World Tour: Election violence in Tanzania

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Oduah.

SOUND: [CHURCH SINGING]

ONIZE ODUAH: We begin today in the East African nation of Tanzania, where church leaders and rights groups have condemned electoral violence.

Authorities have also charged more than 200 people with treason after violent protests over the outcome of the late October poll.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan scored nearly 98 percent of the widely-criticized vote.

The main opposition party was barred from the election. According to the opposition, as more than one thousand people died after security forces clamped down on the protests.

Jude Thaddaeus Ruwa'ichi is the archbishop of the city of Dar-es-Salaam.

JUDE THADDAEUS RUWA'ICHI: (SWAHILI) Our nation has been wounded, and it has lost its dignity because of what transpired during the week of the general election. It has not only lost its honour but also its people — citizens who were unlawfully killed.

He says here that Tanzania has lost its dignity and honor over the unlawful killings. Authorities have not released official details on the number of dead or injured.

President Hassan formerly served as vice president. She emerged as Tanzania’s first female chief executive in 2021 after former President John Magufuli died in office.

SOUND: [LEADERS ARRIVING]

Next we go to Belem, Brazil, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. 50,000 people from more than 190 nations gathered this week for the COP30 Climate Change Conference. The conference marks ten years since the signing of the Paris Agreement, when the group agreed to fight global warming. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opened this week’s event by castigating what he called “climate deniers.”

DE SILVA: COP30 will be the COP of Truth….

World representatives called for new pledges to reduce emissions and financial assistance for developing nations.

The United States did not send any high-level representatives to the conference. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently criticized the gathering.

CHRIS WRIGHT: Gatherings of global leaders and businesses should be about humans. The world has 8 billion citizens. Let’s focus on the interests of 8 billion citizens, not on the desire to scare children, and grow government power…Let’s focus on humans.

Billionaire Bill Gates released a memo ahead of the conference saying that a doomsday outlook to climate change was mistaken. He called for diverting resources from near-term emissions goals to improving the lives of the world’s poorest people.

COP30 runs through November 21st.

SOUND: [RUNNING WATER]

We wrap up in Iran, where the worst drought in decades has prompted officials to prepare for water rationing.

The capital city of Tehran is facing its sixth consecutive year of drought. Local officials say rainfall in the city is at its lowest level in a century.

Dam reservoirs in Tehran and other cities have also fallen below 10%.

Kaveh Madani is the director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

MADANI: A problem like this was not created overnight. It's the product of decades of mismanagement, lack of foresight, and problems in planning in not only the water sector but the other sectors that the water sector is interconnected with.

Iranian authorities have warned of rolling cuts in Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Tehran could face evacuations if the city does not get any rainfall before winter.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Oduah.

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