News

A decades-long corruption charge has finally caught up with former South African President Jacob Zuma, who resigned under pressure from the ruling ANC in February. The case centres on a 30bn rand ($2.5bn) deal to modernise the country’s defence in the late 1990s, when Zuma was deputy president. Zuma is alleged to have sought bribes from a French company to …

“We make a living by what we get, and we make a life by what we give,” – Winston Churchill Family, friends and associates of Kenneth Alaekwe, who died recently, gathered in Berlin on Saturday to bid him farewell. The late president of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) Germany passed away on 17 February at the age of 55 …

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has revealed the process and details that led to a surprise reconciliation with the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. The two politicians who have not been seeing eye to eye since the disputed August 8, 2017 presidential elections, held a meeting and addressed the press together last week on 9 March. They told Kenyans that they …

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a US$31.6 million grant from the Government of China for the construction of a new headquarters for the regional body in Abuja. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Brou, and the Ambassador of China to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Zhou Pingjian, signed for both …

Israel’s Supreme Court has suspended a controversial government plan to deport thousands of African migrants. The court issued its ruling on Thursday, following a legal challenge by a group of migrants from Eritrea and Sudan. The government now cannot deport African migrants until the court receives additional information Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January announced the implementation of the programme …

New Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has said Islam is not part of German culture. His comments underscore his efforts to push the government to the right. Rebecca Staudenmaier reports. Germany’s new government may now finally be in place, but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition appears to be off to a rocky start. On Thursday, newly inaugurated Interior Minister Horst Seehofer …

The German soccer federation says it has fired Steffi Jones as coach of the women’s national team following recent poor results. The Afro-German (45) was sacked following a disappointing showing at the SheBelieves Cup, in which the team failed to win a single game. The 2016 Olympic champions were last in the four-team competition, which was won by the host …

Frankfurt police have praised the actions of a man who thought he stumbled across the fortune of a lifetime and still turned it over to the authorities. In the early hours of Monday morning, a 56-year-old bakery worker came across an astonishing find, police said in a statement on Tuesday (13 March). Sitting in a food waste bin, the man …

Facebook has banned a far-right UK party that came to global attention after US President Donald Trump retweeted some of its anti-Islamic posts. The social media giant said it had blacklisted Britain First for repeatedly violating rules designed to stop the incitement of hatred against minority groups. It comes a week after the group’s leader and deputy — Paul Golding …

Less than a day after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, Rex Tillerson has been fired as the US Secretary of State. President Donald Trump fired Tillerson on Tuesday. “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State,” the US leader announced on Twitter. “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will …

Nigerian Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji has been elected president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a three-year term. He takes over from Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi whose term has ended. Judge Robert Fremr from the Czech Republic was elected First Vice-President with Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut of France as Second Vice-President. ICC in a statement said judges elected …

A memorial church service for Kenneth Chukwudi Alaekwe, who passed away recently, will hold on Saturday 17 March in Berlin Schöneberg. The president of the German chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) died on17 February at the age of 55 in a Berlin hospital after a brief but serious illness. Kenneth is survived by his wife Ulla and …

Libya’s coast guard and an international charity ship have picked up hundreds of migrants who were travelling towards Italy off the Libyan coast on Saturday, according to press reports. Libya coast guard vessels intercepted two migrant boats, one of which was an inflatable dinghy that had broken down and was carrying 125 people, Reuters reported, citing coast guard spokesman Ayoub …

Sierra Leone’s elections body, the National Electoral Commission (NEC), on Sunday released provisional official results in respect to the presidential polls of 7 March 2018. Julius Maada Bio, the candidate of the main opposition SLPP, is leading the election with the majority of the official results released followed closely by the ruling APC candidate, Samura Kamara. With 75% of official …

Italian national footballer Mario Balotelli has harshly criticised the country’s first Black senator, Toni Chike Iwobi, who was elected on Sunday on the platform of the anti-immigration League (formerly known as Northern League) party. “Maybe I’m blind or perhaps they have not told him yet that he is Black. But shame!!!” the footballer posted on his Instagram page, which has …

The UK is to pay for a new wing in a Lagos prison to help expedite the transfer of Nigerian offenders from British jails. Up to £700,000 will be spent on a 112-bed annex in Kiri Kiri prison in the country’s largest city. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it would enable eligible Nigerian inmates serving time in the UK to …

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an agency of the UN, has opened a centre in Benin City to provide information on how to migrate legally and rehabilitate returnees from Libya or Europe. Speaking at the opening of the Migration Resource Centre (MRC) on Monday, Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, said Nigeria was finding it tough to …

The German capital city saw a drastic increase in far-right crime last year with more than 1,942 incidents reported, the highest in ten years. Incidents of incitement, damage to property and public calls to criminal action accounted for most of the crime. The number of politically-motivated crimes in Berlin, however, declined by ten per cent compared to 2016. A total …

Israel’s deportation of Eritrean and Sudanese citizens to third countries “violates human rights and international law on refugees,” according to UN experts, who are calling on the Israeli government to review its policy. A group of UN human rights experts has said that the new Israeli policies for deporting Eritrean and Sudanese citizens present in its territory “violates human rights …

Sixteen candidates are campaigning to become Sierra Leone’s next president. It’s the first time more than two candidates have real chances of winning and a chance for a more diversified parliament. Sierra Leone heads to the polls on Wednesday March 7 as the second of President Ernest Bai Koroma’s constitutionally mandated two terms comes to an end. The ruling All …