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Nairobi, Kenya — Central banks in Africa are turning to gold to protect themselves from economic and geopolitical instability and to diversify their financial portfolios. In September 2023, the price of gold per ounce was $1,900. A year later, it is selling for $2,500. According to the World Gold Council, an international trade association for the gold industry, demand for the metal is expected to increase in the next 10 months despite the soaring prices. Some experts, such as Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance in South Africa, attribute the African central banks’ gold rush to the need to protect their local currencies. "In the last few years, because of inflation and all these movements for stimulation packages and the rest, the returns are extremely low,” Lopes said. “On the other hand, gold is going up in terms of price because these big banks are also going after gold as a protection. So, it is a very good investment to go to gold." It helps that African gold production has grown by 60% since 2010, according to the World Gold Council, higher than a global increase of 26%. In 2022, Zimbabwe launched a gold-backed currency to curb inflation and volatility in foreign exchange rates. Ghana and Uganda have been buying gold from artisanal miners to bolster their shrinking foreign currency reserves. Ghana, Africa's largest gold producer, plans to buy oil from other countries and pay them in gold to ease pressure on local currency and lower high fuel prices. Some economists say gold cannot solve the economic problems of some African countries. According to the World Gold Council, countries should hold onto gold for its long-term value, performance during crises and its role as an effective portfolio diversifier. Bright Oppong Afum, a senior lecturer at the University of Mines and Technology in Ghana, said some African countries want to use gold to reduce their reliance on the global financial system. "If sanctions are laid on you, an African country, we know the devastating effects that it will have,” he said. “The African countries are developing, or they are young, and they do not want to receive some harsh sanctions that will negatively or strongly impact the economics. And because of that, they are strategically reducing their dependencies on these external countries." Afum said that although some Africans know and understand the value of gold, many trade away the metal to satisfy their daily needs. "So, they just find a mere buyer who will ... exploit them,” he said. The African Continental Free Trade Area introduced the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, enabling countries to trade in local currencies. Experts say some continental payment systems, if implemented, can ease the economic pressures some countries are grappling with. That, in turn, might make them less dependent on gold.

Taipei, Taiwan — Russia and China are holding a series of joint military naval and air force exercises this month in a bid to deepen ties and counter increased security coordination between the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region, analysts say.  “Russia wants to demonstrate that they can engage in a full-scale war with Ukraine while deploying resources to the Indo-Pacific region and China wants to show that they can deepen its relationship with Russia and cause problems in the region, primarily in the South China Sea but also around Japan,” said Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University in Japan.   On Monday, the Chinese defense ministry said both countries would conduct joint naval and aerial exercises aimed at deepening bilateral strategic cooperation and strengthening their ability to respond to security threats in the waters and airspace near the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.  In addition to the joint exercise near Japan, the Chinese defense ministry said Chinese and Russian naval fleets will conduct their fifth joint patrol in the Pacific Ocean and take part in the "Ocean 2024" strategic exercise held by Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow Times reported that the weeklong exercise had begun and would last from September 10 to 16.  “Russia hopes to increase pressure on the United States on the Pacific front through the joint military exercise with China, which may force Washington to reduce its military deployment to Europe,” said Lin Ying-yu, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan.   On the other hand, he added that China hopes to divert Japan’s attention from waters near the Taiwan Strait through its closer military partnership with Russia.   “Japan will have to prioritize threats to their security so they won’t have more bandwidth to focus on the situation across the Taiwan Strait,” Lin told VOA in a phone interview.   China and Russia’s increased military cooperation near Japan in recent years has prompted Tokyo to characterize their joint activities as a “grave concern.” “These repeated joint activities are clearly intended for demonstration of force against Japan and are a grave concern from the perspective of the national security of Japan,” the Japanese defense ministry wrote in its annual defense white paper, which was released in July.   For now, Nagy said Japan is more concerned with how the military cooperation may evolve, adding that there are still limits to what the two can do together when they conduct exercises.   “Japan will be concerned about whether the coordination between China and Russia will be used to destabilize sea lines of communication, to prop up North Korea, or to move towards some kind of forced reunification with Taiwan,” he told VOA in a phone interview. “The Russians and Chinese will sail beside each other, fly next to each other, or coordinate how their boats move around but they haven’t developed interoperability and inter-command.”  Enhancing logistics, communication collaboration  While there are limits to their cooperation, other analysts say Russia and China will still use joint military exercises to enhance their cooperation in logistics, such as exchanging parts, fuel, or services or sharing data or communication channels.   “The ability for the Chinese and Russian armies to better understand one another and better support each other in the field is an important capability to develop for both countries,” Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, told VOA by phone.   In addition to that, Lin in Taipei said China could also enhance its forces’ combat capabilities through joint military exercises with Russia since the Russian forces have accumulated real combat experiences from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.   “Since Russia’s navies have dealt with drone or anti-ship missile attacks launched by Ukraine, the Chinese navy could learn about how to deal with similar attacks in a potential war across the Taiwan Strait from their Russian counterparts,” he told VOA.   Pushing back against NATO   China and Russia’s upcoming military exercise near Japan is part of their growing efforts to push back against the United States and NATO allies. Since July, Beijing and Moscow have held at least three joint military drills in different parts of the world, including the South China Sea, the skies off coastal Alaska, and the Gulf of Finland.   “These increased military drills all over the world are part of Beijing and Moscow’s efforts to counter the deepening defense coordination between the U.S. and its allies, both in Europe and in the Pacific,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told VOA in a phone interview.   Despite their attempt to challenge the U.S. and NATO through closer military cooperation, Nagy said China and Russia are unlikely to let their partnership escalate out of proportion.   “Russia and China will continue to reciprocate what the U.S. and its allies are doing, but not escalate since Beijing wants to maintain its narrative to the Global South that they are not a hegemonic power,” he told VOA.  On Tuesday, Chinese authorities said the United States and China held theater-level commander talks for the first time when Admiral Sam Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, held a video telephone call with his counterpart Wu Yanan of the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army. The Indo-Pacific Command focuses on enhancing security and stability in the Asia Pacific region and hotspots including the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. 

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London — The United States and Britain formally accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine, and said they will take measures to punish those involved. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during a visit to London, said that sanctions would be announced later Tuesday. "Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine, against Ukrainians," Blinken said. "The supply of Iranian missiles enables Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that are further from the front line." It comes as Blinken and Lammy are preparing to make a joint visit Wednesday to Ukraine, where they will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior officials to discuss bolstering the country's defenses. The Kremlin is trying to repel Ukraine's surprise offensive that has claimed hundreds of miles of territory in Russia's Kursk region. The accusations about Iranian missiles could embolden Zelenskyy to further ramp up pressure on the U.S. and other allies to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike deep inside Russia and hit sites from which Moscow launches aerial attacks. President Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to fire U.S.-provided missiles across the border into Russia in self-defense but largely limited the distance over concerns about further escalating the conflict. That has not stopped Ukraine from using its own weapons to hit targets deeper in Russia, launching on Tuesday one of the biggest drone attacks on Russian soil in the 2 1/2-year war that targeted multiple regions including Moscow. The rare joint visit to Kyiv was, unusually, announced in advance, in a public signal of U.S-.U.K. support for Ukraine ahead of what's likely to be a brutal winter of Russian attacks. It will be followed by a meeting at the White House on Friday between Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with support for Ukraine's defense on the agenda. Asked whether the U.S. would allow weapons it supplied to strike targets in Russia, Blinken said all use of weapons needed to be allied to a strategy. He said one goal of the joint visit this week "is to hear directly from the Ukrainian leadership, including … President Zelenskyy, about exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives, and what we can do to support those needs." "All I can tell you is we will be listening intently to our Ukrainian partners, we will both be reporting back to the prime minister, to President Biden in the coming days and I fully anticipate this is something they will take up when they meet on Friday," he said. Word of the alleged transfers from Iran began to emerge over the weekend with reports that U.S. intelligence indicated they were underway, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Lammy called the missile transfers part of "a troubling pattern that we're seeing. It is definitely a significant escalation." Iran has denied providing Russia with weapons for its war in Ukraine. "Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict — which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations — to be inhumane," according to a recent statement from Iran's mission to the United Nations. The U.S. and its allies have been warning Iran for months not to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia. CIA Director William Burns, who was in London on Saturday for a joint appearance with his British intelligence counterpart, warned of the growing and "troubling" defense relationship involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea that he said threatens both Ukraine and Western allies in the Middle East. The White House has repeatedly declassified and publicized intelligence findings that show North Korea has sent ammunition and missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine, while Iran also supplies Moscow with attack drones and has assisted the Kremlin with building a drone-manufacturing factory. China has held back from providing Russians with weaponry but has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry, according to U.S. officials.

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Eldoret, Kenya — The man accused of dousing in gasoline and setting afire Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from burns sustained during the fatal attack on the Ugandan athlete, a hospital official said on Tuesday. Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in the Sept. 1 attack and died four days later. Her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, died at 1530 GMT on Monday, said Philip Kirwa, chief executive officer of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret in western Kenya where Marangach was being treated and where Cheptegei also died. "He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death," Kirwa said in a statement. Kirwa said Marangach had suffered over 41% burns following his assault on Cheptegei, which local media reported to have happened after she returned home from church with her children. Cheptegei, who finished 44th in Paris, is the third elite sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Her death has put the spotlight on domestic violence in the East African country, particularly within its running community. "This guy is dead because he killed my daughter. He has died because of his actions," Cheptegei's father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Reuters. Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya, where many international runners train in the high-altitude highlands, are at a high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes. "Justice really would have been for him to sit in jail and think about what he had done. This is not positive news whatsoever," said Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop's Angels, a support group for survivors of domestic violence in Kenya's athletic community. "The shock of Rebecca's death is still fresh," Cheptoo told Reuters. Cheptoo co-founded Tirop's Angels in memory of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya's highly competitive athletics scene, who was found dead in her home in the town of Iten in October 2021, with multiple stab wounds to the neck. Ibrahim Rotich, Tirop's husband, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is ongoing. Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence. Globally, a woman is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes, according to a 2023 U.N. Women study. "I don't wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop," Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, told Reuters.

The United States on Wednesday said Russia is running a multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign covertly using American influencers to interfere in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections.

Through its “debt trap diplomacy,” China became the major shareholder controlling most of African natural resources, infrastructure and other assets. Beijing-owned businesses in Africa practice child labor, fund violent insurgency, and sustain corruption, illegal trade and money laundering.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo said that 50,000 doses of mpox vaccine from the United States arrived in the country on Tuesday, a week after the first batch arrived from the European Union. Adults in Equateur, South Kivu and Sankuru, the three most-affected provinces, will be vaccinated first, starting on October 2, said Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of the DRC's Monkeypox Response Committee. Last week, the first batch of mpox vaccines arrived in the capital, Kinshasa, the center of the outbreak. The 100,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine, manufactured by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic, were donated by the EU through HERA, the bloc's agency for health emergencies. Another 100,000 were delivered over the weekend. The 50,000 doses from the U.S. will be of the same JYNNEOS vaccine. The 250,000 doses are just a fraction of the 3 million doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in the DRC, the epicenter of the global health emergency. EU countries pledged to donate more than 500,000 others, but the timeline for their delivery remained unclear. Since the start of 2024, there have been 5,549 confirmed mpox cases across the continent, with 643 associated deaths, representing a sharp escalation in infections and fatalities compared with previous years. The cases in the DRC constituted 91% of the total number. Most mpox infections in the DRC and Burundi, the second-most-affected country, are in children under age 15. Last week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization launched a continentwide response plan to the outbreak of mpox, three weeks after the World Health Organization declared outbreaks in 12 African countries a global emergency. The DRC issued an emergency approval of the vaccine, which has already been used in Europe and the United States in adults. For the moment, the rollout will be reserved for adults, with priority groups being those who have been in close contact with infected people and sex workers, Africa CDC Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya told reporters last week. The European Medicines Agency is examining additional data to be able to administer it to children ranging in age from 12 to 17, which could happen at the end of the month, HERA Director-General Laurent Muschel said. The next batch of mpox vaccines will come from Japan and could arrive as early as this weekend, Kacita Osako told the AP, without specifying how many doses.

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Turkey is undertaking a massive expansion of its navy to make it one of Europe's largest naval powers. The buildup is alarming some of its neighbors, but Ankara insists it is purely defensive and meant to meet Turkey’s growing regional commitments. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

London — Google lost its final legal challenge on Tuesday against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine.  The European Union’s Court of Justice upheld a lower court’s decision, rejecting the company’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer.  "By today’s judgment, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeal and thus upholds the judgment of the General Court," the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.  The commission's punished the Silicon Valley giant in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-dollar fines that the commission imposed on Google in the previous decade as Brussels started ramping up its crackdown on the tech industry.  “We are disappointed with the decision of the Court, which relates to a very specific set of facts,” Google said in a brief statement.  The company said it made changes in 2017 to comply with the commission’s decision requiring it to treat competitors equally. It started holding auctions for shopping search listings that it would bid for alongside other comparison shopping services.  “Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services,” Google said.  At the same time, the company appealed the decision to the courts. But the EU General Court, the tribunal's lower section, rejected its challenge in 2021 and the Court of Justice’s adviser later recommended rejecting the appeal.  European consumer group BEUC hailed the court's decision, saying it shows how the bloc's competition law “remains highly relevant" in digital markets.  "Google harmed millions of European consumers by ensuring that rival comparison shopping services were virtually invisible," director general Agustín Reyna said. “Google’s illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing potentially cheaper prices and useful product information from rival comparison shopping services on all sorts of products, from clothes to washing machines.” 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.