across Africa in five minutes

RWANDA

Military-grade spyware leased by the Israeli firm NSO Group to governments for tracking terrorists and criminals was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and the two women closest to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners led by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories. Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International, a human rights group, had access to a list of more than 50,000 numbers and shared it with the news organizations, which did further research and analysis. Amnesty’s Security Lab did forensic examination of the phones.

LESOTHO

Lesotho has finalized a new tax treaty with Mauritius, alleviating fears in the southern African nation that multinational corporations were dodging taxes through shell companies. The new agreement, which sets out the taxation rules for companies that run Lesotho businesses from Mauritius, came into effect earlier this month. It replaces a 1997 treaty that, in recent years, the Lesotho authorities complained was unfair. “The process for renegotiating the treaty was initiated by Lesotho in recognition that the old treaty was compromising Lesotho’s interests and because some of the key elements of a modern tax treaty were missing,” according to a brief provided to ICIJ by the Lesotho Revenue Authority.

BURKINA FASO

President Roch Kabore has fired Cherif Sy in the wake of widespread protests against insecurity on June 26, 2021. At the beginning of June, Burkina Faso saw its worst terror attack on civilians since the conflict with armed groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) began in 2015. Sy was at the helm of the defence ministry since then. At least 138 people were killed in the village of Solhan. The attack triggered a wave of protests against insecurity.

NIGERIA

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday, announced the cessation of forex sales to Bureau De Change (BDCs) operators. CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed the new policy after the July 2021, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja, said the apex bank was funneling $5.7 billion (about N2.346 trillion) annually through the BDCs. He said the $5.7bn allocated to BDCs has become unsustainable as $20,000 is allocated to over 5,500 BDCs in the country, amounting to $110 million per week.

ZIMBABWE

Embattled Chief Justice Luke Malaba is back at work, defying a High Court ruling which said he ceased to be a judge on May 15, 2021 after he reached the retirement age of 70 years. This comes after Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi and Attorney General Prince Machaya separately filed their notices of appeal against an urgent High Court judgment made on May 15. The government says the noting of an appeal to the Supreme Court effectively suspends the order of the High Court paving way for Chief Justice Malaba to be back in the revered judicial office by operation of law.

TANZANIA

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has received her COVID-19 vaccine in public, kicking off a nationwide inoculation campaign in one of the world’s last countries to embrace jabs in the fight against the disease. Hassan’s vaccination on Wednesday was the most decisive signal yet of a break from the policies of her late predecessor who repeatedly dismissed the threat of the pandemic.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

France’s highest appeal court has upheld a guilty verdict against the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for embezzlement, paving the way for the potential return of tens of millions of dollars to the country’s people. Wednesday’s ruling on Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, who is also the vice president of the Gulf of Guinea nation, came after he was handed a three-year suspended sentence and a 30 million euros ($35m) fine at the end of his trial in absentia in 2020.

SUDAN

Hundreds of women displaced by recent inter-communal fighting in the Al Geneina town of West Darfur are suffering from anxiety and depression as they shoulder the responsibility of caring for their families without husbands, say women’s rights activists in Sudan’s western region. The fighting that erupted in April, 2021 left more than 200 people dead and more than 200 others wounded. Thousands of families have been sheltering in government buildings, schools and mosques in overcrowded conditions with limited access to proper sanitation, according to Sumeya Musa, a women’s advocate with the local NGO, Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa.

SOUTH SUDAN

The government and opposition are closing ranks, after a group that opposed monitoring and verification mechanisms, agreed to a ceasefire. The Community of Sant’ Egidio, based in Rome, initiated talks in 2020 to incorporate the holdout groups into the September 2018 peace agreement, but progress has been slowed by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The groups led by former Chief of General Staff General Paul Malong and former SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum, have agreed to join the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa is on the brink of allowing pharmacists holding the required permits to prescribe and initiate HIV medicines without people first having to get scripts from doctors or nurses, Catherine Tomlinson reports for Spotlight. The initiative, known as Pharmacist-Initiated Management of ART or PIMART, seeks to improve linkage to HIV treatment and prevention therapy among under-reached and underserved groups and communities. South Africa’s PIMART programme will be the first of its kind globally – potentially paving the way for other countries to follow suit. South Africa has the largest HIV antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme in the world. Over seven million people in the country are living with HIV – over five million of whom are on ART.

KENYA

President Uhuru Kenyatta and former prime minister Raila Odinga are still clinging to the hope of successfully pushing through constitutional changes which are currently bogged down in the courts, through a referendum before the 2022 elections. President Kenyatta stated that the referendum was inevitable, saying the proposed constitutional changes popularly known as the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) would ensure the devolution of more resources to the counties and fair representation in parliament.

UGANDA

The rising political temperatures in Kenya over President Uhuru Kenyatta’s successor, is likely to take a toll on the country’s trade with its East and Central African partners as  importers and transporters on the northern corridor already exploring new routes for their cargo. Since July 19, 2021 Uganda began a trial delivery of petroleum products from Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port through to Lake Victoria, after a 16-year break. This move spells doom to the Port of Mombasa, which accounts for three-quarters of the transit cargo headed for Uganda.

GHANA

The Ghana International Investment Trade and Finance Conference (GITFiC) has advocated the urgent implementation of harmonised trade finance policy reforms across the Continent for effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Mr Selasi Koffi Ackom, the Chief Executive Officer of GITFiC, said an increase in trade finance would ease cross border trade, enable capital and information flow, attract greater foreign and intra-continental investments and provide larger customer base for financial institutions to serve.

LIBYA

Amnesty International has published fresh evidence of appalling human right abuses against people detained in Libya’s notorious migrant detention centres as it called on European countries to suspend border control cooperation with Libya ahead of a debate by the Italian parliament on the issue. in a 52-page report, former detainees at Tripoli’s Shara’ al-Zawiya centre disclosed how guards raped women, while others were coerced into sex in exchange for their release, or for essentials like clean water.

NAMIBIA

The Roads Authority (RA) announced that the temporary suspension of bookings for learner’s license testing will be extended to next week Friday. In a media statement released yesterday, RA’s corporate communications manager Hileni Fillemon said clients whose learner licences have expired during the period 1 July 2021 – 06 August 2021 will be allowed to book for driving license tests after the suspension of bookings has been lifted. “The temporary suspension of bookings for driving license testing is also extended until Friday, 6 August 2021. Only applicants with prior confirmed bookings will be assisted

DNT News

…………………………………………………