News from Africa

The world’s second-biggest diamond found two years ago from Botswana’s Karowe mine has been sold for $53 million to a luxury jeweler. The uncut 1,109-carat diamond named Lesedi La Rona, which means Our Light in the local Tswana language, failed to sell last year at a Sotheby’s auction. Lucara Diamond Corp.  announced the sale on Monday and said the price paid is an improvement on the highest bid received at the Sotheby’s auction in June 2016. View image on Twitter  Follow Lucara Diamond Corp   @LucaraDiamond Lucara is pleased to announce that the 1,109 carat  # LesediLaRona  diamond has been sold for US$53M to  @ GraffDiamonds :  http:// bit.ly/2wPkXHe   2:36 AM - Sep 26, 2017   14 14 Replies     95 95 Retweets     134 134 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy The buyers, U.K.-based Graff Diamonds said they were thrilled and honoured to become the custodians of the dia...

Emotional abuse is often either unrecognised or downplayed by those it affects. As  Judy Amuga Ndibo writes, this scourge does not discriminate on account of age, social and economic status, looks, intellect, achievements or nationality, and the majority of victims suffer in silence.It is vital that women reading this gain insights into identifying emotional abuse in their own relationships or in those of their close friends, neighbours, colleagues or family members. Anita walks into the private hospital’s observation room to find a consulting doctor waiting to examine her. Anita is a beautiful, elegant lady, yet on closer look, her eyes display a strained, red-eyed tiredness. She complains to the doctor of unusual chronic headaches, backache and loss of sleep. Tonight her headache, backache and dizziness have proved unbearable. The doctor takes her vital signs and notes with concern that her blood pressure reading is unusually high. The doctor quickly asks her the all import...

        Batwa men in Bwindi forest, southwestern Uganda. PHOTO | MORGAN MBABAZI  In Summary The “voiceless” groups in Uganda want government recognition, citing loss of lives, destruction of property, discrimination and marginalisation. ADVERTISEMENT By BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI When the Mgahinga and Bwindi forests in Uganda were declared national parks in 1991, the hunter-gatherer Batwa people who lived there, found themselves homeless squatters. It wasn’t anything new. In 1952, the Basongora, a pastoralist tribe, and the Banyabindi (cultivators) suffered the same fate when the colonial government evicted them from their ancestral land in Kasese district in western Uganda, to pave the way for the establishment of the Queen Elizabeth National Park. This meant that the evictees had to find new means of survival. The Batwa, for example, depended on forest products for their livelihoods while the Basongora had to abandon their pastor...

Gauteng  Emergency Medical Services  (EMS) employees will be embarking on protest action in the  Johannesburg  CBD on Thursday. Hundreds of employees are expected to gather at the  Mary Fitzgerald Square  before marching to  Luthuli House  to voice their concerns. Amongst their grievances is that they work long hours without compensation. In August, they marched to Gauteng Premier  David Makhura 's office, asking him to intervene in resolving their grievances. Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department  (JMPD) spokesperson  Wayne Minnaar  says, “The Gauteng EMS members will protest in the JHB CBD on Thursday. They will start at Mary Fitzgerald Square and proceed to the office of the Premier and to Luthuli House so the roads will be affected including Simmonds and Pixley Kaseme Street from 11am.”    http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/5fc6590042b16ad8800ec41dc9f0d39c/Emergency-Medical-Services-employees-embark-on-a-strike-...

New York – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday exposed his frailty in New York City where he was shown by international news channels sleeping most of the time when President Donald Trump was giving his first address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. See the picture below Mugabe travelled to New York with a 70-member delegation, including his family, inviting a backlash from his critics in Zimbabwe, who accused him of misusing taxpayers’ money at a time when Zimbabwe’s economy was floundering and showing little signs of recovery. Every member of the 93 year-old leader’s entourage was reportedly being paid $1 500 per day in stipends while the majority of the southern African country’s citizens were reportedly surviving on less than one dollar per day. Jessie Majome, a vocal legislator from Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party led by Morgan Tsvangirai criticised Mugabe for taking a nap at such an important world gathe...