September 4, 2021 – Page 3 – Djibouti News Gazette

September 4, 2021

Ivory Coast announce ‘major discovery’ of Oil

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, a modest hydrocarbon producer, announced the “major discovery” of oil and natural gas off its coast during an exploratory drilling carried out by the Italian hydrocarbon giant Eni.

“A major discovery of oil in the sedimentary basin of Ivory Coaast has just been made by the Italian company Eni in the CI-101 block, in deep waters, operated in consortium with the national company Petroci Holding,” said Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Thomas Camara.

The reserves discovered concern crude oil and associated natural gas.

The potential “can be estimated in a preliminary way to about 1.5 to 2 billion barrels of crude oil on the one hand, and on the other hand to about 1,800 to 2,400 billion cubic feet of associated gas,” said Camara, reporting “a significant discovery that would greatly increase the proven reserves of Ivory Coast, as well as its oil and gas production in the years to come”.

The 3,445-metre-deep well was drilled about 60 kilometres off the coast in 30 days, Italy’s Eni said. The firm added that it would now carry out a further evaluation of the wider potential of the find.

Ivory Coast had signed contracts in 2019 with Italy’s Eni and France’s Total, for the exploration of four oil blocks corresponding to an investment of $ 185 million.

Oil production in the country, which in 2019 recorded an increase of 12% to more than 36,000 barrels per day, comes from drilling wells located mainly offshore, near the border with Ghana.

The west African nation, a modest producer, revised its oil code in 2015 to attract new investors through production sharing contracts. The country has 51 identified fields, of which four are producing, 26 are in exploration and 21 are still free or under negotiation.

In 2014, the French group Total had mentioned a “very promising result” about its research in very deep waters off the coast of Ivory Coast.

In addition to Total and Eni, several international companies, including Britain’s Tullow Oil, have announced significant discoveries in recent years.

Source: NAM News Network

September 4, 2021

African Union Makes Vaccine Deal for the Continent

The African Union has announced that Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines assembled in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe and will instead be distributed among African countries.

In addition, millions of J&J vaccines already shipped to Europe, but currently stored in warehouses, will be returned to South Africa, African Union COVID-19 envoy Strive Masiyiwa said Thursday.

The deal between J&J and Aspen Pharmacare, the South African facility manufacturing the J&J vaccines that were sent to Europe, had received harsh criticism as less than 3% of the population of the African continent has been inoculated, compared to richer regions of the world that have begun or will soon begin booster shot campaigns.

The World Health Organization has warned that the pandemic cannot be brought under control unless all the world’s regions are equitably vaccinated.

Meanwhile, WHO has listed a new coronavirus strain as a “variant of interest.” The Mu variant is responsible for nearly 40% of the COVID cases in Colombia where it was first identified.

Greek health care workers demonstrated Thursday against a COVID mandate that went into effect Wednesday.

Under the new regulation, workers will be suspended without pay if they have not been inoculated or recovered from the coronavirus in the last six months.

Musicals are back on Broadway, after an absence of more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Award-winning Hadestown, a modern interpretation of the ancient Greek legend of lovers Orpheus and Eurydice, opened Thursday.

Also, the musical Waitress began a limited run Thursday, starring singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles.

Hamilton, The Lion King, and Wicked return to Broadway theaters Sept. 14.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has recorded 219 million COVID infections and 4.5 million coronavirus deaths. The center said early Friday that 5.3 billion vaccines have been administered.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.

Source: Voice of America

September 4, 2021

Mali Police March on Prison, Free Commander Held in Protest Deaths Inquiry

A special forces commander in Mali was freed on Friday after angry police officers marched to the prison where he was detained for allegedly using brute force to quash deadly protests last year.

The head of the police counterterrorism unit, Oumar Samake, had been held in the Sahel state over lethal skirmishes between security forces and opponents of ex-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Anti-Keita protests rocked Mali last year and eventually culminated in the president’s ouster in a military coup.

One such protest on July 10, 2020, sparked several days of deadly clashes with security forces.

Mali’s political opposition said at the time that 23 people were killed during the unrest. The United Nations reported that 14 protesters were killed, including two children.

An investigation was opened into the killings in December 2020.

Police special-forces commander Samake was detained Friday for his alleged role in the violence, a senior legal official told AFP.

But the move infuriated police officers, some of whom marched on the prison in the capital, Bamako, where he was held.

Prison guard Yacouba Toure told AFP that large numbers of well-armed policemen turned up at the jail.

“We did not resist,” he said, adding that police left with Samake “without incident.”

A justice ministry official, who requested anonymity, said the government decided to free Samake “for the sake of peace.”

“This is not a court decision,” the official said, adding that the investigation into Samake would continue.

The dramatic events underscored the sensitivity of such investigations in chronically unstable Mali.

The country’s military deposed Keita in August 2020 after weeks of protests fueled by grievances over alleged corruption and the president’s inability to stop the long-running jihadist conflict.

Army officers then installed a civilian-led interim government to steer Mali back toward democratic rule. But military strongman Colonel Assimi Goita deposed these civilian leaders in May in a second coup.

Goita has pledged to restore civilian rule and stage elections in February next year.

However, there are doubts about whether the government will be able to hold elections within such a short time frame.

Mali has been struggling to quell a brutal jihadist insurgency, which emerged in 2012 and left swaths of the vast nation outside government control.

Source: Voice of America

September 4, 2021

Kenya to Appeal to Supreme Court Over Constitutional Reforms

The Kenyan government said on Friday it will go to the country’s top court to challenge a ruling that halted President Uhuru Kenyatta’s bid to change the constitution, a source of growing controversy ahead of next year’s polls.

The sweeping reforms — popularly known as the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)– have been touted as a way to end repeated cycles of election violence by expanding the executive and parliament to more evenly divide the spoils of victory.

But a High Court in Nairobi in May ruled that the proposed amendments to the 2010 constitution were illegal and that Kenyatta could himself face legal action for launching the process.

The government challenged that judgement, but the Court of Appeal on August 20 confirmed it in a majority decision by the seven-member panel.

It said Kenyatta had no right to initiate the changes, which could have dramatically shifted the political landscape with less than a year before the country votes in August 9 presidential and parliamentary elections.

In a notice of appeal filed at the Supreme Court on Friday, the attorney general’s office said it was “dissatisfied” with the August 20 decision and will launch a final attempt to introduce the controversial legislation.

It listed eight grounds for challenging the ruling, including the judgement that civil proceedings could be instituted against the president.

The proposed reforms came about following a rapprochement between Kenyatta and his erstwhile opponent Raila Odinga and a famous handshake between the two men after post-election fighting in 2017 claimed dozens of lives.

The BBI notably aimed to restructure the current winner-takes-all electoral system by creating new executive posts and increase the number of parliamentarians from 290 to 360.

But it was seen by critics as a way to enable Kenyatta — who has served two terms and is barred from running for president again — to remain in power by establishing the post of prime minister.

Source: Voice of America

September 4, 2021

Liberian Newspaper Receives Court Summons Over Reporting

A judge in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, has ordered the arrest of a newspaper’s managers this week after FrontPage Africa allegedly failed to respond to a summons.

The paper’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Rodney Sieh, told VOA that the summons was delivered Monday when no one was at the paper’s offices, and that it gave managers only 90 minutes’ notice that they were due to meet with a judge.

The summons relates to the investigative outlet’s coverage of former defense minister Brownie Samukai’s conviction in a corruption case. A Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court’s verdict that found Samukai guilty of embezzling millions from the pension fund of Liberia’s armed forces.

Circuit court judge Ousman Feika alleges that FrontPage Africa incorrectly reported his role in presiding over the case.

“I think (Feika’s) issue was the initial case was submitted by his predecessor. That was the only discrepancy. But we did not print any false article against the judge,” Sieh told VOA.

Liberia’s judiciary did not respond to a request for comment sent through its web portal. An email sent to the address listed on its website was returned as undeliverable.

Sieh said that the judge wanted FrontPage Africa’s managers to meet with him to explain their coverage of the trial.

Because of pandemic restrictions, the paper’s staff currently work from home. The first they heard of the summons was when they received the arrest order, Sieh said.

“The only person (in) the office was the security,” Sieh said, adding that the time the meeting was scheduled made it “nearly impossible for anyone to appear in court.”

“I think the judge was very excessive in this decision to have us arrested,” he said. The publisher added that the paper has not arranged legal representation because it has still not officially received the summons.

In a letter to its readers, FrontPage Africa pleaded with Liberia’s chief justice “to ensure that the judicial branch use its power for those who need it the most, and not to muzzle, intimidate or instill fears in members of the Fourth Estate.”

Media rights organizations criticized the court order. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on social media it was dismayed by the order to arrest the management, and called on the judge to focus on criminals, not journalists who are exposing corruption.

Liberia has a relatively stable media freedom record. The country ranks 98 out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest on the index published by Reporters Without Borders.

The media watchdog has noted that Liberia moved to decriminalize defamation, but that some outlets, including FrontPage Africa, face legal harassment over investigative reporting.

Source: Voice of America