At least 45 people died when a makeshift dam burst its banks near a southern town in Kenya’s Rift valley in the early hours of Monday, police said, as torrential rains and floods hit the country. The disaster raises the total death toll over the March-May wet season in Kenya to more than 100, as heavier-than-usual rainfall pounds east Africa, compounded by El Niño weather pattern…Residents said the dam burst in the dead of night, sending water gushing down a hill and engulfing everything in its path…The disaster occurred at Old Kijabe dam, a hillside barrier formed naturally over decades after railway construction work by Kenya’s former British colonial rulers. (AFP)
African Leaders Seek Record World Bank Financing to Combat Climate Change
African leaders on Monday called for rich countries to commit record contributions to a low-interest World Bank facility for developing nations that they rely on to help fund their development and combat climate change. Donors will make their cash pledges to the International Development Association (IDA), a World Bank institution that offers loans with low interest rates and long tenures, at a conference to be held in Japan in December…African economies [are] facing a “deepening development and debt crisis that threatens our economic stability, and urgent climate emergencies that demand immediate and collective action for our planet’s survival,” [Kenya’s President William Ruto] said. (Reuters)
African Farmers Look to the Past and the Future to Address Climate Change
In Zimbabwe, where the El Nino phenomenon has worsened a drought, small-scale farmer James Tshuma has lost hope of harvesting anything from his fields…But a patch of green vegetables is thriving in a small garden the 65-year-old Tshuma is keeping alive with homemade organic manure and fertilizer…In conflict-prone Somalia in East Africa, greenhouses are changing the way some people live, with shoppers filling up carts with locally produced vegetables and traditionally nomadic pastoralists under pressure to settle down and grow crops…In Kenya, a new climate-smart bean variety is bringing hope to farmers in a region that had recorded reduced rainfall in six consecutive rainy seasons. (AP)
EU Restricts Visas for Ethiopians, Citing Lack of Government Deportation Cooperation
The European Union is tightening visa rules for people from Ethiopia in response to what it says is a lack of cooperation from the Ethiopian government with the repatriation of those who have entered Europe illegally. As a result of the changes, the EU said the visa processing time for Ethiopian nationals will triple, from 15 to 45 days, and that waiving requirements for certain paperwork will no longer be allowed. Ethiopian officials and diplomats will need to pay to obtain travel visas, the EU said. Multiple entry visas will no longer be allowed. (VOA)
