Central African Republic News Gazette

LUSAKA, Zambia has started the mass export of avocados to Europe with the first consignment of over 37 tons, a senior government official said.

The commencement of export came after the southern African country met the phytosanitary requirements to export the fruit into Europe, said Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Green Mbozi.

The move marks the start of huge market opportunities for Zambia’s avocado growers, Mbozi was quoted as saying by state broadcaster Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.

The agricultural ministry is in the process of finalizing discussions with South African authorities to start exporting avocados to that country, said Kenneth Msiska, director of the Plant Quarantine and Phytosanitary Service.

Source: Nam News Network

South African officials say they are releasing emergency funds Friday to help people deal with the aftermath of recent massive rains and deadly floods along the country’s eastern coast.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared the region a disaster area.

Authorities say the unprecedented rainfall killed 341 people and left tens of thousands more without shelter, water and electricity.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in a television interview on Newsroom Afrika that $68.3 million is available for immediate use, and millions more will be made available later.

“A total number of 40,723 people have been affected,” Sihle Zikalala, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, said.

There is “a sense of despair amid the stench of sewage, growing stronger as the rains, which wrought so much devastation, stopped and the tropical heat returned,” Agence France-Presse, the French news agency reported.

The news agency adds that some people have been without water and electricity since Monday.

Protests have emerged in some areas over what demonstrators say is the country’s slow response to the disaster.

“We are working as quickly as we can,” Durban’s city government said in a statement.

The South African Weather Service has issued a warning about more rain and flooding this weekend in KwaZulu-Natal and neighboring Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.

Source: Voice of America

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris used a meeting Friday with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and emphasize how important it is for the world to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tanzania has abstained on all three resolutions related to the conflict at the U.N. General Assembly, including the vote demanding that Russia withdraw its military forces, provide civilian protection and humanitarian access in Ukraine, and the vote to suspend Moscow from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Harris met the Tanzanian leader at the vice president’s ceremonial office adjacent to the White House, a historic encounter between Tanzania’s first female leader and the first American female vice president.

Before their meeting, Harris outlined to reporters three areas of discussion: strengthening democracy, investment and economic growth, and global health.

“Our administration is deeply committed to strengthen the ties in Tanzania and to African countries in general,” Harris said. “This has been an area of attentional focus and priority for both the president [Joe Biden] and for me.”

Aviation pact

The U.S. and Tanzania recently signed the Open Skies Air Transport Agreement, which establishes a civil aviation relationship between the two countries. The two leaders welcomed the investment of nearly $1 billion from American companies in Tanzania’s tourism and energy sectors, according to a readout provided by the White House.

Suluhu, elevated from vice president when John Magufuli died in March 2021, has signaled she wants to steer Tanzania’s foreign policy from inward-looking to one that draws more foreign investment. To that end, she has met leaders in Beijing, London, Brussels, Moscow and the Persian Gulf.

She used her speech at the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September — the first time a Tanzanian leader has addressed the body since 2015 — to market her country as a trading partner, promising business-friendly policy changes.

“My government would like to see our relationship grow further and strengthen to greater heights,” Suluhu told Harris. “My only request here is to call the U.S. government to encourage more of the private sector from the U.S. to work with us.”

Former Ambassador to Tanzania Mark Green, who is now president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center, said the meeting was a good sign for bilateral relations as well as U.S. interests in the continent.

“We know that the continent is looking for U.S. investment. We should pay attention, and we should look for opportunities to partner whenever we can,” Green told VOA.

Under pressure from civil society, Suluhu is also trying to return Tanzania to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which would be another milestone in reopening her country.

Pandemic aid

Tanzania is one of 11 African countries the U.S. is supporting through the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access, or Global VAX, to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates in developing nations.

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power met virtually with Suluhu in March and announced an additional $25 million in aid for Tanzania. This was on top of the $42 million and the 4.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses that the U.S. government had provided the country for its pandemic response.

However, without a single dollar of the $5 billion that the administration requested for its global COVID-19 response approved by Congress, by September USAID will no longer be able to finance Global Vax for countries including Tanzania.

Africa policy

The Biden administration has laid out a set of priorities for its outreach to Africa, including working toward COVID-19 recovery, combating climate change, boosting trade and investment, and supporting democracy.

In a visit to Kenya in November, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington sees African countries as equal partners, as he outlined the administration’s policies toward a continent that receives much of its foreign aid from China, a U.S. rival.

“The United States firmly believes that it’s time to stop treating Africa as a subject of geopolitics — and start treating it as the major geopolitical player it has become,” Blinken said in Abuja, Nigeria.

However, beyond the administration’s effort to combat the pandemic on the continent, there has not been much movement in other areas. Build Back Better World — an infrastructure investment program that the administration has been touting as a better alternative to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, scheduled to launch this year — has been delayed.

Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine is likely to continue to be the focus of the administration in the months to come.

“Certainly there are a lot of fires burning right now and I think the Biden administration is spread thin,” Green said.

In September 2021, Harris met with President Akufo-Addo of Ghana and President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia. Earlier this month, Biden spoke with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon says it is saddened by separatist fighters’ unending attacks on government workers in its English-speaking northwest and southwest regions.

Separatists have been fighting to create an independent English-speaking state in the majority French speaking nation since 2017.

The government says the latest victims of separatist brutality are four top prison officials in the northwest region, who were killed Tuesday by the fighters.

Deben Tchoffo is the governor of the northwest region. He says the fighters killed and mutilated bodies of four prison leaders while they were on duty.

Tchoffo says Cameroon President Paul Biya instructed him Thursday to visit and extend condolences to the families of the four top prison officials killed by separatists in Tahkijah village in Kumbo, an English-speaking town in the northwest region. He says Biya has ordered the military to immediately track fighters who killed and mutilated the bodies of the government officials.

Tchoffo said Biya also ordered the government to organize a befitting burial for Kiga Theodore, the highest government prison official in the northwest region, and his three close collaborators killed by fighters.

The Cameroon military says Kiga and three other prison workers were ambushed by separatists in Tahkijah, a village in Kumbo. The military says Kiga was pulled out of his service car along with three of his colleagues. One of the prison staff was shot and killed, while three others were beaten with machetes until they died, the military says.

The Cameroon government says the four officials were returning from Nkambe, a town near the border with Nigeria. The prison administrators were in Nkambe to officially install recently appointed prison staff in the border town.

Separatists have claimed responsibility for the attack and shared videos on social media, including Facebook and WhatsApp, showing how the officials were killed.

Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, which the government says is one of the biggest separatist groups in Cameroon. Daniel says his forces will attack all government workers until the government withdraws all of its workers from English-speaking western regions. He says the prison officials were killed because they tried to fight back when stopped by fighters.

“The Cameroon prison guards were armed and ready for war [battle] when they were confronted by our fighters. We will fight to push Cameroon military personnel and the administrative officers [state officials] out of our territory. We will intensify our attacks against the Cameroon military and the administrative representatives until Cameroon withdraws [from the English-speaking regions].”

The military on Friday said several hundred troops have been deployed to track and arrest or kill fighters responsible for the act.

The Roman Catholic Church in Kikaikelaki said scores of people have been arrested, and an unknown number have escaped to safer localities in the English-speaking North West region, where Kumbo is located.

The church says each time government officials are killed, the military commits abuses on civilians, including torture and arrests, while troops search for fighters.

Cameroon’s military has always denied it abuses the rights of civilians.

Cameroon says at least 700 government workers, particularly teachers, have been abducted since the separatist crisis started. Scores have been killed by suspected fighters.

The U.N. says Cameroon’s separatist crisis that degenerated into an armed conflict in 2017 has killed at least 3,300 people, with 750,000 internally displaced.

Source: Voice of America

At least 35 people were killed Thursday when a bus carrying Easter worshippers crashed into a ravine in eastern Zimbabwe about 10 p.m. local time.

The bus reportedly was carrying 106 passengers of the Zion Christian Church to an Easter pilgrimage.

Seventy-one people were reported injured in the crash.

“The bodies of the victims were taken to Chipinge Hospital for post-mortem while the injured were referred to the same institution for treatment, with 13 being critically injured,” said the Zimbabwe Republic Police, CNN reported.

Between 2017 and 2019, the country averaged upward of 2,000 traffic deaths per year, but that number could be much higher, CNN said.

Source: Voice of America

Sudan’s top military leader has ordered an investigation into an attack Wednesday by hundreds of armed nomads that left 41 people dead. It is the latest in a series of lethal clashes in recent months in the Abyei Special Administrative Area, a disputed border area between Sudan and South Sudan.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Thursday called for the formation of a seven-member panel of top military, police and public prosecutors. It’s expected to investigate the root causes of the yearslong conflict and figure out how to end the violence. Most Abyei residents are South Sudanese Dinka Ngok, but the area also is the seasonal home of the Sudanese Arab Misseriya herder tribe.

On Wednesday, more than 350 Misseriya tribesmen attacked the localities of Leu Boma, Noong Boma and Amiet market in the eastern and northern parts of Abyei town, said Ajak Deng Miyan, spokesperson for the administrative district.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the region – the U.N. Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) – said Thursday that 12 suspected Misseriya attackers had been arrested and detained at the mission’s headquarters in Todach. The suspects’ AK-47 rifles and grenades also were seized.

Sudanese Misseriya paramount chief Mukhtar Babo Nimir admitted that men from his community attacked Abyei, but he said they did so in self-defense. He told South Sudan in Focus he regretted the loss of lives on both sides.

“Even if one person is killed, we will be held responsible for this,” Nimir said. “We are supposed to live as one people. We have vast land that all of us can occupy. Our ancestors lived together for more than a hundred years. … Why can’t we live together as one people?”

A month ago, Major General Benjamin Olufemi Sawyer took over as acting head of mission from Ethiopia’s Major General Kefyalew Amde Tessema, who served for close to two years.

Source: Voice of America