Newscast - Africa

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has announced that he has secured a three-year natural gas supply deal with Russia, amid efforts by the European Union to phase out Russian energy supplies.
The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic says they have agreed on the main elements that are very favourable for Serbia.
Vucic claims he wants to take Serbia into the European Union but has spent recent years cementing ties with Russia, a longtime ally.
He has also refused to explicitly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his country has not joined Western sanctions against Moscow.

Ethiopia's Human Rights Commission has condemned a wave of arrests of journalists.
The commission's head, Daniel Bekele, called the move a new low for a country that has often been accused of creating a hostile environment for independent media.
At least 19 media workers have been detained, which the government-affiliated rights body has called unlawful.
The mass arrests began last week, coinciding with the launch of what authorities have called a law enforcement operation" in one of the country's regions, Amhara, where more than 4,000 people have been detained in under two weeks.

Sudan's military government has lifted a state of emergency that it imposed after seizing power in a coup six months ago.
The country's ruling security and defence council said the decision was made at a meeting headed by the military leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
It says the move was aimed at creating the right atmosphere for dialogue. Protests against the military government have continued since the coup in October.

Power Industry stakeholders have stressed the need for the power sector to be self-sustaining from intermittent Central Bank of Nigeria intervention after disbursing about N1.3 trillion to the power sector in the last five years.
Associate Director, Energy, Utilities and Resources at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Habeeb Jaiyeola, insisted that providing financial support to industries, especially the power sector remained a welcome development.
He however highlighted the need to ensure that the facilities are duly paid back, saying that the government’s continued support to the power sector would have an overall impact on the sector to facilitate the required progress.
He urged the authorities to clearly outline and monitor the interventions to ensure they achieved projected objectives, adding that the national mass metering programme for instance may be needed to be checked against some of its set objectives in terms of coverage, availability, and completion time.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has denied the claims of efficacy of IHP Detox Tea for the cure of COVID-19 patients allegedly made by the Chief Executive Officer of Bioresources Development and Conservative Programme, Prof. Maurice Iwu.
It says the first stage of the clinical trial so far carried out on the product was not enough to confirm its efficacy until the Phase 3 Clinical Trial had been conducted with enough sample size.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye says only NAFDAC has the mandate to make any pronouncement on the quality, safety, and efficacy of all regulated products that showed satisfactory scientific evidence.
She however explained that three herbal formulations were approved for clinical trial studies during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Pioneer Chief Executive Officer of Seplat Energy, Mr Austin Avuru, has alleged that those who cut corners find it easier to get regulatory approval than those who obey the country’s laws in the oil and gas industry.
Avuru noted that while regulatory effectiveness was critical, in Nigeria, operators get punished for doing the right thing.
He explained that a fair industry regulator encourages a free-market economy as it supports fair competition, rewards efficiency, punishes bad and illegal practices and generally promotes value creation.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ibrahim Pantami, says the new satellite service offerings from Starlink, would make broadband penetration much easier.
He says Nigeria has been encountering challenges such as the issues of right of way, and vandalism of infrastructure, among others over the years, but noted that the current administration has significantly addressed the challenges.
Pantami says all these operations can easily be conducted with broadband from space, 5G technology in place and other emerging technologies and will go a long way in supporting the Nigerian country in two ways of fast-tracking economic development and handling security challenges.

Britain has announced a 25 per cent windfall tax on oil and gas producers’ profits, alongside a 15-billion-pound package of support for households struggling to pay soaring energy bills.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak says energy firms were making extraordinary profits while Britons struggled.
Sunak says they will introduce a temporary and targeted energy profits levy, but they have built into the new levy a new investment allowance that means companies will have a new and significant incentive to reinvest their profits.
He says it would raise 5 billion pounds in the next 12 months and be phased out as oil and gas prices return to normal.
He also said there would be a new Investment Allowance that would nearly double the tax relief available for firms on their investments.

Former Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey did not stand for re-election Wednesday, and is no longer a board member, ending his formal relationship with the social network he co-founded in 2006.
Institutional Shareholders Services Inc., an advisory firm, had recommended against Durban’s re-election because he serves on the boards of more than five publicly-traded companies.
A Twitter spokesperson says Egon Durban has tendered his resignation to the board.
The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board will promptly consider whether to recommend that the Board accept Mr Durban’s resignation and provide an update in due course.

Elon Musk has been sued by Twitter Inc. investors, claiming he manipulated the company’s stock price downward when he mounted a $44 billion takeover bid for the social media platform.
The investors said billionaire Musk saved himself $156 million by failing to disclose that he had purchased more than five per cent of Twitter by March 14.
They asked to be certified as a class and to be awarded an unspecified amount of punitive and compensatory damages.
The investors said Musk continued to buy the stock after that, and ultimately disclosed in early April that he owned 9.2 per cent of the company, according to the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court.