Month: December 2022

The City of Cape Town has reminded residents and visitors that Milnerton Lagoon, Milnerton Estuary Mouth and Lagoon Beach remain closed for swimming due to pollution in the Diep River.

“There has been ongoing pollution within the Diep River that has been well publicised. The Diep River discharges at the estuary mouth at Lagoon Beach. As a result, Lagoon Beach is also affected by pollution in the Diep River,” the City said.

With the peak season and hot summer temperatures, the City has been made aware that people are swimming in the estuary mouth, in Milnerton Lagoon and at Lagoon Beach.

“The City would like to remind both residents and visitors that these areas are polluted, and the Milnerton Lagoon, Milnerton Estuary Mouth and Lagoon Beach remain closed for swimming, playing and recreational use.

“Pollution warning signs remain in place. We appreciate the public’s cooperation during this time,” the City said.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Six people have been killed and several injured after a Kenyan and a Rwandan buses collided head-on along the Ntungamo-Kabale Highway in western Uganda, with authorities blaming bad weather.

The Thursday accident occurred at Hakabira on top of Rwahi hill in Rwahi town council, Ntumgamo District.

Witnesses said that at around 4 pm, the driver of the Rwandan-registered Volcano bus changed lanes and crashed into the Kenyan-registered Oxygen bus.

The Volcano bus had come from Kampala and was heading to the Rwandan capital Kigali, while the Oxygen bus was traveling to Nairobi from Kigali.

Kigezi regional police commander SSP Ibrahim Saiga said the morning fog could have impaired the driver’s visibility, leading to the accident.

Saiga said those who were seriously injured in the accident were taken to Kabale Regional Referral Hospital while others were taken to various health units in Rukiga and Ntungamo districts.

“Our officers are still compiling the details of both the dead and the injured. Among the dead are both the drivers of the ill-fated vehicles,” he added.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Mediators between Ethiopia’s federal government and authorities in the Tigray region, embroiled until last month in a brutal war, are stepping up efforts to enforce a truce as relations between the two sides inch closer towards normality.

The Nov 2 ceasefire quietened a two-year conflict that killed tens of thousands and displaced millions in the Horn of Africa country, but the implementation of parts of the deal has been slower than hoped.

Humanitarian workers in Tigray say troops from neighboring Eritrea – which should have withdrawn under the terms of the truce – are still present in several towns there, a region where millions remain hungry and needing aid.

The issue of Eritrean forces and the restoration of services and humanitarian aid to Tigray were expected to be on the agenda of a monitoring team being set up by the mediators.

The mediators were gathering in Tigray’s capital Mekelle, Nuur Mohamud Sheekh, spokesperson for the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), said on Thursday.

After more than a month’s delay, a joint monitoring and verification team comprising representatives of the government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and IGAD has been assigned, government national security adviser Redwan Hussien said.

Tigrayan leaders have complained about delays in establishing the monitoring team and implementing other provisions of the truce.

Federal police said their officers had entered Mekelle and begun operations protecting federal institutions such as banks, the airport, and power and telecom infrastructures, in line with the provisions of the truce.

Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the regional TPLF, did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, state-owned Ethiopian Airlines resumed flights on Wednesday to Mekelle, the first in 18 months. Ethio Telecom reconnected its services to Mekelle and 27 other towns, while the government says humanitarian aid is being ramped up.

“We applaud the signing and launch of the African Union’s Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Mission (AU-MVCM) in Mekele, another important step toward securing a lasting peace for the people of northern Ethiopia,” United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a written statement issued on Thursday.

“The United States stands ready to support the AU-MVCM and full implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement (COHA), which includes disarmament of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) combatants, withdrawal of Eritrean forces, unimpeded humanitarian access, resumption of essential services, and implementation of transitional justice,” Blinken said.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

PARIS— The true global death toll of Covid-19 remains difficult to nail down three years after the first case was detected, though experts agree there have been far more fatalities than officially reported.

The difference between the official and real figures could diverge even further next year, with modelling predicting more than a million deaths in post-zero-Covid China, which recently narrowed how it counts fatalities.

There have been more than 6.65 million officially reported Covid deaths since the virus was first identified in China in December 2019, according to the World Health Organization.

However countries count Covid deaths differently and methods have changed throughout the pandemic.

Attributing deaths to Covid can be a very difficult exercise, said Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva.

The death of a patient in a hospital in a developed country who had already been diagnosed with Covid could be straightforward but that is often not the case and doctors “usually do not have much information” to guide them, Flahault said.

Instead researchers have sought to compare the total number of deaths from all causes recorded since 2020 to what would have been expected if there had been no pandemic.

Using these figures, researchers from the WHO reported in the journal Nature earlier this month that there were 14.83 million excess deaths from Covid in 2020 and 2021, updating a figure first released in May.

That is nearly three times higher than the 5.4 million officially reported Covid deaths over those two years.

Research from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated in March that the number was an even higher 18.2 million.

But Flahault said that even these figures could “perhaps still be an underestimate”.

The toll has risen more slowly this year. A regularly updated tally from The Economist estimates that there have been 21 million excess deaths since the pandemic’s start — 3.1 times higher than the official number.

According to the WHO figures, India had by far the most excess deaths linked to Covid in 2020-2021 with 4.74 million, a figure the Indian government has sharply disputed.

Russia came next with a little over one million. However the biggest disparities between the expected number of deaths and the actual figure were in South America.

Peru, for example, recorded around twice as many total deaths in 2020-2021 as it had in normal times.

However Hanno Ulmer of Austria’s Medical University of Innsbruck pointed out that there were “also strong dengue fever outbreaks during the pandemic years in Peru”, which could have increased the number of excess deaths without being linked to Covid.

Another problem is that many nations have little or no data in the first place.

“For almost half the countries of the world, tracking excess mortality is not possible using the data that are available and for these we must rely on statistical models,” the WHO researchers wrote in this month’s study.

In Africa, monthly data on deaths was only available for six out of 47 countries.

Looking forward to 2023, China’s lifting of its zero-Covid measures loom large as a possible source of new deaths.

With the first easing of strict measures in place the start of the pandemic, few of China’s 1.4 billion population have immunity from previous Covid infection, and vaccination rates have lagged, particularly among the at-risk elderly.

Modelling by the IHME predicts more than 300,000 Covid deaths in China by April 1 — and a total of over a million across 2023.

Last week China reclassified what it considers to be Covid deaths, which will now only count if they come directly from respiratory failure, in a move that analysts say will dramatically the number of officially recognised deaths.

Hospitals across China have been overwhelmed by an explosion of infections in recent weeks but just one new death was added on Thursday to a tally by a national disease control body.

Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at IHME, said that good data was the only way “we can manage to stay ahead of the virus”.

Source: Nam news Network

JOHANNESBURG— Mourners are expected to pay their respects to the victims of the of Boksburg explosion during a memorial service hosted by the Gauteng provincial government on Friday at the Boksburg Civic Centre.

The death toll of the explosion incident of a truck near the OR Tambo Memorial Hospital on Saturday, Dec 24, now reportedly stands at 27.

According to a media report, 10 of the deceased are health workers from Tambo Memorial Hospital.

Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, together with Gauteng MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, are expected to attend the memorial service.

President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this week expressed deep sadness at the continued loss of life following the explosion.

“The nation’s hearts go out to everyone affected by this devastating incident. Such events take on greater sadness and tragedy when they occur at this time of year when all of us pray for safety and look forward to the togetherness and comfort of extended time with family and friends.

“In this instance, the loss of life is rendered more intense because some of the victims were hospital patients, hospital staff and children, while firefighters are counted among the injured.

“While we await the outcome of investigations into this tragedy, this incident does, like so many others, call on all of us to show due care and to avoid risk when we are out on our roads, which we share as a public amenity,” the President said.

He has expressed his appreciation for the rescue and recovery efforts by government agencies and services, as well as organisations such as Gift of the Givers.

The truck driver has been released on a warning pending further investigation.

The 32-year-old suspect had been charged with multiple counts of culpable homicide, negligent causing of an explosion, resulting in death [Act 26 of 1956, Section 27 (2)] and malicious damage to property.

Source: Nam news Network

PARIS— Nearly 1,700 journalists have been killed worldwide over the past 20 years, an average of more than 80 a year, according to an analysis published by Reporters Without Borders.

The two decades between 2003 and 2022 were “especially deadly decades for those in the service of the right to inform”, said the Paris-based media rights campaigners.

“Behind the figures, there are the faces, personalities, talent and commitment of those who have paid with their lives for their information gathering, their search for the truth and their passion for journalism,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

Iraq and Syria were the most dangerous countries to work as a journalist, accounting for “a combined total of 578 journalists killed in the past 20 years, or more than a third of the worldwide total”, RSF said.

They are followed by Mexico (125 killed), the Philippines (107), Pakistan (93), Afghanistan (81) and Somalia (78).

The “darkest years” were 2012 and 2013, “due in large measure to the war in Syria”. There were 144 killings in 2012 and 142 the year after, the report said.

This peak was “followed by a gradual fall and then historically low figures from 2019 onwards”.

But deaths increased again in 2022, in part because of the war in Ukraine. So far this year, 58 journalists have been killed doing their jobs, up from 51 in 2021.

Eight journalists have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February. This compares to a total of 12 media deaths there over the preceding 19 years.

Ukraine is currently the most dangerous country in Europe for the media, after Russia itself, where 25 journalists have been killed over the past 20 years.

“Since (President) Vladimir Putin took over, Russia has seen systematic attacks on press freedom — including deadly ones — as RSF has repeatedly reported.

“They include Anna Politkovskaya’s high-profile murder on 7 October 2006,” the rights group said.

Elsewhere in Europe, Turkey was ranked third most dangerous, followed by France “as a result of the massacre at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015”.

Reporters run the greatest risks worldwide in areas where armed conflict has occurred.

But, RSF stressed, “countries where no war is officially taking place are not necessarily safe for reporters and some of them are near the top of the list of those where killings have occurred.

“In fact, more journalists have been killed in ‘zones at peace’ than in ‘zones at war’ during the past two decades, in most cases because they were investigating organised crime and corruption.”

The Americas accounted for almost half of journalist murders, many in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Honduras.

“America is nowadays clearly the world’s most dangerous continent for the media,” RSF said.

Source: Nam news Network