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08/22/2022

NEWLY-ELECTED KENYAN LEADER ENDS VOTING BY TRIBE, ANALYSTS SAY

Aug. 22, 2022 (GIN) - Is the two party system a thing of the past? Low voter turnout in the U.S. seems to reflect disenchantment with a single choice between Democrat and Republican. Kenya is no
different.

This month, Kenyans tossed the traditional toss-up between the Luo and Kikuyu ethnic groups to choose William Samoei Ruto, a Kalenjin. His party, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) and its allies, took the political experts by surprise when he easily won all nine governorships of Mount Kenya - once considered a sure bet for a Luo.

Raila Odinga, son of a prominent Luo figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence, was making his fifth attempt at the presidency and was expected to sweep in the Luo region. Support from the outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, failed to put him over the top.

Meanwhile, “Ruto went to the remotest villages of Mount Kenya and talked to the lowest of market vendors,” said Peter Kagwanja who campaigned for Odinga and is head of the Africa Policy Institute, a think-tank in Nairobi. “He took a strong populist approach and his populism won.”

Margaret Njeri Mubuu, an elderly activist in the Kikuyu community, explained that she abandoned the party for its elitism to vote for Ruto. Meeting him at a campaign stop, she asked for help thwarting plans by the National Land Commission to evict villagers from their ancestral lands.

"The government that you voted for is not a government of breaching the law,” Ruto replied. “No one will be evicted forcefully so long as you have the ownership documents.”

“(Kenyatta) ignored the region, people were just fed up,” said Justin Muturi, speaker of the National Assembly for Mount Kenya. “People resonated with Ruto’s down-to-earth approach and economic message and concerns of the people. It has nothing to do with being Kikuyu or not anymore.”

Elected member of parliament from the UDA, Gabriel Kagombe, offered this explanation: “People no longer vote on an ethnic basis… Ruto said this nonsense of people voting on a tribal basis, having no other consideration than tribe, must come to an end,” he told the Guardian UK.

“Ruto has managed to kill tribalism in this country,” Kagombe said. “It’s the dawn of a new era.”

Ruto’s stump speech included vows to invest in agriculture which resonated among farmers in Mount Kenya facing higher food and fertilizer prices.

Although now a wealthy man, the 55 year old Ruto stresses his early roots as a roadside food vendor selling local chicken to passing truck drivers. He walked long distances to school, shoeless, knocking his toes on rocks and leaving bloody toenails behind. But that was his past.

Many admire the politician able to go from being a hustler to a millionaire with an estimated net worth of over 41 billion Kenyan shillings (US$333,899) and is ranked among the top 10 richest people in Kenya.

Meanwhile, Kenyan president-elect Ruto says that if there’s a court challenge to the election results, “we will engage in those” as East Africa's most stable democracy awaits a likely petition from losing candidate Raila Odinga. w/pix of W. Ruto

08/22/2022

MILITANTS TAKE LIVES AT SOMALI HOTEL AS U.S. SPECIAL OPS DEPLOY IN SOMALIA

Aug. 22, 2022 (GIN) - Government forces say they have put down a siege at the popular Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu that began Friday and has reportedly left over 20 casualties. It is the largest siege in the country since Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected president in May.

The Hayat is an upscale hotel frequented by government officials, elders and people from the diaspora community. The director of Mogadishu’s main trauma hospital, Mohamed Abdirahman Jama, said the facility was treating at least 40 people wounded in the hotel attack and a separate mortar strike on another area of the capital.

The founder and current chair of the Union for Peace and Development Party, President Sheikh Mohamud was previously a university professor and dean and was named in Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The weekend attack comes as Somali forces have stepped up operations against al-Shabab, and as Somalia’s President Mohamud has promised to eliminate the armed group. The al-Shabab leadership has also promised to topple Mohamud’s government.

Earlier this week, the United States announced that its forces had killed 13 al-Shabab fighters in an air raid in the central-southern part of the country as the group was attacking Somali forces.
The US has carried out several air raids on the group’s fighters in recent weeks.

Last May, President Biden signed an order authorizing the military to once again deploy hundreds of Special Operations forces inside Somalia — largely reversing the decision by President Donald J. Trump to withdraw nearly all 700 ground troops who had been stationed there, according to four officials familiar with the matter.

In addition, Mr. Biden approved a Pentagon request for standing authority to target about a dozen suspected leaders of Al Shabab, the Somali terrorist group that is affiliated with Al Qaeda, three of the officials said.

The decisions by Mr. Biden, described to Washington Post reporters on the condition of anonymity, will revive an open-ended American counterterrorism operation that has amounted to a slow-burn war through three administrations. The move stands in contrast to his decision last year to pull American forces from Afghanistan, saying that “it is time to end the forever war.” w/pix of Somali branch of Al-Shabab

08/22/2022

SOMALI’S SHAKESPEARE PASSES AFTER A LONG ILLNESS

Aug. 22, 2022 (GIN) - Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, better known by his pen name, Hadrawi, has passed away in the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa, after a long illness, according to family members. He was 79.

“We have lost an icon in Somali literature," Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said. "A man whom we will remember for his role in peace-building and conflict resolution, building the mindset of many Somalis through his wisdom and poems for the betterment and the unity of Somalis.

“I console all Somali people and his family for his departure."

Called “the Shakespeare of Somalia,” Warsame battled illness for years that left him hospitalized.

Born in Burao, the capital of the Toghdeer region in British Somaliland, to a nomadic camel-herding family, Hadrawi graduated in literature and education at the Somali University in Mogadishu in the early 1970s, shortly after Somalia declared independence.

He grew up in the Yemeni port city of Aden where he lived with his uncle. Here he became known for his vivid imagination and storytelling, earning him the nickname “Hadrawi”.

His work, which numbers over 200 poems, cut across political, clan and economic classes.

“Without poetry, we would not exist as a society. It can rouse thousands of people in a minute and demobilize thousands in a minute. As the stomach needs food, so the brain needs beautiful words,” Hadraawi once said.

As an influential commentator, his protest poems and plays against the military junta led by former dictator Siad Barre led to his imprisonment in the notorious Qansah Dheere for five years in the mid-1970s.

Upon release, he fled to Ethiopia where he joined the Somali National Movement (SNM) and continued writing revolutionary poems. He refused to seek asylum in the United Kingdom and returned to his homeland to singlehandedly lead a march (known as the “Hadraawi Peace March”) appealing for peace and an end to all animosities.

One of his most famous poems, Hooyo‘, which means mother, is an ode to Somali women and their societal role.

His most extensive work, an 800-verse poem titled Daba Huwan, which translates as “cloaked in black,” chronicles the hardships endured by the millions of Somalis forced to flee their homeland and settle abroad, which he experienced when he escaped Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s. w/pix of “Hadrawi”

08/22/2022

SON OF GOODWILL ZWELITHINI ASCENDS TO ZULU ROYAL THRONE

Aug. 22, 2022 (GIN) – In the traditional ceremonies of the Zulu people, Misuzulu Zulu, 47, was crowned the new king of the country’s richest and most influential traditional monarchy.

Thousands of people gathered at the Zulu royal palace in South Africa to witness the ceremony.

Misuzulu Zulu ascended to the throne once held by his late father, Goodwill Zwelithini. The ceremonies were partially overshadowed by a bitter succession dispute.

Attired in a traditional leopard skin and a necklace of predator claws, the new leader promised to unite the Zulu nation..

Although the title of king does not bestow executive power, the monarchs wield great moral influence over more than 11 million Zulus, who make up nearly a fifth of South Africa's population.

Earlier, Misuzulu had entered the palace's "cattle kraal" where he took part in a secret rite designed to present the new monarch to his ancestors.

Royal minstrels sang the praises of the new king and told the story of his legendary ancestors.

Suddenly, the king emerged before the crowd dressed in black feathers cinched at the waist by a belt, a spear and holding a shield. He joined a line of warriors who swore loyalty to their new leader.

Zulu kings are descendants of King Shaka, the 19th-century leader who united the Zulu nation and led bloody battles against the British colonizers.

Since the death of King Zwelithini and his third wife, legal challenges cropped up backing one or another of the king’s six wives 28 children.

An effort to stop all rituals was denied by a Pietermaritzburg court.

The next Zulu monarch will inherit a fortune – including millions from the government and 74 million acres of land.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who in March recognized Misuzulu as the rightful king, is to formally certify the crowning at a ceremony in the coming months.

07/05/2022

GHANAIANS TAKE TO THE STREETS OVER INTOLERABLE LIVING COSTS

July 4, 2022 (GIN) - “Mr. President, where is our money? The high cost of living will kill us.”

Those were the cries that filled the streets of Accra as the usually peaceful people of Ghana could no longer stop their anger and frustration over intolerable living costs, record inflation, and misleading information about the economy shared by the government.

Over the past week, hundreds of Ghanaians clashed with police and denounced their government’s inaction on the crisis.

Authorities are now searching for the protest leaders although it’s an open question as to whether police or protestors started the violence.

A group calling itself Arise Ghana ( ) appeared to be leading the demonstrations, supported by members of the political opposition, the young and old and the unemployed as well as such figures as Sammy Gyamfi, National Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress, and economist and development officer Bernard Anbataayela Mornah.

“We call on the Ministry of Finance to scrap the obnoxious electronic transaction fee that is imposing more hardship on the people of Ghana, syphoning their capital and above all confiscating our savings,” Mornah said.

According to Arise, inflation is running at over 20% in Ghana and a third of people under 30 are unemployed.

Government also infuriated Ghanaians when, in about-face, it reached out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout after pledging not to do so. Gyamfi called it “pathetic and ridiculous, particularly so given the negative commentary that President Akufo-Addo, his Vice, Alhaji Bawumia and other leading figure of the NPP made about IMF programs in time past.”

Protestors are also raising the issue of the Achimota Forest Reserve in Accra. The Ghanaian government has sold some 361 acres of “peripheral lands” from the reserve, citizens have learned, handing it over to the Owoo family, from whom the existing reserve land had been purchased in the 1920s.

“The 495 [hectare] Achimota Forest Reserve,” wrote GhanaWeb columnist Philip Kyeremanteng, “has over the years lost more than 150 [hectares]to urban infrastructure development and illegal encroachment.”

These concerns combined with delays in infrastructure projects and public fights over high-cost ventures like the new national cathedral are putting the government on the defensive.

Social media such as Instagram and Twitter is carrying most of the reporting while the BBC is carrying reports in pidgin, a widely understood idiom.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah pushed back at critics during his own press conference as protestors gathered for another demonstration.

“There’s an obvious attempt to create instability in our country at this time and we don’t need to mince words about it… We have people attacking the police in this manner. Can you imagine what would have happened if indeed some of these things were allowed to continue through the night?”

In its own tweets, the police service pushed back against the claims: “What a shame, we were there to protect you and ensure your safety, but you throw stones at us, injure and hurt us.” They added that video footage of the demonstration is being reviewed.

07/05/2022

MUGABE SUPPORTER TO HEAD PAN-AFRICAN PARLIAMENT, AVOIDING DEBACLE

July 4, 2022 (GIN) - As members of the Pan-African Parliament hotly disputed the election of senator and chief Fortune Charumbira as their next president, a familiar figure could have turned the exercise upside down.

The familiar figure was ex-President Robert Mugabe. Charumbia, an unapologetic Mugabe supporter, once faced censure from Zimbabwe’s High Court which ruled that his comments publicly supporting Mugabe’s Zanu PF party were unconstitutional as chiefs are required to be neutral.

The Election Resource Centre also ordered Charumbira to be censured for comments that could “undermine the rule of law.”

“If left to fester, this has the potential to destroy the rule of law and constitutional supremacy in Zimbabwe,” the ERC wrote. “The Minister of Local Government and all electoral stakeholders must resist the temptation to exempt the conduct of Chief Charumbira from necessary scrutiny on his conduct.”

He was subsequently instructed to retract his comment.

When two African leaders dropped their support for Charumbira for candidates from their own region, some speculated that the Mugabe acolyte could have estranged the Europeans, leading them to threaten needed support or continuing sanctions.

Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of South Africa, did not mince words, daring funders who could have been aggrieved by Charumbira’s election to “go to hell with their money”.

Last year, violent scenes from the parliament, based in Midrand, Johannesberg, were beamed across the world after Malema and then Zimbabwean Pan-African parliamentarian Barbara Rwodzi disrupted the presidential election proceedings, insisting that Charumbira of the Southern caucus must be given a chance.

But this time, before anyone got a black eye, the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, appeared and gave the MPs a stern lecture.

Faki defended the selection of Parliament heads based on a system of rotation to avoid another debacle and to salvage the reputation of the Pan-African Parliament and that of the continent, as last year’s aborted elections “… have tarnished the image of this institution and that of the entire continent.

“The unbearable scenes projected on TV and social media, which were seen by Africans, belittled the parliament. It was a disgrace for the continent,” he said.

His lecture succeeded. South Sudan withdrew its candidate and Chief Charumbira was elected unopposed.

07/05/2022

GHANA CRACKS DOWN ON ITS LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY OVER OPPOSITION FROM DIASPORA

July 4, 2022 (GIN) – Legislators in Ghana with unapologetic support from President Nana Akufo-Addo have come up with a new law making life even harder for LGBTQIA+ persons in the West African country, a bill which essentially strips the community of all human rights.

Dubbed the “most homophobic document the world has ever seen”, the 36-page Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which is yet to be considered by parliament, would criminalize LGBTQIA+ activities in the religious West African country.

The draft bill also proposes punishment for groups and individuals who advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, express sympathy or offer social or medical support.

Social media has blasted Ghana’s proposed “anti-gay” bill as has the Ghanaian diaspora and the international community that dubbed the west African country known as the Black Star of Africa - a beacon of tolerance and peace.

Karen Attiah, writing for the Washington Post, points out that many African countries have anti-gay laws still on the books from their colonial eras. Ghana, a religiously conservative country and former British colony, has long outlawed “unnatural carnal knowledge,” though the law has rarely been enforced, she recently wrote.

In recent years, however, a few African countries have started to remove those colonial-era laws. Mozambique did so in 2015, followed by Botswana and Angola in 2019.

“Not so for Ghana,” continued Attiah. “Local LGBTQ activists told me things took a dark turn in 2019, after the World Congress of Families, a U.S.-based Christian group, organized a conference in Ghana. The group’s goal was to push harsh criminal punishments for LGBTQ behavior, as it succeeded in doing in Uganda and Nigeria several years ago.”

“They confidently said they were going to do the same thing in Ghana” Alex Donkor, the executive director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana, an advocacy group, told the Post reporter.

Nonetheless, Donkor’s group, in 2021, managed to open a community resource center for LGBTQ people in Accra. “We wanted a safe space, a place where we could provide support for each other,” Donkor told Attiah.

But when the center opened and word got out, it was raided by law enforcement, following claims it was a recruitment center for a gay agenda. The center was quickly shut down.

Under the proposed bill those who engage in gay s*x could spend three to five years in jail. LGBTQ organizations are outlawed but there is state support for conversion therapy - practices intended to change a person's s*xual orientation. Cross-dressing and same-s*x affection such as holding hands can come with a jail sentence of six months to a year.

Supporters and opponents of Ghana's new bill faced off in parliament last November in the first public hearings into the proposed legislation that would make it a crime to be gay, bis*xual or transgender.

Akoto Ampaw, a lawyer representing a coalition against the law, was met with occasional jeers as he told the session the Family Values bill would be "totalitarian" and "unconstitutional".

On the other side of the argument, Abraham Ofori-Kuragu, a representative of Ghana's Pentecostal council, told the tense gathering of lawmakers and media the bill reflected the will of most Ghanaians.

"Our greatest worry is the health and safety of our community members," Danny Bediako, director of the human rights organisation Rightify Ghana, told Reuters. "I have never seen so many people who want to leave the country."

06/27/2022

AFRICAN ABORTION RIGHTS BASED ON ROE V WADE NOW AT RISK AFTER SUPREME COURT DECISION

June 27, 2022 (GIN) - In Africa, where the risk of dying from an unsafe abortion is the highest in the world, Roe v Wade has long been an important weapon in the arsenal of those fighting to liberalize abortion laws and make the procedure safer for women and girls despite it rarely being invoked by name.

Human rights lawyer Stephanie Musho, a Kenyan, pointed to the case of Tunisia which liberalized their law limiting abortions just nine months after the Roe v Wade ruling – allowing women to access the service on demand.

Cape Verde allowed for abortion on request prior to 12 weeks gestation which aligns with Roe v Wade holding of the same.

“US policies on abortion,” she wrote in Al Jazeera, “whether we like it or not, significantly influence how seriously governments around the world take the issue of unsafe abortions.”

A surprising number of decisions reveal African courts referencing the Roe v Wade ruling. In a recent decision by the High Court of Kenya in Malindi, abortion care was called a fundamental right under the Kenyan Constitution and arbitrary arrests and prosecution of patients and healthcare providers for seeking or offering such services were outlawed.

The court relied upon the principles set out in previous SCOTUS (Supreme Court of The United States) decisions including Roe v Wade; Griswold v Connecticut; Eisenstadt v Baird; and Rochin v California among others.

“Thus the move by SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade will also put the right to abortion in further jeopardy in my own country,” warned Musho.

Still, Kenya’s High Court’s ruling was greeted with applause from Evelyn Opondo, senior regional director for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights, who called it “a victory for all women, girls, and health care providers who have been treated as criminals for seeking and providing abortion care... The Court has vindicated our position by affirming that forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to seek out an unsafe.”

Now, some 30 years after Roe v Wade, the African Union has finally adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the Maputo Protocol, Musho wrote in the CommonDreams news site.

The protocol explicitly requires countries to authorize medical abortions in cases of s*xual assault, r**e, in**st, or where the continued pregnancy endangers the health of the mother - a provision that draws from the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women which based its argument on access to safe abortion on Roe v Wade.

Today, of the 55 member countries in the AU, 49 have signed the protocol and 43 have ratified it.

Since South Africa’s legalization of abortion on demand been a decrease in deaths from clandestine abortions (those provided outside of designated facilities), but the number of deaths following abortions are still quite high according to statistics gathered in Gauteng province—5% of maternal deaths following childbirth are abortion related, and 57% of these are related to illegal abortions. w/pix of Senegalese teen mom

06/27/2022

KENYAN FRONTRUNNER IN UPCOMING POLL TAPS WOMAN JUSTICE AS RUNNING MATE

June 27, 2022 (GIN) -The former prime minister and a frontrunner in the August 9 presidential election, Raila Odinga, has tapped Martha Wangari Karua, a former justice and constitutional affairs minister, as his running mate - making her the first woman in Kenya to run on a major political party’s presidential ticket.

It is believed she can pull in a decisive number of votes among her Kikuyu people, the country’s largest ethnic group.

In her acceptance speech, Karua called her selection “a moment for the women of Kenya”, and a change that generations of women have fought for.

As a founder of organizations such as the League of Kenyan Women Voters and the Federation of Women Lawyers, Karua actively lobbied for the increased representation of women in political positions.

A lawyer by training and a social justice advocate with over 30 years rooted in law, she was a critic of the autocratic Daniel Arap Moi regime when he sought to make Kenya a one party state.

Karua entered mainstream politics in the early 1990s, becoming a member of parliament. If elected, she said her priority would be to stamp out corruption, which is estimated to cost the government a third of its budget every year, about 800 billion shillings ($6.83 billion).

The funds lost each year would be enough to fund her coalition's plan to offer direct monthly support to two million of Kenya's poorest people.

Kenyans call her “Iron Lady” - a moniker she rejects as a s*xist trope directed at tough women leaders.

“Strong leadership in women is seen as an exception and not the norm because I haven't heard of an 'iron man'," the 64-year-old former justice minister told Reuters in an interview.

Currently, four candidates - whittled down from 55 - are angling to succeed incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta who is constitutionally barred from continuing in office after serving two five-year terms.

The two main challengers are opposition leader Raila Odinga, 77, for whom Kenyatta has publicly declared his support, and William Ruto, 55, the president’s deputy.

A former political prisoner, Odinga’s center-left campaign agenda is focused on tackling corruption and fixing the loopholes which he says are denying Kenyans basic services. He has also promised national reconciliation to unite the country, judiciary reforms and social welfare for poor households.

In Odinga's last three campaigns for office in 2007, 2013, and 2017, he challenged the outcomes, saying his victories were stolen. Deadly clashes followed the 2007 and 2017 votes.

Ruto, 55, has been deputy president since 2013. He founded a “youth front” (YK92) which propelled his political career during President Daniel Arap Moi’s era. His running mate is first-time lawmaker Rigathi Gachagua, described by Ruto as “a fantastic grassroots mobilizer who rose from the hardship of the aftermath of our freedom struggle to the pinnacle of professional business and political success.”

Kenya is East Africa's most well-off and stable nation and a close Western ally that hosts the regional headquarters of international firms like Alphabet Inc

But public debt has more than tripled by $61.32 billion since Kenyatta assumed office in 2013, pushing against the nation's debt ceiling.

"Our intention is to renegotiate the debt and make them long term so that we are able to meet our obligations," Karua said. w/pix of R. Odinga (l) and M.W. Karua (r)

06/27/2022

EX-PRESIDENT OF OIL-RICH ANGOLA REPORTED IN INTENSIVE CARE

LUANDA, June 24 - Colonial powers from east to west all played a role in subjugating the southern African nation of Angola over a stretch of 500 years until independence was achieved on Nov. 5, 1975. Agostinho Neto, a politician, physician and poet, was first to hold the presidency. After his death in 1979, Jose Eduardo dos Santos assumed the post.

Dos Santos ruled Africa's second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades. He received many international awards for his commitment to anti-colonialism and for negotiating with rebel groups but he was also criticized as a dictator, accused of creating one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa with a deeply-entrenched patronage network.

His rule was marked by a brutal civil war lasting nearly three decades against U.S.-backed UNITA rebels - who were defeated in 2002.

Dos Santos stepped down five years ago. News reports from the Portuguese agency Lusa now place the so-called “African Machiavelli” in intensive care at a clinic in Barcelona. The former leader, age 79, has been receiving treatment since 2019.

Under President dos Santos, the economy of the war-scarred nation soared between 2002 and 2014. Prices boomed and Angola’s economy expanded tenfold, from $12.4 billion to $126 billion. But little of that wealth trickled down to the poor, while those closest to dos Santos became super-rich - including his daughter, Isabel, whom Forbes labelled Africa's richest woman and youngest billionaire, worth about $3 billion.

Last month a Dutch court ruled that a half-billion-dollar stake in the Portuguese oil company Galp linked to Isabel must be handed over to Angola, since its acquisition was "tainted by illegality."

Dos Santos was replaced in 2017 by President Joao Lourenco who swiftly moved to probe allegations of multi-billion dollar corruption during the dos Santos era, targeting the former leader's children. Dos Santos, meanwhile, has managed to escape prosecution over his government’s many corruption crimes. w/pix of J. E. dos Santos

06/23/2022

WORLD HEALTH BODY WANTS NEW NAME FOR ‘MONKEYPOX’ VIRUS, CALLING IT ‘DISCRIMINATORY AND STIGMATIZING’

June 20, 2022 (GIN) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced plans to find a new name for the viral disease informally known as ‘monkeypox’ which, says the world body, is “discriminatory and stigmatizing.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a briefing on the matter, said the virus is no longer behaving as it did in the past and therefore should be renamed.

But a public narrative persists in suggesting the current outbreak is linked to Africa, West Africa or Nigeria, noted a group of 29 biologists and other researchers. That builds on an existing stigma, although the virus has been detected without a clear link to Africa.

The majority -- 84 percent -- of confirmed cases are from the European region, followed by the Americas, Africa, Eastern Mediterranean region and Western Pacific region.

"The most obvious manifestation of this is the use of photos of African patients to depict the pox lesions in mainstream media in the global north," the researchers said.

Ahmed Ogwell, deputy director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than a dozen infectious disease experts in the U.S. and Europe are soliciting suggestions for a new name using the website virological.org.

"We are removing the distinction between endemic and non-endemic countries, reporting on countries together where possible, to reflect the unified response that is needed," the WHO said in its outbreak situation update dated June 17 but sent to media on Saturday.

As for what the virus should be called, the scientists suggest starting with hMPXV, to denote the human version of the monkeypox virus. Rather than geographic locations, they say, letters and numbers should be used, based on order of discovery. In that system, the lineage behind the current international outbreak would be dubbed B.1.

The Geneva-based UN health agency is due to hold an emergency meeting on June 23 to determine whether to classify the global monkeypox outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern - the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.

It has been reported in 39 countries so far in 2022, and most of them are having their first-ever cases of the disease, according to the WHO. Worldwide, it says, there are around 3,100 confirmed or suspected cases, including 72 deaths. The normal initial symptoms include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.

Between January 1 and June 15, 2,103 confirmed cases, a probable case and one death have been reported to the WHO in 42 countries, it said.

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Global Information Network began as a Third World news distributor about 4 decades ago. Gradually our focus turned to Africa, a sorely-under-reported region of the world. Our news clients asked for more Africa news as well. Over the years we have developed a network of colleagues in African media. Our goal is to introduce new voices from the continent, to increase insights, analyses and perspectives for a wide audience and to bring into their view information about African issues that are overlooked or under-reported by mainstream media or our capacity as a non-for-profit 501(c)3 organization.