AFRICA

Gaborone, Botswana | AFP |  Diamond-rich Botswana is hailed for its stability, but the southern African nation struggles with income inequality, unemployment and a high rate of HIV. Ahead of its general election on October 23, here is some background about the landlocked country of 2.2 million people wedged between …

Pantit, South Sudan | AFP | Hundreds of South Sudan opposition fighters are leaving cantonment sites set up to register and train them under a deal to end the country’s war, claiming lack of food and medical supplies, authorities say. The process of gathering fighters into military camps with a view …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | As the Kremlin seeks to boost ties with Africa, a Moscow university that was a training ground for the continent’s elite during the Cold War is once again working to bolster Russia’s soft power. The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, created in 1960 to improve …

  Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The closure of the Rwanda-Uganda Gatuna border will continue for longer as the expected date for peace talks in Kampala about the issue passed quietly on October 16, 2019. In a meeting, which took place on September 16, 2019 in Kigali Rwanda, both …

Accra, Ghana | AFP | As Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion inspire climate protesters across the globe, young African activists say they still struggle to make themselves heard. “No continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa,” the United Nations Environment Programme said as …

Maputo, Mozambique | AFP | Partial results for Mozambique’s high-stakes general election were released on Friday, showing President Filipe Nyusi and his ruling Frelimo party headed for a dominant victory. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) published the incomplete results as the US embassy in the country said its observers witnessed voting …

Kampala, Uganda | LOUIS JADWONG | Veteran Ugandan journalist, publisher and analyst Charles Onyango-Obbo has explained why the world will not just sit back and watch as resource-rich Africa does nothing productive with its assets. Quoting former Ugandan politician Eriya Kategaya, in what Obbo described as the ‘Kategaya doctrine’, and his …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The deadly Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains an “urgent” global health emergency, The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday at its Emergency Committee meeting. DRC’s latest Ebola epidemic, which began in August 2018, has killed 2,144 people, making it the second …

Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso | AFP | “They’ve placed us in the red zone, which means the tourists aren’t coming like before. Even the aid workers don’t come,” said Antoine Atiou, governor of Burkina Faso’s Hauts-Bassins region. The “red zone” refers to the risk of jihadist attacks — a top-end warning by …

Shattaya , Sudan | AFP | Sudanese farmer Suleiman Yakub vividly remembers the day he was hung from a tree and left to die by Arab militiamen who attacked his village in Darfur, killing, looting and burning. “Villagers were executed in front of me,” said Yakub, 59, a resident of Shattaya …