His team performed 90 operations in nine days on a recent trip.
His charity also helped to build a hospital.
Mr Hicks started his work in Carpenter, an area of northern Ghana, in 2011, and initially worked with a worldwide charity, Hernia International.
He said: “Repairing hernias reduces suffering, pain and in some cases prevents death from strangulation of the bowel.
“Most Ghanaian patients are farmers reliant on working to support their families – by having their hernias repaired, the patients are able to return to work and continue providing for their families.”
Image caption,Robert Hicks’s wife Jo and son Ted have both been involved in the project
The charity organised regular trips with teams of people, including volunteers from NGH, who carried out surgeries.
It also worked with Canadian and Ghanaian charities to create the Leyaata Hospital in Carpenter, which opened in 2022.
Hernia International Carpenter is now working to raise enough funds to develop a centre for health education and research.
‘Well deserved’
Anne Smith said: “Rob’s passion for his work in Ghana inspired me to join with the UK team in 2017 as a team paediatrician.
“For over 10 years, he has stepped outside of his comfort zone to selflessly reduce this health inequality, whilst also training local surgeons to ensure sustainable healthcare in this region.
“This honour is well deserved.”
Image caption,Robert Hicks has made nine trips to Ghana, including this one in 2018
NGH’s medical director, Hemant Nemade, said: “Robert, and all of our staff who have been involved in this amazing work, travel to Ghana in their own time and have made an enormous contribution to many hundreds of patients in that country.”
Mr Hicks said he http://caridimanaka.com/ was “humbled and incredibly proud by the recognition the MBE brings for all the work of our Charity for those people who live in this underserved region of Ghana in a way that has far exceeded my expectations”.
Moses Lugalia has joined Kenya’s budding electric vehicle revolution – by exchanging the noisy roar of his petrol motorbike for the gentle hum of an electric one.
Motorbike taxis are everywhere in Kenya, as in many African countries, because they are cheaper than cars, and can be better for navigating the notorious traffic jams in the capital, Nairobi.
Mr Lugalia has been in the motorbike taxi business for five years, transporting people and goods around Nairobi.
He would spend about 1,000 Kenyan shillings a day – just over $6 (£5) – on fuel when he used a petrol bike.
Nairobi drivers earn on average about $10-15 a day, according to the country’s Boda-Boda Association.
Since going electric, Mr Lugalia says he spends no more than $1.42 a day – so his profits are now up and that makes him very happy.
“Because of the cost of petrol, I am able to save a lot more using my electric bike,” says Mr Lugalia with a smile.
Instead of filling up with petrol, Mr Lugalia now swaps the bike’s electric battery once, sometimes twice, a day at one of the growing number of swap stations in Nairobi. A fully charged battery will allow him to drive for about 80km (50 miles), almost a whole day’s work.
“Electric is the future in Kenya,” Mr Lugalia tells the BBC.
The Kenyan government thinks so too. President William Ruto launched a national “e-mobility” programme on 1 September 2023.
Motorbikes and three-wheeled tuk-tuks, or auto rickshaws, are the centrepiece of a move to make transport green and reduce air pollution.
The government hopes the prospect of cheaper running costs will create a gearshift in the minds of other drivers of the ubiquitous boda-bodas, most of whom still use petrol or diesel.
Image caption,Boda-bodas are one of the most common ways to get around Nairobi
Taking a boda-boda is a convenient, fast and cheap way to get around.
But many of the motorcycles are old, poorly maintained and big polluters. Although they produce less carbon dioxide than cars, they release more nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons – which affect air quality and the climate.
Nairobi is one of the world’s most heavily congested cities. Its population swells from about 4.5 million to more than six million people during rush-hours.
The daily gridlock can be a choking nightmare for commuters – transport accounts for about 40% of Nairobi’s air pollution, and globally for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Clean Air Fund.
Other major climate change culprits are deforestation, agriculture, manufacturing, and the open burning of waste.
Africa contributes only 2% to 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it suffers disproportionately from climate change, according to the UN Environment Programme.
Nevertheless, Kenya’s government sees a shift to green transport as vital to help meet its climate goals. It wants more than 200,000 electric bikes on the road by the end of 2024.
On average e-bikes emit 75% less total greenhouse gases.
So far only about 2,000 boda-boda drivers have switched from petrol to electric.
Image caption,Boda-bodas can be the quickest way to navigate Nairobi’s notorious traffic jams
In many ways, Kenya is an ideal market for electric motorbikes. About 85% of its electricity is renewable, generated by hydro, solar, geothermal, and wind.
Kenya has experienced some devastating droughts in recent years – which affects hydro-power – but there is significant room to grow its geothermal, solar and wind capacity.
A handful of Kenyan start-ups have taken advantage of this and set up shop in the past three years, manufacturing, designing, assembling and selling electric motorcycles.
They are also teaming up with creditors to offer cheap loans, which is the only way boda-boda drivers can afford to buy their own vehicles.
Mr Lugalia sold off his old petrol bike and used some of the proceeds to make a down-payment for an electric bike – and then paid the rest of the $1,500 in daily instalments over a year.
He now owns the bike outright – but not the battery.
“That wouldn’t make economic and business sense,” says Steve Juma, the co-founder of electric bike company Ecobodaa, as the battery is the most expensive part of an electric bike.
It would almost double the cost.
So sellers retain ownership of the battery and have set up about several hundred battery-swap points in the capital – in shopping malls, petrol stations and fast food outlets.
Mr Lugalia says he has no trouble finding a place where he can swap over batteries. Using an app on his phone, he can open a cabinet, place his spent lithium battery into an empty locker, and take out a fully charged one from another locker.
But if you go beyond the city, it is a different story – and that is a huge disincentive for most boda-boda drivers I spoke to when I was in Nairobi.
“You can’t go to a remote area where there is no charging system for the battery,” one man said, explaining why he was not yet ready to go green.
While others said they did not want https://sisipkan.com/ electric bikes because of the perception that they were more expensive to buy than petrol ones. And others say the range of an electric bike – between 60 and 80km – is too limiting.
The government, however, sees a future where all Kenyan streets echo with the quiet hum of e-motorcycles and wants to eventually phase out traditional boda-bodas altogether.
There is still a long way to go, given how limited the electric vehicle infrastructure is beyond Nairobi.
Image caption,There are already some initiatives to cut emissions on Nairobi’s roads
But the government says the private sector, which is already investing in Nairobi, can play a pivotal role elsewhere too.
“We are confident that if we succeed in establishing proper infrastructure in Nairobi, that will encourage the same investors to invest,” Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Roads and Transport, Kipchumba Murkomen, told the BBC
Some companies have already announced ambitious plans.
Masalule Kituyi of Roam says the company will be producing 8,000 electric motorcycles by next year.
Spiro, which operates in Kenya, Benin, Togo, Rwanda and Uganda, plans to set up 3,000 battery-charging and swapping stations across Kenya.
And by the end of 2024, another Nairobi-based start-up, Arc-Ride, wants to build 1,000 electric vehicles and set up more than 300 battery stations in Nairobi.
Women drivers only make up 1% of the industry, but Arc-Ride believes electric bikes might attract more into the business. It has approached some to test-drive its new e-boda motorcycles – including Carol Kamal.
She studied journalism but cannot find a job in that field, so turned to boda-boda driving.
She was so impressed by the electric boda-boda’s efficiency and quietness that she’s now saving up to go electric.
Image caption,Inside Synagogue Church of all Nations in Lagos, founded by TB Joshua
By Charlie Northcott & Helen Spooner
BBC News, Africa Eye
TB Joshua, a charismatic Nigerian leader of one of the world’s biggest evangelical churches, secretly committed sexual crimes on a mass scale, a BBC investigation spanning three continents has found. Testimony from dozens of survivors suggests Joshua was abusing and raping young women from around the world several times a week for nearly 20 years.
Warning: Contains accounts of torture, rape and self-harm
The last time many of her friends saw her was at university in Brighton. She had been studying graphic design, living in a shared house 25 minutes from the sea. Rae was bright and popular.
“For me, it was like she died, but I couldn’t grieve her,” says Carla, Rae’s best friend at the time.
Carla knew where Rae had gone. But the truth of it was hard to explain to their friends. A few weeks previously, she and Rae had travelled to Nigeria together, in search of a mysterious man who could seemingly heal people with his hands. He was a Christian pastor, with a black beard, in white robes. His name was TB Joshua. His followers called him “The Prophet”.
Rae and Carla planned to visit his church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations [Scoan], for just one week. But Rae never came home. She had moved into Joshua’s compound.
“I left her there,” says Carla, tears flowing freely. “Never will I ever forgive myself for that.”
The church looms like a gothic temple over the Ikotun neighbourhood in Lagos, Africa’s largest city. Joshua designed all 12 storeys of the compound adjoining it, where he lived alongside many of his followers. He oversaw the construction of the multiple staircases to his bedroom. The three doors to it, in and out. The hidden prayer room full of tiny mirrors. The “clinic” downstairs.
We have interviewed many people who lived inside. They paint a picture of a concrete labyrinth; a nightmarish world where reality slipped away and horrors unfolded.
Numerous women say they were sexually assaulted by Joshua, with a number claiming they were repeatedly raped behind closed doors. Some say they were forced to have abortions after becoming pregnant.
Image caption,Carla (left) with Rae – she says she is devastated that she came home without her best friend
“On the outside I look normal, but I’m not,” she says.
When Rae talks about her years in Lagos, her lips tighten. She talks breathlessly. At times, the colour visibly drains from her face. She spent 12 years inside Joshua’s compound.
“This story is like a horror story. It’s like something you watch in fiction, but it’s true.”
The two-year investigation, in collaboration with international media platform openDemocracy, has involved more than 15 BBC journalists across three continents. They gathered archive video recordings, documents, and hundreds of hours of interviews to corroborate Rae’s testimony and uncover further harrowing stories. More than 25 eyewitnesses and alleged victims, from the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, US, South Africa and Germany, have provided accounts of what it was like inside Joshua’s compound, with the most recent experiences in 2019.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations did not respond to the allegations, but said previous claims have been unfounded.
Former followers have previously tried to speak out about abuse, but say they have been silenced or discredited by Scoan, and two say they were physically assaulted. When the BBC’s Africa Eye was filming outside the church, a security guard shot above the heads of the crew after they refused to hand over their material.
Many of our interviewees have waived their legal right to anonymity, in most cases asking just their surnames be omitted. Others asked that their identities remain hidden for fear of reprisals.
The man at the heart of Scoan is regarded as one of the most influential pastors in African history. He died, unexpectedly, in June 2021, just days after many of our first interviews were recorded. On the day of his funeral, Lagos ground to a halt as mourning crowds packed the streets.
Image caption,TB Joshua was hugely influential in Nigeria – and across the world
Some 50,000 people would attend Joshua’s services every week, and the church became a top site for foreign visitors to Nigeria. His global television and social media empire was among the most successful Christian networks in the world, with millions of viewers spanning Europe, the Americas, South East Asia and Africa. His YouTube channel had hundreds of millions of views.
The church is still popular today, led by his widow Evelyn and a new team of disciples.
An interview with Nelson Mandela’s daughter in 2013 shows a portrait of Joshua sitting on the former president of South Africa’s desk. In his lifetime, Joshua attracted dozens of politicians and celebrities to his church, including sporting legends such as Chelsea FC striker Didier Drogba and at least nine African presidents.
Many of his followers were drawn by his philanthropy, but most came for his so-called miracles. Joshua systematically filmed spectacular “healings” throughout his career. After Joshua prayed for them, individuals on camera testified to being cured of ailments ranging from cancer and HIV/Aids, to chronic migraines and blindness.
“We’d never… seen anything like that before,” says Solomon Ashoms, a journalist who covers African religion.
“The mysteries that he had, the secrets that he carried, [were] what people followed.”
A number of Joshua’s videos show men with severely infected genitals, which burst open and then miraculously heal when he raises his arm in prayer. Others show women struggling to give birth, who instantaneously deliver their children when Joshua approaches. After each event, those involved would testify to being saved.
Image caption,TB Joshua deliberately courted Westerners to market his brand, former insiders say
Video tapes of Joshua’s healings were circulating among evangelical churches throughout Europe and Africa in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Rae, who had grown up with conservative Christian values, was inspired to travel to Lagos after watching these videos, shown to her by a South African acquaintance.
“I was gay and I didn’t want to be,” she says. “I thought: ‘Well, maybe this is the answer to my problems. Maybe this man can straighten me out. Like if he prays for me, I won’t be gay any more.'”
Another British woman, Anneka, from Derby, in the Midlands, says she was also entranced by the videos.
Image caption,Anneka says the videos of Joshua’s “miracles” compelled her to travel to Nigeria – and join the church
“The whole room went completely still,” she says, describing the moment her church congregation first encountered the tapes when she was 16.
“This is what Jesus would have done,” she remembers thinking. She, too, went on to travel to Nigeria.
Neither Rae nor Anneka, nor many of the young people who left their home countries to meet Joshua in the early 2000s, paid for their tickets. Church groups across England raised funds to send pilgrims to Lagos to witness these miracles – and Joshua contributed Scoan money himself, senior former church insiders say. Later, once the church was well established, he charged high prices for pilgrims to come and stay.
Bisola, a Nigerian who spent 14 years inside the compound, says courting Westerners was a key tactic.
“He used the white people to market his brand,” she says.
Former insiders estimate Joshua made tens of millions of dollars from pilgrims and other money streams – fundraising, video sales, and stadium appearances abroad. He rose from poverty to become one of Africa’s richest pastors.
Image caption,Agomoh Paul says he was in charge of the “miracles” production
“That guy [was] a genius,” says Agomoh Paul, a man once regarded as Joshua’s number two in the church, who left after 10 years in the compound.
“Everything… [he did was] planned out.”
A major part of this planning was the faking of the “miracles” says Agomoh Paul, which he says he oversaw.
He and other sources say http://kasikan12.com/ that those “cured” had often been paid to perform or exaggerate their symptoms before their supposed healing took place. In some cases, they say, people had been unknowingly drugged or given medicine to improve their conditions while at the church, and later persuaded to give testimony about their recovery. Others were falsely told they had tested positive for HIV/Aids and that, thanks to Joshua’s ministrations, they had now become virus-free.
When Rae landed in the seething heat of Lagos, she saw miracles too. Dozens of people came and testified to having been healed of serious illnesses.
“I had a really involuntary reaction. I just broke down in floods of tears,” she says.
It was then that Rae was chosen. Joshua singled her out to become a “disciple” – an elite group of followers who served him and lived with him inside his compound.
Rae thought she was going to study under Joshua, to “cure” her sexuality, to learn how to heal people.
The reality was very different.
“We all thought we were in heaven, but we were in hell,” she says. “And in hell terrible things happen.”
However, an investigation by the BBC has uncovered more than a decade of allegations of rape and torture by him inside his compound in Lagos.
Joshua amassed great wealth throughout his career, possessing a fleet of cars and travelling via private jet.
But his beginnings were far more humble. Born Temitope Balogun Joshua to a poor family on 12 June 1963, he was raised by a Muslim uncle after his Christian father died.
One of the claims he made was that he had been in his mother’s womb for 15 months.
He also said that during his early days, he experienced a three-day trance in which he was called to serve God.
“I am your God. I am giving you a divine commission to go and carry out the work of the heavenly father,” Joshua declared.
It was then that he started the Synagogue, Church of All Nations (Scoan), with eight members.
Joshua and Scoan rose to prominence in the late 1990s, amid an explosion of “miracle” programmes performed by pastors on Nigerian TV.
Tens of thousands of followers from Nigeria and around the world would regularly attend his services in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, in an attempt to be healed and hear the preacher’s “prophecies”.
Joshua also took his ministry on tour, visiting other African countries, the UK, US, and nations in South America.
Image caption,Men and women used to fall during “healing” sessions at the Synagogue Church of All Nations
Officials asked Joshua to tell infected followers in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone – the worst affected countries – not to travel to Joshua’s Lagos church for healing.
He agreed to suspend some of the church’s healing programmes but is also said to have sent 4,000 bottles of “anointing water” to Sierra Leone, falsely claiming they could cure the disease.
Joshua’s anointing water was always in high demand – in 2013 a rush for the bottles at his church in Ghana led to the death of four people in a stampede.
Many criticised the preacher following the incident but police in Ghana said it was difficult to apportion blame.
The preacher never faced charges, despite a coroner in a Lagos court saying that “the church was culpable because of criminal negligence”.
Although thousands packed his churches, Joshua always struggled to be accepted by his peers.
Ostracised by both the Christian Association of Nigeria (Can) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), he was described as an “impostor” who belonged to a group of “occults” that had infiltrated Christianity.
“He was rough. He was crude. http://juswortele.com/ His methods were unorthodox,” Abimbola Adelakun, assistant professor in the African Studies Department at the University of Texas, told the BBC in 2021.
Ms Steenkamp’s mother said she accepted the decision to release the former athlete – but added her family was the one “serving a life sentence”.
In 2012, Pistorius became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics.
Just six months later, he shot Ms Steenkamp multiple times through a toilet door in his house. The shooting and subsequent trials gripped South Africa and the world.
Pistorius, now 37, later claimed he had mistaken her for a burglar during the night.
Pistorius was eventually convicted of murder in 2015 after an appeal court overturned an earlier verdict of culpable homicide – or manslaughter.
Parole conditions
Under South African law, all offenders are entitled to be considered for parole, meaning early release under certain conditions, once they have served half their total sentence, which for Pistorius was finally set at 13 years and five months.
Until his sentence expires in 2029, he will live under strict rules – confining him to the home for certain hours of the day, as well as banning him from drinking alcohol. He is also not permitted to speak to the media.
In addition, Pistorius will be required to have therapy to help deal with issues around gender-based violence and anger.
He is believed to have gone to live at the home of his uncle Arnold Pistorius in an upmarket suburb of the capital, Pretoria.
While in prison, Pistorius drove a tractor in the grounds, worked in the library and cleaned inmates’ cells, according to legal documents cited by South African journalist Karyn Maughan.
Social workers and psychologists also wrote positive reports about him, she told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
Image caption,Friends say Reeva Steenkamp was kind-hearted and ambitious
Mrs Steenkamp said she welcomed the conditions imposed by the parole board, which “affirmed Barry and my belief in the South African justice system,” referring to her late husband.
But, she asked: “Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time? There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back. We, who remain behind, are the ones serving a life sentence.”
She added: “My only desire is that I will be allowed to live my last years in peace with my focus remaining on the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation, to continue Reeva’s legacy.”
Pistorius first went to prison in October 2014, shortly after his initial conviction. There was a period between 2015 and 2016 when he was released under house arrest before his conviction was changed and sentence lengthened.
Pistorius’s lower legs were amputated when he was less than a year old due to a congenital condition – he was born with no fibulas, the smaller of the two lower leg bones. He subsequently relied on prosthetics and became a world-renowned athlete known as the “Blade Runner”.
Image caption,Oscar Pistorius was the first double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games, and became known as the “Blade Runner”
He had a successful career on the track, first at the Paralympics, winning multiple golds, and then cementing his reputation after competing against non-disabled athletes at the London Olympics in 2012.
South Africa’s department of correctional services said that despite his high public profile, the former star would be treated like anyone else on parole.
Ms Steenkamp, who was 29 when she died, was a law graduate and successful model who also worked as a TV presenter and appeared in a reality show called Tropika Island of Treasure.
She had planned to start a law firm to help abused women after graduating.
Ms Steenkamp was three months into her relationship with Pistorius when he fired four shots with a pistol through the door of a toilet cubicle at his house in Pretoria in the early hours of 14 February 2013.
She died almost instantly.
The state charged Pistorius with murder but he was convicted in 2014 of the lesser offence of culpable homicide, or manslaughter.
The following year, http://darsalas.com/ judges at the Supreme Court of Appeal changed his conviction to murder, saying that his version of events was inconsistent and improbable and that he had “fired without having a rational or genuine fear that his life was in danger”.
Recent attacks on vessels off Somalia’s coast have raised concerns that piracy could be returning in the region (file photo)
By Gloria AradiBBC News
Indian navy commandos have rescued sailors on a ship hijacked by pirates off Somalia’s coast on Thursday.A navy statement said all 21 crew members had been evacuated from the citadel – the vessel’s fortified area.No pirates were found on the MV Lila Norfolk, it said. A warning had been issued to the pirates before commandos boarded the vessel.Recent attacks on vessels off Somalia’s coast have triggered concerns that piracy could be making a resurgence.
An Indian patrol aircraft was sent to establish contact with them, followed by the guided-missile destroyer INS Chennai.Somali pirate attacks, often launched from Eyl, were a huge problem forhttp://surinamecop.com/international shipping from 2008 to 2011, prompting countries from around the world to send warships to patrol the area.One expert told Reuters news agency the recent attacks off Somalia could have been prompted by the relocation of navy ships from the US and other countries from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to safeguard shipping from Houthi rebels based in Yemen.
This was after he had served half of his sentence for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
South Africa has a particular problem with femicide and violence against women. In 2020, an average of one woman died at the hands of her intimate partner every eight hours, according to a study by the University of the Free State.
In 2019, South Africa ranked among the five countries with the highest rates of the murder of women, according to the United Nations.
This is why campaigners think an exception should be made for the perpetrators of these crimes to the country’s normal rules around early release.
For Michael van Niekerk, the fact that Pistorius is now out of prison “feels like a kick to the gut”.
He is the founder of Keep the Energy, an organisation that spreads awareness about violence against women, children and LGBTQ+ people in South Africa.
Mr Van Niekerk fervently believes that those responsible for gender-based violence and murder should not be granted parole.
Beyond the numbers of women murdered, South Africa also has extremely high levels of rape – in the three-month period between July and September last year, for example, more than 10,500 incidents were reported to the police.
“I have seen men get released and commit the same crimes over and over again,” he says.
Image caption,Oscar Pistorius, seen here outside court in 2014, will be on parole for the next five years
It is “crucial to understand that parole does not equate to absolute freedom at all”, he tells the BBC.
The purpose of parole is to rehabilitate offenders and guide them back into society.
Mr Phiri says the argument that perpetrators should not get parole is rooted in a “misunderstanding that [it] signifies complete freedom – which is certainly not the case”.
Pistorius will be monitored by the authorities for five years until his more than 13-year sentence expires in 2029. He will have to abide by certain conditions, for example being confined to the home for certain hours each day, as well as a ban on drinking alcohol.
He will also have to attend therapy sessions, including programmes on gender-based violence.
This has gone some way to reassure the mother of the woman he killed. Last year, June Steenkamp said she would be “concerned for the safety of any woman” who came into contact with him after he was freed.
But these measures do not satisfy everyone.
“There is a lack of thinking, or empathy for victims in this scenario,” says Mbali Pfeiffer Shongwe.
The 24-year-old activist, who works with Instagram account Girls Against Oppression, is a survivor of gender-based violence, and is frustrated with the country’s parole system.
She believes anyone convicted of murder, rape, serious assault, theft, kidnapping, public violence and other serious crimes should not get parole.
“The most basic form of respect would be for a full sentence to be served,” she says.
But there are some who believe it is right that Pistorius is no longer in prison.
The BBC spoke to several people who supported his early release but chose to remain anonymous for fear of a backlash against them.
One 25-year old woman believes that Pistorius has paid his penance.
“He has done his time, he has been rehabilitated. He is not a threat to society,” she said, adding that because of his notoriety he will have a difficult life whether or not he is in prison.
June Steenkamp did not oppose her daughter’s killer being freed. “No amount of time served will bring Reeva back. We, who remain behind, are the ones serving a life sentence.”
However, for many there is a wider point to be made.
“It just feels like women are screaming into the abyss. It’s like our cries aren’t being heard,” says Palesa Muano Ramurunzi, a 25-year-old University of Cape Town law graduate.
She is fed up with the level of violence that women in her country face. Her belief that barring parole for those convicted of crimes relating to gender-based violence is not meant to “undermine other forms of violence but to confront an urgent crisis”.
“There is a palpable sense of entitlement that men often harbour towards the bodies of women,” Ms Ramurunzi says, her voice filled with hopelessness.
The ever-present possibility of being killed is a devastating thread linking many women in South Africa.
Ms Steenkamp’s last Instagram post proved to be a foreshadow of the tragedy that befell her.
The post condemned the killing of 18-year-old Anene Booysen who had been gang-raped, disembowelled and dumped in a construction site in the Western Cape in February 2013.
Her caption read: “I woke up in a happy safe home this morning. Not everyone did. Speak out against the rape of individuals in SA. RIP Anene Booysen.”
The murder of Ms Booysen dominated local and international headlines – until Ms Steenkamp’s own murder took over the news cycle less than two weeks later.
Image caption,There have been numerous protests and government promises regarding gender-based violence
Mara Glennie, founder of Tears, a South African domestic abuse helpline, says femicide is “deeply entrenched in institutions and traditions in South Africa”.
“In a nation with some of the world’s highest levels of violence against women, the laws are failing women,” she says.
Even the government has struggled to address the issue, she argues.
“The government has set up task forces and made promises to the women of this country. And yet, after decades of promises, femicide and gender-based violence remain consistently pervasive,” Ms Glennie says.
President Cyril Ramaphosa http://clasicccop.com/ has vowed action to address the rampant levels of femicide in South Africa, calling it an “an assault on our humanity”.
The threat of violence shrouds every aspect of women’s lives in the country, with new fears forming with each case.
The post office, the park and their own home are places to be hyper-vigilant, and never completely safe.
Ms Shongwe says even after South African women experience violence and survive, it is never the last time.
“You are always looking out for what might happen next,” she says.
Image caption,The libel conviction prevents Sonko from contesting the presidential election
By Wycliffe Muia
BBC News
Senegal’s Supreme Court has dismissed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko’s appeal against a libel conviction, potentially ruling him out of next month’s presidential election.
But another court has rejected his application to stand, his lawyer said.
Sonko has faced several court cases since 2021, all of which he denies.
On Friday, Sonko’s lawyer, Cire Cledor Ly, said he had been told by the Constitutional Council that his client’s application to run for president was “incomplete” without it being specified what was missing.
He called the move an “electoral farce” and said Sonko, currently in jail on charges of insurrection, would appeal.
Last month, there was good news for Sonko when a court ordered his reinstatement on the electoral roll.
This had been seen as potentially paving the way for him to contest the poll after he had previously been barred following a conviction in a different case.
In June last year, he was cleared of rape but convicted of “corrupting” a massage parlour employee in 2021.
They also indicate he was not sure the plan would stop Channel crossings.
And they suggest he was reluctant to fund reception centres to accommodate migrants instead of using hotels or private housing because “hotels are cheaper”.
As prime minister, under pressure from his party, Mr Sunak has made the Rwanda plan one of his top priorities.
The scheme to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing and potentially resettlement, in order to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats, was first announced by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April 2022.
Mr Sunak – who became prime minister in October 2022 – was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Rwanda policy was announced.
The deal has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and no asylum seekers have been sent from the UK so far.
They suggest Mr Sunak was concerned about the cost of sending asylum seekers to the African country, and wanted to limit the numbers initially.
They say, the “chancellor wants to pursue smaller volumes initially, 500 instead of 1,500” in the first year, and “3,000 instead of 5,000 in years two and three”.
The exact numbers in the eventual plan have never been confirmed, but in April 2022 the BBC saw the accommodation the asylum seekers would be housed it, which were thought to have enough space to process up to 500 people a year, in line with what Mr Sunak seems to have argued for.
The documents describe a significant difference of view between No 10 and 11 Downing Street on the effectiveness of the proposed scheme saying the chancellor believes the “deterrent won’t work”.
Mr Sunak is also described as being reluctant to fund so-called “Greek-style reception centres”, sites where migrants could be housed, rather than being put up in hotels which were said to be costing £3.5m a day at that point, the documents suggest.
They say, the “chancellor is refusing to fund any non-detained accommodation, eg Greek-style reception centres, because hotels are cheaper”.
The documents suggest the Treasury preferred sending migrants to be housed around the country, known as “dispersal”.
The papers also reveal that No 10 suggested Mr Sunak should be told to “consider his popularity with the base” if he was reluctant to sign up to changes to the migration system, including the Rwanda plan.
Despite the proposal being ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court, the prime minister has vowed to change the law so that flights can take off to Rwanda.
Yet the revelations about his doubts over the plan are likely to be awkward, especially as some MPs on the right of his party have urged him to go still further to meet his goal of stopping migrants crossing the Channel, potentially leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
A source close to the prime minister told the BBC: “The prime minister was always fully behind the principle of the scheme as a deterrent.
“As chancellor it was his job to make sure it delivered and taxpayers’ money was appropriately spent.”
A government source said: “As chancellor, Rishi funded the Rwanda scheme and put it at the heart of his 10-point plan the month after becoming PM.
“Now he is passing the Rwanda Bill following the Supreme Court judgment to get flights off the ground. He is the first prime minster ever to oversee a reduction in small boat crossings, which were down by 36% last year.”
In a statement, Labour MP and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “This shows what an utter con the Tories’ Rwanda scheme is and how weak Rishi Sunak has now become.
“The prime minister knew the plan was incredibly costly and wouldn’t work, and resisted it while he was chancellor. But he is so weak he has now agreed to write cheques to Rwanda for £400m without sending a single person there in a desperate attempt to shore up his leadership.
“Whether it be on Rwanda or hotel use, the Tories are continually going for gimmicks rather than ever getting a grip.
“It’s time they gave up on this sorry charade http://sayurkana.com/ and adopted Labour’s plan to go after the criminal smuggling gangs, negotiating a new security deal with Europe to better protect our borders and set up a new returns unit to ensure those with no right to be in the UK are removed swiftly.”
Image caption,This polling station in the east was guarded by a member of a local militia
By Emery Makumeno in Kinshasa & Joseph Winter in London
BBC News
Three ministers and four governors have been disqualified from last month’s election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because of fraud and violence.
But its announcement did not address the presidential election that saw President Félix Tshisekedi re-elected by a landslide.
The opposition has called the entire election a “sham” and demanded a rerun.
Eight of the 18 opposition candidates have responded to the electoral commission’s statement by saying it had now “confessed to the fraud”.
Martin Fayulu, who came third in the presidential race, asked “by what magic… only the legislative elections were corrupted and not the presidential one”?
Only one candidate has gone to court to challenge the poll. The main ones say they have no faith in the courts and have instead called for the population to “resist electoral fraud” without giving any details.
The 20 December election was marred by widespread logistical problems. It had to be extended to an unplanned second day in some parts of the vast country.
About two-thirds of polling stations opened late, while 30% of voting machines did not work on the first day, according to an observer group.
Millions of people waited for hours before they were able to vote. Many gave up and went home.
In its statement disqualifying the 82 candidates, the electoral commission said they had committed fraud, corruption, acts of violence against election workers and voters, and vandalism of equipment.
Among those barred are:
Antoinette Kipulu Kabenga, minister for vocational training
Didier Mazenga Mukanzu, regional integration minister
Nana Manwanina Kiumba, a minister in the president’s office
Gentiny Ngobila, the governor of Kinshasa province
Three other provincial governors and 10 senators
Supporters of Mr Ngobila have taken to the streets to protest at what they term the politically motivated disqualification.
All votes cast for the 82 candidates have been annulled. The results of the elections they were contesting have not yet been declared – only the result of the presidential race has been announced so far.
There were about 100,000 candidates across all the elections held on 20 December.
The commission also said elections would be cancelled in two of the country’s 182 constituencies. It was not possible to vote at all in a further two areas in the east, because of the presence of armed groups in the mineral-rich region, as well as one part of the west.
Despite the problems, election chief Denis Kadima has previously insisted that the presidential result reflected the will of the Congolese people.
Mr Tshisekedi, 60, was elected for a second term with 73% of the vote, with his nearest challenger, mining magnate and former provincial governor Moise Katumbi, on 18%. Mr Fayulu, a former oil executive, got 5%.
Official turnout was just 43%.
If the results are confirmed by the http://kolechai.com/ Constitutional Court, President Tshisekedi will be sworn in for a second term on 20 January.
