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Rio de Janeiro's deadliest police raid in history left 25 people dead, including one police officer, on Thursday.
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
Campaigners warn that the pandemic could undo decades of work to end child marriage
Four million girls are at risk of child marriage in the next two years because of the new coronavirus pandemic, a global charity said on Friday, as campaigners warned that the crisis could undo decades of work to end the practice.
\"When you have any crisis like a conflict, disaster or pandemic rates of child marriage go up,\" the charity's child marriage expert Erica Hall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Campaigners said the risks were exacerbated by the fact that schools were closed and organisations working to combat child marriage were finding it harder to operate during lockdowns.
Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of 1,400 organisations working to end child marriage, said members were extremely worried.
World Vision's Hall said there was already anecdotal evidence of a rise in child marriages in South Sudan, Afghanistan and India, where the charity recently worked with police to stop seven marriage after calls to helplines.
Omoh, a realtor, and Mamza, a microbiologist, had set the date for April 25, with a big-budget ceremony that was to include at least 500 guests, who were to be transported to the wedding by bus.
“I just wanted to be married to someone I love, and wouldn’t want to leave it to another date, so we got the pastor to my house and with not less 20 people maintaining the 2-meter social distance, we had a peaceful wedding,” Omoh said.
Typically, weddings in Nigeria are quite expensive, regardless of the financial status of the celebrants, who are required culturally to put on an elaborate ceremony for family members, relatives, friends and even uninvited well-wishers who “gate crash” the celebration in full swing.
“I had more pressure because my friends from my home state of Borno had already sewn their wedding anko dresses (made from specially selected material that normally features the colors of the wedding, and is chosen by every group of friends or family members),” said Mamza.
“Maybe after this pandemic, people will learn to just have a wedding solely because they want to get married to each other and not necessarily trying to impress their family members and friends by struggling to have expensive ceremonies as if their parents are Aliko Dangote,” Ibrahim wrote, referring to a Nigerian businessman and philanthropist.
Tanzania's main opposition party on Tuesday said its chairman had been hospitalised after being beaten up in a \"politically-motivated\" attack as police said they would investigate the assault.
Freeman Mbowe was ambushed by unknown assailants as he returned home late on Monday in the capital Dodoma, and rushed to hospital with injuries, his Chadema party said in a statement.
A high-profile critic of President John Magufuli, Mbowe has repeatedly accused the government of covering up the extent of Tanzania's coronavirus outbreak and failing to take the pandemic seriously.
Tanzania is one of few countries in Africa that has not taken extensive measures against the virus, and Magufuli is among a handful of world leaders still playing down the seriousness of the pandemic.
The US and Britain expressed concern last November over local government elections in Tanzania after Magufuli's party won 99 percent of seats.
THE Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) is insisting as false, a recent report by Forbes magazine that Canadian marijuana companies have pulled out of Jamaica because of a lack of positive action on the part of the Government and the CLA.
According to the influential Forbes, in a story of May 30, 2020, the cannabis stakeholders exited Jamaica because of the obstacles in the granting of licences for the production and export of the highly rated ganja from the island.
The Forbes report, entitled Aphria, Aurora And Other Big Ag Cannabis Companies Pull Out Of Jamaica, claimed that Canadian- licensed producers of cannabis were leaving the island “in droves”, due in part to stalled governmental decisions on export licenses.
But the CLA last week defended its stewardship of the Jamaican ganja industry, saying that since November 2018 licence holders have had the opportunity to export ganja inflorescence/buds and extracts from Jamaica to jurisdictions across the world, notwithstanding the absence of import/export regulations.
Alexandra Chong, principal of Jacana, a boutique Jamaican ganja outfit, argued that the Forbes magazine story “mischaracterises the real reasons some Canadian companies retreated from their international ambitions”.
Craft vendors across the island who have been for years struggling to get a share of the multibillion-dollar tourism pie say that the current coronavirus pandemic has now robbed them of the occasional crumb they would get from the table.
McLennon and 449 other merchants in the popular craft market have been out of business since Jamaica’s strict measures implemented to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in the island crippled the tourism industry.
“We sit here weeks after weeks and watch tourists come off the ships, and when you look in the craft market, everybody sleeping because we are the last stop on their itinerary, while others are raking in so much money from the industry,” McLennon lamented, adding that she was longing for the day when Jamaicans would get their rightful inheritance from an industry they built.
We have a man who does vegetables, supplying the craft traders at a cheaper cost, taking some of the burden off us,” Haughton told The Sunday Gleaner.
“We must make these adjustments so that the industry will be viable to us as craft traders, because when tourism is booming year to year, others will be doing real good everywhere else, but the craft traders are yet to give their testimony of having a good day.”
The meeting, added Dr Magufuli, will also involve regional commissioners whose territorial areas border Kenya, namely; Ms Anna Mghwira (Kilimanjaro RC), Mr Mrisho Gambo (Arusha RC) , Martine Shigella (Tanga RC), Mr Adam Malima (Mara RC) and John Mongella (Mwanza (RC).
President Magufuli revealed that he received a call from President Uhuru Kenyatta during which they discussed about Covid-19 responses and the closure of the borders.
Last Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared closure of its borders with Somalia and Tanzania because of increased cross-border infections of the coronavirus, disrupting flow of traffic, especially trucks carrying goods from Tanzania side to Kenya.
In his remarks, President Magufuli said it was illogical for Kenya and Tanzania to engage into unproductive tussles given the fact that the two countries have all along been trading partners.
Just three days after Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyata announced the closure of the country's borders with Tanzania, Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Mara and Arusha regional authorities swiftly reciprocated with similar tough measures.
Luanda — The amendment to the Civil Protection Law, approved Wednesday during a general voting in Parliament, will enable the enforcement of a number of measures to respond to the covid-19 pandemic, outside a scenario of state of emergency.
Mentioning the four reasons, the minister spoke of the context of need characterised by the pandemic that could require the adoption of other measures outside the state of emergency currently in force in the country.
In general, he said, the requested amendment aims to adapt the law to the 2010 Constitution, since the previous one, in force since 2003, did not provide the Executive with sufficient tools to put in place an effective system of responses to situations of serious collective risk.
For this reason, he stressed, in order to make it more comprehensive, the Executive is proposing a change to the denomination, from Civil Protection Law to Civil Protection and Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Law.
On the other hand, opposition party MPs expressed support for the Executive's legislative initiative, since they believe civil protection to be essential to the functions of the State and fulfils the duty to ensure the right to life, physical integrity and security, but call for its adequacy to the Constitution.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After President Trump threatened to deploy U.S. military troops to “dominate” demonstrators protesting police brutality, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) helped introduce legislation to restrict the President’s authority under the Insurrection Act, and will work to include it in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act to ensure that the military is not weaponized by the President to suppress Americans’ free expression.
The CIVIL Act, led by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would reform the centuries-old Insurrection Act, which gives the President broad and vague authority to deploy troops – either with or without the request of a state – to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
“Yesterday, I led a group of Senators voicing grave concerns over President Trump’s recent threat to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to Americans exercising their first amendment rights, peacefully protesting in their communities, and calling for racial justice.
Today, I am supporting the CIVIL Act because we cannot allow President Trump to weaponize our military and use active duty troops to violate the constitutional rights of peaceful protesters working to bring about the change our nation desperately needs,” said Senator Baldwin.
The CIVIL Act would reform the Insurrection Act to restrict the President’s authority to use active duty troops for domestic law enforcement purposes by:
Kadugli — The more than 2,000 people who fled their homes in El Berdab village near Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan last week, are living in dire conditions.
The Sudanese Human Rights and Development Organisation (HUDO) reported today that a group of RSF militiamen riding in four Land Cruisers and on motorcycles raided El Berdab on May 13.
A listener told Radio Dabanga from Kadugli that almost the entire population of El Berdab sought refuge in two schools near the military base of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in the town.
A report by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) on violence in Sudan between March and May this year indicates that members of the Sudanese army and the RSF continue to violate human rights in the country.
Radio Dabanga's editorial independence means that we can continue to provide factual updates about political developments to Sudanese and international actors, educate people about how to avoid outbreaks of infectious diseases, and provide a window to the world for those in all corners of Sudan.
The St Thomas Police are reporting that Raymond Gowie, who was listed as wanted by the St Andrew South Police, has been captured.\tGowie, who is wanted for murder and shooting, was picked up during a police operation in the parish on Sunday.\tIt is...
A “brown-skin” Donald Tapia yesterday endorsed peaceful protests that are now taking place in his home country and recounted his own experience marching for equality with civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr in his early 20s.
“It was an experience that they will never take away from me,” the US ambassador to Jamaica said during a live interview on the Embassy’s Facebook page yesterday.
Tapia, who was nominated by US President Donald Trump to become an ambassador, said the march took place in Montgomery, Alabama.
The ambassador said that he, too, would have been involved in the protest taking place in the US if he was back home but made it clear that he would only be participating in the peaceful ones.
“Peaceful demonstration shows the frustration, and so forth, that people in Jamaica and also in the United States have with the system as it is in place.
Our analysis suggests that naked protest in Uganda is a \"last resort\" for the weak and vulnerable in a public space that is heavily militarised and policed.
Naked protest therefore offers a window into the strategies that ordinary citizens can use to exercise political voice in contexts marked by overt and covert forms of repression.
Nakedness as a form of collective public protest has been used across Uganda by ordinary citizens when they feel that there is no alternative.
One of the best-known contemporary cases of naked protest in Uganda occurred in a town called Apaa, northern Uganda, where the government has been attempting to appropriate land for decades.
Last resort
These three types of power help us understand why citizens employ naked protest, and how it affects its target - in this case the militarised Ugandan state.
Guinea's main opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo arrived in the capital Conakry on Thursday ahead of this weekend's election, greeted by hordes of animated supporters.
The city had earlier resounded to the sound of car horns as supporters of President Alpha Conde, who is seeking a controversial third term on Sunday, whisked through the city in a motorcade.
After about a week of combative campaigning, the 82-year-old president himself returned to the capital on Wednesday amid heightened political tension in the West African state.
Conde's re-election bid comes after he pushed through a constitutional referendum in March, which he argued would modernise the country, but which allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents.
Opposition to this triggered mass protests from last October, sparking a massive crackdown by security forces and claiming dozens of lives.
Rights groups are increasingly critical of Conde, whom they say is veering towards authoritarianism.
Diallo's motorcade proceeded through streets thronged with supporters wearing the green and white colours of his party Thursday, while a swarm of motorbike riders driving ahead of the opposition leader slalomed between the supporters.
\"We're tired, we want change,\" said unemployed mechanic Balde Mamadou Oury, 35.
Twelve candidates are contesting Sunday's election in total. However most think only Conde and Diallo are serious contenders.
After decades as an opposition activist, Conde became Guinea's first democratically-elected president in 2010 and won re-election in 2015.
Diallo, 68, now Guinea's leading opposition politician, was formerly a prime minister under authoritarian leader Lansana Conte.
After months of tension between the pair, Guineans interviewed by AFP expressed fears of potential violence on election day and the period that follows.
Clashes between Conde and Diallo supporters have wounded several people in different parts of the country in recent days.
'Hate speech'
Kabinet Fofana, a Guinean political scientist, warned there was a danger one of the candidates would not accept the outcome of the election.
\"A major difficulty is the question of recognition, acceptance of the results of the ballot boxes,\" he said.
The outcome of Guinea's poll is likely to resonate further afield too, kicking off a string of elections this year across West Africa.
Activists are concerned that a win for Conde would bode ill for democratic norms in the region.
Aside from the third presidential term, Guinea's election campaign has been marked by fears of increased ethnic tensions in the diverse country.
For example, Conde - who normally speaks French when addressing the nation - last month told voters in the Malinke language that backing an opposition Malinke candidate amounted to voting for Diallo.
Politics in Guinea are mostly drawn along ethnic lines. President Conde's party is largely backed by Malinke people, and Diallo's UFDG by Fulani people, although both insist that they are pluralist.
Against a back
Tens of millions of people in Africa could become destitute as a result of COVID-19 and its catastrophic impact on fragile economies and health systems across the continent, human rights chiefs from the United Nations and the African Commission warned on Wednesday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, and Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Solomon Dersso, issued a joint call for urgent measures to mitigate the ripple effects of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable.
Poverty, lack of social protection, limited access to water, poor sanitation infrastructure, pre-existing disease burden, conflict and overstretched health systems, have created heightened risk for spreading the disease.
Ms. Bachelet and Mr. Dersso called for equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, urging creditors of African countries to freeze, restructure or relieve debt.
\"It is a matter of human rights necessity that there must be international solidarity with the people of Africa and African Governments,\" they said.
Businesses in Mombasa, including at Mackinon market, the city centre and Kibokoni in Old Town, would be booming at this time.
Shops in Nairobi's Eastleigh, Marikiti in Mombasa and the livestock market in Garissa have been shut.
Ms Hamisa Zaja, a local, said most of these items are ordinarily found at Mackinon market and in Old Town.
Some traders have moved their businesses to Bondeni, just opposite Mackinon market.
MARKET CLOSED
Mr Salim Bajber, a kanzu trader, transferred his business to Kizingo.
The woman's plea for change attracted the attention of protesters who gathered in solidarity with the most recent 'Black Lives Matter' demonstrations across America and other parts of the world following the murder of George Floyd.
Sister Monica told the Jamaica Observer that as a Rastafarian woman, she has been fighting the oppression of black people in Jamaica since she was a teenager when she adopted the faith.
Alice Hogarth, organiser of what has been dubbed the Justice for All movement, told the Sunday Observer that the protest was against social inequalities in Jamaica and that it would be ongoing until a commitment to “radical change” is realised.
“If things don't start to change we will be having protests against the injustices right here in Jamaica – whether it is police brutality or poor education – [so] that we can have radical change,” said Hogarth.
Rohan Murray, 48, a protester who was chanting “Wi haffi clean up a yaad before wi look abroad”, argued that the murder of George Floyd is not unlike the killing of young men in Jamaica at the hands of the police.
The effort is spearheaded by Councilmember Castañeda López, Mayor Mike Duggan and Cynthia Pasky, Strategic Staffing Solutions CEO and Chair of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, with strong support from Detroit City Council.
“The idea to light the city and host a citywide vigil came to me in recognition of the deep pain and brokenness we are all feeling, especially our black community, in light of George Floyd’s murder,” Castañeda López said.
The Mayor said, “I thank CM Castañeda López for presenting this idea, Detroit City Council for its support, and Cindy Pasky for leading our corporate community in this effort and never shying away from taking a strong stance.”
Council President Brenda Jones said, “The symbolic lighting of our downtown area using the color purple illustrates Detroit’s hope for peace and justice in the memory of George Floyd.
So as he in death is enlightening the world, I am proud to join my colleague Councilmember Raquel Castañeda López, along with Mayor Duggan, in calling for businesses to illuminate their buildings with purple light in honor of George Floyd.
Participants in the 12th session of the Advisory Board for Women, Peace and Security in the Great Lakes region conducted via videoconference on May 12, said gender-based violence was on the rise at a time women are seeking protection and participation in upcoming electoral processes in the Great Lakes region, particularly in Burundi, Central African Republic and Tanzania.
FemWise-Africa, is a network of African women in conflict prevention and mediation which was established July 2017, and is working to help implement the African Union Silence the Guns by 2020 agenda.
The meeting explored ways to promote women's protection and participation in upcoming electoral processes in the Great Lakes region and in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (of 2000).
It further acknowledged that equal participation by women in the maintenance of international peace and security, an expansion of women's roles in preventing and resolving conflict, and women's protection can all contribute to the Council's fulfilling its mandate of promoting and maintaining international peace and security.
While noting the role of women in creating more peaceful and equitable societies on the continent, speakers demanded that women be placed at the centre of efforts to prevent or resolve conflict in Africa, and particularly the Great Lakes Region.
