The practical issues of fighting the pandemic is best summed up in the assertion that no-one if safe until everyone is safe.

The moral issues, equally plain, have been more problematic as rich nations grab more of the vaccine than they need to save their faltering economies.

The foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan  and the United States had a packed agenda preparing for next month’s G7 summit to be hosted in Britain.

In pre-meeting briefings they listed Russia, Myanmar and Iran ahead of COVID a.

Then members of the Indian delegation – invited as observers along with Australia, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the European Union, South Africa and South Korea- reported cases of COVID and were forced into self-isolation.

India and Brazil are responsible for the overwhelming majority of COVID cases as the pandemic goes into its third wave.

The media covering the deliberations at Lancaster House in London’s West End have eyes for nothing else.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown set the moral tone calling on the G7 to fund the global push for COVID vaccine.

Speaking as the UN Envoy for Global Education he called on the richest nations raise $60 billion over two years, saying inaction now would lead to greater global division.

“By our failure to extend vaccination more rapidly to every country, we are choosing who lives and who dies”, he warned. 

“And I say the world is already too deeply divided between rich and poor to allow a new unbridgeable divide to become entrenched between the world’s vaccinated who live, and the under-vaccinated who are at risk of dying.” 

Brown asserted that mass global vaccination is not an act of charity, but “the best insurance policy for the world”.  Though costing billions now, the result will be “trillions of additional economic output, made possible when trade resumes in a COVID-free world.” 

Brown will be remembered as the British premier who hosted the G20 summit in 2009, where the world’s major economies committed an additional $1.1 trillion to address the fallout from the global financial crisis,  

World Health Organization  chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Brown for his call to the world’s economic and political leaders. 

“The G7 are also home to many of the world’s vaccine producers. We will only solve the vaccine crisis with the leaders of these countries”, he said.

For those of a more cynical or dubious bent, a poll by the People’s Vaccine Alliance shows that70 percent of G7 citizens believe their governments should ensured pharmaceutical companies share the formulas and technology of their vaccines.

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Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be filled with or without an agreement with the riparian countries Sudan and Egypt who view the dam as an existential threat.

They rely on the Nile for more than 90% of the water needs in their largely desert countries.

Ahmed recalls that Ethiopia was left out of negotiations on the use of the Nile waters between Britain, as the colonial power, with Egypt and Sudan.

He maintains that building the dam, which will make Ethiopia a hydro-electrical-generating power, is its sovereign right.

His predecessors warned that they would go war to protect their access to the Nile waters. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi subsequently ratcheted things down in favour of negotiations.

Recently though, both he and his Sudanese neighbour have resorted to bellicose language.

Egypt would not allow a drop of Nile water to be stolen from it, he said.

Sudan’s Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas warned “all options are open” in safeguarding his country’s access to the water.

Both the riparian countries and Ethiopia have in turn gone to the United Nations Security Council swapping accusations of negotiating in bad faith.

As African Union Chairman last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa attempted, without success, to mediate an agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD.

Current AU chair, Congolese President Felix Tshisikedi had a bash at mediation earlier this month that also ended in deadlock.

Al Sisi has taken yet another diplomatic initiative, sending his Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on a six-nation African safari, hoping to win support from continental partners.

Shoukry visited the Comoros, South Africa, the DRC, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia.

In South Africa, the minister engaged in some fence mending.

He thanked President Cyril Ramaphosa for his mediation last year.

It is no secret that Egypt was highly suspicious of these efforts, suspecting that Ramaphosa was biased in favour of Ethiopia

Shoukry’s trip will be viewed favorably by African leaders who hold fast to the principle of African solutions to African problems.

However Al Sisi maintains his wish to see the United Nations, the European Union and the United States involved in trying to get Ethiopia to take a more understanding view of Egyptian and Sudanese fears.

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Jasmine Opperman and Joseph Hanlon are adamant that on this matter one should not believe everything one reads.

Since what one reads comes from areas that have been rendered hors de contact by jihadis destroying the mobile phone masts, then incredulity makes good sense.

What we can do now is work out where we are and how we got here.

We know that at least 2 500 people have died and more than 7 000 have been displaced in Cabo Delgado since the start of 2020.

It is self evident that corruption in Mozambique has hamstrung government’s capacity to do anything to control it, let alone stop it.

I tend to believe the Catholic Church on Mozambique.

The Church of Rome has an impressive record on the former Portuguese colony..

St Edigio, the Vatican’s ministry of foreign affairs, mediated an end to Mozambique’s 15-year civil war in which both sides fought themselves to exhaustion and by its end in 1992 had dragged the country to very bottom of the list of world’s poorest countries.

So the Catholic Bishops’ conference can draw on past form when it in explains that the insurrection in Cabo Delgado is caused by people seizing control of the country and its resources and exploiting these at the cost of its development.

The bishops, in their statement this week call for the creation of jobs, particularly for the youth, as a way of emerging from the morass of violence being fed by the desperation and marginalization of the province’s people.

Easier said than done? That is ever the case in situations where the government is forced to rely on the assistance of neighbors and other friends further afield.

President Felipe Nyusi has been too proud to accept this help.

He feels it betrays the weakness and venality in his government.

He would do well to accept the United States, Portugal and the European Union training his military to counter the jihadis.

While he does this, he should not delay in taking the socio economic steps suggested by the bishops.

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The Ethiopian premier has his Attorney General Gedion Timotios out there telling the international media that his hand has been forced.

“Winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t take away his responsibility as the Commander in Chief,” Timotios tells the BBC’s Hard Talk.

Ahmed is dealing with rebels bent on seizing weapons and taking military control of the north Ethiopia.

“No government anywhere in the world could accept that,” he says.

Pressed on the declaration from Ahmed’s military that there would be no mercy for the people of the Tigray capital Mek’ele, now facing its final onslaught, Timotios attributes this to a Colonel of the line who was actually referring to the leadership of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Forces.

The harsh reality is that there is a raft of frighteningly bellicose statements out there from Ahmed and his forces. 

There is also his admonition to the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union, who have expressed their fear of growing conflict in the Horn of Africa not to interfere.

Evidently Ahmed feels it is his personal responsibility to restore order in Ethiopia.

Anyone seeking peace and stability rather than retribution and revenge would surely appreciate the assistance of the paramount regional and international organisations.

It is not too late.

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Not surprisingly France’s President Emmanuel Macron was among the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US Presidency.

Paris and Washington have a crowded schedule of business, starting with Biden bringing the United State back into the climate change agreement signed  in the French capital four years ago.

Biden will be an extremely welcome participant at the climate summit in Scotland.

France continues to control the file on this make-or-break issue for the world.

Running close behind welcoming America’s more prominent green agenda , France is looking for increased US support for the initiative to fight Islamist jihadis in the that strip of land between North Africa and the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel.

President Donald Trump has effectively told Macron that this French-led initiative is to Paris’ account.

Washington’s has given $8,5 million to Chad to help it counter ISIS terrorism.

This pales next to the boots on the ground and cash contributed to the G5 comprising Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania.

The group was set up in 2014 when Mauritania held the AU presidency.

It has been underpinned by two resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

The world organization has committed 10 000 troops to its anti terror group in the region known as MINUSMA.

France has put its muscle where its mouth is with 3 000 troops from Operation Barkhane .

France stepped into drive out the Islamists who took advantage of a 2012  coup in Mali.

Things have become vary complicated since then and France could do with help form a fellow permanent Western member of the UN powerhouse.

Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, installed in 2012, was unseated in another coup last August which led to Bah Ndaw becoming become the interim president.

Further confusing things, Amadou Toumani Tourè, who led Mali for a decade during which he introduced democratic reforms before he deposed in the 2012 putsch, died in Turkey this week.

It will be impressed on Biden that Germany has provided 900 troops to the Sahel operation and the European Union  has chipped in 50million euros.

Even the cash-strapped African Union has contributed $3 million.

The world is waiting on the new administration in Washington.

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At their virtual meeting centre on Addis Abba, the ministers accepted that the immediate priority must be the health and humanitarian aspects of the battle.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni was one of co-chairs of the second virtual meeting of his African peers on the COVID 19 pandemic.

The call for a $100-billion immediate assistance package grabs the headlines.

The ministers say debt relief from bilateral, multilateral and commercial partners could be coordinated with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union.

Since it will take the world economy between 24 and 36 months to recover from the lockdown to curb the pandemic, the debt relief to Africa should be spread over two to three years.

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He was speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the first of migrants started arriving in Rwanda.

Rwanda’s taking in the migrants as part of a deal with the African Union and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Most of them are from the Horn of Africa.

Libya reached a deal with the European Union to keep the migrants from crossing the Mediterranean into their territory.

President Paul Kagame insists his efforts to end the migrants’ misery in Libya does not involve him  taking any money from the EU 

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Hains says BREXIT is the first time in British history a government has faced a decision that is patently damaging to the country and decided to embark on it anyway.

A staunch EU supporter , Lord Hain is scathing about BREXIT.

“It’s a crazy thing to do because half Britain’s trade  is with the biggest, richest single marketing the world, namely Europe, and it’s on our doorstep,” he says

Hain cautions that  promises by the Conservative government of better economic ties with South Africa have to been seen against the poor post-BREXIT British economy.

“With this kind of policy under Boris Johnson, I don’t feel any kind of confidence being created for some time to come. I don’t mean days and weeks, I mean months and years,” he says.

Hain spoke to opinion formers at the D Group in Johannesburg last night.

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The Kinshasa government says the church has broken the law by making this assertion ahead of provisional results from the electoral commission known as CENI.

The DRC government slams yesterday’s call by the Catholic church to release the results of the election in the name of truth and justice.

It accuses the church of being irresponsible and anarchist.

CENI is scheduled to release provisional results tomorrow.

However, it says the tardy flow of information from polling stations will probably delay this.

The United States and the European Union have called for the early announcement of accurate results.

Detractors accuse outgoing President Joseph Kabila of being reluctant to accept the electoral defeat of his hand-picked successor Emmanuel Shadary by either Martin Fayulu or Felix Tshisekedi   

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This after the SADC election observation team issued its report saying the poll had been relatively well managed.

Head of the DRC electoral commission known as CENI Corneille Nangaa’s told aspirants for the country’s presidency that provisional results of the election, scheduled to be released on Sunday, will be delayed.

That’s because less than a fifth of the tally sheets from around the country have reached the commission offices in Kinshasa.

He did not provide a new date for publication.

Authorities have blocked the internet in the Congo until the provisional results are made known.

The European Union, United States, Canada and Switzerland have told them to turn it on again.

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