Association Of African Universities To Hold 15th General Conference

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June 18, 2021

Giampiero Boniperti, the former Juventus forward and one of Italy’s greatest players, has died, the Serie A club said on Friday. He was 92.

He spent his entire playing career at Juventus, winning five Serie A titles and two Coppa Italia titles between 1946 and 1961. With fellow forwards John Charles and Omar Sivori, he was part of the club’s ‘Magical Trio’.

Italian media said Boniperti died due to heart failure.

Boniperti was Juve’s all-time top scorer for more than 40 years until Alessandro Del Piero broke his record of 182 goals in 2006. He was also named the Serie A top scorer in the 1947-48 season for his 27 goals.

“From up there, now, there is another star in the black and white firmament that shines: it is that of Giampiero Boniperti, one of who gave the most to Juventus,” the club said in a statement.

Boniperti had eight goals in 38 games for Italy and played at the 1950 and 1954 World Cups. He also participated at the 1952 Summer Olympics with the Azzuri.

He retired in 1961 and became Juve’s honorary chairman ten years later.

Singapore To Allow Restaurant Dining With Two Person Limit

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June 18, 2021

COVID-19 restrictions in Singapore — FILE PHOTO: A man walks past chairs stacked up outside restaurants as dining-in is restricted to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Singapore May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Singapore will allow dining at restaurants to resume from Monday under loosened coronavirus restrictions, though will limit diners to groups of two, instead of up to five as previously planned, the health ministry said on Friday.

Similarly, gyms and fitness studios may resume indoor exercising in groups of up to two people, it said.

Barring new COVID-19 outbreaks, authorities will allow such activities to increase to group sizes of up to five from mid-July, the ministry said.

Sudan Signs Nine Concession Deals For Gold, Copper Mining

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June 18, 2021

Sudan on Thursday signed nine concession agreements for gold and copper mining with eight local and foreign companies, the state news agency SUNA said.

All the agreements are related to gold mining except one for copper, the agency quoted Minister of Minerals Mohamed Bashir Abdalla as saying.

Three companies from Iraq, China, South Africa won four gold mining concessions, and a fourth one from Armenia won the single copper concession, the report said. Four local companies took four gold concessions.

All concession areas are located in the Red Sea State, the West Kordofan state and the Northern State.

Sudan sold 13,327,657 grammes of gold worth $437,983,965 from 2015 to 2020, Abdalla said on Thursday, compared with 2,752,889 grammes worth $140,805,290 from June 2020 to February 2021.

Gold sales from March to May reached $36,295,970, the minister said during the concession agreements ceremony.

Sudan took steps last year to open up trade in the precious metal further to private investors, allowing them to handle all exports and taking the business out of state hands.

Sudan has been cracking down on gold smuggling to generate more foreign currency. For years, the central bank had a monopoly on exports, buying gold locally at fixed prices at collection sites nationwide, which led to the illegal trade.

The country also had approved the establishment of stock exchanges for gold, minerals and agricultural commodities.

Kenneth Kaunda’s Legacy (1924 – 2021)

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June 17, 2021

In foreign policy, Kenneth Kaunda provided logistical help to other African liberation movements, including the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the breakaway Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) of Southern Rhodesia and the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa.

The ANC’s Radio Freedom was allowed to broadcast from Lusaka and it was under Kaunda’s protection that the ANC waged an armed struggle, then a diplomatic one against apartheid.

Zambia also helped Zimbabwe gain its independence from white minority rule in 1980.

But during his time in power, Zambia became a one-party state – effectively giving him absolute control.

Kaunda banned the political opposition in 1973. He was forced to reverse this decision in 1991 due to popular pressure provoked by shortages of basic foodstuffs as well as increasing international pressure for greater democracy in Africa.

He fell from power with the advent of multiparty democracy. In 1991, he lost presidential elections to Fredrick Chiluba from the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) after a fiercely contested campaign.

Kaunda accepted defeat waving his trademark white handkerchief.

Kaunda had continued to engage in national politics and in 1996 tried to stand for the presidency. However, the Chiluba government changed the constitution so that anyone whose parents came from outside the country was deemed a foreigner and could therefore not run for office.

Chiluba later attempted to deport Kaunda alleging that he was a Malawian. In 1997, Chiluba threw Kaunda in jail on Christmas Day for allegedly being involved in a foiled coup attempt.

In 1999, during Chiluba’s rule, he was declared stateless by a Zambian High Court, but he challenged this decision in the Supreme Court of Zambia, which declared him to be a Zambian citizen the following year.

Kaunda became an AIDS campaigner, announcing publicly one of his sons had died from the illness.

Throughout the African continent, many streets, buildings and airports are named after him. And even in old age, he repeatedly raised his voice in public against perceived injustices as well as the oppression of minorities.

Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo Returns Home After ICC Acquittal

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June 17, 2021

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has returned home, 10 years after he was taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity.

Gbagbo has been living in the Belgian capital Brussels since his release from detention three years ago when his successor and rival President Alassane Ouattara invited him back.

He was the first former head of state to go on trial at the ICC but was acquitted of all charges.

The 76-year-old was charged after his refusal to accept defeat in a 2010 election triggered a civil war that left 3,000 people dead. He always denied all the allegations.

In March, the ICC appeals court upheld a 2019 acquittal, saying the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé, an ally and former youth leader who was accused of leading a militia backing him.

Born in the south-central region of Gagnoa in 1945 to a Catholic family, Mr Gbagbo was educated in a Christian seminary and later became a history professor.

He started out on the political left, but in the 1980s took a strong nationalist, stance, which critics say bordered on xenophobia.

After 20 years in opposition, he was finally elected president in 2000, but civil war broke out just two years later.

Gbagbo’s supporters were accused of carrying out xenophobic attacks in areas they controlled – against those from the mainly Muslim north, immigrants from neighbouring African countries, and Westerners.

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Newsroom Raided By 500 Officers

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June 17, 2021

Five hundred Hong Kong police officers sifted through reporters’ computers and notebooks at pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily on Thursday.

Around dawn, reportedly, police arrested five executives of the newspaper, and officers were later seen sitting at computers in the newsroom after entering with a warrant to seize journalistic materials, including phones and laptops.

The raid is the latest blow to media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the tabloid’s owner and a staunch Beijing critic, whose assets have been frozen under the security law and who is serving prison sentences for taking part in illegal assemblies.

In comments raising further alarm over media freedoms in Hong Kong, Security Secretary John Lee described the newsroom as a “crime scene” and said the operation was aimed at those who use reporting as a “tool to endanger” national security.

He did not elaborate on the dozens of articles police said they were taking aim, at but said the five were arrested for a conspiracy to make “use of journalistic work” to incite foreign forces to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

Senior superintendent Li Kwai-wah said the tabloid’s reports dated back to 2019, without saying when the most recent were published. The legislation is not retrospective but prosecutors can use actions from before its implementation as evidence.

Police have also frozen $2.32 million of assets owned by three companies linked to Apple Daily and said that the raid was not aimed at the media industry as a whole.

Tropical Storm Claudette expected to form Friday

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June 17, 2021

Weather forecasters are predicting that the third named storm of this year’s nascent hurricane season will form later this week over the Gulf of Mexico, bringing the potential of flooding rains to the U.S. coastline.

Michael Brennan, branch chief of the Hurricane Specialist Unit at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said they were are expecting a range of between about 13 to 20 named storms, systems that at least get to tropical storm strength

Hurricane season kicked off on June 1 and the National Hurricane Center has already tracked three storms, a rarity for this time of year and a possible indication of what is to come.

Forecasters have warned that they expect an “above-average” Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Hurricane Center said on its website that there is a 70 percent chance that the low pressure area and thunderstorms currently located in the Bay of Campeche in southern Mexico will strengthen into a tropical cyclone over the next 48 hours.

Emergency professionals were kept especially busy in 2020. With the nation largely focused on the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. experienced the worst hurricane season since 2005, with 14 hurricanes that killed more than 400 people and resulted in damages of over $51 billion.

Like many organizations around the country, Brennan said, thanks to the pandemic the NHC continues to work in a hybrid capacity.

But the agency has made sure to have personnel spread out so as to minimize the amount of travel needed in an emergency.

N’Ireland Appoints Brexit Hardliner Paul Givan As First Minister

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June 17, 2021

Brexit hardliner Paul Givan was installed as Northern Ireland’s new first minister on Thursday, as Britain’s split from the European Union continues to cause friction in the bitterly divided province.

Givan, aged 39, from the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), replaced Arlene Foster after she was ousted by colleagues for appearing too soft in her opposition to a controversial post-Brexit “protocol” governing Northern Irish trade.

Michelle O’Neill, from the pro-Ireland Sinn Fein party, was reconfirmed as deputy first minister after the British government intervened to help ease issues renewing power-sharing and avert a snap election.

In his maiden speech Givan failed to mention the protocol, which has riled resentment among unionists for effectively keeping Northern Ireland inside the EU customs union and single market for goods since the start of the year.

The discontent fuelled a week of rioting in April which spread from unionist communities into pro-Ireland nationalist enclaves and saw at least 88 police injured.

Under the leadership of Edwin Poots, Givan is expected to ramp up rhetoric against the protocol, as Northern Ireland braces for the summer season when sectarian marches occur and tensions have historically boiled over.

But addressing other lawmakers in the region’s devolved Stormont assembly, Givan struck a conciliatory tone.

Northern Ireland was the site of “The Troubles” sectarian conflict which saw 3,500 killed by bombs and bullets as pro-UK unionists, pro-Ireland nationalists and British security forces waged battle over the territory.

DRC: Kinshasa court slashes Vital Kamerhe’s jail time to 13 years

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June 17, 2021