Across Africa in five minutes or less

BURKINA FASO

The Burkinabe government has welcomed the decision by France to extradite Francois Compaore, the brother of Burkina Faso’s former longtime president, to his home country where he is wanted in connection with the murder of prominent investigative journalist Norbert Zongo more than 20 years ago. The Council of State, France’s highest court for cases involving public administration, rejected an appeal by Compaore’s lawyers against a previous ruling for his extradition, saying there were no constitutional or other grounds to overturn the decision.

SIERRA LEONE

During the Ebola outbreak, students were out of school for the larger part of nine months. These were the years before Zoom calls and online learning platforms for schools. Besides, very few households had access to internet technology in Sierra Leone. It was decided that radio programming would be the most efficient method to deliver lessons as it was cost-effective, engaging, and could easily be adapted to local languages.

NIGERIA

Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare has been provisionally suspended for doping just hours before the former World Championships silver medallist was due to run in Saturday’s semi-finals of the women’s 100 metres at the Olympics. Okagbare tested positive for human growth hormone in an out-of-competition test on July 19, four days before the Olympics opened, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said, prompting a mandatory provisional suspension.

RWANDA/TANZANIA

Tanzanian President Samia Suhulu will on Monday arrive in Kigali for her first visit state to Rwanda. During the two-day visit, she is expected to hold private talks with President Paul Kagame. President Suluhu’s visit follows recent high-level meetings between top officials from the two countries. The most recent meeting occurred on July 16, when Rwanda’s Minister of ICT, Paula Ingabire, met her Tanzanian counterpart, Faustine Ndugulile, to review submarine cable infrastructures in Tanzania that support communication services to Rwanda.

EGYPT

Egyptian authorities have summoned at least five prominent human rights defenders during July 2021 for questioning as part of a decade-old criminal investigation, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities have used Case 173 of 2011 to arbitrarily prosecute leading rights defenders and organizations over allegations of receiving foreign funds. Since 2016, authorities have summoned for interrogation dozens of members of nongovernment groups, mostly human rights organizations, and placed over 30 of them on arbitrary travel ban lists, and frozen the assets of over a dozen organizations and individuals. Three of the five people summoned in July had not been questioned previously. The case has had a chilling impact on civic space in Egypt.

ZIMBABWE

Fishing in the calm waters at night is full of hidden dangers, including threats of attacks by hippos or drowning when the lake suddenly gets rough due to a change in weather. But these are rare. The worst nightmare for fishermen is being arrested and detained in Uganda or Tanzania. It is a horror they have had to contend with for the past two decades. Once their nets are full, fishermen hope to get back to the shore before sunrise to sell their catch. But only a few of them make it back safely.

ETHIOPIA

Addis Abeba — Ahead of the planned visit by Samantha Power, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator, the US has announced additional $149 million to support the humanitarian response in Tigray state, where the UN said more than 90% of the population are in need of emergency food assistance. The latest announcement ahead of this weekend visit by Administrator Power bring the US’ humanitarian aid to the Tigray to nearly $637 million since the conflict began in November last year.

TUNISIA

Days of pRisk of new mass unrestolitical turmoil in Tunisia over a crippled economy and surging coronavirus infections have unnerved allies in Europe and the United States, while garnering the support of key Mideast partners watching to see if Islamists and Tunisia’s fragile democracy will survive. European countries — most notably nearby Italy — worry about a flood of migrants should Tunisia slide further into chaos. Autocratic leaders from Egypt to Saudi Arabia hope this week’s power grab by Tunisian President Kais Saied spells doom for the region’s Islamists. But they also fear a reignited Arab Spring, like the region-wide uprisings kindled by Tunisia a decade ago.

UGANDA

There was a lot to celebrate yesterday as Uganda won her first medals at the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo clinched Silver and Bronze respectively in the 10,000m final. Those were the eighth and ninth medals won by the Pearl of Africa since her first participation in the quadrennial games in 1956 in Melbourne,Australia. Uganda had last won an Olympic medal in 2012 with Stephen Kiprotich’s Gold in the Marathon on the streets of London. In addition, these were the first medals on the track since Davis Kamoga’s sprint got him 400m Bronze at Atlanta 1996.e region-wide uprisings kindled by Tunisia a decade ago.

KENYA

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka has asked ODM leader Raila Odinga to join him as his presidential running mate in next year’s General Election. Speaking at Akamba Handcraft in Changamwe, Mombasa County, Mr Musyoka said that ODM’s announcement on Thursday that it was leaving the National Super Alliance (Nasa) marked the end of the coalition and that parties should unite and fight those who are seeking leadership despite having a history of corruption. “I welcome my big brother Odinga who I have supported immensely in his political career for more than a decade. What I am saying is that there is no political debt, but I want him to use his wisdom and join me as my running mate and move this country forward,” said Mr Musyoka.

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West African health officials race to vaccinate amid spikes

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A resurgence of coronavirus cases in West Africa is hitting the region hard, inundating cemeteries where funeral numbers are rising and hospitals where beds are becoming scarce.

Those visible shifts are also pushing a reluctant population to seek out the vaccines in larger numbers at a time when shipments of doses are arriving from multiple sources after nearly grinding to a halt in recent months.

Thousands of new COVID-19 cases have been reported in the region in the past few weeks amid low vaccination rates and the spread of the delta variant, with some countries seeing their highest numbers since the pandemic began.

Residents who were previously wary of getting shots as conspiracy theories spread online are now lining up by the thousands from Liberia to Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.

“At the beginning, there were people who gave false information, but when people noticed an increase of contaminations and deaths, people understood that only vaccination can save them,” said Bamba Fall, mayor of the Medina municipality in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.

Shortages and delays have caused Africa’s 54 countries to fall far behind wealthier nations in their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts. Some 82 million doses have arrived on the continent to date, though that is just 10% of the number needed to vaccinate 30% of its population by the end of 2021, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization regional director for Africa.

But more shipments are finally rolling in, steering the continent of 1.3 billion people into an “encouraging phase after a bleak June,” Moeti said. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel on vaccine deliveries to Africa, but it must not be snuffed out again.”

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 210 million people, next month will receive more than 29 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines purchased by the government through the African Union. It’s also expecting 4 million doses of Moderna and almost 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through the COVAX program and from donations by the United States and the United Kingdom, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire.

Nigeria’s virus cumulative case count recently topped 172,200, an increase of more than 4,500 cases since July 10. Its seven-day rolling average of daily new cases more than doubled over the past two weeks, from 0.06 new cases per 100,000 people on July 15 to 0.17 new cases per 100,000 people on July 29, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Isolation centers that were closed after a previous surge are being reopened in anticipation of a large number of patients, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control.

Meanwhile, confirmed cases in Senegal, which had been ahead in the fight against the virus, leapt from only 380 on July 10 to 1,700 on July 18, the highest number since the pandemic began, according to the Ministry of Health.

Dakar’s main cemetery also is seeing large numbers of funerals, many that were likely due to COVID-19 but weren’t recorded as such.

“I came for an uncle’s funeral. He died at home. Out of modesty, he did not take the tests, but everything suggests that he died of COVID-19, because he had symptoms of the disease,” said Saliou Ndoye. “This situation is worrying. There are a lot of deaths.”

Senegal is employing more community-focused campaigns as residents see people close to them — including those young and healthy — succumbing to the disease.

“Senegalese don’t know where to turn,” resident Khalifa Abbacar Diop said. “We are afraid.”

The country received nearly 300,000 Johnson & Johnson doses and more than 330,000 of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine in the past week. Tens of thousands of residents are waiting for a second dose of AstraZeneca, but it is out of stock and new deliveries are not expected until August.

An increase in hospitalizations and deaths is leading many residents across West Africa to get inoculated.

“Initially, I was hesitant to take the vaccine because I saw many conspiracy theories and also the anti-vaccine media campaign appeared stronger,” Harris Fomba Tarnue, principal of the Booker Washington Institute, Liberia’s oldest technical high school, told The Associated Press.

“But when I reflected a lot on taking vaccines in the ’60s and ’70s, and the (beneficial) impact vaccines now have on global health, I concluded it’s a must for me and my family to take,” Tarnue said.

Liberia received 96,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX initiative, but the first consignment of about 27,000 had only a month lifespan and expired as people were reluctant to get the shots, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francis Kateh said.

The country received more than 300,000 Johnson & Johnson doses on Sunday, about two weeks after it ran out of AstraZeneca with at least 86,000 people awaiting a second dose.

Since its vaccine drive started in March, only 9,579 people in the nation of nearly 5 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the health minister.

In Ghana, President Nana Akufo-Addo raised the alarm Sunday as new confirmed infections tripled, stretching hospitals and ICU wards to their limit.

Ghana “cannot afford to allow the recklessness of a few to endanger the lives of the majority of persons in the country,” he said, announcing masks are now mandatory in public places.

Ghana is committed to vaccinating 20 million people, representing its entire adult population, by the end of this year, he said.

He pledged $25 million to start an institute that would allow Ghana to produce vaccines, and not be dependent upon foreign manufacturers. South Africa is currently the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has the capacity to manufacture the doses.

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AP reporters Babacar Dione in Dakar; Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia; Francis Kokutse in Accra, Ghana; and Sam Olukoya in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed.

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Thompson-Herah breaks Flo Jo’s Olympic record in women’s 100

TOKYO (AP) — Streaking down the track, with only six steps to go until she reached the finish line, Elaine Thompson-Herah stuck out her left arm and started pointing at the clock.

She knew she had the win.

It was only a matter of what else would come with it.

With a time of 10.61 seconds, the latest in the long string of Jamaican speed stars defended her Olympic title in the 100 meters Saturday. She broke a 33-year-old Olympic record held by none other than Florence Griffith Joyner. And, as a more-than-fitting bonus, she revisited a debate first triggered by the fastest Jamaican of all — Usain Bolt.

Yes, the gold medal and Flo Jo’s venerable record were great. But the question could not be avoided: Just as people wondered what Bolt might have given up when he hotdogged his way to the finish line in his first Olympic victory in 2008, how much faster might Thompson-Herah have gone had she run hard for 100 meters, not just 90 or 95?

“I think I could have gone faster if I wasn’t pointing and celebrating, really,” she said. “But to show you that there’s more in store. Hopefully, one day I can unleash that time.”

As it was, she finished the night as the second-fastest woman in history. Flo Jo’s world record of 10.49 is only mark left to beat.

As it was, she beat a two-time Olympic champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and joined bronze medalist Shericka Jackson in the first Jamaican podium sweep at the Olympics since 2008.

“The legacy we have in Jamaica is incredible,” Fraser-Pryce said.

Yet, with all that swirling around, it felt more than fitting that Thompson-Herah was drawing comparisons to Bolt, who redefined the sprint game with his antics, to say nothing of his speed, and left a hole in track and field after he left the Olympic scene in 2016 with nine victories in nine sprints.

In the first win, the 6-foot-5 speedster was well clear of the field in Beijing when he brought his hands out to his sides and started his celebration before he reached the finish line. His time, 9.69, was a world record. But the world went crazy — even then-IOC President Jacques Rogge leveled a sharp critique of the move — wondering what might have been had Bolt busted it through the line.

He answered the question a year later when he lowered the mark to 9.58 at the world championships in Berlin.

Thompson-Herah thinks she’ll get another chance like that, too.

“I have more years,” she said. “I’m just 29. I’m not 30. I’m not 40. I’m still working.”

On a sultry night in the near-empty Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Thompson-Herah started pulling away from her top rival, Fraser-Pryce, early. By the 50-meter mark, it was a runaway. She won by .13 seconds, or about three body lengths, a veritable rout in a 100-meter final.

Jackson, a bronze medalist five years ago at 400 meters who moved to the shorter sprints for the Tokyo Olympics, took bronze in this one, as well, in 10.76.

Flo Jo’s old mark of 10.62 came at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, not long after she ran the 10.49 on a breezy day in Indianapolis. For decades, debate has raged about whether the marks are legit, and the longer they held up, the more amazing the records seem.

No Olympic champion had even broken 10.7 since Flo Jo back in the day. Thompson-Herah insisted she wasn’t sure she would either as she approached the finish. But, she said, “I knew that I won.”

“The pointing, I don’t know what it means. To show that I was clear,” she said.

Thompson-Herah is now firmly entrenched in a long list of Jamaican women track stars — a string some say is even more impressive than the men’s. The Caribbean island was putting greats such as Merlene Ottey and Veronica Campbell-Brown out there long before Fraser-Pryce moved to center stage as a brace-faced 21-year-old in Beijing.

She finished on top in that 2008 race, and this second-place finish completed her Olympic set in the 100, where she now has two golds (′08, ′12), this silver and a bronze from 2016.

But she looked a bit stunned to finish that far behind her main rival on a track that has produced fast times over the first two days of competition.

After seeing Thompson-Herah hotdog it to the finish, the woman they call “Mommy Rocket” — she has a 3-year-old son, Zyon — stared, stone-faced, at the scoreboard and stood on the track with her hands on her hips.

She had been the favorite coming in, largely on the strength of a 10.63 she ran in June that showed she remained in top form some two years after winning the world championship title in 2019.

“Of course you’re disappointed,” said Fraser-Pryce, whose title in Doha was a comeback story, only two years removed from her pregnancy. “The only aim an athlete lines up for is to win.”

Not even the defending Olympic champion saw this coming. While Fraser-Pryce was at peak form, Thompson-Herah was something less, battling an Achilles injury that slowed her all the way through Jamaica’s national championships last month.

“Two months ago, probably a month and a half, I didn’t think I’d be here today,” Thompson-Herah said. “I held my composure. I believed in myself.”

Even without American Sha’Carri Richardson, at home because of a doping positive for smoking marijuana at the U.S. Olympic trials, the women’s 100 shaped up as potentially the best race of the Olympics, ahead of the Bolt-less men’s sprint.

As if to accentuate that point, the favorite in the men’s race, American sprinter Trayvon Bromell, finished fourth in his qualifying heat earlier in the evening and had to wait nearly an hour to see if he’d get one of three wild-card spots into Sunday’s semifinal round.

He did, and said, “Honestly, I have no words for it,” when asked to explain the lackluster run.

Another surprise came in the Olympic debut of the mixed 4×400 relay, where Poland won the gold and Alexander Ogando of the Dominican Republic sprawled over the line to edge the Americans for second.

The evening’s other medal event was men’s discus, where Daniel Stahl and Simon Pettersson led a 1-2 Swedish finish. The Swedes draped flags over their shoulders and jogged on the grass down the backstretch during a celebration in front of the empty stands.

Not long after, the real running began, and Thompson-Herah found herself in a spot she was familiar with — first at the Olympics — but with a time no woman had ever seen on this stage: 10.61.

Next is the 200, where Thompson-Herah is also the defending champion. It’s not hard to imagine her walking out of the Olympics the same way Bolt always did — with three gold medals, a few unanswered questions and leaving track fans wanting more.

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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Bacon may disappear in California as pig law takes effect

The California rules could be a case of consumers clearly paying a price for their beliefs.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Thanks to a reworked menu and long hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

That makes it all the more frustrating that she fears her breakfast-focused diner could be ruined within months by new rules that could make one of her top menu items — bacon — hard to get in California.

“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who for 15 years has run SAMS American Eatery on the city’s busy Market Street. “It could be devastating for us.”

At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market.

Animal welfare organizations for years have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals but the California rules could be a rare case of consumers clearly paying a price for their beliefs.

With little time left to build new facilities, inseminate sows and process the offspring by January, it’s hard to see how the pork industry can adequately supply California, which consumes roughly 15% of all pork produced in the country.

“We are very concerned about the potential supply impacts and therefore cost increases,” said Matt Sutton, the public policy director for the California Restaurant Association.

California’s restaurants and groceries use about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms produce only 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven’t complied because of the cost and because California hasn’t yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced.

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the extra costs at 15% more per animal for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.

If half the pork supply was suddenly lost in California, bacon prices would jump 60%, meaning a $6 package would rise to about $9.60, according to a study by the Hatamiya Group, a consulting firm hired by opponents of the state proposition.

At one typical hog farm in Iowa, sows are kept in open-air crates measuring 14-square-feet when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger, roughly 20-square foot group pens with other hogs. Both are less than the 24 square feet required by the California law to give breeding pigs enough room to turn around and to extend their limbs. Other operations keep sows in the crates nearly all of the time so also wouldn’t be in compliance.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture said that although the detailed regulations aren’t finished, the key rules about space have been known for years.

“It is important to note that the law itself cannot be changed by regulations and the law has been in place since the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition (Prop 12) passed by a wide margin in 2018,” the agency said in response to questions from the AP.

The pork industry has filed lawsuits but so far courts have supported the California law. The National Pork Producers Council and a coalition of California restaurants and business groups have asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay the new requirements. The council also is holding out hope that meat already in the supply chain could be sold, potentially delaying shortages.

Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, said the pork industry should accept the overwhelming view of Californians who want animals treated more humanely.

“Why are pork producers constantly trying to overturn laws relating to cruelty to animals?” Balk asked. “It says something about the pork industry when it seems its business operandi is to lose at the ballot when they try to defend the practices and then when animal cruelty laws are passed, to try to overturn them.”

In Iowa, which raises about one-third of the nation’s hogs, farmer Dwight Mogler estimates the changes would cost him $3 million and allow room for 250 pigs in a space that now holds 300.

To afford the expense, Mogler said, he’d need to earn an extra $20 per pig and so far, processors are offering far less.

“The question to us is, if we do these changes, what is the next change going to be in the rules two years, three years, five years ahead?” Mogler asked.

The California rules also create a challenge for slaughterhouses, which now may send different cuts of a single hog to locations around the nation and to other countries. Processors will need to design new systems to track California-compliant hogs and separate those premium cuts from standard pork that can serve the rest of the country.

At least initially, analysts predict that even as California pork prices soar, customers elsewhere in the country will see little difference. Eventually, California’s new rules could become a national standard because processors can’t afford to ignore the market in such a large state.

Kim, the San Francisco restaurant owner, said she survived the pandemic by paring back her menu, driving hundreds of miles herself through the Bay Area to deliver food and reducing staff.

Kim, who is Korean-American, said she’s especially worried for small restaurants whose customers can’t afford big price increases and that specialize in Asian and Hispanic dishes that typically include pork.

“You know, I work and live with a lot of Asian and Hispanic populations in the city and their diet consists of pork. Pork is huge,” Kim said. “It’s almost like bread and butter.”

Associated Press writers David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, and Stephen Groves in Alvord, Iowa, contributed to this story.

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China witnessing its worst coronavirus outbreak since Wuhan

A health official from Nanjing said that the cases were all linked to cleaners who were working on a flight from Russia that arrived in the city on July 10

China is witnessing a fresh wave of coronavirus cases, fuelled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has spread beyond the capital city of Beijing to five other provinces across the country. Alarmingly, state media has indicated that the recent surge is the worst the country has witnessed since the domestic outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019.

Nearly 200 cases have been detected, all of which have been linked to a small outbreak in Nanjing airport on July 20. Soon after, all flights from the airport were suspended until August 11, local media reported. The city, which is at the centre of the new outbreak, is now in the middle of mass testing and renewed restrictions.

A partial lockdown has been imposed, checkpoints have been set up to regulate the entry and exit of residents and some public transport has been suspended. Authorities are now facing widespread criticism for not being adequately prepared for the outbreak.

A health official from Nanjing said that the cases were all linked to cleaners who were working on a flight from Russia that arrived in the city on July 10, BBC reported. The cleaners allegedly failed to follow Covid hygiene protocol, a Xinhua News report said.

A senior disciplinary body of the Chinese Communist Party has pulled up the airport management, stating that it had “problems such as lack of supervision and unprofessional management”.

“A number of infection prevention measures weren’t implemented in detail,” it said in a statement on its website. “The early confirmed cases of this round of the epidemic were mainly found among ground staff and aircraft cleaning teams, which were outsourced to the Nanjing Lukou Airport Cleaning Co.”

“The airport did not separate the cleaning personnel responsible for cleaning domestic flights from those cleaning international flights, and routine supervision was seriously lacking,” it said.

Since then, the Delta Covid strain has spread to a number of cities and provinces across China, including Anhui, Guangdong, Hunan, and Sichuan.

Questions raised about Chinese vaccines

The recent surge has once again raised questions about the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines against the Delta Variant. However, it is still unclear how many of those infected in the recent surge were vaccinated. In the recent past, several South-East Asian countries have announced that they will no longer be using the Chinese jab.

A second possible cluster

There is also a growing concern about a potential second cluster, connected to a popular live show in Zhangjiajie national park in Hunan province, CNN reported. Three people who tested positive for Covid in the city of Dalian are believed to have visited Nanjing airport before travelling to the national park for the live programme.

The programme was viewed live by over 3,000 spectators, all of whom sat in close proximity of one another. Several of the cases reported in Beijing recently were linked to the show, which has ended the capital city’s 17-day streak without any reported infections.

On Wednesday, senior provincial party leaders met in Jiangsu to discuss the recent surge in cases. In a statement published on their website, the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China acknowledged the current outbreak was “severe”.

Indian Express

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