Author: Editorial Staff

IN the global race to vaccinate people against Covid-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack. In fact, it has barely gotten out of the starting blocks. In South Africa, which has the continent’s most robust economy and its biggest coronavirus caseload, just 0.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to a worldwide tracker kept by Johns Hopkins University. And hundreds of thousands of the country’s health workers, many of whom come face-to-face with the virus every day, are still waiting for their shots. In Nigeria, Africa’s biggest country with more than 200 million people, only…

THE Mastercard Foundation announced Tuesday a $1.3bn initiative to galvanise Africa’s coronavirus vaccine campaign through a partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The programme will acquire vaccines for at least 50 million people and invest in vaccine production capacity on the continent, a joint press statement from the foundation and the Africa CDC said. The campaign aims to help the African Union meet its goal of vaccinating at least 60 percent of the continent’s population by the end of 2022. So far, less than two percent of Africans have received at least one dose.…

BELGIUM will return murdered Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba’s final remains – his tooth – to his compatriots at a ceremony in Brussels on June 21. The current president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, will lead a delegation for the handover, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo’s office said Tuesday. De Croo will represent Belgium at the ceremony, which is expected to mark the start of a new period of mourning for Lumumba, who was assassinated in 1961. In order for the young leader, the first prime minister of Congo after its independence from Belgium, to be…

SOUTH Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has put his Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on special leave, after allegations his department irregularly awarded Covid-19-related contracts to a communications company controlled by his former associates. ‘This period of special leave will enable the Minister to attend to allegations and investigations concerning contracts between the Department of Health and a service provider, Digital Vibes,’ Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. It was the latest in a series of corruption allegations linked to coronavirus-related tenders that have caused public outrage. Ramaphosa has promised that corruption during the Covid-19 pandemic will be dealt with…

FORMER US President Donald Trump on Tuesday congratulated Nigeria for blocking Twitter. Trump once referred to African nations, of which Nigeria is one, as “s—hole” countries. ‘Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President. More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech – all voices should be heard,’ the Business Insider reported Trump as saying in a statement. ‘In the meantime, competitors will emerge and take hold. Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil? Perhaps I should have done it while…

A SOUTH African woman claims to have given birth to ten children in what would be the world’s largest ever live birth if confirmed by doctors. Gosiame Thamara Sithole, 37 (pictured), who is already a mother of twins, gave birth to seven boys and three girls by Caesarean section at a hospital in Pretoria late Monday, her husband said. Tebogo Tsotetsi – who is currently unemployed – told journalists of the birth of the decuplets late on Monday night, saying he is ‘happy’ and ’emotional.’ Sithole had previously claimed the pregnancy was ‘natural’, but such extreme births are almost always…

LATE controversial pastor and televangelist Temitope Balogun Joshua, better known as TB Joshua, is said to have been one of the wealthiest pastors in Nigeria. According to website Glusea, which ranks the net worth of celebrities, among others, the Synagogue Church of All Nations founder’s net worth was valued at $150 million. Glusea wrote that Joshua owned a private jet worth $60 million and a fleet of luxury cars. According to Nigerian news website Otakukart, TB Joshua was named one of Africa’s 50 most influential people by pan-African magazines The Africa Report and New African Magazine. The news site also…

ASSIMI Goita, the Malian colonel who has overthrown two presidents in the past nine months, said he would oversee a transition towards democratic elections as he was sworn in as interim president on Monday. Goita, a 38-year-old special forces commander, had already been declared president by the Constitutional Court in May after ousting Bah Ndaw, but was formally sworn in on Monday during a ceremony in the capital Bamako. Within hours, he appointed opposition leader and former minister Choguel Maiga as prime minister, according to a decree read on state television. It was not immediately clear to what extent Maiga’s…

ERITREA foreign minister has blamed US administrations that supported the Tigray People’s Liberation Movement (TPLF) for the last 20 years for the current conflict in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, adding that blaming Eritrea for the fighting was unfounded. In a letter to the UN Security Council circulated on Monday, Osman Saleh accused President Joe Biden’s administration of ‘stoking further conflict and destabilisation’ through interference and intimidation in the region, apparently to ‘resuscitate the remnants of the TPLF regime.’ The TPLF led the coalition that ruled Ethiopia for nearly 30 years until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rose to power in 2018. Abiy…

SUDAN on Monday renewed its rejection to unilateral filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) without reaching a legal and binding agreement, official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. Charing a meeting a meeting of the Higher Committee for the GERD, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok noted the direct threat the unilateral filling and operating of the GERD poses to Sudan’s Roseires Dam, irrigation projects, power generating systems and citizens on the banks of the Blue Nile. The meeting also renewed Sudan’s adherence to and belief in the principle of ‘African solutions to African problems.’ Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have…