Reunion Wire

France’s Armed Forces minister arrived in Mali on Sunday to pressure the military junta to end talks to bring Russian mercenaries into the country and push it to keep a promise to return the country to constitutional order in February.

Diplomatic and security sources have told Reuters that Mali’s year-old military junta is close to recruiting the Russian Wagner Group, and France has launched a diplomatic drive to thwart it, saying such an arrangement is incompatible with a continued French presence.

West Africa’s main political bloc, ECOWAS, as well as other allies combating militants in the Sahel region, have also expressed concerns over the potential deal.

But Mali’s junta, which seized power in August 2020, has dug in, noting that France has begun scaling down its decade-old operation against insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State across the region.

On Sunday, Mali’s foreign ministry called objections from neighbor Niger to the prospect of a deal with Wagner “unacceptable, unfriendly and condescending.”

The visit by Florence Parly to Mali is the highest-level trip by French officials since the talks with Wagner emerged.

An official from the French Armed Forces Ministry told reporters ahead of the visit that Parly would stress “the heavy consequences if this decision were to be taken by the Malian authorities.”

She would also underscore the importance of keeping to the calendar for the transition to democracy leading to elections in February 2022, the official said.

French officials describe the relationship with the junta as “complicated,” although it still relies on Paris for counterterrorism operations.

Paris said on Thursday it had killed the leader of Islamic State in Western Sahara in northern Mali.

Parly earlier on Sunday was in Niger to lay out plans to reshape its operations in the region.

The French army started redeploying troops from its bases in Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu in northern Mali at the start of the month, French army sources have said.

France wants to complete the redeployment by January. It is reducing its contingent to 2,500-3,000 from about 5,000, moving more assets to Niger, and encouraging other European special forces to work alongside local forces.

The European force in the Sahel so far totals about 600 troops from nine countries.

Source: Voice of America

The mayor of Johannesburg was killed in a car accident as he returned from campaigning with South Africa’s president on Saturday, just over a month after being elected, his office said in a statement.

Jolidee Matongo, 46, was returning from a voter registration drive in Soweto township ahead of local elections when the accident happened.

“It is hard to comprehend this tragedy, given the vitality and passion with which Mayor Matongo interacted with me and residents of Soweto so shortly before his death,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a tweet.

“Nothing could prepare any of us for this sudden loss, which has deprived our nation’s economic center of its second Executive Mayor in two months.”

Matongo’s predecessor died from Covid-19 complications in July, and Matongo was elected on August 10.

Gauteng province premier David Makhura, who was also at the Soweto voter registration drive, said the news had left him “shocked and shattered.”

“[Matongo] executed his duties with a cool and calm demeanor and remained committed to selflessly serving the citizens of Johannesburg,” he added.

Photos posted on social media by Ramaphosa and Matongo himself from earlier in the afternoon showed the two men walking around Soweto talking to residents, Matongo dressed in a bright yellow tracksuit with the African National Congress party’s logo on it.

Matongo was born in Soweto, according to the City of Johannesburg’s website, and became a member of the ANC Youth League after taking up student politics at the age of 13.

Matongo’s office said more details on the accident would be released “in due time.”

Source: Voice of America

South Africa’s top court has ruled that former President Jacob Zuma had failed in his bid to have his 15-month jail sentence for failing to attend a corruption inquiry overturned.

The sentence was handed down in June after Zuma failed to testify at an inquiry probing corruption during his nine-year rule, seen as a test of post-apartheid South Africa’s ability to enforce the rule of law, particularly against powerful politicians.

In a majority decision on Friday, the Constitutional Court rejected his arguments.

“The application for rescission is dismissed,” Justice Sisi Khampepe said as she read the majority decision, which included an order for Zuma to pay costs.

It was the latest legal setback for the 79-year-old anti-apartheid veteran from the ruling African National Congress, whose presidency between 2009 and 2018 was marred by widespread allegations of corruption and malfeasance. He denies wrongdoing.

“Obviously the foundation is disappointed with this judgment,” Mzwanele Manyi, spokesman for the JG Zuma Foundation, said in response.

Zuma’s jailing on July 7, after handing himself over to police at the last minute, led to violent riots, looting, and vandalism in South Africa, killing more than 300 people and costing businesses billions of South African rand.

His successor Cyril Ramaphosa described the unrest as an orchestrated attempt to destabilize the country and pledged to crack down on alleged instigators.

The violence was also fuelled by simmering frustration among largely Black communities still living in squalid conditions long after the ANC swept to power in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

A former senior intelligence operative with the ANC’s then banned military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe before rising to the highest office, Zuma says he is the victim of a political witchhunt and that acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is biased.

Zondo served as chairman of the graft inquiry.

The department of correctional services placed Zuma on medical parole earlier this month after surgery following his hospitalization in August. That decision is being challenged by the opposition Democratic Alliance.

Zuma faces 16 counts of fraud, corruption, and racketeering related to the 1999 purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats, and equipment from five European arms firms when he was deputy president.

He is accused of taking bribes from one of the firms, French defense giant Thales, which has been charged with corruption and money laundering.

Source: Nam News Network

Malawi plans a nationwide rollout of the newest typhoid vaccine after a two-year study, the first in Africa, found it safe and effective in children as young as 9 months. Previously available vaccines were found not effective in children younger than 2 years and even then only provided short-term protection.

Typhoid is an increasing public health threat in Malawi and across sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 1.2 million cases and 19,000 deaths each year.

Typhoid is a treatable bacterial infection that has become a serious threat in many low- and middle-income countries.

In Malawi, the study on the efficacy of the Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine or TCV involved about 28,000 children aged between 9 months and 15 years from three townships in the commercial capital, Blantyre.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, the Blantyre Malaria Project, and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust conducted the study.

Professor Melita Gordon, principal investigator for the study at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust, says the results, released this week, show an efficacy rate of more than 80% in protecting children against the disease.

“The previous vaccines were only 50% effective, and they were never even tested very well in the very youngest children. They were never even usable in the youngest children. So, the fact that this new conjugate vaccine works in pre-school children, right down to 9 months is a really big deal and important to be able to tackle typhoid across the board in all the children who suffer with it,” she said.

Gordon also said the vaccine efficacy data provides hope that sub-Saharan Africa can be rid of the multidrug-resistant strain of typhoid that arrived from Asia about a decade ago.

“In Malawi, the incidents are something [around] four or five hundred cases per 100,000 per year. Now anything over 200 is considered high incidence, so we are a very high-incidence country. There have been studies in Burkina Faso, in Ghana, in Kenya; we know that many other African countries have an equivalent burden of the disease,” Gordon said.

Dr. Queen Dube, chief of health services in Malawi’s Health Ministry, says rollout should begin soon.

“The exciting news is that we had applied to GAVI that supports us on the vaccination front to add this to the list of vaccines we are administering in the country and GAVI approved our application. And we are looking at introducing this typhoid vaccine and rolling it out next year,” Dube said.

However, some fear the new typhoid vaccine would face hesitancy and resistance from people, as has been the case with COVID-19 vaccines, and which led to the incineration of about 20,000 expired doses in Malawi in May.

But Dube said this won’t happen with typhoid vaccine because COVID-19 was a new disease.

“We have had typhoid for decades and decades, so people know what typhoid is. Nobody will wake up in the morning saying, oh no, typhoid was manufactured in a laboratory. And so, chances that you will end up with misinformation are on the lower side compared with a new disease which swept across the globe, killing so many people brought a lot of fear and a allowed a lot of false theories,” she said.

Still, Dube said Malawi’s government plans to launch a massive sensitization campaign to teach people about the new typhoid vaccine to a reemergence of the myths and misinformation that engulfed the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Source: Voice Of America

Somalia’s government has condemned what it calls the unlawful detention of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo’s national security adviser.

Somali government spokesman Abdirashid Hashi in a tweet Friday said Fahad Yasin was detained at Djibouti airport.

Yasin was flying from Turkey to Mogadishu with a stop in Djibouti.

Government spokesman Hashi tweeted such acts will not help to strengthen ties between Somalia and Djibouti.

Djibouti’s Minister of Economy and Finance Ilyas Dawaleh tweeted a response to the communication director’s accusation.

Dawaleh asked him to “refrain from any inappropriate and baseless statements.”

Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Yusuf added, “There are fake news released in social media trying to create confusion and drag Djibouti into Somalia internal challenges and crisis. We will continue to stand by our brothers and sisters in Somalia but never interfere in their internal affairs.”

Yasin, who is the former head of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, is at the center of a power struggle between Somalia’s president and prime minister.

Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble suspended Yasin over the disappearance of a female cybersecurity spy, who the agency says was killed by al-Shabab militants.

Her family believes Somalia’s spy agency was responsible for her disappearance.

Yasin was due to attend a national security meeting on Saturday to discuss the controversial case.

The case has Farmajo and Roble in a stand-off that threatens the country’s elections and security gains.

Farmajo on Thursday issued a suspension of Roble’s executive powers, which the prime minister promptly rejected.

Source: Voice of America