Dakar “explodes” with Senegal’s first ever AFCON title

The moment Sadio Mane’s fifth penalty kick touched the back of the net in the finals of the 2022 Afcon, the entire city of Dakar “exploded” with an instant uproar of joyous shouts.

Geeby Diallo, DNT’s Dakar correspondent could barely find his voice over the phone as he relayed the jubilation to DNT. He could only manage “do you hear the voice?”

     

Like every finals game of any worthwhile tournament, one city jubilates while another cries. In Cairo, it was a different story.

Tears flowed, on the field, in the red section of the stands in Younde’s Olembe Stadium, and on the field where players had difficulty controlling their emotions.

In a display of superb sportsmanship, victor Sadio Mane was seen comforting his vanquished Liverpool team mate Mohamed Salah.

 

Back in Dakar, the jubilation had even began to record injuries with one young man falling off a table at a bar. The sentimental favorites did it.

With Egypt having won seven AFCON titles – the most by any country – virtually the entire continent with the exception of Egypt was rooting for Senegal, the one recent football super power which has yet to win its first.

Report and pictures from Geeby Dialo – DNT Dakar Correspondent.

 

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Liberia president’s biographer moves to US after row

A biographer of Liberia’s President George Weah, who had unsuccessfully attempted to leave the country last week amid controversy over the book, is now in the US.

Isaac Vah Tukpah flew out of the country after the president said he was a free man to stay or live in the country.

The co-author, who holds both Liberian and US passports, says he is now uncertain about returning home soon because of “family fears”.

The controversy followed the publishing of the unauthorised biography, which includes some “indecent” descriptions about the first lady.

The book, George Weah: The Dream, The Legend, The Rise to Power, published last month quotes the president as speaking about the sexual habits of his wife.

Mr Tukpah has rejected public condemnation of the publication, insisting the person to blame for the controversy is “obviously, the president who said those things to confidantes and is known to say even worse things about women he was intimate with”.

He told the BBC that he and his co-writer had tried in vain to reach President Weah for his authorisation before the book was published.

The author, who is a former ally of the Liberian president, however said that he felt sorry for the use of some sexually graphic expressions attributed to the president.

He urged people to read the biography and “I am sure after reading it, they will find that the president was actually praising his wife”.

There is still widespread condemnation of the book, which is reportedly selling fast on Amazon since the start of the controversy.

The Liberia Council of Churches is among the latest to condemn it and has asked the authors to apologise to the first lady.

The information ministry says the book contains “obscene and defaming materials against the first family” and has expressed possibility of legal action against Mr Tukpah.

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Macron heads to Moscow to try to ease Ukraine tensions

French President Emmanuel Macron is set to hold talks in Moscow Monday in a bid to to help de-escalate the tense situation around Ukraine.

The concentration of an estimated 100,000 Russian troops near Ukraine has fueled Western worries that it heralds a possible offensive, with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warning Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine “any day,” triggering a conflict that would come at an “enormous human cost.”

Russia has denied any plans to attack its neighbor, but is urging the U.S. and its allies to bar Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations from joining NATO, halt weapons deployments there and roll back NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Washington and NATO have rejected the demands.

Macron, who is set to meet in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin before visiting Ukraine Tuesday, said last week that his priority is “dialogue with Russia and de-escalation.”Before heading to Moscow, Macron had a call Sunday with U.S. President Joe Biden. They discussed “ongoing diplomatic and deterrence efforts in response to Russia’s continued military build-up on Ukraine’s borders, and affirmed their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said in a statement.

The French presidency said Macron sought to ensure “good coordination” with Biden in the call.

In an interview with French newspaper Journal du Dimanche published on Sunday, Macron said that “we won’t get unilateral gestures but it is indispensable to prevent a degradation of the situation before building confidence gestures and mechanisms.”

“The geopolitical objective of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine, but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with NATO and the EU,” Macron said. “The security and sovereignty of Ukraine or any other European state cannot be a subject for compromise, while it is also legitimate for Russia to pose the question of its own security.”

Continuing the high-level diplomacy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to meet with Biden Monday for talks expected to focus on the Ukrainian standoff. Scholz is set to travel to Kyiv and Moscow on Feb. 14-15.

In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal for eastern Ukraine in a bid to end the hostilities between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists that erupted the previous year following the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

The agreement signed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, helped stop large-scale fighting, but efforts at a political settlement have stalled and frequent skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland called Donbas.

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany last met in Paris in December 2019 in the so-called Normandy format summit, but they failed to resolve main conflicting issues.

Amid the tensions over the Russian military buildup, presidential advisers from the four countries held talks in Paris on Jan. 26, but they didn’t make any visible progress and agreed to meet again in Berlin in two weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed for another four-way Normandy summit, but the Kremlin said a meeting of leaders would only make sense if the parties agree on the next steps to give a special status to the rebel east.

Putin and his officials have urged France, Germany and other Western allies to encourage Ukraine to fulfill its obligations under the 2015 agreement, which envisaged a broad autonomy for the rebel east and a sweeping amnesty for the separatists. The agreement stipulated that only after those conditions are met would Ukraine be able to restore control of its border with Russia in rebel regions.

The Minsk deal was seen as a betrayal of national interests by many in Ukraine and its implementation has stalled. Amid the latest tensions, Ukrainian authorities have strongly warned the West against pressuring Ukraine to implement the agreement.

Last week, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press that an attempt by Ukraine to fulfil the Minsk deal could trigger internal unrest that would play into Moscow’s hand.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted that Moscow wants the rebel regions reintegrated into Ukraine in order to use them to effectively block the country’s pro-Western aspirations, vowing that “this is not going to happen.”

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