Japan diplomat held over fire at Kinshasa embassy

Shinya Yamada was reportedly in charge of accounting at the Japanese embassy in Kinshasa

A diplomat at the Japanese embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been arrested on suspicion of starting a fire at the mission.

Shinya Yamada, 30, was held in Tokyo over claims he embezzled funds and set the blaze in June to destroy evidence.

Some $260,000 (£160,000) had gone missing, Japan's foreign ministry said. No-one was hurt in the fire, which damaged the building's fourth floor

Mr Yamada has denied the allegations, according to Japanese media reports.

It is rare for Japanese investigators to probe a case that occurred at a diplomatic mission abroad.

"It is extremely regrettable an official of the foreign ministry was arrested and that serious damage, including the loss of public funds, was inflicted," AFP news agency quoted Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida as saying.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida apologised to the people of Japan

Mr Yamada, the third secretary at the Japanese embassy in Kinshasa, was reportedly in charge of accounting at the mission.

Police believe he embezzled embassy money to fuel his gambling habit before dumping petrol in his office and setting it ablaze, reports said.

Records of those entering and exiting the embassy building showed Mr Yamada was the last person to leave on the day of the fire.

Police also found a petrol tank at Mr Yamada's home in Kinshasa.

After the fire, the mission's 20 staff were transferred to temporary offices at the ambassador's official residence and a nearby apartment complex, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

Mr Kishida said his office was "closely cooperating with the police investigation", adding an apology "to the people of Japan".

Nigeria's Akinwumi Adesina named Forbes African of the Year

Akinwumi Adesina wants to hand out free mobile phones to farmers

Nigerian Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina has been named Forbes African of the Year for his reforms to the country's farming sector.

"He is a man on a mission to help Africa feed itself," said Forbes Africa editor Chris Bishop.

Analysts say Nigeria's economy has long been dominated by oil, while agriculture has been ignored, even though it supports far more people.

Mr Adesina said he wanted to help people become rich through farming.

"My goal is to make as many millionaires, maybe even billionaires, from agriculture as possible," he said in his acceptance speech.

Aliyu Tanko from BBC Hausa says Mr Adesina has introduced more transparency into the supply and distribution of fertiliser, which had previously been marred by massive corruption.

Most Nigerians still live in poverty, especially in rural areas

The minister has also urged Nigerians to grow more food crops, especially cassava.

In January, Mr Adesina announced a scheme to hand out 10 million mobile phones to farmers to "drive an agriculture revolution" so they can find out the latest market information.

The phones are also used to get vouchers for seeds and fertiliser.

However, our correspondent says this goal has not yet been achieved, noting there is no mobile network coverage in many rural areas.

The main opposition party criticised the scheme as a "mischievous vote-catching exercise".

Mr Adesina was chosen ahead of some of Africa's most prominent businesspeople: Aliko Dangote and Jim Ovia, also from Nigeria; South Africa's Patrice Motsepe; and Zimbabwe's Strive Masiyiwa.

Although their country is one of the world's biggest oil exporters, most Nigerians live in poverty, especially in rural areas.

Mr Bishop said he hoped the award would "encourage the rest of the continent to grow more of its own food".

E-tolls lead to South Africa traffic jams

The government says the toll was needed to pay for improvements

South Africa's contentious toll road system has opened around Johannesburg, with huge traffic jams after motorists flocking to use alternative routes.

Opposition parties, trade unions and churches are calling for a boycott of the much-delayed system, saying it is unfair and badly designed.

The "e-toll" system affects the ring road around Johannesburg and the motorway to the capital, Pretoria.

The government says the toll is need to pay for improved roads.

The BBC's Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says the issue has become increasingly political just months away from a general election.

'Highway robbery'

Traffic reports around Johannesburg and Pretoria said there were bumper-to-bumper jams on suburban roads.

Critics say the toll is unfair as South Africans already pay fuel tax and other tolls

A police spokesperson described the congestion as "chock-a-block" and added that it had not eased up since early morning, the Sapa news agency reports.

Our correspondent says that, in contrast, there was little traffic on the new toll roads.

Critics say the e-toll is unfair because South Africans already pay a fuel tax, VAT and existing tolls - some roads now have both e-toll gantries and a conventional, manned toll-gate.

Motorists who register pay a minimum monthly fee of 550 rand ($54; £33) to use the roads, while those who do not register pay up to three times as much if they do not pay within seven days.

Their car number plates are scanned by gantries over the toll roads and bills sent to their homes if they have not paid in advance.

Local organisations have campaigned unsuccessfully for several years to have the project stopped, even launching a last-minute legal case, which was rejected.

Critics have described the system as "highway robbery".

The government says the e-toll is the only way it could have afforded to improve the congested roads around the commercial capital, Johannesburg.

The South Africa National Roads Agency (Sanral) has urged motorists not to break the law or face living with a criminal record.

Nigeria crisis: Boko Haram attack Maiduguri airbase

Main roads in Maiduguri were deserted on Monday in the wake of the attack

Boko Haram insurgents have attacked a military airbase in north-eastern Nigeria, destroying two helicopters, the authorities say.

Eyewitnesses say hundreds of militants attacked several areas of the city of Maiduguri, starting early on Monday.

A 24-hour curfew has been imposed in Maiduguri. Its civilian airport was also briefly closed.

A BBC correspondent says the large-scale, co-ordinated attack is a big setback for the Nigerian military.

Thousands of people have been killed since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its campaign to install Islamic law.

In May, a state of emergency was declared in Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital, as well as two neighbouring states, while there has been a massive military deployment to the worst-affected areas.

'Crying and wailing'

Ministry of Defence spokesman Brig Gen Chris Olukolade said in a statement that two helicopters and three decommissioned military aircraft had been "incapacitated" during the attack which had been repelled.

He said some army bases had also been targeted, while 24 insurgents had been killed and two soldiers wounded.

Local residents told the AFP news agency that hundreds of heavily armed Islamist gunmen besieged the air force and army bases, razing buildings and setting shops and petrol stations ablaze.

"I saw two air force helicopters burnt," a local official told AFP.

Bomb and gun attacks were carried out in Maiduguri, an AFP reporter in the city said.

A resident said: "We heard women and children in the barracks crying and wailing. At the gate, I saw some vehicles destroyed and the checkpoint there in shreds."

There are reports of military checkpoints being attacked in different parts of the city.

Some eyewitnesses told the AP news agency they had seen bodies with their throats slit.

Others said several vehicles had been driven out of the air base carrying the bodies of victims.

Government and military officials said scores of people may be dead, AP reported.

A spokesman for the Nigerian civil aviation authority told the BBC that the airport had not been attacked, while Brig Gen Olukolade said flights had now resumed.

Recent Boko Haram attacks have been in more rural areas, and it had appeared as though the military operation had made Maiduguri city far safer, says the BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross.

Mobile phone links to the city have been cut since May, when the state of emergency was declared.

Boko Haram was founded in Maiduguri in 2002 and was also the scene of its first uprising, in 2009.

West Africa: U.S. to Boost Public-Private Investment for Growth

GUEST COLUMN

As she begins a trip to Ghana, Liberia and Senegal this week,Elizabeth Littlefield, president and chief executive officer of the United States government's development finance agency, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), outlines how private-public investment partnerships can help boost growth.

A generation ago, many nations across sub-Saharan Africa had to promote their markets to global investors largely on the basis of promise, the bright future over the horizon.

Today, the case could not be more different. Tangible, compelling and vivid proof of progress is everywhere at hand. The rate of economic growth during the past decade has been roughly double the rates of the 1980s and 1990s.

Africa's economy once rose and fell in tandem with natural resource prices. Now most growth comes from sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, telecommunications, wholesale and retail.

While this is long-overdue good news, any African will tell you the news could easily be much better. Even as Africa grows each year, more than half of Africans—some 600 million people—still live without that basic prerequisite of a modern global economy, reliable electricity.

The number is hard to conceive. Imagine the productivity loss from a one-day blackout for every nation of Western Europe plus Japan and South Korea. The population of those nations combined roughly equals the number of Africans who live without power annually.

How can Africa fully compete when countless factories and computers go dark during rolling blackouts? How can it compete in an era of non-stop, round-the-clock communication when millions go home to candles or lanterns? Education is stunted. Healthcare suffers. Africa's power deficit is so pervasive that it shaves an estimated two percent off the continent's gross domestic product each year.

President Barack Obama's “Power Africa” initiative, announced this June, steps up to this challenge, and it does so in a new, innovative way.

Rather than trying to raise and direct donor money from development agencies and foreign countries, the main objective of Power Africa is to harness and catalyze private investment for electrification.

President Obama believes Africa's power shortfall can best be solved through the rapid, relentless innovation and cost-conscious refinements encouraged by market discipline. Rather than focusing exclusively on mega-projects, Power Africa will foster a diversity of projects: mini-grid, off-grid, conventional fuels and renewables, as well as efficiency-enhancing projects in transmission and distribution.

The aim is to double access to electrical power across sub-Saharan Africa. The model is to leverage every one dollar of public funds into at least $2 of private capital—provided investors are willing to meet minimum environmental and social standards, and operate with sound corporate governance.

Never before have entrepreneurs and investors been enticed to take and give such a pivotal leadership role in addressing Africa's problems at the intersection of economic growth, social progress, and environmental sustainability.

This public-private financing approach is viable. My agency has been making it work in Africa for four decades.

Over the past decade alone, OPIC has supported over $1 billion in power projects across Africa. Currently, we have more than $4 billion in investments here, and it has been one of the fastest growing segments of our portfolio in recent years.

In Togo, for example, we provided loans and political insurance to a public-private, tri-fuel power plant that tripled energy production in the nation and helped reduce blackouts that were crippling to businesses and homes.

Just weeks ago, OPIC approved $185 million for a solar park that will feed power into the South African grid. In addition to increasing electrical capacity, it will create good local jobs. The manufacturer and supplier of the solar modules for the park is majority-owned by South Africans.

As the sole development finance agency of the United States, we are capable of providing financing, guarantees, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds.

The key difference between OPIC and a private investor, however, is that we participate in a project only if it will generate jobs, improve lives or help communities. We also have a mandate to foster solid business practices and the highest standards of transparency.

Accountability is essential. OPIC does not merely hope that such benefits will be generated by our projects. We track results. We evaluate effectiveness. We constantly learn from our experience in projects large and small.

One of my primary goals in my visit to West Africa is to listen. We want to hear investment ideas of all types—large or small, high-tech or low-tech. We seek disciplined partners who can combine their unique knowledge of local markets with a passion for commercial excellence and making an impact on people's lives.

At OPIC, we believe that true partnerships of shared purpose, returns and impact do more than fulfill our promise to investors. They fulfill Africa's promise to future generations.

Ethiopia: Saudi Arabia - Labor Crackdown Violence - Ethiopian Workers Allege Attacks, Poor Detention Conditions

PRESS RELEASE

Beirut — Ethiopian migrant workers have been the victims of physical assaults, some of them fatal, in Saudi Arabia following a government crackdown on foreign workers. Many workers seeking to return home are being held in makeshift detention centres without adequate food or shelter.

Human Rights Watch spoke to five Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. Four Ethiopians in Riyadh told Human Rights Watch that the attacks began after November 4, 2013, when authorities resumed a campaign to arrest foreign workers who they claim are violating labor laws. Security forces have arrested or deported tens of thousands of workers. Saudi officials and state-controlled media have said that migrant workers have also been responsible for violence, including attacks on Saudi citizens, in the wake of the crackdown.

"Saudi authorities have spent months branding foreign workers as criminals in the media, and stirring up anti-migrant sentiment to justify the labor crackdown," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. "Now the Saudi government needs to rein in Saudi citizens who are attacking foreign workers."

Saudi authorities should immediately investigate assaults on Ethiopian and other migrant workers by security forces and Saudi citizens, and hold those responsible for violent crimes to account, Human Rights Watch said. Saudi and Ethiopian authorities should work to speedily repatriate undocumented foreign workers waiting in makeshift holding centers, if they have no fear of returning home, and ensure that they get adequate food, shelter, and medical care.

The most violent attacks occurred on the evening of November 9 in areas around the Manfouha neighborhood of southern Riyadh, where Ethiopian residents make up a majority of residents, according to local activists. Two Ethiopian migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they saw groups of people they assumed to be Saudi citizens armed with sticks, swords, machetes, and firearms, attack foreign workers.

One of the Ethiopians, a 30-year-old supervisor at a private company, said he heard shouts and screams from the street, and left his home near Manfouha to see what was happening. When he arrived near Bank Rajahi on the road to the Yamama neighborhood, west of Manfouha, he saw a large group of Ethiopians crying and shouting around the dead bodies of three Ethiopians, one of whom he said had been shot, and two others who had been beaten to death. He said six others appeared to be badly injured.

Mali: Rights Group Urges Mali to Release Teenage Detainees

A leading human rights group is urging Mali's government to release five boys held by the military for about seven months.

Amnesty International issued the call after a delegation led by the group's secretary general, Salil Shetty, met with the teenagers at a military detention center in Mali's capital, Bamako.

The rights group said the detainees are 15 to 17 years old.

In a statement, Shetty said the delegation was "horrified" to see the "traumatized" teenagers held in poor conditions. She called the detainment a violation of national and international law.

Amnesty said one of the five detainees is a child soldier who joined an al-Qaida-linked extremist organization, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad. The rights group said the four other teenagers were arrested because of their suspected ties to armed groups.