Newscast - Africa

Microsoft says it will shut down career-oriented social network LinkedIn in China, citing a challenging operating environment as Beijing tightens control over tech firms.
Senior vice president of engineering Mohak Shroff says the US-based company will replace LinkedIn in China with an application dedicated to applying for jobs but without the networking features.
The Wall Street Journal says LinkedIn was given a deadline by Chinese internet regulators to better oversee content on the site.
Chinese authorities have been targeting a range of homegrown tech behemoths for alleged monopolistic practices and aggressive harvesting of consumer data.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva says accelerating the pace of vaccinations worldwide will be key not just to contain the coronavirus pandemic, but also to resolving the speed bumps besetting the global economic recovery.
Those disruptions stem from the unprecedented situation created by the pandemic and the sharp rebound in demand as economies reopen, as well as struggles to hire workers amid renewed infections from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Georgieva says however the more fundamental problem is the growing divergence between countries that are pulling forward more strongly and those that are falling behind largely due to the drastically lower vaccination rates in lower-income nations.

The international organisation says the Francophonie summit due to be held in Tunisia in November has been postponed.
The 88 French-speaking countries were scheduled to meet on the island of Djerba next month but have decided to move the event to next year.
The decision is believed to be partly motivated by the political situation in Tunisia.
The delay of the Francophonie summit is seen by the opposition as a blow to the president and his power grab.

The World Health Organization says Six out of every seven coronavirus cases are not being detected in Africa.
It has made the calculation based on a formula that looks at recorded deaths and case fatality rates.
The WHO is boosting community screening in eight countries aiming to reach seven million people with rapid testing in the next year.
WHO's Africa director Dr Matshidiso Moeti says with limited testing, they are still flying blind in far too many communities in Africa while more testing means rapid isolation, less transmission and more lives saved through targeted action.

A new report from Oxfam says West African governments are planning to slash and burn their way out of Covid-19 induced economic loss.
Its report singled out Nigeria as the worst-performing West African country when it came to tackling inequality going into the pandemic.
It says that the country’s health spending is the third-lowest in the world at 3.6% of GDP and that 40% of its population does not have access to healthcare services.
The report warned that any massive cut on public finances could push millions more West Africans into poverty and hunger.

President Muhammadu Buhari says he will hasten the signing of the Consolidated Insurance Bill 2020 once it lands on his desk.
The President says once the National Assembly has finished the process of reviewing the Consolidated Insurance Bill 2020 and forwarded he would speedily subject it to the necessary executive checks and sign it into law.
The President commended the leadership of the Institute for bringing some sanity into the Nigerian Insurance Industry as well as giving more visibility to the importance of the industry in national development, counselled them to do more.

A total of 3,577,860 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have arrived in Nigeria from the United States.
A statement released by the United States Mission in Nigeria says the arrival of 3,577,860 doses of Pfizer vaccine is for the public health and benefit of the Nigerian people through COVAX, the worldwide initiative ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
The mission noted that safe and effective vaccines remain the best tool to ending the pandemic.

The House of Representatives has passed two bills to establish the North-Central and North-West development commissions.
The commissions are charged with the responsibility to receive and manage funds allocated from the federation accounts.
The funds will be directed towards the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads, houses and other infrastructural in the regions.
The commissions have become imperative, according to the lawmakers, due to the ecological and security challenges in the affected regions.
It is also hoped that the commissions will help to reduce poverty in the regions.
This comes after two related bills to establish development commissions in the South-West and South-East were passed in the green chamber.

The Nigerian Communications Commission has confirmed it is 97% ready for the implementation of 5G deployment in the country.
NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Professor Umar Danbatta, stated that this paradigm shift in communication has led to a significant increase in network connectivity requirements as a result of an unprecedented upsurge in internet traffic, occasioned by the use of a plethora of web applications.
He explained that the NCC is working with operators to implement a number of initiatives to ensure network expansion.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has expressed displeasure over what it describes as a slow pace in the implementation of the Memorandum of Agreement it reached with the Federal Government last year.
ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke also urged the National Assembly to initiate a law that makes it compulsory for public office holders to send their wards to public schools in the country, saying such a step would let the officials know the decay in public universities.
The meeting is a follow-up of the reconciliation meeting held in August to evaluate the progress so far made in the implementation of the memorandum signed in 2020.