Across Africa in Five Minutes

 GHANA

Lecturers and non-academic staff at universities in Ghana have started an indefinite strike over pay.

The government had announced a 4% salary increase for public sector workers this year – and another 7% increase due to take effect next year. But some university staff unions have kicked back against the increase, saying it’s too small.

They also want Ghana’s government to implement a 2012 agreement that promised an entry-level lecturer’s salary of more than $2,000 (£1,440) per month – but it’s currently still below $1,000.

Classes have been cancelled and institutions have shut their doors as of Monday.

The National Union of Ghana Students say the strike only makes matters harder for students who were already struggling to catch up on their studies after the disruption caused by the pandemic

Rwanda

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has arrived in Kigali on her first official visit to Rwanda. She is expected to hold talks and have a joint press conference with President Paul Kagame later in the day. Tanzania is the second-biggest exporter to Rwanda, after China.

President Samia’s two-day visit is aimed at strengthening relations, and the pair will sign several trade agreements. The two leaders are also expected to discuss the first stages of a $3.6bn (£2.6bn) railway project which was agreed in 2018. The 532 km (856 miles) railway will link Isaka in northern Tanzania with the Rwandan capital.

Nigeria

Doctors in Nigeria’s public hospitals are set to begin an indefinite strike over poor pay after the government failed to respond to their grievances.

The National Association of Resident Doctors (Nard) said its members would begin the strike on Monday at 08:00 local time.

The union accused the government of “insincerity in implementing” a previous agreement.

The decision follows a 21-day ultimatum given to the government by the medical workers.

Mozambique

Mozambique’s state-owned fuel distributor, Petromoc, has denied links to an oil spill that happened over the weekend at the port of Pemba, off the coast of Cabo Delgado province.

The company’s board chairperson Hélder Chambisse said there was little information about the origin of the fuel found at sea.

He said that if the company was responsible, the local authorities would have informed them.

Mr Chambisse said investigations were ongoing to find out the origin and reason for the spillage.

It was estimated that the spillage caused the loss of at least 10,000 litres of fuel.

Libya 

More than 700 migrants have been picked up by rescue ships in the Mediterranean Sea off the coasts of Libya and Malta this weekend.

About 400 were rescued from a vessel that was taking in water in the central Mediterranean, a further 100 were picked up off the coast of Malta, and at least four other boats were rescued.

Most migrants seeking to reach Europe set off from the Libyan coast, hoping to reach Italy, a journey of about 300 km (186 miles).

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China Covid: Concerns grow as Delta outbreak spreads

 A fresh Covid outbreak in China has spread to more locations, raising concerns over the country’s vulnerability to the highly contagious Delta variant.

More than 300 cases have been detected within a span of 10 days.

Chinese media is dominated by news on the outbreak, and the country’s top respiratory diseases specialist has reportedly expressed grave concern..

The government has imposed fresh travel restrictions and is testing millions.

It is unclear how many in China are fully vaccinated, although authorities say more than 1.6 billion doses have been administered so far.

A total of 15 provinces have now confirmed cases. Cases in 12 of the provinces are connected to an outbreak that began in Nanjing in eastern Jiangsu province. Authorities have attributed the spread to the Delta variant and the domestic tourism season.

In Zhuzhou, in central Hunan province, more than a million people have been told not to leave home for three days while mass testing and a vaccination drive is organised. The regional government described the situation there as “grim and complicated”. In other cities entire communities are being placed under emergency lockdown as cases of the Delta variant emerge.

The outbreak is the largest in China for months. The country was largely successful in controlling the virus within its borders last year.

Cases of the variant first emerged in July in Nanjing airport, among workers who had cleaned a plane that arrived from Russia.

Authorities promptly tested 9.2 million residents of Nanjing and imposed lockdown on hundreds of thousands of people.

But over the weekend the spotlight turned to popular tourist destination Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, where many of the latest cases have emerged. Travellers from Nanjing were thought to have visited the city recently.

Health officials have zeroed in on a theatre in Zhangjiajie, and are now trying to track down about 5,000 people who attended performances and then travelled back to their home cities.

One performance alone had hosted about 2,000 people, according to reports.

All attractions in Zhangjiajie have been closed and tourists are being asked to take a Covid test before leaving the city,

“Zhangjiajie has now become the new ground zero for China’s epidemic spread,” Zhong Nanshan, China’s leading respiratory disease expert, told reporters.

The new outbreak has reached Beijing too, with the city reporting several locally transmitted infections.

All of Beijing’s air, bus and travel links to areas with positive cases have been cut. All tourists have also been banned from entering the capital, and officials are only allowing “essential travellers” with negative Covid tests to enter.

The virus has also reached Wuhan, in Hubei province, the Chinese city where Covid-19 first emerged, with seven people testing positive for the virus. According to Chinese state media, the city had seen zero locally transmitted infections since June 2020.

China is also battling a rise in cases in Zhengzhou in northern Henan province, which saw devastating floods just last month, as well as Hainan island.

The Global Times newspaper has called the outbreak the “most serious since Wuhan”, and in a separate editorial criticised “glaring loopholes” in Covid prevention measures.

“It is absolutely worrying if a single flaw can affect many provinces and regions across the country… it shows that our systematic progress in fighting the epidemic needs to be strengthened,” it said.

The outbreak has raised concerns about vaccines, as it emerged that some of those infected had been vaccinated.

Shao Yiming, a researcher with China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Saturday that breakthrough infections in vaccinated people “are expected”.

The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines – two of the most commonly used jabs in China – have been shown to be 50% to 79% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid infection in clinical trials around the world, but are highly effective in preventing hospitalisations or deaths.

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Turkey wildfires: Eight dead as blazes sweep through tourist resorts

 At least eight people have been killed in wildfires that have ripped through southern Turkey, ravaging coastal resorts and forcing tourists to flee.

The blazes have been raging for six days as Turkey grapples with its worst fire crisis in a decade.

On Monday Turkish authorities said more than 130 blazes had been contained as firefighting efforts continued.

Elsewhere, firefighters are trying to contain wildfires in parts of Greece, Spain and Italy.

Italy’s national fire service said it had to deal with more than 1,500 flare-ups across the country on Sunday.

In the eastern city of Pescara, at least five people were injured after a fire forced the evacuation of hundreds from beach resorts and homes.

In Greece, five villages have been evacuated in the Peloponnese region, where temperatures are expected to reach up to 45C this week.

Strong winds and soaring heatwave temperatures across southern Europe have fuelled the destructive fires. Experts say climate change increases both the frequency and intensity of such blazes.

IMAGE SOURCEREUTERS

image captionWildfires have torn through forests in southern Turkey, leaving the land scorched

The worst fires have occurred along Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean coasts – a major tourist region.

Over the weekend dramatic videos showed tourists being evacuated from beach resorts by boat, with Turkish Coastguard vessels involved in rescue operations.

Satellite photos showed vast burnt forests after nearly 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) were consumed by flames.

Turkish media said firefighters in planes and helicopters resumed their operations in the south-western towns of Marmaris and Koycegiz on Monday.

Resident Susan Dogan told the BBC she could see “smoke, flames and helicopters overhead” from her home in the village of Turunc, about 20km (12 miles) from Marmaris.

The British expatriate said many residents had already left and that she had packed bags in case she needed to evacuate.

Emergency rescue boats were on standby along the Marmaris shoreline to evacuate anyone should the fires spread and the town be cut off.

On Sunday the European Union said it would send water-carrying planes to help douse blazes tearing through forests in Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked the EU for sending a plane from Croatia and two from Spain.

The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticised for the shortage of firefighting aircraft in the country.

Visiting the town of Manavgat over the weekend, Mr Erdogan said his government would do whatever it takes to help those affected.

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Sheikh Jarrah: Palestinians offered way out from evictions

Israel’s top court has proposed a plan to enable Palestinians threatened with eviction in East Jerusalem to stay, in a closely-watched and divisive case.

The Supreme Court was expected to issue a ruling to end a long legal battle but urged the sides to compromise instead.

It proposed the four families could stay in their homes in Sheikh Jarrah if they recognised the land was owned by a Jewish settlement company.

The issue has fuelled Israel-Palestinian tensions in recent months.

The threat of evictions stoked some of the worst violence between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem in years, culminating in an 11-day conflict with Gaza after its militant Hamas rulers fired rockets at the city in what it said was partly a response to Israeli “harassment” in Sheikh Jarrah.

Under the court’s plan, the Palestinians – among more than 70 families threatened with eviction – would remain as “protected tenants” who cannot be evicted for the foreseeable future so long as they pay rent to the Jewish organisation which owns the land – a status quo which existed up until the 1980s.

The court gave the Palestinians seven days to present a list of qualifying residents, effectively deferring a final decision until at least then.

The case has become the focus of international attention and a rallying point for campaigners opposed to Israeli settlement activity. The United Nations’ human rights chief has called on Israel not to carry out any evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, with her office warning such a move might constitute a war crime under international law.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and in effect annexed it later on. It does not regard the East as occupied territory but rather views the whole of the city as its capital – a claim not recognised by most of the international community.

Israel says the issue of Sheikh Jarrah is not a matter for the state but a private property dispute subject to the decisions of the courts.

Monday’s hearing is the culmination of nearly 30 years of legal proceedings, which began when the land’s registered Jewish owners sought to evict the Palestinian residents for non-payment of rent.

The Palestinians claimed they were the rightful owners of the property, which they said had been guaranteed them by Jordan when it settled the families there after it occupied the area in the Arab-Israel war of 1948.

The Palestinians’ claim was rejected by a Jerusalem court in 2020 and the eviction order upheld.

Palestinians see the case as part of a wider move by Israeli settlers to take over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of a hoped-for independent state.

In 2003, rights to the land where they live in Sheikh Jarrah were bought by a Jewish organisation which plans to develop the area for Jewish settlement.

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Covid: NHS app in England and Wales tweaked to notify fewer contacts

 The NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales is being tweaked so fewer contacts will be advised to self-isolate following a close contact with a positive case.

The app will look for contacts two days prior, rather than five, when someone without symptoms tests positive.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said it will reduce self-isolation disruption and protect those at risk.

The government is urging the public to continue using the app.

Scientists have estimated the app prevented up to 2,000 cases per day in the three weeks to 21 July when the number of self-isolation alerts – known as “pings” – rose by over 70,000 to a new record of 689,313.

And their analysis, which assumed 60% compliance with instructions to self-isolate, showed another 50,000 Covid cases were prevented by including chains of transmission.

This was estimated to have prevented 1,600 hospitalisations, the Department of Health and Social Care said.

Around 40% of the eligible population regularly use the app and around 50% of all reported tests being inputted, it said.

From 16 August, fully vaccinated contacts in England will be exempt from isolation and instead will be advised to take a PCR test.

Those who are not fully vaccinated will still be required to isolate, and it will remain a legal obligation to isolate if you test positive.