This means the final round of voting between the two leading candidates – ex-footballer George Weah and Vice-President Joseph Boakai – can go ahead.

The electoral commission will now set a date for the delayed vote.

Liberty Party’s representative Charles Brumskine, who came third in the first round, had challenged the result.

The second round of voting to succeed President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had initially been set for 7 November.

Liberia, which was founded by freed US slaves in the 19th Century, has not had a smooth transfer of power in 73 years.

Ms Sirleaf took office in 2006, after her predecessor, Charles Taylor, was forced out of office by rebels in 2003, ending a long civil war.

Taylor is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence in the UK for war crimes related to the conflict in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

–
Source: BBC

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He said most of the attacker’s still rely on poor security habits of the public to succeed in their operations.

Mr Etchi told the GNA in an interview on the side-lines of the Cyber Security Awareness Workshop in Accra that attackers use various exploits to gain access to a computer or an organisation’s network.

He said social media is a great way to connect with people, share ideas and exchange information but the public needed to be aware of the risk factors.

[contextly_sidebar id=”t0gRXPMdnJZLiRTLKIRaUUWcmFWKfA5I”]He said the potential risk of social networking are your personal information may be easily available to others, exposing sensitive company information, losing control of your pictures once they were on the internet and sites may be used to spread malware and malicious applications.

“Social networking is great but consider the impact of posting information, do not post confidential company data or personal sensitive information such as your date or birth or home address,” he said.

He urged companies to get in touch with their Information Technology Company or department once they suspect malware.

On mobile protection, Mr Etchi said the most powerful ways to secure the device was by enabling biometrics.

He urged mobile phone users to only download software from providers they trust, calling on them not to disable the built-in security features and they should avoid sensitive data on their mobile devices.

He said with the growing population and digitisation comes with new risks and vulnerabilities that could undermine progress.

“As the African continent’s economy moves online, citizens and their infrastructure becomes targets for an increasingly professional cadre of cyber criminals,” he added.

Mr Dele Aden, the Managing Director of Delta3 International, said the workshop was to enable participants to learn how to safely protect themselves and their organisations from security risks and possible cyber-attacks.

He said the awareness on the menace is increasing to ensure that everybody would have an idea about the activities of hackers in the system

He said attempts are been made to educate the public to report if they fall victim to hackers, because in the developed world, it was an offence not to report, when you are hacked.

“Hackers share information and ideas on new tactics outsmarting their victims and it was just appropriate to speak about it so others could also learn from it.

The Managing Director said the focus of next year’s workshop would be expanded activities such as how to recover from an attack by hackers, before, during and after.

He said there were several current attacks and hacks, so the workshop would equip participants with the necessary knowledge on how best to enhance cyber security and protect corporate data within their various organisations.

Mr Aden, therefore, called on business owners and individuals to seek knowledge and engage experts on issues concerning cyber security and empower their staff.

Participants were taken through topics like; Introduction to Data and Information Security, Cyber Security Fundamentals, Cyber Security Breaches, Types of Cyber Attacks, Mobile Protection, Social Network Security, Email Security and Critical Cyber Threats.

–

Source: GNA

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The report also noted that, high tax rates and inefficient government bureaucracy, were among the top problems associated with doing business on the continent.

The report was gathered from an Executive Opinion Survey that took responses from business leaders around the world, to rate the factors they consider most problematic for doing business in the continent.

A study of the data shows that, although high taxes have not been much a problem for business owners in the past, it featured prominently in 2016.

This suggests that, most governments from 2016, increased taxes as a source of raising revenue.

In Ghana for instance, the government introduced taxes including, a 5% tax on real estate sale, which negatively affected many businesses and among other challenges caused the shutdown of some businesses.

According to the African Competitiveness Report, “African competitiveness is still lower than in other regions and convergence has stagnated. The insufficient progress made by African countries on needed structural reforms during the past decades of sustained growth has put Africa on a weaker footing, less able to respond to a less positive economic outlook going forward and less well-equipped to take advantage of the demographic shifts that will increase the shares of the continent’s young population.”

It indicated that “over the past decades, employment in Africa has not kept up with output expansions. Now that the continent’s growth prospects have shrunk, many African economies are struggling to provide sufficient job opportunities to meet the needs of the burgeoning workforce.”

While urging leaders of African countries to create sound institutions, adequate infrastructure, and a healthy and educated workforce, the report emphasized the need for African countries to adopt technology.

Meanwhile, Rwanda has been named as the country with Africa’s best performing institutions. It identified Ghana as the country with the 12^th best-performing institutions out of the 32 countries assessed.

While the continent’s instructions have generally seen an improvement in service delivery, they are still caught up in widespread cases of corruption.

This has led to a generally slow, expensive and inefficient service delivery.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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There have been fears that such a decision could trigger fresh violence.

The government said it would hold opposition leader Jean Ping responsible if clashes erupted following the ruling.

President Bongo won August’s election by just 6,000 votes but the opposition says the poll was rigged.

Following the court ruling, President Bongo called for a “political dialogue” with the opposition.

Correspondents say residents of Libreville were stockpiling food ahead of the court ruling. There were long queues at banks and supermarkets on Friday and the French embassy told its citizens to stay indoors.

Riot police have been deployed across the city.

Mr Ping had alleged fraud in one of the president’s main strongholds, Haut-Ogooue province, where Mr Bongo won 95% of the vote on a turnout of 99.9%.

Mr Ping had warned that Gabon could face serious instability if the court rejected his appeal for a recount in that province.

The court partially changed the results of the bitterly-fought election, giving President Bongo 50.66% of the vote and Mr Ping 47.24%.

The result of the election on 27 August sparked days of deadly violence.

–

Source: BBC

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Even though majority of African countries depend heavily on foreign aid for budgetary support and developmental projects, President Mahama audaciously declared at the on-going 71^st General Assembly that, Africa needs a fair chance to trade with the rest of the world instead of sympathy or overseas development assistance.

“Some of the young Africans who hazard the desert and Mediterranean Sea to cross to Europe from my country are young poultry farmers or other entrepreneurs who sell their shops and undertake the journey because they can no longer compete with the tons of frozen chicken dumped on African markets annually, or the adverse business environment they have to face. Africa does not need your sympathy or Overseas Development Assistance. Africa needs a fair chance to trade with the rest of the world and amongst ourselves,” he added.

He further called on colleague African leaders to build stronger economic ties to create a thriving business environment.

“We can achieve a lot in collaboration with the rest of the world and yet we must realize that a lot rests within our own capacity to achieve as Africans.”

Don’t force democracy on Africa

President John Dramani Mahama also told western countries to stop forcing democracy on Africa.

According to him, Africa like many other developed continents made mistakes which they learnt lessons from before progressing, hence Africa must be given same opportunity.

“Democracy is not a one size fits all system, different countries are at different stages of the democratic journey. Democracy evolves and cannot be forced on the people. It doesn’t help for biggest powers to go proselytizing democracy across the continent, it can have its negative consequences as we are experiencing in parts of North Africa and the Middle East, but still a properly functioning peer system can avoid some of the meltdowns we are experiencing in some African countries due to the desire to stay in office interminably.”

“The mistake with Africa is that we are seen as homogenous unit and treated as such not taking cognizance that we are a whole continent with different aspirations, different cultures, democracies and even economic development.  Human progress is not a seamless progress forward; it encompasses periods of reversal, mistakes, fumbling and even falling. All parts of the world have been through this, they have learnt from their mistakes, they’ve picked themselves up after a fall and they’ve continued moving forward. Africa must be allowed the same latitude,” he added.

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By: Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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