(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s Special Investigation Unit, established to tackle corruption and the misuse of public funds, asked the National Treasury to bar Oracle Corp. from doing business with the government because of what it says was a flawed tender.
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The contract, which is with the Treasury, is related to a system that keeps track of government accounts, spending and assets aside from state salaries. The tender, worth 800 million rand ($42 million), was awarded almost two decades ago, but a working system has not been delivered. The Treasury is contesting the SIU’s findings.
Oracle didn’t respond to a request for comment sent by email.
Should the so-called blacklisting go ahead, Oracle would join companies including KPMG LLP, McKinsey & Co., SAP SE, ABB Ltd. and Bain & Co. among companies that have been either fined or barred from doing business with South Africa’s government. Those actions were related to allegations of corruption, or because tenders were allegedly improperly awarded.
“Legally we can go ahead with our findings as they are based on evidence,” Andy Mothibi, head of the SIU, told lawmakers in Cape Town on Wednesday. The report is an interim one and will be finalized soon, he said.
The SIU also recommended the criminal prosecution of five Treasury officials and a review of that department’s supply chain management.
When the report is final, “we will formalize our representations to demonstrate why the allegations in the report should be contested,” Treasury Director-General Duncan Pieterse said.
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s cabinet approved a phased end to the captive breeding of lions and rhinos as the country seeks to end practices that have sullied its reputation as a custodian of some of the world’s biggest wildlife populations.
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Plans to end lion breeding began more than a decade ago as the practice of releasing tame big cats into small enclosures and having them shot by hunters for a fee spawned the term ‘canned hunting’ and attracted international condemnation.
More recently, the collapse of a rhino breeding program left the fate of an eighth of the world’s southern white rhinos, or 2,000 of the beasts, in limbo before their gradual relocation was funded by billionaires.
The cabinet also agreed to limit hunting of leopards and hold off an a push to resume the international trade of elephant ivory. The rhino and lion breeding bans have been opposed by the operators of wildlife ranches.
“South Africa’s priority is to secure the survival of species in the wild,” Barbara Creecy, South Africa’s environment minister, said in a statement on Thursday. “This policy position has been developed to clarify policy intent in respect of conservation and sustainable use of white and black rhinoceroses, lions, elephants and leopards.”
For the first time, Hispanic or Latino is listed as one race/ethnicity category and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent will have their own checkbox under new race and ethnicity standards adopted by the Biden administration.
Up to now, Hispanics had a two-part question for their identity: They were asked whether they were Hispanic or Latino and then asked to pick a race of white, Black, American Indian or some other race.
The change now uses one question for race and ethnicity and allows people to check as many as apply to their identity. Each category has subcategories with examples that may apply and room for those that may not be listed.
The addition of a Middle Eastern or North African, or MENA, identifier would allow some 7 million to 8 million people to no longer have to identify as “white” or “other” on the census and other forms in which such data is collected.
The changes are only the second update by the federal government to categories for data on the American population. The update — the last was in 1997 — of standards used by the federal government for the census and other agencies is meant to better capture the expanding multicultural identity of the country.
“These updated standards are going to help us create more useful, accurate and up-to-date federal data on race and ethnicity,” said an official with the Office of Management and Budget, who spoke to reporters Tuesday on the condition that the person not be identified.
“And these revisions will enhance our ability to compare information and data across federal agencies and also understand again how our federal programs are serving a diverse America,” the official said.
The changes were effective Thursday and agencies have 18 months to devise plans for complying and then up to five years to put those plans in place, though some are likely to do so sooner, the OMB said.
The newest standards reflect results from the 2020 census that showed that most Hispanics did not identify their race as white, Black or Asian, and instead were more likely to choose “some other race” on the decennial survey or to check “two or more races.”
Research showed the two-part question is confusing and since 1980, nonresponse to the race question has increased, the OMB stated in an explanation of its recommendations. On the 2020 census, 4 in 10 Hispanics, or 42%, marked “some other race. A third selected two or more racial groups and 20% chose white as their race, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
The two new categories will have subcategories; the ones listed for Hispanic or Latino are “Mexican, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Cuban, Dominican, Guatemalan etc.”
For the Middle Eastern or North African category, the subcategories listed as “Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Israeli etc.”
Some in the Afro Latino or Black Latino population had raised concerns that the combined question may dilute their visibility. But the OMB said its research showed Afro Latino populations estimates were slightly higher with a combined question that also provides detailed checkboxes and write-in fields.
However, the working group recommended more research on the issue because about half of Afro Latinos interviewed while researching the issue for the update chose only Hispanic or Latino on a combined question, even though they selected Hispanic or Latino and Black or African American categories when they were recruited for the interviews.
Although the standards are intended for federal agencies, the effect goes beyond that realm. Many researchers, local and state governments and nonprofit groups follow the standards that also shape policy, effect representation in government through redistricting and, in some ways, societal perspectives.
The revisions were developed by a working group made up of career staff from 35 agencies that received more than 20,000 comments after first recommending the changes in January 2023, according to the OMB. The working group held 94 “listening sessions,” three virtual town halls and a tribal consultation on its proposed revisions, the agency said.
In addition, the OMB said it is creating the Interagency Committee on Race and Ethnicity Statistical Standards to continue research, because the process of updating the standards “showed that racial and ethnic identities, concepts and data needs continue to evolve.”
Along with researching and capturing accurate data on Afro Latinos, it will also consider collecting data on descendants of people enslaved in the U.S., among other topics. The OMB said groups consulted on identification of descendants of slaves did not agree on whether or how to collect the information.
The others race and ethnicity categories are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Middle Eastern or North African, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and White.
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ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal (AP) — Mariama Sonko’s voice resounded through the circle of 40 women farmers sitting in the shade of a cashew tree. They scribbled notes, brows furrowed in concentration as her lecture was punctuated by the thud of falling fruit.
This quiet village in Senegal is the headquarters of a 115,000-strong rural women’s rights movement in West Africa, We Are the Solution. Sonko, its president, is training female farmers from cultures where women are often excluded from ownership of the land they work so closely.
Across Senegal, women farmers make up 70% of the agricultural workforce and produce 80% of the crops but have little access to land, education and finance compared to men, the United Nations says.
“We work from dawn until dusk, but with all that we do, what do we get out of it?” Sonko asked.
She believes that when rural women are given land, responsibilities and resources, it has a ripple effect through communities. Her movement is training women farmers who traditionally have no access to education, explaining their rights and financing women-led agricultural projects.
Across West Africa, women usually don’t own land because it is expected that when they marry, they leave the community. But when they move to their husbands’ homes, they are not given land because they are not related by blood.
Sonko grew up watching her mother struggle after her father died, with young children to support.
“If she had land, she could have supported us,” she recalled, her normally booming voice now tender. Instead, Sonko had to marry young, abandon her studies and leave her ancestral home.
After moving to her husband’s town at age 19, Sonko and several other women convinced a landowner to rent to them a small plot of land in return for part of their harvest. They planted fruit trees and started a market garden. Five years later, when the trees were full of papayas and grapefruit, the owner kicked them off.
The experience marked Sonko.
“This made me fight so that women can have the space to thrive and manage their rights,” she said. When she later got a job with a women’s charity funded by Catholic Relief Services, coordinating micro-loans for rural women, that work began.
“Women farmers are invisible,” said Laure Tall, research director at Agricultural and Rural Prospect Initiative, a Senegalese rural think tank. That’s even though women work on farms two to four hours longer than men on an average day.
But when women earn money, they reinvest it in their community, health and children’s education, Tall said. Men spend some on household expenses but can choose to spend the rest how they please. Sonko listed common examples like finding a new wife, drinking and buying fertilizer and pesticides for crops that make money instead of providing food.
With encouragement from her husband, who died in 1997, Sonko chose to invest in other women. Her training center now employs over 20 people, with support from small philanthropic organizations such as Agroecology Fund and CLIMA Fund.
In a recent week, Sonko and her team trained over 100 women from three countries, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, in agroforestry – growing trees and crops together as a measure of protection from extreme weather – and micro gardening, growing food in tiny spaces when there is little access to land.
One trainee, Binta Diatta, said We Are the Solution bought irrigation equipment, seeds, and fencing — an investment of $4,000 — and helped the women of her town access land for a market garden, one of more than 50 financed by the organization.
When Diatta started to earn money, she said, she spent it on food, clothes and her children’s schooling. Her efforts were noticed.
“Next season, all the men accompanied us to the market garden because they saw it as valuable,” she said, recalling how they came simply to witness it.
Now another challenge has emerged affecting women and men alike: climate change.
In Senegal and the surrounding region, temperatures are rising 50% more than the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Program says rainfall could drop by 38% in the coming decades.
Where Sonko lives, the rainy season has become shorter and less predictable. Saltwater is invading her rice paddies bordering the tidal estuary and mangroves, caused by rising sea levels. In some cases, yield losses are so acute that farmers abandon their rice fields.
But adapting to a heating planet has proven to be a strength for women since they adopt climate innovations much faster than men, said Ena Derenoncourt, an investment specialist for women-led farming projects at agricultural research agency AICCRA.
“They have no choice because they are the most vulnerable and affected by climate change,” Derenoncourt said. “They are the most motivated to find solutions.”
On a recent day, Sonko gathered 30 prominent women rice growers to document hundreds of local rice varieties. She bellowed out the names of rice – some hundreds of years old, named after prominent women farmers, passed from generation to generation – and the women echoed with what they call it in their villages.
This preservation of indigenous rice varieties is not only key to adapting to climate change but also about emphasizing the status of women as the traditional guardians of seeds.
“Seeds are wholly feminine and give value to women in their communities,” Sonko said. “That’s why we’re working on them, to give them more confidence and responsibility in agriculture.”
The knowledge of hundreds of seeds and how they respond to different growing conditions has been vital in giving women a more influential role in communities.
Sonko claimed to have a seed for every condition including too rainy, too dry and even those more resistant to salt for the mangroves.
Last year, she produced 2 tons of rice on her half-hectare plot with none of the synthetic pesticides or fertilizer that are heavily subsidized in Senegal. The yield was more than double that of plots with full use of chemical products in a 2017 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization project in the same region.
“Our seeds are resilient,” Sonko said, sifting through rice-filled clay pots designed to preserve seeds for decades. “Conventional seeds do not resist climate change and are very demanding. They need fertilizer and pesticides.”
The cultural intimacy between female farmers, their seeds and the land means they are more likely to shun chemicals harming the soil, said Charles Katy, an expert on indigenous wisdom in Senegal who is helping to document Sonko’s rice varieties.
He noted the organic fertilizer that Sonko made from manure, and the biopesticides made from ginger, garlic and chilli.
One of Sonko’s trainees, Sounkarou Kébé, recounted her experiments against parasites in her tomato plot. Instead of using manufactured insecticides, she tried using a tree bark traditionally used in Senegal’s Casamance region to treat intestinal problems in humans caused by parasites.
A week later, all the disease was gone, Kébé said.
As dusk approached at the training center, insects hummed in the background and Sonko prepared for another training session. “There’s too much demand,” she said. She is now trying to set up seven other farming centers across southern Senegal.
Glancing back at the circle of women studying in the fading light, she said: “My great fight in the movement is to make humanity understand the importance of women.”
___
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Salt bricks and sweeping mud walls – as recently showcased by some African architects – may be the building blocks for innovative designs of the future.
Such ideas were explored by Nigerian architect Tosin Oshinowo in a major exhibition she recently curated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
She wanted to look at how regions such as Africa are able to function with scarce resources.
“I think ultimately the big elephant in the room for most of us is climate change,” Ms Oshinowo told the BBC about the show The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability.
Designers from 26 countries were invited to Sharjah to come up with works to address the issue of scarcity.
For Ethiopian designer Miriam Hillawi Abraham, this meant building what looked like a church out of salt.
She called the work Museum of Artifice – and it was a nod to Ethiopia’s famous rock-hewn churches in Lalibela as well as the remote northern village of Dallol.
This is in the Danakil Depression, more than 330ft (100m) below sea level, and arguably the hottest place on Earth.
The Museum of Artifice, built in a derelict arcade in Sharjah, uses bricks made of pink Himalayan salt
Largely abandoned now, Dallol still has single-storey buildings made out of blocks cut from the nearby salt lakes.
Ms Miriam’s structure, made from pink Himalayan salt, will erode without regular maintenance.
“It does raise the question: ‘What can we learn from these locations?'” Ms Oshinowo said.
Another work at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial was by Hive Earth Studio, a Ghanaian architecture firm that specialises in compressing locally sourced earth to form walls.
It was called Eta’dan, meaning “mud wall” in Ghana’s Fante language – and the soil was sourced in the UAE to reduce the environmental impact of transporting materials.
Eta’dan by Hive Earth Studio is a modern take on a mud wall
Hive Earth’s ethos is to learn from the past to create buildings for the present, seeking sustainability and a pleasing aesthetic.
Ms Oshinowo said the design team, who had been at the forefront of exploring the technology of rammed earth in West Africa, used rocks from the UAE to achieve the layering and strength required for the walls.
“Through material exploration they were able to transfer the skills of rammed earth,” she said.
“There was a lot of testing to see how it would work in this environment, especially where you have a lot of sand.
“It just shows you what the possibilities are. If we think of things differently, we really can change the way we build and the way we design our buildings.”
Super Limbo transforms a derelict shopping centre in Sharjah
Ghana-based design duo Dominique Petit-Frère and Emil Grip tackled the potential of unfinished building projects – prevalent in West Africa.
Known as Limbo Accra, the pair transformed a derelict shopping mall into an inviting space.
They worked in collaboration with Ivorian fashion label Super Yaya to artfully drape strips of white calico cotton fabric across the entrance.
The work, Super Limbo, was also a nod to Bedouin culture and their desert tents.
Middle Eastern culture is also referenced in Super Limbo
“We were inspired to connect our experiences of navigating the remains of unfinished architecture in West Africa with a Middle Eastern setting,” Ms Petit-Frère told the BBC.
Architects Papa Omotayo and Eve Nnaji, based in the Nigerian city of Lagos, took inspiration from the potted plants and bird cages they spotted being tended by mechanics in an industrial area of Sharjah.
Papa Omotayo and Eve Nnaji’s work uses 2,000 biodegradable cardboard nests
Their three-storey structure We Rest at the Birds Nest was made from scaffolding and organic waste, providing a sanctuary for both birds and workers.
Metal steps led up to platforms decorated with vegetation, while rows of 2,000 biodegradable cardboard nests lined an atrium that descended from the open rooftop to the ground. Passageway windows allowed a view into the birds’ haven.
“As architects we tend to stay focused on people, but we share this planet,” Ms Oshinowo said.
“When we start to think about accommodating other species, it’s also a very powerful narrative.”
We Rest at the Birds Nest was made from scaffolding and organic waste
Ms Oshinowo hopes the exhibition gave those attending an opportunity to pause and reflect on sustainability and design.
And the exhibits from Africa, a continent disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, showed how designers were starting to work in “better balance with ecology”.
A referendum allowing the president of the Central African Republic (CAR) to run for office as many times as he likes has been labelled a farce by opponents.
Provisional results say 95% of voters backed changes to the constitution, but critics say turnout was as low as 10%.
CAR is still in the throes of a civil war that has uprooted a third of all people from their homes.
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is backed by Russian Wagner mercenaries.
Extra fighters arrived ahead of the referendum to provide security.
Wagner forces have been accused of committing war crimes as they back President Touadéra in the fight against rebel groups who still control large swathes of the country.
They reportedly trade in the minerals and timber industries.
The proposed new law would scrap the current two-term limit and extend the presidential mandate from five to seven years.
It would also ban politicians with dual citizenship from running for president unless they renounce the other.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch says this stirs up memories of anti-Balaka militias who targeted Muslims for their perceived association with Séléka rebels in the 2013 conflict, which saw hundreds killed in a civil conflict that continues to this day.
Opposition parties and some civil society groups boycotted the referendum vote on 30 July, calling it a “constitutional coup” designed to keep President Touadéra in power for life.
They also say the election process lacked transparency and there was not enough consultation beforehand.
Under the changes, a new post of vice-president would be created, who would be appointed by the president. The Senate would be scrapped and parliament would be transformed into a single chamber.
The president and members of his United Hearts Party say they are following the “will of the people”.
Final results have yet to be published by the election authority.
This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 13, 2022.
Described as a cross between a harp, a lute, and a guitar, the kora is part of a musical tradition that dates back to the 13th-century Mali Empire, which stretched across much of West Africa. The tradition has been passed down from father to son — man to man — in a special set of families ever since.
Until now.
Musician Sona Jobarteh was born into one of those five families, called griots. The daughter of a Gambian father and British mother, she is the first griot woman to play the kora professionally. It is hard to believe, watching this musical pioneer’s mastery of the instrument, that according to the rules passed down for centuries, she was not supposed to play it.
Instead, Jobarteh is one of the foremost kora players in the world.
“She’s phenomenal,” said Banning Eyre, a musicologist and senior producer of the radio show Afropop Worldwide. “She’s fantastic. Her dexterity is second to none. The flow, the speed — there’s just nothing to compare with her. She’s right up there with the very best ones.”
Jobarteh’s mastery of the kora is a feat made even more remarkable when considering how complex the instrument is.
Constructed from a type of gourd called a calabash, koras typically have 21 strings. The strings can be difficult to keep in tune, particularly when the instrument, traditionally played in the steadily warm weather of Africa, experiences cold climates. To combat this temperature challenge and be able to bring her kora around the world, Jobarteh has innovated in how she builds the instrument’s neck. Rather than using traditional leather rings to hold her strings in place, Jobarteh uses metal tuning heads.
The strings themselves are played with just the thumb and forefinger, a technique that requires notable dexterity. The thumbs play the bass notes, acting something like a rhythm section, and the forefingers play the melody.
Although she has studied the instrument for years and now performs around the world, Jobarteh said she does not yet feel she has “mastered” the kora.
“I like to say what my grandfather said, which is that ‘I wish you will die a learner,’ that you never come to a point where you can say, ‘I know it,’ or, ‘I’ve mastered it,'” Jobarteh said. “But you’re always learning. And that’s how I like to think about it.”
The video above was originally published on November 13, 2022 and was produced by Shari Finkelstein, Brit McCandless Farmer, and Will Croxton. It was edited by Will Croxton.
Scene from The Life and Times of Michael K with Craig Leo and Carlo Daniels
World-renowned South African puppeteer Adrian Kohler has realised a 30-year-long ambition to make a novel by Nobel laureate JM Coetzee into a puppet play.
It follows a collaboration with Lara Foot, one of South Africa’s leading playwrights and directors, who has adapted for the stage The Life and Times of Michael K, which also happens to be Kohler’s favourite Coetzee book.
The novel is set in apartheid South Africa amidst a fictional civil war and the horrors of a dystopian world.
Michael K is born into poverty with a cleft lip and judged to have, in Coetzee’s words, “a mind that was not quick”. His mother, Anna, sends him away to an institution for “variously afflicted and unfortunate” children.
“Michael K is very much an outsider, and that’s why having him as a puppet works so well,” Kohler tells the BBC.
“Casting him and his mother as puppets – while all of the other characters that impinge on him and her are played by humans – allows you to create that kind of distance – of a character who is so much in his own being,” he adds.
The Life and Times of Michael K is set in a dystopian world
When Michael K grows up, he becomes a gardener and lives a simple, isolated life.
Michael K is “essentially an individual who sets an example in terms of how little we need to survive happily”, Foot says.
When his mother becomes ill and unable to walk, she wants to return to the rural home where she was born.
So Michael builds a handcart for her to travel in – and they set off from Cape Town through the Karoo semi-desert.
Michael K’s mother dies on the way home
Anna dies on the way. Michael carries on the journey with her ashes.
But he has to contend with being forced into a work camp, the loss of basic individual freedoms – and soldiers and rebels who try to force him to pick sides in a raging conflict.
“I think this resonates with all of us in terms of: what is our essence, and where do we want to be in the world?” Foot tells the BBC.
“This is especially so in the world today, where there are so many displaced people looking for a home or looking for a little bit of land. In Michael’s case – to become a gardener, to grow vegetables.”
The Life and TImes of Michael K makes its UK premiere on 3 August and runs until 27 August at the Edinburgh Fringe – one of the world’s biggest performing arts festivals.
The play is being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe
The cast includes some of South Africa’s acting legends, including Sandra Prinsloo, Andrew Buckland and Faniswa Yisa.
The production also uses performance, music and film.
“Partly so that we could see these beautiful puppets that Adrian carved up on a big screen, and partly so that we would understand the landscape of this journey and the beautiful loneliness of the Karoo in South Africa,” Foot says.
“It’s a really magnificent story for the stage, for theatrical expression,” she adds.
Lara Foot enjoys puppetry because puppets can do what humans can’t, like fly
The puppets are made by the Handspring Puppet Company, which was co-founded in 1981 by Kohler and his husband Basil Jones.
In 2021, they built Little Amal, a 12ft (3.7m) puppet that represents a young Syrian refugee girl and has become a worldwide symbol of hope and compassion for refugees.
“A puppet is a figure that is only manipulated into life by the mind and by the puppeteer,” Jones says.
“We are puppeteers because we love the way an audience’s imagination is provoked by the conceit of the moving figure of the puppet that imitates and, perhaps, flatters life – by trying to be alive,” he adds.
Kohler has been immersed in puppetry and woodworking since he was a child. He used to build puppets with his mother, an amateur puppeteer, and his father, a yacht builder and cabinet maker.
Adrian Kohler has been interested in woodwork since childhood
Jones, on the other hand, hated puppets at first. But that changed when Kohler bought “an incredibly elegant, beautifully painted puppet”.
It was a Bamana puppet from Mali – animals, fantastic creatures and characters from village life that have been used for centuries in theatre to comment on social and political life.
“I then understood that puppets weren’t only Punch and Judy and the Muppets,” Jones tells the BBC.
“That there’s an authentic ancient African tradition and a vast horizon of puppetry that had been unexplored.”
Handspring is famous for its lifelike, life-size puppets – like the horses in the international hit War Horse. And for reinventing the art of puppetry – through technical innovations and what they call “emotional engineering”.
“I think we’re the first group that really started talking about breath as an essential part of puppetry,” Jones says.
The puppet is particularly articulate and can walk in the air, Kohler says
“Gradually it became the fundamental thing behind our movement philosophy.”
The horses in War Horse, a play about the bond between a horse and a farm boy separated in World War One, are spellbindingly convincing. In the way they move – especially the ears that reveal the horses’ emotions, the noises they make and how they breathe.
Unlike those in War Horse, the Michael K puppet is not life-size – deliberately so “to increase the visual tension between the puppet and the human actors,” Kohler says.
“He’s a pretty articulate puppet. He can walk in the air, levitate out of a scene and he’s able to kind of fly against the story as it unfolds – against the war that is surrounding him – in a way that wouldn’t be possible if he were a human.”
In the tradition of the Bunraku puppeteers of Japan, the Michael K puppets are brought alive by the energies of three people. It is detailed, precise work as puppeteers sort out timings and movements.
On stage the actors cannot talk to each other or make eye contact with the audience – instead the eye contact and breathing is always with the puppets.
Actors can’t talk to each other on stage
“It is an intimate, highly sensitised form of performance that goes into a space of a kind of sacredness,” says Roshina Ratnam, the puppeteer who directs a goat and the head of Michael K’s mother.
She works with Faniswa Yisa, who is her voice and supporting hand puppeteer, and Nolufefe Ntshuntshe, who is her feet.
“You can make magic and there is a suspension of disbelief,” Ratnam says.
“Audiences really gasp when the puppet dies – and I love being able to elicit that emotion for something that we essentially know is a piece of wood.”
Ratnam first picked up a puppet 12 years ago – when she was cast as the lead in a play about Sadoko Sasaki, a Japanese girl who contracted leukaemia after surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Ratnam fell in love with puppetry – and she wants others to be able to experience that same joy.
As well as directing and performing, she is also the head of communications with the South African Puppetry Association, which aims to strengthen professional puppetry throughout the country.
Puppetry is being popularised in South Africa
It has a particular focus on reaching underprivileged communities and artists – and has run training courses for young black South Africans on how to build puppets from scratch and use puppetry in film and TV.
The Life and Times of Michael K production is the first time that Foot has directed puppets – and “to give a truthfulness to the life of the puppets was a huge challenge that took time and a lot of care”, she says.
“But one is allowed to be very creative and quite filmic when creating the scenes – because puppets can do what humans can’t do. They can fly, for instance. And that is the delight of puppetry.”
Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based in London
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — West African nations have given Niger’s coup leaders one week to reinstate the country’s democratically elected president and have threatened to use force if the demands aren’t met.
The announcement came at the end of an emergency meeting of West African countries Sunday in Nigeria, where the regional bloc, known as ECOWAS, convened to respond to last week’s military takeover. President Mohamed Bazoum remains under house arrest and has yet to resign.
“In the event the authority’s demands are not met within one week, (the bloc will) take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force,” said the statement.
The bloc also imposted strict sanctions, including suspending all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS member states and Niger and freezing of assets in regional central banks.
Economic sanctions could have a deep impact on Nigeriens, who live in the third-poorest country in the world, according to the latest U.N. data. The country relies on imports from Nigeria for up to 90% of its power, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The sanctions could be disastrous and Niger needs to find a solution to avoid them, the country’s Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou told French media outlet Radio France Internationale on Sunday.
“When people say there’s an embargo, land borders are closed, air borders are closed, it’s extremely difficult for people … Niger is a country that relies heavily on the international community,” he said.
The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc has unsuccessfully tried to restore democracies in nations where the military took power in recent years. Four nations are run by military governments in West and Central Africa, where there have been nine successful or attempted coups since 2020.
In the 1990s, ECOWAS intervened in Liberia during its civil war. In 2017, it intervened in Gambia to prevent the new president’s predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, from disrupting the handover of power. Around 7,000 troops from Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal entered, according to the Global Observatory, which provides analysis on peace and security issues.
If the regional bloc uses force, it could trigger violence not only between Niger and ECOWAS forces but also civilians supporting the coup and those against it, Niger analysts say.
“While this remains to be a threat and unlikely action, the consequences on civilians of such an approach if putschists chose confrontation would be catastrophic,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank.
Lyammouri also said he does not see a “military intervention happening because of the violence that could trigger.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken commended ECOWAS’ leadership Sunday to “defend constitutional order in Niger” after the sanctions announcement, and joined the bloc in calling for the immediate release of Bazoum and his family.
The military junta, which seized power on Wednesday when members of the presidential guard surrounded Bazoum’s house and detained him, is already cracking down on the government and civil liberties.
On Sunday evening it arrested four government officials, including Mahamane Sani Mahamadou, the minister of petroleum and son of former President Mahamadou Issoufou; Kassoum Moctar, minister of education; Ousseini Hadizatou Yacouba, the minister of mines, and Foumakoye Gado, the president of the ruling party. That’s according to someone close to the president, who was not authorized to speak about the situation, and a Nigerien analyst who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.
The same night, junta spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said on state television that all government cars need to be returned by midday Monday and banned the use of social media to diffuse messages against state security. He also claimed that Bazoum’s government had authorized the French to carry out strikes to free Bazoum. The Associated Press can’t verify his allegations.
In anticipation of the ECOWAS decision Sunday, thousands of pro-junta supporters took to the streets in the capital, Niamey, denouncing its former colonial ruler, France, waving Russian flags and telling the international community to stay away.
Demonstrators in Niger are openly resentful of France, and Russia is seen by some as a powerful alternative. The nature of Moscow’s involvement in the rallies, if any, isn’t clear, but some protesters have carried Russian flags, along with signs reading “Down with France” and supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The situation of this country is not good … It’s time for change, and change has arrived,” said Moussa Seydou, a protester. “What we want from the putschists — all they have to do is improve social conditions so that Nigeriens can live better in this country and bring peace,” he said.
NIAMEY, Niger — Thousands of protesters supporting a coup in Niger took to the streets on Sunday and attacked the French embassy as West African governments warned of possible military action to restore democratic rule.
Demonstrators in the capital, Niamey, many waving Russian flags, smashed windows at the French embassy and set a perimeter door on fire but never breached the walls of the embassy compound
Protesters filled the Boulevard de la Republique and several other main thoroughfares in the capital, some running, others riding motorcycles, and many packed into vehicles. They blocked cars at traffic circles, backing up traffic on side streets. Some shouted and waved flags, mostly from Niger.
In a span of several minutes, hundreds of protestors passed us as we watched from a vehicle, before deciding to turn around rather than trying to navigate through the sea of people. The morning also brought another new presence on the streets of Niamey — dozens of police checkpoints.
Most protestors seemed to support the coup leaders and, for the most part, those who gathered did not seem angry. In fact, many smiled and seemed joyful.
As the demonstrations unfolded in Niger, West African nations held an emergency summit in Nigeria and announced sweeping sanctions on Niger unless President Mohammed Bazoum was released from detention and returned to power.
Protesters gather in front of the French Embassy in Niamey in support of Niger’s junta on July 30, 2023.AFP – Getty Images
The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gave the coup leaders one week to reverse their seizure of power or face possible military intervention.
“In the event the authorities’ demands are not met within one week (ECOWAS will) take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force,” ECOWAS said in a statement.
ECOWAS said it was suspending all financial transactions with Niger, freezing Niger’s assets in central and commercial banks and imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on military officers involved in the coup.
The Army officers who lead the coup in Niger said earlier that the ECOWAS bloc was on the verge of orchestrating a military intervention in the country.
Niger has been the anchor for Western counter-terrorism efforts across the turbulent Sahel region, with roughly 1,100 U.S. troops operating drones and training local forces to fight Islamist extremists.
Protesters hold a sign taken from the French Embassy in Niamey, Niger, during a demonstration supporting the junta on Sunday.AFP – Getty Images
For decades, France ruled Niger as a colonial power until it gained independence in 1960. Paris has retained an influential role since and currently has about 1,500 troops conducting joint operations with local forces against Islamist extremists. A French state-owned firm also operates a uranium mine in the country’s north.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that assaults on France and its interests would not be tolerated.
“France calls for an end to the unacceptable violence observed today,” said the French foreign ministry, adding that it had stepped up security at the country’s embassy in Niamey.
France also said it supported the statement from the West African leaders in ECOWAS denouncing the coup.
Protesters cheer Nigerien troops as they gather in front of the French Embassy in Niamey during a demonstration that followed a rally in support of Niger’s junta on July 30, 2023.AFP – Getty Images
U.S. officials have condemned the military officers’ seizure of power but have so far avoided using the word “coup.” Under U.S. law, such a declaration would require halting all American aid to the country and the end of all security cooperation with Niger.
U.S. officials told NBC News the situation remained fluid and it was unclear if the coup would hold. But they acknowledged that the strong statement from the ECOWAS summit may have increased tension in Niger
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday warned that economic and security ties between the U.S. and Niger would depend on the release of President Bazoum from house arrest and the restoration of “the democratic order in Niger.”
Although U.S. officials say there is no sign Russia was behind the coup, former diplomats and regional experts say Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group has churned out anti-Western, anti-French propaganda for months that sought to depict President Bazoum’s government as puppets of Paris.
Wagner paramilitaries have ties to military juntas in Mali and other countries in the region. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, which led a brief mutiny in Russia last month, praised the coup in Niger on Thursday, calling it a fight against “colonizers.”
Late Sunday night, the streets of Niamey were quiet, with most people adhering to a nationwide curfew in effect for a fifth night. With President Bazoum still held captive in his presidential residence, no clear path appeared to exist for resolving Niger’s crisis.
Courtney Kube
Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
Mosheh Gains
Mosheh Gains is a Pentagon producer for NBC News.
Dan De Luce
Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
