🇲🇺 Percy Yip Tong faces a vagrancy charge for defending a Rivière-Noire banyan

Percy Yip Tong faces a vagrancy charge for defending a Rivière-Noire banyan

Percy Yip Tong, a social worker and environmental activist, spent Thursday morning tied to a banyan at Rivière-Noire and part of the afternoon in a police cell. He appears at the Bambous court on Friday, where officers are expected to enter a provisional charge of 'rogue and vagabond', a colonial-era catch-all once used against idlers and drifters. Officers let him go on parole until then.

The tree he was guarding is about 150 years old. A first banyan on the same plot had already come down the day before, so Yip Tong and a local resident lashed themselves to the second one to stop it meeting the same fate. Both trees stood on land earmarked for a property development, and residents said all they had asked for was a conversation with the owner.

By the end of the day they got it. The owner met the protesters and agreed to spare the banyan still standing. So the tree survives, and the man who saved it still has court date on Friday.

A vagrancy law written for drifters, now pointed at a man who refused to move.

World Bank says Mauritius could stall at 1.2% growth without reform

Mauritius could see its potential growth sink to 1.2% by 2050 if it clings to the current economic model, the World Bank warns in its 2026 growth and employment report. Get the reforms right, though, and it puts annual GDP growth at 5.2% by 2035 and 6.7% by 2050.

The report sets out three tasks: a fairer, more competitive business climate, heavier investment in infrastructure and skills, and a genuine push on innovation. It also wants far more women in paid work, through subsidised childcare, flexible working hours and more open pay.

Questions pile up over an Indian ship anchored off Agaléga

Since last weekend, the arrival of an Indian ship off Agaléga has set residents of the remote island talking, and worrying. The Outer Islands Development Corporation, the state body that runs Agaléga, has stepped in to calm nerves.

For many islanders the unease is familiar. India has built a jetty and a runway on Agaléga, and every unexplained arrival revives the same question about who the new facilities are really meant to serve.

Mauritius tests the idea of a shorter working week

Could the standard work week shrink? The Ministry of Labour has put out a tender for a feasibility study on moving the country to 40 hours, down from the usual 45. No promises yet, just a question the government is now paying to have answered properly.

A dentist, heroin and synthetic cannabis: an arrest at Nouvelle-France

Police at Nouvelle-France arrested a dentist on Wednesday, allegedly carrying heroin and synthetic cannabis. The quantities and the charges are still being confirmed, police have not said more. A man whose day job is drilling teeth now has a very different appointment with the courts.

Shorts

Water anger reaches Phoenix – After St-Paul and Highlands, dry taps have now pushed angry residents of Phoenix into the street.

A new reading tool for blind pupils – The Lois Lagesse Centre has rolled out a device that lets blind pupils read on their own.

Prosecutions chief must rule on the Jagai case – In the reward money affair, the state's prosecutors must now decide if Superintendent Jagai faces action.

A meal, then a stolen rental car – At Baie-du-Tombeau, a woman begged for food and drove off in a Rs 500,000 rental.

Police want better bomb squad gear – A police tender seeks new demining gear for the Special Mobile Force's bomb unit.

5.7%

That is how much prices rose over the twelve months to September, and the climb has not slowed. Fuel, food and private tuition fees did most of the pushing, says Statistics Mauritius.

2,063

Drivers picked up that many fines during three days of Operation Crackdown, when police stopped 8,255 vehicles between Saturday and Monday.

20

Nigerian graduates abducted on their way to begin national youth service turned up alive, rescued after a week of searching. Every one of them came home.

Ghana lines up to join the BRICS club

Ghana's cabinet has cleared a formal bid to join BRICS, the bloc that groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and now courts the developing world. For Accra it is a bet that the global south offers the trade and finance that the old Western institutions have been slow to extend. Membership is far from automatic, and the group has lately been wary of adding too many names at once.

Fighting flares again in eastern DRC

Fresh clashes have broken out in Masisi in eastern DRC just as an African Union team arrived to check whether the ceasefire with the M23 rebels is holding.

Benin wins a round to extradite Semi Keba

A court has cleared the way to extradite activist Semi Keba to Benin, where he is wanted after backing a failed coup against President Patrice Talon.

Houthi strikes hit Saudi and Yemeni airports, killing three

Houthi forces, backed by Iran, struck airports in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, killing three people and wounding dozens. The sites were civilian, a sharp widening of a war that has mostly played out at sea and over oil terminals.

In reply, the coalition led by Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed 82 Houthi military targets. Each round like this nudges shipping and insurance costs along corridor that matters to anyone importing fuel, Mauritius included.

Okinawa base locks down after a Marine's arrest

US forces in Okinawa have ordered a 48 hour halt to operations and a curfew lasting a month after a Marine was arrested over the killing of a Japanese woman.

UK quietly downgrades its Jerusalem consulate

Britain has downgraded its consulate in East Jerusalem to a mission, a quiet step down that it says will still serve Palestinians.

Who really won the last AFCON? Ask a court

Senegal and Morocco played a chaotic Africa Cup of Nations final back in January. Nine months on, they are still arguing about it, this time at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

A verdict is expected within days. Somewhere there is a trophy that may change hands by email.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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