Africa - Page 61

Several African countries proved immune to last year’s decrease in terrorism-linked deaths across most of the world, an assessment by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) released on Wednesday shows.

Over 23 million girls in Nigeria are victims of child marriage, the country representative for the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women revealed Sunday amid a campaign against gender-based violence in the African country.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari issued a defiant rejection of rumors that he had died and secretly been replaced by a clone during remarks in Poland Sunday.

CAIRO (AP) – An Egyptian actress facing trial on public obscenity charges for wearing a dress revealing the entirety of her legs says she did not mean to offend anyone.

The United States boosted its military efforts against jihadis in Africa under President Donald Trump, launching a record 36 airstrikes on the al-Qaeda wing al-Shabaab in Somalia in 2018, already more than any other single year, Voice of America (VOA) reported Thursday, citing U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Hundreds of Tunisians took to the streets Tuesday to protest a visit by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, decrying the top royal as a murderer in connection to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Skyrocketing Chinese debts have made multiple African nations – most notably Kenya, Angola, and Zambia – “most vulnerable” to forfeiting control of key assets and territory to China, the global ratings firm Moody’s announced in a report this week.

The household is the “most dangerous place” for women in the modern world due to the high rates of domestic violence, according to a new study by the United Nations.

An angry mob killed a man in Munaje, Malawi this week after he was implicated in the death of another individual by practicing “witchcraft,” local media reported.

American airstrikes launched over the last three days have “degraded” the East Africa-based al-Qaeda wing al-Shabaab, killing 50 jihadis in Somalia days after the United Nations determined the group is expanding and remains the top threat facing African nation, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) revealed.

More details have been revealed about a child bride from South Sudan who was sold through Facebook, which the social network only took action on two weeks after the auction post had been made. The girl, now 17, is reportedly the man’s ninth wife.

Contents: Zimbabwe proposes to compensate some white farmers whose lands were seized; Hyperinflation returns to Zimbabwe

Law enforcement in Christian-majority Angola shut down at least nine churches this week as part of “Operation Rescue,” citing poor conditions and lack of security for worshippers, the Agencia Angola Press (ANGOP) outlet reports.

The French overseas region of Mayotte has reported that the indigenous Shimaore-speakers of the island have now become a minority due to the rapid number of illegal migrants arriving on the island in recent years.

The United Nations, in a new report issued this month, cited a growing presence of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Somalia, a faction that has directly threatened to displace the al-Qaeda branch in East Africa, al-Shabaab.

Facebook allowed a child bride to be sold to the highest bidder before the social network finally decided to take action against the post over two weeks later, according to charity organization Plan International, which called the Facebook auction “beyond belief.”

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is expected to pull out more than 700 American troops from Africa despite the growing threat posed by jihadist groups in the region, the Pentagon announced Thursday.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is “aiding and abetting” Boko Haram by releasing captured members of the terrorist organization who allegedly “repented,” the Christian Post reported this week.

Contents: Italy’s Libya peace talk conference ends in drama but no resolution; Split in Libya reflects the fault line in the Arab world

Authorities in Zimbabwe arrested an opposition lawmaker for “undermining the authority” of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, successor to dictator Robert Mugabe, after he allegedly called Mnangagwa a “dog.”

A 19-year-old Nigerian has been charged with sexual violence and resisting arrest after reportedly attempting to rape the director of the welcome center where he was staying in northern Italy.

Contents: Sri Lanka constitutional crisis grows as president dissolves parliament; New Maldives government begins untangling previous government’s secret deals with China

A Chinese pork company ran out of money to pay its bondholders after consumers turned against its products. So instead it is paying its debt with ham.

Harried doctors fighting the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) fear it may become the worst outbreak of the deadly disease in the region to date, as an ongoing insurgency slows treatment and accelerates contamination.

Soaring birth rates in developing nations are fuelling a global baby boom while women in dozens of richer countries aren’t producing enough children to maintain population levels there, according to figures released Friday.

Contents: Over 10,000 people displaced by new fighting in Central African Republic civil war; Suspicions grow about Russia’s Wagner PMC mercenary group in Central African Republic

President Paul Biya of Cameroon took office on Tuesday for the seventh time after a victory marred by controversy and violence in October, particularly in the English-speaking minority regions demanding independence (Cameroon is majority French-speaking).

MINYA, Egypt (AP) – Coptic Christians in the Egyptian city of Minya prepared to bury their dead on Saturday, a day after militants ambushed three buses carrying Christian pilgrims on their way to a remote desert monastery, killing seven and wounding 19.

The governor of the biggest city in Tanzania urged residents this week to help him round up people in the region whom they believe to be gay. He announced the creation of “surveillance squads” to hunt down same-sex couples, who will then be arrested.

The Nigerian government this week reportedly dismissed as “fake news” claims that deplorable conditions have driven soldiers deployed to the northeastern part of the African country to combat Boko Haram jihadists to beg for food.

The former second-in-command and “founding father” of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab terrorist organization in Somalia, considered the deadliest jihadist group in Africa, “has a good chance of winning” the election next month for president of the country’s South West regional state, the Associated Press (AP) reports Tuesday. 

The Nigerian army reportedly killed up to 21 people when it fired live bullets into a crowd of protesters on the third day of demonstrations by the African country’s leading Shiite Muslim movement in the capital of Abuja on Monday.

Libya, located a few hundred miles from the European coast, is facing a “significant risk” of becoming the “new” home of the Islamic State’s “caliphate,” a London-based expert from the Chatham House think-tank’s Royal Institute of International Affairs cautioned in an editorial published by the Dallas Morning News on Sunday.

“It needed to convey the message of a mass exodus,” Candace Owens said of the artwork that would mark black America’s exit, or Blexit, from the “liberal plantation.”

Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed on Friday that 79 political parties had registered their respective presidential candidates ahead of the 2019 general elections.

All of the countries of the North African region have rejected a proposal from the European Union to build migrant reception facilities in their countries.