Africa

Archived version

The DFRLab analyzed twenty suspicious YouTube channels acting in a highly similar fashion, mimicking pro-Kremlin and anti-Western news content in videos targeting African audiences in several countries. The channels used comparable tactics, including possible AI-generated voice narrations, related titles and thumbnails, and publicly available footage.

The channels published content targeting Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Rwanda, and Congo. Their videos covered real news events but presented them in a misleading way with clickbait titles that further sensationalized the content. Notably, one of the channels was cited by a media outlet and in an academic study, highlighting the breakout ability of such content to reach different audiences outside of YouTube.

In our latest study we found that samples taken from mothers and newborn babies younger than one week in Nigeria already had colistin-resistant bacteria present in their bodies. But neither the babies nor their mothers had been treated with colistin.

Colistin is one of the last remaining antibiotics that is still effective in killing bacteria and fighting infections such as pneumonia. It is deemed critically important for human medicine by the World Health Organization.

We surmise that mothers may have picked up these colistin resistant bacteria from the environment. We cannot speculate on the specific mechanism. The babies, meanwhile, could have picked up the bacteria from the hospital, the community, or from their mothers. It’s not yet known if these colistin-resistant bacteria stay in the mothers or babies – but if they do this may increase their chances of acquiring future drug-resistant infections.

Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya, South Africas’s Deputy Chief Justice, has been appointed the country’s new Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court by President Cyril Ramaphosa. She takes up the position from 1 September 2024. She replaces current Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, whose term ends at the end of August.

She is the first woman Chief Justice since South Africa became a constitutional democracy following the end of apartheid in 1994.

Archived version

• Kenya’s foreign exchange reserves have experienced a significant drop of USD 487 million (about KES 63.9 billion) over the past week, following substantial repayments of external debt.

• The decrease in reserves follows the government’s repayment of USD 533 million (about KES 70 billion) in external loans, which includes USD 433 million (KES 56.8 billion) used to service a loan from China.

• The reduction has decreased the import cover from 4.1 months to 3.9 months. Import cover refers to the number of months the available foreign exchange reserves can finance imports.

• Previous reports indicated that Kenya had spent KES 152.69 billion (approximately USD 1.15 billion) repaying China in the last fiscal year This included USD 705.05 million (KES 100.47 billion) in principal repayment and USD 366.46 million (KES 52.22 billion) in interest.

• Additionally, Kenya paid USD 286.04 million (KES 40.76 billion) more than initially planned for the fiscal year.

• The secretive nature of Beijing’s loan terms with developing countries like Kenya often means borrowers must prioritise repayments to China, placing a considerable burden on the Kenyan public.

The Continent is a weekly newspaper produced by African reporters, photographers, illustrators and editors. It is designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp, Telegram channel, Signal or e-mail, and has become the continent's most widely distributed newspaper.

It is designed to be read on a mobile screen, with mostly short news pieces of 250 to 400 words, and a few longer pieces of about 900 words. Editions are sent out as a PDF on Fridays.

Led by a small team of nine (all working remotely) and having published contributions from nearly 200 journalists, writers, photographers and illustrators from across Africa in the past year, The Continent has covered numerous important and urgent stories, starting with reliable information from African researchers and public health experts on the Covid-19 pandemic, and on to other ground-breaking reporting: the injustice of “vaccine apartheid” with rich countries hoarding Covid-19 vaccines; the impact of Nigeria’s sudden and dramatic Twitter ban (applauded by none other than Donald Trump); a tender photo essay on being queer in Uganda, in a country where it is dangerous to be LGBTQ.

The Continent is published by the All Protocol Observed, a registered non-profit based in South Africa. It was initially funded by the editorial team, but has since attracted donor and commercial funding. So a refreshing difference is no adverts and also no tracking. You receive the PDF weekly via your channel of choice (or you can just download it from their website), and you can reshare this with anyone you wish to.

Credit to Jan Wildeboer @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net for sharing this on the Fediverse.

See https://www.thecontinent.org/

#news #Africa #TheContinent #journalism

Archived link

Chinese leaders have been citing the billions of dollars committed to new construction projects and record two-way trade as evidence of their commitment to assist with the Africa’s modernisation and foster “win-win” cooperation.

But the data reveals a relationship that is still largely extractive and has so far failed to live up to some of Beijing’s rhetoric about the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s strategy to build an infrastructure network connecting China to the world.

While new Chinese investment in Africa increased 114% last year, according to the Griffith Asia Institute at Australia’s Griffith University, it was heavily focused on minerals essential to the global energy transition and China’s plans to revive its own flagging economy, but has brought less advantage to Africa.

• Minerals and oil also dominated African-Chinese trade. As efforts falter to boost other imports from Africa, including agricultural products and manufactured goods, the continent’s trade deficit with China has ballooned.

• The result is a more one-sided relationship than China says it wants, one that is dominated by imports of Africa’s raw materials and that some analysts argue contains echoes of colonial-era Europe’s economic relations with the continent.

• Although two-way trade reached a record $282 billion last year, according to Chinese customs data, the value of Africa’s exports to China fell 7%, mainly due to a decline in oil prices, and Africa's trade deficit widened 46%.

• Many projects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which grew rapidly in the two decades before the COVID-19 pandemic, proved unprofitable. As some governments struggled to repay loans, China cut lending. COVID-19 then pushed it to turn inward, and Chinese construction projects in Africa fell.

• China's hunt for critical minerals is a main driver of African infrastructure construction. In January, for example, Chinese companies pledged up to $7 billion in infrastructure investment under a revision of their copper and cobalt joint venture agreement with Democratic Republic of Congo.

• With one of Africa’s largest trade deficits to China, Kenya has been pushing to increase access to the world’s second-largest consumer market, recently gaining it for avocados and seafood. But cumbersome health and hygiene regulations mean Chinese consumers remain out of reach for many producers.

• Overall, Kenyan exports to China fell over 15% to $228 million, Chinese customs data showed, as a decline in titanium production led to a drop in shipments of the metal – a key export to China. But Chinese manufactured goods kept coming.

Unless African nations can add value to their exports through increased processing and manufacturing, says Francis Mangeni, an advisor at the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area, “we are just exporting raw minerals to fuel their economy.”

Archived version

Amid unrest in Kenya due to debt distress, it is reported that the country has spent 152.69 billion KES (about 1 billion USD) to repay debt to China in the just-ended financial year, highlighting the burden on taxpayers in servicing loans taken to build a modern railway and other infrastructure projects, according to a report by Business Daily.

• The total amount paid represents a 42.14 per cent jump over the 107.42 billion KES paid in the previous year, ending June 2023, according to disclosures by the Kenyan Treasury.

• According to research lan AidData, "The terms of Beijing's loan deals with developing countries are usually secretive and require borrowing from nations such as Kenya to prioritise repayment of Chinese state-owned banks ahead of other creditors."

• Based on analysis of loan agreements between 2000 and 2019, AidData suggested that Chinese deals have clauses for "more elaborate repayment safeguards" than its "peers in the official credit market."

Archived version

Developing countries owe China an estimated $1.1 trillion, and more than 80% of China’s loans are to countries experiencing financial distress, according to AidData, a research lab at William & Mary. Despite this, China rarely agrees to loan forgiveness or principle reduction, preferring to negotiate longer repayment plans on a case-by-case basis.

• Despite promises of two-way trade, African exporters have little access to Chinese markets for their goods. Most of China’s imports from the continent are oil, gas and minerals.

• The result is a more one-sided relationship than China says it wants.. One that is dominated by imports of Africa’s raw materials and that some analysts argue contains echoes of colonial-era Europe’s economic relations with the continent.

• With the annual Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) set to take place in September, China is expected to announce new projects in Africa. But its lending practices are coming under scrutiny. Several countries that have taken on debt have found themselves forced to make drastic cuts to domestic programs or raise taxes in order to repay the loans.

• Kenya, for example, spends about 60% of its revenue on debt payments, with about one-third of that money going to pay the interest on loans.

With negotiations to adopt rules and regulations for commercial deep-sea mining in international waters resuming this week at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), African countries have an extremely important role to play in the future of this industry and the health of our ocean, says Rashid Sumaila, University Killam Professor and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

ISA, as a UN-affiliated institution, was established in the 1990s to ensure that developing countries would benefit financially from deep-sea mining when/if it starts, ensuring equity in the benefits derived from global commons. As this debate progresses, Africa stands at a pivotal moment where its decisions could profoundly influence the trajectory of this industry and the preservation of marine ecosystems.

[...]

But our research, which looks at the full net cost of deep-sea mining for a wide variety of stakeholders, including mining companies, investors, low-income countries, sponsoring states, and nations involved in terrestrial mining, has uncovered a complex web of risks and rewards.

Mounting scientific evidence suggests that mining would have devastating impacts on fragile seafloor habitats. A single mining operation might discharge massive sediment plumes, significantly affecting light penetration and water oxygenation while dispersing toxins and radioactivity. The price of irreversible ecological damage could be staggering, estimated to potentially surpass the entire global defence budget of about 2 trillion dollars.

And while private companies (and the countries sponsoring their mining operations) stand to make short-term profits from the enterprise, looming business model risks, litigation threats, and technological challenges raise serious doubts about its long-term economic benefits. As new data continues to emerge, we must include the costs of potentially irreversible damage mining causes in our calculus, especially as humanity faces a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

Zambia has invested over $1bn (£784m) in the education sector since the introduction of free education three years ago - a much-needed boost after years of decline in spending as a proportion of GDP in this sector.

The government has announced plans to build over 170 new schools and has committed to the recruitment of 55,000 new teachers by the end of 2026, of whom 37,000 have already been hired.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/14986553

Archived version

In an interview with the French publication “Le Parisien”, Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroonian President Paul Biya, explains why she came out, what her family’s response has been, and how she hopes to make a difference for Cameroon’s LGBTQ community. This is an English translation of that interview.

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/18587221

Archived version

Kenya hopes that the protests would die down after President Ruto decided not to sign the new tax reforms bill. A debt-stricken country, Kenya finds it hard to service loans, much of which is owed to China. Is this the real problem?

President William Ruto came to power in Kenya in 2022, promising to make life easy for average Kenyan people. But seven months into his presidency, Ruto’s chief economic adviser tweeted in April 2023, “Salaries or default? Take your pick.”

A month later, the government held back paychecks to thousands of civil service workers to save cash to pay foreign loans, news agency Associated Press reported in May 2023.

In less than two years, the same people whom Ruto promised to ease their hardships are baying for his blood. They are out on the streets, demanding the life Ruto had promised. A vast majority of protesters are youth. They have turned violent and set the Kenyan parliament building to fire, damaging a part of it. In response, the Kenyan government has used force killing more than a dozen protesters.

On Wednesday, Ruto relented, declaring he would not sign the tax reforms bill that had triggered the violent protests, resulting in the death of 23 agitators. The bill will now lapse.

The catalyst for protests: Why youth are on streets in Kenya

The new Finance Bill proposed a series of tax reforms and hikes levies, sparking public outrage.

• Among the most contentious measures were new levies on monetised digital content creation and a five per cent tax increase on digital payments, including bank transfers and mobile money payments. Given Kenya’s heavy reliance on mobile money, these measures were particularly burdensome.

• What tipped the scales against the Ruto government were a 16 per cent value-added tax (VAT) on bread and a 25 per cent excise duty on domestically produced raw and refined vegetable cooking oil.

• Additionally, the bill proposed a 2.75 per cent income charge on salary earners enrolled in the national medical insurance plan and a 2.5 per cent annual tax on motor vehicles.

Protesters argued that these taxes would significantly raise the cost of living. They were also alarmed by the bill’s provision allowing revenue authorities to access bank and mobile money accounts to enforce tax collection.

The new bill was aimed at raising an additional $2.7 billion in domestic revenue for the Ruto government. Ruto also aimed to use the new taxes to meet a 2024 revenue target of 3.3 trillion Kenyan shillings ($26 billion).

But why hike taxes so sharply

Ruto justified the tax-hike proposals. He said they were necessary to pay off a public debt of 11.1 trillion Kenyan shillings or $82 billion that Kenya had to repay or service.

Much of this debt is owed to China, a result of extensive borrowing under former President Uhuru Kenyatta, whom Ruto served as vice-president. These borrowings financed infrastructure projects, including a Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line connecting Nairobi to Mombasa, a major coastal city.

Kenya approached lenders for fresh loans but agencies like International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank demanded tax reforms and transparency in other loans (read borrowings from China, whose loan conditions are never disclosed and always shrouded in the cloud of secrecy). China is already Kenya’s biggest lender.

The problem: A pattern of consequences

The thing with debts is that they need to be serviced to avoid defaulting on them. A loan default complicates future borrowings for a country. The debts become harder to come, and those available come at very high interest rates, complicating the finances further. It becomes a vicious cycle.

It is estimated that Kenya is currently spending about 59 per cent of its revenues to service debts, leaving only about 41 per cent of tax revenues to finance government expenditures including salaries and development projects.

The World Bank estimates show that the total public debt of Kenya stands at about 68 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) for fiscal 2023/24. If things go as per the Ruto government’s plan, it may fall to about 65 per cent for 2024/25. Kenya’s fiscal year follows the July-June cycle. In June 2023, the debt-GDP ratio had gone up to almost 72 per cent.

The China angle to Kenya’s problem

About one-fourth of the debt finance money goes to service borrowings from China, which is not only Kenya’s biggest lender but also accounts for over 70 per cent of the total bilateral debts that the east African country owes. This amounted to 882.5 billion Kenyan shillings or $6.82 billion by June 2023. Figures for the ongoing fiscal are not clear.

Bloomberg cited a lawmakers report to say that Kenya’s loan payments to the Export-Import Bank of China “is a key driver of debt servicing expenditures”. According to Kenya’s National Assembly’s Public Debt & Privatisation Committee, China accounts for 147.9 billion Kenyan shillings or $1.2 billion in interest and principal payments in the next fiscal year through June 2025.

Overall, external debt payments are projected at 590.6 billion Kenyan shillings or $4.5 billion in the financial year beginning July 1, adding up to about a third of total debt servicing.

Kenyan media reports show China, Finland and France are top lenders. The problem with Chinese loans has been the lack of transparency and a track record of defaults or near-default situations for the nations that have had China as their primary lender — Sri Lanka and Pakistan, for example.

Last year, an Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China — including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia — found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel. It said the debt servicing was draining foreign currency reserves these countries use to pay interest on those loans, leaving some with just months before that money is gone.

There are two other complications with Chinese loans. China has been reluctant to forgive debt. Coupled with its extreme secrecy about the amount of money and terms of its loans, the Chinese hand keeps traditional lenders — the US and others — from stepping in to help the struggling economy restructure their debt and debt service.

The other issue is, as it has been discovered in recent years, that China requires borrowers to put cash in hidden escrow accounts to safeguard its loans. This puts China at the forefront of the line of creditors that are to be paid. Others then prefer to stay away.

The same was happening with Kenya. But as Ruto approached international agencies, they asked to improve Kenya’s tax revenues and fix the flaws in the fundamentals of its economy. Kenya brought a pro-reform budget in April. And the tax-reforming Finance Bill was a step in that direction but an already struggling population was not ready to bear the brunt.

This explains why posts on social media gave a call to occupy the president’s office and residence, and also the local offices of the World Bank and the IMF. Now that Ruto has withdrawn the Finance Bill, his government requires to find new ways to finance the Kenyan economy.