AFRICA

BBC World News is focussing on Africa’s hidden history in a special television broadcast, ‘The History of Africa with Zeinab Badawi’. The series, made in partnership with UNESCO, tells African history from the beginning of mankind to the modern-era from an African perspective. The first episode of The History of Africa with Zeinab Badawi, aired on BBC World News this …

Archbishop of Bamako, Jean Zerbo, has been elevated to the position of cardinal by Pope Francis. He becomes the first ever Catholic cardinal from the Muslim-dominated West African country. The 73-year-old, who has been Archbishop since 1998, was at the Vatican on Wednesday (28 June) for the ceremony elevating him. He helped negotiate a peace agreement between the government and …

UN Secretary General António Guterres declares open the first World Solidarity Summit on Refugees on Thursday in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Among the heads of state and about 500 dignitaries attending include Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Guinean President and Chairman of the African Union, Alpha Condé, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, Gabonese President Ali Bongo, Zambian President Edgar Lungu and Ethiopian Prime …

Kenyans will go to the polls on 8 August and the country is expectedly already agog with election campaign rallies. Joseph Wandera writes on the factors that will determine the outcome of the general election. After accepting his nomination as the presidential candidate of the main opposition coalition recently, Raila Odinga likened himself to Joshua, the Biblical figure who led …

Over 70 Ghanaian immigrants were deported from the United States on Wednesday for visa-related offences including staying illegally and over staying their visas. The all-male deportees arrived at Accra’s Kotoka International Airport in handcuffs, local media report. The deportees initially refused to disembark from the plane in protest over their inhumane treatment including shackling hands and legs before and during …

    Indigenous Christians in the Muslim-dominated northern region of Nigeria are a besieged people. They’re being systematically driven off their ancestral land by violence. “Every week, there are more massacres, but nobody seems to mind – not even their own government,” writes Douglas Murray, Associate Director of the British think tank, the Henry Jackson Society. Murray who visited the …

One of the longest serving African presidents, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has stated that being a president for a long time has given him more experience. The 72-year-old leader made the remark on Tuesday during the State of the Nation address in parliament that lasted for three-hours due to heckling by the opposition, local media The Observer reports . “Being president …

Leaders of fifteen West African states and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in Liberia’s capital Monrovia for the 51st Ordinary Summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This is the first ECOWAS Summit to be held in Liberia and it’s the first time a non-African leader has been invited to speak at the forum. Netanyahu addressed …

More than 40 migrants from Nigeria and Ghana died in the Sahara desert this week after their truck broke down in arid northern Niger, the Red Cross told news agency Reuters on Wednesday (31 May). Six survivors walked to a remote village where they said that 44 people, mostly from Ghana and Nigeria and including three babies and two other …

A federal high court in Ethiopia on Thursday sentenced Yonatan Tesfaye to six years and six months in prison for comments he made on Facebook. The court convicted the politician for “planning, preparing and encouraging terrorism” via his Facebook page in 2015.  The authorities objected to several posts including one in which he said the government used “force against the people …

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former health minister and foreign minister of Ethiopia, was elected on Tuesday in Geneva to head the World Health Organisation (WHO). He becomes the first African to ascend to the post in the nearly 70-year existence of the global agency. He is also the first non-physician to be elected WHO’s Director-General. A jubilant Ethiopian official emerged …

German international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), has demanded the immediate release of its reporter who is being held by the authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to DW, Antediteste Niragira, was arrested by operatives of the Congolese intelligence service (ANR) while he was reporting on Burundian refugees in the DRC. The reporter is currently being held in …

The Gambia’s former president has been accused of stealing “at least” 50 million US dollars from the state before he left the country in January, the justice minister has announced. A court has now ordered his remaining assets in The Gambia to be frozen. A court in the Gambian capital Banjul Monday ordered a temporary freeze of properties belonging to …

EU should deal with its Brexit headache and leave Burundi to sort out its internal problems, the presidents of Tanzania and Uganda have said. It’s the view of the statesmen that the sanctions are compounding the efforts of regional leaders to resolve the crisis. Tanzania’s John Magufuli and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni made the call on Saturday in the Tanzanian capital, …

The Ugandan human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo has won the 2017 German Africa Prize. In a statement, the German Africa Foundation which has awarded the prize since 1993, said Opiyo had been honoured for his role in protecting peace, democracy, and human rights in the east African country. Opiyo, founder of the human rights organization “Chapter Four Uganda”, has worked …

Lost in Democracy is the title of a new book authored by the Germany-based Nigerian journalist and writer Frisky Larr. The book dwells on the failure of democracy in Africa to deliver its much-hoped-for dividends for its peoples. The majority of African countries are governed democratically. Well, to put it more accurately, they’re governed to varying degrees by democratic norms. …

The wife of Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, has spoken out about the health of her husband, stating that “his health is not as bad as it’s being perceived.” Aisha Buhari took to Twitter yesterday apparently in response to the growing anxiety in the country over the health of its leader. She also thanked Nigerians for their “concern, love and prayers …

A 28-year-old man has won 221 Kenyan Shillings (US$2 million) after perfectly predicting the scores of 17 matches last weekend in a football betting jackpot. This is one of the biggest wins in Africa and for Kenya’s largest online sports betting service SportPesa. The jackpot winner, Samuel Abisai, was picked up on Tuesday in a white limousine together with his friends …

A group of leading civil society activists in Nigeria has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take an official leave and hand over his office to his deputy, Vice-President Yemi Osibajo. Buhari returned from the UK, where he was on medical vacation, on 10 March and since his return, he has only made a few public appearances. The activists’ call …

In response to the many reports of the maltreatment of sub-Saharan migrants in Libyan detention centres, the International Organization for Migration, IOM, has begun training officials in five facilities on human rights. These are “the first trainings inside detention centres since 2014”, the United Nations Support Mission for Libya (UNSMIL) announced. In the pilot project, IOM is targeting five centres …