Sierra Leone boss John Keister says his side’s success ‘isn’t appreciated’

 Sierra Leone boss John Keister said “people didn’t appreciate” his side’s achievement in reaching the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.

Reflecting on the Leone Stars’ group-stage exit, a tearful Keister told BBC Africa: “I think as a country, with the group that I have, we overachieved in a short space of time.

“I worked so hard, but I found myself in an environment where I don’t think people appreciate that.”

The former Walsall defender led Sierra Leone to their first Nations Cup appearance in 26 years.

After group-stage draws with holders Algeria and two-time winners Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, ranked 108th in the world, needed just a point against Equatorial Guinea to reach the last 16.

But Keister’s side fell short, losing 1-0 with veteran striker Kei Kamara seeing an 84th-minute penalty saved by Jesus Owono.

“It wasn’t meant to be” added the 51-year-old.

“Expectations became very high. We achieved too early, but it’s a good problem that we have to deal with.”

‘We want to qualify again’

Looking ahead to the next Afcon tournament in Ivory Coast in 2023, Keister added: “Our focus has to be grassroots, our focus has to be development.

“If we don’t get it right down there, we are not getting it into the national team.

“We want to qualify again. I think it’s important that we develop and we prepare right.”

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UN head calls for ‘Olympic’ truce in Ethiopia

 UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged Tuesday for all parties in the Ethiopian conflict to implement a truce to mark the Olympic Games, and use the break in hostilities to provide relief to all Ethiopians.

“As I prepare to leave for the Winter Olympics, I make the strongest possible appeal for all parties in Ethiopia for an immediate cessation of hostilities,” said Guterres during a brief press appearance in New York.

“For millennia,” he explained, “the tradition of the Olympic Truce has called on all parties, everywhere, to stop hostilities throughout the course of the Games.”

Such an interruption would provide an opportunity for “effective humanitarian access and relief to all affected populations throughout Ethiopia,” the former Portuguese prime minister said.

“These actions will help pave the way to a much-needed inclusive national dialogue involving all Ethiopians.”

Since November 2020, pro-government forces in Ethiopia have confronted rebels led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the former rulers of the Tigray region.

The conflict has led nearly 40 percent of people in the region to suffer “an extreme lack of food,” the UN said last week.

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Woman applauded after giving birth on transatlantic flight

 A pregnant woman who unexpectedly gave birth on a plane flying from Ghana to the US was met with “shock and applause” from those around her.

The new mother, who gave her name as GG, gave birth prematurely to a baby boy on board the flight on 29 January.

A Ghanaian doctor converted the plane’s business class area into a temporary maternity unit and delivered the baby.

The woman from Ghana had been expecting to give birth later in February, according to an eye witness.

Journalist Nancy Adobea Anane was on the flight from Accra. She told BBC News Pidgin of the initial confusion among passengers when an on-board announcement was made.

“Most of them heard the call for assistance from medical personnel but didn’t know what was going on,” she said.

“I became anxious for the safety of the baby and mother, and the possibility of a detour for an emergency landing.”

IMAGE SOURCE,NANCY ADOBEA ANANE

Image caption,

Dr Stephen Ansah-Addo (left) helped to deliver the baby on the flight

Having heard the request for help Dr Stephen Ansah-Addo, who practises in the US, set about delivering the baby.

“Myself, a nurse and the flight attendants… took [the mother] slowly through the process and she delivered a beautiful baby boy,” Dr Stephen Ansah-Addo said.

Ms Anane recounted how the baby came within 45 minutes of the birth process starting.

“Her delivery was quick, like 30 to 45 minutes” and was followed by “screaming and the familiar cry of the baby”.

Paramedics met the new mother and baby upon landing in Washington where they received further medical care.

Giving birth in the air is rare but not unheard of.

In January a Canadian doctor helped to deliver a baby on an overnight flight from Saudi Arabia to Uganda.

According to the UK’s National Health Service, the chance of going into labour is naturally higher after 37 weeks of pregnancy, so some airlines won’t let pregnant women fly after this point.

It adds that flying while pregnant isn’t generally harmful to a mother and baby, but any health issues or pregnancy complications should be discussed with a midwife or doctor before flying.

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GUINEA BISSAU – “Attack against democracy failed” – President Umaro Cissoco Embaló

 Residents of Bissau, the capital of Guinea Bissau were on edge all day Tuesday, but according to a calm looking President Umaro Cissoco Embaló, the “attack against democracy failed,”

Reports reaching DNT during the almost five-hour uncertainty when the whereabouts of the president and his cabinet was unknown, it appeared as though West Africa was on the verge of a fourth successful coup d’etat.

http://https://www.facebook.com/radiobantaba/videos/1564630777226712/

President Umaro Cissoco Embaló’s reassuring speech indicates a failed coup attempt.

The state broadcaster reported that “invaders” were holding government officials but on Tuesday evening, a statement from the president’s Facebook account said “Calm returns to Bissau!”

Then in a statement broadcast live on local media on Tuesday night, the president said that security forces were able to stop a “failed attack against democracy” and that “many” security officials had died. No ministers were killed he said and arrests had already been made.

On Tuesday many of the capital’s streets were scarce due to fears of the unrest.

West African regional bloc Ecowas swiftly condemned what it described as an attempted coup on Tuesday afternoon. “Ecowas is following with great concern the evolution of the situation in Guinea-Bissau … where military gunfire is taking place around the government palace,” the organisation said.

“Ecowas condemns this attempted coup and holds the military responsible for the safety of President Umaro Cissoco Embaló and members of his government,” it added.

The comments mirror a statement released last week after a coup in Burkina Faso, another in a rising number of coups in the last 18 months in west Africa.

Multiple military takeovers in Mali, as well as Guinea and Burkina Faso, have seen militaries backed by popular support depose elected leaders, fuelled by mass frustration with rising jihadist insurgency in the Sahel.

Guinea-Bissau has often faced the threat of military coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974. The small country of just 1.5 million people has had four coups and more than a dozen attempts.

The UN said secretary general António Guterres was “deeply concerned with the news of heavy fighting in Bissau”.

He called for “an immediate end to the fighting and for full respect of the country’s democratic institutions”.

Embaló, a former army general, was declared the winner of the 2020 election, although the results were contested by former PM Domingos Simões Pereira.

Embaló then started forming a new government with support from the military while a supreme court election challenge was still pending.

In October last year, the armed forces chief said members of the military had been preparing to launch a coup while the president was on a working trip to Brazil.

Troops had been offering bribes to other soldiers “in order to subvert the established constitutional order”, armed forces head General Biague Na Ntam said.

After independence from Portuguese colonial rule, Guinea-Bissau has grappled with successive coup attempts, civil war and corruption, and is one of the world’s poorest countries. Drug trafficking is a major challenge and in the 2000s, it became known as a transit point for cocaine between Latin America and Europe as traffickers profited from corruption and weak law enforcement.

 

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Nestle proposes to pay African cocoa farmers to keep their kids in school

 Leading global food manufacturer, Nestle S.A, has expressed its readiness to pay cocoa farmers in West Africa and elsewhere to keep their children in school instead of using them as child labourers.

Business Insider Africa understands that Nestle’s resolution followed a series of backlash which chocolate makers have faced in recent times, for knowing or inadvertently encouraging child labour through the use of cocoa beans farmed/processed by children.

Various groups, including customers, investors and even governments have expressed displeasure over this trend which is most common in West Africa. As you may well know, Ivory Coast and Ghana are among the region’s leading cocoa producers. And farmers are known to use their children as labourers, thus keeping them away from school.

Nestle’s new income accelerator initiative will take care of this issue by addressing the income gap problem which forces most farmers to use their children as labourers. Addressing this issue would also help Nestle to ensure that all of its cocoa beans are purchased through ethically sourced means.

Commenting on the development, Nestle’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Schneider, explained that the new initiative “focuses on the root causes for child labour and the living income gap farmers and their families face”.

In the meantime, the initiative has received a nod of approval from notable figures such as the Prime Minister of Ivory Coast, Patrick Achi. He described the initiative as a welcome development, stressing that “we must at all costs and by all means deal with the root cause of the ills on which we all agree, which is the income of the farming population”.

Do note that farmers can only qualify to receive payment from Nestle if it has been certified that they’ve enrolled their children in schools. Other factors will also be considered.

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