At least five countries have suspended flights from South Africa after a coronavirus variant was recently discovered in the country. Germany, Turkey, Israel, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have announced the banning of such flights to prevent the spread of a variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus currently termed 501.V2 Variant. The…
CAIRO/WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday reinstated Sudan’s sovereign immunity, as the US Congress passed legislation formalizing the move, following the ending of Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terror. However, the legislation includes an exemption allowing lawsuits by the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States already…
Countries across the globe have shut borders and banned travel between the UK over fears about a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of food shortages. The strain, referred to by some experts as the B.1.1.7 lineage, is not the first new variant of the pandemic virus to emerge,…
The homicide rate for children is showing some disturbing trends in South Africa Around 1,000 children are murdered each year in South Africa, according to official figures. Yet many more killed children don’t make the official numbers, as homicides are not investigated properly. Wandi Zitho’s story Wandi Zitho was five when he was strangled with a rope…
Monitoring Defense and security from Dec. 14 to 21, 2020-CC
Despite denials by Ethiopia, multiple reports confirm killings, looting and forcible return of refugees by Asmara’s forces. In early December, Ethiopian state television broadcast something unexpected: a fiery exchange between civilians in Shire, in the northern Tigray region, and Ethiopian soldiers, who had recently arrived in the area. To the surprise of viewers used to wartime propaganda, the…
Prof. Pontiano Kaleebu, the executive director of Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), said use of the antigen tests has also been approved by the research and ethics council and the national council for science and technology. Uganda will in January 2021 roll out two World Health Organisation (WHO) approved antigen rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for…
The leaders of the Igad countries, a grouping of seven East African countries, met on Sunday in Djibouti for an extraordinary summit devoted in particular to the situation in Ethiopia and the recent tensions between Kenya and Somalia. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) comprises Djibouti – where it has its headquarters – Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia…
The number of civilians forced from their homes by conflict in northern Mozambique has quadrupled this year – to 420,000 – according to the United Nations. It links the crisis in Cabo Delgado province not just to attacks by Islamist militants, but to a perceived failure to distribute vast mineral and off-shore gas revenues to…
FRESH intricate details of back-to-back meetings by the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Organ on Politics, Defence and Security have emerged, indicating that they failed to resolve a methodological dilemma on the military intervention in strife-ridden Mozambique after President Felipe Nyusi vehemently rejected suggestions of a co-ordinated regional effort. Multiple official sources directly involved in…