Africa Media Review for September 30, 2024

Famine Is Ravaging Sudan, but the World Can’t Get Food Aid to Millions of Starving People
The world has an elaborate global system to monitor and tackle hunger in vulnerable lands. It consists of United Nations agencies, non-governmental aid groups and Western donor countries led by the United States. They provide technical expertise to identify hunger zones and billions of dollars in funding each year to feed people. Sudan is a stark example of what happens when the final, critical stage in that intricate system – the delivery of food to the starving – breaks down. And it exposes a shaky premise on which the system rests: that governments in famine-stricken countries will welcome the help. Sometimes, in Sudan and elsewhere, governments and warring parties block crucial aid providers – including the UN’s main food-relief arm, the World Food Program (WFP) – from getting food to the starving. And these organizations are sometimes incapable or fearful of pushing back…Aid is being distributed far more widely in areas controlled by the army. But relief workers say the military doesn’t want food falling into the hands of enemy forces in areas it doesn’t control and is using starvation tactics against civilians to destabilize these areas. The army-backed government, now based in Port Sudan, has held up aid delivery by denying or delaying travel permits and clearances, making it tough to access areas controlled by an opposing faction…The army’s main foe, the RSF, is also using food as a weapon…The RSF has looted aid hubs and blocked relief agencies from accessing areas at risk of famine, including displaced persons camps in Darfur and areas of South Kordofan. Reuters

Sexual Violence Used as Weapon of War Throughout Conflict in Sudan
Sudan’s warring parties are using sexual violence as a weapon of war, and “gender-based violence has increased more than two-fold” since the conflict erupted in April 2023, according to U.N. Women, a United Nations agency that focuses on women’s rights and social progress, in its new report. “Sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war throughout this conflict,” Hodan Addou, U.N. Women’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, told journalists in Geneva at the launch of the report Friday. Authors of the report have issued what they call a “Gender Alert” to highlight the catastrophic impacts of Sudan’s conflict on women and girls. They note that nearly 5.8 million internally displaced women are particularly vulnerable, with many cases of sexual violence going unreported “due to fear of stigma, retribution and the lack of adequate support.” VOA

Tunisia Passes Law to Strip Courts of Power over Election Authority Appointed by President
Tunisia’s parliament amended a law on Friday, stripping power from courts over decisions made by an embattled election authority whose members are appointed by President Kais Saied. Nine days before the presidential election, a majority of members of parliament voted in favor of amending the young democracy’s first election law as the election authority remains in conflict with courts demanding that it returns three candidates to the ballot. The move sparked anger from opposition and civil society groups, which say the election authority has acted in concert with Saied to ensure he faces little competition in winning a second term. AP

At Least 12 Die, 10 Missing as Migrant Boat Sinks off Tunisia
At least 12 people died, including three infants, and 10 others were missing after their boat sank on Monday off the Tunisian coast at Djerba as they sought to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The coast guard rescued 29 people who had been on board the crowded boat, an official said. Human Rights Observatory, a local rights group, said that all the migrants on board were Tunisians bar two Moroccans. Tunisia is facing an unprecedented migration crisis and has replaced Libya as the major departure point for both Tunisians and people from elsewhere in Africa seeking a better life in Europe. Reuters

Who Are the Candidates in Mozambique’s Presidential Election?
Mozambique will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Oct. 9, marking the end of President Filipe Nyusi’s two-term tenure. The vote will take place as the government continues to fight militants in the gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado, where a major attack in 2021 forced TotalEnergies to halt its $20 billion liquefied natural gas project…Daniel Chapo, 47, is the candidate from Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party that has governed the country since its independence in 1975. He is widely expected to win due to the party’s dominance, despite his relatively low profile in national politics…Ossufo Momade, 63, is the leader of Mozambique’s main opposition party and former rebel movement, Renamo…Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane is seen as a rising star in Mozambican politics who is popular among the youth…Lutero Simango is the leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the country’s third-biggest party, which was founded by his brother Daviz Simango in 2009. Reuters

At Least Six Killed by Bomb Blasts in Somalia
At least six people were killed and 10 injured on Saturday by bomb explosions in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and a town in the country’s Middle Shabelle region, police and witnesses said. It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attacks, although Islamist militant group al Shabaab frequently orchestrates bombings and gun attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa country. The blast in Mogadishu involved a bomb-rigged car that was parked on a road near the National Theatre in Mogadishu, about one kilometre away from the president’s office…In a separate incident, a bomb planted in a livestock market in Jowhar city in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region killed one person and injured three other civilians, Jowhar police commander Bashir Hassan told a press conference. Reuters

Six People Died of Marburg Virus in Rwanda, Health Minister Says
Rwanda has confirmed six deaths and 20 cases of Marburg disease since the beginning of the epidemic, the country’s health minister Sabin Nsanzimana said late on Saturday. The majority of victims are health workers in the intensive care unit, Nsanzimana said in a video statement posted on X…Marburg disease, a viral hemorrhagic fever, can cause death among some patients, with symptoms including severe headache, vomiting, muscle aches and stomach aches, the ministry has said. Institutions and partners are working to trace those who have been in contact with the virus-affected individuals, the minister added. With a fatality rate of as high as 88%, Marburg is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola and is transmitted to people from fruit bats. It then spreads through contact with bodily fluids of infected people. Reuters

Mali Junta Arrests Four Barrick Gold Employees
Mali’s military-led authorities have arrested four employees of Canadian miner Barrick Gold, two sources said on Friday. All four are senior Malian employees, one of the sources said. Barrick is the world’s second-largest gold miner and one of Mali’s top gold producers, but like other international miners it has been under growing pressure in the West African country since a junta seized power in 2020. A government official based in the region and speaking on condition of anonymity said four Barrick employees had been arrested for alleged financial crimes…Mali is one of Africa’s biggest gold producers and the junta has sought to channel a greater share of gold revenue to state coffers including via a new mining code that allows the government to increase its ownership of gold concessions. Its shake-up of the sector is part of a wider policy shift that has seen the authorities cut off long-standing ties with Western allies such as France and seek closer diplomatic, security, and commercial relations with Russia. Reuters

Kenyan Parliamentary Committee Rejects Petition Seeking TikTok Ban
A parliamentary committee has rejected a petition calling for a total ban on TikTok in the country, instead recommending regular compliance checks on the social media platform’s operations by State authorities. In its report tabled in Parliament, the National Assembly Committee on Public Petitions said a total ban on TikTok would stifle freedom of media and expression…The committee, chaired by Kitui East MP Nimrod Mbai, says all social media platforms in the country, should be regulated and their operations should be subject to regular reviews by government agencies. But despite lifting the blanket ban on TikTok, the committee raised fundamental questions about the platform’s operations in the country. Concerns range from national security and privacy, content moderation and breaches of community guidelines, economic benefit and compliance with Kenyan law. The EastAfrican

Cocoa-producing Countries Call on EU to Delay Anti-deforestation Law
In a joint declaration signed last week at the headquarters of the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) in Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa-producing countries said that implementation deadlines set by the EU were “unrealistic in view of the requirements of the regulation, which range from the geolocation of plots to the establishment of an exhaustive traceability system”. The EU’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is due to come into force from 30 December 2024, and requires companies seeking to sell designated products to prove they have not been sourced from land deforested or degraded since 2021. With less than three months to go, the ICCO said a traceability system wasn’t yet operational, while the European Commission still had not shared all the necessary documents or activated a data-processing platform involved in implementing the rules. Cocoa producers warn that hasty implementation of the deforestation regulation could prove detrimental, particularly for small producers who risk finding themselves barred from the European market…Despite the mounting opposition, the Commission said earlier this week that the goal of implementing the EUDR as early as 30 December 2024 is still in place. RFI

High Tech, High Yields? The Kenyan Farmers Deploying AI to Increase Productivity
In [Kenya], AI-powered tools have become increasingly popular among small-scale farmers seeking to improve the quality and quantity of their produce. Pests, diseases and a lack of technical knowhow mean farmers have become accustomed to suffering crop losses on a large scale. They used to rely on advice from agricultural extension officers – professionals deployed by local governments to provide educational services to farmers – but their numbers have declined in recent years due to inadequate funding…[PlantVillage and Virtual Agronomist] work by training AI models on images and data. Researchers at PlantVillage fed their model thousands of images of healthy and diseased crops to help it learn how to identify pests, while for Virtual Agronomist researchers trained a model to predict PH and other soil properties using continent-wide satellite data…Despite the promise, some scientists caution about dependence on AI tools for agriculture. Angeline Wairegi, who has researched the use of the technology in agriculture in east Africa, said most AI training datasets exclude indigenous knowledge, meaning the information they provide can exclude successful localised practices. The Guardian

Global South Risks Becoming Victim to ‘AI Divide’: Google Exec
Speaking at Semafor’s ”The Next 3 Billion” event in New York, Google SVP of technology and society James Manyika said the world should work to ensure “the existing digital divide doesn’t also turn into an AI divide in a way that leaves out the Global South.” He warned that progress on AI may stall or even turn toward harmful outcomes if all nations weren’t engaged in the transformation — which, in turn, requires significant infrastructure investment, and may require more than a billion dollars annually…Manyika is the co-author of a new United Nations report, Governing AI for Humanity, published this month that examines the best course forward for how to regulate the technology on a global scale. The report found that there are few international AI regulation efforts, and that many countries in the Global South have not signed on to any of these. ..The report called for an AI-focused international policy meeting to take place during the UN’s biannual meetings and a global fund for AI development to fill the gap, with an estimated $350 million to $1 billion needed annually on top of existing financing. Semafor