Egypt central bank governor quits amid inflation rise

 The governor of Egypt’s central bank, Tarek Amer, has resigned more than a year before the end of his second term in office.

The move – which triggered a sell-off of government bonds – comes one day before the monetary policy committee is expected to raise interest rates.

Inflation stands at nearly 15%, three times what it was only a year ago.

Mr Amer said he was stepping down to give others the opportunity to continue the successful development under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who accepted his resignation.

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Rwandan singer Yvan Buravan dies from cancer aged 27

 Rwandan singer-songwriter Yvan Buravan has died aged 27, his manager told the BBC

The singer had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment in India.

He had previously been treated in Rwanda and Kenya before his transfer to India.

Buravan’s music talent got noticed at the age of 14 when he finished second in a national music competition.

His 2016 hit song Malaika ushered him to stardom in Rwanda.

In 2018 he won the Prix Découvertes – one of Africa’s biggest music contests organised by RFI and Unesco.

“He’s gone too soon leaving behind lots of things he was yet to finish, but he leaves us with amazing arts he has done. His legacy will live on,” his manager Bruce Intore Twagira has told the BBC.

Many Rwandans on social media are also mourning his death.

“I can’t believe we have to go on about our day in a world where such a bright soul is gone,” one person tweeted.

“He was a man of honour! He earned my respect from the first day we met!” Rwandan music star Andy Bumuntu said.

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‘Telling Lies’ – Ronaldo Blasts Media And Promises To Tell Truth About Man Utd Future

 Cristiano Ronaldo has hit out at the media for telling lies and promised to tell all about his situation at Manchester United.

WHAT HAPPENED? Ronaldo has responded to continued speculation over his future at Old Trafford with a post on Instagram.

“They know the truth when they interview in a couple weeks,” he commented on a post by cr7.o_lendario. “The media is telling lies. I have a notebook and in the last few months of the 100 news I made, only 5 were right. Imagine how it is. Stick with that tip.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Ronaldo’s outburst comes amid news the Portugal international could still leave Man Utd before the transfer window closes at the end of August. The Red Devils have endured a disastrous start to the season and there are concerns the squad have been adversely affected by Ronaldo’s desire to leave.

Source: Goal

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Election law was not broken – Ruto ally

 A political ally of Kenya’s president-elect William Ruto has dismissed demands from his rival Raila Odinga that the presidential election result be decalred null and void.

Musalia Mudavadi told BBC Focus on Africa radio that there was “no problem”.

“We have a few individuals who are perennially always on the road to dispute the results.”

Mr Odinga argued that the head of the electoral commission had broken the law, by announcing the result on Monday evening without the backing of all seven commissioners.

But Mr Mudavadi said: “Commissioners do not determine the results, commissioners collate the results… and the results are in the public domain. There is nothing that is untoward.”

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Liz Cheney: Trump critic blasts Republican ‘personality cult’ after defeat

 A leading Republican critic of Donald Trump says the party has “embraced his cult of personality” after she was ousted in a primary election.

Liz Cheney, 56, was defeated by the political newcomer and Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman in Wyoming.

She faced an uphill battle to win re-election after joining the congressional committee investigating Mr Trump’s attempts to cling to power.

Ms Cheney – once a rising star in the party – also voted to impeach Mr Trump.

The primary election in the broadly conservative state highlighted the competing wings of the Republican Party – with more traditional conservatives facing off against Trump-backed candidates around the country ahead of mid-term elections in November.

The result means Ms Cheney, a three-term congresswoman and the eldest daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, will not contest her seat in the US House of Representatives which she has held since 2017.

It marked another victory for Mr Trump, who has backed dozens of candidates ahead of the mid-term elections that will determine control of Congress as well as governorships and state legislatures.

And those candidates – who have repeated his false claims of election fraud in 2020 and defended him amid mounting legal troubles – have largely performed well.

“I think the Republican Party today is in very bad shape,” Ms Cheney told the Today programme on NBC. “The party… embraced Donald Trump [and] embraced his cult of personality.”

Ms Cheney won her primary in 2020 by a wide margin, and she told the programme that she believed she would have been successful again had she repeated Mr Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud.

“That path would have required that I accept, that I embrace, that I perpetuate the Big Lie,” she said.

Ms Hageman – a 59-year-old lawyer who ran to be Wyoming governor in 2018 – was handpicked by the former president and has said she believed the election he ultimately lost to President Joe Biden was “rigged”.

In her victory speech, she said the result showed that Republicans will “hold our elected officials accountable for their actions” and “dislodge entrenched politicians”.

Speaking to Today, Ms Cheney said it was “dangerous” to elect officials who questioned the result of that election and described it as a “red line” that she would continue to resist.

“I am absolutely going to continue this battle,” she said, before vowing to do “whatever it takes” to stop Mr Trump from returning to the White House.

There had been speculation in the lead-up to the primary that Ms Cheney was preparing to challenge Mr Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. “[It] is something I’m thinking about and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” she told Today.

Mr Trump earlier congratulated Ms Hageman on her victory in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” he wrote. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion.”

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Billionaire Elon Musk Jokes He Is ‘Buying Man Utd’

 It was news no one expected, and for a while, it sent social media and the football world into a frenzy.

Was the world’s richest man going to buy Manchester United?

Just after 01:00 BST on Wednesday, Elon Musk – who is reported to have a net worth of $270bn (£223bn) according to Forbes – posted on Twitter: “Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome.”

Cue pandemonium on the social network, with the American’s tweet receiving more than 400,000 likes.

It has been a painful start to the new season for United.

They are bottom of the Premier League after two defeats, star player Cristiano Ronaldo could leave, while new signings are failing to materialize.

Their fans are restless, and earlier this week the Manchester United Supporters Trust said it will “demand answers” from those running the club after a “humiliatingly bad” start to the season.

The club has been in decline since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager in 2013, and fingers have been pointed at the Glazer family, who have owned the club since 2005.

There have been multiple protests against the Glazers’ ownership in recent years – including one in May 2021 which caused the Red Devils’ match against Liverpool to be postponed.

United fans are planning another protest against the American family during their latest meeting with their bitter rivals on Monday.

Some fans welcomed Musk’s interest in their club, which was valued at $4.6bn (£3.8bn) by Forbes earlier this year.

Source: BBC

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Kenya election 2022: Raila Odinga likely to go to court, as others celebrate

 Kenya has held one of its most nail-biting and controversial elections since one-party rule ended in 1991, as candidates vied for a plethora of seats. Here, we look at some of those who succeeded, and some who failed, in their quest for power.

1) The unluckiest candidate

Raila Odinga, 77, is the most unfortunate presidential contender Kenya has ever had. He has run for the presidency five times and lost on each occasion, saying that the elections were stolen from him.

Kenya’s highest court vindicated him after the last election in 2017 when it annulled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory and ordered that the election be held again.

Mr Odinga boycotted the re-run, saying the groundwork had not been done for a free and fair poll.

He looks set to go to court again after rejecting Deputy President William Ruto’s victory in the 9 August election by the narrow margin of 50.5% to 48.8%.

Raila Odinga, flanked by his running-mate Martha Karua, has vowed to challenge the result in court

Mr Odinga’s case is bolstered by the fact that four of the seven electoral commissioners – including vice-chairperson Juliana Cherera – took the extraordinary step of rejecting the result.

Ms Cherera said that it was full of “mathematical absurdity that defies logic”, and if one added the percentages – as announced by the commission’s chairperson Wafula Chebukati – the sum came to 100.01%.

But some commentators have said that this is down to a simple rounding error – and have expressed confidence in the result announced by Mr Chebukati.

For the first time ever, the commission, in the interest of transparency, allowed media houses and civil society groups to tally official votes. Results from polling stations were uploaded on the commission’s website for everyone to tabulate.

Significantly, the Elections Observation Group (Elog), which is made up of civil society organisations, have backed Mr Chebukati, saying that their tally matched the final results and that the “results transmission system worked better than expected”.

But if he takes the legal route, will Mr Odinga be lucky a second time in court or will he be on the losing side? We will know once the Supreme Court hears the case, and makes its ruling.

Supporters of Raila Odinga have been battling to come to terms with the result

For now, Mr Ruto – who won at his first stab at the presidency – is regarded as the president-elect, though the transition from the presidency of Uhuru Kenyatta may be delayed if a court needs to make a ruling.

During the campaign, Mr Kenyatta branded Mr Ruto “untrustworthy” of high office and campaigned for Mr Odinga to succeed him.

Mr Kenyatta has been silent since the result was announced, but the head of the public service, Joseph Kinyua, said that arrangements were being made to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

The president and his deputy are the most powerful men in Kenyan politics, but their relationship has been marred by tensions since Mr Kenyatta reconciled with Mr Odinga in 2018.

Many Kenyans are hoping that the two will now work together – rather than inflame tensions – if the electoral dispute makes its way through the courts.

For Mr Odinga’s supporters, the result is deeply disappointingly as he is widely acknowledged as Kenya’s “Father of Democracy”, having been at the forefront of the campaign to achieve multiparty democracy, only for the presidency to elude him up to now.

2) The history-making women

Female representation in Kenya’s counties has received a boost, with the highest number of women – seven – ever elected to the powerful post of governor. This is in contrast to the three who were elected in 2017.

Governors are in charge of huge budgets, and are expected to spearhead development in their counties.

The women defied sexism, bullying, and xenophobic slurs over their marriages to win.

They included Wavinya Ndeti, who becomes the first female governor of Machakos county after defeating three male candidates.

Wavinya Ndeti has promised to bring about “gender balance” in the Machakos county government

Ms Ndeti was married to a Nigerian-British national – the late Dolamu Henry Oduwole, who she met while studying in London.

Critics labelled her an outsider because of her marriage to a foreigner but she insisted that she was a “daughter of Machakos”.

But the woman who has caught the attention of most Kenyans is Linet Chepkorir.

Aged 24, she will become the youngest woman to ever serve in Parliament, following her election as woman representative for Bomet county.

Describing herself as coming from a “humble background”, Ms Chepkorir told the BBC that this will be her first job.

“I just want to encourage the younger generation that everything is possible,” she said.

Kenya Election 2022: Linet Chepkorir, 24, makes history in the Kenyan parliament

It is still unclear whether female representation in parliament has increased, as the electoral commission has not yet released a full list of winning MPs.

What we do know is that Kenyans failed to elect their first-ever female deputy president, following the defeat – albeit in disputed elections – of Mr Odinga and his running-mate, former Justice Minister Martha Karua.

She was poised and dignified during the election campaign, rarely landing blows against her opponents, but she failed to rally a significant number of voters to cast their ballots for Mr Odinga.

Mr Ruto trounced Mr Odinga even in her constituency, prompting some social media users to direct sexist remarks at her.

“She represents only her dresses,” one said.

The comment showed that despite the advancement of women’s rights in Kenya, the nation still has a long way to go in defeating sexism.

3) Ganja man and reverend flop

Presidential candidates George Wajackoyah (L) and David Mwaure (R) failed to get 1% of the vote between them

A former street child who became a law professor, George Wajackoyah was the most eccentric presidential candidate. He trended on social media and drew huge crowds – especially of young people – at campaign rallies, with his promise to boost Kenya’s floundering economy by turning the country into a major producer and exporter of marijuana, snake venom and hyenas’ testicles.

At one point, pollsters had predicted that he would garner 5% of the vote, but he got a mere 0.44% in the election.

Faring worse than him was a lawyer and reverend, David Waihiga, who got 0.23%.

His poor showing came as no surprise. He campaigned on a promise to fight corruption but he failed to make an impact with Kenyans.

With the two not even getting 1% of the vote between them, it is clear that when the crunch came, Kenyans stuck with the two big political beasts – Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga. They knew that if they voted for a minor presidential candidate, it increased the chances of a run-off, something they wanted to avoid.

4) Toilet cleaning candidate loses

Polycarp Igathe put out a video of himself mopping a toilet for less than 20 seconds

Another politician who entertained Kenyans during the campaign with his antics was Polycarp Igathe, who ran for the prestigious post of governor of Nairobi.

He mopped a public toilet, washed cars, deejayed and served customers in bars, all the while trying to convince voters that he was ready to serve them in high office.

But he lost to Johnson Sakaja, who was not shy of gimmicks either, sharing photos of himself buying fish from roadside vendors, and tomatoes and onions from the market rather than supermarket. Mr Sakaja was the senator for Nairobi before his elevation to the post of governor.

Also rewarded with a win was Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa, who used a three-stone traditional fireplace to make tea for a 67-year-old widow, albeit still wearing his fancy leather shoes, while campaigning.

Didmus Barasa has been detained by police following a shooting incident

Mr Barasa, whose Kimilili constituency is in western Kenya, is currently being detained by police pending investigations over the alleged shooting and murder of his opponent’s aide after a scuffle at a polling station on election day.

The MP, while surrendering to police, said he too wanted to know what had happened to the young man who was murdered.

Former senator Boni Khalwale also won in his bid to be re-elected as a senator for Kakamega county in western Kenya.

On the campaign trail, he opted for a roadside polish of his shoes, and ate roasted maize while waiting for them to be cleaned.

Boni Khalwale, on the left in a cap, tried to prove his street credentials by eating roasted maize on the roadside

Now, Kenyans are waiting to see whether he, and the other winners, will forget their struggling constituents – or serve them diligently.

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