Author: Editorial Staff

THE nine babies born to a Malian woman on May 4 are doing well but need to remain under observation for up to two more months, the Moroccan clinic where she delivered said Wednesday. Abdelkoddous Hafsi, spokesman for Ain Borja clinic in the city of Casablanca, said the nonuplets were now breathing without assistance as they had ‘crossed the stage of respiratory distress.’ They are being tube-fed and their weight has ‘significantly’ increased, to between 800 grammes and 1.4 kilogrammes (1.7 and three pounds), he told AFP. The mother, 25-year-old Halima Cisse from Timbuktu in northern Mali, is staying near…

TWITTER removed on Wednesday a post by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari threatening punishment for regional secessionists blamed for attacks on government buildings. The social media firm said Buhari’s tweet, referring to the 1967-70 civil war in the southeastern Biafra region that killed one million people, violated its ‘abusive behaviour’ policy leading to a 12-hour suspension of his account. Buhari, who served in the army against the secessionists and was Nigeria’s military ruler in the 1980s, tweeted on Tuesday that many people misbehaving today were too young to remember the deaths and destruction from the civil war. ‘Those of us in…

NOBEL Peace laureate Denis Mukwege (pictured) on Wednesday urged politicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo to engage in the fight against sexual violence and the ‘martyrdom of populations’ in the east of the country. ‘The increasingly little commitment by our country’s political leaders at the provincial and national levels has often been the missing link’ in the fight against this violence in the eastern part of the country, Mukwege lamented. The renowned Congolese gynaecologist and surgeon, had been invited by the leader of the eastern South Kivu province assembly to address elected officials on the question of sexual violence…

FORMER Malawian president Peter Mutharika (pictured) did not properly appoint commissioners of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda ruled on Wednesday. Nyirenda said the law compelled the president to appoint three commissioners each from the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Mutharika appointed four from the DPP and only two from the opposition MCP. He was delivering judgment in a case where the MCP complained about the composition of the electoral commission. According to news website Malawi24, MCP cited Section 4 of the amended Electoral Commission Act of 2017, which gives parties with one-tenth…

KENYA plans to boost labour exports in order to enhance remittances from the diaspora, a senior government official said on Wednesday. Simon Chelugui, cabinet secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (pictured), told journalists in Nairobi that the number of Kenyans in the diaspora is estimated at four million and their remittances is below that of other African nations such as Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana. Chelugui who spoke during the graduation of home-care management trainees said that the country’s focus is now on export of skilled labour which will attract better remuneration for Kenyan workers. Data showed that…

IVORIAN-BURKINABE tailor Pathe’O (pictured) can look back on a 50-year career that has seen him rise from self-taught improviser to supplier of Africa’s wealthy and powerful, including anti-apartheid torchbearer Nelson Mandela. As well as South Africa’s first black president, his richly coloured shirts have graced the backs of Moroccan King Mohamed VI, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and the continent’s richest man Aliko Dangote. Now he’s doing his best to change attitudes to his profession across Africa and create opportunities for the next generation. ‘In the minds of many people here, tailoring is a job for people who didn’t go to…

AIRTEL Tanzania has sold 1,400 towers in the country to a joint venture comprising Paradigm Infrastructure Limited and SBA Communications Corporation. The sale generated around $175 million for Airtel, of which about $157.5 million is payable on the first closing date, expected to take place in the second half of the group’s  current financial year. The balance will be paid in instalments and around $60 million from the proceeds will be reinvested in network and sales infrastructure in Tanzania and for distribution to the country’s government. The Airtel Tanzania subsidiary will continue to develop, maintain and operate its equipment on…

WHEN Strive Masiyiwa fought in Zimbabwe’s highest court for the right to launch a mobile telecoms business – an application contested for five years by the then Mugabe government – he was armed with a ‘killer’ stat, says the Financial Times (FT): ’70 percent of Africans had never heard a telephone ring.’ That was in 1993 and the rest, as they say, is history. By 2010, Masiyiwa was reporting that nearly 70 percent of Africans own a telephone – many of them tapping into networks provided by the company he founded, Econet Wireless. A portfolio of directorships The growth of…

MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita (pictured) has made a three-day visit to Ghana and launched major projects that the operator aims to achieve by 2022, Ecofin reported. It intends to improve and expand network infrastructure to bring quality telecom services to rural areas and supporting Ghana’s QR code project and other digital initiatives such as combating cyber-attacks and developing women’s participation in ICT, he said. Mupita also revealed MTN’s intention to build an ICT centre in Ghana and finalise the opening of 30 percent of MTN Ghana’s capital to local investors by the end of the year. MTN plans to…

MUCH of Africa may have been spared the death toll that Covid-19 brought to other regions, but it now faces recession, growing violence and higher unemployment because of the pandemic, a report said on Wednesday. ‘The global economic shutdown has driven Africa into recession for the first time in 30 years, with severe repercussions for unemployment, poverty, inequalities and food insecurity,’ said the 2021 Ibrahim Forum Report. It was released ahead of the annual conference this weekend of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which promotes good governance in Africa. African countries implemented strict travel restrictions and robust contact tracing when the…