Africa (except North Africa)

NAIROBI, Nov.10 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an inclusive platform of social participation in order to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) health targets.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of WHO told a health forum in Nairobi via a video conference call that for the international community to achieve universal health coverage, it must prioritize the needs of those left furthest behind, including women, children and adolescents.

DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- UN Women, the United Nations organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, is working in partnership with the government of Tanzania in the fight against gender-based violence, a senior official said on Sunday.

"Since this collaboration has started to be implemented cases of gender-based violence have started to drop down significantly," said Faustine Ndugulile, Tanzania's Deputy Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children.

OGUN, Nigeria, Nov 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), will build a rolling stock assembly plant in Nigeria, to promote the country’s railway modernisation project.

At a groundbreaking ceremony for the plant at Kajola, a town in the southwestern state of Ogun, Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, said, it is a “historic turning point” in Nigeria’s railway modernisation plan.

NAIROBI, Nov 7 (NNN-ALLAFRICA) — Kenya has agreed to share the disputed Migingo island with Uganda. This comes even as the government maintains that the land is in Kenya.

Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma said they had signed an MoU with Ugandan authorities to enable fishermen and other Lake Victoria users to access either side of the boundary.

KIGALI, Nov 7 (NNN-Xinhua) — The Rwandan government refused to intervene in a criminal case involving two detained former Rwandan military officers in a letter responding to British lawmakers’s request to release them.

Col. Tom Byabagamba, former bodyguard of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Brig. Gen. Frank Rusagara, former Rwandan defence attache to Britain, were convicted by a military court in the capital city Kigali in 2016 and were sentenced to imprisonment of 21 and 20 years respectively for inciting the public against the government and the country’s leadership.

7 November 2019; AFP: An ambush on a convoy transporting employees of a Canadian mining company in Burkina Faso killed 37 people on Wednesday, the deadliest attack in nearly five years of jihadist violence in the West African country.

The impoverished and politically fragile Sahel country has been struggling to quell a rising jihadist revolt that has claimed hundreds of lives since early 2015.

HARARE, Nov 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The government of Zimbabwe has fired 77 doctors who have been taking part in a strike since September over pay.

Last month a court ruled that the strike was illegal and ordered them back to work but they defied the ruling.

Hundreds of doctors, who are also on strike, are waiting to know their fate as the government looks determined to keep playing hardball.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis and high inflation has severely eroded people’s earnings.

MONROVIA, Nov 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Liberians are stuck in long queues at cash machines as many have run out of bank notes.

Customers trying to get money at bank counters have also complained they can’t get Liberian dollars.

The ministry of finance says there is not sufficient money in the vaults of commercial banks because people are keeping money at home – something observers say is motivated by a lack of confidence in the banks.

Liberia has had a problematic recent history with bank notes.

CAPE TOWN, Nov 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — South Africa’s national oil company PetroSA and Russia’s state geological company Rosgeologia are in talks to finalize a $359 million farmout deal to give Russia its first foothold in a prospective oil and gas field offshore South Africa, three sources said.

PetroSA is under pressure to boost dwindling domestic resources that have imperiled its flagship Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid refinery, which is operating well below capacity.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — War-torn South Sudan is “barreling toward a crisis” and could slide back into fighting, warned the International Crisis Group on Monday.

The new report said the country’s warring parties aren’t ready to form a coalition government on November 12th, when opposition leader Riek Machar is planned to return and once again serve as President Salva Kiir’s deputy, as part of a power sharing agreement to pull the country out of a five-year civil war that killed almost 400,000 people.