Headline

Thousands Of Coup Supporters Rally Near French Base In Niger

Published

2 years ago

August 11, 2023

Supporters of Niger’s National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) hold a Niger flag (R) and a Russian flag (L) as they gather for a demonstration in Niamey on August 11, 2023 near a French airbase in Niger. AFP

…Protesters Brandish Russia Flag

Thousands of coup supporters rallied near a French military base in Niger on Friday, a day after West African leaders said they would muster a “standby” force in their efforts to reinstate the country’s deposed leader.

Fears also mounted for elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted by members of his guard on July 26, with reports saying his detention conditions were deteriorating.

Protesters near the base on the outskirts of the capital Niamey shouted “down with France, down with ECOWAS”, a reference to the West African bloc which on Thursday approved deployment of a “standby force to restore constitutional order”.

Many brandished Russian and Niger flags and yelled their support for the country’s new strongman, General Abdourahamane Tiani.

“We are going to make the French leave! ECOWAS isn’t independent, it’s being manipulated by France,” said one demonstrator, Aziz Rabeh Ali, a member of a students’ union.

Former colonial power France has around 1,500 personnel in Niger as part of a force battling an eight-year-old jihadist insurgency.

It is facing growing hostility across the Sahel, withdrawing its anti-jihadist forces from neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso last year after falling out with military governments that ousted elected leaders.

Niger’s new leaders scrapped defence agreements with France last week, while a hostile protest outside the French embassy in Niamey on July 30 prompted Paris to evacuate its citizens.

Fears for Bazoum

The European Union and African Union joined others in sounding the alarm for Bazoum on Friday.

“Bazoum and his family, according to the latest information, have been deprived of food, electricity and medical care for several days,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said Bazoum’s reported detention conditions “could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights law.”

The AU echoed the concern, saying “such treatment of a democratically elected president” was “unacceptable”.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that the “coup plotters must face harsh consequences should anything happen” to Bazoum or his family.

A source close to Bazoum said “he’s OK, but the conditions are very difficult,” adding that the coup leaders had brandished the threat of assaulting him in the event of military intervention.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had spoken to Bazoum earlier this week. The 63-year-old described the treatment of him, his wife and their 20-year-old son as “inhuman and cruel”, HRW said.

“I’m not allowed to receive my family members (or) my friends who have been bringing food and other supplies to us,” the group quoted him as saying.

“My son is sick, has a serious heart condition, and needs to see a doctor,” he was quoted as saying. “They’ve refused to let him get medical treatment.”

Intervention warning

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Thursday approved the deployment of what it called a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger following an emergency summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

Chiefs of staff from ECOWAS members will meet on Saturday in Ghana’s capital Accra, regional military sources said on Friday.

The leaders did not provide any details on the force or any timetable for action, and emphasised they still wanted a peaceful solution.

Under pressure to stem a cascade of coups among its members, ECOWAS had previously issued a seven-day ultimatum to the coup leaders to return Bazoum to power.

But the regime defied the deadline, which expired on Sunday without any action being taken.

Troubled region

Since 1990, the 15-country bloc has intervened among six of its members at times of civil war, insurrection or political turmoil.

But the possibility of intervention in deeply fragile Niger has sparked debate within its ranks and warnings from neighbouring Algeria as well as Russia.

Moscow on Friday said a military solution “could lead to a protracted confrontation” in Niger and “a sharp destabilisation” across the Sahel.

Military-ruled ECOWAS members Mali and Burkina Faso have warned an intervention would be a “declaration of war” on their countries.

Countries in the arid western Sahel region are among the world’s poorest and most turbulent nations.

The latest coup is Niger’s fifth since the landlocked country gained independence from France in 1960.

Like Mali and Burkina Faso, the country is struggling with a brutal jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives, forced many people from their homes and undermined faith in government.

Headline

Drivers Mount Handmade Cooling System On Top Of Taxi To Replace AC

Published

9 hours ago

August 9, 2025

Editor

Due to the fact that car air conditioning systems break down too often as a result of excessive heat and repairs are too expensive, taxi cab drivers in Afghanistan often turn to handmade roof-mounted rudimentary systems in order to cool the inside of their vehicles.

Driving through Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, you’re likely to see taxi cabs with large rectangular boxes mounted on the roof and large tubes extending from them and into the vehicles, through a rear window or through a hole cut into the roof.

Blue taxi cabs were mostly seen with what they cobbled together and strapped to the roof with exhaust hoses delivering the cool air through the passenger windows of the cabs.

According to the Agence France Presse (AFP), they are handmade cooling devices meant to replace the cars’ built-in air-conditioning systems, which used to always break down when they are most needed and cost a fortune to repair.

According to the report, similar to industrial evaporative air cooling installations, these boxes can lower temperatures by 12 degrees Celsius through water evaporation. They are less noisy than air conditioning systems and consume way less power.

With temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in the country during the summer months, taxi cab drivers have to get creative to keep passengers cool and these evaporative air coolers have proven very reliable and cheap for them to maintain.

One of the drivers was seen using sticky tape to attach the cooler’s exhaust vent onto the taxi cab’s window, while his assistant climbed the roof of the cab to fix the body of the unit to it and there is always the need to manually refill water in the unit twice a day in order to ensure continued cooling.

One of the drivers who carried out the idea was quoted as saying: “These cars’ AC systems didn’t work, and repairs were too expensive. So I went to a technician and had a custom cooler made. This works better than air conditioning. The ACs in our cars only cool the front. This handmade cooler spreads air throughout the car.”

In short, taxi cab drivers have cobbled together a creative solution to spare them and their passengers from the sweltering heat.
(TRIBUNE)

Headline

21 Die As Bus Carrying Mourners Crashes In Kenya

Published

20 hours ago

August 9, 2025

Editor

A bus carrying mourners from a funeral crashed in western Kenya on Friday, leaving at least 21 dead, an official said, a day after deadly plane and train accidents killed 14.

The latest deadly accident follows an aircraft crash near the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday, when an air ambulance came down in a residential area, killing six people.

The same day, local media reported that a collision between a train and a bus killed eight.

Friday’s incident happened at around 5:00 pm local (1400 GMT) in Kisumu County after a bus — believed to be returning from a funeral earlier that day, according to local media — crashed, Regional Traffic Commander Kisumu, Peter Maina, said.

“The vehicle lost control, veered, rolled onto the other side of the road,” he told reporters at the scene.

“We lost 21 persons, and amongst the 21 who lost their lives were 10 women, a girl aged 10, and 10 men,” he said.

Five people were seriously hurt in the incident, he said, among them an eight-month-old baby who was currently receiving care at a nearby hospital.

The cause of the crash was not clear, Maina said, adding that investigations were ongoing.

Local media reported the incident took place on a notorious section of road where accidents are frequent. The East African country has a poor road safety record, with fatal crashes reported daily.

Headline

How False Claims Led To $500m mRNA Vaccine Contracts Cancellation

Published

20 hours ago

August 9, 2025

Editor

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited false claims to justify terminating 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, researchers said Friday, a day after the World Health Organisation called the decision a major blow.

Kennedy on Tuesday announced the cancellation of contracts worth around $500 million, marking his latest attempt to infuse vaccine skepticism into the core of US health policy.

Citing medical experts, disinformation watchdog NewsGuard identified a series of false claims about the vaccines –- credited with saving millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — that Kennedy promoted to explain the termination.

Kennedy claimed that mRNA vaccines were responsible for “new mutations” of the virus, thus creating new variants that can prolong pandemics.

“Kennedy is mistaken in statements made when ceasing funding for mRNA vaccine development,” Stephen Evans, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the London-based Science Media Centre.

“No vaccine, including mRNA encourages new mutations.”

Kennedy also made two previously debunked claims about the effectiveness of the vaccines.

He stated that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid” and added that mRNA technology “poses more risks than benefits.”

Evans said the vaccines were “extremely effective against Covid, preventing deaths, hospitalisations and clinical or sub-clinical infection.”

“No vaccine has a zero incidence of side-effects, some of which can be serious, but the benefits of both mRNA vaccines and other types of vaccine –- lives saved and illness reduced — hugely outweigh the risks,” Charles Bangham, a professor of immunology at the Imperial College London, told the Science Media Centre.

On Thursday, WHO immunisation figurehead Joachim Hombach called the US decision to terminate the contracts a “significant blow.”

“mRNA vaccines are a very important technology and platform which has served us extremely well for Covid. We also know there is very promising work going on in relation to influenza vaccines,” he said.

Echoing those comments, US experts have warned that the funding cuts threaten critical research and public health around the world.

“This sets back vaccine science by a decade,” Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote on X.

“Of course they didn’t read the science or listen to the experts… if they did, they wouldn’t have made this decision.”

Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunization, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy since taking office.

He has fired, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government and replacing them with his own appointees.

In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record.

He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.

AFP