African Briefs … Isabel dos Santos plans legal action over ‘Luanda Leaks’

LONDON — Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos plans to take legal action against the media which published a vast enquiry dubbed ‘Luanda Leaks’ about the origin of her fortune, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by her Portuguese PR firm.

About 30 members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), including the BBC, the New York Times and French daily Le Monde, published on 19 January an enquiry concluding that the daughter of Angola’s ex-president Eduardo dos Santos allegedly accumulated an estimated US$2,1 billion fraudulently. She denied the “unfounded allegations and false claims” and said she has taken steps “to act legally against the ICIJ and the ICIJ’s partners,” in the statement in Portuguese dated Monday. The legal action will be carried out by the UK-based law firm of Schillings Partners.

ADDIS ABABA — Protests broke out in multiple cities in Ethiopia’s Amhara region on Tuesday, as public anger grew over the government’s response to the abduction of more than two dozen university students, state-affiliated media reported. The mass abduction took place in early December in Ethiopia’s restive Oromia region, focusing attention on security challenges as prime minister Abiy Ahmed tries to steer the country toward elections tentatively scheduled for August. Abiy’s office waited more than a month to acknowledge the incident, issuing a statement on 11 January saying 21 of the 27 students had been freed. But the students’ families say they have yet to hear from them – casting doubt on the government’s claims. Mulu Adane, the father of one of the kidnapped students, told AFP on Tuesday that he suspected officials were withholding information about the students’ fate.

ADDIS ABABA — Four people with suspected coronavirus have been put into isolation in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, the BBC’s Bizuwork Olana reports. Since last Wednesday, all passengers arriving from China are being screened at Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport to check for infections. At a press conference in Addis Ababa, health minister Lia Tadesse and other officials said all four of the suspected cases were Ethiopian nationals. Three of them were students who had travelled back from various universities near Wuhan city, the epicentre of the outbreak. Health officials say blood samples are to be sent to South Africa for further investigation. To date Ethiopian Airlines has screened more than 22 000 passengers for symptoms of the deadly virus. More than 100 people have now died in China, with confirmed infections surging to more than 4 500.

KIGALI — Rwanda’s government has started spraying insecticides in mosquito-breeding sites using drones. The head of the malaria division at Rwanda biomedical centre told the BBC that the drones would be loaded with 10 litres of an insecticide that kills mosquitoes at their larval stage. “The unmanned aerial vehicles are going to support the existing efforts that include mosquito nets and housing sprays to fight anopheles which spread malaria,” Amiable Mbituyumuremyi said. “Now we also want to fight these mosquitoes from their sources. The drones will spray a sort of larvicide, which kills that type of mosquito,” he added. About 3,9 million people were diagnosed with malaria between 2018 and 2019, according to the Rwanda Biomedical Centre. The mass spraying of mosquitoes is targeting specific areas with the highest cases and is said to be safe for humans.

– Nampa-AFP-BBC News

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