Year: 2021

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Tutu’s Advocacy for LGBTQ Rights Did Not Sway Most of Africa

Desmond Tutu is being remembered for his passionate advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ people as well as his fight for racial justice. But the South African archbishop's campaign against homophobia had limited impact in the rest of Africa, where same-sex marriage remains illegal and most countries criminalize gay sex.

Even within his own denomination, the Anglican Communion, there has been no continentwide embrace of LGBTQ rights. Leaders of Ghana's Anglican Church, for example, have joined other religious leaders there in endorsing a bill that would impose prison sentences on people who identify as LGBTQ or support that community.

Before Tutu died Sunday at age 90, most African religious leaders rejected his LGBTQ positions, and those who agreed with him often were cautious, said Kenya-based researcher Yvonne Wamari of Outright Action International, a global LGBTQ-rights organization.

"Most of them are unwilling to offer their contrary views due to fear of reprisal and backlash for not conforming with 'African values,'" Wamari said via email. "As long as the religious leaders are unwilling to interpret the Bible from the lens of love for all, as Tutu did, homophobia and transphobia will remain a part of our lives."

Homosexual activity remains outlawed in more than 30 of Africa's 54 countries; in a few, it is punishable by death. Many LGBTQ Africans are subject to stigma and abuse, facing unemployment, homelessness and estrangement from their families.

Stephen Brown, a professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies, described Tutu as "a moral giant" who held to his convictions — including support for LGBTQ people — no matter how risky or unpopular it could be.

For example, Tutu was mocked in 2013 by Robert Mugabe, then the repressive leader of Zimbabwe.

"Tutu should just step down because he supports gays, something that is evil," Mugabe told a political rally.

That same year, Tutu uttered one of his most memorable comments about LGBTQ inclusion.

"I would not worship a God who is homophobic," he said. "I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say, 'Sorry, I would much rather go to the other place.'"

South Africa is the only African country that has legalized same-sex marriage, and its constitution protects against anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Yet even there, violence against LGBTQ people remains common.

In Cape Town, where Tutu was the Anglican archbishop, members of the LGBTQ community reacted to his death with tributes.

Throughout his life, Tutu stuck "to the ideas of promoting absolute love, absolute acceptance and absolute kindness, no matter who you are, no matter your sexuality or race," activist Saya Pierce-Jones said.

Daniel Jay, who works in the medical industry, said Tutu's support for LGBTQ people was pivotal in South Africa's decision to make HIV drugs available at no cost.

"I love him to bits," Jay said.

Beyond South Africa's borders, a few recent developments have encouraged LGBTQ-rights supporters.

— In Botswana, the Court of Appeal last month unanimously upheld a 2019 ruling that decriminalized consensual same-sex activities. Previously, gay sex was outlawed and offenders faced up to seven years in prison. A few other African countries also have decriminalized same-sex relationships in recent years, including Angola, Mozambique and the Seychelles.

— In Namibia, the LGBTQ community recently held its biggest Pride event — a weeklong celebration in Windhoek, the capital, that began Nov. 27. During the parade at the end of the week, some marchers urged repeal of a Namibian anti-sodomy law that remains on the books though is not enforced.

The winner of the 2021 Mr. Gay World pageant – Louw Breytenbach of South Africa – was the parade's grand marshal. He later posted a tribute to Tutu on Facebook: "RIP to one of the most amazing humans to ever walk this earth! A champion for human rights. A warrior for gay rights."

In many African countries, anti-LGBTQ violence is a persistent threat.

A prominent LGBTQ activist in Tunisia reported that two men, one in a police uniform, beat and kicked him during an assault in October they said was punishment for his attempts to file complaints against officers for previous mistreatment. The attack left Badr Baabou, president of the Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality, with extensive welts and bruises.

Last month, according to Human Rights Watch, a mob in Cameroon beat and sexually assaulted a 27-year-old intersex person. The perpetrators made videos of the prolonged attack that circulated on social media.

At the government level, Senegal and Ghana are under scrutiny from LGBTQ-rights supporters.

In Senegal, 13 opposition legislators recently introduced a bill to toughen penalties against homosexuality, doubling the maximum sentence to 10 years. Parliament members from the governing coalition say such a measure is unnecessary since homosexual acts are already illegal.

In Ghana, parliament members continue to work on a bill that has been condemned by LGBTQ-rights supporters in the West African country and abroad. Among other things, the bill seeks to criminalize the promotion and funding of LGBTQ activities, and disseminating information about LGBTQ people.

Alex Kofi Donkor, director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana, expressed regret that relatively few African faith leaders shared Tutu's outlook.

"A lot of African preachers hold a lot of prejudice, hate and disgust for the LGBTQ community," he said.

Controversy over the Ghana bill has highlighted the challenges facing the global Anglican Communion, which has taken LGBTQ-friendly positions not embraced by many Anglican leaders in Africa.

In October, Justin Welby, the Church of England's archbishop of Canterbury and the symbolic head of Anglicans worldwide, said he was "gravely concerned" about the bill and would discuss the Anglican Church of Ghana's response to the bill with Ghana's archbishop.

He issued a statement reminding Ghana's Anglican leaders that the global body of Anglican leaders had committed itself to opposing anti-LGBTQ discrimination and the criminalization of same-sex activity.

But in mid-November, Welby apologized for failing to speak to the Ghanaian church before issuing his statement of concern.

"I have no authority over the Church of Ghana, nor would I want any," he said.

A few days later, he issued another ambivalent statement, referring to ongoing "private conversations" that would become "useless or harmful" if made public.

The Rev. Susan Russell, who is on the staff of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, recalled a visit by Tutu to the church in 2005, shortly after the Episcopal Church's ordination of its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, touched off a controversy that still roils the Anglican Communion.

She recalled that Tutu talked about how all people are embraced by God, regardless of gender or race — and when he also included gays and lesbians in that list, "there really was an audible gasp in the room of amazement and relief and delight."

"When you're struggling on the margins, and the powers seem to be galvanizing against you, and you have Desmond Tutu on your side, almost anything seems possible," she said.

Source: Voice of America

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Uber, Electric Vehicle Group Partner to Deploy Electric Motorcycles Across Africa in 2022

NAIROBI —

Just as in most cities across Africa, motorcycle taxi drivers are in almost every corner of Nairobi. Josephat Mutiso is among the first drivers here to make the switch from fossil fuel to electric motorcycles, thanks to a partnership between Uber and Opibus.

“This is way efficient,” he said. “It is even way easier to ride than the other one. You see, this one you don’t have so ma"ny controls, you just have the throttle, no clutch. The only thing you are focusing on is just the front brake and the rear brake. That way it gives you even more control of the bike. And it is pretty light, it does not vibrate. So even clients like this one better.”

Motorcycle taxis have become increasingly common as public transportation in cities across Africa.

Joyce Msuya, the deputy executive director of UNEP, the U.N. Environmental Program, notes that motorcycle taxis have become increasingly common as public transportation in cities across Africa.

“The number of newly registered motorcycles, commonly used as taxis or boda boda, was estimated in 2018 at 1.5 million and will likely grow to five million by 2030,” she said. “Most are inefficient, poorly maintained and heavily polluting. UNEP’s study shows that boda boda drivers can more than double their income if they make the switch.”

In March, the U.N. Environment Program launched the first electric bikes project in Kenya, creating the momentum for Africa's shift to electric mobility. The partnership between Uber and Opibus seeks to accelerate that shift.

“We are just excited to get as many people exposed to the new technology that we built as possible so they know there is an option,” said Alex Pitkin, the chief technology officer at Opibus. “Uber provides, obviously, a lot of boda boda riders, that’s our target client. They often don’t know how beneficial electric motorcycles can be in terms of money-saving, safety, fuel savings, maintenance savings, you know that kind of thing. And longevity of the product as well, they don’t know that.”

Across the world, there is a shift toward electric vehicles due to rising pollution and climate-damaging emissions from vehicles.

The African continent has not been left behind in that movement.

“Targeting Africa and African countries is also part of that movement and as Opibus, that is where we are targeting,” said Lucy Mugala, an engineer at Opibus. “We want all of us to move together. We all move towards a greener energy, a greener economy. And we can only do that if we all come together and empower and build capacity locally.”

Mutiso says he is earning more money now.

“Everything I used to earn and save for the maintenance of the bike,” he said. “Right now I’m saving it. So right now, I’m making more.”

Experts say that a global move to electric mobility is essential to the future and that drivers like Mutiso will benefit.

Source: Voice of America

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Have Refugee Camps Escaped Mass COVID Infections?

Roughly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, no massive outbreaks have been reported in refugee camps to date. Health experts have some theories about why, but they also urge continued wariness against “the very real and present danger of widespread transmission” in camps, as the World Health Organization has cautioned.

The U.N. refugee agency, or UNHCR, “had been fearing — and preparing for — large outbreaks at refugee camps, which fortunately did not happen,” spokeswoman Aikaterini Kitidi acknowledged in an email exchange with VOA.

“However, this doesn’t mean we are out of the woods yet,” she said. With new variants such as omicron, “which are far more infectious, we may very well see more cases. We must remain vigilant and scale up surveillance and testing, as well as the equitable distribution of vaccines.”

UNHCR estimates that roughly 80 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced by persecution and conflict, with most living in low-resource countries with frail health systems. Millions of them live in camps — some formal, some informal — with limited water and sanitation facilities. They also face overcrowding, making social distancing a challenge.

Yet comparatively few COVID infections have been reported in the camps: 55 Central African refugees tested positive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, as UNHCR reported in a global COVID-19 response update of December 20.

Because of population density, “early on, we were concerned that [COVID-19] transmission would be very high and so would deaths, even with the younger demographics” of refugee camps, said Paul Spiegel, an epidemiologist who directs Johns Hopkins University's Center for Humanitarian Health. “That hasn’t been the case that we’re aware of — but then data have been very poor.”

Undercounting is a real possibility, Spiegel said. “There could be scenarios where it [COVID] actually has gone through the refugee camps at a high level” but symptoms weren’t severe enough for the infected people to seek care. He added that there hasn’t been enough blood testing “to know the extent that COVID has actually been transmitted in these settings. … It takes a lot of time and money to be able to do this.”

Individual circumstances

Transmission rates ultimately may vary depending on the individual camp or other setting, said Spiegel, a former UNHCR senior official who has responded to crises in the Middle East, parts of Africa and Asia. He was on a team that, early in the pandemic, advised the United Nations, governments and humanitarian groups on best responses.

In early December, Spiegel completed five weeks of touring and assessing health conditions in Afghanistan for the World Health Organization. In that country, he said, only three of 39 facilities intended for treating COVID were functioning; the rest were devoid of supplies or paid staff following the Taliban takeover in August and subsequent sanctions by the United States and other Western allies. Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department said it would lift restrictions on some humanitarian aid.

On behalf of UNHCR, Spiegel also is looking at COVID’s impact on two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan: Za’atari, a northern site with nearly 80,000 residents, and Azraq, a northeastern site hosting 38,000. Preliminary data indicate lower rates of infection and death in those two camps than among residents of surrounding areas, he said.

“So why would that be? We have some hypotheses,” Spiegel said, noting that those camps went into lockdown early, restricting refugees to the camp, limiting outsiders’ access, and promoting more handwashing and social distancing. Local and international NGOs sustained their support for the camps, he said, so residents could continue to access health care and food, “even if it’s not enough” to meet their caloric needs. He also noted that people in camps spend a lot of time outside.

Spiegel said he’s involved in additional studies of refugees and host communities in Bangladesh and in three African countries: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. He said he anticipated their findings to be published in 2022.

Source: Voice of America

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Low Vaccination Rates a Concern Amid African COVID Surge

Low vaccination rates are of mounting concern amid a new wave of COVID-19 infections in Africa, where nearly 227,000 deaths have been reported, according to the Africa CDC's COVID-19 dashboard. Only 20 African countries had vaccinated at least 10% of their populations as of mid-December, according to the United Nations.

Vaccine access is a major stumbling block.

Vaccines have been slow to arrive from wealthier countries; when they do, there may not be sufficient infrastructure to support timely distribution. On December 22, Nigeria's government destroyed more than 1 million doses of donated AstraZeneca vaccine that authorities said could not be used before the expiration date.

Meanwhile, the African Union and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are pushing efforts to develop vaccine manufacturing on the continent.

But, "even in countries where vaccines are being rolled out, there might be administrative and other obstacles that prevent refugees from being vaccinated," said Aikaterini Kitidi, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee Agency, or UNHCR.

Some countries "require identity documents, which refugees often do not have," she added. "Others have set up online [registration] systems that can deter or prevent people without access to the internet or who are not computer literate."

Awareness

Another challenge is misinformation.

It's "heavily impacting the vaccination process and hindering people from coming," said Dr. Martin Kalibuze, who directs the vaccination program in Uvira refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo's South Kivu province. "There are a lot of rumors, like 'people are going to die from vaccination, women are going to turn infertile.'"

Sifa Akimana, a 28-year-old Burundian refugee living in the DRC's Kavimvira transit center with her two babies, told VOA's Central Africa service she was opposed to getting inoculated because "I hear from people that if you're vaccinated, it's very dangerous. It's a way to control people's movements with their detective machines."

Kalibuze said any vaccination drive first needs a strong awareness campaign to smooth the way.

Priorities

There's at least one more impediment to COVID vaccination: competing priorities.

Across Africa and elsewhere, especially in zones with displaced people, "ministries of health have so many different crises that they have to tackle that COVID isn't always on the top of their list," said Jason Straziuso, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

For instance, he said, they might decide it's wiser to invest in more mosquito nets to protect against malaria, a historically deadly disease that the WHO estimates killed 627,000 people in 2020 alone, mostly young African children.

The ICRC doesn't distribute vaccines on its own but instead partners with health ministries and national Red Cross Societies, Straziuso said, noting it depends on those relationships "to move into contested areas and to carry out vaccination campaigns."

Straziuso said the organization hopes to "do a lot more in 2022" to aid vulnerable people, including refugees and the displaced. "There's just millions of people who don't have access to these vaccines," he said. "So, it's a slow and long process."

Source: Voice of America

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JETEX TRIUMPHS AT WORLD TRAVEL AWARDS

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Jetex has received three prestigious recognitions at the World Travel Awards Grand Final:

• World’s Leading Private Jet Experience;

• World’s Leading FBO Brand; and

• World’s Leading Private Jet Terminal for Jetex Paris.

Jetex, an award-winning global leader in executive aviation, triumphed at the 28th annual World Travel Awards. Established in 1993, World Travel Awards acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry. Today, they are recognized globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire. The voting process is online and engages qualified executives working within travel and tourism and the consumer travel buyer.

Jetex private terminals were voted the world’s number one, which isn’t the first time they won the top accolade since the first Jetex FBO opened in 2009. Paris Le Bourget is the busiest private jet airport in Europe and Jetex Paris has set a gold standard for the highest levels of comfort and efficiency both for passengers and crews. In August, it enjoyed global media limelight when hundreds of football fans cheered the arrival of Lionel Messi at Jetex Paris to join Paris Saint-Germain. Today, it has been voted the World’s Leading Private Jet Terminal.

In 2021, Jetex has further improved the entire travel journey to let travelers enjoy a safer and more seamless experience across all 34 international locations. It all contributed to Jetex being recognized for having implemented the World’s Leading Private Jet Experience, from departure to arrival. From the superior comfort of luxurious lounges and exceptional hospitality to the highest levels of aircraft handing expertise and on-time performance, Jetex FBOs around the globe continue leading the industry.

“At Jetex, we strive to enhance our products and guest experience to ensure we are delivering the industry’s highest standards and leading the way when it comes to innovation. We are honored that these awards have been voted for by travel and tourism professionals and consumers worldwide, and on behalf of the entire Jetex family, we extend our sincerest thanks to our partners and passengers worldwide,” said Adel Mardini, Founder and CEO of Jetex.

Graham Cooke, Founder, World Travel Awards, commented: “Jetex represents the very best of the private aviation universe and I congratulate them on these achievements. It plays a leading role in spearheading the executive aviation sector, facilitating seamless cross-border travel during the most trying times.”

Best known for the dramatic transformation of the FBO model, Jetex works closely with leading designers to create bright and airy terminals with luxury amenities ranging from entertainment lounges to lush outdoor gardens and state-of-the-art flight support centers. The company witnessed a substantial increase in private jet movements this year across its entire network and continued to benefit from the momentum to reinforce its brand recognition and awareness, which has now been cemented as the World’s Leading FBO Brand.

About Jetex:

An award-winning global leader in executive aviation, Jetex is recognized for delivering flexible, best-in-class trip support solutions to customers worldwide. Jetex provides exceptional private terminals (FBOs), aircraft fueling, ground handling and global trip planning. The company caters to both owners and operators of business jets for corporate, commercial and personal air travel. To find out more about Jetex, visit www.jetex.com and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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Oleg Kafarov - Director of Portfolio Development & Corporate Communications
Jetex
+971 4 212 4900
teamorange@jetex.com