market regulation agency, said that producers themselves are partly to blame. He said the government authorities had asked the farmers to sell their goods at different times in order to stop a supply glut. “They were not listened to,” Sy said.