I rely on watching where people hang out as a barometer of what is happening.

Large numbers of young people lazing about during working hours shouts unemployment to me.

It tells me that countries of the Maghreb and the Middle East where I have observed this have grown up economic problems.

In those oil-rich countries of the Gulf I see men drinking coffee, smoking nargilla  and chatting in the cafes it tells me that their wives are keeping house and cooking the delicious but laborious meals that only oppressed women have the time to prepare.

The other large gatherings in these salubrious lands are outside the offices of the foreign exchange firms.

The people there are workers from Africa and other poor countries paying the premium and completing the tiresome paperwork to send money home to their families.

Remittances to Africa are a massive industry.

They amount to $48 trillion a year, according to the World Bank.

This money from more than ten million Africans working abroad eclipses both aid paid to and foreign direct investment in their countries.

Calling this a lifeline is a rank understatement.

The workers pay dearly to maintain this.

They work without protection from exploitation, social benefits and medical aid.

They pay nearly 9% commission, at least three points higher than counterparts sending money to other parts of the globe.

When the COVID 19 lockdown began this year, the World Bank was predicting a 24% reduction in remittance to Africa.

The prospect of fewer people being permitted to go abroad to earn money to send home was devastating.

The World Bank this week rather pulled its neck in.

Its latest migration and development brief  forecasts that remittances will be 9% lower this year and 6% down in 2021.

Economically painful, without doubt. But Africans, who have proven wrong the apocalyptic expert medical predictions of how damaging the corona virus would be to their countries with the poorest medical facilities on the planet, have confounded the economists too.

We learn from the central bank in Harare that diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe increased by 45 percent to $658 million during the first nine months of 2020.

Zimbabwe joins Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and the DRC.and top remittance earners south of the Sahara.

Remittances from the three million Zimbabweans living abroad are a key source of foreign currency

Last year Zimbabwe earned $635 million in remittances.

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He says won’t be returning home to face what he calls a baseless arrest warrant and will contest next year’s Presidential election from abroad.

Heading home last week, Guillaume Soro turned to Ghana when he heard that he faces arrest in Cote d’Ivoire.

Police have raided his party headquarters in Abidjan and arrested a number of his supporters.

He says the charges against him are not based on law but on a determination by President Alassane Ouattara not to allow his return to contest the 2020 election.

Soro, who was in France says he has not called for protection from that country

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The vaccine, which has proved effective in more than forty percent of children between 17 months and five years, is already available in Ghana and Malawi.

The RTS,S vaccine, which trains the immune system to destroy the malaria parasite, requires four doses.

It has been 30 years in the making. 

It will be available every year to more than 300 000 children under the age of two in the three countries.

Malaria kills more than 400 000 children a year – more than half of them are in sub Sahara Africa.

The World Health Organization says the vaccine should not stop people using bed nets and insecticides. 

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Ghana and Kenya will soon join the World Health Organization project to vaccinate 360 000 two-year-olds against the disease that kills one African child every two minutes.

ends intro

Thirty years and one billion dollars later, the vaccine RTS,S is ready for roll out.

Early tests show it’s 40 percent effective if the child receives four vaccines.

Africa’s the logical place for the full-blooded tests because the continent experiences 92 percent  of the 220 million annual cases of malaria worldwide.

The mosquito-borne disease is the biggest killer of children on the planet.

Some African children get up to to six bouts of malaria a year. 

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They’re trying to stop trafficking in the African ant-eater species whose scales are highly prized in Chinese medicine.

More than 3 000 pangolins would have had to be killed to provide the scales set alight by Malaysian officials.

They were confiscated from major anti-trafficking operations this past year.

Authorities have contacted the governments of South Africa, Cameroon and Ghana from which the pangolins originated.

Malaysia’s become major transit point in moving the grizzly goods to China, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Pangolins are one of the most trafficked species.

Under threat they roll into a ball allowing the poachers simply to lift it and put it in a bag.

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Correspondents with her say she’s never appeared so delighted as she has been on her trip to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Cairo.

President Donald Trump triumphantly tweeted that it’s a beautiful thing to see how well his wife is doing in Africa.

Reporters with Melania Trump are not as euphoric.

Africans have not forgotten the president’s foul-mouthed and contemptuous dismissal of them earlier this year.

Kenya’s first lady Margaret Kenyatta was the soul of hospitality when taking her American counterpart around a elephant orphanage, where a laughing Melania nearly lost her footing.

Her solo safari, which ends in Egypt, has shown her interest in conservation, education, children’s welfare and tourism. 

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Both has been in Africa in pursuit of causes closest to their hearts.

ends intro

Prince William donned his army uniform on the final day of his Africa tour to engage with the Irish guards training in Kenya.

He was  on the continent working for organizations TUSK and United For Wildlife of which he is a patron.

Melania Trump will visit Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.

Her visit will concentrate on issues confronting families and children.

She’s following in the footsteps of recent U.S. first ladies  these past four decades – her husband’s scatological  dismissal of African countries notwithstanding. 

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Ghana’s President Nana Akufo Addo and other former presidents praised the first sub Saharan to become the world’s top diplomat.

It was a mixture of pomp and ceremony and warm family emotion in Accra today as Kofi Annan was finally laid to rest.

The man, who devoted  his career to the United Nations and  gave his life to making peace, was sent on his final journey by his wife Nane who said he was an inspiration to the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was hailed as a special father and husband and an outstanding human being 

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European rescuers reached them after they’d spent hours in the water — too late to prevent a number of deaths.

The migrants were packed into two rubber boats that were wrecked.

One of them suffered engine failure and the other began to deflate.

They came from Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Algeria and Egypt.

Medicines Sans Frontiers provided help to the survivors who clung to floating wreckage.

They included pregnant women, children and babies – 

some of whom suffered serious chemical burns from petrol in the water.

The organization says some of the the migrants are returned to detention camps in Libya where they are held in deplorable conditions.

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Kweku Adoboli, who left Ghana when he was 4-years-old, say the British authorities are being racist.

Kweku Adoboli served half of a seven year sentence for losing R35 billion in risky trade in the City of London for the Swiss Bank UBS.

Britain automatically deports foreigners sentenced to more than four years in prison.

The Home Office says foreigners who abuse British hospitality should be in no doubt of their determination to deport them, adding that 42 800 have been removed since 2010.

Adoboli, who was given a student visa on arrival in Britain, has never applied for British citizenship. 

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