Newscast - Africa

The World Health Organization says that malaria cases and deaths remained stable last year, after a worrying rise during the first year of the Covid pandemic.
The WHO however warned of new challenges including mosquito resistance to insecticides and parasite resistance to drugs used to treat malaria.
Despite the ongoing disruption to health services caused by Covid-19, malaria deaths fell last year by 6,000, to 619,000.
The WHO says the relatively good results are due to countries strengthening their response to malaria prevention, testing, and treatment.

A prominent Ethiopian opposition party, Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice has called on the government to arm civilians so that they can defend themselves from attacks by rebels of the Oromo Liberation Army in the Oromia region.
Ezema is one of the main opposition parties that agreed to work with the government, and its leader, Prof Berhanu Nega is the minister of education.
Its call follows attacks that have claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, destroyed property, and displaced millions in western Oromia.
The spokesman of the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front in northern Ethiopia, Getachew Reda, in a Twitter post accused federal authorities of fanning the conflict in Oromia.

Uganda has received 1,200 experimental vaccine doses designed to work against the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus that will be used in scientific trials.
The country has confirmed 142 cases of the Sudan strain, with 56 deaths, since it announced an outbreak of Ebola in September.
The vaccine will be administered to people who have been in contact with those who tested positive for the virus, in what is called ring vaccination.
Researchers hope to recruit at least 3,000 people, aged six years and above, to take part in the study, which will be conducted by a team of Ugandan scientists.

A UN investigation has found that at least 131 people were killed at the end of November in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at the hands of the M23 rebel group.
It says investigations have confirmed the deaths of the civilians in two villages - Kishishe and Bambo - in the Rutsuhuru district of North Kivu province.
The UN says the victims were executed in what appears to be a reprisal to the current government offensive.
It says the violence was carried out as part of a campaign of murders, rapes, kidnappings and looting against two villages in the Rutshuru territory as reprisals for the clashes between the M23" and other groups.

Promoters of the African Continental Free Trade have said that the agreement has the potential to grow trade value in Nigeria to the tune of $12bn between 2023 and 2027.
They said that the agreement could also reduce trade costs by 20 percent by facilitating the enactment of an omnibus bill on the AfCFTA.
The manual also said that the agreement would execute trade facilitation and infrastructure programs to improve competitiveness.
The manual also described plans to grow the production capacity of Nigeria’s top imports to protect the domestic market, noting that AfCFTA was poised to capture 10 percent of its global imports to double Nigeria’s export revenue by 2035.
The Senior Adviser, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Adeyinka Adeyemi, says that the principle for success lay in strategy.

The Labour Party says it would implement a minimum wage of N80,000-N100,000 if the party wins next year’s presidential election.
The party’s Deputy National Chairman Ayo Olorunfemi said the LP is looking at implementing a new minimum wage of between N80,000-N100,000 as against the N30,000 obtainable presently.
He says the present N30,000 minimum wage does not reflect the realities, adding that the Labour Party would pluck holes and exploit new ways to ensure the new wage structure is implemented if the party wins next year’s polls.

The Federal Government says it had recovered over N120bn from the proceeds of crime following the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022.
It says the fund would be deployed for the construction of major highways, adding that the administration’s fight against corruption was very much on track.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this at the 8th edition of the ‘PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)’, where the Minister of Environment made a presentation on achievements by the environment ministry.

The House of Representatives has criticized the new policy introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria which, among others, sets limits to cash withdrawals at Deposit Money Banks and other financial institutions.
The House summoned the Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, to come and explain the policy to the parliament.
This is based on a motion of urgent public importance moved by a member of the House, Aliyu Magaji, at the plenary on Thursday. Several lawmakers warned that the policy would have serious consequences and adverse effects on businesses and Nigerians who have no access to the banking system.

President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has invited 49 African heads of state and the head of the African Union for a three-day US-Africa Leaders Summit.
The summit, scheduled for 13-15 December 2022, will take place in Washington DC, the US capital.
Biden believes that U.S. collaboration with African leaders, as well as civil society, business, diaspora, women, and youth leaders, is essential to address these shared challenges.
The goal of this historic summit will be to build and expand vital political, economic, and strategic partnerships, as well as people-to-people dialogue, based on mutual interests and shared priorities in Africa.

Indonesia has passed a controversial new Criminal Code that includes outlawing sex outside marriage and cohabitation, in changes that critics contend could undermine freedoms in the Southeast Asian nation.
The new laws apply to Indonesians and foreigners and also restore a ban on insulting the president, state institutions or Indonesia’s national ideology known as Pancasila.
The new criminal code replaces a framework that had been in use since independence in 1946 and was a mix of Dutch law, customary law known as hukum adat, and modern Indonesian law.