Africa Business

The prison sentence of beleaguered ex-South African president Jacob Zuma officially ended on Friday, with correctional services saying he had been released from their system having served only part of his term behind bars. 

The former head of state was jailed for 15 months for contempt of court in July last year after refusing to testify before a graft inquiry — but was released on medical parole two months later. 

“It is a day of mixed emotions,” Zuma said in a statement on Friday, thanking his supporters for speaking out against what he said was an “unjust and cruel incarceration.”

“I am relieved to be free again to walk around and do whatever I want to do without restrictions.”

He compared his release to the day in 1973 when he walked out of Cape Town’s notorious Robben Island prison, where he had been jailed as an apartheid-era political prisoner with Nelson Mandela.

The 80-year-old was granted parole after being admitted to hospital for an undisclosed condition.

A court later ordered him back to jail, but he managed to remain out as appeal proceedings dragged on. 

“All administrative processes have now been conducted and the sentence expiry date marks the end of him serving his sentence,” the Department of Correctional Services said in a statement.

Zuma’s jailing last year sparked riots that descended into looting and left more than 350 dead in the worst violence to hit the country since the advent of democracy in South Africa.

Last month, he announced he was ready to make a political comeback at the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s internal conference in December where the top seats will be hotly contested.

Zuma is a divisive figure whose name resonates with graft for most South Africans but remains a hero to many grassroots ANC members.

He is still facing separate corruption charges over an arms deal dating back more than two decades.

Voters in Lesotho were casting ballots in parliamentary elections on Friday, but observers doubted that the outcome would end long-running political gridlock.

The southern African kingdom has been governed for the past decade by frail and fractious coalitions, and no premier has served out a full five-year term.

“It is very likely that there will be a coalition again,” said Liesl Louw-Vaudran at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in Pretoria. 

Surrounded entirely by South Africa, Lesotho is a mountain nation of two million people nicknamed the “Kingdom in the Sky.”

It has been buffeted by coups and attempted coups since independence from Britain in 1966, and nearly a third of its population live on less than $1.90 a day. 

In Koro-Koro, about an hour’s drive from the capital Maseru, men wrapped in traditional blankets started queueing outside a voting station from the early morning. 

“I hope that my vote will count,” said Paul, 32, who said he had walked for kilometres (miles) to cast his ballot. 

Like many, he used to work in South Africa, but the Covid-19 pandemic upended that and today he is unemployed.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 5:00 pm. About 1.5 million people are registered to vote. 

In Maseru’s suburb of Matala, marquees on the grass served as polling stations. 

Before opening shop, election officials showed the empty ballot boxes to those queueing outside, to allay fears of rigging. International observers watched. 

“I have never voted, and I am not willing to vote,” Dineo Moketsie, a 32-year-old teacher told AFP earlier in the week, angry at politicians who he said had done nothing to better living conditions in the country. 

“I just feel that it’s a waste of time”. 

The outgoing government is led by the All Basotho Convention (ABC). But current Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro is not seeking another term, after being ousted as party head earlier this year. 

His predecessor Thomas Thabane was forced to step down in 2020 after being accused of ordering the murder of his estranged wife. Charges against him were dropped in July. 

The ABC’s new leader, former health minister Nkaku Kabi, is squaring off against an array of contenders.

More than 50 parties are in the running.

– Millionaire challenger –

Kabi’s main challengers include Mathibeli Mokhothu, who heads the Democratic Congress — Lesotho’s second largest party — and Sam Matekane, a millionaire believed to be the country’s richest man who could be a dark horse, according to analysts. 

His party, “Revolution for Prosperity”, dwarfs most of the others in terms of resources, said Rataibane Ramainoane, a political adviser to the government.

“Its presence is being felt across the country,” he said.

Still, no one is expected to win outright, darkening prospects of much-needed reform, said Seroala Tsoeu-Ntokoane, a political analyst at the National University of Lesotho.

“Coalitions are a source of instability because they’re formed with political parties with not much to hold them together, no mutual policy platform, no mutual respect,” she said. 

The outgoing parliament failed to pass a law aimed at strengthening political stability, by banning lawmakers from switching party allegiance within the first three years of their tenure.

“We want infrastructures, roads and running businesses, it’s all about bringing back hope in the country,” said Mekhotak Setsebi, 30, a blanket tied around his shoulders. 

He is the head of a small logistics company but business is bad, he said before casting his ballot in Matala. 

The 120-seat parliament is chosen by a mixed electoral system — 80 lawmakers are voted in by constituents, while another 40 seats are distributed proportionally.

Results are expected next week.

Burkina Faso’s new rulers say they seized power to better fight jihadists, but history in the Sahel suggests the coup will merely stoke turbulence and division, benefitting the insurgents, analysts say.

The poor, arid region has been wracked by jihadist insecurity since 2012.

It began in northern Mali then in 2015 spread to its centre and neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, claiming thousands of lives and prompting more than two million people to flee their homes.

A new junta led by 34-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in Burkina Faso last week, in the second such power grab since January blamed on failures to quell jihadist attacks. 

It followed two similar coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021.

The latest takeover comes during a struggle for influence between France and Russia in the former French colonies, whose leaders appear to be increasingly turning to Moscow to help battle the jihadists.

But analyst Yvan Guichaoua said the coup would only serve the interests of the jihadists — the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and the local branch of the Islamic State group.

“The big winners are not the Russians or the French, but GSIM and IS,” said Guichaou, an expert at the Brussels School of International Studies. “What a disaster.”

Organisers of coups in the Sahel typically promise improved security, but these pledges are misleading, analysts say.

A putsch typically “destabilises the army structure and divides members of the military into supporters and opponents of the coup,” said Djallil Lounnas at Morocco’s Al-Akhawayn University.

“It means instability, division and purges.”

Coups only compound problems in countries where the armed forces are already accused of inefficiency and mismanagement, and security forces are often under-equipped, he and others said.

– Army problems –

Alain Antil, a Sahel expert at the French Institute of International Relations, gave the example of more than 50 Burkinabe gendarmes killed by jihadists in November last year.

Two weeks earlier, they had warned headquarters they were running short of supplies.

“They were hunting gazelles in the scrubland to eat,” he said, and were in no position to take on the insurgents.

“You can’t go and fight such determined adversaries with this kind of logistics problem.”

Disgruntled junior officers led by Traore forced out junta leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, whom they accused of failing his country. 

Traore was declared president on Wednesday, three days after Damiba fled to neighbouring Togo following a prolonged standoff at the weekend.

But, said Antil, nothing indicates Traore will be any more successful.

“The myth of the enlightened military man able to fix problems… very rarely holds up,” he said.

Soldiers are “often less well-equipped than the civilians they replace to understand” non-security aspects of a crisis.

GSIM this week mocked Burkina’s latest change of leader.

“Let the tyrants know that the repeated coups will not avail them,” it said in a statement.

Mauritanian journalist Lemine Ould Salem, who has written a book on jihadism, said political turmoil gives credibility to extremist talk that “delegitimises state institutions.”

“They say, ‘look, there is no democracy, no state, no constitution’,” he said.

– Regional impact –

Military coups in the Sahel have also weakened regional cooperation in the fight against the jihadists.

Since its takeover, Mali had a bustup with France, the country’s strongest foreign ally, which withdrew its last troops from the country in August.

The junta has brought in Russian operatives it describes as military trainers, but which western countries say are mercenaries from the Wagner group.

Mali has also quit a regional anti-jihadist force dubbed the G5 Sahel and antagonised its southern neighbour, Ivory Coast, by detaining 46 Ivorian soldiers in July.

Bamako “risks ruining all cooperation, including for security,” Antil said.

The Soufan Center think tank in a note this week said France had “served as somewhat of a ‘bogeyman’, or an excuse to account for the growing strength of jihadists in Burkina Faso and the Sahel more broadly”. 

Michael Shurkin, a US historian specialised in the French army, said there were also “many who believe in conspiracy theories according to which the French arm the jihadists”. 

They “simplify a complex reality and enable people to avoid having to understand their own responsibility and find their own solutions,” he said.

Voters in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho were casting ballots in parliamentary elections on Friday, but hopes were low that the outcome will end the country’s long-running political gridlock.

Lesotho has been governed for the past decade by a string of coalition governments that have proved fractious and frail, and no premier has served out a full five-year term.

“It is very likely that there will be a coalition again,” said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a researcher at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in Pretoria. 

Surrounded entirely by South Africa, which heavily depends on it for water, Lesotho is a mountain kingdom of two million people nicknamed the “Kingdom in the Sky.”

It has been buffeted by coups and attempted coups since independence from Britain in 1966, and nearly a third of its population live on less than $1.90 (1.90 euros) a day. 

“I hope that my vote will count,” said Paul, a 32-year-old who said he walked for kilometres to cast his ballot in Koro-Koro, about an hour from the capital Maseru. 

Like many, he used to work in South Africa, but the Covid-19 pandemic upended that and today is unemployed.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 5:00 pm. About 1.5 million people are registered to vote. 

Only 47 percent of registered voters bothered to cast their ballot at the last elections in 2017. 

“I have never voted, and I am not willing to vote,” Dineo Moketsie, a 32-year-old teacher told AFP earlier in the week, angry at politicians who he said have done nothing to better living conditions in the country. 

“I just feel that it’s a waste of time”. 

The process can also be cumbersome and queues outside polling stations can sometimes last hours. 

The outgoing government is led by the All Basotho Convention (ABC). But current Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro is not seeking another term, after being ousted as party head earlier this year. 

His predecessor Thomas Thabane was forced to step down in 2020, after being accused of ordering the murder of his estranged wife. Charges against him were dropped in July. 

The ABC’s new leader, former health minister Nkaku Kabi, is squaring off against an array of contenders.

More than 50 parties are in the running.

“People still believe in our movement and we’re going to win,” said Kabi, 49. 

– Millionaire challenger –

His main challengers include Mathibeli Mokhothu, who heads the Democratic Congress — Lesotho’s second largest party — and Sam Matekane, a millionaire believed to be the country’s richest man who could be a dark horse, according to analysts. 

“Our country is sinking. So, we have to try and save (it),” Matekane told AFP in an interview. 

His party, “Revolution for Prosperity”, dwarfs most of the others in terms of resources, said Rataibane Ramainoane, a political adviser to the government.

“Its presence is being felt across the country,” he said.

Still, no one is expected to win outright, darkening prospects of much-needed reform, said Seroala Tsoeu-Ntokoane, a political analyst at the National University of Lesotho.

“Coalitions are a source of instability because they’re formed with political parties with not much to hold them together, no mutual policy platform, no mutual respect,” she said. 

The outgoing parliament failed to pass a law aimed at strengthening political stability, by banning lawmakers from switching party allegiance within the first three years of their tenure.

The 120-seat parliament is chosen by a mixed electoral system — 80 lawmakers are voted in by constituents, while another 40 seats are distributed proportionally.

International observers will monitor the vote. Results are expected next week.

Voters in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho will cast their ballots in parliamentary elections Friday, but hopes are low that the outcome will end the country’s long-running political gridlock.

Lesotho has been governed for the past decade by a string of coalition governments that have proved fractious and frail, and no premier has served out a full five-year term.

“It is very likely that there will be a coalition again,” said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a researcher at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in Pretoria. 

Surrounded entirely by South Africa, which heavily depends on it for water, Lesotho is a mountain kingdom of two million people nicknamed the “Kingdom in the Sky.”

It has been buffeted by coups and attempted coups since independence from Britain in 1966, and nearly a third of its population live on less than $1.90 a day. 

The capital Maseru was quiet on Thursday evening, lulled by taxis humming in the streets and vendors chatting under large umbrellas set on the sides of the main road.

About 1.5 million people are registered to vote, with ballots opening at 07:00 am (0500 GMT) and closing at 05:00 pm. 

Only 47 percent of registered voters bothered to cast their ballot at the last elections in 2017. 

“I have never voted, and I am not willing to vote,” said Dineo Moketsie, a 32-year-old teacher angry at politicians who he said have done nothing to better living conditions in the country. 

“I just feel that it’s a waste of time”. 

The process can also be cumbersome and queues outside polling stations can sometimes last hours. 

The outgoing government is led by the All Basotho Convention (ABC). But current Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro is not seeking another term, after being ousted as party head earlier this year. 

His predecessor Thomas Thabane was forced to step down in 2020, after being accused of ordering the murder of his estranged wife. Charges against him were dropped in July. 

The ABC’s new leader, former health minister Nkaku Kabi, will square off against an array of contenders.

More than 50 parties are in the running.

“People still believe in our movement and we’re going to win,” said Kabi, 49. 

– Millionaire challenger –

His main challengers include Mathibeli Mokhothu, who heads the Democratic Congress — Lesotho’s second largest party — and Sam Matekane, a millionaire believed to be the country’s richest man who could be a dark horse, according to analysts. 

“Our country is sinking. So, we have to try and save (it),” Matekane told AFP in an interview. 

His party, “Revolution for Prosperity”, dwarfs most of the others in terms of resources, said Rataibane Ramainoane, a political adviser to the government.

“Its presence is being felt across the country,” he said.

Still, no one is expected to win outright, darkening prospects of much-needed reform, said Seroala Tsoeu-Ntokoane, a political analyst at the National University of Lesotho.

“Coalitions are a source of instability because they’re formed with political parties with not much to hold them together, no mutual policy platform, no mutual respect,” she said. 

The outgoing parliament failed to pass a law aimed at strengthening political stability, by banning lawmakers from switching party allegiance within the first three years of their tenure.

The 120-seat parliament is chosen by a mixed electoral system — 80 lawmakers are voted in by constituents, while another 40 seats are distributed proportionally.

International observers will monitor the vote. Results are expected next week.

On Egypt’s Red Sea coast, fish swim among thousands of newly planted mangroves, part of a programme to boost biodiversity, protect coastlines and fight climate change and its impacts.

After decades of destruction that saw the mangroves cleared, all that remained were fragmented patches totalling some 500 hectares (1,200 acres), the size of only a few hundred football pitches.

Sayed Khalifa, the head of Egypt’s agriculture syndicate who is leading mangrove replanting efforts, calls the unique plants a “treasure” because of their ability to grow in salt water where they face no problems of drought.

“It’s an entire ecosystem,” Khalifa said, knee-deep in the water. “When you plant mangroves, marine life, crustaceans and birds all flock in.”

Between the tentacle-like roots of months-old saplings, small fish and tiny crab larvae dart through the shallows — making the trees key nurseries of marine life.

Khalifa’s team are growing tens of thousands of seedlings in a nursery, which are then used to rehabilitate six key areas on the Red Sea and Sinai coast, aiming to replant some 210 hectares.

But Khalifa dreams of extending the mangroves as far “as possible,” pointing past a yacht marina some six kilometres (four miles) to the south.

The about $50,000-a-year government-backed programme was launched five years ago.

– ‘Punch above their weight’ –

Mangroves also have a powerful impact in combating climate change.

The resilient trees “punch above their weight” absorbing five times more carbon than forests on land, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The stands of trees also help filter out water pollution and act as a natural barrier against rising seas and extreme weather, shielding coastal communities from destructive storms.

UNEP calculates that protecting mangroves is a thousand times cheaper than building seawalls over the same distance.

Despite their value, mangroves have been annihilated worldwide at rapid speed. 

Over a third of mangroves globally have been lost globally, researchers estimate, with losses up to 80 percent in some coastlines of the Indian Ocean.

Mangrove expert Niko Howai, from Britain’s University of Reading, said in the past many governments had not appreciated “the importance of mangroves”, eyeing instead lucrative “opportunities to earn revenue” including through coastal development.

In Egypt’s case, “mass tourism activities and resorts, which cause pollution”, as well as boat activity and oil drilling wreaked havoc on mangroves, said Kamal Shaltout, a botany professor at Egypt’s Tanta University.

Shaltout warned that mangrove restoration efforts “will go to waste” if these threats are not addressed.

“The problem is that the mangroves we have are so limited in number that any damage causes total disruption,” he said.

– Impact of mass tourism –

There is little reliable information to indicate how much has been lost, but Shaltout said “there are areas that have been completely destroyed”, particularly around the major resort town of Hurghada.

Red Sea tourism accounts for 65 percent of Egypt’s vital tourism industry.

The scale of damage, a 2018 study by Shaltout and other researchers found, “probably far exceeds what could be replaced by any replanting programme for years to come”.

Efforts to link up replanted areas will be potentially blocked by barriers of marinas, resorts and coastal settlements.

“Mangroves are hardy, but they are also sensitive, especially as saplings,” Howai said.

“Intermingling mangrove reforestation with existing development projects is not impossible, but it is going to be more challenging.”

To be successful, Shaltout said that tourist operators must be involved, including by tasking resorts with replanting areas themselves.

“It could even come with certain tax benefits, to tell them that just like they have turned a profit, they should also play a role in protecting nature,” the botanist said.

First, they defied the male dominion over the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion by being secretly ordained. Then, they shocked the patriarchy by performing a ritual long considered the exclusive preserve of men.

Twenty years after first breaking the glass ceiling, Cuba’s Santeria priestesses are still battling to claim their place. 

The Santeria religion is hundreds of years old — a mix of beliefs brought to Cuba by Yoruba slaves from West Africa, and Catholicism.

Experts say about 70 percent of Cubans are followers of Santeria.

The first priestesses in five centuries only appeared on the communist island in 2000, when Nidia Aguila de Leon, now 60, and Maria Cuesta, 51, were ordained in secret in Havana.

Today there are several hundred priestesses — known as iyanifas or “mothers of wisdom” — in Cuba.  

“As a child, I was always told that if I had been a man, I would be a babalao (priest),” Cuesta — the daughter of a Santeria priest, told AFP.

But for the longest time, the role of women in the church was limited to cleaning and plucking chickens for ceremonies, she said.

Now, “I am the one to kill the hen” for sacrifices, said Cuesta. “I know how to throw the shells” to read the future.

“I know how to do everything, perhaps better than a babalao,” she pronounced proudly.

– ‘Defend our rights’ –

Aimee Ibanez, a 43-year-old pharmacist and fellow priestess, says the role of iyanifas is also to “defend our rights as women.”

But their growing presence — and following — has not gone unchallenged.

In January 2021, Ibanez and two other priestesses caused an uproar by presiding over a ritual known as the “Letter of the Year,” a prophecy of what the new year holds.

Never before had it been done by a woman, let alone three.

“Many people were opposed” to women conducting the ritual, said Ibanez. “But many were also in favor.”

The Yoruba Association of Cuba, the state body representing Santeria, expressed its disgust.

In a statement distributed on social media, the exclusively male association accused the women of acting to “desecrate… our cultural heritage, our religion.”

At her house in central Havana that also serves as a temple, Aguila de Leon said that after her participation in the “Letter of the Year” ritual, critics from the Yoruba Association proclaimed the women would suffer death as “divine punishment.”

– ‘New trends’ –

Santeria was born from the heady mix of African religious rites and rituals found in the slave barracks of Cuba.

To be able to practice their religion outside of the barracks with their owners’ permission, the slaves linked their own deities to Catholic saints to create the hybrid belief system that still exists today.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba changed from an atheist to a secular state, and the ruling Communist Party started admitting believers into its ranks.

Today, the streets of Havana are replete with people wearing Santeria religious symbols in the form of necklaces or bracelets, with different colors representing different saints.

On the beaches, a stroller will often find offerings in the form of cigars, rum or bird sacrifices.

Politicians, intellectuals and artists frequently evoke the Santeria deities in public.

With the recent explosion of iyanifas in the public eye, the Yoruba Association has had to moderate its position.

“We have nothing against the new trends that have arrived in our country in recent years, but it is not in the Afro-Cuban traditions” of Santeria to have women priests, its new president Roberto Padron told AFP.

However, iyanifas already existed in Nigeria before the 16th century when the first African slaves arrived in the Americas, Santeria priest and scholar Victor Betancourt said.

And with the cruel treatment of the slaves in their new home, many of the original beliefs were altered, or lost altogether, with the role of women specifically distorted, he said.

Historically, an iyanifa can do anything a babalao does except ordain other priests, insisted Betancourt, the husband of iyanifa Aguila de Leon.

Raymond Rhule says having a “special bond” with fellow Springbok Dillyn Leyds has allowed the pair to blossom at La Rochelle, before Saturday’s French Top 14 trip to Bayonne.

The pair arrived at Stade Marcel Deflandre in the summer of 2020 before helping the outfit on the Atlantic coast to last season’s European Champions Cup.

Rhule, 29, is currently out injured with an ankle issue but 30-year-old Leyds has scored 27 points including 17 from the tee, his first from the boot since 2015, as La Rochelle sit second in the league table after six rounds.

“We’re close. We’ve played together since under-20s where we won the World Championship (in 2012),” Rhule told AFP this week.

“It’s always nice when you have someone you can relate to, and crack the same type of jokes.

“It’s a special bond which makes rugby go a whole lot easier when you guys see the same pictures, see the game the same way,” he added.

Rhule, who like Leyds can play centre, wing and full-back, made the last of his seven South Africa appearances in 2017’s record defeat to New Zealand and missed out on the Rugby World Cup success two years later.

“I’ve always wanted to have a comeback but those types of things are not up to me,” said Rhule.

“I left there (South Africa) on a sour note and I always want an opportunity to rectify that.

“If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I’ve learnt to control what I can control and everything else is not up to me,” he added.

Rhule headed to France 12 months after his most recent cap and signed with second-tier Grenoble.

There he was clocked running 35km/h during a game by French broadcasters Canal+, as quick as Paris Saint-Germain’s France World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe.

“Pace is a part of my game but I reckon it’s not my whole game,” Rhule said.

“I always try to pride myself on being able to read my game and execute,” he added.

– ‘Slick’ Cassiem –

The Accra-born flyer, who speaks six languages, then moved across France from the Alps to the west coast to work under La Rochelle’s then head coach ex-Ireland fly-half Ronan O’Gara.

This weekend, O’Gara, who has since replaced Jono Gibbes as director of rugby, takes his side south to a sold-out Stade Jean-Dauger to face the Basques of Bayonne, who have Rhule’s former Cheetahs team-mate Uzair Cassiem in their back-row.

“He’s a great dude. His personality off the field is great as well. He’s quite energetic and gives a lot to the team,” Rhule said of eight-time Springbok Cassiem.

“He’ll bring a lot to Bayonne, we must not give him too much space to run, because he’s slick,” he added.

Elsewhere this weekend, Rhule’s fellow Bok Cheslin Kolbe is set to return for Toulon as they host Brive, three months after being sidelined with a fractured jaw.

Scrum-half Cobus Reinach, who won the 2019 World Cup alongside Kolbe, has returned to training with champions Montpellier after a serious shoulder injury before Saturday’s re-run of June’s Top 14 final with a trip to Castres.

Former Buffalo Bills training squad member Christian Wade could make his debut as Racing 92 welcome Pau after the ex-England winger joined the Parisians on a one-year deal.

Fixtures (times GMT)

Saturday

Castres v Montpellier (1300), Stade Francais v Perpignan, Toulon v Brive, Racing 92 v Pau, Bayonne v La Rochelle (all 1500), Toulouse v Clermont (1905)

Sunday

Lyon v Bordeaux-Begles (1905)

The United States announced tighter screening Thursday for people who traveled to Uganda due to an outbreak of Ebola in the African country.

Beginning Friday, the State Department said, any air travelers entering the United States who have been in Uganda in the 21 days before arrival will have to route through one of five designated airports for screening by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and US Customs and Border Protection.

The airports are in New York, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago and Washington.

The move came after the CDC issued a warning over Ebola virus disease (EVD) since the Ugandan Health Ministry declared an outbreak in the Mubende district on September 20.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said there were 63 confirmed and probable Ebola cases in Uganda and 29 deaths.

The CDC said the outbreak appeared limited to five districts in central Uganda and had not reached the capital Kampala or key travel hub Entebbe.

As of Thursday, “no suspected, probable, or confirmed EVD cases related to this outbreak have been reported in the United States or other countries outside of Uganda,” the CDC said.

There are no direct flights from Uganda to the United States. But the CDC said it was essential to screen travelers who had been in Uganda to prevent the disease from spreading.

In 2014, the United States implemented rigid screening procedures after a severe outbreak of Ebola in Africa.

Eleven people were treated for the disease in the United States, and two of them died. Most of those infected were medical workers in West Africa.

Demonstrators gathered in the capital of Burkina Faso on Thursday to show their support for the country’s new junta leader, as rumours swirled of internal divisions in the army. 

Ibrahim Traore was declared president on Wednesday after a two-day standoff that ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, who had seized power only in January. 

Traore was at the head of a core of disgruntled junior officers — but there were rumours just a few days later of discussions among some other army generals over potentially replacing him.

A crowd of several hundred people, mostly young men, gathered in front of the national radio and television centre in the city.

“We have learned that the generals are in consultation to appoint one of them in place of Captain Traore. It will not do! Not today, not tomorrow,” said one of those rallying, trader Amadou Congo.

Rumours circulating in Ouagadougou claimed there was a division between the junior officers represented by Traore and the high-ranking officers who moved in the same circles as Damiba.

After an hour of protesting a soldier sought to calm the crowd, and the new government denied rumours of a split.

“Information which has been circulating since this morning on social networks about generals meeting… is unfounded” according to a statement released by the communication ministry.

Calm has generally returned to the streets of Ouagadougou since last Friday’s coup and turbulent weekend that followed.

Traore graduated as an officer from Burkina Faso’s Georges Namonao Military School — a second-tier institution compared to the prestigious Kadiogo Military Academy of which Damiba and others in the elite are alumni.

Some of the protesters were waving Burkina or Russian flags — with speculation rife that Burkina’s new leader may follow other fragile regimes in French-speaking Africa and forge close ties with Moscow at the expense of France.