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South Africa xenophobic attacks escalate
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- Category: Africa
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PRETORIA - South Africa's Minister of International Relations, Lindiwe Sisulu, will meet ambassadors from several African countries today to discuss a recent spate of attacks against foreigners in the city of Durban.
The talks come after dozens of people - many from Malawi - were forced from their homes by angry mobs that have also looted shops.
South Africa's unemployment rate has reached more than 27% and many people take out their anger on foreign workers, accusing them of stealing their jobs.
It's a key issue ahead of May's election. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says the governing African National Congress' (ANC) policy has failed - with corruption, porous borders and a vast number of undocumented foreign nationals.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni recently spoke of the need to attract highly skilled people and said narrow nationalism led to economic stagnation.
But many more jobs need to be created to help reduce the xenophobia in South Africa.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the latest spate of xenophobic attacks in the country and called on security agencies to arrest perpetrators.
He said the violence, which mostly targeted Malawian and other African nationals, in KwaZulu-Natal was regrettable, "particularly on the eve of Freedom Month" marking 25 years since the country's first democratic elections.
Last week, dozens of people were forced from their homes by angry mobs who also looted shops.
President Ramaphosa said in a statement: "Today, our economy and society benefits from our extensive trade and investment relations with partners on our continent and many of our continental compatriots live in South Africa where they are making important contributions to the development of our country.
Today, our economy and society benefits from our extensive trade and investment relations with partners on our continent and many of our continental compatriots live in South Africa where they are making important contributions to the development of our country.
"African development depends on the increased movement of people, goods and services between different countries for all of us to benefit. We will not allow criminals to set back these processes. African development depends on the increased movement of people, goods and services between different countries for all of us to benefit. We will not allow criminals to set back these processes.”
Mr Ramaphosa said he welcomed Monday's meeting between South Africa's Minister of International Relations Lindiwe Sisulu and ambassadors from several African countries today to discuss the violence.
South Africa's Police Minister Bheki Cele will accompany his International Relations counterpart Lindiwe Sisulu to a crisis meeting with African diplomats later today to discuss the wave of anti-foreigner attacks in the coastal city of Durban, reports the BBC's Milton Nkosi from the commercial capital, Johannesburg.
The attacks are embarrassing for South Africa, as other African states gave refuge to many South Africans during white-minority rule, he adds.
At least two people were killed and more than 100 were displaced in the violence last week, police said.
South Africa's firebrand opposition leader Julius Malema has condemned the spate of attacks on African migrants in the coastal city of Durban, telling his supports: "There is no foreigner that took your jobs. If you fail in business, do not blame other people."
Mr Malema - the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) - took a tough line against xenophobia while on the campaign trail in the North West and Free State provinces ahead of a general election on 8 May.
"I know you call foreign nationals derogatory names, but they are Africans like yourself," Mr Malema said.
"From Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar. African unity is key," he added.(FA)
About 1.85m people affected by cyclone in Mozambique: UN
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BEIRA, Mozambique - About 1.85 million people have now been affected by Cyclone Idai and its aftermath in Mozambique alone, U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday, as aid workers raced to fathom the scale of the disaster and determine what help is most urgently needed.
“Some will be in critical, life threatening situations. Some will sadly have lost their livelihoods, which whilst an appalling tragedy is not immediately life threatening,” OCHA coordinator Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said.
Idai flattened homes and provoked widespread flooding when it made landfall near the Mozambique port city of Beira on March 14. It then ripped through neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi.
At least 686 people have been killed by the storm and its aftermath across the three countries, a figure that could rise as relief workers prepare for what they say are inevitable outbreaks of diseases including malaria and cholera.
Mozambique remains the hardest hit by the humanitarian crisis with tens of thousands of homes destroyed and hundreds of thousands displaced across an area of some 3,000 square km - roughly the size of Luxembourg.
“We can determine the size, we can’t determine the circumstance. So we’re now going out on the ground, dropping people off from helicopters to determine what the critical needs are,” Stampa said.
Kenya teacher crowned world's best
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DUBAI - A maths and physics teacher from a secondary school in a remote village in Kenya's Rift Valley has won the $1m Global Teacher Prize for 2019, organisers have said.
Peter Tabichi, who is giving away 80 percent of his salary to support poor students, received the prize at a ceremony on Saturday in Dubai, hosted by Hollywood star Hugh Jackman.
"Every day in Africa we turn a new page and a new chapter ... This prize does not recognise me but recognises this great continent's young people. I am only here because of what my students have achieved," Tabichi said.
"This prize gives them a chance. It tells the world that they can do anything," he added after beating nine finalists from around the world to claim the award.
The Dubai-based Varkey Foundation, which organises the event and handed out the prize for the fifth time, praised Tabichi's "dedication, hard work and passionate belief in his students' talent".
All this combined, it said in a statement, "has led his poorly-resource school in remote rural Kenya to emerge victorious after taking on the country's best schools in national science competitions".
Tabichi, 36, teaches at the Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Pwani village, in a remote, semi-arid part of Kenya's Rift Valley, where drought and famine are frequent.
Around 95 percent of the school's pupils "hail from poor families, almost a third are orphans or have only one parent, and many go without food at home," the statement added.
"Drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, dropping out early from school, young marriages and suicide are common," the statement read.
To get to school, some students have to walk 7km along roads that become impassable during the rainy season.
The school, with a student-teacher ratio of 58 to 1, has only one desktop computer for the pupils and poor internet, but despite that Tabichi "uses ICT in 80 percent of his lessons to engage students", the foundation said.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta congratulated Tabichi in a video message, saying "your story is the story of Africa, a young continent bursting with talent".(FA)
Libyans want Gaddafi spy chief released
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TRIPOLI - Relatives and supporters of Libya's Gaddafi-era intelligence chief, jailed for his alleged role in a bloody crackdown during the country's 2011 uprising, protested in Tripoli on Saturday to demand his release.
Abdullah al-Senussi, a brother-in-law of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, was sentenced to death in 2015 over the part he allegedly played in the government's response to a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that toppled and killed Gaddafi.
Eight others close to Gaddafi, including the late Libyan leader's son, Saif al-Islam, also received death sentences following a trial condemned by the United Nations as "seriously" flawed.
Several dozen relatives and members of al-Senussi's tribe, the Magerha, gathered in a central Tripoli square to demand he be freed over health concerns.
"The law and medical reports support our legitimate demand," said protester Mohamad Amer.
Officials have not released specific details on his alleged health problems.
In a statement, the Magerha said his liberation would "contribute to and consolidate national reconciliation" in a country torn apart by intercommunal conflicts since Gaddafi's fall.
The unusual protest comes just over a month after the release on health grounds of Abuzeid Dorda, Gaddafi's head of foreign intelligence who was sentenced at the same time as al-Senussi.
The protesters held up photos of al-Senussi behind bars and placards reading "Freedom to prisoners. Yes to national reconciliation".
Al-Senussi was extradited in September 2012 by Mauritania, where he had fled after Gaddafi's fall.
Like Gaddafi's son, he had also been the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for suspected war crimes during the 2011 uprising.
But in an unusual move, in 2013, the court gave Libyan authorities the green light to put him on trial.
He has since been imprisoned in the capital, along with some 40 other senior Gaddafi-era officials, including Gaddafi's last Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi.
Saif al-Islam was captured and imprisoned by an armed group in the northwestern city of Zintan and sentenced by a Tripoli court in absentia.
The group announced his release in 2017 but it was never confirmed and his fate remains unknown.(FA)
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