Rare albino orangutan released back into the wild

The world’s only known albino orangutan has been released back into the jungle more than a year after she was found emaciated and bloody in a remote corner of Borneo, an Indonesian NGO said Friday.

Environmentalists rescued “Alba” from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Central Kalimantan in April last year.

She was found with dry blood smeared around her nose — the result of her violent capture — and weighed just 8 kilogrammes, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) said.

The blue-eyed primate, covered in fuzzy white hair, was on Wednesday returned to the wild with her best friend, Kika, after leaving their rehabilitation centre.

S/Africa’s economy at a crossroad, says IMF chief

South Africa has immense potential but its economic development is at a crossroad, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Legarde has said in Pretoria.“South Africa has immense economic potential, including a young and dynamic population. The country has made substantial progress over the past quarter of a century, achieving much improved living standards for its citizens. There is a lot to be proud of,” Legarde said on Thursday at the end of her two-day visit to the country.

She added: “At the same time, South Africa is at a crossroad. The country faces challenges to raise growth and create more jobs, particularly for the youth. It also needs to address the too-high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality.”

In her view, it was a matter of urgency to advance broad-based reforms to “reignite growth and ensure that all South Africans share the benefits, irrespective of their race, age or gender.”

Fact checking fibbing politicians works, study finds

Researchers in Australia say that fact checking can reverse the views of even the most dyed-in-the-wool partisans, and over time could cause voters to shun an often-lying candidate.

Scientists from the University of Western Australia, the United States and Britain found that Aussies did change their minds about false statements — even from politicians they support — when corrected.

In findings that offer hope that “post-truth” politicians and a rash of disinformation from state-actors like Russia can be checked, the authors found voters from across the political spectrum would change their minds when presented with facts, and were turned off by persistent lies.

“This study’s findings are encouraging regarding both the potential effectiveness of fact checking and the importance of veracity to voters,” they said.

French National Assembly approves ‘yellow vest’ tax cuts

The French National Assembly on Friday approved a package of emergency concessions first announced by President Emmanuel Macron in a bid to end the violent “yellow vest” protests.

The tax cuts for low-income workers were put forward by Macron in a televised address earlier this month to help cool weeks of protests that brought major disruption to the country.

The measures provide a “quick, strong and concrete response” to the crisis, said the labour minister Muriel Penicaud in a debate which lasted into the early hours of Friday morning.

The measures include the removal of a planned tax increase for a majority of pensioners and tax-free overtime pay for all workers.

Manchester United lose patience and sack Mourinho

Manchester United have sacked manager Jose Mourinho after their worst start to a season in almost 30 years, the club announced on Tuesday.

The 55-year-old Portuguese’s last match in charge was the 3-1 defeat by Premier League league leaders Liverpool on Sunday which left them 19 points behind their opponents.

Mourinho’s sacking comes just two-and-a-half years into his tenure and three years and a day since Chelsea sacked him just months after he had guided them to the title.

Former player Michael Carrick, now a member of the coaching staff, is expected to take charge in an interim role but United said a caretaker manager will be appointed until the end of the season.

The club’s worst start in the league since 1990 means even Mourinho’s ambition of reaching the top four and a Champions League qualification spot is in danger.

Jose Mourinho sacked

Manchester United have sacked Jose Mourinho with immediate effect.

NGOs launch legal action against France over climate

A group of NGOs including Greenpeace and Oxfam have launched a lawsuit against the French state accusing it of taking insufficient action to tackle climate change.

It comes after similar action was launched by farmers in Germany, and the Dutch government lost a landmark case brought by an environmental rights group on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“The failure of the state in the fight against climate change reflects a lack of respect in its obligation to protect the environment and the health and security of the population,” the NGOs said in a joint statement on Monday.

The French government will have two months to respond to the legal action.

Afghanistan sends team to join Taliban peace talks in UAE

An Afghan peace negotiations team has arrived in Abu Dhabi, an official said Tuesday, a day after talks attended by US and Taliban representatives were held in the city aimed at ending the 17-year conflict.

The team, led by chief negotiator Abdul Salam Rahimi, “arrived in Abu Dhabi to begin proximity dialogue with the Taliban delegation and to prepare for a face-to-face meeting between the two sides”, the Afghan presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri tweeted.

The 12-person team was first announced in November by President Ashraf Ghani as part of a diplomatic effort to bring the Taliban to the table for peace talks with the government in Kabul.

UAE to deepen economic ties with Nigeria

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has expressed its readiness to deepen economic ties with Nigeria toward promoting investment and trade between both countries.Ambassador Fahad Altaffag, United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Nigeria, expressed the country’s desire at the Dubai-Nigeria Export in Lagos, organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and the UAE Embassy in Nigeria.

Altaffag said both countries had certain similarities and opportunities that could be explored to boost trade and investment by leveraging technology, innovation and youthful energy across all sectors.

S/Africans observe Reconciliation Day

Leading his nation to observe Reconciliation Day, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has used the occasion to appeal to his compatriots to be part of the efforts to promote investment, achieve inclusive growth, improve the conditions of the poor and create employment on a massive scale.Ramaphosa made the remarks when he addressed a capacity filled Walter Sisulu Stadium in Mthatha, a city located in the Eastern Cape Province at the National Reconciliation Day commemoration on Sunday.

According to the president, “the Day of Reconciliation must be a time for reaffirming our commitment to eradicate poverty, hunger, homelessness and unemployment.”

Amnesty: UN must probe peacekeeper failings in C.Africa’s Alindao

The UN must conduct a “thorough investigation” into its peacekeepers’ actions in Central African Republic during a militia attack in which “up to 100 civilians were shot and burnt alive”, Amnesty International said Friday.

In a new report, the London-based watchdog said troops in the UN’s MINUSCA mission had retreated to their base rather than engage with a militia group which attacked civilians at a displacement camp at the Catholic mission in the central town of Alindao in mid-November.

According to an internal UN report, at least 60 people were killed when violence flared between the Union for Peace in CAR (UPC) Muslim militia and anti-Balaka militiamen.

South Sudan President Salva Kirr visits South Africa

President Salva Kiir Mayardit is in South Africa on an official visit at the invitation Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African President.Kiir was warmly received at OR Tambo International Airport by senior South African government officials, and is expected to hold talks with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa.

The three-day official visit will focus on bilateral relations, cementing efforts for a sustainable peace in South Sudan – specifically issues concerning implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement in South Sudan, and economic cooperation.

Kiir will also be meeting with Deputy President David Mabuza, following his recent visit to Juba.

Morocco will not host 2019 Africa Cup of Nations: minister

Morocco will not be a candidate to host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations after Cameroon was stripped of the tournament, the country’s sports minister Rachid Talbi Alami said on Wednesday, while Egypt expressed an interest in hosting the finals.

“Morocco does not intend to run for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations and will not do so,” he told AFP.

Morocco and South Africa had been seen as the frontline contenders to host the competition, which is due to start on June 15.

One million Nigerians open bank accounts monthly – Official

More than one million bank accounts are opened monthly by Nigerians as the nation’s financial inclusion rate increased to 63.6 percent from 45.4 percent recorded in 2016.Mr. Niyi Ajao, Managing Director, Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), made the disclosure at the launch of the 2018 Financial Inclusion Survey by Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA) on Tuesday in Lagos.

He said with the rise in the rate, the efforts of stakeholders in the financial industry were beginning to pay off.

Ajao, however, said that there was need to do more if the country would meet the 20 percent exclusion rate by 2020.

At least 2 killed during DR Congo opposition rally

At least two people were killed Wednesday in clashes with police on the sidelines of an opposition rally in eastern DR Congo ahead of this month’s presidential elections, several sources said.

The violence erupted in Kalemie, a town on Lake Tanganyika as opposition candidate Martin Fayulu was campaigning there.

It came a day after two of his supporters were killed and 43 hurt in clashes at a rally in Lubumbashi, DR Congo’s second city.

A witness said “live rounds” were fired as Fayulu arrived in Kalemie

Human rights abuse remains problem in West Africa

Justice Micah Wilkins, a former Vice President, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice says human rights abuse remains a major challenge in West African countries.Wilkins said this at the Human Rights Fiesta organised by the Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER) to mark the 2018 human rights day in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to him, the ECOWAS Court has many mandates, but the human rights mandate is the most significant.

“Other aspects of the work that we are doing are not as much as the human rights mandate because 98 percent of the cases we get involve violation of human rights across West African states.

Abuja Chamber of commerce enters pact with 21 countries

The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) has signed pacts with chambers of commerce in 21 countries to improve its activities.Mr. Adetoknbo Kayode, President of the Chamber, said in Abuja on Monday during the chamber’s 28th Annual General Meeting (AGM) that some of the countries are China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Yantai Council, Spanish Confederation of Employers Organisation, Casablanca –Settat Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Services, Morocco and Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Kayode said that the chamber had projected to have no fewer than 12 sector-specific fairs and expos in 2019, adding that before 2018, ACCI was only to organise one trade fair.

He said after the last AGM, some positive indications had been recorded while the vision of rebranding the chamber had become a reality.

Nigeria: Striking lecturers, government reach agreement

The Nigerian Government and the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have reached a partial agreement.Dr. Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, said this on Monday at a reconciliation meeting in Abuja aimed at finding ways of resolving the strike which commenced on Nov. 5.

“We have finished our deliberation for today. I am happy to report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation from the Memorandum of Action which we agreed to in 2017.

“Some of these areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been fully dealt with.

CSOs canvass use of mobile phone tax to fund health

The Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has urged the Nigerian Government to adopt one kobo per second mobile tax to fund the Universal Health Coverage (UHC).Acting under the aegis of Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health @Scale Project (PACFaH), the coalition made the call at a news conference to commemorate the 2018 International Universal Health Coverage Day marked every Dec. 12 worldwide, with the theme “Unite for universal health coverage: Now is the time for collective action”.

Mr. Ayo Adebusoye, the Secretary General of the Nigeria Network of Non-Governmental Organisations (NNNNGO), one of the panelists, identified mobile phone tax as one of the innovative and surest ways to actualise UHC.

Adebusoye explained that such tax would involve charging one kobo per second on every outgoing phone calls from the Nigerian populace.

India’s ruling party set to lose key state

India’s ruling party looked set to lose power in at least one of three traditional stronghold states releasing election results Tuesday, in a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of national polls in 2019.

Early election results in the central state of Chhattisgarh indicated the main opposition Congress party of Rahul Gandhi would win 59 seats compared to just 11 for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Hindu nationalist BJP has ruled Chhattisgarh for the past 15 years.

US returns war trophy bells to Philippines

Church bells seized from the Philippines by US troops as war trophies over a century ago were returned on Tuesday, in a bid to turn the page on a difficult chapter between the historical allies.

Giving back the three so-called Balangiga bells meets a decades-old demand from the former US colony at a time when the two nations’ ties have been rattled by President Rodrigo Duterte’s pivot to China.

“Returning these bells is the right thing to do,” US Ambassador Sung Kim said at a sober handover ceremony on a Manila airfield, where a cheer went up when the bells were pulled from wooden crates.

“It is my great honour to be here at the closing of a painful chapter in our history,” he told the crowd that included people who had lobbied for years to bring the bells home.

The bells will be sent back later this week to the church i

Buhari returns from UN Climate Change Conference in Poland

President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Abuja from Poland, where he participated in the opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice.While in Poland, the President delivered his address at the 12-day meeting of COP24, and met with several world leaders . He also visited the impressive Nigerian pavilion at the climate summit.

President Buhari on Tuesday visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, in Oświęcim, Poland where he paid tribute to Holocaust victims.

President Buhari held bilateral meeting with Swiss President Alain Berset, President of Poland, Andrzej Duda and the Prime Minister, Mateusz

China to ‘immediately’ implement US trade truce measures

hina said Thursday it would “immediately” implement measures agreed under a trade war truce with the United States — and was confident it could reach a deal within 90 days.

The commerce ministry’s remarks came days after US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to give negotiators 90 days to resolve their trade spat.

Few details have been made public about what the two sides will negotiate, a lack of clarity that has unsettled stock markets.

“China will immediately implement the consensus both sides already reached on agricultural products, energy, autos and other specific items,” commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng said at a regular press briefing.

Ghana: Government receives $4.5m for job training

The Ghanaian Government has secured $4.5 million from Aker Energy to train some 200 job seekers in the oil and gas sector, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, announced on Wednesday.Briefing the media in Accra, he said that the funds would be used to train the youth to enable them to take up various jobs in the oil and gas sectors.

The funds have been secured after President Akufo-Addo launched the Accelerated Oil and Gas Programme (AOGC) to build capacity of young persons in readiness to take advantage of the opportunities in the oil sector.

It is also to develop the capacity of the technical and vocational institutions to offer programmes related to the oil and gas sectors.

Africa must focus on its young people, experts urge

Professor Paul Collier, one of the world’s most influential development economists, warns that Africa’s “easy decade” of accelerated economic growth is coming to an end, and only accelerated job creation and integration will ensure sustainable growth and development across the continent.

Dr. Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, was delivering a keynote address at the African Economic Conference 2018, hosted by the African Development Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme in Kigali, Rwanda.

The battle to save Central African Republic’s starving children

The line of parents waiting to see doctors stretches back outside the hospital into the dusty courtyard. Mums and dads carrying weak, starving children. Many hanging limply in their arms like half empty sacks of rice.

The scene at the paediatric complex in Bangui, capital of Central African Republic, is not dissimilar to a war zone. And as conflict tears through the country, people here are desperately fighting another deadly foe: hunger.

In a doorway, a young girl stands with the round shape of her belly protruding out above her skinny legs.

A few metres away another malnourished girl sits barefoot, joints protruding, with shoulder blades poking out of her skin like blades, a baggy top the only clothing to cling to her perished frame.

“Central African Republic is one of the most difficult countries to be a child,” Donaig Le Dru, UNICEF spokesperson in CAR, told AFP.

The statistics underline the horrors that stalk childhood in the country.

Infant mortality in CAR is the highest in the world, according to the UN.

One in 24 children die in the first 28 days of life.

The number of children with severe or acute malnutrition rose from around 32,000 to 43,000 between 2014 and the end of 2018.

And two out of three children — 1.5 million youngsters in total — are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to UNICEF.

Ramaphosa calls for ‘common agenda’ to promote growth in BRICS

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged delegates from BRICS countries to find methods of building inclusive growth‚ multilateralism and unity, while warning against “imperialism and oppression” from getting a foothold.Ramaphosa was speaking at the BRICS political parties’ dialogue in Pretoria on Tuesday during an event that brought together 200 delegates from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and other fraternal parties from the continent.

“We seek to find the best ways and methods towards building what we could call a common agenda‚ which is about inclusive growth and multilateralism in the fourth industrial revolution,” Ramaphosa said.

Parliament to approve $100m insurance cover for rice farmers

The Ghanaian Parliament is expected to approve a $100 million insurance cover for rice farmers across the West African country, APA learns here Wednesday.On approval, the facility will provide insurance cover as “farm-risk insurance” for rice farmers, who operated previously without insurance, making them vulnerable to various risks associated with investing in the rice industry.

The President of the Ghana Rice Farmers Association, Nana Kwabena Aryeh II, has told the Goldstreet Business newspaper that currently rice farmers are not benefiting from the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP), an initiative launched in the year 2011 to provide agricultural insurance to farmers.

Nigeria identifies poor moral values as bane of security

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, says Nigeria’s security challenges are largely due to lack of moral values, especially among youths.Mustapha spoke at the 2nd Northern Christian Youth Economic and Political Summit 2018, with the theme: “The role of Christian youths in the promotion of peace and political stability in Nigeria” on Tuesday in Abuja.

The SGF, who expressed sadness over the security situation in the country, urged youths to be the lead vanguards in restoring peace, security and stability by providing government with intelligence.

He advised the youths to identify and report any threat to the public, adding that for the country to develop, it is the duty of all to protect citizens.

UN sees ‘severe increase’ in Yemen hunger rate

The UN warned Tuesday of a “severe increase” in Yemen’s hunger rate and cautioned the situation would deteriorate further in 2019, when four million more people are expected to need food aid.

The head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told reporters that a food security survey due to be published later this week would show “a severe increase in hunger rate” in the country.

“We are seeing the severe hunger rate spike, from eight million to 12 million,” he said, stressing that “these are the people who are on the brink of starvation… These are people who don’t know where the next meal is coming from.”