‘I’m not interested in buying the Ghanaian press’ – Akufo-Addo

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has rejected suggestions that government is seeking to compromise the Ghanaian media to be considerate in their criticism of his administration.

President Akufo-Addo insists that such accusations are unfounded.

Reports of the government’s support to the Ghana Journalists Association by way of giving out a car to the recent winner of the GJA Journalist of the year award, has raffled feathers with some questioning the motive.

The executives of the Association are said to have made the request to the government to support the award scheme and other initiatives, during a meeting with the President.

But for some critics, they’re of the view that government has no business getting in involved in how journalists are rewarded for their works, as it has the tendency to compromise them.

This comes at a time when the presidency of Nana Addo has been largely criticised for its handling of the media and the protection of their freedoms.

But speaking at a meeting with the leadership of the Ghana Journalists Association, President Akufo-Addo said the government cannot compromise the media.

According to him, he rather wants a press that will sustain the country’s democracy and not one that does the bidding of governments.

He thus intimated that he is not interested in buying the Ghanaian press, and would rather ensure that the press plays its constitutional role effectively.

“I don’t look upon the intercourse as government buying the press. I don’t want to believe that the Ghanaian press is buyable, neither am I interested in buying the Ghanaian press.”

“I’m interested in having a press that can serve the larger purposes of our society and play its role in building a strong durable democracy in Ghana. That for me is the most important aspect of the work of the press in Ghana.”

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, had earlier also discounted assertions that there is a creeping culture of silence in the country.

According to him, such perceptions only come from those who cannot withstand criticism.

The Minister said this when he met with journalists in the North East Region on Wednesday, May 5, 2021, as part of the government’s measures to deepen freedom of speech and access to information in the country.

“This claim that there is something called the culture of silence in this country cannot be true. This is a country of about 500 radio stations, about 100 TV stations, millions of social media accounts and everybody is freely expressing themselves. What some persons cannot stand is that when they express their thoughts and other people speak that they disagree, then they claim you are silencing them. Respectfully, that is the beauty of our democracy, that I will have my say, and you can disagree with me,” Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said.

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Across Africa in five minutes or less

CAMEROON

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the world’s most neglected number of displaced people, according to a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Unveiling its annual index, the aid agency said on Thursday that a recorded two million people were displaced last year in the DRC. And with 27 million people, including more than three million children who do not know where their next meal is coming from, it has the greatest number of people in the world who face food insecurity.

BURUNDI

At least 15 people have been killed in central Burundi, local media report. The attack on Saturday evening was in Muramvya province, where 12 people died in a similar attack in May. According to eyewitnesses, gunmen blocked a road with large stones under cover of darkness and then shot at the vehicles.

Two minibuses were set ablaze. Several wounded passengers were taken to hospitals. Burundi’s interior ministry described the attack as terrorism. It is not clear who was behind it.

LIBYA

Libyan expectations are high and candidates are beginning to express interest in running for the elections scheduled for December this year.

These have been delayed three years following a military campaign on the capital Tripoli by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar’s Tobruk-based government in the east.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa’s rand was flat at the close of the week, with investors weighing conflicting signals from the US Federal Reserve that pushed the dollar away from two-month highs. Local investors were left to mull the higher inflation rates announced on Wednesday while balancing the growing pandemic and third wave complications in South Africa. On Sunday, president Cyril Ramaphosa put the country back into lockdown level 4, which is expected to reverberate through the economy in the coming weeks. On Monday, the rand starts the week trading at R14.16/$, R16.89/€ and R19.68/£.

ZIMBABWE

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa at the weekend implied that government will make vaccination compulsory in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts have warned that the edict if enforced, would be in violation of human rights.

Speaking at the graduation of 1 200 prison officers in Ntabazinduna near Bulawayo on Saturday, Mnangagwa said no one had the right to refuse the jab.

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Ethiopia declares immediate, unilateral cease-fire in Tigray

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s government declared an immediate, unilateral cease-fire Monday in its Tigray region after nearly eight months of deadly conflict as Tigray fighters occupied the regional capital and government soldiers retreated in a region where hundreds of thousands are suffering in the world’s worst famine crisis.

The cease-fire could calm a war that has destabilized Africa’s second most populous country and threatened to do the same in the wider Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia has been seen as a key security ally for the West. It comes as the country awaits the results of national elections that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promoted as the centerpiece of reforms that won him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

Abiy’s transformation from making peace to waging war has appalled many observers since the fighting in Tigray erupted in November. Since then, the world has struggled to access much of the region and investigate growing allegations of atrocities including gang rapes and forced starvation. Thousands of people in the region of 6 million have been killed.

Ethiopia’s statement was carried by state media shortly after the Tigray interim administration, appointed by the federal government, fled the regional capital, Mekele, and called for a cease-fire on humanitarian grounds so that desperately needed aid can be delivered.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he had spoken with the prime minister and “I am hopeful that an effective cessation of hostilities will take place.”

Meanwhile, Mekele residents cheered the return of Tigray forces for the first time since Ethiopian troops took the city in late November and Abiy declared victory. The Tigray fighters, loyal to the former regional ruling party that for years dominated Ethiopia’s government before being sidelined by the new prime minister, undermined the declaration by waging a guerrilla war in the region’s rough terrain.

As Tigray forces occupied the airport and other key positions in Mekele and broadcast a message telling residents to stop celebrating and go home, retreating Ethiopian soldiers shot at students at Mekele University, killing two and wounding three, said a nurse at Ayder hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Ethnic Tigrayans, even those who didn’t support the former ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front before the war, say they have been targeted harshly for suspected links with the Tigray fighters. Ethiopia has denied it.

But Abiy in an interview aired last week alarmed observers by recalling that aid to Tigray during Ethiopia’s devastating 1980s famine had bolstered the Tigray fighters who eventually overthrew the ruling regime. Such a thing will “never happen” now, he said.

Monday’s cease-fire declaration signaled a new approach, at least for a while.

The cease-fire “will enable farmers to till their land, aid groups to operate without any military movement around and engage with remnants (of Tigray’s former ruling party) who seek peace,” Ethiopia’s statement said, adding that efforts to bring Tigray’s former leaders “to justice” continue.

Ethiopia said the cease-fire will last until the end of the crucial planting season in Tigray. The season’s end comes in September. The government ordered all federal and regional authorities to respect the cease-fire — crucial as authorities and fighters from the neighboring Amhara region have been accused of atrocities in western Tigray.

“The government has the responsibility to find a political solution to the problem,” the head of the interim administration, Abraham Belay, said in calling for the cease-fire, adding that some elements within Tigray’s former ruling party are willing to engage with the federal government.

There was no immediate comment from the Tigray fighters, with whom Ethiopia had rejected talks. And there was no immediate comment from neighboring Eritrea, whose soldiers have been accused by Tigray residents of some of the worst atrocities in the war.

“If Abiy has a genuine desire to find a political solution, first he has to undo the terrorist label against the elected government of Tigray,” said Desta Haileselassie Hagos, who leads efforts to compile a list of those killed in the war. Abiy also needs to order the Eritrean soldiers to leave, he said.

Tigray in recent days has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict. International pressure on Ethiopia spiked again last week after a military airstrike on a busy market killed more than 60 people, and after Doctors Without Borders said three staffers had been murdered in a separate incident.

Amid the upheaval on Monday, the United Nations children’s agency said Ethiopian soldiers entered its office in Mekele and dismantled satellite communications equipment, an act it said violated the world body’s immunity. UNICEF last week warned that at least 33,000 severely malnourished children face “imminent risk of death” without more aid reaching Tigray’s people.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland called for an emergency open meeting of the Security Council. The U.N.’s most powerful body has discussed Tigray behind closed doors but not in an open session. They need support from nine of the 15 council members to hold an open meeting.

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INTERNATIONAL CASSAVA CONGRESS RECOMMENDS MORE INVESTMENT IN VALUE CHAIN

Malanje - The first International Cassava Congress held in northern Malanje province recommended Saturday more investments in the tuber value chain and promotion of public-private partnerships favorable to agribusiness centered on the inclusion of women and young people.

The two-day event, held between 24 and 25 this month, also recommended that producers and peasants increase their knowledge of techniques and the use of technologies in agriculture, with relevant impacts on the quantity and quality of cassava produced in the country.

The recommendations include the increase in the industrial production of cassava flour, using 100% national raw material, aimed at reducing the price of the product.

The event also recommended promotion of regulation of mandatory application of a minimum of 30% cassava flour in the production of bread and other pastry products.

The forum also urged the need to create and promote small cassava processing industries, using incubators and accelerators of investment in agribusiness, as a way of boosting and developing agriculture and valuing the tuber.

On the other hand, the participants at the Congress concluded that there is a need to create a fund to finance agriculture, grants of land to promote agriculture at affordable costs, expansion of Field Schools as a method for transmitting knowledge to rural producers.

It was also concluded that access to adequate markets for the sale of cassava and its derivatives with added value was necessary, as well as the creation of an institutional framework of permanent support services (incubators, accelerators, Business Development Services and others) to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Sponsored by Ministry of Industry and Commerce in partnership with the government of Malanje province, the first Congress was held under the motto “Leveraging the diversification of the economy based on the cassava value chain”.

COVID-19: 157 INFECTIONS, 91 RECOVERIES IN LAST 24 HOURS

Luanda – Angolan health authorities reported Saturday 157 new cases, 91 recoveries and 4 deaths in the last 24 hours.

According to the daily bulletin, most cases were detected in Luanda, with 74.

The source also quoted 36 fresh cases as being reported in Cunene, 25 in Huambo, 13 in Cabinda, 5 in Huíla, 2 in Cuando Cubango, and Cuanza Sul and Uíge with one each.

The new cases involves people aged 1 day - 94 years of age, being 80 men and 87 women.

Among those recovered, according to the report, 36 reside in Huíla, 20 in Huambo, 18 in Luanda, 16 in Cuando Cubango and 1 in Lunda Sul.

Deaths were registered in the provinces of Luanda and Huambo, with 2 each.

So far, Angola has 38,528 positive cases, 887 deaths, 32,696 recoveries and 4,945 active patients.

TRANSFORMING PRODUCERS INTO SUPPLIERS - MINISTER

Malanje - Angola’s participation in SADC and African Continental Free Trade Zone might influence the transformation of producers into suppliers or partners of projects focused on agri-business in the region, said the minister of Industry and Trade, Victor Fernandes.

The minister was speaking at closing ceremony of the two-day First International Cassava Congress held in northern Malanje province on Saturday.

 

Victor Fernandes said that the presence of the country in this regional group is an opportunity for its access to the market of the countries holding a substantive value chain in the continent, in the view of production flow the continent foresees to attain. 

 

 “As we develop this supply lines we should consider a set of factors that allows the production and supply flow, including the creation of conditions to facilitate the access to new market channel and regional processing points”, he noted.

 

The minister also said that the challenges to integrate cross-border production entail necessarily the use of sophisticated techniques for the marketing of national products, such as cassava and its derivatives.

 

To him, the Congress represents another opportunity to find the reality of the industry and trade sector and other ones which guarantee absorption of the real elements for the assessment of the needs and improve the public policy action at local level

Countries impose new restrictions amid struggle to contain Delta

The rise of highly contagious coronavirus variant prompts several countries to reintroduce restrictions amid surge in new COVID-19 infections.

Authorities in several countries – from Bangladesh and Indonesia to Australia and Israel – are racing to contain the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, while Russia’s Saint Petersburg announced a record death toll, laying bare the challenges faced by nations worldwide in their efforts to return to pre-pandemic life.

While vaccination campaigns have brought down infections in mostly wealthy nations, the rise of the Delta variant has stoked fears of new waves of a virus that has already killed nearly four million people.

“There is currently a lot of concern about the Delta variant,” World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a Friday news briefing.

“Delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far, has been identified in at least 85 countries and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations.”

In Bangladesh, authorities announced they would impose a new national lockdown from Monday over the variant, with offices shut for a week and only medical-related transport allowed.

Australia’s largest city Sydney, meanwhile, entered a two-week lockdown, with people ordered to stay home except for essential trips.Sydney’s new restrictions apply to some five million people, along with hundreds of thousands of others living in nearby towns.

New Zealand, citing “multiple outbreaks” in Australia, announced a three-day suspension of its quarantine-free travel arrangement with its larger neighbour.

Australia’s COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the suspension would give officials time to consider measures “to make the bubble safer, such as pre-departure testing for all flights” between the two countries.

In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo said the country of 270 million people was facing an “extraordinary situation” and pledged to respond with “quick and appropriate policies”. The country recorded more than 21,000 new infections on Saturday, the highest daily tally yet.

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Delta, which was first identified in India in April, is so contagious that experts say more than 80 percent of a population would need to be inoculated in order to contain it – a challenging target even for nations with significant vaccination programmes. The variant is now responsible for more than 90 percent of all new infections in the United Kingdom and about 30 percent in the United States.

European scientists estimate Delta is 40 to 60 percent more contagious than the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7), first discovered in the United Kingdom, which itself was more infectious than the original virus first detected in late 2019.

“It infects more people, it can spread faster,” vaccinologist Dr Annelies Wilder Smith, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Al Jazeera. “We saw it in India. We’re seeing it in Australia and Indonesia, in the UK. And I think we’ll see now increasingly in Europe, and indeed, also in the Americas,” she said.

“Whether it really also causes more severe disease has not yet been confirmed. So if you see more disease you will also see more hospitalisations – that does not mean that the virus itself causes more severe disease.”

Experts say Delta spreads more easily because of mutations that help it latch onto cells in the body. While several studies have shown that vaccines are slightly less effective against Delta, they are still highly effective – but only after the second dose.

Israel, which has one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns, has seen infections linked to the variant surge since dropping a requirement to wear masks in enclosed public places 10 days ago.

After four days of more than 100 new cases a day, the health ministry has now reversed that decision.

Situation in Europe

Meanwhile, Russia’s Euro 2020 host Saint Petersburg on Saturday reported the country’s highest daily COVID-19 death toll for a city since the start of the pandemic.

Official figures said Saint Petersburg, which has already hosted six matches of the football tournament and is due to host a quarter-final next Friday, recorded 107 virus deaths during the past 24 hours.

Authorities in the Russian city tightened anti-coronavirus restrictions last week in an effort to curb the spike in new infections, including closing food courts in the city’s shopping malls and its Euro 2020 fan zone. This came as Russia has seen an explosion of new cases since mid-June, driven by the Delta variant.

In neighbouring Finland, health officials said they had detected a spike in coronavirus infections that was traced to football fans returning from Saint Petersburg. The Finnish health institute’s director, Mika Salminen, told public broadcaster YLE that more than 120 cases have so far been identified from passengers returning from the Russian city, mostly football fans, and the number is likely to increase.

Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from London, said there have been concerns about a link between the tournament and COVID-19 outbreaks.

“Attendance at these stadiums has been pre-conditional on you actually showing a negative coronavirus test. But that doesn’t stop people’s mingling in the streets and mixing with other members of the public who don’t have to go through these tests,” he said.

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Elsewhere, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned infections were also surging at an alarming rate in at least 12 countries in Africa, with the Delta variant leading to unprecedented hospitalisations.

According to the WHO, only one percent of Africans are fully vaccinated – the lowest ratio globally.

In South Africa, the continent’s worst-hit country, scientists said on Saturday the Delta variant appeared to be dominating new infections. On Friday, authorities registered 18,000 new cases.

Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane told the same news conference that it was now likely that the peak of the third wave would surpass the peak of the second wave in January.

In Europe, however, some countries announced the lifting of restrictions even as scientists have warned that Delta was expected to account for 90 percent of all new cases in the European Union by the end of August.

Spain on Saturday brought an end to mandatory outdoor mask-wearing, a year after the rule was first introduced.

The decision came despite the announcement of a major coronavirus cluster in the capital, Madrid, traced to a student trip to the holiday island of Mallorca, with more than 2,000 people ordered to self-isolate.

The Netherlands also ended its rules on outdoor mask-wearing, while easing restrictions on indoor dining and reopening nightclubs to people who have tested negative.

And Switzerland scrapped most of its remaining coronavirus restrictions on Saturday after Health Minister Alain Berset said this week that the country’s use of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines gave adequate protection against the Delta variant.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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