Tag: Africa

Ukraine cheers rollover of grain deal, but Russia objects again

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A deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports to pass through the blockaded Black Sea has been extended for 120 days, Ukraine announced Saturday, but Russia again griped that it would only assent to a full rollover if its own exports of food and fertilizer are freed up.
Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov thanked “all our partners for sticking to the agreements” in a tweet Saturday afternoon. “Due our joint efforts, 25M tons of Ukrainian grain” have been “delivered to world markets,” he said.
The announcement comes after a week of wrangling after Russia said Monday that it had agreed to extend the Black Sea grain initiative but only for 60 days. Moscow again dug its heels in on Saturday, however, despite objections from Kyiv and reminders from the United Nations and Turkey that the original agreement foresees a minimum 120-day extension.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, visited Crimea on Saturday on an unannounced trip to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. Putin was greeted by the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, and taken to see a new children’s center, Reuters reported.
The grain deal — described by aid groups as a lifeline for food insecure countries — was due to expire on Saturday.
Initially brokered by the U.N. and Turkey last July after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fueled a global food crisis, the pact was extended in November for 120 days.
Russia will only consider further extending the deal if “tangible progress” is achieved in implementing its three-year deal with the U.N. to facilitate its own exports of food and fertilizer, according to a letter posted on Twitter Saturday by its mission to the U.N. in New York.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is due to attend an EU summit in Brussels next week to seek ways to unblock the Russian food and fertilizer shipments, which have been blocked by sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs and the state agricultural bank. The Kremlin argues that these these are to blame for food insecurity in the Global South.

Ukraine and Russia produce a massive chunk of the world’s grain and fertilizer, together supplying some 28 percent of globally traded wheat and 75 percent of sunflower oil during peacetime.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called on the U.N. to broker a renewal of the deal for a full 12 months, warning that this is necessary to “to help stave off hunger in the most food insecure countries.”
The number of people facing food insecurity rose from 282 million at the end of 2021 to a record 345 million last year, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). Africa is one of the hardest-hit regions, with eastern African countries like Somalia and Ethiopia in particular facing extreme hunger.
“Shipments of grain to countries most in need, including Somalia, hinge on the critical renewal of the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” the IRC said, adding that Somalia receives over 90 percent of its grain from Ukraine.
This story has been updated.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 15, 2023
Jill Biden sees East Africa drought up close

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“They talked about how their livestock are dying. Obviously, you can see the drought here, how bad it is,” the first lady told reporters afterward. “The one source of water here feeds 12 villages and each village has approximately a thousand to 1,200 people.”
“So they are coming here, the people are coming to get water, they’re bringing their livestock to get water. But unfortunately, for many of them, the way they make their living is from their livestock and for most of them, the livestock are dying, so they’re having a hard time,” she said.
Biden noted that the United States has provided 70% of the money sent to the region to help alleviate the suffering, “but we cannot be the only ones.”
“We need to have other countries join us in this global effort to help these people of the region,” she said, adding that the drought was competing with humanitarian efforts tied to Russian’s war in Ukraine and an earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Turkey and Syria.
“I mean, there are a lot of competing interests but, obviously here, people are actually, livestock, people are starving,” she said.
Meg Whitman, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, who accompanied Biden, said people know intellectually what’s going on in the region but “it’s different when you just see it.”
Underscoring Biden, Whitman said that “everyone needs to help as best we can here because this is going to continue for the foreseeable future.”
Members of the Maasai community, who are predominantly herders, live in Kajiado county where Biden visited.

Nearly 23 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are thought to be highly food insecure, which means they do not know where they will find their next meal, according to a food security working group chaired by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
A Maasai elder, Mingati Samanya, 69, said he lost 10 cows during the recent prolonged dry season and struggled to find hay for the rest of his herd.
“The short rains last year were insufficient and right now we are back to struggling for pasture. We hope the long rains will be enough,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Biden sought to use her stature to help focus the world’s attention on the worsening humanitarian crisis in East Africa by touring the drought-stricken area near Kenya’s border with Tanzania.
On the nearly three-hour drive south of Nairobi, the capital, Biden’s lengthy motorcade passed over dry river and creek beds. Numerous cows were walking alongside the highway — many so thin that their ribs were showing.
Throngs of people lined both sides of the motorcade route at various points, waving or using their cellphones to record the event.
Some 4.4 million people in Kenya are facing high levels of food insecurity, with the number projected to rise to 5.4 million in March, according to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Already, 11 million livestock that are essential to many families’ health and livelihood have died. Many of the people affected are farmers who have watched their crops wither and die, and their water sources run dry.
Northern Kenya, which is arid and semi-arid and is where pastoralist communities live, is most affected.
The country’s agriculture sector heavily relies on rainfall, and the meteorological department is predicting delayed rains in the upcoming short rainy season that should begin in March.
President William Ruto announced last October that his cabinet had lifted a decade-old ban on openly cultivating and importing genetically modified crops. The decision came amid pressure from the U.S. government, which had argued that the ban affected U.S. agricultural exports and food aid.
Last week, Ruto led the country in praying for rain.
The first lady has been highlighting the drought along with women and youth empowerment since arriving in Namibia last Wednesday.
Biden had visited Kenya in 2011, when her husband, Joe Biden, was serving as vice president, to help raise awareness about what then was considered a severe famine. U.S. officials and aid organizations say the current drought is far worse.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 27, 2023
Macron lays out ‘new era’ for France’s reduced presence in Africa

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French President Emmanuel Macron called on Monday for his country to build “a new, balanced relationship” with Africa, as the former colonial power seeks to reduce its military presence on the continent.
“The objective of this new era is to deploy our security presence in a partnership-based approach,” Macron said in a speech in Paris, ahead of a tour that will take him to Gabon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo later this week.
In the future, French military bases on the continent will be “co-administered” with local personnel, the French president said, while there will be a “visible decrease” in the number of French troops stationed in Africa over the next few months.
The news comes as France has faced increasing opposition from local governments over its continued military presence in several of its former colonies, and was forced to withdraw hundreds of troops from Mali, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso over the past year. Around 5,000 French soldiers remain stationed on various bases throughout the continent.
But Paris’ waning influence — particularly in the Sahel region — has also allowed Russia to expand its reach in Africa, including in the digital sphere through the use of disinformation campaigns, as well as on the ground with mercenaries from the Wagner group, who in some cases have replaced French soldiers.
The French president said his country would steer away from “anachronistic” power struggles in Africa, saying African countries should be considered as “partners,” both militarily and economically.
“Africa isn’t [anyone’s] backyard, even less so a continent where Europeans and French should dictate its framework for development,” Macron said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 21, 2023
South Africa translocates 12 cheetahs to India

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New Delhi: South Africa on Friday translocated 12 cheetahs to India in a Cooperation Agreement, an official said, adding the animals were sent to India as part of an initiative to expand the cheetah meta-population, and to reintroduce cheetahs to a former range state following their local extinction due to over-hunting and loss of habitat in the last century.
A media statement in this regard was also issued by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa.
The cheetahs will join eight of the mammals relocated to India’s Kuno National Park from Namibia in September 2022.
Earlier this year, the governments of South Africa and India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on the Reintroduction of Cheetah to India.
The MoU facilitates cooperation between the two countries to establish a viable and secure cheetah population in India; promotes conservation and ensures that expertise is shared and exchanged, and capacity built, to promote cheetah conservation.
This includes human-wildlife conflict resolution, capture and translocation of wildlife and community participation in conservation in the two countries.
Conservation translocations have become a common practice to conserve species and restore ecosystems.
South Africa plays an active role in providing founders for the population and range expansion of iconic species such as cheetahs.

“It is because of South Africa’s successful conservation practices that our country is able to participate in a project such as this — to restore a species in a former range state and thus contribute to the future survival of the species,” said the South African Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy.
The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.
Restoring cheetah populations is considered by India to have vital and far-reaching conservation consequences, which would aim to achieve a number of ecological objectives, including re-establishing the function role of cheetah within their historical range in India and enhancing the livelihood options and economies of the local communities.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 17, 2023
‘Pictures like this meant I couldn’t return to South Africa until apartheid was abolished’: Steve Bloom’s best shot

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I spent my early adulthood in South Africa during the apartheid era. In 1974, the government passed a law stipulating that all lessons for black children had to be in Afrikaans, which most could not speak, and which was considered the language of the oppressor. By 1976, Black schoolchildren took to the streets of Soweto to protest and were met with police violence, with over 176 deaths. It was then that the tide turned, the protest movement grew and people worldwide became more aware of the injustices of apartheid.
Sensing the country was on the cusp of change, I went out to try to photograph what was happening around me. I was in my early 20s and working for a company that printed magazines, so I’d take my own pictures at weekends. I’d had no photographic training and because I could hardly afford film, I bought bulk reels of black and white, which were cheaper. I had to limit the number of exposures I could make due to the cost, and used cat litter trays for developing the silver gelatin prints.
I had a manual Canon FTb camera and a standard 50mm lens, which approximates the field of view of the eye. I would visit and photograph squatter towns where Black people were living as family units in defiance of the labour laws, and I also went to District Six, a mixed-race community where homes were demolished and the inhabitants evicted to make way for white housing. I’d knock on doors and ask if I could photograph people in their homes.
When I took pictures of people on the streets, they were often absorbed in their own worlds. I spotted the couple in this photograph in Green Point, Cape Town, near where I lived. The man was tenderly caring for his sick partner, and a smartly dressed woman walked past them, totally oblivious to their existence. The man looked up at her and the white of his eye caught the light as I took the picture. There are two other photographs I took showing a pair of white kids walking past the same couple without appearing to notice them, and then on their return journey, eating ice creams they’d just bought.
Apartheid, meaning “apartness”, was a deliberate process of engendering indifference between the races
I felt my pictures needed to be seen and a local publisher was interested in producing a book, which reached the dummy stage before he decided the project was going to be too risky. But a photograph I sent to the British Journal of Photography made their front page in 1977, so that same month I packed a box of prints into a suitcase and flew to Heathrow. I only had a couple of dozen or so prints, and lent these to the International Defence and Aid Fund, which campaigned to defend people in race trials and raise awareness of apartheid internationally. My pictures were exhibited and published widely and, as a consequence, I was unable to return to South Africa until apartheid was abolished over 13 years later.
Under apartheid, anti-racist behaviour was spurned by the government, interracial sex was illegal and the best jobs, housing and education were strictly reserved for whites. One of the other photographs I brought to the UK is a portrait of a man I worked with at the printing company. He was an experienced technician, but I remember once asking him to prepare two exposures on a contact sheet. He had to remind me he was only allowed to make one exposure, as two were classed as “skilled” work, which was reserved for white technicians.
Apartheid, meaning “apartness”, was a deliberate process of engendering indifference between the races, which I think this photograph demonstrates. When you walk into my new exhibition at Leicester Art Gallery, it’s the first picture that strikes you, because it has been printed a couple of metres tall. There’s a resonance when people realise that such social and economic differences are still present 45 years later. The difference with this image is that the couple were denied equal opportunities by law.

After the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, I trawled through the old negatives, discovering images I’d forgotten I had. I became a wildlife photographer in midlife and now it feels like the photographs I took at 23 belong to another lifetime. They act as a poignant reminder of why history must never be buried or forgotten and how we need to be constantly reminded of such injustices to help prevent them from happening again.
Steve Bloom’s CV
Photographer Steve Bloom
Born: Johannesburg, 1953
Trained: Self-taught
Influences: “Photojournalist W Eugene Smith, with his powerful features in Life magazine.”
High point: “Seeing my first photography book roll off the press. It’s the knowledge that the images will be seen. I think reaching an audience is a joy for any photographer.”
Low point: “The phone call from a processing lab in the analogue film days to say that there had been a chemical ‘incident’ and the films I had brought back from a shoot in Kenya had been destroyed.”
Top tip: “In this age of billions of pictures being made each day, it’s tempting to take multiple pictures of the same subject without actually concentrating too much on composition, lighting and timing. Photograph as if you only get one chance at it, and that discipline will sharpen your creative mind.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 15, 2023
EU to launch platform to fight Russian, Chinese disinformation

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The European Union will launch a new platform to counter disinformation campaigns by Russia and China amid growing worries, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said today.
A so-called Information Sharing and Analysis Center within the EU’s foreign services —the European External Action Service (EEAS) — will seek to track information manipulation by foreign actors and coordinate with the 27 EU countries and the wider community of NGOs.
“We need to understand how these disinformation campaigns are organized … to identify the actors of the manipulation,” said Borrell.
One EEAS official said it would be a decentralized platform to exchange information in real-time with NGOs, countries and cybersecurity agencies, enabling better understanding of emerging disinformation threats and narratives and quicker action to tackle such problems.
Almost a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU continues to fend off Russian attempts to manipulate and distort information about the war. Kremlin-led propaganda seeking to blame the EU for a global food crisis due to its sanctions has also spread to countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Borrell also warned of a “new wave” of disinformation of fabricated images, videos and websites posing as media outlets spreading “five times the speed of light across social networks and messaging services.”
The EU’s existing disinformation unit, the Stratcom division, in a first-ever report, noted that most of the foreign information manipulation in 2022 had centered on narratives supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian and Chinese diplomatic channels were particularly involved.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 8, 2023
New book documents revival of Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm in South Africa

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Johannesberg: A new book documenting the revival of the historic Tolstoy Farm, the commune started by Mahatma Gandhi during his tenure in Johannesburg at the turn of the 19th century, was officially launched here ahead of the iconic Indian leader’s 75th death anniversary.
The book titled Tolstoy Farm the Road to Recovery’ was launched on Sunday and shares how Gandhian enthusiast Mohan Hira almost single-handled changed the completely vandalised Tolstoy Farm, overgrown by grass and bush, to where it today has a Garden of Remembrance, fruit orchards, a library and a museum.
The author, a veteran South African journalist and PTI Correspondent in South Africa Fakir Hassen, shared how this book came about.
“This book is not a complete historical record of the revival of Tolstoy Farm, nor is it an academic exercise on its relevance today, but rather just a collection of some of what I have reported over the last two decades or so,” he said.
Hassen has written books on the contemporary history of South African Indians, including three on Gandhi. Gandhi, the father of the nation, was shot dead by Nathuram Godse on this day in 1948.
The author said the idea of this book was initiated in November 2022 when he joined Indian Consul General Anju Ranjan at Tolstoy Farm as speakers at the official opening of the library, put up in record time by Hira and his colleagues at the Mahatma Gandhi Remembrance Organisation (MGRO).
“I had known about Tolstoy Farm from the 1970s when I was a young journalist with the Lenasia Times. I recall seeing some fruit trees and the remains of the wood and iron building that was once Gandhi’s home during his tenure in Johannesburg,” he said.
It was largely left to Hira’s associates at the MGRO and the last few High Commissioners and Consuls General of India to start supporting Hira and his initiatives.

In the book, Hassen quotes South African academic and prolific historian Prof Surendra Bhana’s essay incorporating the history of Tolstoy Farm in the South African Historical Journal, No 7, of November 1975.
“Gandhi used the farm much as he was to use the Sabarmati Ashram later in India. One can say that the Tolstoy Farm was a laboratory for experimenting with problematic issues: diet, nature cure, harmonious living with nature, brahmacharya, and so on. It also proved to be a ‘training ground’ – I must add, incidentally – for his leadership among the people and in the politics of India,” Bhana wrote.
Mahatma Gandhi’s 75th death anniversary was commemorated as Martyrs’ Day the world over on Monday.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 31, 2023
Unbeaten Indian women’s hockey team holds hosts South Africa 2-2

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Cape Town: The Indian women’s hockey team remained unbeaten on their South Africa tour thus far as they registered a 2-2 draw against the hosts in its fourth match against them, here on Sunday.
This was India’s last match against the South African side before they take on World No.1 Netherlands on January 23.
It was Vaishnavi Vithal Palkhe, playing her debut tour for the senior side, who starred for the team, scoring two crucial goals that helped them hold the home team to a draw.
South Africa made a strong start on Sunday, after a series of losses against India. The home team had lost 1-5, 0-7, and 0-4 to India thus far. Determined to end the matches against India on a good note, South Africa was the first to make a breakthrough when they capitalized on an Indian infringement.
The penalty stroke awarded to them was utilized well with Quanita Bobbs beating young goalie Bichu Devi Kharibam to convert the goal in the 8th minute.
India was able to equalize only in the 29th minute when a good PC variation helped them score a goal. It was Vaishnavi who did well to remain calm and pump the ball into the post.
South Africa managed to snatch the lead again when Tarryn Lombard struck a field goal in the 35th minute. The next few minutes remained tense with both teams playing on par with each other.
Vaishnavi finally brought some respite when she converted from a PC in the 51st minute. India did well to tighten their defense in the dying minutes of the match to ensure they walked away with a draw.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 23, 2023