Pope Francis has urged global action against the illegal trafficking of blood diamonds, ivory and other natural resources, in the second day of his landmark three-nation Africa trip. In a speech in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Thursday, the pope said the illegal trade in precious stones and ivory fulled political instability and organised crime. “We cannot be silent about forms of illegal trafficking which arise in situations of poverty,” he said, just two weeks before Nairobi hosts a key ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation. Figures published earlier this year by Amnesty International showed conflict diamonds, which account…
Author: AMA
Two people suspected of having links to a siege at a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako earlier this month have been arrested, the country’s security ministry has said. Amadou Sangho, a spokesman for the ministry, confirmed the arrests on Thursday, but did not reveal the identities and the alleged roles of the suspects in the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel. A source close to the investigation told the Reuters news agency that the suspects had been brought in for interrogation, based on information found on one of the attacker’s mobile phones. One of them had been regularly in…
Natural disasters in developing countries over the past 10 years have caused at least $80bn worth of agricultural damage, according to a UN report. The 53-page study, released on Thursday in the run-up to UN climate talks in Paris next week, looked at the impact of disasters on agriculture and food security from 2003-2013. “These production losses correspond to 333m tonnes of cereals, pulses, meat, milk and other commodities,” shrinking the available calorie intake for people in developing countries by an average of seven percent after each disaster, the report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.…
Freetown, Sierra Leone – Mariam Momoh was already unconscious when the taxi pulled up in front of her house. She was pregnant and had been vomiting all morning, unable to keep anything down. Her husband, Moinina, had tried calling for an ambulance, but gave up after several hours of being told that there wasn’t one available. “It took us 40 minutes to get here. We only live four miles [6km] away,” he said, standing outside the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in the capital, Freetown. Mariam’s condition had been stabilised, but nurses said that had she arrived any later, neither she…
Gambia has become the latest in a string of African nations to ban female genital mutilation (FGM), an ancient tradition of removing external parts of a girl’s vagina that has been widely condemned. The country’s information ministry on Tuesday confirmed the move in a statement that cited President Yahya Jammeh as saying that FGM has no place in Islam – the country’s predominant belief system – or in a modern society. Berhane Raswork, a leading anti-FGM activist and the founder of The Inter-African Committee which now operates in 28 African countries to bring an end to FGM, called the move…
Pope Francis has called for ethnic and religious reconciliation after arriving in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at the start of his landmark three-nation Africa tour. In what is his first official trip to the continent, the pope called all Kenyans on Wednesday to work for peace and forgiveness and warned of the need to address poverty as a key driver of conflict. “Experience shows that violence, conflict and terrorism feed on fear, mistrust, and the despair born of poverty and frustration,” Francis said in Nairobi. RELATED: Pope set for Africa visit amid high expectations “To the extent that our societies…
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) have been urged by activisits and the civil society to broadcast a documentary depicting the Marikana massacre of 2012 on public television. At least 44 people were killed during strikes at the Lonmin Plantinum mines in the Northwest province in South Africa. Thirty-four were murdered on a single day when police opened fire on striking miners in the most brutal police operation in the country since the end of apartheid. The film continues to draw plaudits from the across the globe. Since being released in 2014, ‘Miners Shot Down’ has won 21 awards, including five…
Kasulu, Tanzania – At the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp on Tanzania’s western border, a young man stands apart from the crowd of people pushing against the bent gate, clamouring for their monthly ration of two bars of soap and a mosquito net. Abdul Karim is one of more than 110,000 Burundian refugees who have fled to the neighbouring country since April. Unfazed by the commotion at the distribution centre, the 26-year-old casually jokes that he can do without soap. He can cope with the conditions at the camp, he explains, because he has survived worse. For two weeks, Karim walked through…
A teenager has died in Liberia in the first such death since the country was officially declared free of the virus in September, according to an official. Francis Karteh, head of Liberia’s national Ebola crisis unit, told AFP news agency on Tuesday that the teenager’s parents had also tested positive for the virus and were under observation in the capital Monrovia. More than 150 people are under surveillance. “The 15-year-old has finally died. He died yesterday,” Karteh said. It was confirmed last week that the boy and two of his relatives had contracted Ebola, which has left more than 11,300…
Algeria’s former head of counter-terrorism will appear in a military court in the country’s first trial of a high-ranking officer in the secret services, according to his lawyer. Abdelkader Ait-Ouarabi – better known as General Hassan – is accused of “destroying documents and disobeying military instructions”, Mokrane Ait-Larbi, the lawyer, told AFP news agency on Monday. The military court in the city of Oran could not be reached for comment or confirmation. General Hassan had for two decades embodied the army’s fight against armed groups in the country. He was forcibly retired on the orders of a military judge at…