Around 40 million people live with hearing loss in the African Region, but this figure could rise to 54 million by 2030 if urgent action is not taken to tackle the problem, according to a new report from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The impact of hearing loss on human lives and economies is profound, […]
Africa – The third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit is now taking place in Istanbul under the auspices of the Turkish Republic’s Presidency. The two-day conference follows a high-level business roundtable on investment and trade that took place in October. The meeting will ensure that Turkey’s strategic ties with African countries are advanced to a new level. […]
The African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO), Tuesday, agreed to relocate the headquarters of the organization from Nigeria to Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The Council of Ministers approved the recommendation to move the temporary Headquarters of the Organization from Abuja, Nigeria to the permanent Headquarters in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. It also approved the new Host […]
The landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso has been hard hit by drought and desertification. Just east of capital Ouagadougou, once fertile land is now dry. The area used to support generations of farmers, but families now can only scrape a living. Under a burning sun, Julienne Rouamba works on the land she farmed […]
The Egyptian government is encouraging families to take care of abandoned children and raise them as their own, invoking the age-old Muslim doctrine of Kafala. This follows the introduction of a series of legal amendments that have eased many of the restrictions of Kafala. This initiative, entitled “A family for every child”, is aimed at […]
There will be no African film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival according to organizers. In the midst of the fight against the coronavirus, the annual meeting of world cinema will be held virtually. A setback that did not prevent Pierre Lescure, the president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, the artistic director, from announcing […]
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, became the third African country to record over 10,000 cases of COVID-19. The milestone was reached on May 31 when 307 new cases took its tally to 10,162. As Africa’s biggest economy, the federal government has continued to enforce regulations across the board even though most state governments have moved […]
Journalists in Cameroon have taken to the streets of Buea in the South west region to protest and demand an account of their missing colleague, Samuel Wazizi, after local media reported he had died in military custody. Wazizi, was arrested in August 2019. for alleged involvement in the country’s anglophone crisis. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) […]
Herders in Northern Senegal can no longer move their livestock. They are thousands of semi-nomadic Fulani stuck in the Louga region, where they have been since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions imposed by the government to contain the virus have coincided with the most difficult months of the dry season. “Everything has changed […]
Authorities in South Africa have expressed worry over shortages of COVID-19 testing kits and reagents as cases consistently rise in the country and across the continent. Nearly 100,000 people have not taken the coronavirus tests in South Africa reports say. According to the Health Ministry, priority is now given to patients admitted to hospitals and […]
Mozambique is top priority for Southern African leaders under the auspices of the SADC. In Harare on Wednesday, regional bloc leaders met to discuss the growing Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique. At the day-long meeting leaders of Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique said they had also discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the security situation in […]
Jihadist groups have carried out several attacks in northeastern Nigeria ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan for Muslims, according to corroborating sources. On Monday night, fighters from the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) invaded the city of Dapchi, Yobe State, provoking fighting with the army that left one soldier dead […]
Officials and experts are sounding the alarm as Malawi shifts to top campaign gear with giant rallies for an unprecedented presidential re-run despite the coronavirus pandemic. Malawi University of Science and Technology virologist Gama Bandawe warned that the consequences would be dire. “It effectively leaves us to face the full unmitigated force of the pandemic,” […]
Madagascar on Sunday announced the first death of a patient suffering from the novel coronavirus, nearly two months after it was first detected in the country. The 57-year-old hospital worker died on Saturday and had underlying diabetes and high blood pressure before he was infected, an official from the anti-coronavirus task team said. “It is […]
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) looks forward to the day after Covid-19 and forsees the reorientation of the continent’s economies, which so far have accumulated almost 2,360 deaths from the disease. Any estimates of damage now seem to be rushed, but Uneca, concerned as it is about what could happen, chooses to […]
Ivory Coast withdrew from the African Human Rights and Peoples Court, a week after the tribunal ordered the West African nation to suspend an arrest warrant against presidential hopeful Guillaume Soro, who on Tuesday was sentenced to 20 years in jail. The decision to pull out was taken at a weekly cabinet meeting, government spokesman […]
Malawi launches emergency cash transfer programme targeting about 1 million people and small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, President Arthur Peter Mutharika said on Tuesday. Eligible households will receive a 35,000 Malawi kwacha ($40) monthly payment, matching the country’s minimum wage, through mobile cash transfer starting in May, Mutharika said. “This will strengthen livelihoods,” […]
An allegation that a Rwandan police commander sexually assaulted a child refugee has rocked an EU-funded scheme, under which hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers have been evacuated from detention centres in Libya. The allegation was made by a 16-year-old Eritrean boy, who had returned to Gashora transit centre, south of Kigali, after a coronavirus-related […]
In Nigeria, the Red Cross in Lagos has distributed relief items to vulnerable people reeling under pressure over lockdown. The Makoko community is one of the hardest hit as the city observes the lockdown to help curtail spread of the coronavirus. Adebola Kolawole is the Branch Chairperson of Nigeria Red Cross. She told the Associated […]
It was a calm day in Niamey on day one of the Holy month of Ramadan. It follows protest against a curfew and ban on mass prayers to help curtail spread of the coronavirus. But tension still persists in Niger. “It’s very difficult, I’ve been here since the beginning of the afternoon but business is […]