Month: January 2022

The Australian air force is preparing to deliver 20 tons of emergency supplies to remote communities cut off by flood waters. Traffic has been disrupted on the main highway and railway between Adelaide in South Australia and Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory.

Heavy rain and storms in recent days have damaged freight routes in South Australia.

A 14-day major emergency was declared Friday by state authorities. It gives the police special powers to ensure food reaches isolated communities.

South Australia has a population of 1.7 million who are already under a major emergency declaration for COVID-19. The state was also badly impacted by the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, although the floods have occurred away from the areas worst-hit by the fires.

The area is expected to receive yet more rain, with up to 200 millimeters forecast in the coming days.

A military plane is scheduled to land Monday in the outback settlement of Coober Pedy to deliver food and other essentials.

The town is 850 kilometers north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway and is known as the “opal capital of the world” because of its mining resources. The impact on mining and farming might not be known for days.

Tim Jackson, the administrator of the Coober Pedy Council, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the arrival of supplies would ease community concerns.

“People are pretty relaxed generally speaking, I think, and particularly now that they know there is a significant food drop being made today. It is just a bit frustrating. It is just the unknown about when the highway is going to be opened again. (I) understand that it is the first time both the rail and road have been impacted simultaneously,” Jackson said.

Flooding in South Australia and the disruption to freight routes have led to shortages on supermarket shelves in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Higher-than-average rainfall this summer is associated with a La Niña weather system, which can also produce a higher-than-normal number of tropical cyclones.

The naturally occurring system develops when strong winds move the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean from South America towards Indonesia.

In Australia, the La Niña system increases the likelihood of cooler daytime temperatures, reducing the risk of bushfires and heatwaves.

Conservationists are warning that the impact of climate change will increase the incidence and intensity of “extreme rainfall events” in Australia. They have said that the risks of flooding are exacerbated when the atmosphere is “made warmer and wetter by climate change.”

Source: Voice of America

ALGIERS – Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, yesterday held phone talks, with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, after months of diplomatic tension.
According to a statement issued by the Algerian presidency, the two sides “discussed bilateral cooperation and prospects of convening the higher intergovernmental committee,” which had been scheduled last Apr, but was postponed due to the mounting diplomatic tension between the two.
According to the statement, the French president renewed the invitation for his Algerian counterpart to attend the sixth European Union – African Union summit, which will be held in Brussels on Feb 17 and 18.
The French-Algerian ties have been characterised by diplomatic riffs in recent months, since Algeria recalled its ambassador to France and closed its airspace to French military planes in Oct, 2021.
The move was a response to a Paris’ decision in Sept, 2021, to reduce the number of visas provided to Algerian officials by 50 percent, as well as Macron’s critical remarks on Algeria.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Cameroon’s national football team, the Indomitable Lions, Sunday donated $85,000 and dedicated their 2-0 victory over the Scorpions of Gambia to victims of the stampede that killed eight and injured 38 at Yaoundé’s Olembe stadium this week. The Indomitable Lions say they cannot be indifferent after people died or were injured as they turned out to support Cameroon players taking part at the ongoing Africa Football Cup of Nations tournament in Cameroon.
Members of Cameroon’s national football team, the Indomitable Lions, sing that God will bless victims of this week’s crush at Yaoundé’s Olembe stadium. The players sang on Saturday evening in Douala, Cameroon’s economic hub and coastal city, after beating the Scorpions of Gambia in a quarter-final game in the Africa Football Cup of Nations, AFCON.
A statement after the match from Serge Guiffo, the Indomitable Lions press officer, said the players had donated $85,000 and dedicated their 2-0 victory over the Scorpions of Gambia to victims of the stampede that killed eight and injured 38.
The statement did not say how the money would be distributed to the victims, but said family members of those who died in the stampede will be given a share.
Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, Cameroon’s minister of sports and physical education, addressed the players at Douala’s Japoma stadium after the match.
Kombi said Cameroonians are happy that their national football team players have helped people who died or were injured while they struggled to watch the Indomitable Lions play. He said Cameroonians are happy that the donation comes after a historic victory against the Scorpions of Gambia.
The crush occurred as crowds struggled to get access to Olembe Stadium in the capital city Yaoundé. Cameroon President Paul Biya ordered the injured to be treated free of charge.
Ndukong Edward, a family member of a stampede victim, said the president did not make a statement about any assistance to the families of dead victims. Ndukong said he hopes the government will assist the injured and family members of the dead. He said security lapses by Cameroon’s police might have caused the stampede.
“If the gate was opened as it was supposed to be, nothing would have happened because people would have had access to the field. But if the gate was closed by some overzealous security officers for whatever reasons, then they should take responsibility,” he said.
Cameroonian authorities Friday blamed the deadly stadium crush on what they said was a massive influx of ticketless fans who arrived late to the game involving the host team and tried to force their way in to avoid security checks and COVID-19 screening.
Nasseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s Centre region, where Olembe is located, said the government will assist victims of the crush after the tournament. He said people attending football matches during AFCON should stop uncivil behavior such as jumping fences to get into stadiums.
“We are calling on this population to follow and respect the institutions, to be able to cooperate to be sure that Cameroon does not represent a bad image by being very patriotic and responsible. It should never happen again. Cameroonians should put in their mind that what happened in Olembe should never happen again,” he said.
Bea said some government ministers, senior state officials and well-wishers have been giving financial assistance to the victims in solidarity with the state of Cameroon.
After the crush, the Confederation of African Football suspended AFCON matches at Olembe until further notice.
Cameroon is hosting AFCON for the first time in 50 years. The tournament, which is the continent’s main football event, was originally scheduled in 2019. The confederation stripped the event from Cameroon that year because stadiums were not ready.
The competition that ends on February 6 began January 9.

Source: Voice of America

Malawi’s government says is registering low numbers of teenagers taking the COVID-19 vaccine. This is largely because parents and guardians are reluctant to give consent to have their children get the shot.

Malawi started administering the Pfizer vaccine to children ages 12 to 17 on January 1st to help contain the spread of the coronavirus among children.
Vaccination of teens requires health care providers to seek consent from parents.
Statistics show that fewer than 4,000 children were vaccinated as of Saturday, a figure health authorities said was not impressive.
The low response is blamed on parents refusing to give consent to health workers.
Mailesi Mhango is the district coordinator for the Expanded Program on Immunization in the Ministry of Health.
She says reluctance is more prevalent for children who go to public or government schools, where none of the youngsters has so far been vaccinated.
“For the privately owned schools, the response is better compared to government-run schools. I don’t know why. But for private schools, at least there is a positive response; many schools are booking us. ‘Can you come and vaccinate our learners?’ So, we are going to such schools and vaccinating them,” she said.
Willy Malimba, the president of the Teachers’ Union of Malawi, says it is a non-starter to expect teenage students to get the COVID-19 shot in schools.
“This time around, even when the government can decide to go to school to vaccinate learners, I am sure that school can be immediately closed because the learners, even the teachers will run away, unless they are fully sensitized. Otherwise, they are taking this issue as a negative issue because of the coming of this vaccine; it came with negatives,” he said.
Malimba recounts incidents where students have run away from suspected providers of the vaccine.
“Even myself I have been experiencing some situations whereby I was going to certain schools and when learners saw my car, they ran away and I was told from the head teachers that the learners are running away because they think that we are coming with the vaccine,” he said.
Government statistics show that only about 7.3 % of about 20 million people in Malawi are fully vaccinated, far from the required 60% to reach herd immunity.
The low uptake is largely attributed to myths that link COVID-19 vaccine to infertility and allegations that the vaccine is the government’s ploy to reduce the population.
In a statement Saturday, the co-chairperson for the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Wilfred Chalamira Nkhoma, urged all parents and guardians to get their children aged 12 years and above inoculated.
He said doing so will protect these children from severe disease and hospitalization, even if they do become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
Some parents say they are not ready for that at the moment.
Lindiwe Mwale, a mother of three children, two of them teenagers, is among the parents concerned.
She spoke via a messaging application from her home in Chiwembe Township in Blantyre.
“I am a parent who has vaccinated them before [with] other vaccines which are there, but for this one [COVID-19 vaccine] I really would not want to risk them by getting them vaccinated by a vaccine which is currently on trial. After all, the COVID-19 is not greatly affecting people of that age; many of them make it,” she said.
Mwale, who is vaccinated, also says with a drop in cases in Malawi, from about 700 daily cases previously to now 80 cases as of Saturday, she feels the pandemic poses no threat that would warrant vaccination of her children.
Health authorities say they are now planning to meet the parents and teachers and educate them on the importance of having children vaccinated against COVID-19.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA —

The U.N, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, warns it may be forced to end its humanitarian operation in northern Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray province because supplies are running out.

Intense fighting in northern Ethiopia has prevented aid from getting through to millions of destitute people in Tigray since mid-December.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says U.N. and private aid agencies already have been forced to scale back operations because of severe shortages of supplies, fuel and cash.

“Organizations have warned that operations could cease completely by the end of February,” said Laerke. “Nutrition supplies for supplementary feeding and treatment of severe acute malnutrition have already run out.”

The World Food Program says 13 percent of Tigrayan children under the age of five, and half of all pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished, a condition that increases the risk of infection and death.

Laerke says international aid agencies operating in Tigray report their last fuel stocks were depleted on January 24. Since then, he says aid workers have been delivering the little remaining humanitarian supplies and services on foot, where possible.

“We have seen in recent days — of course, the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service has picked up again and they are delivering. But you cannot deliver by plane at all, the kind of volumes of aid that is clearly needed in this situation,” said Laerke.

War between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front broke out in November 2020. Since then, the conflict has spread to the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands, and pushing up rates of hunger and malnutrition.

Unlike the situation in Tigray, Laerke says aid agencies can scale up assistance in accessible parts of Amhara and Afar. He says food has been distributed to more than half-a-million people in Amhara during the past week, and nearly 380,000 people in Afar have been reached in an ongoing round of food distribution.

Source: Voice of America