Africa - Page 30

“Eleven times fewer” Chinese coronavirus patients — or just 1.7 percent — were hospitalized for symptoms as part of South Africa’s latest wave of the Omicron variant compared to the 19 percent of coronavirus patients admitted to hospitals during South Africa’s equivalent summer wave of the Delta strain, South Africa’s Health Ministry told reporters on Friday, as reported by the U.K.’s Daily Mail.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government on Wednesday said it was donating 1 million coronavirus vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX program.

Zimbabwe’s state power grid failed to meet national demand on Tuesday causing blackouts across “most parts of the country,” the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged Kenyan government authorities to drop a mandate requiring anyone seeking government services in Kenya to show proof of Chinese coronavirus vaccination, arguing the system undermines “basic rights.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa tested positive for an undisclosed strain of the Chinese coronavirus on Sunday and was presenting “mild symptoms” of illness as of Monday, Reuters reported.

(AFP) — After nine years deployed in Mali, France is organising a drawdown, with troops preparing to leave the last of three bases in the far north of the insurgency-hit and poverty-wracked country.

The South African government is being urged to apologize to Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane after she finished in the top three of the Miss Universe competition in Israel on Sunday night — after her own country withdrew its support for her efforts because she would not boycott the Jewish state.

South Africa, the most important democratic country on the African continent, is boycotting President Joe Biden’s two-day “democracy summit,” after the Biden administration slapped a hasty travel ban on the country due to the omicron variant.

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Teodoro Locsin, Jr., denounced on Tuesday the “breathtaking stupidity” of travel bans imposed on African countries following the discovery of the Omicron variant of Chinese coronavirus in late November.

South African Dr. Angelique Coetzee — who discovered a new variant of “Covid-19,” or the Chinese coronavirus, called Omicron last month in her patients — told the Africa News Agency (ANA) on Tuesday she considered the worldwide bans on travel out of southern Africa following Omicron’s emergence “knee-jerk” and short-sighted, given the lack of information about the strain.

The Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), the rebranded ISIS affiliate wing of Boko Haram, allegedly funnels roughly $43 million through official Nigerian financial institutions annually according to a new report by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA).

An editorial in the government-owned newspaper Ghanaian Times published Monday accused President Joe Biden and other Western leaders of “mak[ing] Africa their whipping boy” by banning African travelers from entering their countries in response to the discovery of the “Omicron” variant of Chinese coronavirus.

An appeals court reinstated the presidential candidacy of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, son of late dictator Muammar Qaddafi, after he was disqualified from running in this month’s Libyan presidential election.

The presidents of Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire joined South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for engagements on Wednesday and Thursday in solidarity following the imposition of a travel ban on that country by President Joe Biden and leaders of European and Middle Eastern states this week.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday denounced President Joe Biden’s ban on travel from southern Africa, and similar measures hastily imposed by other nations after the Omicron coronavirus outbreak, as “travel apartheid” – in other words, racist mistreatment of Africans.

Presumed Islamic militants sent a letter this week to Nigerian Christian leaders threatening attacks unless all churches in Zamfara state are closed to worship, the Barnabas Fund reported.

The director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) told Reuters on Tuesday the new coronavirus variant Omicron could “outcompete Delta,” a highly-transmissible strain of coronavirus that emerged before Omicron in India in December 2020.

Nigerian Minister of State for Labor and Employment Festus Keyamo said on Monday that Twitter has agreed to all of the conditions for reinstatement laid out when President Muhammadu Buhari banned the social media platform in June.

The director-general of the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, discouraged countries on Tuesday from enacting travel bans on African countries that had contributed to identifying the Omicron variant of Chinese coronavirus, which the U.N. agency branded a “variant of concern” last week.

The governments of the Netherlands and Nigeria revealed between Tuesday and Wednesday that they had found evidence of people in their countries testing positive for the Omicron variant of the Chinese coronavirus prior to scientists in South Africa confirming its existence.

Senegal welcomes “China’s influence” to help combat Islamist terrorism throughout the country and its surrounding region of West Africa, Senegal Foreign Minister Aissata Tall Sall told reporters at a summit with her Chinese counterpart in Dakar on Sunday.

South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said on Monday there is “absolutely no need to panic” over the Omicron variant of the Wuhan coronavirus.

More African leaders on Monday joined South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera in condemning travel bans against their nations – imposed hurriedly by U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western and Asian governments after the discovery of the Omicron coronavirus variant – as unreasonable actions driven by virus panic and racist animosity towards Africans.

Chinese and Ugandan officials on Monday denied reports that China is preparing to take control of Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport after the Ugandan government defaults on Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) loans.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned travel bans rapidly imposed in the past week on southern African countries in response to the discovery of a new Chinese coronavirus variant, stating on Monday that he was “deeply concerned” about policies such as that enacted by President Joe Biden.

Noah, who spent four years bashing President Donald Trump as a racist, is experiencing the same shock as many other South Africans upon discovering belatedly that the man they backed as his replacement has little compassion for Africans at all.

China’s state-run Global Times dismissed the mRNA technology vaccines against Chinese coronavirus used in America as too “high-priced” and “complicated” for Africa on Monday, shortly before dictator Xi Jinping announced China would give the continent 1 billion doses of its low-quality alternatives.

Botswana Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti told reporters Sunday the new coronavirus variant Omicron did not “originate” in Botswana but rather was first “detected” in a group of foreign diplomats who traveled to Botswana from an undisclosed location.

Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera on Sunday denounced bans on Africa travel imposed by the Biden administration and several other governments, in response to the Omicron coronavirus variant, as “Afrophobia.”

South African citizens complained over the weekend that the Chinese coronavirus’s latest superstar variant, now generally referred to as the “Omicron variant,” has been closely identified with their nation.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, condemned on Sunday what he repeatedly called “unjustified” travel bans on citizens of his country and its neighbors by much of the West and the Middle East in response to the discovery of a new Chinese coronavirus variant known as “Omicron.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending an Ethiopian war with Eritrea — is currently leading federal Ethiopian troops on the “frontline” of the country’s latest battle against separatist forces from northern

Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, son of late dictator Muammar Qaddafi, was disqualified Wednesday from running in Libya’s upcoming presidential election.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has blasted a decision by the U.S. State Department to remove Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), calling the move “a retreat from the noble and necessary fight to protect victims of religious persecution.”

The president remains on his extended Thanksgiving vacation on Nantucket island at a $30 million compound with his extended family, having no events on his public schedule.

World Health Organization (W.H.O.) officials will meet Friday to address concerns regarding the latest coronavirus variant on the rise in South Africa.