Newscast - Africa

Burkina Faso’s foreign minister Alpha Barry says West African foreign ministers will arrive in Guinea on Friday to evaluate the situation after a military coup in the country,
The foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo will visit as representatives of the West Africa bloc ECOWAS.
ECOWAS suspended Guinea from its ranks after the military coup on Sunday when special forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya seized power and arrested President Alpha Conde, sparking international condemnation.

The UN human rights chief says gross violations continue to be perpetrated by all sides in Ethiopia's Tigray conflict and has warned that the country risks being torn apart.
Michelle Bachelet says civilian suffering was widespread.
She accused the Ethiopian government forces and their allies of mass detentions, killings, sexual violence, systematic looting, forced displacement and detention of civilians.
The UN rights chief also highlighted allegations that Tigrayan forces were recruiting child soldiers, attacking civilians in neighbouring regions and causing mass displacement.

The federal government has projected that it will receive about 55 million doses of vaccines by April 2022 to ensure that more Nigerians are vaccinated against the dreaded COVID-19.
The Chairman Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Mr Boss Mustapha assured that with the delivery of doses of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson vaccines, in addition to the expected delivery of Pfizer vaccines, there would be enough vaccines to go across the country.
Mustapha reiterated that the only way to survive the scourge was to be vaccinated, a fact he said had been reinforced by science and research.
He noted that although the global cases recorded have continued to decline to about four million cases weekly, the situation, however, still calls for caution because the country and the world are not out of the woods yet.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Faruk Yahaya, says he would no longer accept excuses for non-performance in the prosecution of the war against insurgency and armed banditry.
Yahaya asked commanders in the various theatres of operation to seize the initiative and take decisive actions to defeat threats in their respective areas of responsibility.
Yahaya stated that the Nigerian Army on his watch would remain resolute and continue to chart the progressive path towards tackling the security challenges confronting the country.
The army chief acknowledged that there were logistic constraints affecting operations across the country and disclosed that efforts were in progress to provide combat enablers that would enhance and boost military operations.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries expanded its global oil demand forecast for 2022 by almost one million barrels per day to 100.83 million bpd.
This was a 4.15 million bpd increase from the 2021 figure and a steep hike from the 3.28 million bpd growth projection it made last month.
OPEC stated that vaccination rates had continued to rise, while the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to be better managed, with economic activities and mobility expected to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The cartel further confirmed that though paltry compared to its pre-COVID production figure of nearly two million bpd, Nigeria was unable to meet its oil production quota for the month of August.

A former vice presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Peter Obi says Nigerians are getting poorer because the government is borrowing for the wrong reasons.
Mr Obi argued that while it is not a crime to borrow money, the funds must be used solely for productions that enhance the lives of the citizens and enrich the economy.
He says the nation’s Gross Domestic Product cannot be growing while the people are getting poorer.
He believes the growth Nigeria needs is one that pulls people out of poverty by making the people have disposable income and be able to feed themselves.

Japan and Vietnam have agreed to step up cooperation amid worries about China’s growing military influence, signing a new deal that enables the export of Japanese-made defence equipment and technology to Hanoi.
Japan’s Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi says the deal elevates the two countries’ defence partnership to a new level and that Japan and Vietnam plan to deepen defence ties through multinational joint exercises and other means.
The Japanese Defence Ministry in a statement says details about the transfer of specific equipment, including naval vessels, will be worked out in subsequent talks,
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also says China and Vietnam should refrain from any unilateral actions regarding the South China Sea that could complicate the situation and magnify disagreements.

The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and Iran’s nuclear chief have reached an agreement that will prevent another crisis looming over the prospect of restoring Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi met Mohammad Eslami, the newly appointed head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Both sides called the meeting constructive and agreed they will continue discussions on the sidelines of the agency’s general conference in Vienna later this month.
They also agreed that Grossi would travel to Tehran again soon to replace the agency’s monitoring cameras’ memory cards, which will still be kept in Iran in line with a law passed by the hardline Iranian parliament in December

The Taliban’s new higher education minister says Afghan women will be allowed to attend university as long as they study separately from men.
Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani was unapologetic about bringing an end to mixed-sex classes.
He says they have no problems in ending the mixed-education system adding that the people are Muslims and they will accept it.
The Taliban announced earlier this month that women could still study at university if they wore an abaya robe and niqab covering most of the face, with classes segregated by sex.

China handed over to Cambodia a $150 million stadium in Phnom Penh, with officials saying it is the result of Beijing’s biggest ever infrastructure grant to the country.
The presentation of the arena, intended as the main venue when Cambodia hosts the Southeast Asian Games in 2023, was made by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his visit.
Cambodia’s tourism minister Thong Khon says the $150 million stadia represented China’s largest-ever grant to Cambodia for an infrastructure project.
Official says the Morodok Techo National Stadium resembles a sailing ship, symbolising the two nations long-standing friendship as Chinese people used to travel to Cambodia by boat.