Africa 54 - August 12, 2020

You are watching Africa 54, your daily news and feature magazine-style program, from the Voice of America. Host Esther Githui-Ewart and a team of correspondents zero in on the big stories making news on the continent and around the world with context and analysis. Top Stories: Zimbabwe’s white farmers, whose land was redistributed during the Robert Mugabe era, are welcoming a $3.5 billion-dollar government compensation plan. President Emmerson Mnangagwa hopes the agreement will encourage foreign investment into Zimbabwe’s imploding economy. But as VOA’s Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, questions remain on how the government will raise the funds. This year over four-thousand migrants seeking asylum – mostly from Africa and the middle east – have attempted the crossing from France to Britain in overcrowded dinghies or makeshift boats, including several hundred in the past few days. Thousands of people took to the streets of Mali’s rainy capital Bamako on Tuesday renewing calls for President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to step down despite international mediation efforts to resolve a political crisis. Protests led by an opposition coalition called M5-RFP have raged since June, caused by contested local elections and perceived government corruption and incompetence. Tensions escalated in July when police shot dead at least 11 demonstrators. Mali has struggled to regain stability since 2012, when ethnic Tuareg rebels and loosely aligned jihadists seized the northern two-thirds of the country, leading former colonial power France to intervene to temporarily beat them back. Attacks have increased in recent months, as militants seek to extend their reach, stoking ethnic tensions around central Mali. Liberian vice-president Jewel Howard Taylor was flown to Ghana to seek additional medical care for respiratory complications, according to Rodney Sieh, publisher of Liberia’s frontpage Africa newspaper, who quotes the vice president's office as saying she was flown to Ghana to seek further medical attention. The vice president’s office says Taylor was initially admitted last Friday to the Aspen medical facility in Monrovia for breathing complications. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing the Angolan government to postpone the municipal elections that were scheduled to take place by the end of this year, according to independent journalist Mario Paiva. Meanwhile, Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the late long-time president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has announced that she is leaving her position as a member of the board of directors of the telecommunications giant, Unitel. Dos Santos has been entangled in a financial scandal with the new government of President Joao Lourenco for her projected wealth of more than two-billion dollars, acquired from holdings in various companies, including Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol. Dos Santos has denied any wrongdoing. U.S. democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden has chosen senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first black woman and the first person of Indian descent, to be selected for a presidential ticket by a major party. A54 Technology: The growing use of wealth-technology platforms is signaling a wider investment culture among young Nigerians who are increasingly looking beyond traditional models of saving. Africa 54 tech reporter Paul Ndiho explains. #Zimbabwe #Farmers #RobertMugabe #EmmersonMnangagwa #Africa #Mali #Bamako #M5RFP #Liberia #JewelHowardTaylor #Angola #COVID19 #UnitedStates #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris #Technology #Nigeria