Tunisia’s ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali has been hospitalized for a ‘‘serious health crisis’‘ in Saudi Arabia, his lawyer told Reuters Friday.

Mass protests drove Ben Ali out of power in 2011, leading to the Arab Spring uprising.

This is the first time his lawyer Mounir Ben Salha or family have gone public with news of the 83 year old’s health.

Ben Ali has made no public statements since leaving for Saudi Arabia where he’s living in exile.

In 2011, a Tunisian court sentenced Ben Ali in absentia for 35 years in prison on charges of corruption ranging from torture.

The following year, a military court sentenced him to another 20 years for inciting ‘murder and looting’‘.

Tunisia will hold a free presidential election on Sunday, September 15 as it continues a path to democracy.

Reuters

At least 50 stowaways were killed when a freight train derailed in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo early Thursday, the latest rail tragedy to strike the vast central African nation.

“Another disaster! Derailing at 3am (0100 GMT) in Tanganyika (province) near Mayibaridi. Provisional toll: 50 dead and several injured,” the minister for humanitarian action, Steve Mbikayi, said in a tweet.

Witnesses at the scene and local media feared more than a hundred people could have been killed.

Victor Umba, the union head of the national rail company SNCC, said the freight train was travelling from the town of Nyunzu to the town of Niemba when two carriages fell on their sides.

“Those who died in this derailment were stowaways. It is impossible for the SNCC to provide any kind of toll,” Umba told AFP.

He added that the SNCC’s chief was in the provincial capital of Kalemie trying to find a way to raise the carriages.

“It seems that many stowaways are trapped under the derailed carriages”.

Railways in the DRC have a poor record for safety, hampered by derelict tracks and decrepit locomotives, many of them dating from the 1960s.

In March, at least 24 people were killed and 31 were injured Sunday when a freight train carrying illegal passengers crashed in the central region of Kasai.

In November last year, 10 stowaways were killed and 24 injured near the eastern town of Samba when the brakes failed on a freight train.

In November 2017, 35 people were killed when a freight train carrying 13 oil tankers plunged into a ravine in southern Lualaba province.

Like many state companies in DR Congo, the SNCC is on the brink of bankruptcy. Its former head Sylvestre Ilunga is the country’s current prime minister.

Source: AFP

A Zimbabwe government official has released a tentative list of world leaders who are expected to attend former President Robert Mugabe’s funeral.

Below is the initial list of expected guests:

Ghana – President Nana Akufo Addo, Former President John Mahama, Former President Jerry Rawlings & Former President John Kufuor.

Zambia – President Edgar Lungu, Former President Kenneth Kaunda, Former President Rupiah Banda & Former President Guy Scott.
South Africa – President Cyril Ramaphosa, Former President Jacob Zuma & Former President Thabo Mbeki.

Lesotho – King Letsie III
Malawi – President Peter Mutharika
Chad – President Idriss Deby
Botswana – President Mokgweetsi Masisi & Former President Festus Mogae.

China – President Xi Jinping Former President Hu Jintao
Mozambique – President Filipe Nyusi, Former President Armando Guebuza & Former President Joaquim Chissano.

India – Prime Minister Narenda Modi & Former President Pranab Patil
Equatorial Guinea – President Obiang Mbasogo
Togo – Faure Gnassingbe
Namibia – President Hage Geingob, Former President Sam Nujoma & Former President Hifikepunye Pohamba.

DRC – President Felix Tshisekedi & Former President Joseph Kabila.
Congo Brassaville – President Denis Nguesso
Angola – President Joao Lourenco & Former President Jose Dos Santos
Brazil – Former President Dilma Rousseff
Tanzania – President John Magafuli, Former President Jakaya Kikwete & Former President Benjamin Mkapa.

Cameroon – President Paul Biya
South Sudan – President Salva Kiir
Nigeria – President Mohammadu Buhari & Former President Olusegun Obasanjo
Belarus – Alexander Lukashenko
Kenya – President Uhuru Kenyatta & Former President Mwaii Kibaki.

Cote Divoire – President Alassane Ouattara
Uganda – President Yoweri Museveni
President
Malaysia – Former Prime Minister Najib Razak
Singapore – President Halimah Yacob
Cuba – Former President Raul Castro
Liberia – President George Weah & Former President Ellen Johnson Serlief

Source: Zimeye.net

Once feared for the all-encompassing power he wielded in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe died a “broken soul,” bereft at his downfall, his allies and relatives say.

Mugabe died in Singapore on Friday at the age of 95, nearly two months before the anniversary of the coup that forced him from power.

He had ruled the southern African country uninterrupted for 37 years and seven months.

During these long decades, Mugabe was Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe was Mugabe.

But in his twilight years, he became vulnerable and helpless, according to relatives, allies and analysts.

Mugabe bowed to pressure and resigned on November 21, 2017 in a military-backed coup, ending an increasingly tyrannical rule that saw millions leave Zimbabwe to escape repression and economic ruin.

People close to him said the coup hit Mugabe very hard.

He never recovered from the shock that lieutenants whom he had groomed and trusted for years could betray him, they said.

“It was sudden,” his nephew Leo said. “He could not believe that those he trusted most turned again him.”

The coup was his “lowest moment — that period from November 2017 up to his last day… sometimes he would just sit there,” said Mugabe.

“A person who was used to waking up at 4 o’clock every morning, exercises, baths, goes to work and he has the whole country to look at, and suddenly that is abruptly brought to a halt — that is bound to affect.”

Mugabe’s health deteriorated incredibly quickly, he said.

– ‘Blind to reality’ –

The coup had been in the making for months but Mugabe was blind “to reality at that time,” said Ibbo Mandaza, one of the intellectuals who served in Mugabe’s government after independence.

“Mugabe’s last years were years of extreme vulnerability,” said Mandaza, now head of a thinktank, the Southern Africa Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust.

Shortly after tanks rolled into the streets of Harare in a show of force, one of Mugabe’s allies who sought shelter at the leader’s house, was former education and information minister Jonathan Moyo.

Moyo, who spent time with Mugabe in the post-coup turbulence, said the once-feared autocrat dramatically changed.

“He became unusually introverted,” Moyo said. “He just became instantly withdrawn and non-engaging. He was deep in thought and palpably at a loss.”

He became a “broken soul, an obliterated soul and someone whose world collapsed in front of him and left him helpless,” Moyo said in a phone interview from Kenya where he fled after the coup.

Generals seized power days after Mugabe fired his vice president and there were mass street protests over concern Mugabe was positioning his wife Grace to succeed him.

After days of talks mediated by a Jesuit priest Fidelis Mukonori, Mugabe resigned.

Close to Mugabe for decades, Mukonori mediated most conflicts of Zimbabwean politics, starting in the 1970s with talks between guerrillas and colonial ruler Britain that led to independence in 1980.

Negotiating the exit of the man who ruled for nearly four decades “was not a walk in the park”, he told AFP at a cathedral on the outskirts of Harare.

“It was in the national interest that he decided to resign,” said Mukonori who later visited Mugabe several times after the coup.

– ‘Disappointed, angry’ –

During one visit, Mukonori told Mugabe that he had put on weight. Mugabe replied “‘of course why shouldn’t I, this is something quite good'”, said the priest adding he had a “beautiful smile, he looked calm”.

But others said he struggled to adjust to losing power.

The Catholic vicar general of the archdiocese of Harare, Kennedy Muguti, who used to go to Mugabe’s house to celebrate mass, said the former leader was “disappointed and angry” at the ouster but kept his faith.

“The last mass that he attended before he went to Singapore, I celebrated that mass,” Muguti said.

“He still had his faith even after the frustrations of what happened … the way he was removed from power; yes, he was a disappointed man, he was frustrated, he was angry.”

The anger was palpable during one of Mugabe’s last addresses to the media, on the eve of the July elections, just eight months after he was toppled.

Sitting on a chair, propped up by cushions, a bitter Mugabe vowed not to vote for people in the ruling ZANU-PF party who had “tormented” him.

“I can’t vote for ZANU-PF… what is left? I think it is just (Nelson) Chamisa,” he said referring to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader.

Chamisa himself said that Mugabe, by hinting that he would vote for the opposition, “did realise some of his mistakes.

“There is a danger in overstaying in leadership,” Chamisa said. “You can’t succeed yourself successfully, successively.”

Source: AFP

Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe who died Friday in Singapore at the age of 95, is scheduled to be buried on Sunday, September 15, in a location yet to be determined, the presidency announced Sunday.

“His remains are expected on Wednesday afternoon (in Zimbabwe). The official funeral is scheduled for Saturday, his funeral will take place on Sunday (next),” President George Charamba told AFP, adding that the place of his funeral would be determined by his family.

Since his death, discussions between his family and the government about how to organize his funeral have been taking place.

Heroes Acre or not?

As early as Friday, the Head of State decreed official mourning and awarded him the status of “national hero”, which offers him a place in the “Field of the Nation’s Heroes”, on the edge of the capital, Harare.

This monument, which contains three bronze statues of soldiers donated by North Korea, traditionally houses the graves of veterans of the “War of Liberation”. It has recently been opened to personalities from the arts and sciences.

However, the speaker’s spokesman suggested on Sunday that Robert Mugabe could be buried elsewhere.

The place “will be determined by the family,” Charamba said Sunday.

According to reports in the local press, Robert Mugabe’s family opposed his burial at the “Field of National Heroes”, assuring that the former master of the country wanted to be buried in the village of Zvimba, where he owned a house.

“We, the inhabitants of Zvimba, do not want him to go to the Heroes’ Field (…) for what purpose,” his aunt Josephine Jaricha told AFP on Sunday, “we want him to be buried here.

Since the fall of Robert Mugabe, relations between the former president and his successor, whom he publicly called “traitor”, were notoriously bad.

In November 2017, the army had pushed him out after his decision to dismiss his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, at the insistence of his second wife, Grace, who coveted the succession of her ninety year old husband.

AFP

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has reacted to xenophobic violence in parts of the country condemning the incidents as unacceptable and without any justification whatsoever.

In a video posted on his personal Twitter handle, Ramaphosa stressed the importance of restoring peace and security as quickly as practicable.

“I condemn the violence that has been spreading around a number of our provinces in the strongest terms,” he said.

He added that he was convening all ministers in the security cluster today to make sure that a very close eye was kept on what he described as “acts of wanton violence” and find ways of stopping them.

Ramaphosa said it was not right for locals with grievances to attack other nationals. He tasked security forces for their efforts at restoring order in Kwa Zulu Natal and Guateng provinces.

He also cited the fact that with an increasingly integrated Africa, South African workers also risked being attacked in other countries if others are to met out the same treatment South Africans are exhibiting today.

Source: Africa News

The Nigerian government says it will take further steps to ensure safety and protection of its citizens in South Africa. The position comes in the wake of a round of xenophobic attacks that hit Johannesburg on Monday.

The government described the incidents as unacceptable adding: ‘Enough is enough. Nigeria will take definitive measures to ensure safety and protection of her citizens.’

Leaders of the two countries – Muhammadu Buhari and Cyril Ramaphosa are scheduled to meet in October for bilateral talks and also on matters relating to security of Nigerians in South Africa.

The two met on the sidelines of the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development, TICAD ; held last week in the Japanese city of Yokohama.

Another government to have reacted to the Johannesburg chaos is Zambia which tasked all its drivers plying the route to and from South Africa to suspend their trips till further notice.

Zimbabwe’s Cross Borders Transportation Association also warned that it could halt all South African cross border transport over the situation.

The provincial and national governments have called for restraint in the affected communities and cautioned against use of criminal avenues to express grievances.

The ruling African National Congress, ANC, also expressed their worry over the situation as has the main opposition Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters.

This criminality has been essentially driven by pure criminals against properties of foreign nationals and South Africans alike.

We call on SAPS (police) to take charge of the streets and decisively restore order. Most importantly, we call on South Africans to stop their violent intolerance of black foreign nationals, the EFF statement read in part.

Source: Africa News

Fifteen people were killed on Sunday when a three-story building under construction collapsed “like a house of cards” in the Mali capital Bamako, the government and local media reports said.

Twenty-six people were rescued alive from the partially occupied building after it collapsed just before dawn.

“Thanks to the determination of the emergency services, a young girl of around four years has just been pulled out of the rubble alive.”

“Another survivor (a woman) has just, happily, been extracted by rescuers,” the civil protection ministry said.

The ministry later said an investigation into the building’s owner had been opened. According to local media reports, the top floor collapsed onto the rest of the building which was already occupied, resulting in the entire structure “collapsing like a house of cards.”

Such collapses are common in Mali where buildings are often constructed without planning permission.

(Source: AFP)

A Sudanese court on Saturday charged ousted president Omar al-Bashir, on trial for corruption, with illegal acquisition and use of foreign funds.

Judge Al-Sadiq Abdelrahman said at the third session of Bashir’s trial that foreign funds of multiple currencies were found at his home.

Authorities had “seized 6.9 million euros, $351,770 and 5.7 million Sudanese pounds at (Bashir’s) home which he acquired and used illegally,” the judge said.

Asked about the source, Bashir, 75, admitted to receiving funds from Saudi royals.

“My office manager… received a call from the office of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman saying he has a ‘message’ that will be sent on a private jet,” Bashir said during the trial.

“We were told that the crown prince did not want his name to appear (linked to the transaction), and if the funds were deposited with Sudan’s bank or the finance ministry, the source would have to be identified,” he said.

The judge said illegal acquisition of wealth was punishable by up to 10 years in jail, while illicit use of foreign funds carried up to three years.

An investigator had previously told the court that Bashir received $90 million in cash from Saudi royals.

The trial was adjourned until September 7, said an AFP correspondent who attended the session.

Bashir was ousted in April after mass protests against his three-decade rule rocked Sudan for months.

Sudan has embarked on a transition to civilian rule following a power-sharing deal signed on August 17 by protest leaders and the generals who ousted Bashir.

(Source: AFP)

Hundreds of Sudanese take to the streets in the capital to demand authorities provide information about almost a dozen demonstrators who went missing during the military crackdown on a sit-in protest in Khartoum in June.

Protesters gathered in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman on Friday, carrying pictures of those missing.

“We also want an independent investigation into their cases,” said a protester.

Thousands of Sudanese protesters, demanding civilian rule, were violently dispersed by armed men in military fatigues outside the Defense Ministry compound, in the capital on June 3. According to doctors linked to the protest movement, more than 100 people were killed that day.

The crackdown triggered global condemnation, with international organizations and several countries calling for an independent probe into the killings.

At least 11 people were reported missing after the crackdown, according to lawyers linked to the protest movement.

Other protesters may also have gone missing, but their cases would need further documentation, they said.

The sit-in outside the military headquarters began on April 6, after a brief pause in the more than three months of protests triggered by a deepening economic crisis blamed on long-time President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan’s military toppled and then arrested Bashir, putting an end to his nearly 30-year rule. It also formed a transitional military council to run the country.

Protesters, however, remained in the streets, calling on the country’s military rulers running the country to hand over power to a civilian government.

Protest organizers say at least 250 people were killed in the unrest.

The military, which stands accused of ordering the massacre of peaceful protesters, formed an eleven-member sovereign council with the opposition earlier this month to rule the country over a three-year transition period.

The council, made up of five generals and six civilians, will initially be led by General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan, who took over as Sudan’s leader following the ouster of Bashir in April.

A civilian leader appointed by the protest movement is to succeed him and rule for the remaining 18 months, after which elections will be held.

Source: Presstv