World Tour: Macron visits Africa

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Macron’s Africa trip— We take off today in Cameroon, where French President Emmanuel Macron began his three-nation African tour on Monday.

AUDIO: [Welcome music]

Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute welcomed Macron at the airport on Monday night.

MACRON: [Speaking in French]

Macron said that food and energy have become weapons of Russia’s war. He pledged to help the continent in its effort to become more self-sufficient in food production. Macron would meet with the youth and civil society members before moving on to Benin and Guinea-Bissau.

He is also expected to discuss security issues with the leaders. France is on track to complete its military withdrawal from Mali this year after relations broke down with the country's ruling junta.

Italy migrant arrivals— Next, to Italy, where more than a thousand migrants arrived at different ports over the weekend.

AUDIO: [Rescue operation]

Some 522 people landed on the island of Lampedusa on 15 different boats that departed from Tunisia and Libya. They included migrants from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A merchant vessel and coast guards rescued more than 600 migrants also attempting to cross the Mediterranean at the southern tip of Italy.

The German charity Sea-Watch said it rescued 428 migrants in four operations, all in less than 24 hours. The number of people trying to cross the dangerous route from Northern Africa into Europe typically rises in the summer due to the favorable weather.

More than 1,000 people have died or gone missing while making the crossing this year.

Myanmar executions— We head over to Myanmar.

AUDIO: [Speech]

That was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker giving a speech back in 2015.

He is one of four people the ruling junta said it executed on Monday. The group also includes a democracy activist and two other political prisoners. The junta sentenced them for alleged terrorist killings during closed door trials earlier this year.

It marks Myanmar’s first use of capital punishment in nearly five decades. The military has sentenced 72 prisoners to death, including two children, since its takeover in February 2021.

Phil Robertson is the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

ROBERTSON: Ultimately, there is now a war going on between this military junta and the people of the country. People are no longer prepared to be ruled by this military junta and this military junta is using absolute force to try to impose its will on the country. So as I said, we're really moving towards a civil war, where the human rights situation is going to get much worse.

Demonstrators turned out with banners in Yangon on Monday to oppose the executions.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

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