The ripple effect of the world’s 13th largest carbon emitter making such an undertaking will likely drive countries like Indonesia,India, Russia Brazil and Malaysia  to make more substantive pledges at the 26th conference of the parties on climate change.

With this mind, the climate envoys of Britain, France, the United States, Germany and the European Union are currently in South Africa.

They are seeing government , trades union, financial bodies, non governmental organisations and the energy generator ESCOM pressing for such a commitment.

Realising that it entails a monumental cost in jobs and to the fiscus the envoys are offering financial assistance.

No less than 90% of electricity generated by ESCOM’s is coal fired.

South Africa’s dependence on carbon-generated power has not diminished since it hosted the 17th COP in Durban a decade ago.

Indeed new plants like Madupe will ensure South Africa’s reliance on coal for decades to come.

But as generating sustainable energy becomes cheaper, coal-fired power become more expensive and increasingly difficult to finance..

The language in mining and energy sectors grown increasingly pro-transformation.

This is reflected in South Africa in recent pronouncements by SASOL – the oil from coal giant – and Ashanti.

The European Union is demanding tariffs that punish coal use.

The climate envoys are concentrating more on carrot than stick in their talks to a fellow G20 member committed to transformation.

Diplomatic sources say an agreement on helping finance this radical change in energy thinking will be a game changer.

Most importantly, it would come at a time when climate experts are saying the crisis is not decades or even years away but is with us right now.

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Waiting for the sms from the vaccine authority seems rather like standing in an orderly queue for a lifeboat on the Titanic. Admirable, but unwise.

Completing the process at the DisChem headquarters in Midrand took five hours.

Sure it was a Ben Hur, but without exception every Dischem employee I encountered – from the guard who showed us our place in the queue to director Stan Gates who walked into the “recovery room” to ask recipients how things were progressing  – was obviously bent on being helpful.

It was one of the seminal new South African experiences: along with the first democratic election in 1994 and hosting the Football Word Cup in 2010.

We were in this fight against COVID together, and determined to beat the lurgy.

On social media I learn that many friends have received their vaccine must quicker and more efficiently. Good luck, I say to them. We are in this fight together.

It seems that all of us now have to wait 42 days to get the second jab.

There is a bid to tell us this is the most efficacious application of the vaccine. I don’t believe it.

We are being made to wait so that more people can get the first dose of the limited supplies of  vaccine available.

Remember the people now telling us about the need to wait are the same people whe were telling us 14 months ago that we did not need masks because they were afraid we would gobble up the available masks to the detriment of the health workers.

So wait I will.

Not at all sure where I will go to get the second jab. It would be great to avoid the five-hour process at GenChem, even if this means missing another chance to see  my new-found pandemic friends.

Discovery boss Adrian Gore has written a letter saying members should try the sites being set up by his medical aid society.

He seems confident there will be enough Pfizer to dispense the second injections.

From his mouth to God’s ear!

President Cyril Ramaphosa just tightened a band of cold steel around my testicles – metaphorically speaking, of course – telling us that South Africa would chuck out two million does of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

He’s blaming a contamination scare at its source in the the United States.

To his credit, Ramaphosa acted swiftly, decisively and courageously locking down South Africa early on in the pandemic.

However his government’s record in dispensing the vaccine this year as been less than impressive. Plainly speaking it has been marked by dithering and, by all accounts, corruption.

That is the antithesis of the British experience where Boris Johnson fiddled at the start of the pandemic, costing thousands of lives, but has done a sterling job of getting vaccine into Britons’ arms.

Could the G7 come to our aid?

At their summit in Cornwall last weekend, the leaders of Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy committed themselves to providing a billion doses of vaccine to poorer countries within the year.

Critics say this is a drop in the ocean for the developing world that needs at least ten times that amount.

We can talk about lifting the intellectually property rights to allow vaccine to be manufactured in South Africa, Senegal and other countries ready and able to do it.

If successful, that would be months away.

We need a quicker solution if we are to achieve the much vaunted herd mentality and avoid the plethora of variants to which we no longer may attach a national appellation.

Away with the political correctness and down with the blame game, I say with unashamed selfishness as I prepare to line up for my second dose.

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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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Africa’s fifth longest service President who won Sunday’s election with 79,3% of the vote, elected to be with his soldiers rather than attend a ceremony celebrating his sixth term in the office he seized in a 1990 rebellion.

His army spokesman General Azar Bermourdoa Agoma read a statement on national television saying Deby had breathed his last while defending the nation’s sovereignty on the battlefield.

Perhaps further details will come from his his 37-year-old son General Mahamat Idriss Deby who has been named interim president.

We should not expect much from the media after the military imposed a curfew and shut the country’s borders following the president’s death.

Chad’s constitution and its legislative assembly have been dissolved.

This means the legal course of events following the death of the president, that would put the speaker in charge for 40 days until a transition or fresh elections are held, is not being followed.

At the weekend the military said it had stopped an approach on the capital N’Djamena by rebels of the Front For Chance And Concord in Chad.

The organisation that goes by the Acronym FACT has bases in neighboring Libya.

The Chadian army denies that FACT has seized control of Kanem Province 300 km north of N’Djamena and claims it has stopped the rebels in their tracks, killing more than 300 of then.

The 68 year-old son of a herder was a valued ally of the Western powers and a leading member of the Sahel group fighting jihadis.

The rebel advance that started on April 9 had the United States withdrawing non-essential personnel from its embassy in N’Djamena and the British Foreign Office urging nationals to leave Chad.

France, by contrast advised its nationals that there is no threat in N’Djamena.

The rebel action was an embarrassment for Deby who fought the election with a promise of bringing peace and security to the nation.

This is by no means the first rebel attack he has resisted.

In 2008 rebels advanced to the gates of the presidential palace in the capital before they were repelled with French military support.

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Having that appellation confirms that the 15-nation ECOWAS is located in Africa’s roughest neighborhood.

Like neighbours living at the edge off a forest, the leaders of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo know that extinguishing a fire next door is very much a matter of self interest.

Since its formation in 1975, the grouping has had to put boots on the ground in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia and Sudan among  others.

Eventually an ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) was formed.

It is a multidisciplinary force composed of military, police and civilian personnel from the ECOWAS Member States and it provides personnel for regional and continental Peace Support Operations Missions.

This week ECOWAS leaders met to discuss the deteriorating socio/political in Mali.

Their meeting follows unsuccessful missions led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and a smaller troika of leaders led by the current ECOWAS chairman Mahamadu Issoufou.

Bitter experience has taught ECOWAS leaders that if at first they don’t succeed, there is no option but to try, try and try again.

The security breakdown in Mali, which already has 13 000 UN blue helmets engaged in what is regarded as the most dangerous peacekeeping operation on the planet, follows a 2012 coup that split the country in half.

French help was called in to clear the Islamist forces that took advantage of a Tuareg insurgency in the north of the country. French led Operation Serval cleared the Islamists moving towards the capital Bamako and in terms of the succeeding Operation Burkhane 5100 French peacekeepers remain in Mali to bolster the UN force.

The inability of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is the pretext for growing calls for his departure.

This was compounded by disputed election in April.

The opposition June 5 Movement led by Mahmoud Dicko insisted that it was not interested in the reforms promised by Keita. They want him gone.

ECOWAS might have been able to watch as this political turmoil boiled.

However the security situation with Islamist terrorists taking advantage of the confusion has spread into Burkina Faso and Niger, bringing the neighbours at the edge of a forest metaphor into play.

The ECOWAS leaders were bound to defend Mali’s constitution and  could not brook opposition calls for the fall of Keita.

They did however see merit in the complaints about irregularities in last April’s elections.

They resolved to call by-elections in the 13 disputed constituencies. These include that of  the parliamentary speaker Moussa Timbiné  

They have urged the opposition to moderate their position by entering into a government of national unity within 10 days.

Backing up their call is a threat of sanctions against any party standing in the way of a solution.

Keita has dropped his insistence that Mali’s Constitutional Court has underpinned the April poll result.

He has named a slimmed down six-person executive to prepare for by-elections and met with Dicko.

This leaves the ball in the opposition court.

Opposition figure Choguel Maiga is quoted as rejecting the ECOWAS proposals and repeating the call for Keita’s departure.

An integral part of ECOWAS’ peacekeeping success is the determination to back its words with muscle.

So, what next?

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And then there was one.

On the last day of April, Comoran President Azali Assoumani announced that a 50 year old compatriot has contracted COVID 19.

That leaves Lesotho as the only African country free of coronavirus.

The infected Comoran had been in contact with a French-Comoran national with a history of travel to France.

Authorities are at full stretch ascertaining who the infected man has been in contact with.

A nighttime curfew has been imposed. Assoumani says he has not implemented a tougher lockdown because the majority of his one million people live off informal earnings.

Large gathering are prohibited and Mosques were ordered closed. Nevertheless in the holy month of Ramadan people congregated around the time of prayers and police were moved in to disperse them.

The immediate reaction from the Moroni government mirrors that of other African countries that closed their borders and ordered populations to stay at home immediately COVID 19 cases were detected.

So far this  has held at bay the viral onslaught predicated for Africa by the World Health Organization.

Nevertheless the UN  health body persists that Africa, with hundreds of millions crowded into informal housing settlements and notorious weak healthcare infrastructures, is in danger of becoming the COVID 19 nightmare.

Among the reasons for Africa staying behind the curve is the fact that international  correspondents based in capitals like Johannesburg, Nairobi and Addis Ababa have tended to stay put – in their countries if not their capitals – because of the border closures.

They have reported diligently on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s success in handing off mass infections thanks to draconian lockdown regulations.

But they have not been able to answer why other must poorer countries have much lower infection rates.

Is it climactic conditions? Coronavirus spread through Europe, China and the United States in the flu season i.e. the winter months. It has been a warm summer in the southern hemisphere.

Is it African countries experience in dealing with highly infectious diseases like EBOLA, malaria, tuberculosis, measles and SARS?

Is the tuberculosis vaccine BCG administered to African children shortly after birth effective against COVID 19.

Is it the youthfulness of the African population and the growing evidence that, deadly as it might be to the elderly and the medically compromised, COVID 19 barely affects the youth?

Is it – and this is quite terrifying –  because African countries have simply not been equipped to count the number of infections?

Burundi, which came into the game very late, made this admission.through its Health Minister Thadée Ndikumana

To each of these, honest observers must say what any responsible journalists covering  the pandemic should say. We simply don’t know.

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They say they’re echoing the call by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The ceasefire call comes from French Foreign Minister Yves le Drian and his counterparts from Germany  Heiko Maas and Italy Luigi Di Mayo.

EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell has endorsed the call which was spurred by the refusal of Tripoli’s  Government of National Accord led by Fayez Al Sarraj to accept an EU blockade of Libya to enforce the United Nations arms embargo.

The government, which is backed by the UN, says the naval action has failed to stop weapons getting through to rebels led by Khalifa Haftar who are bent on occupying the capital. 

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Ambassador Aurelien Lechevallier, briefing the media yesterday, insisted the doctors view in no way reflect the position of the French 

French Ambassador Aurelien Lechevallier says the remarks by  two French doctors show they should be looking after patients rather than saying stupid things that they know nothing about.

There was a need to test vaccines. 

Currently a decades old  anti-tuberculosis medicine known as BCG is being tested on a limited number of COVID 19 patients in Australia, Netherland and France among other countries.

He says this could also be tested in Africa,

(Take in test clip here)

The medicine needs to be tested in different areas with different specificities.

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The West African country is playing a leading role in fighting the spread of the virus.

ends intro

In addition to closing its land sea and air borders, Senegal is focusing on potential COVID 19 infections.

Following the World Health Organisation’s instruction to test, test and test, Senegal is working with a British company its on developing a R20 test for infection by the virus that will take only nine minutes to reveal a result.

Senegal is controversially also working on using the anti-malarial drug chloroquine to treat infection.

The country has 44 confirmed cases of COVID 19 with 60 recoveries  and one death.

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With close to 100 cases reported, COVID 19 is gaining a foothold on the continent that has thus far been lightest hit by the virus.

Burkina Faso’s Health Minister Claudine Lougue says the two cases of coronavirus in her country come from a woman who recently visited France.

Her husband is also infected. They are quarantines in a Ouagadougou hospital. A person who has been in close contact with her is under observation.

South Africa’s seven cases put its third on the continental list behind Egypt, which has 54 cases and Algeria with 19. Cameroon, Senegal, Togo and Nigeria have also reported cases.

Worldwide COVID 19 cases increased by 3994 yesterday, bringing the total to 109 578.

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