Africa (except North Africa)

31 August 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's Communications Directorate on Tuesday organised a panel on reform in the UN Security Council in Cape Town, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Moderated by Turkish scholar, Mursel Bayram, the panel brought together Turkish Professor, Suay Nilhan Acikalin, South African economist, William Gumede and Daryl Swanepoel, head of the South Africa-based civil society group, Inclusive Society Institute.

The panel kicked off with a video message from Turkiye's Communications Director, Fahrettin Altun.

NAIROBI, Aug 31 (NNN-KBC) — Kenya is at an advanced stage of sealing export deals with Malaysia and Mauritius for shipment of day-old chicks.

The Director of Veterinary Services Obadiah Njagi says talks with the two nations are part of Kenya’s plan to increase live animal exports.

Kenya’s annual chicken exports are valued at Ksh27.3 million making it the 94th largest exporter in the world. Rwanda, South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia are the main markets for Kenyan chicken products.

NAIROBI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan plant health regulatory agency said Monday it has kicked off talks with its counterparts in Malaysia to secure a broader international market footprint.

Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service said it has been working hard to secure export market access for local avocado growers beyond the traditional European markets.

LUANDA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Angola's main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), on Tuesday said it would contest the election results and lodge a complaint that seeks to suspend the announcement of the Aug. 24 general election final results.

This came after the National Electoral Commission (CNE) announced Monday that the ruling party, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), won the 2022 general elections by gaining 51.17 percent of the votes cast.

ABUJA, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A Nigerian judge on Monday rejected a request by the federal government to extradite a suspended police chief to the United States to face charges linked to fraud.

Commissioner Abba Kyari has denied involvement in what a U.S. indictment describes as an elaborate scheme to defraud a Qatari businessperson of more than $1 million, masterminded by a Nigerian celebrity fraudster known as "Hushpuppi". 

Kyari has denied any wrongdoing.

NAIROBI, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a green lobby based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on Sunday launched the climate justice torch (CJT) with the aim of galvanizing local actions geared toward hastening the transition to a low carbon future.

Mithika Mwenda, the executive director of PACJA, said the CJT campaign seeks to rally grassroots communities toward activities that promote green transition in a continent already reeling from a host of climatic shocks.

NAIROBI, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga has assured the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of a peaceful settlement of electoral disputes in the country.

The 77-year-old Odinga who has challenged in court the presidential election results announced by the electoral body on Aug. 15 where his main competitor in the race, the sitting Deputy President William Ruto, was declared the winner, told Guterres in a telephone conversation Friday night that he will respect the ruling of the Supreme Court.

27 August 2022; AA: A small-scale miner in the East African country of Tanzania, Anselim Kawishe, stumbled upon two giant Tanzanite gemstones worth 2.2 billion Tanzanian shillings, or nearly a million dollars ($978,260), officials announced Saturday.

Adolf Ndunguru, permanent secretary in Tanzania’s Mining Ministry, said the government would buy the tanzanite stones, which weigh 3.74 and 1.48 kilograms (8.24 and 3.26 pounds), respectively.

27 August 2022; AA: Despite multiple interventions, child marriages are rising in Tanzania, exposing young girls to sexual exploitation while denying them the right to education, officials have warned.

Girls as young as 14 are being forced into marriage as the rising cost of living pushes families to the edge of survival.

In Tanzania’s northwestern Shinyanga region, the worst affected by drought, child marriages have doubled in just one year, officials said.

DAMATURU, Nigeria, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Lying on a small bed next to her mother, 14-month-old Aisha Usman stares blankly, her eyes sunk in their sockets and rib cage visible.

She is the latest arrival at a treatment centre for severely malnourished children in Nigeria's northeast, where a long running Islamist insurgency has uprooted millions, forcing farmers to abandon fields and causing food shortages.

Some 1.74 million children under the age of 5 face acute malnutrition in the area, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.