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Africa at a glance

Thursday November 07 2019
nile

The Kenya Lake Victoria WaterkeeperLeonard Akwany (Left), Deputy Executive Director of Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat Dr Abdulkarim Seid (Centre) and Regional Project Officer Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action program Sadiki Lotha Laisser speak to journalists during the Nile Basin Wetlands Baseline Review meeting at Double Tree by Hilton Hotel in Nairobi on November 5, 2019. Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have agreed to resolve the dispute over the feeling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam by January 15, 2020 with the United States and the World Bank as observers. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

  • US, World Bank defuse Nile dam tensions

The United States and the World Bank have brokered a commitment to a negotiated settlement over the $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

During the talks in Washington on November 6, Egypt Ethiopia and Sudan committed to hold four technical meetings with the hope reaching an agreement by January 2020.

If the meetings of water and foreign ministers do not achieve the objective, they will refer the matter to their heads of states for further outside mediation.

Egypt and Ethiopia have threatened war over the filling of the dam which Cairo fears will limit fresh water reaching its land.

  • Mauritians vote in close legislative contest
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Mauritians on Thursday have their first chance to decide if Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth should continue to rule since he was hand-picked for the job when his father stepped down more than two years ago.

Nearly a million voters are registered for the parliamentary election in which Jugnauth, 57, faces two opponents - Navin Ramgoolam and Paul Berenger - each leading a distinct coalition.

Results are expected on Friday, filling 60 seats in Mauritius and two seats in Rodrigues Island, before the Electoral Commission appoints eight representatives from among best losers to achieve equity.

  • Algeria judges allowed to challenge reshuffle

Striking Algerian judges returned to work Wednesday after the government allowed judges to challenge their transfers by filing appeals to the Supreme Judicial Council.

The main union said the agreement also involved setting up a workshop to enhance legislation on judicial independence ahead of a controversial election next month.

The election will pick ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's successor but there have been protests demanding it be deferred to allow for sweeping political reforms.

  • Voting underway in test-case Kenya Parliamentary seat

Voters in Kibra, a constituency in the Kenya capital Nairobi trooped to the polls on Thursday in what many believe is a dress rehearsal for the 2022 general election.

In a fragmented contest featuring 18 candidates attention is on former Parma and Inter Milan midfielder McDonald Mariga, the ruling Jubilee Party candidate, who has split loyalties even in the party.

A jubilee faction opposed to deputy President William Ruto ascending to the Presidency in 2020 is backing Imran Okoth of opposition ODM party which is led by Africa infrastructure envoy Raila Odinga.

Odinga, who is expected to mobilise the opposition against Ruto in 2022, assembled unlikely political support for Okoth in Kibra as President Uhuru Kenyatta kept a studious distance from Mariga's campaign.

  • Zambia albino girl's hand mutilated in sleep

Assailants used a machete to chop off the the hand of a seven year-old albino girl in Zambia as she was sleeping on Wednesday in Zambia's northern mining town of Kitwe.

Copperbelt Province Commissioner of Police Charity Katanga said the assailants forcibly dragged the seven-year-old outside into the nearby bush before she was rescued and admitted in hospital.

The motive of the attack was not clear as Zambia is not among African countries where Albinos are targeted for their body parts which are used in rituals.

  • Congolese 'Terminator' warlord to be sentenced at ICC

International Criminal Court Judges will on Thursday sentence Congolese rebel chief Bosco "Terminator" Ntaganda after he was convicted in July of war crimes and sexual slavery.

Ntaganda, 46, faces life in prison for crimes including directing massacres of civilians in Democratic Republic of Congo's mineral-rich Ituri region in 2002 and 2003.
He became the first person to be found guilty of sexual slavery, besides the 13 counts of war crimes and five of crimes against humanity, but has appealed the conviction.

  • Ambush on gold miner Semafo's convoy kills 37 in Burkina Faso

An ambush on a convoy transporting employees of Canadian mining company Semafo in Burkina Faso killed 37 people on Wednesday in the deadliest attack in nearly five years of jihadist violence.

Saidou Sanou, the governor of the country's Est Region, armed individuals ambushed five buses carrying local employees, contractors and suppliers of the company which mines gold at Boungou in Tapoa province.

About 60 other people were injured after a military vehicle that was escorting the convoy hit an explosive device in the third attack on Semafo in the past 15 months.

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