Africa Business

South Africa’s Keegan Petersen has no doubt first-innings runs hold the key to the outcome of the third and deciding Test against England at The Oval starting Thursday.

The Proteas won the first Test by an innings and 12 runs at Lord’s only for England to level the three-match contest at 1-1 with an even more emphatic innings and 85-run victory at Old Trafford, with both games finished inside three days.

The second Test saw Ben Stokes make his first hundred as England captain, with wicketkeeper Ben Foakes reaching three figures as well for the home side.

South Africa have managed just one individual fifty so far this series — opener Sarel Erwee’s 73 at Lord’s.

The Proteas have a fine pace attack featuring Kagiso Rabada and express quick Anrich Nortje, which has helped propel them to four undefeated series prior to this campaign, but have decisions to make over their batting line-up.

Batsman Rassie van der Dussen has already been ruled out of the finale with a finger injury.

With Aiden Markram averaging a mere 15.56 in his last nine Tests, there could be a double alteration to the batting line-up, with both Ryan Rickelton and Khaya Zondo in line to be recalled.

– ‘Step up’ –

Petersen made a gutsy 42 in South Africa’s second innings at Old Trafford but knows such scores rarely win matches.

“I think it is obvious we need to score hundreds up top,” Petersen, still awaiting his first Test century after nine matches, told reporters on Tuesday.

“It hasn’t been there for a while and the lower order has saved us a few times but I think it is evident the batsmen need to step up and get a couple of big scores.

“I think both Test matches (in this series) were lost in the first innings when it comes to batting… the team who can play that first innings better is the team that will come out on top.”

South Africa left-arm seamer Marco Jansen — unlucky to be dropped in Manchester — may return after the policy playing a second spinner in Simon Harmer at Old Trafford was negated by England only batting once.

England too will make at least one change, after batsman Jonny Bairstow suffered a freak leg injury playing golf.

Bairstow has been in brilliant form this year, scoring 1,061 runs, including six centuries, in 10 Tests.

His place is set to be taken by 23-year-old uncapped Yorkshire team-mate Harry Brook.

England played a very attacking style of cricket earlier in the summer after Brendon McCullum took over as coach, but batted more reservedly in their second Test win.

A pace attack of 40-year-old James Anderson, Ollie Robinson and Stuart Broad, well supported by Stokes, ensured there was no respite for the Proteas.

“I think that the way we batted, bowled and fielded all game is like the benchmark of the standards which we set,” said Stokes, who took over as captain from Joe Root with England having won just one of their previous 17 Tests.

“The energy throughout the whole week didn’t drop.”

Donning a festive white dress, with her hair intricately braided and her eyes lined with the traditional kohl paint, Ethiopian Yudita Ihab prepared for the annual Ashenda celebration.

But for Yudita and the thousands of other women who gathered in Sudan’s capital Khartoum late last month, the normally joyful week-long Ethiopian holiday was overshadowed by the ongoing war that has ravaged the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray they hail from.

“It’s our identity and we want to express it despite the difficulties we are going through,” Naabali Kahtay told AFP.

The two-year conflict between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has created a humanitarian crisis, driving tens of thousands of people to seek refuge in neighbouring Sudan and wrenching families apart.

For Tigrayans in Sudan, the conflict has transformed their view of Ashenda, typically marking the end of a 15-day fast known as Filseta, which is observed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Naabali said she had lost contact with her family more than a year ago; they remain trapped in the Tigrayan capital of Mekele.

“I don’t know if they are alive or dead.”

In November 2020 Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF, Tigray’s ruling party, saying the move came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps.

“The celebrations are beautiful, but we cannot be fully happy,” 21-year-old Aziza Moustafa told AFP.

“Celebrating the Ashenda means a lot to me,” said Ihab, 18, noting the significance of this tradition, passed down through generations of women.

In the Tigrinya language, Ashenda is a type of tall green grass found on river banks in the region. As part of the festivities, women wear skirts made of the weaved Ashenda grass over white cotton dresses with colourful embroidery. 

“Young girls usually style their hair by doing five cornrow braids to show their beauty during Ashenda,” said Naabali.

In Khartoum, the women were playing drums to traditional music, with many wearing headbands of red and yellow, the colours of the Tigrayan flag. Traditional chicken stew and flatbread was also served to the crowd.

The Tigray conflict has displaced around two million people but the death toll remains unknown as the region reels from a near-complete blockade and a communications blackout.

But many still hold on to hopes that the war will end.

“Hopefully, we can celebrate it next year in Tigray,” said Naabali of the holiday.

More frequent and intense heatwaves and wildfires driven by climate change are expected to worsen the quality of the air we breathe, harming human health and ecosystems, the UN warned Wednesday.

A new report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cautioned that the interaction between pollution and climate change would impact hundreds of millions of people over the coming century, and urged action to rein in the harm.

The WMO’s annual Air Quality and Climate Bulletin examined the impacts of large wildfires across Siberia and western North America in 2021, finding that they produced widespread increases in health hazards, with concentrations in eastern Siberia reaching “levels not observed before”.

Tiny particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) are considered particularly harmful since they can penetrate deep into the lungs or cardiovascular system.

“As the globe warms, wildfires and associated air pollution are expected to increase, even under a low emissions scenario,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

“In addition to human health impacts, this will also affect ecosystems as air pollutants settle from the atmosphere to Earth’s surface.”

– ‘Foretaste of the future’ –

At the global scale, there has been a reduction over the past two decades in the total burned area, as a result of decreasing numbers of fires in savannas and grasslands.

But WMO said that some regions like western North America, the Amazon and Australia were seeing far more fires.

Even beyond wildfires, a hotter climate can drive up pollution and worsen air quality.

Taalas pointed out that severe heatwaves in Europe and China this year, coupled with stable high atmospheric conditions, sunlight and low wind speeds, had been “conducive to high pollution levels,” warning that “this is a foretaste of the future.”

“We expect a further increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves, which could lead to even worse air quality,” he said.

This phenomenon is known as the “climate penalty”, which refers to how climate change amplifies ground-level ozone production, which negatively impacts air quality. 

In the stratosphere, ozone provides important protection from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays, but closer to the ground it is very hazardous for human health.

If emission levels remain high, this climate penalty is expected to account for “a fifth of all surface ozone concentration increase,” WMO scientific officer Lorenzo Labrador told reporters.

He warned that most of that increase will happen over Asia, “and there you have about one quarter of the entire world population.”

The WMO called for action, stressing that “a worldwide carbon neutrality emissions scenario would limit the future occurrence of extreme ozone air pollution episodes.”

The report points out that air quality and climate are interconnected, since chemicals that worsen air quality are normally co-emitted with greenhouse gases.

“Changes in one inevitably cause changes in the other,” it said.

Foreign governments are spending more than 30 times more on fossil fuel projects in Africa than on initiatives to lessen the impacts of the continent’s second-biggest killer, air pollution, research showed Wednesday.

The report, released on the International Day of Clean Air, showed how little donor nations spend on improving air quality while ploughing money into dirty energy and infrastructure projects across Africa. 

The United Nations estimates that air pollution kills around nine million people globally each year, with fossil fuels accounting for two-thirds of the levels of harmful particulates humans are exposed to. 

The financial benefits of improving air quality alone would far exceed the costs of slashing emissions to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goals, according to a landmark United Nations climate science assessment this year. 

Yet, as Wednesday’s analysis by the Clean Air Fund shows, US, European and Asian governments are still going ahead with fossil fuel-based development projects that will likely worsen already poor air quality in cities and along highways across Africa.

The fund found that just 0.3 percent of African countries’ development assistance received between 2015-2021 had been specifically earmarked for air quality projects, despite pollution being responsible for some one in five deaths continent-wide. 

During the same period, donor nations provided 36 times more funding for prolonging fossil fuel use in Africa. 

“That difference alone is extremely startling,” Dennis Appiah, head of the fund’s Ghana office and a co-author of the report. 

“I think it’s also highlighted that most often governments are not paying attention to the issue of air pollution,” he told AFP. 

“Either they are not conscious of the impact of it, or they do not see it as a problem.” 

Appiah called air pollution a “silent killer” as its effects are far harder to see and message to communities compared with other climate-linked phenomena such as flooding.

– ‘Death sentence’ –

An ongoing population boom means Africa will be — on current birth rates — home to some 2.5 billion people by 2050, with the UN estimating that 26 countries will double their populations by then. 

The vast majority of population growth will occur in urban areas, with much of the infrastructure needed to support increases yet to be built.

The continent is virtually blameless for climate change yet continues to be a hotspot for extreme events linked to global heating. 

Appiah said that while Africa’s development needs were huge, governments needed to prioritise sustainable ways of electrifying and connecting communities. 

“Policymakers are stuck in going through the same traditional chain for development that we see in the West, and also in some of the Asian countries that are now suffering the consequences of some of those decisions,” he said. 

“I think Africa is positioned to take advantage of some of the technology which exists. We don’t have to go through the same process (as developed countries), we can leapfrog to new technologies.”

With renewable energy such as wind and solar already frequently cheaper than oil and fossil gas per kilowatt hour, the hope is that African governments can factor in the economic benefits of avoiding air pollution into their development plans.

In a preface to Wednesday’s report, Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate said that policies featuring new fossil fuel infrastructure in Africa were “a death sentence for people in communities like mine”.

“It’s time for governments to hear the voices of people all around the world who are calling for leaders to clean up our air and protect our health,” she said.

Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur claimed another piece of tennis history after becoming the first African woman to reach the semi-finals of the US Open on Tuesday with a straight sets victory over Ajla Tomljanovic.

Jabeur, who was also the first woman from Africa to win a place in the Wimbledon final in July, moved into the last four with a 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) win on the Arthur Ashe Stadium Court.

The 28-year-old will face either 12th seed Coco Gauff or in-form French 17th seed Caroline Garcia in Thursday’s semi-finals.

Tomljanovic’s run to the quarter-finals had included a superb display to eliminate Serena Williams in the third round, in what was most likely the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s final singles match before retirement.

But Tomljanovic found the going harder against the dynamic Jabeur on Tuesday, the Tunisian varying her play cleverly and attacking her Australian opponent from the outset.

Jabeur said she drew confidence from reaching the Wimbledon final, and hoped her success would inspire future generations of female African tennis players.

“It really means a lot to me,” Jabeur said.

“I believe more in myself. After Wimbledon it was very positive. Even though I lost the final, I knew I had it in me to win a Grand Slam. And here I am in the semi-finals of the US Open.”

Jabeur is known affectionately as the “Minister of Happiness” by fans in Tunisia for the joy that her progress on court has brought to her homeland.

However Jabeur admitted she had let her frustration get the better of her at times on Tuesday, when she banged her racquet in frustration several times.

“I think I’m gonna be fired from my job as Minister of Happiness,” she joked. 

“It is tough to manage my frustration. I apologise for my behavior. I really wanted to keep calm but the racquet kept slipping away from my hand.”

Jabeur broke early on to set up a 3-1 lead in the first set and although Tomljanovic broke back to level at 3-3, Jabeur regained the advantage in the next game, sealing a break with a pinpoint backhand winner into the corner before holding for 5-3.

Tomljanovic staved off a set point to cut Jabeur’s lead to 5-4, but Jabeur held serve easily, bringing up two set points with an ace before clinching the opening set when a Tomljanovic return sailed long.

Jabeur looked poised to wrap up victory briskly after grabbing an early break and a hold to go 2-0 early in the second set.

But the Tunisian was then broken three times in a row to leave Tomljanovic serving for the set at 5-3 up.

Tomljanovic’s nerve failed her however and she double-faulted at 0-40 down to throw Jabeur a lifeline. Jabeur took full advantage to force the tie-break and clinched victory when a Tomljanovic return plopped into the net.

US envoy Mike Hammer was in Ethiopia on Tuesday to seek a halt to renewed clashes between pro-government forces and Tigrayan rebels in the country’s war-torn north.

The United States dispatched Hammer, its special envoy for the Horn of Africa, to Ethiopia at the weekend, after the resumption of fighting last month shattered a truce and dashed hopes of ending a humanitarian crisis triggered by the nearly two-year war.

The United Nations’ special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, “met the US envoy today in Addis but there are no plans for a joint mission”, a UN spokesperson told AFP late Monday.

During his previous trip to Ethiopia last month, Hammer travelled to Tigray with his European Union counterpart Annette Weber, and the pair angered federal authorities by urging them to restore basic services such as electricity and communications to the stricken region.

Details about his ongoing visit were scant, with no information available from either Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government or US authorities.

Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group, would not confirm any plans to see Hammer.

But he told AFP in a message on Tuesday: “We are willing to meet anyone with a serious intention to resolve the war on Tigray peacefully.”

In a press conference uploaded to the YouTube channel of TPLF-linked Tigrai TV late Monday, Getachew described “very intense fighting” under way and said the rebels were resisting joint offensives by forces from Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea.

Fighting had been concentrated around the southeastern border of Tigray, but has since spread along the region’s southern border, to areas west and north of the initial clashes. 

“Our forces were able to defend their positions effectively in Wag (in Amhara region, which neighbours Tigray) and are now launching a counter-offensive,” said Getachew.

AFP was not able to independently verify the claims. Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for over a year.

Addis Ababa has not responded to requests for comment.

– Calls for peace –

Around 35 civil society organisations, including women’s rights activists and press freedom groups, issued a public call for peace, urging the warring sides to hold talks and for basic services to be reinstated in Tigray and surrounding areas.

“The conflicts have not only deprived citizens of essential rights… but they have also reached a stage where the country’s existence is threatened,” they said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to clashes in the north and in other parts of Ethiopia.

“If these conflicts aren’t solved peacefully, we are afraid our country will enter into a crisis that it won’t be able to pull through.”

The two sides have traded blame for starting the latest round of hostilities, with the TPLF accusing Abiy’s government and Eritrea — which backed federal forces during the war’s early phase — of launching a joint offensive against Tigray.

Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation with Eritrea but has fallen out of favour with Washington, a longtime Ethiopian ally, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning “ethnic cleansing” in western Tigray.

Abiy sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF — the region’s then ruling party — in November 2020 in response to what he said were rebel attacks on federal army camps.

Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday slapped a ban on a popular music festival, the second time that authorities have taken steps against the annual event over accusations that it promotes sex, drugs and homosexuality.

The four-day Nyege Nyege festival on the banks of the Nile in the southern town of Jinja brings together artists from across Africa to entertain around 10,000 revellers and is usually held in September.

But nine days days before the event was due to resume — following a pandemic-induced shutdown since 2020 — parliament said on Twitter that it had “stopped the ‘Nyege Nyege’ festival, an annual social event scheduled to take place next week”.

Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister Rose Lilly Akello told reporters that the festival “promotes a lot of immorality and this immorality is something which is not wanted in our country.”

Uganda’s state minister for tourism, Martin Mugarura, told AFP that the ban would have a destructive impact on the economy, as the travel industry limps back to life after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Over 8,000 foreign tourists have already booked tickets and were to stay in the country during the duration of the festival and even beyond,” he said.

“We hope there is a reversal of this decision,” he added. 

The festival was banned in 2018 by former ethics minister Simon Lokodo, a fervent Christian and outspoken homophobe, who described it as an orgy of homosexuality, nudity and drugs akin to “devil worship”.

But he was forced to lift the ban barely a day later, following outrage on social media.

Lokodo, who died in January, said at the time that the event encouraged “the celebration and recruitment of young people into homosexuality”. 

“The very name of the festival is provocative. It means ‘sex, sex’ or urge for sex,” he said.

Nyege Nyege means an irresistible urge to dance in the local Luganda language, but it can have a sexual connotation in other languages in the region.

Uganda is notorious for its intolerance of homosexuality — which is criminalised in the country — and strict Christian views on sexuality in general.

In 2013 Ugandan lawmakers passed a bill that called for life in prison for people caught having gay sex, although a court later struck down the law.

Last month the government suspended the country’s leading gay rights organisation, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), accusing it of operating illegally in the East African nation.

US envoy Mike Hammer was in Ethiopia on Tuesday to seek a halt to renewed clashes between pro-government forces and Tigrayan rebels in the country’s war-torn north.

The United States dispatched Hammer, its special envoy for the Horn of Afsfrica, to Ethiopia at the weekend, after the resumption of fighting last month shattered a truce and dashed hopes of ending a humanitarian crisis triggered by the nearly two-year war.

The United Nations’ special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, “met the US envoy today in Addis but there are no plans for a joint mission,” a UN spokesperson told AFP late Monday.

During his previous trip to Ethiopia last month, Hammer travelled to Tigray with his EU counterpart Annette Weber, and the pair angered federal authorities by urging them to restore basic services such as electricity and communications to the stricken region.

Details about his ongoing visit were scant, with no information available from either Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government or US authorities.

Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group, would not confirm any plans to see Hammer.

But he told AFP in a message on Tuesday: “We are willing to meet anyone with a serious intention to resolve the war on Tigray peacefully.”

In a press conference uploaded to the YouTube channel of TPLF-linked Tigrai TV late Monday, Getachew described “very intense fighting” under way and said the rebels were resisting joint offensives by forces from Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea.

Fighting had been concentrated around the southeastern border of Tigray, but has since spread along the region’s southern border, to areas west and north of the initial clashes. 

“Our forces were able to defend their positions effectively in Wag (in Amhara region, which neighbours Tigray) and are now launching a counter-offensive,” said Getachew.

AFP was not able to independently verify the claims. Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for over a year.

Addis Ababa has not responded to requests for comment.

The two sides have traded blame for starting the latest round of hostilities, with the TPLF accusing Abiy’s government and Eritrea — which backed federal forces during the war’s early phase — of launching a joint offensive against Tigray.

Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation with Eritrea but has fallen out of favour with Washington, a longtime Ethiopian ally, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning “ethnic cleansing” in western Tigray.

Abiy sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF in November 2020 in response to what he said were rebel attacks on federal army camps.

South Africa’s economy shrank in the second quarter, as floods and an energy crisis put a halt to months of growth, official data showed Tuesday.

The dip in output after two consecutive quarters of modest growth dragged Africa’s most industrialised economy back below pre-coronavirus pandemic levels.

The official statistics agency StatsSA said gross domestic product retreated by 0.7 percent in the second quarter.

“The economy took almost two years to recover from the impact of COVID-19,” the agency said in a statement. “The recovery was short lived”.

Devastating floods that killed more than 450 people in the southeastern KwaZulu-Natal province and power cuts caused by a prolonged energy crisis contributed to the decline, “weakening an already fragile national economy”, the agency said.

“The flooding had a negative impact on a number of industries, most notably manufacturing,” StatsSA said. 

Damages to factories and plants, and disruptions to logistics and supply chains caused by the torrential rains, pulled national manufacturing output down by 5.9 percent, it said. 

Mining and the electricity, gas and water supply industry were hampered by weeks of severe rolling blackouts, known locally as load shedding, it said. 

International Criminal Court (ICC) officials have arrived in Guinea to monitor preparations for a much-delayed trial over a massacre that left more than 150 people dead.

In September 2009, troops under then junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara opened fire on opposition supporters rallying at a stadium in the West African country’s capital Conakry. At least 157 people were killed, while 109 women were raped.

An investigation wound up in 2017, identifying a dozen suspects, including Camara.

But despite repeated promises by Camara’s elected successor, President Alpha Conde, the trial has been repeatedly delayed, sparking criticism from rights campaigners.

Guinea’s military junta, which toppled Conde last September, has ordered the trial to start before the massacre’s 13th anniversary on September 28, although no date has yet been announced.

ICC officials including deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang arrived on Monday night.

Niang said the trip was prompted by junta chief Colonel Mamady Doubouya’s instruction to his justice minister to launch the trial before the anniversary.

“It was important for us to be here to see the state of trial preparations,” Niang, a Senegalese, told reporters.

“Our wish is that this trial takes place so that the ICC is not required to exercise its authority. We expect a fair trial to be held that will respect the rights of the defence and civil plaintiffs,” Niang said.

“We are here to help the process, we will do monitoring to see if everything goes well. We will also offer a sort of  expertise and experience to ensure the trial’s success,” he added.

During their visit, the ICC officials will meet with Guinean judicial authorities and victims’ groups, a Guinean judicial source said.