Education has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with 1.53 billion learners out of school and 184 country-wide school closures, impacting 87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners. Drop-out rates across the globe are likely to rise as a result of this massive disruption to education access.
Today we invited Tina to join our programme and share her challenges during covid-19.
Tina shared with us that the coronavirus pandemic has affected her very badly. She runs the risk of repeating the academic year, misses school and peers.
To continue learning she watches the Angolan program Tele-classes, makes copies, reviews books and solves various math exercises.
According to her, the governors should place in the schools several reservoirs of water to wash their hands, distribute Bio-security equipment and create conditions for social distance.
Girls are desperate to learn and to lead. I have met many of them who every day encounter incredible obstacles to education, including poverty, gender inequality, teenage pregnancy etc.
Don't miss this opportunity to bring girls back to school. Join us!
The Application Window for the 2021/22 Africa Initiative for Governance (AIG) Scholarships is now open and closes on Thursday, October 15, 2020.
The AIG Scholarships are targeted at graduates between the ages of 25 and 35 with strong intellectual capability, outstanding academic achievements, leadership skills and a passion to contribute to the development of Africa’s public sector.
Requirements
Be a citizen of Nigeria or Ghana Be between the ages of 25 and 35 years (must not be 36 years old by December 31, 2020) Have a first-class or second-class upper undergraduate degree with honours (or equivalent international qualifications), as a minimum, in any discipline. For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum GPA sought is 3.7 out of 4.0 Be preferably top 10% of graduating class (First, Second or Master’s Degree) - evidence to be provided Provide evidence of game-changing leadership and resultant impact Show skills and interests outside of academics (evidence to be provided)
The American Bar Association says it intends to send representatives to monitor the trial of Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina in Kigali, as the court case continues to gain international attention.
The American Bar Association says it intends to send representatives to monitor the trial of Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina in Kigali, as the court case continues to gain international attention.
Mr Rusesabagina, whose heroic acts during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis were depicted in the Oscar-nominated movie, was on Monday charged with 13 crimes relating to terrorism, arson, kidnap, and recruitment of child soldiers.
In its statement on Wednesday, the US lawyers’ lobby said the decision to monitor the trial is so as to ensure that the “proceedings adhere to international standards.”
“Rwanda is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Under these treaties, it has an obligation to respect Mr Rusesabagina’s right to a fair trial, including the right to legal counsel of his choosing and the right to be presumed innocent,” the lawyers say.
“Trial monitoring, which entails sending a neutral observer into court to observe trial proceedings, permits an impartial assessment of whether a trial meets regional and international standards.”
Mr Rusesabagina and his family are residents of the United States. He also holds citizenships of Rwanda and Belgium.
The statement was released jointly with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, founded by British barrister Amal Clooney.
Together with her husband, American actor George Clooney, they stated that “Our Trial Watch monitors will be on hand to ensure that the proceedings adhere to international standards of due process and that Mr Rusesabagina will be given a fair and transparent trial.”
“President Paul Kagame has stated that Mr Rusesabagina’s trial will be open,” the statement adds.
The Rwandan Bar Association by law is required to give authorisation to any foreign lawyer to participate in local trials.
It is not yet clear whether a request has yet been to the Rwandan Bar as officials had not responded to queries by press time.
Mr Rusesabagina is awaiting a verdict on his bail hearing on Wednesday.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told Margarita Simonyan, the founder of RT, earlier this month.
RT, an English-language television network, is accused by many Western critics of spreading the pro-Kremlin party line.
Simonyan, a former war reporter, also heads Sputnik. They occupy huge buildings in Moscow, employ thousands of well-paid reporters and disseminate news in dozens of languages through subscriptions, websites, social networks and mobile phone apps.
Simonyan arrived in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, with top anchors from three Russian television networks, and on September 8, Lukashenko gave them a marathon, almost two-hour interview, his first since the August 9 presidential election.
Lukashenko, a former collective farm chairman with a grey combover and a chevron moustache, claims to have won the election – his sixth since 1994 – with 80 percent of the vote.
But up to 200,000 Belarusians have been rallying almost daily, protesting against what they say was a rigged vote and shaking the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million.
The Kremlin threatened to use force to quell the protests, provided a $1.5bn loan to Lukashenko – and dispatched teams of seasoned spin doctors to “improve” the coverage of the protests on Belarusian television after scores of local journalists quit in protest.
“I asked Russians – give us two-three groups of journalists, just in case. It’s six or nine people from the most advanced television networks,” Lukashenko said on August 21 while addressing a group of farmers, his remaining support base after workers from state-managed plants and factories joined the protests and started dozens of strikes.
RT sent 32 reporters, and another three Russian networks dispatched several staffers each.
The first RT news truck was spotted in Minsk on August 18 and other Russian news crews arrived days later.
“They obviously were hired to patch a hole after [local] experts left, and then Russia started building a media campaign for Belarus,” researcher Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera.
Average Belarusians immediately noticed the dramatic difference in the editing, tone and tenor of television reports on the protests.
Up to 200,000 Belarusians have been rallying almost daily against Lukashenko [Tut.By/Reuters]
“The level of hate rose incredibly,” Alex, a resident of Minsk who withheld his last name, told Al Jazeera. “And they frequently call Belarus Belorussia,” or White Russia, an exclusively Russian way of calling its neighbour, he said.
The new reports unexpectedly referred to Lukashenko as Batka (Big Daddy), a nickname used mostly in Russia and shunned by reporters with Belarusian state-run media. They also began accusing the United States of organising the protests – and coordinating them from Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
They filled their coverage and analysis with terms such as “colour revolutions,” a Kremlin term for pro-Western uprisings in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and “foreign agent,” widely used by Russian officials and state-run media to describe foreign-funded NGOs and rights groups.
Media professionals have dismissed the quality of the Russian coverage.
“These are hatchet jobs, there’s no spark,” an expelled Belarusian journalist told Al Jazeera.
What helps the Russian media teams is that most Belarusians are native Russian speakers, and have for decades watched Russian television.
During his rule that began in 1994, Lukashenko helped the Russification, and dismissed the Belarusian language as retrograde.
In Russia, pro-Kremlin networks also changed their coverage to reflect Lukashenko’s own u-turn; before the August 9 vote, he built his election campaign on an anti-Russian hysteria accusing the Kremlin of trying to annex Belarus.
Russian TV teams stand untouched in the middle of mayhem during the opposition rallies, when heavily-armed riot police beat up and detain protesters and independent journalists, according to media reports, photos and footage by Nexta, an independent Telegram channel that serves as the main source of information on the protests.
However, one team from Simonyan’s RT got arrested, beaten up and starved for three days. But their boss preferred to turn a blind eye.
“They were detained, a day went by, two, three. They were not fed. Beaten. That’s what you have to work out,” Simonyan told Lukashenko during the interview with a smile.
“Let’s close the books on this incident,” Lukashenko answered after a short pause.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin presents flowers to editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan after decorating her with the Order of Alexander Nevsky during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia [File: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters]
“With pleasure,” beaming Simonyan replied.
Lukashenko thanked Simonyan for “honesty,” but her own comments and observations contradict the reality of Belarusian cities, where tens or even hundreds of thousands march daily.
“I don’t see any protesters – there are none,” Simonyan said during a live cross from Minsk. “I’m not going to look for them knocking on doors.”
Lukashenko’s interview was full of praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin – and Moscow’s “help”.
The 66-year-old repeatedly called 67-year-old Putin “the elder brother” and lauded their “special relationship”.
“This is an interview for just one viewer,” namely, Putin, said Tikhon Dzyadko, an anchor with Dozhd TV, one of Russia’s last remaining independent networks.
“It was supposed to help a vassal before his meeting with a suzerain.”
Putin is apparently alarmed by what is happening in Russia’s western backyard, in the nation that the Kremlin until recently viewed as a bastion of unshakeable autocracy.
The arrival of Russian “media advisers” could very well be the Kremlin’s attempt to prevent what may one day happen in Russia, critics say.
“What’s happening in Belarus is a possible, probable scenario of what awaits Russia,” exiled Russian opposition leader and former politician Gennady Gudkov told Al Jazeera.
Lukashenko echoes this opinion.
“If Belarus collapses today, Russia will be next,” he told Simonyan during the interview.
Foreign nationals in South Africa suffer “routine” xenophobic violence and live in constant fear of being targeted, a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.
Foreign workers from across Africa and Asia emigrate to South Africa for economic opportunities but compete against locals for jobs, which are few and far between as the country’s unemployment rate sits above 30%.
HRW said in a 64-page report foreigners are scapegoated for economic insecurity in one of the world’s most unequal societies.
The right’s group relayed testimonies by over 50 African and Asian nationals of “routine” and “sometimes lethal” xenophobia.
In September last year, businesses were ransacked in a bout of xenophobic violence. Clashes left at least 12 people dead, of whom 10 were South African, according to the government.
One Bangladeshi shop owner told HRW he had to stand guard for three days without sleep until police arrived.
Other foreigners said they sometimes suffered verbal and physical harassment in their daily interactions with locals.
A common insult in South Africa is “kwerekwere”, a derogatory word for “foreigner”.
The report said last year, a Congolese student was allegedly beaten up by her peers after being elected class monitor at a Cape Town high school.
She was hospitalised for nine months.
‘Living in constant fear’ At least 62 people died in xenophobic attacks in 2008, seven were killed in unrest in 2015.
HRW accuses law enforcement officials of being complicit, often operating in “discriminatory” and “abusive ways” towards non-nationals.
It claims foreign-owned businesses are disproportionately targeted by crackdowns on counterfeit goods, and that migrants are arbitrarily detained for allegedly lacking the right documents.
According to the group, police are reluctant to protect immigrants and investigate crimes against foreigners.
The report has called for “more urgent, concrete measures” to protect foreign nationals, claiming a government plan unveiled last year has been “just words on paper” so far.
Author Kristi Ueda condemned the “impunity” that “only emboldens others” and perpetuates violence against foreigners.
“Non-South African nationals have suffered wave after wave of xenophobic violence and live in constant fear of being targeted,” said Ueda.
“Government should hold those responsible accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
South Africa’s government has yet to respond to the report.
The country attracts people from neighbouring Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, who seek better employment prospects.
Others come from even further afield including Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and South Asia.
South Africa plays hosts to more than 2.2 million foreigners, ranging from political refugees and economic migrants to skilled expatriate workers, according to the last population census in 2011.
The United Arab Emirates airline, Emirates, said Thursday it would resume flights to Angola (Luanda) as of 1 October.
The information is on the company's official Facebook page, where it said flights to 15 African cities, including Luanda, and 87 cities in the global network would resume.
"We are pleased to return to Luanda, Angola, with weekly passenger services, as of 1 October, increasing our African network to 15 cities and the global network to 87 cities," reads the Emirates post.
The Emirates plans, in a first phase, to carry out one flight per week (Thursday).
Flight EK793 will leave Dubai at 09:45, and is scheduled to arrive in Luanda at 14:00.
EK794 will leave Luanda at 18.25 and will arrive in Dubai at 05.10 the next day.
The company suspended its commercial flights on 25 March, due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.
With the suspension of commercial flights, the Emirates was also forced to temporarily close offices around the world.
Angola’s Head of State João Lourenço congratulated on Friday the people and the Government of Chile on the celebration of the 210th anniversary of that country's National Independence, September 18.
The congratulation is expressed in a note released by the Secretariat for Institutional Communication and Press Affairs to the President of Republic.
Angolan Statesman highlights September 18 as the "date the Chilean people exalt the great values of their homeland and the heroes of the achievement of Independence National", stated the document.
The note adds that the President João Lourenço also stressed the fact the two peoples and governments have developed very fruitful and promising relations of friendship and cooperation regarding the future of economic cooperation and mutual benefits.
