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Ivory Coast votes for president in test of post-war stability

Ivory Coast goes to the polls on Saturday as President Alassane Ouattara seeks a third term in an election two rival candidates have urged their supporters to boycott.

Thirty people have died in violence in the lead-up to the election, which is seen as a test of stability in the world’s top cocoa producer and one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.

The street clashes have brought back memories of the 2010 vote that Ouattara won but which unleashed a brief civil war that killed 3 000 people when his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.

The recent violence has pitted the 78-year-old president’s supporters against those of his opponents, who say he is breaking the law by running again because the constitution limits presidents to two terms, and is jeopardising the country’s hard-earned economic gains.

Ouattara says he can run again under a new constitution approved in 2016, and is doing so only because his handpicked successor died unexpectedly in July.

Critics say his candidacy is a fresh blow to West African democracy following Mali’s military coup in August and Guinea President Alpha Conde’s successful third-term bid this month.

His two main rivals, former president Henri Konan Bedie and former prime minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, have called for an election boycott. Affi N’Guessan has told supporters to blockade polling places.

The likely result is a Ouattara victory though not necessarily a peaceful one.

“You have to go vote and you have to protect the polling stations against those who want to create trouble,” he told thousands at his final campaign rally in the commercial capital Abidjan on Thursday.

“Ivory Coast wants peace. We don’t accept disorder.”

The government said it would deploy 35 000 soldiers and police officers on election day.

In Abidjan’s Yopougon neighbourhood, an opposition stronghold, weary residents said they would simply stay at home.

“This election won’t take place under good conditions… people are scared,” said Hube Kondo, 42.

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Nigeria reaches out to US, South Korea to back WTO candidate

Nigeria is reaching out to the United States and South Korea to persuade them to back its pick to head the World Trade Organisation, the trade ministry said on Friday, after the candidate’s last-minute rejection threw the selection process into confusion.

The United States on Wednesday voiced its opposition to former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The move came hours after a high-powered WTO panel had recommended her to lead the global trade watchdog, teeing her up to become its first African and first woman head.

“Nigeria is currently reaching out to all members of the WTO including the United States and South Korea to overcome the impasse as well as persuade the United States to join the consensus,” the trade ministry said in a statement.

A person involved in the leadership race cast doubt on Nigeria’s plans to bring pressure to bear on Washington, however.

“They can push in the sense that they can get on the phone, try to mobilise support, but is that going to change the view in Washington? I think not,” the person, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.

The ministry said the WTO’s 164 member states were expected to adopt Okonjo-Iweala as the organization’s director-general by consensus, but the United States was the sole country to oppose her, flouting the organisation’s rules.

The US Trade Representative’s office has officially backed the only other remaining candidate, South Korean trade minister Yoo Myung-hee. In a statement, it called her a successful trade negotiator with the skills needed to lead the trade body at a “very difficult time”.

Next steps are uncertain, but a WTO spokesperson said there was likely to be “frenzied activity” before a November 9 meeting, less than a week after the US presidential election, to secure the required consensus from all 164 member states for Okonjo-Iweala.

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Cameroonians are not cooperating with COVID-19 testing: Researcher

African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Researcher, Dr Aloysius Mom Njong, says people in Cameroon are not cooperating when it comes to testing for COVID-19.

The Central African country has 21 793 accumulative cases, 20 117 recoveries and 426 deaths.

The first case was confirmed on March 5. Then from March 18, the government imposed restrictive measures ranging from social distancing to closing down borders, businesses, churches and schools.

In June, the number of confirmed cases started rising, but the number of recoveries was rising more than proportionate resulting in government’s decision to lift lockdown measures.

Currently, the number of confirmed cases is dropping and government is dismantling confinement and management centres that were set-up on some football fields across the country.

Njong, who is based in Cameroon says, “Though there are government facilities in all the regions to provide testing at no cost, the population is not very cooperative, people avoid going for testing for fear of being exposed to infected patients and fear of being misdiagnosed and confined. There is a worry where there is a stigma that is being associated with a positive test for the virus and many people tend to avoid health centres where testing is done. I think under all circumstances as we look at these facts testing cannot be effective.”

In the audio below, Njong says he satisfied with the way government is addressing the pandemic:

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Nigeria to push back on US rejection of WTO candidate

Nigeria will lobby for its candidate to head the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the country’s foreign ministry said in reaction to her last-minute rejection by Washington that threw the regulator’s leadership selection process into confusion.

The United States on Wednesday spurned Nigerian former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hours after a high-powered WTO panel recommended her to lead the global trade watchdog, teeing her up to become its first African and first woman head.

Washington blocks consensus to name Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as WTO Director-General:

“Nigeria will continue to engage relevant stakeholders to ensure that the lofty aspiration of her candidate to lead the World Trade Organisation is realised,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday evening.

However, a person involved in the leadership race cast doubt on Nigeria’s plans to bring pressure to bear on Washington.

“They can push in the sense that they can get on the phone, try to mobilise support, but is that going to change the view in Washington? I think not,” the person, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.

The ministry said the WTO’s 164 member states were expected to adopt Okonjo-Iweala as the organisation’s director-general by consensus, but the US was the sole country to oppose her, flouting the organisation’s rules.

The US Trade Representative’s office later released a statement officially backing the only other remaining candidate, South Korean trade minister Yoo Myung-hee, praising her as a successful trade negotiator with the skills needed to lead the trade body at a “very difficult time.”

Next steps are uncertain, but a WTO spokesperson said there was likely to be “frenzied activity” before a 9 November meeting, less than a week after the US presidential election, to secure the required consensus from all 164 member states for Okonjo-Iweala.

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Libyan investigators find more mass graves in recaptured city

Libyan authorities have dug 12-bodies from four more unmarked graves in the city of Tarhouna, adding to the scores of corpses already discovered since the area was recaptured in June by the Government of National Accord (GNA).

Tarhouna had for years been controlled by a militia known as the Kaniyat, run by the local Kani family, which fought alongside Khalifa Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA).

The GNA has issued arrest warrants for Kaniyat leaders who are now believed to be in eastern Libya.

When Turkish support helped the internationally recognised GNA take back Tarhouna in a sudden advance in June, its fighters found a hospital piled with bodies and unmarked graves containing missing people.

Investigators from the GNA’s missing persons bureau have since then been working, in white forensic suits, to dig through the ruddy earth around Tarhouna for human remains and to identify the bodies.

Many of the bodies recovered so far were those found in the hospital. However, dozens of bodies have also been unearthed from the unmarked grave sites.

Some of the bodies discovered show the marks of violence, including, among those revealed this week, a smashed skull and dismembered limbs, a missing persons bureau official said.

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