🇲🇺 At 75, a former police chief is recalled to fix the intelligence machine

At 75, a former police chief is recalled to fix the intelligence machine

Ramanooj Gopalsingh joined the police as a cadet inspector in 1974, ran the force for eight years, and left in 2008 at the age of 56. Now 75, he is back, named an adviser at the Prime Minister's Office with a brief that reads like a repair job: revive the intelligence apparatus and push through police reform.

He knows the terrain. Gopalsingh led the old National Intelligence Unit through the tense months around the death in custody of the singer Kaya in 1999 and the riots that followed, then took over as Commissioner of Police in 2000. The unit he once ran was dissolved in 2001 and folded into the National Security Service, the same machine he is now asked to restart.

The recall lands while the service is already being reshuffled from the top. Bringing back a man who left the force seventeen years ago is a bet that experience beats a fresh face. The real test is whether a veteran of 34 years can modernise a service the digital age has moved past.

Low pay and political meddling are draining the public health service

Between 2020 and 2024, hundreds of doctors, specialists, nurses and midwives left the public service for private clinics or jobs abroad. Unions and senior medics keep naming the same reasons: salaries they call derisory, ageing equipment, and political interference in who gets what.

The numbers show the drift, public generalists slipped from 44.8% to 43.7% of the profession over those years, a small figure that hides a steady bleed of experience. Staff say the ministry guards patients and forgets the people treating them.

Pay reviews fix a payslip; they don't fix a ward where the senior doctor just resigned.

Bar Council wants an independent probe into pressure on a detainee's lawyer

The Mauritius Bar Council has asked the authorities for a fast, independent inquiry after lawyer Rouben Mooroongapillay complained about what happened while he represented a man held in a police investigation. Someone, he says, tried to push the detainee to drop him and hire different lawyer.

The Council wants CCTV footage, call data and movement records preserved before anything goes missing. It is not judging the claim yet. It is asking that the evidence outlive the argument.

Nita Deerpalsing starts her own party and calls it Lavwa Lavenir

Nita Deerpalsing, a former Labour MP and reformer, launched a new party in Ebene on Wednesday: Lavwa Lavenir, Creole for voice of the future. She pitched it as a project built with Mauritians, not handed to them, and light on the usual machinery. Whether a fresh name can dent a two-bloc habit is the open question.

12,100 young people are jobless while firms say they cannot hire

Why are 12,100 young Mauritians out of work while employers swear they cannot fill their posts? The mismatch is skills, not vacancies. Courses miss what firms actually need, pay lags the private sector, and school-leavers and empty desks keep staring past each other.

Shorts

Pupil, 12, seriously hurt in a school bus fall – A boy of 12 is in a serious condition after falling from a school bus at Grande-Pointe-aux-Piments.

Rs 1.5M in gold gone from a Pamplemousses home – Gold jewellery worth about Rs 1.5 million disappeared from the house of a woman of 92.

A new wind farm of 15 to 20 MW joins the grid – Mauritius is adding a 15 to 20 MW wind project as it widens a mix still leaning on coal.

Engen plans bigger fuel storage at the port – Engen wants to extend its Coromandel terminal with four new tanks of 5,500 cubic metres each.

In Rodrigues, stigma still trails HIV – On Rodrigues, campaigners say prejudice still shadows people living with HIV, keeping many from care.

110

people have died on the roads since January, a toll still climbing week by week. The count is running ahead of where it stood at this point last year.

Rs 1 billion

less spent on imported clothing and footwear in the first half of 2026, a sharp pullback after years of elevated buying. Retailers are feeling the squeeze.

59

caps for Senegal keeper Edouard Mendy, who has told the incoming coach he is done with international duty at 34. A quiet exit for the country's long-time last line.

A million people in South Sudan could lose food aid within weeks

More than a million people in South Sudan, a country still gripped by conflict, may lose lifesaving food support as soon as next month, the UN's World Food Programme warns. The agency says it simply cannot meet demand on the funds it has.

It is the same story across too many crises this year: the need rises, the money does not. When the aid budget shrinks, the people at the very edge are the first to feel it.

Nigeria's displaced say they feel forgotten before the 2027 vote

In a camp outside Abuja, families chased out by a jihadist insurgency tell reporters they have little to show for years of waiting, and less faith the election will change it.

Messi picks Benin for one last Argentina goodbye

Lionel Messi is set for a farewell friendly against Benin on 6 October, a final bow in Africa after stepping away from the national side.

A Republican files to impeach the defense chief over the Iran war

Republican congressman Thomas Massie has filed articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of ordering hostilities against Iran without authorisation from Congress.

A member of the president's own party moving to impeach his defense secretary is rare. It says the fight over who gets to start a war is now inside the tent, not just across the aisle.

Maduro's ally Alex Saab pleads guilty in a US laundering case

Colombian businessman Alex Saab, a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, pleaded guilty in a Miami court to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

At least 12 die as a building comes down in Gaza City

A building sheltering displaced families collapsed in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, with dozens still feared missing under the rubble, a local hospital says.

A legend of French flat racing wants to help the Champ de Mars

Olivier Peslier has won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Europe's biggest flat race, four times. Now he says he is ready to help Mauritius's racing industry find its feet again.

The Champ de Mars in Port Louis is one of oldest racecourses in the southern hemisphere, and it has had a rough few seasons. A name like Peslier's won't fix the sport, but it puts a spotlight where punters have wanted one.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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