RWANDA
Louise Mushikiwabo emerges as favorite for SG of La Francophonie
Louise Mushikiwabo’s candidature for the post of Secretary General of Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the unifying body of French-speaking countries, has received a great push following Canada’s decision to support her.
Canada had previously backed the incumbent, Michaëlle Jean, who was the first woman to hold the role. She was Mushikiwabo’s only rival for the position, but her term has been marred with scandals of financial mismanagement. At present only Jean’s native country of Haiti is supporting her.
Mushikiwabo has served as Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister since 2009.
The election is slated for Friday October 12, in Armenia, during a summit in which 54 countries are eligible to vote.
CONGO
Healing horrifying wounds
Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication and effort in aiding victims of gang rape and sexual brutality resulting from the wars in Congo.
He is commonly referred to as “Dr. Miracle,” due to his excellent surgical skills.
Born in former Belgian Congo, Mukwege went to medical school in Burundi and worked as a pediatrician in a rural hospital near Bukavu. Moved by the suffering of women during childbirth, he decided to advance his studies in gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Anger in France.
Since then he has worked tirelessly, risking his life to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in armed conflict. He has spent the past 20 years helping women overcome the injuries sustained from rape and other grievous sexual crimes in the DRC.
It hasn’t been easy for the Nobel laureate. He has faced strong opposition from the government, which he constantly criticizes for allowing the wars to carry on.
In 2012, he escaped an assassination attempt when four people brandishing AK-47s and one with a pistol confronted him.
The desire to see women liberated and not prisoners to their experiences keep him going on even in the midst of opposition.
His work was the subject of the critically acclaimed 2015 film, The Man Who Mends Women. He has written a book Plaidoyer Pour La Vie” (Plea For Life), where he recounts the horrifying cases he dealt with and why he decided to start his hospital, Panzi in the town of Bukavu. The hospital presently cares for more than 3,500 women a year and Dr Mukwege can perform as many as 10 operations a day.
SOUTH AFRICA
According to former South African finance minister Nhlahanla Nene, had he consented to signing the nuclear deal between South Africa and Russia, the country would have entered financial bankrupt.
Nene told a judicial corruption inquiry on Wednesday that former president Jacob Zuma fired him for refusing to approve a $100 billion nuclear power deal with Russia in 2015, and fired him.
Zuma has repeatedly denied accusations by his opponents that he pushed for a deal with President Vladimir Putin at a BRICS summit for Russia to build several nuclear power stations to the tune of $100 billion, with the South African taxpayer footing the bill.
The minister’s testimony has implicated other prominent cabinet ministers, including former energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, whom he said had a draft letter for him to sign and formalize the deal.
During his presidency, Zuma and his cabinet ministers had repeatedly assured South Africans that the programme would be deployed at “a scale and pace that the country can afford.”
