You are watching Africa 54, your daily news and feature magazine-style program, from the Voice of America. Host Esther Githui-Ewart and a team of correspondents zero in on the big stories making news on the continent and around the world with context and analysis.
Top Stories:
Chad's capitol N'Djamena was rocked by violent protests on Tuesday morning as demonstrators took to the streets demanding a return to civilian rule. Some opposition politicians have called the military takeover, following the death of President Idris Deby, a coup, and asked supporters to protest. This even as the army appointed a civilian politician, as prime minister of a transitional government on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday pressed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for troops from Eritrea involved in the Tigray conflict to be withdrawn "immediately, in full, and in a verifiable manner," according to a statement. Blinken said Eritrean forces and Amhara regional forces in the Tigray region are contributing to the growing humanitarian disaster and committing human rights abuses, according to the statement read by U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price describing a phone call with Abiy.
Millions of children whose immunizations have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Africa, are now at risk from life-threatening diseases such as measles, polio, yellow fever and diphtheria, United Nations Health agencies warned on Monday. The WHO survey found that at least 60 mass immunization campaigns in 50 countries were currently on hold, putting around 228 million people, mostly children, at risk from preventable serious diseases. More than half the affected countries are in Africa.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended a ten-day pause Friday, on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The move came after reports of vaccine-induced blood clots were linked to the vaccine, leading to a pause in the U.S and other countries. Africa 54's Linord Moudou spoke with Dr. Jonathan Baktari, pulmonary and critical care expert, and CEO of e7Health.com and US Drug Test Center. He discusses the safety of getting a COVID 19 vaccine as it relates to the blood clots.
The United States is pledging to send oxygen to India as soon as possible and tens of millions of vaccine doses abroad in stages, in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
A company in Britain is giving new life to discarded personal protective equipment, or PPE, to help keep it out of landfills amid the coronavirus pandemic.
While prayer has returned to mosques in this second Ramadan during the Covid-19 pandemic, religious studies continue online. And in at least one mosque near Washington, D.C. a local teen is trying to keep the lessons entertaining and engaging, as VOA's Dhania Iman reports.
Ethiopia is one of the world's last closed markets for mobile phones. Now the horn of Africa nation is finally looks set to open up its telecoms market to competition. Julian Satterthwaite of Reuters has this report.
Senegal banned single-use plastics a year ago, but the regulation has been poorly enforced and plastic waste still litters the coastline and threatens health. For Earth Day this year, a group of Senegalese surfers, scuba divers, and activists took matters into their own hands and to set an example for others to follow.
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