Day: September 11, 2022

NIAMEY— More than 800 migrants expelled this week by Algeria have reached the northern Niger town of Agadez, local authorities said.

“In all we have 847 people, including 40 women and 74 unaccompanied children,” Agadez municipal authority said.

The child protection ministry has taken care of the minors, it said.

A humanitarian source said “some 800 migrants” arrived at the border at the start of the week after being “escorted” there by Algerian officials.

The migrants, mostly from Niger, will be given medical care and basic necessities, the source said.

Since 2014, Algeria has expelled tens of thousands of migrants from west and central Africa, according to the United Nations.

Many of the travellers take the dangerous route across the Sahara in a bid to reach the Mediterranean coast and from there to cross to Europe.

The French charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) has recorded a growth in the numbers thrown out of Algeria in recent years.

Some 23,171 were expelled in 2020, 27,208 in 2021 and 14,196 from January-May this year, MSF says.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

BAMAKO— Dozens of people died after militants affiliated with the Daesh group mounted an attack on a village in northern Mali, a local elected official said.

The raid was followed by intense fighting between them and other armed groups in the region, including rival insurgents who have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, the sources said.

“More than 45 civilians were killed when the Daesh took over (on Tuesday) — they burned down houses, the market and other places,” the official said.

“What really worries us is the humanitarian situation — the people are on their own.”

The attack occurred at Talataye, about 150 kilometres from the city of Gao.

An agglomeration of hamlets, it has been battered by fighting in Mali’s decade-long security crisis, lying at the heart of competing areas of influence.

An official from the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA), one of the armed groups involved in the clashes, put the civilian death toll at 30 and said many people had been displaced.

“The fighting between the various terrorist groups resulted in the deaths of several dozen civilians”, said an international humanitarian worker in the region, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Some wounded who could not be helped died afterwards”.

One of the poorest countries in the world, landlocked Mali has been battling separatist and jihadist insurgencies since 2012.

Jihadist-fuelled violence began in the north and then spread to the centre of the country before reaching into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Across the three countries, thousands of civilians, police and soldiers have died and millions have fled their homes.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

GENEVA— The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) approved the creation of an Olympic Forest Network to step up the fight against climate change.

The project, inspired by the IOC’s Olympic Forest project set to plant around 590,000 native trees in Mali and Senegal, is an initiative driven by National Olympic Committees to create forest network in their own countries and regions.

The IOC announced its commitment to be climate positive in 2024 in alignment with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in April 2021.

“As the Olympic Movement, we want to contribute to the fight against climate change within our area of influence. With the new initiative we are recognizing local Olympic Movement projects delivered according to best practices that contribute to this goal,” said Marie Sallois, IOC Director for Corporate and Sustainable Development.

Projects within the Network will not be limited to planting new trees. They can include protection or restoration of existing forests, wildlife corridors and coastal watersheds and ecosystems, as well as regenerative agriculture.

Healthy forests, wetlands and other ecosystems not only capture carbon from the atmosphere. They also safeguard nature, and help communities become more resilient and adapt to the effects of climate change, such as droughts, heatwaves, floods or landslides.

The IOC Executive Board agreed that the IOC would support the creation of the Olympic Forest Network by establishing a series of principles, based on which NOCs would be able to join.

In order to include a project in the Network, an NOC will be required to submit details for the IOC’s review and approval, based on specific criteria. Projects will be required to:

Several NOCs have already proposed existing projects that are in line with the above principles, and expressed an interest in including them in the Olympic Forest Network.

In Papua New Guinea, the NOC has partnered with the local communities, the National Fisheries Authority and the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority to restore a 3km strip of endangered mangroves, supporting a vital ecosystem. This project will be extended in the coming years and is connected to the Love Your Coast programme, which involves athletes in advocacy and education.

In Slovenia, some 30 athletes and 100 other stakeholders are planting 13,000 trees in partnership with the Slovenian State Forestry Company.

Spain’s NOC, under the agreement with the Spanish Environment Ministry and in partnership with their global sustainability sponsor and the Spanish Municipality Federation, has launched a project to plant new forests to compensate for their residual carbon emissions.

Following the Executive Board’s approval, the IOC will work with its partner, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to provide support on this initiative.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

OXFORD (UK)— A malaria vaccine with “world-changing” potential has been developed by scientists at the University of Oxford.

The team expect it to be rolled out next year after trials showed up to 80% protection against the deadly disease.

Crucially, say the scientists, their vaccine is cheap and they already have a deal to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year.

The charity Malaria No More said recent progress meant children dying from malaria could end “in our lifetimes”.

It has taken more than a century to develop effective vaccines as the malaria parasite, which is spread by mosquitoes, is spectacularly complex and elusive. It is a constantly moving target, shifting forms inside the body, which make it hard to immunise against.

Last year, the World Health Organization gave the historic go-ahead for the first vaccine – developed by pharmaceutical giant GSK – to be used in Africa.

However, the Oxford team claim their approach is more effective and can be manufactured on a far greater scale.

Trial results from 409 children in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, have been published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. It shows three initial doses followed by a booster a year later gives up to 80% protection.

“We think these data are the best data yet in the field with any malaria vaccine,” said Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the university.

The team will start the process of getting their vaccine approved in the next few weeks, but a final decision will hinge on the results of a larger trial of 4,800 children due before the end of the year.

The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer – the Serum Institute of India – is already lined up to make more than 100 million doses a year.

Prof Hill said the vaccine – called R21 – could be made for “a few dollars” and “we really could be looking at a very substantial reduction in that horrendous burden of malaria”.

He added: “We hope that this will be deployed and available and saving lives, certainly by the end of next year.”

Malaria has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity for millennia and mostly kills babies and infants. The disease still kills more than 400,000 people a year even after dramatic progress with bed nets, insecticides and drugs.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

YAOUNDE— Cameroonian President Paul Biya is officially the world’s oldest head of state after Sept 8.

The ‘post’ was automatically conferred on the 89-year-old following the death of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II on the same day.

Buckingham Palace announced that the queen died peacefully at Balmoral in Scotland at the age of 96.

Paul Biya will not be left out of world leaders condoling with the Royal family over the passage of the Monarch who ascended to the throne at age 25 and reigned for seven decades.

“The death of Her Majesty Elizabeth II is felt painfully and affects the Commonwealth of Nations. She had a unique stature and played an emblematic role throughout history,” Biya’s tweet read.

The 89-year-old has been President of the Central African country for the last 40 years and counting.

Before becoming president, he had served as Prime Minister for seven years to the country’s first president Amadou Ahidjo.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

ABUJA— At least 15 people were killed when two vehicles collided on a highway in southwest Nigeria, an official said.

The collision occurred on Friday at a road in the Ibarapa East local government area of the Oyo state, Joshua Adekanye, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps in Oyo said.

The road official said at least 15 people involved in the accident were burnt to death.

Adekanye attributed the cause of the accident to a speeding violation.

According to the official News Agency of Nigeria, the accident involved a commercial bus and a car traveling in opposite directions when they had a head-on collision, following which the vehicles caught fire immediately.

Fatal road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad road conditions, and reckless driving.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

CAIRO— The leaders of two dozen African countries have urged wealthier nations to uphold their aid pledges so the continent can tackle climate change effects for which it shares little blame.

African ministers made their call in a communique at the close of a three-day forum in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Friday and two months before Egypt hosts the crucial COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in November.

“We urge developed countries to fulfill their pledges in relation to climate and development finance, and deliver on their commitments to double adaptation finance, in particular to Africa,” the 24 leaders said in a closing statement.

The African continent emits only some three percent of global CO2 emissions, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon noted this week.

And yet African nations are among those most exposed to the effects of climate change, notably worsening droughts and floods.

The African leaders said the financial aid was needed in view of “the disproportionate impact of climate change and nature loss on the African continent”.

Africa not only has a “low carbon footprint”, they said, but it also plays a key role in capturing greenhouse gases, including in the Congo Basin, which is home to the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon.

The communique urged rich countries to meet and expand climate pledges and said poor countries should be able to develop economically while receiving more funds to adapt to the effects of climate change.

The document stressed “the need to avoid approaches that encourage abrupt disinvestments from fossil fuels, as this will … threaten Africa’s development”.

The role of gas in the transition to cleaner energy is set to be a key point of contention at COP27. Climate activists say it needs to be quickly phased out and replaced with renewables.

But, Nigerian finance minister Zainab Ahmed told the Cairo forum that gas was a matter of survival for her country.

“If we are not getting reasonably-priced finance to develop gas, we are denying the citizens in our countries the opportunities to attain basic development,” she said.

The communique also called for focusing on climate change in a review of multilateral development banks and international financial institutions. It suggested the creation of a sustainable sovereign debt hub that could reduce the cost of capital for developing states and support debt-for-nature swaps.

Funding to help poorer countries curb their emissions and strengthen their resilience will be a key issue at COP27.

A longstanding goal for developed countries to spend $100bn a year from 2020 on helping vulnerable nations adapt to climate change remains unmet.

According to the African Development Bank, the continent will need as much as $1.6 trillion between 2020 and 2030 for its own efforts to limit climate change and adapt to the adverse effects that are already apparent.

Kevin Chika Urama, the chief economist at the African Development Bank, said Africa faced a climate financing gap of about $108bn each year.

“Climate finance structure today is actually biased against climate-vulnerable countries. The more vulnerable you are the less climate finance you receive,” he said.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK