Newscast - Africa

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says there is a demonstrable effort to make peace in Ethiopia after more than a year of civil war.
Mr Guterres spoke to the African Union (AU) chief envoy to the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo who briefed him on the peace efforts.
The UN chief says the AU envoy expressed optimism that there is now a real opportunity for political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict.
Federal troops have been fighting rebels in the north of the country for more than a year now, in a war that has ended thousands of lives.

The authorities in Burkina Faso say they disrupted access to Facebook due to security fears.
Government spokesperson Alkassoum Maiga says the authorities did not have to explain themselves on the shutdown first reported on 10 January and which appears to have continued.
The government announced on 11 January that eight soldiers were arrested over a plan to destabilise the institutions of the republic, a development that local media said was a coup plot.

Sudan's military chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has appointed 15 ministers to a new government.
The move comes almost three months after he seized power in a military coup that derailed a planned transition to elections.
Correspondents say the naming of a new government is unlikely to appease the protesters who want the military to quit the political scene entirely.
The United States has reiterated that it will not resume economic assistance to Sudan unless there is an end to violence and a civilian-led government is restored

A United Nations-backed agency, Medicines Patent Pool, has struck a deal for nearly 30 generic drug makers to manufacture low-cost versions of Merck & Co’s COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir for poorer nations.
A Reuters report stated that the deal, negotiated by the UN-backed organisation with Merck, would expand output by increasing the number of companies that would produce the drug.
The new agreement allows 27 generic drug makers from India, China and other countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to produce ingredients and the finished drug.
The MPP stated that the deal stipulated that the pill would be distributed to 105 less-developed nations.

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has commended the Senate for re-amending the Electoral Act Amendment Bill giving room for direct, indirect, and consensus options for nominating candidates for the various political parties in the country.
They commended the Senate for amending clause 84 regarding the mode of candidate selection in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
They also urged the House of Representatives to do the same by adding the consensus clause.
They resolved to engage the organized labour on the best approach to take to avoid causing hardship to citizens concerning the fuel subsidy removal.

Former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar raised concerns over the removal of fuel subsidies.
General Abdulsalami says the country is facing challenges on multiple fronts and a fuel subsidy removal will only compound the situation.
The Federal Government says it plans to discontinue the payment of fuel subsidy by June but the move has been rejected by several stakeholders, including the Nigeria Labour Congress.
General Abdulsalami says Nigeria now faces a food security crisis that is compounded by the COVID-19 global pandemic and the banditry in many states in Northern Nigeria.

US mobile networks AT&T and Verizon have agreed to postpone the rollout of their new 5G service at some airports.
The telecoms firms expressed frustration as they bowed to pressure to limit their rollout.
AT&T says it was temporarily deferring the rollout at a limited number of towers around certain airport runways adding that regulators had had two years to plan for the start of 5G service.
Verizon says it had voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports.

The Finance Ministry says Britain is to crack down on misleading advertisements for crypto assets, which often target retail consumers with poor knowledge of the risks.
The finance ministry says that about 2.3 million people in Britain now own a crypto asset, but research suggests that understanding of the sector is declining, suggesting that some users may not fully understand what they are buying.
Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak says crypto-assets can provide exciting new opportunities, offering people new ways to transact and invest but important that consumers are not being sold products with misleading claims.

The British parliament is expected to debate a motion entitled recognition of Somaliland which has been tabled by MP Gavin Williamson.
Somaliland seceded from Somalia more than 30 years ago, but it is not recognised as an independent state by the African Union or the United Nations.
Somaliland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has welcomed the motion and urged Somalilanders in the UK to contact their respective MPs.
Local governments in the British cities of Sheffield, Cardiff and Birmingham support Somaliland's independence, but the British government does not.

President Tayyip Erdogan says that he was pleased with the lessening in lira volatility and that the government was working on steps to increase interest in the Turkish currency.
State-owned Anadolu news agency reports that the president said the lira will get firmer, interest rates will fall in the same way, and 2022 will be our brightest year.
He says they are quite pleased with the lessening volatility in the exchange rate adding that their additional work is continuing on maintaining stability in financial markets and boosting interest in the lira.