AFRICA

  Rent-to-own housing is gaining traction as African cities respond to limited mortgage access and rising demand. The model allows households to build equity through monthly payments, creating a gradual path to ownership. Governments and developers in markets such as Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa are already piloting it.   …

  West African states are moving from fragmented oversight to coordinated regional control of their oceans. The push aims to curb illegal fishing, rebuild coastal economies, and protect biodiversity. Success could turn years of lost marine wealth into lasting regional economic opportunity.   SPECIAL REPORT | BIRD AGENCY | West African …

Nairobi, Kenya | URN | President Yoweri Museveni has hinted at the possibility of using Uganda’s crude oil as a contribution to putting up a mega crude oil refinery in East Africa to be located in Tanga, Tanzania. The move is part of broader efforts to boost local refining capacity …

  Pope Leo XIV’s first official trip to Africa started with a fascinating stop in Algeria. Here the pontiff’s visit to the Grand Mosque of Algiers was an attempt to strengthen Christian-Muslim relations. The stop was also to pay homage to Saint Augustine, founder of the order that he is a member …

Kampala, Uganda | URN | The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has revealed that 21 countries had, by Friday, declared measles outbreaks—an alarming development given that the disease is highly preventable through vaccination. Speaking to journalists during a press briefing, Prof. Yap Boum II, the Deputy …

Researcher says early results are promising, but human trials far off NEWS ANALYSIS | TITILOPE FADARE | When Mutiat Ibrahim, a pharmacognosy researcher at the University of Lagos, began surveying traditional medicine practitioners across Nigeria, she was cataloguing something many in formal medicine had long dismissed—the use of herbal rings and waist beads …

US-Iran war has relegated Sudan conflict to the back burner   NEWS ANALYSIS | IAN KATUSIIME | Three years into Sudan’s brutal war, the country has become a fractured map of collapsing cities, displaced families, and shifting frontlines that show no sign of settling. What began as a power struggle …

  Currently, petroleum prices are still significantly higher than pre-war levels, when Brent crude was trading below $73 per barrel before the outbreak of the Iran war   Kampala, Uganda | ISAAC KHISA | Insurance leaders across Africa are warning of a potential economic slowdown as surging global petroleum prices …

The choice is clear; the window is narrow; and the time to prepare Africa’s workforce for the frontier economy is now   NEWS ANALYSIS | CLAVER GATETE | Africa’s growth story over the past two decades is real, but it is not yet transformative. Across the continent, GDP has risen …

Malema has vowed to challenge the judgment right up to South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, if necessary   Johannesburg, South Africa | AGENCIES | The leader of one of South Africa’s main opposition parties, Julius Malema, has been given a five-year prison term for unlawfully possessing a firearm …