Africa (except North Africa)

BLANTYRE (Reuters) - Malawi’s presidency on Wednesday said it would appeal a court ruling overturning the election result that returned Peter Mutharika to power, saying that it cannot be allowed to stand.

Presidential spokesman Mgeme Kalirani said the presidency had assembled papers for the appeal against the ruling.

“The ruling by (the) ... court cannot be allowed to stand ... it will create a lot of problems in the country’s jurisprudence,” Kalirani said in a statement.

“It is a great miscarriage of justice.”

LILONGWE, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Malawi’s constitutional court ordered a new presidential election after annulling the results of a vote that re-elected President Peter Mutharika in May, citing widespread polling irregularities, including the use of correction fluid on ballot papers.

The verdict, which is expected to stoke turmoil in the traditionally peaceful southern African country, can be appealed by Mutharika, who will remain president until the fresh polls.

ABUJA, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — While the whole world is sitting on tenterhooks with taking stringent measures to stay safe from the dreaded Coronavirus, some people thought it was funny to fake contracting it.

Five Abuja residents – four men and a woman – have been reportedly arrested and paraded by the police in the Federal Capital Territory for invading the Wuse General Hospital with false claims of having contracted Coronavirus.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda is “studying” the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem, President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday, during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Such a move would be seen internationally as a statement of support for Israel’s claim for the city of Jerusalem to be its capital, a potential political win for Netanyahu less than a month before a national election on March 2.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African court issued an arrest warrant for former president Jacob Zuma on Tuesday, after he skipped court on grounds of needing medical treatment, but the judge stayed the warrant until his corruption trial resumes on May 6.

Zuma’s lawyer presented the judge with a sick note from what he said was a military hospital, but Judge Dhaya Pillay questioned whether the note was valid, as there was no medical number showing if and where the doctor was certified.

HARARE, Feb 3 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) — The Zimbabwean government and civil servants have reached an agreement for the immediate increase of salaries.

According to Cecilia Alexander, head of the public employees’ trade union confederation, “the provisional agreement” reached with the government provides for a “salary adjustment based on the cost of living from 1 January 2020.”

The purchasing power of Zimbabwean civil servants has been seriously eroded by endemic hyperinflation, forcing them to take to the streets to vent their anger.

MOGADISHU, Feb 3 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) — Somalia declared the invasion of locusts as a national emergency.

Locusts have devastated food supplies in one of the poorest and most vulnerable regions of the world.

A Sunday statement by Somalia’s Agriculture ministry said the move is due to current upsurge of locusts, which constitute a major threat to the fragile food security in the country.

The statement added that food sources for people and their livestock are under threat.

CAXITO, Angola, Feb 2 (NNN-ANGOP) – More than 109.8 million square metres of land across Angola’s northern Bengo province, has been cleared of mines since 2006, said head of the provincial department of the National De-mining Institute (INAD).

For 2020, INAD expects to clear 500,000 square metres in Bengo province, Joao Francisco de Carvalho said, at the closing ceremony of a de-mining training programme in Caxito, the capital of the province.

1 February 2020; AFP: After a racism debate in Davos on the invisibility of African climate activists, Greta Thunberg held a press conference Friday with fellow eco warriors from Kenya, Uganda and South Africa to stress the importance of their voices.

CAIRO, Feb 1 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, reached an agreement, over the disputed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the Nile River, according to the Egyptian foreign ministry.

In a statement, the ministry said, the foreign ministers and water resources ministers of the three countries, issued a joint communique of reaching a deal on the controversial dam, Ethiopia is building on the Nile River.