German Chancellor Scholz Kicks off Africa Trip in Senegal

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dakar, sene­gal — 
Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Olaf Scholz said his coun­try is inter­est­ed in a major gas exploita­tion project in Sene­gal as he began a three-nation vis­it to Africa on Sun­day that also is focused on the geopo­lit­i­cal con­se­quences of the war in Ukraine.
Sene­gal is believed to have sig­nif­i­cant deposits of nat­ur­al gas along its bor­der with Mau­ri­ta­nia at a time when Ger­many and oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries are try­ing to reduce their depen­dence on import­ing Russ­ian gas.
“We have begun exchanges and we will con­tin­ue our efforts at the lev­el of experts because it is our wish to achieve progress,” Scholz said at a joint news brief­ing with Sene­galese Pres­i­dent Macky Sall.
The gas project off the coast of Sene­gal is being led by BP, and the first bar­rels are not expect­ed until next year.
This week’s trip marks Scholz’s first to Africa since becom­ing chan­cel­lor near­ly six months ago. Two of the coun­tries he is vis­it­ing — Sene­gal and South Africa — have been invit­ed to attend the Group of 7 sum­mit in Ger­many at the end of June.
Par­tic­i­pants there will try to find a com­mon posi­tion toward Rus­sia, which was kicked out of the then-Group of Eight fol­low­ing its 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.
Lead­ers at the G‑7 sum­mit also will be address­ing the threat of cli­mate change. Sev­er­al G‑7 coun­tries, includ­ing Ger­many and the Unit­ed States, signed a ‘just ener­gy tran­si­tion part­ner­ship’ with South Africa last year to help the coun­try wean itself off heav­i­ly pol­lut­ing coal.
A sim­i­lar agree­ment is in the works with Sene­gal, where Ger­many has sup­port­ed the con­struc­tion of a solar farm.
Ger­man offi­cials also said Scholz will make a stop in Niger, a coun­try that like its neigh­bors has long been bat­tling Islam­ic extremists.
Ear­li­er this month, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment backed a plan to move hun­dreds of its sol­diers to Niger from neigh­bor­ing Mali. The devel­op­ment comes amid a deep­en­ing polit­i­cal cri­sis in Mali that prompt­ed for­mer colo­nial pow­er France to announce it was with­draw­ing its troops after nine years of help­ing Mali bat­tle insurgents.
Ger­many offi­cials say their deci­sion also was moti­vat­ed by con­cerns that Malian forces receiv­ing EU train­ing could coop­er­ate with Russ­ian mer­ce­nar­ies now oper­at­ing in the country.
Ger­many, though, will increase its par­tic­i­pa­tion in a U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Mali, pro­vid­ing up to 1,400 sol­diers. The Cabinet’s deci­sions still need to be approved by parliament.
Niger is also a major tran­sit hub for ille­gal migra­tion to Europe. Peo­ple from across West Africa con­nect with smug­glers there to make the jour­ney north­ward to attempt the dan­ger­ous trip across the Mediter­ranean Sea.

Libyan rivals resume U.N.-brokered talks on elections | AP News

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CAIRO (AP) — Rival Libyan offi­cials on Sun­day resumed talks in the Egypt­ian cap­i­tal, the lat­est U.N.-led efforts to agree on con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments for elec­tions as the North African nation again finds itself at a polit­i­cal impasse.Twelve law­mak­ers from Libya’s east-based par­lia­ment and 11 from the High Coun­cil of State, an advi­so­ry body from west­ern Libya, were attend­ing the Cairo-host­ed talks, said Abdul­lah Bli­heg, the parliament’s spokesman.The U.N. spe­cial advis­er on Libya, Stephanie Williams, said the talks aim at address­ing core chal­lenges — includ­ing the polit­i­cal sys­tem, eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria, and a time­line for elec­tions. She advised the atten­dees that they have until May 28 to come with an agreement.“This ses­sion con­sti­tutes your last chance to pro­vide a cred­i­ble response to the expec­ta­tions of the Libyan peo­ple and make con­crete progress on these issues,” she said.The first round of the talks

Chad: Hundreds stage anti-French Protest In N’djamena | Africanews

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Hun­dreds of Cha­di­ans joined anti-French protests called by the oppo­si­tion coali­tion Wak­it Tama on Sat­ur­day, May 14.
Pro­test­ers oppose France’s mil­i­tary pres­ence in the coun­try and sup­port for tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­dent Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who has been in pow­er since his father’s death in 2021.
They report­ed­ly attacked “sym­bols” of their for­mer colo­nial pow­er, includ­ing sev­er­al Total petrol stations.

The protest was main­ly attend­ed by stu­dents with many on moto­cy­cles and chant­i­ng “France get out”.
**“Now France is med­dling in pol­i­tics, we don’t know, now the whole Cha­di­an ter­ri­to­ry is occu­pied by the French army. The French army is con­cerned with the wealth of Chad’s sub­soil and not with the well-being of the Cha­di­an people.”**Souleyman Tahir, Protester
For­mer pres­i­dent, Idriss Déby Itno, head­ed an author­i­tar­i­an regime for 30 years and was killed in bat­tle on April 20, 2021, dur­ing a rebel­lion in the north of the country.
Cha­di­an police fired tear gas and used water canon to dis­perse hun­dreds of pro­test­ers who took to the streets of the cap­i­tal and oth­er towns in an anti-French protest that saw the destruc­tion of some French-linked businesses.
The protest was called by Cha­di­an civ­il soci­ety coali­tion Wak­it Tam­ma to denounce France’s back­ing of the Tran­si­tion­al Mil­i­tary Coun­cil that seized pow­er fol­low­ing the bat­tle­field death of Pres­i­dent Idriss Deby in April 2021, a spokesman said.
As France’s influ­ence wanes in its for­mer colonies, recent protests in coun­tries such as Mali, Burk­i­na Faso and Niger have seen calls for increased mil­i­tary ties with Rus­sia instead of France.

Guinea Junta Bans Political Protests

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Conakry, Guinea —  The mil­i­tary jun­ta rul­ing Guinea has banned polit­i­cal protests after announc­ing a three-year tran­si­tion peri­od before civil­ian rule is restored. “All demon­stra­tions on pub­lic roads, whose nature is to jeop­ar­dize social tran­quil­i­ty and the cor­rect imple­men­ta­tion of activ­i­ties in the (tran­si­tion) timetable are banned for the moment until the peri­od of electoral…

For Macron’s Second Term — a Lower Profile in Africa?

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Paris —  Five years ago, France’s Emmanuel Macron saw big when it came to Africa. Days after his pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion, he flew to north­east­ern Mali, meet­ing with French troops and vow­ing, along­side his Malian coun­ter­part, Ibrahim Boubacar Keï­ta, to wage an “uncom­pro­mis­ing fight” against Islamist ter­ror­ism. A few months lat­er in anoth­er Sahel coun­try, nearby…

Bank of Central African States Urges CAR to Annul Bitcoin as Currency

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Yaounde, Cameroon —  The Cameroon-head­­quar­tered Bank of Cen­tral African States (BEAC) has urged the Cen­tral African Repub­lic (CAR) to annul a law it passed in late April that made the cryp­tocur­ren­cy Bit­coin legal ten­der. The bank warned in a let­ter made pub­lic last week that the move breached its rules and could affect mon­e­tary stability…

Agenda 2063: Education in Africa, a key to success, By Rahma O. Oladosu — Premium Times Nigeria

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I believe one of the eas­i­est ways to push this Agen­da for­ward is through edu­ca­tion. Africa acknowl­edges the fact that social and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment is not pos­si­ble with­out sub­stan­tive invest­ment in edu­ca­tion and research, espe­cial­ly at the ter­tiary level.

Over time, it has become imper­a­tive for Africa to map out a strat­e­gy of region­al coop­er­a­tion and inte­gra­tion and lay the foun­da­tion for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The estab­lish­ment of the African Union (replac­ing the Organ­i­sa­tion of African Uni­ty) has been a step in that direc­tion. The Union aims at achiev­ing greater uni­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty and accel­er­at­ing the polit­i­cal and socio-eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion of the continent.

In great efforts by the African Union to accom­plish what it has set out to achieve in mak­ing the con­ti­nent a bet­ter one, AGENDA 2063 was introduced.

Now, what exact­ly is agen­da 2063?

Agen­da 2063 is Africa’s blue­print and mas­ter plan for trans­form­ing the con­ti­nent into the glob­al pow­er­house of the future. It is said to be the continent’s strate­gic frame­work that aims to deliv­er on its goal for inclu­sive and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and it is a con­crete man­i­fes­ta­tion of the pan-African dri­ve for uni­ty, self-deter­mi­na­tion, free­dom, progress and col­lec­tive pros­per­i­ty, pur­sued under Pan-African­ism and towards African Renais­sance. Agen­da 2063 encap­su­lates not only Africa’s Aspi­ra­tions for the Future but also iden­ti­fies key Flag­ship Pro­grammes which can boost the continent’s eco­nom­ic growth and devel­op­ment, and lead to the rapid trans­for­ma­tion of the con­ti­nent. It also iden­ti­fies key activ­i­ties to be under­tak­en in its 10-year Imple­men­ta­tion Plan, which will ensure that Agen­da 2063 deliv­ers both quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive trans­for­ma­tion­al out­comes for Africans.

I believe one of the eas­i­est ways to push this Agen­da for­ward is through edu­ca­tion. Africa acknowl­edges the fact that social and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment is not pos­si­ble with­out sub­stan­tive invest­ment in edu­ca­tion and research, espe­cial­ly at the ter­tiary level.

Get­ting an edu­ca­tion is not just a fun­da­men­tal human right, It is piv­otal to increas­ing employ­ment and income oppor­tu­ni­ties. It is fun­da­men­tal to break­ing the cycle of pover­ty. Edu­ca­tion is the key to unlock­ing the gold­en door of free­dom for all in Africa. It is the bedrock of social and eco­nom­ic development.

Edu­ca­tion is cru­cial as it is an invest­ment in human cap­i­tal. This yields tremen­dous ben­e­fits on many lev­els and spheres. It ben­e­fits the indi­vid­ual, fam­i­ly com­mu­ni­ty, and nation. Edu­ca­tion is a sus­tain­able means of alle­vi­at­ing pover­ty and bring last­ing change.

Con­se­quent­ly, to effect per­ma­nent change, any effort to bring last­ing change must include edu­ca­tion, in one way or the other.

Recent­ly, the exec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Ter­tiary Edu­ca­tion Trust Fund (TET­Fund), Archi­tect Son­ny Echono, played host to a team from the African Union Com­mis­sion for Edu­ca­tion, led by Pro­fes­sor Mohammed Bel­hocine, the com­mis­sion­er for edu­ca­tion who came to the Fund on an impact­ful cour­tesy vis­it, which I was priv­i­leged to witness.

The Fund, gen­er­al­ly known for pro­vid­ing sup­port for research and devel­op­ment in ter­tiary insti­tu­tions in Nige­ria, revealed its readi­ness, through its man­age­ment, to forge a part­ner­ship with the Pan African Uni­ver­si­ty to push the African Union agen­da for­ward. Arc. Echono fur­ther said that the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment is actu­al­ly think­ing in the direc­tion of pro­mot­ing tech­nol­o­gy and is in the process of estab­lish­ing a nation­al insti­tute in Abu­ja, which will be a post-grad­u­ate insti­tu­tion for the pro­mo­tion of the tech­no­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the country.

I per­son­al­ly think this would be a plus for the edu­ca­tion sec­tor in Nige­ria, con­sid­er­ing the fact that there hasn’t been much atten­tion giv­en to tech­nol­o­gy in most of our ter­tiary insti­tu­tions recently.

The Pan African Uni­ver­si­ty (PAU) is the cul­mi­na­tion of con­ti­nen­tal ini­tia­tives of the African Union Com­mis­sion to revi­talise high­er edu­ca­tion and research on the con­ti­nent. Accord­ing to the African Union, the PAU will great­ly boost the pop­u­la­tion and reten­tion of high-lev­el human resources, along­side qual­i­ty knowl­edge out­puts and will attract the best intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty from all over the world.

For­tu­nate­ly, the Pan African Uni­ver­si­ty part­ner­ship with TET­Fund will most def­i­nite­ly yield pos­i­tive results with the lat­ter pro­vid­ing tremen­dous sup­port in terms of the con­struc­tion of more class­rooms, pro­cure­ment of lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment and all oth­er basic infra­struc­ture need­ed. This major devel­op­ment will pro­vide a con­ducive envi­ron­ment and enable stu­dent researchers to learn one or two things to attract val­ue. It will also be a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for schol­ars to troop to the university.

With this, the goals of the African Union is being geared towards the right direc­tion with edu­ca­tion as an ear­ly foun­da­tion, encour­ag­ing research through the Pan African Uni­ver­si­ty and bring­ing young Africans togeth­er to study and con­duct research for about three to five years, and in the process they get to know each oth­er bet­ter in terms of their cul­tures, lan­guages and beliefs. And this will cre­ate the real momen­tum for Pan African­ism, and a step towards real­is­ing Agen­da 2063.

Rah­ma Olamide Ola­do­su writes from Wuye Dis­trict, Abuja.

W/Africa’s challenges not insurmountable, say Catholic Bishops — Vanguard News

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.By Lumi­nous Jan­namike, Abu­ja Catholic Bish­ops from the 16 West African coun­tries, on Sat­ur­day in Abu­ja, said the sub-region will over­come its cur­rent challenges.However, they insist­ed that polit­i­cal lead­ers must halt poli­cies and prac­tices that per­mit the exploita­tion of the peo­ple. The cler­ics also resolve to work with crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers to remove all obsta­cles to peace­ful coex­is­tence, devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the region.The Bish­ops under the aus­pices of the Reunion of the Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ences of West Africa (RECOWA) said this in a com­mu­nique made avail­able to jour­nal­ists at the end of their 4th Gen­er­al Assem­bly, which was held in Nigeria’s cap­i­tal city. The reli­gious lead­ers, who acknowl­edged that West African coun­tries were bat­tling the com­mon chal­lenges of inse­cu­ri­ty, cor­rup­tion, and sec­tion­al mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion among oth­ers, nonethe­less said there is no need to despair because tough times do not last forever.They said, “We rec­og­nize the inher­ent dan­gers in our cur­rent soci­ety, but we remain opti­mistic that none of the prob­lems bedev­illing our sub-region is insur­mount­able. “How­ev­er, we need to work togeth­er, with like minds in pol­i­tics, reli­gion, eco­nom­ics, social life the media, in syn­er­gy to fight against all forms of man’s inhu­man­i­ty to man.”The com­mu­nique was signed by RECOWA Pres­i­dent, the Most Revd. Alex­is Touabli Youlou, fur­ther stressed that all stake­hold­ers must sus­tain the advo­ca­cy for pos­i­tive change in soci­ety. To this end, it added: “As Church, we call on politi­cians, oth­er lead­ers and indeed our peo­ple to order in their nev­er-end­ing crav­ing for self-aggran­dis­e­ment and acqui­si­tion of wealth.“We urge Chris­t­ian politi­cians, tra­di­tion­al rulers, tech­nocrats, pro­fes­sion­als, espe­cial­ly those in the media, busi­ness­men and women, and indeed all our peo­ple to live out their Chris­t­ian voca­tion in fight­ing cor­rup­tion, eth­no­cen­trism, sec­tion­al­ism, and all forms of injus­tice in society.“We strong­ly denounce the poli­cies and prac­tices of our gov­ern­ments and lead­ers who facil­i­tate and per­mit the exploita­tion and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of our peo­ple and endan­ger the future of our children.“Tragically, some indi­vid­u­als engaged in acts of vio­lence and ter­ror­ism have aggra­vat­ed the state of inse­cu­ri­ty in our sub­re­gion. We, there­fore, call on all nev­er to grow weary in denounc­ing and root­ing cut such evils in our midst.”The Catholic Bish­ops also said that at the end of their delib­er­a­tions, they held elec­tions and the fol­low­ing emerged as the lead­ers of RECOWA for the next three years:“Most Rev­erend Alex­is Touabli Youlou, Bish­op of Agbovilie in Cote D’Ivoire, Pres­i­dent; Most Rev­erend Joseph Kwaku Afrifan-Agyekum, Bish­op of Koforid­ua in Ghana, first vice pres­i­dent; and Most Rev­erend José Lam­pra, Bish­op of Bis­sau in Guinea Bis­sau, sec­ond vice president.“Also elect­ed to the sec­re­tari­at of the reunion are Father Vital­is Anae­ho­bi, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, from Nigeria.”Vanguard News Nige­ri­aRE­LAT­ED NEWS

In Senegal’s Former Capital, a Colonial Statue in Hiding Is No Longer Welcome

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The city of Saint-Louis was shaped by Louis Faid­herbe, a French gov­er­nor who also led bru­tal mil­i­tary cam­paigns in West Africa. What to do with his lega­cy has divid­ed Sene­gal. SAINT-LOUIS, Sene­gal — For more than a cen­tu­ry, the French gen­er­al who shaped Senegal’s for­mer cap­i­tal was hailed as a hero and a father figure,…

Indian doctor removes ‘rare’ cancerous tumour from African infant’s brain — India News

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Ayr­ton Timm de Oliveira and Edwina, both 26 and from Mozam­bique, were dev­as­tat­ed when their infant son and first child, John (name changed), began expe­ri­enc­ing major vision loss, delayed growth and feed­ing dif­fi­cul­ties. He is a ten-month-old baby.After pre­sent­ing their child’s reports to sev­er­al Indi­an hos­pi­tals, the par­ents were informed that their child had a mas­sive brain tumour. Symp­toms such as insuf­fi­cient oral food con­sump­tion result­ed in the child remain­ing under­weight and con­stant­ly cry­ing. The tumour was 7x8x9 cm in size and took up one-third of the brain.The cou­ple trav­elled to India in an attempt to save the baby, where Dr Harshil Shah, a well-known neu­ro­sur­geon at Ahmed­abad’s Shal­by Hos­pi­tals, per­formed a five-hour surgery.Dr Shah said, “They [par­ents] did a CT scan in Africa and the basic diag­no­sis revealed it to be a large, ini­tial stage 2 can­cer­ous brain tumour. Every hos­pi­tal they had gone to told them that the mor­tal­i­ty rate was high. Shal­by Hos­pi­tal was able to not just detect but also per­form the lengthy and com­pli­cat­ed surgery.”“The male child was suf­fer­ing from a rare chi­as­mal tumour. This tumour aris­es from the optic nerves that were affect­ing the brain, which I was able to diag­nose on time. This is the rea­son that the child was not able to see even objects that were close to him due to an affect­ed vision,” said Dr Shah.“Post-surgery, the child’s food intake increased, and he gained three kg. He was nutri­tion­al­ly defi­cient. How­ev­er, the patient is now doing well and is com­plete­ly nor­mal,” said the doctor.“Surgery and com­plete tumour removal have a very low suc­cess rate, and patients with no deficit are extreme­ly rare. I’ve nev­er seen such a large tumour, let alone in a child,” he added.READ | Boy goes for nasal surgery, doc­tor per­forms her­nia oper­a­tion instead­WATCH | Meet the IAF doc­tor who revived can­cer patient after she suf­fered car­diac arrest on Kolkata-bound flight