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Gunmen Kidnap Staff and Baby from Northwest Nigerian Hospital

Gunmen kidnapped up to eight people, including the one-year-old child of a nurse, from a hospital’s staff residential quarters in northwest Nigeria, while assailants simultaneously attacked a nearby police station, police and hospital officials said.

Kaduna state has been hit by a wave of kidnappings for ransom by armed men. Zaria, where the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Centre hospital is located, has been particularly hard hit, and the attack was the third on the hospital.

The attack in the early morning hours of Sunday lasted for roughly an hour, hospital spokesperson Maryam Abdulrazaq told Reuters.

She said six people had been abducted: two nurses, one with her one-year-old child, a laboratory technician, a security guard and one other staff member. Police gave the number of hostages as eight.

“So far, [there was] no ransom demand,” Abdulrazaq said. “We have not heard from the bandits since they took them away.”

In a separate statement, Kaduna police spokesman Muhammed Jalige said that a “large number” of armed men from the same group attacked the divisional police headquarters at roughly the same time “in an attempt to overrun the officers on duty.”

Jalige said police repelled the attack after a heavy exchange of gunfire, injuring some of the attackers. Police recovered dozens of shell casings from rifles and machine guns.

He said officers from tactical, anti-kidnapping and other units were working to rescue those kidnapped from the hospital.

Kidnappings for ransom have become endemic in northern Nigeria. More than 800 students have been abducted since December, at least 150 of whom remain missing.

Source: Voice of America

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Ivory Coast Cashew Processors Seek Government Aid Against Asian Competition

Cashew nut processors in Ivory Coast have asked for government aid and protection from competition coming from deeper-pocketed Asian exporters that they say are driving them towards bankruptcy, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The Ivory Coast Cashew Industry Group (GTCI), which represents 15 cashew processors, said in a letter to the sector regulator on June 23 the companies have only purchased around 37,000 tons this season, or around 15% of their capacity.

It attributed this to Asian exporters’ ability to offer higher prices to farmers because of their scale, lower cost of production and access to state aid. It did not name specific companies.

Asian exporters, many in Vietnam and India, export about 80% of Ivory Coast’s roughly 800,000 tons of annual cashew output.

The multinationals “have a virtual monopoly on purchases and exports of raw cashew nuts, leaving a small portion to local actors who are squeezed out of the supply chain,” the letter said, warning that several companies face bankruptcy.

The companies, which have an annual processing capacity of around 250,000 tons and employ 2,300 people, asked the government to give them exclusive rights to purchase the first two weeks of the season’s harvest in order to access the best quality raw nuts.

They also asked the regulator to help domestic companies export premium quality almonds, which are highly prized in Western markets, and to make available additional financial aid announced for exporters in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ivory Coast’s cashew sector regulator declined to comment.

Alex Guettia, a member of an industry group that represents 40 companies that buy nuts for Asian exporters including Vietnam’s T&T Group, acknowledged the companies have benefited from state aid during the pandemic but emphasized their success securing outside funding.

“We don’t know how the [domestic] processors work, but if they can’t buy the cashew, it’s not because of us,” Guettia told Reuters. “Unlike processors, we know and master trading so it’s easier for us to know how to avoid problems.”

GTCI president Lucman Diaby said many domestic companies are nearly bankrupt or in severe financial difficulty because of the competition from Asian exporters.

“Our Asian competitors … have much lower production costs. It is impossible compete with them,” Diaby said.

Aboubacar Toure, the director general of the Novarea processing firm, told Reuters domestic processing was unprofitable because of the high cost of production, including energy, industrial equipment and maintenance.

“For each kilo processed, we lose 160 francs CFA,” he said, urging the government to double certain subsidies.

Source: Voice of America

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Zimbabwe Villagers Fight Chinese Coal Mining Project Near Wildlife Reserve

Conservationists in Zimbabwe are trying to rally opposition to a Chinese coal mining project planned in a district within the country’s biggest national park. Critics say locals and wildlife will be affected and are urging authorities to move away from coal production toward renewable energies.

Most Dinde villagers in Hwange district say they are opposed to the coal mining project by Beifa Investments, but many are unwilling to speak up for fear of retaliation.

One of the few willing to express his concern was Morris Sibanda.

“My fears are – one: we shall be evicted. Secondly, we have a river called Nyantuwe [where] we get water. That’s our main source of water. Definitely, if this mine succeeds, my fear is that toxic acids maybe found in the river. We don’t have boreholes; we have no anything,” Sibanda said.

About 600 families fear being displaced if the coal project goes ahead. Other villagers are worried that the project will take away grazing land for their cattle and wildlife.

But Beifa Investments continues with its exploration project. Zimbabwe’s government says Dinde’s people were consulted before the company was allowed to start mining.

Amkela Sidange, the education and publicity manager for the government’s Environmental Management Agency, says an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report addressed and cleared all of Dinde’s concerns.

“An EIA for exploration was done and public consultation was also done. Their fears are all taken care of. In fact, as long as the EIA was done, it is being monitored by the agency. So, nothing is going to be done which is outside what the agreement was in the EIA for exploration,” Sidange said.

Farai Maguwu is the director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a local NGO opposed to the Dinde coal mining project, partially because there are no clear plans on where the villagers will be taken if they are displaced. Maguwu said there are also environmental concerns.

“Zimbabwe is intending to have a green economy by 2030. We are also aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 33% by 2030. But that will not happen as long as the country continues to invest in dirty energy as what is about to happen in Dinde. We will not allow the government to be talking left and walking right,” Maguwu said.

Sibanda, like most villagers around here, says he does not know what tomorrow will bring.

The villagers fear that more coal projects will be approved and encroach onto Hwange National Park, also the country’s largest wildlife sanctuary.

Source: Voice of America

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140 Students Abducted in Northwestern Nigeria?

Armed kidnappers have taken 140 students from their boarding school in northwestern Nigeria, local officials announced Monday.

Attackers opened fire on the Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state early Monday, abducting most of the 165 pupils boarding there overnight.

Teachers at the school told reporters they don’t know where the students were taken.

Police in Kaduna state said they have rescued 26 people, including one teacher.

Monday’s abduction is one of many recent kidnappings, usually for ransom, that have hit schools in northern Nigeria.

Late last month, gunmen attacked a school in the northwest state of Kebbi, abducting at least 80 students and teachers.

Amnesty International reports about 600 schools in northern Nigeria have closed as a result of persistent attacks since late last year.

Earlier this year, the government promised more security deployment to schools. But teachers and activists in the country say their schools remain poorly protected.

Nigerian authorities have faced increased criticism over the kidnappings, one of the country’s many security challenges including the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, and a growing separatist movement in the southeast.

Source: Voice of America

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UN, African Union Peacekeepers Hand Over 14 Darfur Bases to Sudan

Fourteen bases that had been run jointly by the United Nations and the African Union in Sudan’s Darfur region for 13 years are now under Sudan’s control and to be used by local populations.

The recent official handover comes in accordance with a framework agreement signed on March 4 between the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and Sudan.

The U.N. Security Council voted last year to turn over the sites to the Sudanese government, but M’Baye Babacar Cissé, U.N. assistant secretary-general, said the repatriation of equipment and staff from Darfur had been going on for four months.

“The main beneficiaries in fact were the local communities and the IDPs (internally displaced persons) and the teams’ sites were supposed to be used as vocational training centers, education centers, clinics, health centers or community activity centers,” Babacar told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.

Eight of the 14 sites were stripped bare by looters from the local communities in Darfur. But some of the sites are serving locals, Babacar said, referencing the former outposts known as Zalenji and Kalma.

Zalenji “is now [under] the University of Zalenji,” where early occupation of the sites by the university of the same name prevented looting, he said.

“… Kalma was transferred to the IDPs and now they are the ones managing Kalma as [a] health center,” Babacar told VOA.

UNAMID repatriated its peacekeeping equipment to its respective countries along with about 6,000 staff members who had performed peacekeeping operations in Darfur since December 2020. Some of those operations, however, were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Babacar said.

“We had at the end of December 2020 programmatic activities as well as state liaison projects that were implemented by the U.N. agencies that were not completed because of the COVID crises that affected the operation.”

The pandemic interrupted some community projects that were directly under the supervision of Civil Affairs of UNAMID, including water projects and community engagement workshops with youth, women and local traditional leaders.

The U.N. diplomat said Sudan’s transitional government now has the responsibility of protecting civilians against attacks in Darfur.

“The government is committed to putting together a joint force to protect the local community and the U.N. will continue to support that end, but we will no longer have a physical protection mandate,” Babacar told VOA.

During UNAMID’s 13-year mandate, it had more than 97,000 peacekeepers including military and police in Darfur, drawn from 110 countries. It will leave behind a small contingent estimated to be 1,000 to 1,500 individuals.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded this year in Darfur, an area plagued by deadly violence for decades during the administration of former President Omar al Bashir.

Dozens of people were killed in January shortly after the peacekeepers announced their phased withdrawal from the region. Arab militias attacked a displacement camp in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. Five days of fighting between Arab and Masalit tribesmen in April left 87 people dead and more than 190 people wounded, according to the Sudanese Doctors Committee in West Darfur.

Source: Voice of America

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South Africa’s Zuma marches with supporters opposed to his jailing

NKANDLA (South Africa)— Hundreds of supporters of Jacob Zuma marched alongside the former South African president in his hometown of Nkandla on Saturday, a show of force against a court decision to jail him for 15 months for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry.

The constitutional court on Tuesday gave Zuma 15 months in jail for absconding in February from the inquiry led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. Zuma has until the end of Sunday to hand himself in, after which police are obliged to arrest him.

“They can give Zuma 15 months … or 100 months. He’s not going to serve even one day or one minute of that,” his son Edward Zuma said at the gathering. “They would have to kill me before they put their hands on him.”

The jail sentence was seen as sign of just how far Zuma, once a revered veteran of the struggle against white minority rule, has fallen since embarking on a presidency beset by multiple sleaze and graft scandals between 2009 and 2018.

His downfall has divided the ruling African National Congress, which cancelled an executive committee meeting over the weekend in order to focus on the ensuing crisis.

The ex-leader has applied to the court for the sentence to be annulled on the grounds that it is excessive and could expose him to COVID-19.

Zuma, who did not speak to his supporters but is expected to address them on Sunday, wore a black and gold tropical shirt as he walked through the crowd, but no mask. He was guarded by men dressed as traditional warriors from his Zulu nation, wearing leopard skins and holding spears with oval ox-hide shields.

In an application to annul the decision submitted on Friday, Zuma said going to jail “would put him at the highest risk of death” from the pandemic because he was nearly 80 and has a medical condition.

Zuma also called the sentence a “political statement of exemplary punishment”. He has maintained he is the victim of a political witch hunt and that Zondo is biased against him.

Zuma gave in to pressure to quit and yield to his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, in 2018, and since then has faced several attempts to bring him to book for alleged corruption during and before his time as president.

The Zondo Commission is examining allegations that he allowed three Indian-born businessmen, the brothers Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta, to plunder state resources and influence policy. He and the brothers, who fled to Dubai after Zuma’s ouster, deny wrongdoing.

Zuma also faces a separate court case relating to a US$2 billion arms deal in 1999 when he was deputy president.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

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Covid-19: Peru extends flight restriction for Brazil, India, South Africa

LIMA— The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) of Peru extended the suspension of flights from India, Brazil and South Africa to limit the chances of spreading in its nation territory the new variants of COVID-19 originating in these countries.

The Ministerial Resolution 636-2021-MTC/01, published on Thursday, establishes the new extension that runs until July 15 and that at the end may be renewed in the case that the conditions in these countries continue to deterioriate.

The governmental decision takes place in the context of the spread of some variants in the national territory, such as Gamma (Brazil), Alpha (United Kingdom), Lambda (Andean), and the Delta variant, the latter coming from India and of which four cases have already been found in the country.

Despite the precautions taken by the Peruvian government to prevent the arrival of new variants of the coronavirus, the country is currently facing the presence of four of them, with C.37, also known as the Andean variant, being the dominant variant, present in 80 percent of COVID-19 infections in the national territory.

With this measure, the South American country is approaching four uninterrupted months without commercial flights from Brazil and South Africa, together with two months without connections to India.

However, with these suspended destinations, the interruption of flights to Brazil affects the population in a much deeper way, since it is a very important commercial partner for multiple nations of the region.

At the moment, the South American country is experiencing a decline in terms of infections and deaths compared to what happened during the last months, which represented the worst peak of the whole pandemic, a second wave that lasted five months.

To date, the official balance indicates that the total number of infected people has reached 2,057,554, figures that place the country as one of the world epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK