Category: General

As Desmond Tutu turns 90 on Thursday, he remains indisputably the moral voice of South Africa. But age is catching up with him.

The jovial emeritus archbishop retired in 2010 and rarely speaks in public, in a country that sometimes feels adrift without the leadership of its anti-apartheid liberation icons.

Even though South Africa has eased its COVID-19 precautions, the birthday festivities will be muted and largely online.

Renowned for his radiating energy and infectious laughter, Tutu is expected to attend a special service Thursday at St George’s Cathedral, where he once held the pulpit as South Africa’s first black Anglican archbishop.

Later that day, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation will host an online lecture by the Dalai Lama, Ireland’s former president Mary Robinson, rights activist Graca Machel and South Africa’s ex-ombudswoman Thuli Madonsela, respected for her courageous exposure of corruption.

The line-up of speakers is a reminder of Tutu’s values, surrounding himself with rights advocates at a time when South Africa’s current leaders are better known for lavish lifestyles and billion-dollar bank accounts.

An online auction of his memorabilia last month raised $237,000 for the foundation named after him and Leah, his wife of 66 years.

The last time Tutu himself was seen in public was in May, when he and Leah went to receive their COVID-19 vaccinations.

He smiled and waved from a wheelchair outside a hospital, but didn’t speak to journalists waiting outside — a far cry from the buoyant personality who captivated the world with his strident opposition to apartheid, which won him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

‘Rainbow nation’

Knowing him now as a towering figure on the world stage, it’s hard to remember that when he returned from his studies in Britain in the 1960s, he was subjected to the same humiliations as any other black South African.

His daughter Mpho Tutu-van Furth, with whom he has authored two books, remembers driving cross-country with her family to bring her siblings to boarding school.

“I have a memory of stopping at a place along the way, and my dad going into the store to go and buy ice cream for us, because it was just sticky hot,” Tutu-van Furth told AFP.

“And the person saying to him that they don’t serve kaffirs inside the shop, that you have to go around to the window. And my dad just kind of slammed out of there.

“We weren’t going to get ice cream that day.”

Kaffir is South Africa’s worst racial slur, and the utterance today can lead to criminal charges.

He eventually grew his leadership in the Anglican Church, creating a path towards reconciliation. He coined the term “rainbow nation”, and deeply believed that the South African experiment could show the world a new way to overcome conflicts.

His ideas of forgiveness have fallen out of favor with some younger South Africans, who feel that black people surrendered too much in the transition to democracy, without holding apartheid criminals to account.

What endeared Tutu to the nation was that he didn’t stop speaking out after democracy arrived.

He confronted homophobia in the Anglican Church, challenged Nelson Mandela over generous salaries for Cabinet ministers and stridently criticized the endemic corruption that mushroomed under ex-president Jacob Zuma.

“He played such a unique role,” said William Gumede, of the Democracy Works Foundation. “We were fortunate during the transition that we had him and we had Mandela, these two statesmen who were moral leaders.”

But that era is over.

“We’re entering a period where we’re not going to have those really big moral leaders,” Gumede said. “So how do we build the society that we want?”

Source: Voice of America

Thousands of supporters of Tunisian President Kais Saied rallied in the capital on Sunday to show their backing for his suspension of parliament and promises to change the political system, acts his critics call a coup.

The demonstration in central Tunis was called in response to protests over the previous two weekends in the same location against Saied’s actions. It is expected to far outnumber those gatherings.

Demonstrators waved Tunisian flags and carried placards railing against Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that is the biggest in parliament and has acted as Saied’s main antagonist.

“We ask the president to dissolve parliament and hold accountable those who made the people suffer for a decade,” Salem Ajoudi, one of the demonstrators, said.

The president plunged Tunisia into a constitutional crisis in July by suspending the elected parliament, dismissing the prime minister and assuming executive authority.

Last month he brushed aside much of the constitution to say he could pass legislation by decree, casting into doubt Tunisia’s democratic gains since its 2011 revolution that triggered the “Arab spring” revolts across the Muslim world.

Saied’s intervention followed years of economic stagnation and political paralysis, aggravated by an impoverishing lockdown last year, a slow-starting vaccination campaign and street protests.

Many Tunisians blame those ills on a corrupt, self-interested political elite, and they see Saied, an independent elected in 2019, as a champion for ordinary people.

Among his supporters, Saied’s intervention is widely regarded as a long-overdue reset of a democratic experiment that established interests pulled off course.

“Saied is a clean president who has come to restore real democracy,” said Mongi Abdullah, a teacher from Mahdia who had come to join the rally.

While opinion polls show Saied’s moves have widespread support, his long delay in declaring a timeline out of the crisis has started to cement opposition to him.

Most of the political elite and the powerful labor union UGTT say he must start consulting more widely if he plans to amend the constitution, as he has indicated he will.

Tunisian police on Sunday arrested a member of parliament and a television presenter who have been prominent critics of Saied since July, their lawyer said. Neither the police nor army were immediately available for comment.

Source: Voice of America

Algeria on Saturday rejected “inadmissible interference” in its affairs, hours after recalling its ambassador from Paris following comments by French President Emmanuel Macron reported by the French and Algerian media.

The statement, from the Algerian presidency, said it had withdrawn its ambassador following media reports of the French leader’s comments, which had not been denied.

The French daily Le Monde reported that Macron had made critical remarks about the former French colony during a meeting Thursday with descendants of figures from the war of independence.

Macron reportedly said the country was ruled by a “political-military system” and described Algeria as having an “official history” which had been “totally re-written,” the paper reported.

He said this history was “not based on truths” but “on a discourse of hatred towards France”, according to Le Monde — though he made clear that he was not referring to Algerian society as a whole but to the ruling elite.

The statement from the Algerian presidency said: “Following remarks that have not been denied, which several French sources have attributed by name to (Macron), Algeria expresses its categorical rejection of the inadmissible interference in its internal affairs.”

Macron also spoke out on current Algerian politics. His counterpart Abdelmajid Tebboune was “trapped in a system which is very tough,” the French president was quoted as saying.

“You can see that the Algerian system is tired, it has been weakened by the Hirak,” he added, referring to the pro-democracy movement which forced Tebboune’s predecessor Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power in 2019 after two decades at the helm.

Visa tensions

It is the second time that Algeria has recalled an ambassador from France.

Algiers also recalled its ambassador in May 2020 after French media broadcast a documentary about the Hirak.

Saturday’s move comes amid tension over a French decision to sharply reduce the number of visas it grants to citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

France said the decision, which it announced Tuesday, had been made necessary by the former colonies’ failure to do enough to allow illegal migrants to return.

The Algerian foreign ministry summoned French ambassador Francois Gouyette on Wednesday and handed him a “formal protest” note concerning the visa ruling.

It called the visa reduction an “unfortunate act” that caused “confusion and ambiguity as to its motivation and its scope.”

Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita has described the French move as “unjustified.”

Tunisian President Kais Saied expressed disappointment with the decision in a telephone call with Macron on Saturday, his office said, adding that the French leader had said it could be revised.

French government spokesman Gabriel Attal told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday that the visa reduction decision was “unprecedented.”

Paris made that choice, he said, because Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia “are refusing to take back nationals who we do not want or cannot keep in France.”

The radio said Macron took the decision a month ago after failed diplomatic efforts with the three North African countries.

Source: Voice of America

Burkina Faso has been making headlines for an Islamist insurgency that has created one of the world’s fastest growing humanitarian crises. But one man is showcasing what the country has to offer beyond conflict with a group he created called “Burkina Faso est Chic” (Burkina Faso is Chic).

Since conflict began six years ago, tourists in Burkina Faso have become a rare sight. The U.S. State Department advises against all travel to the country due to the risk of terrorism, kidnapping and crime.

Ben Nombre, a local web developer, is doing what he can to turn the tide on the country’s image and showcase the good the country has to offer.

“Burkina Faso est Chic” was an idea he came up with in 2019, says Nombre. When he started to notice the number of [terrorist] attacks he saw that Burkina Faso’s image was being tarnished. He points out that for a long time, Burkina Faso was a country where there were a lot of tourists coming in, before many of them were lost in recent years.

“Burkina Faso est Chic’s” Facebook page has attracted almost 24,000 followers. It posts regularly, highlighting a range of topics from lively nightspots to nature and wildlife.

The West African country has a rich equestrian heritage, but one local business that had catered to tourists wishing to ride horses is struggling, says the owner, Siaka Gnanou.

“It’s been affected a lot, it’s been affected a lot since 2016. It’s like, you see, at one time in such moments here it was full of people but since the terrorism it’s affected a lot,” Gnanou said.

The government says that as international tourist numbers have dropped, they are looking at aiding businesses in the tourism industry.

Élise Foniyama Ilboudo Thiombiano, Burkina Faso’s minister of culture, arts and tourism, says “we had a lot of money coming in from tourism, but we saw a considerable drop of more than 28% of that income. So there was a negative impact, at least at the beginning.” Now, she says, it is necessary to develop domestic tourism instead of foreign tourism.

Phillipe Yameogo, the manager of Squash Time, a recently opened club, which offers visitors the chance to play squash before drinks and dancing, says that when Nombre made a post about the club on “Burkina Faso est Chic,” it transformed their business.

He says it boosted their business to the point where they were forced to turn people away on the weekends. They are now in the process of extending the building to accommodate more people because they were so overwhelmed. “I really take my hat off to Mr. Ben,” says Yameogo.

Even in the midst of conflict, some aspects of Burkina Faso still thrive.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations is issuing a $139-million flash appeal to provide assistance to 1.3 million people in Kenya hardest hit by a severe drought.

Millions of people across Kenya are suffering from two back-to-back seasons of poor rainfall, resulting in severe food shortages.

The latest Integrated Phase Classification, which analyzes the severity of food insecurity, finds nearly 370,000 Kenyans are in a state of emergency and two million others are in crisis.

World Food Program Resident Coordinator in Kenya Stephen Jackson, speaking via Zoom from the capital, Nairobi, says acute malnutrition rates are rising rapidly. He says 465,000 children and 96,000 pregnant and lactating women are acutely malnourished. He warns many are at imminent risk without urgent nutritional feeding.

On a visit to a clinic Thursday in Wajir, northern Kenya, he said people told him it had been more than a year since they last felt rain.

“I spoke with a young mother, Zeinab, who told me that she could not feed her children that morning and that she did not know if she would be able to put food on the table that evening. And that many of her livestock had already died because of the drought and those that are left are not in a good condition to sell. And you know, of course, in northern Kenya, livestock is the basis of life,” he said.

Jackson said problems arising from drought are compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, insecurity, the recent locust infestations, and diseases.

The Kenyan government so far has allocated about $17 million to assist the most vulnerable drought victims and has announced another $20 million for this effort. However, Jackson said that is not enough and support from international donors is needed.

“The time to act is now. As I already stressed, if the October rains fail, that would be the third season in a row without rain. And we would be the end of this year be facing a much deeper crisis still. Something on the order of what we saw 10 years ago. So, any support we provide now will save lives and livelihoods,” Jackson said.

The 2011 East Africa drought caused a severe food crisis across the region, threatened the livelihoods of 9.5 million people and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

The current appeal will provide food and livelihoods, special nutritional treatment for acutely malnourished children and women, access to water, sanitation, and hygiene, health care, education, and other essential needs.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. secretary-general expressed “shock” Thursday after the Ethiopian government announced the expulsion of seven senior U.N. humanitarian officials working in the country.

“In Ethiopia, the U.N. is delivering lifesaving aid — including food, medicine, water, and sanitation supplies — to people in desperate need,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “I have full confidence in the U.N. staff who are in Ethiopia doing this work.”

He said the organization is engaging with the Ethiopian authorities “in the expectation that the concerned U.N. staff will be allowed to continue their important work.”

The seven officials have been given 72 hours to leave Ethiopia. They include the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian chief, the deputy humanitarian coordinator, and the U.N. Children’s Agency (UNICEF) representative.

In a tweet, the ministry of foreign affairs said the seven were “meddling in the internal affairs of the country.”

Conflict-induced hunger

The Ethiopian federal government has been engaged in an armed conflict with rebels in the northern Tigray region for nearly one year. The government declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrew its forces in June, but the conflict has continued to spill into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.

Of the 6 million people who live in Tigray, the U.N. says 5.2 million need some level of food assistance. Over 400,000 people are already living in famine-like conditions, and another 1.8 million people are on the brink of famine.

On Wednesday, U.N. Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths said that after 11 months of conflict and three months of a de facto government blockade, the humanitarian crisis in Tigray is spiraling out of control.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Griffiths said the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia is a “stain on our conscience,” as civilians starve because aid workers are being blocked from getting enough supplies to them.

One hundred aid trucks are needed daily in the region, but in the past week, only 79 in total were allowed in, a U.N. spokesman said.

“Trucks carrying fuel and medical supplies still cannot enter into Tigray,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday. “Trucks are waiting in Semera, in Afar, to travel to Mekelle.”

The federal government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, blames the rebels for blocking the aid deliveries.

White House condemnation

“The U.S. government condemns in the strongest possible terms the government of Ethiopia’s unprecedented action to expel the leadership of all of the United Nations organizations involved in ongoing humanitarian operations,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing the government to impose financial sanctions on those who prolong the conflict.

“We will not hesitate to use this or any other tool at our disposal to respond quickly and decisively to those who obstruct humanitarian assistance to people of Ethiopia,” Psaki said.

Source: Voice of America