Twoafros

Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after being doused in petrol and set on fire by her former partner, has been buried with full military honours at her ancestral home in Uganda’s northeast.

The 33-year-old, who debuted this summer in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, died of severe burns last week after being attacked by Kenyan Dickson Ndiema Marangach – an assault that prompted a global outpouring of tributes.

Hundreds of residents, relatives, officials and fellow Olympians from Uganda and Kenya paid their respects to Cheptegei on Saturday in Bukwo village near Uganda’s border with Kenya. Her body was lowered into her grave with full military honours, including a gun salute by the Ugandan military, in which she served

“She embodied the admirable spirit of resilience, selflessness, generosity and hard work, which worked together to catapult her to international glory,” said Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s sports minister. Her death, he said, marked “a tragic end to a blossoming life”.

Ugandan Sports Minister Peter Ogwang condemned the “barbaric and cowardly” attack that had taken her life and said the government would give roughly $13,000 to each of Cheptegei’s children. ‘Bury me in Uganda’

Cheptegei lived in the highlands of western Kenya, an area popular with international runners for its high-altitude training facilities. She came 44th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics on August 11 – her final race.

Three weeks later, Marangach attacked Cheptegei on September 1 as she returned from church with her two daughters and younger sister in the village of Kinyoro.

Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told the Reuters news agency his daughter had approached police at least three times to file complaints against Marangach, who died a few days after Cheptegei from burns sustained during the attack.

She suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and succumbed to her injuries four days later.

“I don’t think I am going to make it,” her father said she told him while being treated in hospital. “If I die, just bury me at home in Uganda.”

Agnes Cheptegei mourns next to the coffin of her Olympian daughter [Edwin Waita/Reuters]

Cheptegei’s estranged husband, Simon Ayeko, with whom she had two daughters, said the family was “extremely saddened”.

“As a father, it has been very difficult,” he told the AFP news agency, adding that he had not been able to break the news to their children. “Slowly, we will tell them the truth.”

Cheptegei’s death sparked anger over the high levels of violence against women in Kenya, particularly in the athletics community. The marathoner was the third elite runner to die allegedly at the hands of a romantic partner since 2021.

One in three Kenyan girls and women aged 15 to 49 have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022.

Rights groups said female athletes in Kenya are at a high risk of exploitation and violence by men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.

Cheptegei’s sporting successes include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand and a year later earning first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and setting a national record for the marathon.

The athlete was a “heroine”, local presidential representative Bessie Modest Ajilong told AFP.

“As leaders, we saw Cheptegei as an inspiration.”

The article:

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has dissolved the opposition-led parliament, paving the way for snap elections six months after he was voted in on an anti-establishment platform.

Faye said working with the assembly had grown difficult after members refused to start discussions on the budget law and rejected efforts to dissolve wasteful state institutions.

“I dissolve the national assembly to ask the sovereign people for the institutional means to bring about the systemic transformation that I have promised to deliver,” Faye said in a brief speech late on Thursday.

The elections will be held on November 17.

Observers say Faye’s party, PASTEF (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity), has a high chance of securing a majority, given his popularity and his victory margin in the March presidential election, which he won with 54 percent of votes.

The Benno Bokk Yaakar opposition platform led by former President Macky Sall condemned the move. It said Faye had convened a legislative session under pretences to announce the dissolution and accused him of “perjury”.

Faye, 44, won the vote in March to become Africa’s youngest elected leader less than two weeks after he was released from prison.

His rise has reflected widespread frustration among Senegal’s youth with the country’s direction – a common sentiment across Africa – which has the world’s youngest population and a number of leaders accused of clinging to power for decades.

During the presidential campaign, Faye promised widespread reforms to improve the living standards of common Senegalese, including fighting corruption, reviewing fishing permits for foreign companies, and securing a bigger share of the country’s natural resources for the population.

But six months later, these pledges have yet to materialise.

The president and Ousmane Sonko, the prime minister and a popular opposition figure who helped catapult Faye to victory, have blamed the parliament.

PASTEF does not hold a majority in the assembly, which Faye says has blocked him from executing the promised reforms.

In June, the opposition coalition cancelled a budgetary debate in a dispute over whether Sonko was required to issue his government’s policy roadmap, with him arguing that he was not required to.

The assembly has until the end of December to vote on the budget for next year, but new legislative elections might make it hard to meet this deadline.

The article:

Boeing’s roughly 33,000 factory workers on the West Coast of the United States have voted overwhelmingly to strike in the latest blow for the beleaguered aircraft giant.

Machinists at the company’s factories in Seattle and Portland, Oregon on Thursday voted to walk off the job from midnight after rejecting management’s latest offer for better pay and conditions.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said that 94.6 percent of its members voted to reject the contract and 96 percent backed a strike.

Boeing’s offer would have raised pay by 25 percent over four years, reduced workers’ share of healthcare costs and increased the company’s retirement contributions.

The aircraft maker’s offer also included a commitment to build its next aircraft at its facilities in greater Seattle after the company angered union members by moving production of the 787 Dreamliner to a non-unionised plant in South Carolina.

Workers had demanded a 40 percent wage rise, the restoration of a pension scheme that was axed a decade ago, and a stronger guarantee that future production would not be moved out of the Seattle region.

Jon Holden, IAM’s lead negotiator in the contract talks, said workers had spoken “loud and clear”.

“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future,” Holden said.

“We strike at midnight.”

The strike, the first by Boeing workers since 2008, puts a halt to production of the best-selling 737 MAX and other aircraft as the company grapples with output delays, heavy financial losses and intense scrutiny of its safety record.

It also comes just weeks after new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg took the helm of the company with a pledge to “reset” the company’s relations with the union.

Ortberg had on Wednesday urged workers to vote against a strike, warning it would “put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together”.

Boeing did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Adam Smith, a Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives representing Washington State, urged the two sides to return to the negotiating table.

“Across corporate America, so much of the wealth has wound up in the hands of so few people,” Smith said in a statement.

“Large corporations have increasingly prioritised their own profits and shareholders at the expense of workers. It is crucial that Boeing behaves as a responsible steward for its employees, so that every employee at their company is respected with fair wages and working conditions.”

The article:

Boeing’s roughly 33,000 factory workers on the West Coast of the United States have voted overwhelmingly to strike in the latest blow for the beleaguered aircraft giant.

Machinists at the company’s factories in Seattle and Portland, Oregon on Thursday voted to walk off the job from midnight after rejecting management’s latest offer for better pay and conditions.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said that 94.6 percent of its members voted to reject the contract and 96 percent backed a strike.

Boeing’s offer would have raised pay by 25 percent over four years, reduced workers’ share of healthcare costs and increased the company’s retirement contributions.

The aircraft maker’s offer also included a commitment to build its next aircraft at its facilities in greater Seattle after the company angered union members by moving production of the 787 Dreamliner to a non-unionised plant in South Carolina.

Workers had demanded a 40 percent wage rise, the restoration of a pension scheme that was axed a decade ago, and a stronger guarantee that future production would not be moved out of the Seattle region.

Jon Holden, IAM’s lead negotiator in the contract talks, said workers had spoken “loud and clear”.

“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future,” Holden said.

“We strike at midnight.”

The strike, the first by Boeing workers since 2008, puts a halt to production of the best-selling 737 MAX and other aircraft as the company grapples with output delays, heavy financial losses and intense scrutiny of its safety record.

It also comes just weeks after new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg took the helm of the company with a pledge to “reset” the company’s relations with the union.

Ortberg had on Wednesday urged workers to vote against a strike, warning it would “put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together”.

Boeing did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Adam Smith, a Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives representing Washington State, urged the two sides to return to the negotiating table.

“Across corporate America, so much of the wealth has wound up in the hands of so few people,” Smith said in a statement.

“Large corporations have increasingly prioritised their own profits and shareholders at the expense of workers. It is crucial that Boeing behaves as a responsible steward for its employees, so that every employee at their company is respected with fair wages and working conditions.”

Legendary actor James Earl Jones dies at 93.

Rest in peace to someone who's work filled many lives with joy!

From the article:

*A UN Development Program (UNDP) report published this week indicates subjective credit rating agencies have had a significant effect on Africa’s access to finance, with the continent shelling out upwards of USD 74 billion in additional interest payments as a result of the skewed ratings.

The report reveals that African countries pay an average interest rate of 11.6 percent on loans, almost four times what creditors charge borrowers such as the US.

The report was presented during a ‘Development Context for Enhanced Credit Ratings in Africa’ workshop organized in Addis Ababa this week by the UNDP and AfriCatalyst, a Dakar-based think tank.

The UNDP has launched an initiative to respond to the rising cost of borrowing in global capital markets and the increasing difficulty of financing development in Africa.

Over the last decade alone, east African countries’ interest payment measured as percentage of gross national income (GNI), has surged to 80 percent, according to the agency.

This is partly due to subjective biases at international credit rating agencies, of which there are three who collectively rate over 90 percent of the world’s varying issuances.

Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P are the only international credit rating agencies that have offices in Africa, all of them in South Africa.*

Cartoon by Gary Larson

ADDIS ABABA, July 29 (Reuters) - Ethiopia’s central bank floated the country’s birr currency on Monday, a move it hopes will secure International Monetary Fund (IMF) support and make progress on a long-delayed debt restructuring.

The birr’s value against the U.S. dollar slumped by 30% to 74.73 per dollar, the country’s biggest lender, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia said. The currency had been trading at 57.48 birr to the dollar on Friday.

ADDIS ABABA, July 29 (Reuters) - Ethiopia's central bank floated the country's birr currency on Monday, a move it hopes will secure International Monetary Fund (IMF) support and make progress on a long-delayed debt restructuring.

The birr's value against the U.S. dollar slumped by 30% to 74.73 per dollar, the country's biggest lender, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia said. The currency had been trading at 57.48 birr to the dollar on Friday.

I'm all for higher minimum wages, unions, paid leaves and other forms of worker protection, but it seems like the most forms of worker protection focus on maintaining a division between an employer(s) who owns the business and the employee who makes money for the business but does not own it. IMO, this division is unethical and exploitative because it denies the worker the full value of their work.

Are there any political or social movements that push for policy or legislation that makes all businesses to be worker owned cooperatives?