Africa (except North Africa)

GABORONE, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Botswana government and the European Union (EU) launched the Multi-Annual Indicative Program (MIP) on Tuesday, covering the period of 2021 to 2027 with an initial grant of 16 million euros (about 16.44 million U.S. dollars).

Speaking during the launch in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, Botswana's Minister of Finance, Peggy Serame, stated that the priorities of MIP set out two priority areas: green transformation and economic diversification.

HARARE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean health workers have left the country in droves over the past year, a senior official at the Health Services Board (HSB) revealed on Sunday.

More than 4,000 health workers have left since 2021, HSB chairperson Dr Paulinus Sikosana told Reuters. This includes more than 1,700 registered nurses who resigned last year and more than 900 who left this year.

Health workers went on strike in June demanding to be paid in U.S. dollars as inflation further weakened the local currency.

KAMPALA, Nov 20 (NNN-NEWVISION) — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has met the Senior Advisor to the EU on Emerging Threats in the Great Lakes Region, Horn of Africa, and Western Indian Ocean, Charles Stuart, and the two have discussed a wide range of issues centered on security collaboration, investment, and support for wealth creation projects. 

Sources at the State House privy to the meeting said Stuart lauded Museveni for the stability he and the Uganda People’s Defense Forces had initiated in the Great Lakes Region and Somalia.

DAKAR, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The world's longest-ruling leader, President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, staged a vote on Sunday to extend his 43-year-rule of a tiny, authoritarian African state where once plentiful oil wealth has been in a rapid decline.

"What you sow is what you reap," said Obiang, 80, who has regularly won more than 90 percent of the vote in elections conducted over the course of five terms since he seized power from his uncle in a coup in 1979.

"I am sure that the victory is for PDGE," he said, referring to his party.

MASAKHANE, South Africa (AP) — Living in the shadow of one of South Africa’s largest coal-fired power stations, residents of Masakhane fear job losses if the facility is closed as the country moves to cleaner energy.

A significant polluter because it relies on coal to generate about 80% of its electricity, South Africa plans to reduce that to 59% by 2030 by phasing out some of its 15 coal-fired power stations and increasing its use of renewable energy. Its target is zero carbon emissions by 2050.

KAMPALA, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said East African nations working with the Congolese government will bring order in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Museveni, according to a State House statement issued here late on Friday, said this while meeting a visiting UN Security Council delegation.

East African countries are deploying troops in eastern DRC under the East African Community (EAC) Regional Force.

18 Nov 2022; MEMO: A suspected Israeli gang leader, arrested by South African police on Thursday in an affluent Johannesburg suburb, appeared in court on Friday for an extradition hearing, Reuters reports.

The 46-year-old, wanted for conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, is attached to a criminal group called the Abergil Organisation and has been on Interpol's Red Notice list since 2015.

JUBA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, on Friday urged international support for humanitarian efforts in South Sudan in the wake of historic floods that for four years in a row have left nearly one million people in desperate need of assistance.

Raouf Mazou, UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Operations said the world should intensify support to provide South Sudan with climate-adapted development assistance to help it move away from dependency on humanitarian aid.

16 Nov 2022; MEMO: Turkish and South African firms met Friday in Johannesburg to explore investment opportunities, reports Anadolu Agency.

NAIROBI, Nov 16 (NNN-KBC) – The World Bank’s private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), launched a 225-million-U.S.-dollar platform, that seeks to strengthen venture capital ecosystems in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan.

IFC said, the platform will provide funds that will be invested in early-stage companies, that address development challenges through technological innovations in climate, health care, education, e-commerce and agriculture, as a means to build the digital economy of the beneficiary countries.