Africa – 22 July 2016
AU self-funding plan cautiously welcomed
The African Union’s decision that all African countries will impose a 0,2 percent levy on their imports to enable the organisation to finance its own activities, including peacekeeping operations, has been cautiously welcomed.
The continent’s leaders made the decision at the AU summit in Kigali, Rwanda, which was due to end on Monday. After struggling for years to agree on a formula for greater self-funding of the AU – which is now 76% financed by foreign donors – the leaders eventually agreed on the 0,2% levy on “eligible imports”.
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Mswati III as SADC chair will ‘institutionalise dictatorship’
The prospect of Swaziland’s King Mswati III becoming chairperson of the South African Development Community (SADC) was worrisome as such an appointment would institutionalise dictatorship across the region, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN)said in a statement on Monday.
The SSN, in conjunction with the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), held a seminar last week to discuss the concerns around such an appointment which it said had the potential to cast a shadow over the region’s future and wellbeing.
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Zanu PF lures Zim youth vote with land
In a bid to lure the elusive youth vote in Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu PF party has allegedly made available a total of 1 300 hectares of land in Bulawayo and Harare for residential stands for youths in the party structures.
Zanu PF Youth League Deputy Secretary, Kudzai Chipanga, revealed to thousands of party supporters from across the country, who gathered at their Headquarters in Harare Wednesday for a meeting, that the Bulawayo Metropolitan province had been given 300 hectares of land while Harare Metropolitan Province received 1000 hectares.
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Morocco wants to rejoin the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member, King Mohammed VI said Sunday.
Morocco maintains that Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is an integral part of the kingdom even though local Sahrawi people led by the Polisario Front have long campaigned for the right to self-determination.
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AU leaders fail to elect successor for Dlamini-Zuma
African Union (AU) leaders meeting in a summit in Kigali, Rwanda have failed to choose a new African Union Commission chairperson to replace South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
She was due to end her term and to return to South Africa within weeks. But at the AU summit on Monday, none of the three candidates who had been nominated to take her place could muster the necessary votes from the continent’s leaders.
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