DRC op­po­si­tion leader quizzed

Lesotho Times - - Africa -

UN’S Of­fice for the Co-or­di­na­tion of Hu­man­i­tar­ian Af­fairs (OCHA) said Mon­day the acute child mal­nu­tri­tion rate in south­ern Zim­babwe was the high­est in 15 years at 2.3 per­cent.

“Chil­dren are drop­ping out of school and wak­ing up in the mid­dle of the night so that they can find and col­lect clean wa­ter,” the re­port said.

“In Zim­babwe, 6 000 chil­dren in Mata­bele­land North have dropped out of school, cit­ing hunger and the need to help out with house or farm work.”

A for­mer bread­bas­ket, Zim­babwe has suf­fered peren­nial short­ages in re­cent years and has re­lied on im­port­ing grain from neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

Last week, wildlife au­thor­i­ties asked lo­cal farm­ers and pri­vate game rangers to buy wild an­i­mals to save them from star­va­tion in na­tional game re­serves.

— AFP LUBUMBASHI — A lead­ing op­po­si­tion can­di­date for pres­i­dent of Demo­cratic Repub­lic of Congo was ques­tioned on Mon­day over govern­ment al­le­ga­tions of hir­ing mer­ce­nar­ies, a case that could halt his fledg­ling cam­paign in its tracks.

Moise Ka­tumbi ar­rived at the pros­e­cu­tor gen­eral’s of­fice in the sec­ond city Lubumbashi, dressed in a white suit and sur­rounded by sup­port­ers who chanted “Pres­i­dent! To­day is the day”.

At least four peo­ple were ar­rested as hun­dreds of po­lice tried to con­tain the crowds.

Ka­tumbi has de­nied ac­cu­sa­tions made by the jus­tice min­is­ter last week that he hired mer­ce­nar­ies in­clud­ing US sol­diers.

The en­quiry could lead to charges that carry a prison term and could also tie Ka­tumbi in le­gal knots that could de­rail his cam­paign to suc- ceed Pres­i­dent Joseph Ka­bila at elec­tions sched­uled Novem­ber.

Many Con­golese peo­ple say Ka­tumbi is the strong­est op­po­si­tion can­di­date to suc­ceed Ka­bila, given his per­sonal wealth and pop­u­lar­ity as the for­mer gover­nor of Congo’s main cop­per-pro­duc­ing re­gion. He also owns a soc­cer team.

Ka­bila is barred by the con­sti­tu­tion from seek­ing a third term but has yet to an­nounce his in­ten­tions.

His rul­ing party has not named an­other can­di­date and the op­po­si­tion says Ka­bila wants to de­lay the elec­tion to re­tain power.

Ka­tumbi ar­rived at the pros­e­cu­tor’s of­fice at about 10.15am lo­cal time (08.15 GMT), ac­com­pa­nied by lead­ers of an op­po­si­tion coali­tion that has backed his pres­i­den­tial bid, a Reuters wit­ness said.

— Reuters

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Lesotho

© PressReader. All rights reserved.