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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 …

People travelling to other EU member states will no longer have to pay extra fees when they use their mobile telephones. After a decade-long battle with telecoms operators, the EU has on Thursday (15 June) officially scrapped roaming fees on calls, data and text messages, sent or received on mobiles. Frequently Asked Questions on Roam like at home  In which …

A District Court (Landgericht) in the western city of Aachen has ordered the operator of a fitness studio chain to pay a compensation of 2,500 euros to an African as damages for discriminating against him. The man had been repeatedly refused membership in a fitness studio in Aachen owned by EasyFit in a way the court found to have contravened …

Germany seeks a partnership for a common future with Africa, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the opening of the G20 Africa Conference in Berlin. She encouraged the participants to an open, purposeful discussion: “Talk openly, we have to learn from each other and we have to achieve results.” “I hope that this conference will help us take responsibility together,” Chancellor …

A new legislation that bans face Muslim veils, obliges immigrants to attend integration courses and asylum seekers to carry out unpaid public work will go into force in October after it was signed into law by the country’s president. The controversial integration law that will fine women for wearing face-concealing Islamic dress from October, and deprive migrants of benefits who …

    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 …

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will visit Germany on 11-13 June. During his stay in the country, he will attend the G20 Conference on Africa in Berlin on 12-13 June. The conference will propose the ‘G20 African Partnership Initiative’ to spur private investment in infrastructure and employment in the continent. [The G20 is comprised of 19 countries plus the EU. …

German men are claiming fatherhood of children born to immigrant women in exchange for cash, prosecutors say. A new law is now being drafted to tackle the fake paternity racket. Officials say growing numbers of pregnant immigrant women are paying German men to pose as fathers so that they can qualify for residency. The scheme allows for the children to become …

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 20 million people are currently threatened with starvation in Africa. The United Nations is warning of the biggest humanitarian disaster since its inception. Activists hit the streets across Germany on Friday to draw attention to the suffering of the affected. More than 23 million men, women and especially children are acutely threatened by starvation in Africa. The UN …

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 …

Equal pay for equal work, new minimum wage for temporary workers, no more roaming charges and increased video surveillance. These and more are the changes to laws and regulations affecting consumers in Germany from June. New minimum wage for temporary workers (Neuer Mindestlohn für Leiharbeiter) As from June, there is a mandatory minimum wage for temporary workers in Germany. It …

A top diplomat has advised Africans in the Diaspora not to focus on big projects in their efforts to contribute to the development of their homelands. Speaking at the Africa Day commemoration in Dortmund last weekend, Nigeria’s acting ambassador to Greece, Usman Ogah, said the Diaspora in their desire to make a contribution to the development of their countries had …

Europe “must take its fate into its own hands” faced with a western alliance divided by Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday. “The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I’ve experienced that in the last few days,” Merkel told a crowd at an election rally in Munich, …

Saturday, 29 May 2004 was the day when a big ambition became reality in the Ghanaian community in Germany. It was the realisation of a dream, of having a single organisation to represent all Ghanaians irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or ideology, or the city in which they live. It was the gathering of the Ghanaian Diaspora in Germany for …

Former US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in front of tens of thousands of people before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Thursday to discuss God, faith and the state of the world at the first day of Germany’s Protestant Church Assembly, Kirchentag. Former US President Barack Obama told an audience in Berlin on Thursday that …

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 …

Members of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation Europe (NIDOE) gather in the western German city of Dortmund on 26-27 May to deliberate on how to contribute to solving the socio-economic problems bedevilling their home country. The NIDOE Project Summit 2017 will discuss the role of the Diaspora in the development of Africa. The focus is, of course, Nigeria, with participants …