There has been a furious social media reaction to what Dr Jean-Paul Mira said on live French television.

Jean Paul Mira is head of intensive care at Cochin hospital in Paris.

He was being asked on the LCI television channel about testing COVID 19 vaccines. 

Mira said the value of this being done in Europe and Australia was undermined by the number of people there using personal protective equipment.

He suggested, by his own admission provocatively, that it would be more effective in parts of Africa, where there are no masks, no treatment and no intensive care.

Mira’s apologized to those who were hurt, shocked or felt insulted at his remarks clumsily expressed.

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They burned their camp to which the authorities were trying to force them to return.

It is reminiscent of what happened in Pretoria and Cape Town last year.

Thousands of refugees from the conflict in Sudan  and Libya have been accommodated in Niger. 

The camp is in Agadez which is a major hub for Africans headed for Europe..

They say conditions are poor and the UNHCR must relocate them. They staged a sit-in outside the offices of the world organisation.

When authorities beat some of them and forced them into a vehicles to return them to their camp, it was burned down. More than 300 arrests have been made

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Last week’s run off was peaceful and orderly.

Will it bring stability to the former Portuguese colony that’s suffered a series of assassinations and  coups.

Umaro Cissoko Embalo won the run-off election.

His opponent Domingo Simoes Pereira will contest the result.

Both are former Prime Ministers.

Guinea Bissau is trying to cast aside its reputation as a coup-prone narco state, used as transit point for South American cocaine headed for Europe.

Outgoing President Jose Mario Vaz made tearful appeal for stability.

He congratulated the military for staying out of the election and called for a new page to be written on the country’s democratic history

He came to power in 2014, two years after a coup. The electorate punished him for his administration characterized by frequent sacking.

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22 women were rescued but a dozen are still missing.

More than 1000 people have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe.

In the Tunisian city of Tatatouine last week, I spoke to would-be migrants wait to meet people smugglers in a coffee bar.

I asked them why they are willing to put their lives and life savings in the hands of people who charge tens of thousands of rands to cram people into unseaworthy vessels.

A young man responded that living without a job and prospects was worse than death 

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500 of them, mostly from the Horn of Africa, will be flown in Uganda in coming weeks.

Rwanda first offered to take migrants from Libya when television footage nearly two years ago showed some of them being sold off as slaves.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees says nearly 5000 people are living in parlous conditions in Libyan detention camps.

It’s appealed to navies saving migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe not to send them to Libya.

The migrants being taken by Rwanda include many children and women in vulnerable positions.

The Rwandan government insists its not being paid for taking in these refugees.

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The Parliamentary speaker from the North African country, Mohammed  Ennaceur, has been sworn in as interim president until elections in October.

Bejii Caid Essebsi is Tunisia’s first democratically-elected president.

He became Prime Minister after Beni Ali was deposed in the Arab Spring of 2011.

Three years later, Essebsi was elected President.

He opened the political space but was unable to bring the property he promised because of sporadic terrorist attacks by Islamist fundamentalist groups that crippled the tourism industry which is the biggest foreign currency earner for the picturesque country nestled between  Libya and Algeria with views of Europe across the Mediterranean.

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An audience increasing in number and enthusiasm is waiting for the resumption of negotiations on the future governance of Sudan.

The most involved and therefore the most passionate are the Sudanese themselves.

They are divided between civilians seeking complete change from the 30-year regime of ousted President Omar Al Bashir and the military desperately trying to maintain the status quo by clinging to power at any cost.

The African continent is deeply immersed in the future of its second largest member.

The African Union has taken the unprecedented step of suspending Sudan under its current military junta because of the June 3 slaying of at least 118 unarmed pro-democracy activists.

The AU red card will be enforced until the Transitional Military Council hands power to a civilian led administration.

There is skepticism about  exactly what muscle the continental body can bring to bear on the generals.

However, there is no gainsaying that the AU has at last taken up the role it was designed to in 2002 when it replaced the cosy coterie of Organisation of African Unity  leaders who refused to criticize each other let alone interfere in their affairs.

The AU, following the genocide in Rwanda, determined that it would intervene to stop crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and gross human rights violations.

The reluctance all too often to take decisive actions has undermined the credibility of the body.

Those concerned with human rights are hoping the AU has turned a corner by acting against the Khartoum junta.

When it seemed that the prospect for negotiations had died along with the demonstrators outside military headquarters in the Sudanese capital, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed flew in to offer his services as mediator.

Both military and civilian leaders accepted Ahmed who has built a considerable reputation by making peace with Eritrea and Somalia.

He left behind in Khartoum an official  Mahmoud Dirir who is the source of optimism about negotiations resuming.

Details are lacking, but Dirir does have undertakings from the Alliance for Freedom and Change and the Sudan Professionals Association to call off the general strike which has brought the economy of the country to a standstill this week.

He also has a promise from the generals to release political prisoners taken since the June 3 massacre.

These groups have a mountain to climb.

They have made virtually no progress in talks designed to agree on the composition of a transitional administration leading to elections.

Ahmed is expected back in Sudan this week to continue his face-to-face efforts.

He is understood to have proposed  15-person body consisting of eight civilians and seven soldiers.

The civilian groups have six pre-conditions for a resumption of talks:

The removal of soldiers from the streets of Khartoum and other Sudanese cities;

An international investigation into the June 3 killings;

The release of political detainees;

Restoration of the internet;

Press freedom; and 

The Transitional Military Council accepting responsibility for the attacks on protestors.

Also headed for Khartoum is the United States Assistant Secretary of State For Africa Tibor Nagy.

The U.S. holds a big stick over Sudan because if only recently removed it from the list of terror-sponsoring countries which attract American sanctions.

Nagy’s brief is to get an assurance from the military that it will not again attack demonstrators and to secure an atmosphere conducive for negotiations.

Activist film star George Clooney, who co-founded the watchdog called The Sentinel with former African Affairs Director at the U.S. National Security Council John  Prendergast, says Washington must use political and diplomatic weapons to give substance to Nagy’s mission.

Having been involved Darfur in the early 2000s, when it was the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, Clooney is well versed in the iniquities of the Sudanese military and particularly its paramilitary terror group known as the janjaweed who now go by the more anodyne name of the Rapid Support Force.

The Sentinel is in the business of cutting off the financial stream to groups violating human rights and promoting violence in conflict zones like Darfur

Clooney says the U.S. Treasury must  issue an anti-money-laundering advisory to banks around the world to stop the illicit financial flows to human rights offenders and corrupt officials in  Sudan.

He points out that Washington has done this in Venezuela and Ukraine.

Using the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act, and eliciting the help of allies in Europe and Africa,  Clooney says the Trump Administration can ensure there are consequences for the military regime in Sudan and particularly the janjaweed.

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They argue that making the donation violates Europe’s weapons embargo on Libya and makes France complicit in the mistreatment of migrants.

The lives of would-be migrants to Europe, who were returned to Libya by the coastguard, is very difficult with many being subject to abuse and enforced labour.

It’s become even tougher because of fighting between the UN-backed government of Fayez Al Serraj and rebel leader Khalifa Haftar.

Five detention camps have been vacated and further six are housing 3 600 people in close proximity to hostilities.

Human rights groups argue that returning migrants to this dangerous scenario is intolerable.

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At least 21 people have died in four days of fighting that include an airstrike by the rebel Libyan National Army.

The tougher line from Washington follows a call for peace from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres who was visiting Libya when rebels began their advance on Tripoli.

The dissidents are supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

However the tenuous government of Fayez Al Serraj, seeking to restore order in Libya that has been tearing itself apart since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gadaffi,  is supported by the UN.

There are fears that its fall will drive Libya back into becoming a source of illegal immigration and an extremist hotspot on Europe’s southern flank

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The flagship study by the United Nations Childrens’ Fund also finds not enough is being done tenable children to hands digital opportunities.

The UNICEF study on Children in a digital age is the first comprehensive look by the UN at how technology both endangers children and provides opportunities.

One in three internet users is a child.

71 percent of children are online, compared with 48 percent of the total population.

The needs of children vary enormously because the picture changes so dramatically across the globe.

One in 25 European children is not online, compared to three out of five African children left without internet access.

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