THIS WEEK

 

29: Bola Tinubu will be sworn in as Nigeria's President under the cloud of a disputed election. Two of Tinubu's main opponents in the February election challenged his victory on the basis of fraud claims, and a tribunal will tomorrow start hearing their main arguments. A ruling is not expected before September (Abuja).

 

29: International Day of UN Peacekeepers

 

29: DRC President Felix Tshisekedi wraps up his week-ling trip to China. He met President Xi Jinping to review and sign several key trade deals.

 

29-31: ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is expected to visit Kinshasa and DRC provinces affected by rebel groups. The ICC office of the prosecutor has given no details other than that the focus is on alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since July 2002 in the Ituri region and the North and South Kivu provinces.

 

30: Extradition hearing of Malawian fugitives Shepherd Bushiri and his wife, Mary Bushiri. In February, the Malawi High Court said section six of the Extradition Act of Malawi clarified that the witnesses or relevant witnesses to a preliminary inquiry/extradition hearing were the witnesses who would be able to answer to and convince the court conducting the inquiry whether the Bushiris should be extradited to South Africa to face the law (Blantyre).

 

1: International Conference on Soil, Plant and Water Science. Participants include a wide variety of stakeholders from research and academia, to industrial sectors as well as government organisations (Khartoum).

 

1: Education and New Learning Technologies Conference. Provides a platform for professionals to exchange knowledge and gain an insight into the state of the art in the current technology, techniques and solutions in Education and New Learning Technologies as they have been developed and applied in different countries (Swakopmund)

2: Formal bail application for Khulekani Mthethwa who has been linked to the murder of a farmer (Welkom Magistrate's Court).

 

2: Rwandan national Ukiliho Fulgence, who is accused of genocide crimes, expected to make his second court appearance He faces two charges of fraud, as well as another charge for contravention of the Immigration Act. The state intends to add more charges (Cape Town)

 

OTHER:

 

* Authorities in Lesotho have imposed an indefinite curfew in the hopes of curbing gun violence in mountain kingdom, in response to the shooting death of radio presenter Ralikonelo Joki earlier this month.

 

* The Comoros says it will resume accepting its nationals who are deported from the neighbouring French island of Mayotte as long as they are returning voluntarily. In recent weeks tension between the two Indian Ocean countries has been high after Paris started deporting undocumented migrants from Mayotte. About half of the 350 000 population is estimated to be foreign, most of them Comorian.

 

* President Cyril Ramaphosa has a month in which to respond to a request by the opposition Democratic Alliance to outline how he decided to appoint an independent inquiry into whether South Africa gave weapons to Russia. The stipulated 30-day period may be extended by another 30 days under exceptional circumstances.

 

* A Kenyan court has extended by 30 days the detention of cult leader Paul Mackenzie, who authorities accuse of ordering followers to starve their children and themselves to death. The death toll has climbed to 133, and hundreds of people are still reported missing.

  

* The French anti-terrorist prosecutor has opened an investigation into the deadly shooting attack at the Ghriba synagogue on Tunisia’s Djerba island that left five people dead, including a Franco-Tunisian man. The Paris-based national anti-terrorist prosecutor said it was opening an investigation into the attack because of one of the victim was a French national.

  

* A former Rwandan military policeman has gone on trial charged with genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 slaughter in his home country. Philippe Hategekimana fled to France after the genocide, obtaining refugee status and then French nationality under the name Philippe Manier. Hategekimana is accused of involvement in the murder of hundreds of Tutsis while working as a senior police official in the southern provincial capital of Nyanza (Paris).

 

* The EU council has placed Isis leaders in Mozambique under targeted sanctions as the bloc introduces more measures to counter insurgency in the oil-gas-rich Cabo Delgado province. Tanzanian-born Abu Yasir Hassan and Bonomade Machude Omar – who was born in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique – were singled out by the 27-member bloc as ‘responsible for terrorist attacks and serious human rights abuses’.

 

* The US and its partners (Qatar, Turkey, UAE and the UK) have rekindled their commitment to helping Somalia meet set benchmarks by the UN Security Council to fully lift an arms embargo. The US is also offering $5m under the Rewards for Justice programme for the identification or location of Al-Shabaab leader Ali Mohamed Rage.