SIERRA LEONE – President Bio Commissions 3 Brand New Kingho Railway Locomotives

His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio has commissioned three (3) brand new locomotives to enable Kingho Mining Company haulage its iron ore from the New Tonkolili Iron Ore Mines in Ferengbey, Tonkolili District to the port of Pepel in Port Loko District.

The commissioning took place on Tuesday 24th May 2022 on a separate event after the president earlier unveiled a Le 5.3 billion paid into the accounts of the Community Development Agreement (CDA) fund by Kingho Mining Company, a subsidiary of Leone Rock Metals. The fund is 1% of annual revenue made by the company during its operation at the mines.

 

Speaking during the commissioning ceremony at the Train Load Out (TLO), Jay Chen, Deputy General Manager of Kingho Railway and Port Company said that when the company took over in 2020, the rail system was not operational at all. He added that the company made enormous efforts and invested a huge sum of money for the restoration of the railway facilities.

Jay Chen added that the commissioning is significant because it is the first time locomotives have been imported into this country in ten years. He said it is important to note that his department is gender sensitive as a result they currently have female Sierra Leonean train drivers.

He assured that the railway department of the company also plans to hire more locomotives and upgrade the railway in the future.

It is worth noting that the locomotive is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. A single locomotive has the capacity to pull 30 wagons which are used to transport iron ore from the mines to the port. So far, the train sets 112 wagons to 4 locomotives and 90 wagons to 3 locomotives.

The commissioning of three additional locomotives by the President himself will improve the haulage capacity of the company to achieve a target of 25,200 tonnes daily and 9 million tonnes annually.

©️ LRMG, PR & Media Unit

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Four million at risk amid Kenya food crisis – UN

More than four million people are facing high levels of food insecurity in Kenya, according to new data released by the UN.

This figure has risen from just over three million people last year.

Over 900,000 children below the age of five have been found to be acutely malnourished.

The entire country’s north, and much of the north-eastern regions, are facing food insecurity at crisis or emergency levels, the data classification shows.

The March to May rainfall has been low, irregular and poorly distributed in much of the distressed regions, which has affected production of food.

Aside from a prolonged drought, the crisis has been worsened by a rise in food prices because of the spike in the cost of fuel, resulting from the war in Ukraine.

Some of the affected counties also face ongoing insecurity and gun violence.

Large parts of eastern Africa have suffered a devastating drought for much of 2022, aggravating food insecurity for countries still reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week, the UN also warned that more than half a million people in Uganda’s north-eastern region of Karamoja were facing a high risk of hunger and starvation.

And in Somalia, more than 200,000 people are on the verge of starvation due to the drought that has swept through the region

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Donald Trump Behind Attempted Coup To Overthrow US Govt

Thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters, fueled by his claims of voter fraud, flooded the nation’s capital to protest the expected certification of Joe Biden’s White House victory by the US Congress, and the former president was behind it, an inquiry by Capitol Hill lawmakers has found.

A congressional inquiry on Thursday, June 9, heard the former president played a crucial role in trying to violently stop the presidential elections from being authorized.

Trump said the election had been ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ by supporters of Joe Biden, claims which have been categorically proven false.

A huge mob, some of them armed, forced their way through police lines, many threatening to kill politicians inside, including vice president Mike Pence as they overran the building where legislators were meeting to certify the results of the election he lost to Joe Biden on January 6, 2021.

The inquiry on Thursday heard an account that claimed Trump said his former number two ‘deserves it’ as crowds chanted they would hang Mr Pence.

Five people died and more than 130 police officers were injured, as they battled to stay in control of the capitol hill.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney said: ‘President Trump summoned a violent mob.

‘When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union – or worse, causes a constitutional crisis – we’re in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.’

The hearing was played 12 minutes of new footage of the deadly violence, as well as testimony from Trump’s inner circle including his daughter Ivanka and son in-law Jared Kushner.

The House committee said the former president’s ‘repeated lies’ about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden’s victory led to the capitol attack.

Congressman Bennie Thompson, chairman of the panel, said during the hearing: ‘Democracy remains in danger.

‘January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6, to overthrow the government.

‘The violence was no accident.’

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Five Military Police Killed In Western Cameroon, Says Regional Governor

Five Cameroon military police were killed in an attack on Tuesday night in the western region of Cameroon, bordering a province where separatists are fighting for a breakaway state, the regional governor said on Wednesday.

The attack took place in Njitapon in the district of Kouoptamo, in the West French-speaking region bordering the two Anglophone regions where rebels have been fighting against the French-speaking majority state since 2017.

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The governor of the West region, Augustine Fonka Awa, confirmed the attack without giving further details.

While violence is common in the two Anglophone regions, the separatists rarely wage attacks beyond them.

The conflict stems from perceived marginalisation of Cameroon’s Anglophone community by the French-speaking majority.

The fighting has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced nearly a million, with atrocities committed by both sides.

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World Bank Warns Of Recession Risk Due To Ukraine War

Countries around the world are facing recession as the Ukraine war hits economies already rocked by the Covid pandemic, the World Bank has warned.

Less developed countries in Europe and east Asia face a “major recession”, it said.

The risk of high inflation and low growth – so-called “stagflation” – is also higher, World Bank President David Malpass said.

Energy and food bills have been rising around the world.

“The war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply-chain disruptions, and the risk of stagflation are hammering growth. For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid,” Mr Malpass said.

He also warned in the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report for June that the danger of stagflation was “considerable”.

“Subdued growth will likely persist throughout the decade because of weak investment in most of the world. With inflation now running at multi-decade highs in many countries and supply expected to grow slowly, there is a risk that inflation will remain higher for longer.”

Also on Tuesday, the World Bank approved $1.49bn (£1.2bn) of additional funding for Ukraine, which it said “will be used to pay for wages for government and social workers.”

The new financing is part of a more than $4bn support package for the country, which covers areas including healthcare, education and sanitation.

More than a hundred days have passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but only now is the sobering size of the shock waves hitting nations and households thousands of miles away from that epicentre becoming clear.

Developing nations were already struggling to get back on their feet. For every $20 households there typically earned pre-pandemic, they now only get $19.

But soaring food and energy costs threaten to throw livelihoods further into reverse, spelling misery and hardship for the most vulnerable.

And that’s not just true for poorer countries. One survey shows one in six British households have turned to a food bank.

That global struggle could be compounded by the higher interest rates being used to ease inflation, just as government support to ease the impact of the pandemic is evaporating.

The World Bank is urging immediate action, from debt relief, to urging nations not to put restrictions on food exports.

Instead they want policymakers to show they are acting together to safeguard food and energy supplies, reassure volatile markets, and ease price spikes.

Policymakers have already had to tackle an extraordinary battle.

But if we down tools now the World Bank suggests we could face an even more prolonged and painful crisis.

Hardship today doesn’t just mean misery and social unrest, it can blight lives for years.

The countries in Europe that are most likely to suffer a sharp drop in economic output in 2022 are Ukraine and Russia, the World Bank forecast.

But it warned that the fallout from the war and the Covid pandemic would be wider.

“Even if a global recession is averted, the pain of stagflation could persist for several years – unless major supply increases are set in motion,” Mr Malpass said.

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5 States Meet On UN Cultural, Heritage Sites

A three-day capacity-building workshop on the United Nations Convention for the protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage opened in Accra yesterday [June 7, 2022].

Participants from The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana include site managers of heritage sites, focal persons of the convention in the five Anglophone West African countries and government representatives.

Known as the 1972 World Heritage Convention, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) adopted it in November 1972 as a global recommendation for protecting cultural and natural heritage at the national level.

The World Heritage Convention is one of the most important global conservation instruments created primarily to identify and protect the world’s natural and cultural heritage considered to be of outstanding universal value.

Ghana ratified the convention in 1975, making it one of the very first signatories of the now almost universally ratified document, with 194 State Parties, 50 of them being African countries.

Some 167 of the State Parties have currently inscribed 1,154 cultural and heritage sites.

Opening the workshop, the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, said the management of world heritage sites was an important issue that deserved attention.

“This workshop presents an opportunity to discuss and share experiences from different countries to deepen our understanding of the 1972 convention and management requirements for our World Heritage Sites,” he said in speech read on his behalf by the Director of Arts and Culture at the ministry, Josephine Ohene-Osei.

Local sites

Dr Awal said the country had two World Heritage Sites, namely the Forts and Castles in the Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western regions, and the Asante Traditional Buildings.

“We are meeting at a time when management of world heritage sites in Ghana has become challenging as a result of increased number of threats. These threats as identified in the Advisory and Reactive Monitoring Reports of 2019 and 2020, respectively, together with incidents at some components of the Forts and Castles World Heritage Sites require taking necessary steps to prevent loss of the outstanding universal value of the sites.

“Recently, with international assistance from UNESCO, an integrated management plan has been prepared for the Forts and Castles World Heritage Site,” he said.

Other speakers

The Director for the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria, Ayeni Oisewemime, said the workshop was critical to get a lot of work done regarding site listing and management.

“When we build capacities, we can have a reasonable expectation for corresponding results,” he said.

The Director of Culture at the Ministry of Information and Culture, Sierra Leone, Foday Jalloh, said a number of sites had been restored through collaboration with UNESCO and other partners to protect the cultural and natural heritage of Sierra Leone to preserve their value, authenticity and integrity.

He mentioned that measures were also being taken to train and involve the community to protect all national heritage assets.

Mr Jalloh said despite the achievements, there were some challenges that restricted “full implementation of the Articles of the 1972 Convention on Natural and Cultural Heritage”.

He mentioned the challenges to include inadequate funding, lack of tools and equipment, scarce scientific and technological resources among the challenges.

Source: graphiconline.com

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Prostitutes In Zimbabwe Now Accept Tomatoes, Vegetables, Maize And Beans As Payment

Some sex workers in Zimbabwe have reportedly resorted to using bread packets as contraception as the price of condoms and basic essentials continues to rise.

A 21-year old sex worker from Mutare who spoke to Manica Post, revealed that she started sex work at 16, and bread packaging was being used as a substitute for condoms when sex workers face shortages Mutare medical practitioner Dr Tendai Zuze also bemoaned how thigh vendors have resorted to using bread packets as protection. Zuze who stated that bread packets are risky as it might not be strong enough to sustain the pressure of friction during intercourse, and can easily break and put the people involved at risk of transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

 

iHarare also reported that sex workers at Dema growth point are now accepting buckets of maize and cups of beans as payment from their cash-strapped male clients. Speaking to a local publication at Dema growth point in Seke rural, sex workers appealed to the government and other organisations for low-interest loans to start income-generating projects to fend for their starving families.

One of the sex workers, who only identified herself as Alice said; “Gone are the days when we used to charge US$5 for the whole night. These days even one dollar is accepted, so that you are able to buy vegetables and tomatoes and cook something for your starving children.”

She said she has three children, one of which is doing Form 4. The child needs ZIMSEC (Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council) registration fees while the other kids are in Grade 7 and Grade One.

Alice added;

“I now even accept a bucket of maize or cups of dried beans as payment for sex services. At least I am assured that my kids will have porridge.”

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