Author: Darkeem Mcdonald

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has used satellite data and open-source information to assess the damage caused by Storm Daniel in eastern Libya. The storm left around 25 million tons of debris after heavy flooding. The UNDP said in a statement on Thursday that the disaster affected a quarter of a million people in eastern Libyan cities. It said the storm created serious humanitarian challenges, with road networks cut off and citizens’ relief and resource needs rising. The latest statistics published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on October 17th estimated that the storm…

Kenya’s tax agency has gone all in to bring small-scale traders and informal sector workers into the tax bracket to increase ordinary revenues, but possibly deviating from the government’s initial plan of taxing ‘trade’ less and ‘wealth’ more. Since the beginning of this Financial Year, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has rolled out a series of measures, hired thousands of new employees and entered into deals meant to on-board the informal sector into the tax bracket. This week, the taxman entered an agreement with the Eastleigh Business District Association, a lobby group for traders in one of Nairobi’s largest informal…

A constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, and Ebun Olu Adegboruwa SAN, have disagreed on the call for a constitutional review to allow a term or a six-year single term for the president and governors. Ozekhome who reintroduced the call explained to Saturday PUNCH that “I believe that a six-year single presidential term has the advantage of mitigating (if not outright eliminating) what many regard as the damaging effect of the incumbency factor in our elections.” He explained that it would improve access of all ethnic groups and religions to the highest elected executive positions and foster…

The New Nigeria People’s Party has urged the United Nations agencies and other international stakeholders to give their support to strengthen Nigeria’s democracy. The National Vice Chairman of the NNPP, Prince Onu Nwaeze, disclosed this while receiving the UN’s team from the Office of Internal Oversight Services for the United Nations Secretariat at the party’s headquarters in Abuja. Nwaeze explained that Nigeria’s democracy has advanced from being nascent to full-fledged democracy and sharing ideas from experiences of the UN agencies like the Office of Internal Oversight Services gathered from other developed countries adding that it will assist developing nations like…

Despite the evacuation of Israeli officials from Rabat, Moroccans continue their protests until normalisation with Tel Aviv is revoked. According to Israeli and Moroccan media, on Wednesday, 18 October, the Israeli representative in Morocco was reportedly evacuated to Israel along with other Israeli officials who were working at the liaison office in Rabat. A few hours after the news, thousands of Moroccans took to the streets for the second day in a row in anti-normalisation protests. In Casablanca, hundreds headed to the American consulate on Wednesday, calling out the “US’ complicity in the Israeli war on Gaza.” The US vetoed…

Algeria on Wednesday condemned the “deliberate” strike carried out by Israel on a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, said the president’s office. “Algeria condemns, in the strongest terms, the deliberate strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip by the occupying forces, causing hundreds of casualties and multiple injuries among Palestinian children,” it said in a statement. In response to this attack, Algeria “calls on the international community, humanitarian organizations and global conscience to immediately intervene to stop these barbaric acts that violate international humanitarian law and the most basic human values,” it said. The attacked Al Ahli Arab Hospital…

The new parliamentary year in Angola began on Monday, October 16, with President João Lourenço addressing the nation regarding its state. During his speech, President Lourenço rejected a request from the UNITA opposition party’s president to speak, stating, “Any citizen who wanted to make a speech on the state of the nation would be illegitimately exercising the powers that the constitution gives exclusively to the Head of State.” In the first part of his speech, Lourenço primarily focused on economic issues and the state of Angola’s public finances. He also highlighted the progress achieved by his administration, which elicited both…

Young women in the “Gender Matters for Green Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET)” program at Don Bosco Gatenga, located in Gatenga, Rwanda, were provided toolkits for employment while completing their technical courses in plumbing and electricity. This is the first group of women in the program. Salesians note recent studies have shown that women are still underrepresented in technical courses such as masonry, welding, plumbing, electricity, carpentry and many other courses that are believed to be reserved only for young men. In response, Salesian missionaries are working to change that through the Gender Matters for Green TVET project, which…

This was in a message delivered by Vice President Jesica Alupo at the 7th Nile Basin Development Forum, which opened in Kampala yesterday under the theme; “Deepening Nile Co-operation: Accelerating the Achievement of SDGs in a Changing Climate,” “He asked me to say that he has heard that Egypt seems to be concentrating attention too much on the agreement which was signed a long time ago in Khartoum and that the agreement does not permit some countries to irrigate crops. So he asked me to say that if that is true, Egypt should concentrate on focusing attention together with all…

Vodafone Ghana majority shareholder Telecel Group announced it had expanded the operator’s network with the deployment of 300 new 4G sites, with the majority of them being activated across Ghana. In a statement, Telecel Group COO Malek Atrissi detailed that the operator has additional launched 4G+ which yields faster download speeds for subscribers. The executive added the infrastructure deployment was not a “one-off event” but a “pivotal” part of a wider strategy of sustained expansion across Ghana. Vodafone Ghana CEO Patricia Obo-Nai said “We have set a new standard for rapid network development in Ghana. But this is just the…