Pedro de Verona Rodrigues Pires, the former president of Cape Verde, the desertlike archipelago about 482km off the coast of West Africa, has won one of the world’s major prizes, the US$5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
The record of governing in Africa has been poor enough lately that the Mo Ibrahim Foundation decided not to award the prize for the past two years. In many African countries, leaders have refused to leave office after losing elections, tried to alter constitutions to ensure their continued tenure or gone back on pledges not to run for re-election.
However, on Monday the foundation of Ibrahim, a Sudan-born telecommunications mogul whose goal is to promote good government in Africa, announced it had picked Pires of Cape Verde, a sparsely populated former Portuguese colony of 500,000 people, mostly of mixed Portuguese-African descent. The islands are a perennial exception to the many low rankings that international organizations — including Ibrahim’s — give to nations on the continent for human rights and governing.
Excellence
Pires served two terms — 10 years — as president until stepping down last month. During that period, the foundation said, Cape Verde became only the second African nation to move up from the UN’s “least developed” category. The foundation says the prize is given only to a democratically elected president who has stayed “within the limits set by the country’s Constitution, has left office in the last three years and has demonstrated excellence in office.”
Resisted
Pires resisted suggestions that his country’s constitution could be changed to allow him to run again, a further point in his favor, the foundation said. In addition to the US$5 million award paid over 10 years, the winner receives US$200,000 annually for life thereafter.
“It is wonderful to see an African leader who has served his country from the time of colonial rule through to multiparty democracy, all the time retaining the interests of his people as his guiding principle,” Ibrahim said in a statement.
“The fact that Cape Verde with few natural resources can become a middle-income country is an example not just to the continent but to the world,” Ibrahim added.
Ibrahim publishes an index scoring African countries on how they govern, and this year the index noted significant improvements in Liberia and Sierra Leone, while nonetheless finding an “unchanged continental average” in “overall governance quality.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the