Nation Team

South Sudan slams UN over renewed arms embargo, sanctions

Saturday May 28 2022

South Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) national army soldiers patrol the streets with a pick-up truck after capturing the town of Bentiu, on January 12, 2014. FILE PHOTO | AFP

Summary

In a press statement seen by The EastAfrican on Friday, South Sudan’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ministry said the Security Council should have followed the African Union position.
The government claims that unilateralism and coercion no longer serve the interest of any nation in a multi-polar world, stressing that it will continue to reconcile South Sudanese using the 2018 peace deal.

By DAVID MAYEN

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Juba,

South Sudan’s unity government has described the recent renewal of arms embargo and sanctions by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as unproductive.

The Security Council voted to renew the sanctions amid unrest in the country.

In a press statement seen by The EastAfrican on Friday, South Sudan’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ministry said the Security Council should have followed the African Union position.

“The African people have spoken clearly through the African Union Decision 815 of February 2022 that sanctions and arms embargo is unproductive. That some countries would dismiss the African Union’s stance on this matter shows an old hubris with no value for a world shaken by wars, including Africa and Europe,” said the ministry.

Read: Renewed arms embargo and sanctions threatens peace deal, Juba says

Also read: UN can only lift sanctions when Juba peace deal is fulfilled: Guterres

The coalition government, however, applauded China, India, Russia, Gabon and Kenya for not voting for the sanctions on Juba. The five countries abstained from the vote. The resolution to extend the ban through May 2023, drafted by the United States, was passed with 10 out of 15 votes.

“These countries understand that the United Nation’s vision of world peace requires that sovereign nations respect one another as equals. They stand in solidarity with the people of South Sudan for whom these sanctions are cruel policy with no clear intention,” the Foreign Affairs ministry added.

The government claims that unilateralism and coercion no longer serve the interest of any nation in a multi-polar world, stressing that it will continue to reconcile South Sudanese using the 2018 peace deal.

“South Sudan will continue to model reconciliation through the peace agreement knowing other countries too experience violent political discord that requires tolerance, accommodation and healing.

“Just as sanctions on those countries would be counterproductive, they are also counterproductive to South Sudan. We, instead, invite friendly nations to support our efforts to stabilise the country, including the sovereign right to defend our territorial integrity,” the government concluded.

Also read: South Sudan says renewing arms embargo is 'anti-peace'

The embargo was imposed in 2018 after a peace agreement ended five years of bloody civil war between factions loyal to President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar.

When the embargo was last extended a year ago, authorities in South Sudan were given a list of political and security conditions in order for the restrictions to be lifted or relaxed.

According to a Gun Policy report, the estimated total number of guns (both legal and illicit) held by civilians in South Sudan was 1.2 million in 2017 and 3 million in 2013. The Defence Forces of South Sudan is reported to have 351,500 firearms.

In the headlines

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

EDITORIAL: Somalia’s new leadership owes its people peace

Saturday May 28 2022

Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. PHOTO | POOL

Summary

Accountable government should be a top priority because it recruits the public to support government initiatives. Citizens should be able to feel that they are not pawns but valued partners in Somalia’s reconstruction.
Security for the people begins with agents of the state treating them with dignity. Even without a new constitution, the government can start by regulating the conduct of the security forces and respecting the provisions of the existing supreme law.

By The EastAfrican

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Against all odds, Somalia this month pulled off a peaceful transition of power. On May 23, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo handed the presidency over Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the country’s tenth president. With that and a fully constituted legislature, Somalia has an opportunity to start on a new era of politics of consensus. The leaders now need to find unity of purpose in dealing with the mountain of challenges that still confront the country.

As alluded to by President Mohamud’s predecessor Farmaajo, there is no shortage of challenges awaiting the new administration and they will need to hit the ground running.

Besides the lingering threat of al-Shabaab insurgents, Somalia is still caught in the throes of hunger, with millions of people already starving. The country also needs to agree on a new constitutional order that will define the roles of federal structures and relationship of the federal member states with the centre in Mogadishu. With Somaliland still a reluctant participant, resolving the question of national unity is also paramount.

Read: Somalia election: Ex-president Mohamud sworn in after win

Rather than being seen as an outcast, Somaliland, despite its democratic shortfalls, should be seen as a template for creating order out of the chaos that has haunted Somalia for the past 30 years. To its credit, Somaliland has built the internal consensus that has allowed a reasonable degree of security of person and property to prevail.

Being both an academic and a politician, it could be argued that President Mohamud is perhaps best-placed to set in motion, a process that untangles Somalia’s complex matrix. Poverty, insecurity, battered national institutions and a largely informal economy are only part of the problem. Restoring faith in the state is the bigger challenge.

Accountable government should be a top priority because it recruits the public to support government initiatives. Citizens should be able to feel that they are not pawns but valued partners in Somalia’s reconstruction. Somalia scores notoriously poorly on key democratic indexes and the new government has a duty to take steps that create this anomaly.

Also read: Somalia: A full in-tray awaits newly elected president

Security for the people begins with agents of the state treating them with dignity. Even without a new constitution, the government can start by regulating the conduct of the security forces and respecting the provisions of the existing supreme law in as far it allows dissent and the right of the people and the media to freedom of expression.

Low on financial resources, to achieve buy-in, the new administration will first need to establish credibility with average Somali. That will require it to demonstrate that it is committed to a viable national version and to match talk with walk. Economic reforms and see the birth of a new constitution that will define the roles, functions and procedures of government.

Somalia has come this far because of the generosity of its neighbours and the international community. The fate of the country is now inextricably fused with the fortunes of her neighbours. President Mohamud and his administration owe the region a coherent national vision and foreign policy that embraces regional integration and opens up Somalia to the world.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Kalonzo could change presidential election outcome

Saturday May 28 2022

Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka has submitted documents to run as a presidential candidate in the August elections. PHOTO | FILE

Summary

His late entry in the race to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta and break ranks with the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition was a reaction to his having been overlooked for the position of running mate to Raila Odinga.
The findings of recent opinion polls give Mr Musyoka a slim chance, with not more than four percent of respondents saying they would vote for him.
His last run in 2007 is widely believed to have divided the opposition vote and tipped the scales in favour of then President Mwai Kibaki, who ended up beating Mr Odinga by just about 200,000 votes in the violently disputed election of that year.

By OTIENO OTIENO

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As Kenya’s presidential hopefuls race to beat the June 6 deadline for obtaining clearance by the electoral commission to run in the August 9 election, former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka continues to attract attention.

Mr Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement party submitted his name and endorsement signatures to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), backing his earlier announcement that he will be running for the top seat a second time.

His late entry in the race to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta and break ranks with the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition was a reaction to his having been overlooked for the position of running mate to Raila Odinga.

Mr Odinga, keen to appeal to voters in the populous Mt Kenya region and garner the national women vote, opted for former Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Martha Karua as his running mate.

The findings of recent opinion polls give Mr Musyoka a slim chance, with not more than four percent of respondents saying they would vote for him.

But with the surveys also showing a dead heat in the contest between Deputy President William Ruto and Mr Odinga, the Wiper party leader could still have a say in who becomes Kenya’s fifth President.

A candidate must garner 50 percent plus one vote to be declared the winner, meaning that there is a possibility of Mr Musyoka forcing a run-off if he contests.

His last run in 2007 is widely believed to have divided the opposition vote and tipped the scales in favour of then President Mwai Kibaki, who ended up beating Mr Odinga by just about 200,000 votes in the violently disputed election of that year.

As was the case 15 years ago, Mr Musyoka would be banking on his Kamba ethnic voting bloc that is thought to account for two million out of the country’s total 23 million registered voters currently.

Fallout

His walkout from the Azimio coalition this month marked the second major falling-out with Mr Odinga in the past nine months, after the dissolution of the National Super Alliance (Nasa) — the coalition they built to contest the 2017 election as presidential candidate and running mate — in August 2021.

But the man widely caricatured in the national media for his famed flip-flopping on political issues has continued to send mixed signals, fuelling speculation about another possible reunion with the Azimio coalition.

While announcing his presidential bid on May 16, Mr Musyoka appeared to suggest that he remained open to negotiations for a deal that would have him support another candidate.

Since then, he has neither issued any public statement nor come out to campaign. Indications are that he will go back to Azimio. Mr Musyoka’s travel outside the country, reportedly to the UK early this week, came amid reports about ongoing talks over a pre-election power-sharing deal that would give his party 20 percent of senior appointments in an Odinga administration, on top of the chief minister position dangled to the former vice-president earlier.

In recent days, Mr Musyoka has also come under pressure from his political base, with a group of Wiper aspirants for the down-ballot seats and a professionals’ lobby from the party publicly asking him to rejoin the Azimio coalition.

Analysts say such a reunion would enhance Mr Odinga’s chances of pulling off a round-one victory against Mr Ruto.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Rwandan genocide survivors film premieres on Netflix in June

Friday May 27 2022

"Trees of Peace" Netflix film poster. PHOTO | COURTESY

Summary

The four women in the movie are from different backgrounds brought together by the gruesome events of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.
Finding themselves in hiding in a house basement, they open up on the horrific sounds of terror that emerged during the brutal raids. This tests their faith, thoughts, aspirations, and existence together.

By ANDREW I KAZIBWE

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Rwandan film, Trees for Peace, will premiere on Netflix on June 10 after its rights were bought by the streaming platform.

The movie, directed by Alanna Brown, is about four women during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and stars Rwandan actress Eliane Umuhire, Zimbabwean-Australian Charmaine Bingwa, Ella Cannon (Australian), Bola Koleosh (Nigerian-American), and Tongayi Chirisa star (Zimbabwean).

The four women in the movie are from different backgrounds brought together by the gruesome events of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Finding themselves in hiding in a house basement, they open up on the horrific sounds of terror that emerged during the brutal raids. This tests their faith, thoughts, aspirations, and existence together.

The frankness gifts them stronger bonds amidst the fateful trials.

Inspired by true events, the film is a story of love, trial, faith, and discovery.

Awards

It scooped three awards at the American Black Film Festival, then earned the Top Jury Award after it premiered at the 2021 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the film produced by Barry Levine, Ron Ray, Brian Baniqued, Jeff Spiegel, Mike Bundlie, Vicky Petela.

In previous years, Umuhire has been cast in several film roles, including Behind the World (2011) and Birds Are Singing in Kigali, which won her an award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czech Republic) and other awards. Her films have featured in the London BFI Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Hamburg Film Festival, and Rotterdam International Film Festival and others.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Juba intensifies efforts to encourage dialogue among Sudan peace parties

Friday May 27 2022

People march during a demonstration calling for civilian rule in the south of Sudan's capital Khartoum on February 10, 2022. PHOTO | AFP

Summary

Tut Gatluak, Kiir's security and political advisor, on Tuesday met with a number of parties to the Sudan peace process with the aim of having them agree to have dialogue for a way forward.

By MAWAHIB ABDALLATIF

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The South Sudan mediation team intensified its efforts to get Sudanese peace parties to find a formula that will end the prolonged crisis in Khartoum.

The talks are meant to urge peace parties to agree on governance of the country and resolve the associated political crisis in the country.

After the fall of the Omar al-Bashir regime in April 2019 in Sudan, President Salva Kiir of South Sudan announced his intention to mediate between the transitional government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and the Sudanese armed opposition factions in order to reach a lasting peace.

Kiir intervened after negotiations with groups faltered, and his mediation offer would quickly be accepted by most sides.

The ruling junta is struggling to reach consensus with civilian movements over a new transitional government.

Read: After fighting Khartoum for self-rule, Kiir helps warring parties find peace

Tut Gatluak, Kiir's security and political advisor, on Tuesday met with a number of parties to the Sudan peace process with the aim of having them agree to have dialogue for a way forward.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of the signatories to the Juba Agreement for Sudan Peace.

The attendees discussed the implementation of the peace agreement, the obstruction of the political process in Sudan, how to reach a political consensus between the Sudanese parties, and the importance of the role played by Juba in bridging the gap between the parties to the Sudanese crisis.

In a press statement after the meeting, the leader of the Revolutionary Front, Al-Amin Daoud, said they now have a better way of managing the peace process in Sudan, and the priority is to resolve the political tension in Sudan.

“We welcome the efforts of all mediators to resolve the Sudanese crisis,” he added.

Gatluak said Juba is keen on the stability of Sudan, calling for consensus among all political forces to resolve the crisis.

Mubarak Ardol, the Secretary-General of the Forces for Freedom and Change, said they believe that dialogue will help them reach a peaceful political solution. He said they appreciate South Sudan’s efforts in bringing the parties together to look for a common solution.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Mikhail Iossel's collection of stories is a portrait of Soviet life

Friday May 27 2022

"Love like water, love like fire" by Mikhail Iossel. PHOTO | COURTESY

Summary

My favourite story in the collection is Some of the World Transactions My Father Has Missed Due to His Death on September 14, 1999, because of the way the author factually journalised it.

By TONY MOCHAMA

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Mikhail Iossel’s collection Love Like Water, Love Like Fire is described as painting a "tender, dark, poignant and humorous portrait of Soviet life" by the New York Times.

The Night Andropov Died and The Night We Were Told Brezhnev Was Dead are two of the 20 stories in the Concordia University professor’s 2020 collection.

The USSR collapsed in 1989. Writer Iossel had migrated three years before from Russia to the US. Recently, a group of Kenyan writers were fortunate to have the author do a reading for them.

They sat around Iossel, several floors above the streets of Nairobi in the brightly illuminated Chester House.

The writers savoured stories like Sentence, a touching tale dedicated to Arkadii Dragomoschenko, a friend from Iossel’s youth.

That youth was spent in Saint Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, where the author lived until he was 30.

In the heart of that Russian city is the famed four-part Horse Tamers sculpture, where it is said sculptor Pieter Klodt etched the face of the politician his wife was cheating on him with onto a horse’s bronze scrotum.

Klodt’s Horses is one of the three stories in the collection that Iossel read in its entirety. The professor also read Life: How Was It?, which was first published in The New Yorker. The story was inspired by the afternoon he ran into an old high school friend in a bookshop in America — 40 years and 7,000 kilometres after they last saw each other in Russia.

Journalised

My favourite story in the collection is Some of the World Transactions My Father Has Missed Due to His Deathon September 14, 1999, because of the way the author factually journalised it: "The Election of former KGB operative Vladimir Putin as President of Russia. Second war with Chechnya. George W Bush’s dubious electoral victory over Al Gore. Second war with Iraq ..."

Author Mikhail Iossel with Tony Mochama. PHOTO | COURTESY

This was followed by a touch of the personal: "His widow’s wearing all black for more than a year".

The title story Love Like Water, Love Like Fire opens with a photograph of Iossel’s mother, now 92 years old, staring directly into the camera as a nine-year old (in a family group photograph taken outdoors at Gomel, Byelorussia, a month before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War (as WW2 is known in Russia).

Iossel also wrote Every Hunter Wants to Know, a collection of stories, and is co-editor — with Jeff Parker — of the anthologies Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States, and Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia.

(Tin House, 2010). His stories have been published in literary magazines in the US and abroad, translated in several foreign languages, and anthologised in Best American Short Stories and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation and NEA fellowship, among other awards.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

DR Congo army, rebels trade accusations on clashes in North Kivu

Friday May 27 2022

Soldiers from the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) patrol Goma and Rutshuru areas in the country's restive North Kivu province in the past. FILE PHOTO | REUTERS

Summary

The M23 rebels and the Congolese army have traded accusations on who attacked first, with each blaming the other party.
On Wednesday evening, the Congolese army claimed to have seized weapons and other military items abandoned by the rebels.

By PATRICK ILUNGA

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Rebels and government soldiers have accused each other of fuelling the current violence of eastern DR Congo, that is threatening to spill into the city of Goma, the largest city in North Kivu province.

Violent clashes between the M23 rebels and the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), supported by soldiers from the United Nations mission, have led to civilians fleeing the territories of Jomba and Kibumba, just 20 km from the city of Goma.

The M23 rebels and the Congolese army have traded accusations on who attacked first, with each blaming the other party.

On Wednesday evening, the Congolese army claimed to have seized weapons and other military items abandoned by armed groups. The weapons have been taken for verification.

General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the military governor of North Kivu, said that the military items that were recovered from the abandoned rebel areas “are not used by the FARDC or by the M23 terrorists”.

This led Governor Constant Ndima, head of operations in North Kivu, to “refer the matter to the enlarged joint verification mechanism of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region for investigations into the origin of these incidents”.

On Monday, the Rwandan Defense Forces had referred to the same joint verification mechanism for investigations on “cross-border shelling on Rwandan territory by DRC armed forces”, according to a Rwanda Defense Force statement.

Colonel Ronald Rwivanga, spokesman for the Rwandan army, said that the “incident” led to the injury of civilians and other damage.

The Rwandan army has now reinforced its security along the border with DRC’s Nyiragongo territory, even as Congolese troops supported by the UN mission say they have pushed the rebels away from Goma.

The situation in the Great Lakes region is attracting international attention.

The UN Security Council “strongly condemns the attack against Monusco and the FARDC and calls on all armed groups to participate unconditionally in the Nairobi political process.”

The UN Security Council members expressed “concern about the current humanitarian situation in eastern DRC, marked by a significant increase in the number of people in need of protection and humanitarian assistance.”

The Executive Council of the African Union, which met on Wednesday on the occasion of African Day, condemned the resurgence of the M23.

During the plenary, Christophe Lutundula, DR Congo’s Foreign Affairs minister, publicly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23.

Major Willy Ngoma, spokesperson for M23, denied any support from Rwanda.

Kigali also later denied any involvement with the rebels.

In Kinshasa, “a crisis meeting” was held on Wednesday with Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde and Célestin Mbala, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On Friday, some Congolese protesters, who tried to march in front of the Rwandan embassy in the DRC following reports that Rwanda was helping the M23, were dispersed by police in Kinshasa.

Due to the escalating conflict in North Kivu, President Félix Tshisekedi returned to Kinshasa on Thursday night in order to follow closely the security situation. He returned from a “private trip” to Nairobi where he had gone to after his three-day state visit to Burundi.

His office says he will also not travel to Equatorial Guinea for the African Union summit as earlier planned.

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Canada releases $78m for smallholder food producers in Africa

Friday May 27 2022

Women harvest French beans for export in Taita Taveta, coastal Kenya. PHOTO | AFP

Summary

The money, to be disbursed as concessional loans, will target small and medium enterprises involved in agribusiness especially those founded and run by women.
The money was announced this week as the Bank launched its Emergency Food Production Facility, a $1.5 billion project aimed at raising African yield of food production to 38 million tonnes by end of 2022.

By AGGREY MUTAMBO

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The Canadian government has announced a $78 million contribution to a funding kitty of the African Development Bank (AfDB) to aid local food producers improve their yield.

The money, to be disbursed as concessional loans, will target small and medium enterprises involved in agribusiness especially those founded and run by women.

The money was announced this week as the Bank launched its Emergency Food Production Facility, a $1.5 billion project aimed at raising African yield of food production to 38 million tonnes by end of 2022.

The Bank said it will raise an initial $1.3 billion and partners will raise the rest to support up to 20 million farmers across the continent with soft loans worth of certified seed, fertiliser and technology necessary to improve yield.

Canadian minister of International Development, Harjit S Sajjan, announced the funding this week on his tour of East Africa where he met with local leaders.

The money will be disbursed as part of the Assistance Innovation Programme which the Canadian government uses to support private enterprises involved in Sustainable Development Goals such as fighting hunger or climate change.

The Canadian government, the fourth largest shareholder of the AfDB’s non-African members, says the $78 million will be crucial as Africa seeks alternative sources of food after the war in Ukraine curtailed one of the biggest sources of grain for the continent, earlier this year.

Seven in ten food items in Africa are produced, processed or moved to consumers by small or medium enterprises including smallholder farmers.

“Africa’s agri-SMEs are dynamic but face challenges in accessing finance for growth and expansion. Canada is proud to support the AFDB, which has the expertise and networks to turn this challenge into an opportunity,” a statement from the Canadian Ministry of International Development said on Tuesday.

‘The Agri-Food Catalytic Financing Mechanism (ACFM) will provide concessional finance to agribusinesses, financial institutions and impact funds for on-lending to gender-oriented agri-SMEs in Africa that are aligned with green and inclusive growth objectives.”

Canada says it could raise an additional $156 million from public and private sources to “support climate-smart agriculture in Africa at this time of severe challenge to global food security, exacerbated by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

In the headlines

South Sudan slams UN over arms embargo, sanctions

Security Council renewed an arms embargo and sanctions amid continuing unrest in the country.

Rwanda denies backing armed group in DRC

Primarily a Congolese Tutsi group, M23 is one of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern DRC.

UN renews arms embargo on South Sudan

Kenya's President Kenyatta lifts Fifa World Cup trophy

Kenyan Olympic champions join global anti-malaria campaign

Samia: Tanzania playing its part to link African states

Tanzania issues alert over monkeypox

Finger-licking meat dishes at the reopened Chophouse

Friday May 27 2022

The dining area of the Chophouse Restaurant. PHOTO | KARI MUTU

Summary

The Chophouse menu is a blend of steaks, seafood, Kenyan, continental and Mediterranean cuisines.
Fine dining seems to have gone out of fashion in recent years against the rise of alternative and innovative global cuisines.
But I would say that Chophouse has crafted a new vision for haute cuisine with their fabulous flavours, creativity and attention to detail.

By KARI MUTU

More by this Author

The Chophouse Restaurant at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Nairobi reopened this week after a two-year hiatus, and I was excited to experience their famous fine dining steakhouse.

My first impression was of an elegant restaurant, styled in contemporary African and classic décor. At the back I could see the kitchen and the chefs at work behind a large glass wall. A semi-private room to one side was perfectly situated for hosting a group of diners.

The Chophouse menu is a blend of steaks, seafood, Kenyan, continental and Mediterranean cuisines. Under the new leadership of Chef Wayne Walkinshaw, the restaurant has maintained customer favourites such as sea scallops and the Mombasa crab.

For a starter, our group had the scallops, flavoured with brandy and black salt, on a butternut and mascarpone cheese puree, with Parma ham on the side. I can understand why they are so popular. This melt-in-your-mouth seafood dish was a perfect blend of savoury, slightly sweet and buttery.

Every dish on the Chophouse menu has a recommended wine. The white wine suggested for the scallops was a Hesketh BYT sauvignon blanc from Australia. It is a light refreshing and slightly citrus wine that does not overpower the delicate flavours of the dish.

Great presentation

The scallops were served on a wooden slab of a tree trunk decorated with dried moss and white stones, with a small flaming pot in the middle.

Chophouse sea scallops starter, flavoured with brandy and black salt. PHOTO | KARI MUTU

Next, we tried the aged, air-dried salted beef, cut into thin slices, rolled into cones and served on a plate shaped like a shoulder blade. Accompaniments were goat cheese, dried figs, parmesan cheese, soubise foam and rocket leaves. Scents of forest anise and olive powder completed the blend of flavours. A glass of full-bodied Parker Shiraz red wine with spicy notes paired well with the beef and, later on, with the lamb.

Our next course was Molo lamb smothered with a dark chocolate and blackberry red wine reduction. The lamb was tender, and came with a black olive emulsion and baba ghanoush, a Mediterranean eggplant dip.

Our meal was concluded with a deconstructed nougatine eclair. Sandwiched in the éclair pastry was hazelnut ice cream, chocolate creameux, a thin layer of nougatine and salted caramel. Candied macadamia nuts, whole berries and a sliver of brandy snaps added varied textures and balanced the sweetness of the dessert.

I am a fan of cheesecake so the Passion Fruit and White Chocolate Cheesecake would have been my second option.

Somewhere in between courses Chef Wayne and his team surprised us with some culinary showmanship when they made Nitrogen Popcorn. This is basically ordinary popcorn cooled in a bowl of smoking liquid nitrogen and prepared tableside while we watched. The popcorn was super cold when eaten and foggy vapours wafted out of the mouth, not unlike a smoking dragon.

Fine dining seems to have gone out of fashion in recent years against the rise of alternative and innovative global cuisines. But I would say that Chophouse has crafted a new vision for haute cuisine with their fabulous flavours, creativity and attention to detail.

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