Newscast - Africa

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says Turkey cannot take the burden of a new migrant wave from Afghanistan, as concerns about a new migrant wave remain after the Taliban’s takeover.
Cavusoglu says Turkey has sufficiently carried out our moral and humanitarian responsibilities regarding migration adding that It is out of the question to take an additional refugee burden.
Cavusoglu says Europe, as well as regional countries, would also be affected if migration from Afghanistan turns into a crisis and that lessons should be learned from the Syrian refugee crisis.

President Joe Biden has met with the families of the 13 US soldiers who were killed in an attack at Kabul airport last week, as the remains of the fallen army personnel are returned to the United States from Afghanistan.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden attended the dignified transfer of the fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday, a military ritual of receiving the remains of those killed in foreign combat.
Al Jazeera reports that the US soldiers ranged in age from 20 to 31.

The United States says it destroyed an explosive-laden vehicle with an airstrike in Kabul on Sunday, hours after President Joe Biden warned of another terror attack in the capital as a massive airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans entered its last days.
The US says it had only struck the vehicle but added that secondary blasts indicated a substantial amount of explosive material.
Local media reported possible civilian casualties, which the US said it was assessing.
The Taliban revealed their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada was in southern Afghanistan and planning to make a public appearance.

The AFP news agency reports that the Gambia has formally blocked flights bringing migrants deported from the European Union.
Gambian foreign ministry spokesman Saikou Ceesay told AFP large numbers of returning migrants would cause social upheaval.
AFP says the news came as Germany was preparing to expel a number of Gambians.
The AFP says International Organization for Migration more than 35,000 arrived there between 2014 and 2018 - often taking dangerous journeys over the Mediterranean.
The IOM says overseas remittances of an estimated 118,000 Gambians living abroad account for more than 20% of the country's GDP.

Rebel forces from Ethiopia's conflict-hit Tigray region have accused the African Union of bias, days after the bloc appointed the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as a mediator.
A spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Getachew Reda, accused the AU of siding with the Ethiopian government and barely acknowledging the existence of the ten month-long conflicts.
He says the TPLF was not against the appointment of a mediator but said it would be naive to expect the mission to work.
The Ethiopian government has repeatedly said it would not be willing to hold talks with the TPLF which it has described as a terrorist organisation.

Zambia’s new President Hakainde Hichilema has replaced the country’s top military commanders and the head of the police and signalled a focus on the security forces being more accountable to the citizens.
The president announced new commanders of the Zambian army, the air force and the national service and their deputies, as well as a new inspector general of police.
Mr Hichilema says the new office bearers must have the interest of the people at heart and serve the country diligently while ensuring human rights, freedoms and liberties are respected.
He says the police must carry out proper checks before detaining suspects and that no one should be arrested before investigations are concluded.

President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to the warring groups in Plateau States and other parts of the country to embrace peace and end the shedding of blood seen in the country in the past few days.
The president in a statement by his spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, also assured all citizens that his government was on top of the situation and was moving ahead to crush perpetrators of the unrest in Plateau State.
He says to achieve success in that regard, communities must unite to end the orgy of violence in the past few days.
He says attempts to simplify the reasons into a basic narrative may help raise donor-dollars for international non-governmental organisations , fill pages of overseas newspapers and burnish foreign politicians’ faith credentials.

Dangote’s $2 billion Petrochemical Plant located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State will produce 77 different high-performance grades of polypropylene, drive investment in the downstream industries, generate employment, huge value addition, tax revenue, reduce foreign exchange outflow and increase the Gross Domestic Product of the country.
Group Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects & Portfolio Development, Dangote Industries Limited, Mr Devakumar Edwin, says that the petrochemical plant, which is nearing completion, would also embark on the production of polyethene products in the nearest future.
Edwin says the petrochemical plant would reduce the demand for foreign exchange from the nation’s treasury to import petrochemical by-products.

Human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, says the judgement of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, which ruled against the administration and collection of Value Added Tax by the Federal Inland Revenue Service not only corroborated the struggle for restructuring via litigation but also strengthened the campaign.
Falana urged all state governments to team up with Rivers State Government to defend the judgement.
Falana warned that the FIRS should not be prevented from collecting VAT, pending the hearing and determination of the appeal.
He said dispute over the enforcement authority of VAT, should not call for anarchy.

The interim Chairman, Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond, Femi Falana, has asked the Federal Government to secure the release of the officer abducted during an attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy.
Falana asked President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to unmask the killers and bring the perpetrators to book to serve as a deterrent to others.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria noted that by choosing to invade the military institution, the criminal elements have proven that nowhere is safe in Nigeria.
He says by attacking the military institution, the dangerous criminal elements had wanted to prove that nowhere is safe in Nigeria.