Africa - Page 28

Islamic extremists slaughtered more than 50 people this week in an attack in eastern Burkina Faso, AsiaNews reported this weekend.

Unidentified gunmen stormed a Catholic parish church in northern Nigeria in the early hours of Wednesday and kidnapped four people, two of whom were priests.

The city of Johannesburg, South Africa, is to follow the lead of Cape Town and seek alternative power suppliers other than Eskom, the state-run electricity monopoly that has been gutted by overly aggressive affirmative action and mismanagement.

Unidentified terrorists in southern Nigeria’s Anambra state beheaded a local legislator in recent days after kidnapping him and another person as they traveled by car along a road in the state’s Aguata area, Nigeria’s the Guardian newspaper reported Monday.

Mozambican state health authorities declared a “public health emergency” on Wednesday in an effort to contain a case of wild poliovirus confirmed in a child in the nation’s western Tete province days earlier, the state-run Mozambique News Agency (AIM) reported on Thursday.

A criminal court in Alexandria, Egypt, sentenced a man to death Wednesday after finding him guilty of murdering a Coptic Christian priest in the Mediterranean port city in April, Africanews reported on Thursday.

Australian health officials on Friday reported their first confirmed case of monkeypox, diagnosed in a traveler who recently returned from Britain to Melbourne. A possible second case in a Sydney man who recently traveled to Europe is under observation.

Burkina Faso has witnessed a surge in jihadist violence over the past four months since a coup d’état overthrew its government in late January, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Wednesday.

The Biden administration announced it is restarting a “persistent” U.S. troop presence in Somalia, citing the threat of al-Shabaab.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed on Monday plans to deploy roughly 500 U.S. troops to Somalia in the near future.

The British government is slashing the amount of foreign aid money it routes through international organisations such as the United Nations, outraging leftist politicians and activist charities.

Massive flocks of the red-billed quelea bird — a notorious African crop pest — have decimated grain harvests across farms in western Zimbabwe in recent weeks, causing fears of a local food shortage in the near future, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Monday.

Pro-government protesters in the Malian capital of Bamako unfurled Russian flags and banners with slogans such as “Down with France” in a bizarre demonstration on Friday. 

Students rioted in northern Nigeria this weekend following the arrest of two Muslims accused of the brutal lynching of a Christian university student for alleged blasphemy against Islam.

A mob of Muslim students at a college in northern Nigeria beat a fellow student to death and burned her corpse on campus on Thursday after accusing the woman of “blasphemy” against Islam for allegedly suggesting her peers stop posting religious content on a student-run instant messaging group, the Nigerian online newspaper the Paradise News reported on Friday.

The army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) confirmed on Tuesday that machete-wielding men killed at least 15 residents of a displaced persons’ camp in eastern DRC on Monday night, including infants as young as six months old, Al Jazeera reported.

Gunmen riding motorcycles stormed the premises of Saint Pius X parish in southern Nigeria Sunday and abducted Father Alphonsus Uboh, the parish pastor.

James Myburgh notes that while Carlson’s report was inaccurate, the Times’ criticism of it was “unhinged from reality.”

Rhoda Kadalie was shocked by the insistence among American pro-choice activists that abortion should be available up to the moment of birth itself.

Kenya’s fertility rate declined over the past decade, particularly in urban areas of the country, Kenya’s the Star newspaper reported on Friday citing newly released data from the Kenyan government.

A German migration expert has cast doubts on Denmark’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, warning that the policy will likely be scrapped by European judges.

Mozambique’s energy ministry recently said it will not comply with a United Nations (U.N.) campaign seeking to pressure countries worldwide to abandon their coal industries for supposedly “cleaner” energy options, the state-run Mozambique News Agency (AIM) reported on Wednesday.

The latest Ethiopian civil war has caused unexpected casualties since it started in November 2020, including the destruction or damage of several ancient Christian churches built into rock walls in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the Conversation, a non-profit media outlet, reported on Tuesday.

Nigeria’s government recently purchased potash, a raw ingredient used to blend agricultural fertilizer, from Canada after its traditional supply of Russian potash was disrupted due to Western sanctions against Moscow in response to its latest war with Ukraine, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Africa’s first Chinese coronavirus vaccine plant, Aspen Pharmacare, is at risk of shutting down after failing to receive a single order for the plant’s Johnson & Johnson-made inoculation since opening in November 2021, Aspen Pharmacare senior director Stavros Nicolaou told Reuters in an interview published Monday.

The parliament of the Central African Republic (CAR) passed a bill last week legalizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as official forms of currency, CAR’s presidency announced Wednesday.

Algeria has threatened to suspend its gas exports to Spain, the latest twist in a complex triangle of diplomatic tensions.

An explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southern Nigeria last week killed 110 people, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) — the formal name for Boko Haram — on Saturday claimed responsibility for two separate attacks in recent days, the Guardian reported: a bombing in the northeastern Nigerian state of Tabara and a fatal police station

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has urged the U.S. State Department to redesignate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for its egregious violations of religious liberty.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared a new epidemic of the Ebola virus in the nation’s northwestern city of Mbandaka, located in DRC’s Equateur Province, on Saturday, Sky News reported on Sunday.

The upcoming “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — Marvel’s sequel to the hit 2016 superhero film “Doctor Strange” — has been banned in Saudi Arabia over a key LGBTQ superhero in the movie.

A court in western Rwanda sentenced a Chinese national named Sun Shujun to 20 years in prison in recent days after finding him guilty of torturing at least two Rwandan miners in August 2021, Rwanda’s the New Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Former South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chair Barney Pityana, a theologian by training, is exploiting the recent death of anti-apartheid feminist pioneer Rhoda Kadalie in an attempt to settle old scores about the organization.

The Russian Embassy in Ethiopia’s official Twitter page issued a statement on Tuesday thanking Ethiopia’s government and its citizens for their “solidarity and support” of Russia’s latest war with Ukraine.

Militants of the outlawed Nigerian separatist group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) perpetrated a deadly armed attack on both Nigerian soldiers and civilians on Easter Sunday in southern Nigeria’s Imo state, Nigeria’s Premium Times online newspaper reported on Tuesday.