The former army colonel, who was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, died in hospital in Mali
Theoneste Bagosora, a former Rwandan army colonel regarded as the architect of the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed, has died in a hospital in Mali.
His son Achille Bagosora announced the death in a Facebook post: “Rest in Peace, Papa.”
Continue reading...Al-Shabaab jihadist group claims responsibility for suicide attack
A car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near Somalia’s presidential palace killing eight people, police said, as the al-Shabaab jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The bombing took place on Saturday within 1km (0.6 miles) of Villa Somalia, the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
Continue reading...The Nobel laureate has produced plays, poems, essays and even inspired a pop duo but he hasn’t written a novel for nearly half a century - until now
At 87, Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian icon. His plays have been performed around the world, his poems anthologised, his novels studied in schools and universities, while his nonfiction writing has been the scourge of many a Nigerian dictator. He was imprisoned for 22 months during the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s for attempting to broker peace; his activism led him again into exile two decades later during the era of General Sani Abacha, military ruler of Nigeria, when the environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged.
In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel prize in literature and became the first African laureate, but his status in Nigerian letters was secured long before then. For a generation of young Nigerian writers, his work has been transformative. It has inspired artists, too – in Lagos, many display their skill by painting famous faces, his among them. There was even a musical duo called Soyinka’s Afro.
Continue reading...A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Germany
Continue reading...A childhood encounter with a hyena inspired Hawa Jama Abdi’s first verse. Now she is part of an arts project designed to encourage women storytellers - and unite all Somalis
When Hawa Jama Abdi was eight years old, she got lost in a forest and found herself in the path of a hyena. In her place, many would have run, some would have frozen – but Jama Abdi, the blind daughter of Somali pastoralists, kept her cool, and composed her first poem. The verse ran:
I lived in fear of you, day and night
It is a miracle world if I am standing in front of you, tonight
Since I am blind and cannot see anything
Come to my rescue and let your voice be my company
Extraordinary ankylosaur remains dating back 168m years a first for Africa
Fossil hunters have unearthed remnants of the oldest – and probably weirdest – ankylosaur known so far from a site in the Middle Atlas mountains in Morocco.
The remains of the heavily armoured animal are extraordinary in being the first to have defensive spikes that are fused to the skeleton, a feature researchers say is unprecedented in the animal kingdom.
Continue reading...Nick Brandt visited five animal sanctuaries in Africa to portray the people displaced by droughts and the creatures whose very existence is under threat
Continue reading...Refusal to recognise vaccines given across Latin America, Africa and south Asia has been denounced as ‘discriminatory’
England’s Covid travel rules and refusal to recognise vaccines administered across huge swaths of the world have sparked outrage and bewilderment across Latin America, Africa and south Asia, with critics denouncing what they called an illogical and discriminatory policy.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, described England’s rules, unveiled last Friday, as “a new simplified system for international travel”. “The purpose is to make it easier for people to travel,” Shapps said.
Continue reading...Kais Saied says he is preparing to change the political system, prompting opposition from rivals
Tunisia’s president Kais Saied has declared that he will rule by decree and ignore parts of the constitution as he prepares to change the political system, prompting immediate opposition from rivals.
Saied has held nearly total power since 25 July when he sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed executive authority, citing a national emergency in a move his foes called a coup.
Continue reading...Mariama Sonko is an unstoppable force who continued her work even when she was ostracised by her community in Senegal
Outside Mariama Sonko’s home in the Casamance region of southern Senegal pink shells hang on improvised nets that will be placed in mangroves to provide a breeding spot for oysters.
Normally, women collecting oysters chop at the branches – a method that can harm the mangroves. But these nets allow them to harvest sustainably, says Sonko, who is trying to revolutionise agriculture in west Africa.
Continue reading...Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, who has died aged 85, took charge of Egypt from the ousting of its president, Hosni Mubarak, in February 2011 until a return to democracy with the election of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in June 2012.
Despite being a pillar of the former regime – “Mubarak’s poodle” to some – Tantawi was given the job in response to the demands of a huge protest movement. He was respected for his decency and clean human rights record, though he became the focus of anger in his own right when demonstrators returned to the streets to protest against the army’s handling of the transition.
Continue reading...With poverty deepening, state services are failing to cope with rising rates of addiction
Kola* was in secondary school in Nigeria when he started smoking cigarettes. He soon graduated to cannabis, heroin and eventually to crack cocaine. Access to drugs was easy and he felt the pressure of friends to participate.
In 2002, when he was 39, he was introduced to a private drug rehabilitation centre in Ibadan, in the south-west of the country, where he spent 90 days weaning himself off his addiction.
Continue reading...Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager, was subject of a Hollywood film about 1994 genocide
Paul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism offences by a court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.
The 67-year-old was found guilty on Monday after a seven-month trial and faces a life sentence. Rwandan authorities accused Rusesabagina of being “the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits … operating out of various places in the region and abroad.” He denied all the charges against him.
Continue reading...Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warns
Millions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking over the coming decades, a new report warns.
The climate crisis and the increasing frequency of extreme weather disasters including floods, droughts and megafires are having a devastating effect on the livelihoods of people already living in poverty and making them more vulnerable to slavery, according to the report, published today.
Continue reading...York Theatre Royal
Tonderai Munyevu’s semi-autographical show addresses Zimbabwe’s traumatic history with honesty and humour
Clothes hang in broken rows above the bare stage (Nicolai Hart-Hansen’s design). Dresses, suits, uniforms – they are presences that suggest absences, the “ghosts” of the people in the stories that Tonderai Munyevu and Millie Chapanda are bringing to life through words and music.
The text of Mugabe, My Dad & Me, written by Munyevu, is an assemblage of the events that have shaped his complicated identity as a “gay, black Zimbabwean man”. The narrative is set in motion by a white man’s question: “Where are you from?” Never shrinking from confronting the (overwhelmingly white) audience with the lazy tropes of the colonial mindset, Munyevu sets before us intersecting histories, both personal and political, “bouncing, non-linear” between Zimbabwe and the UK, past and present.
Continue reading...Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...Bouteflika, an independence war veteran, was ousted during pro-democracy protests in 2019
Algeria’s longest-serving president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was ousted in 2019 amid pro-democracy protests after two decades in power, has died aged 84.
The state television announcement on Friday, citing a statement from the office of the current president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, did not provide the cause of death.
Continue reading...French president says close to 90% of people in country of 67 million have had at least one vaccine dose; UK reports 178 Covid-linked deaths
The US administered 383,994,877 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 464,315,725 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 383,038,403 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Sept. 16 out of 462,384,885 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport criticised the Scottish government’s “decision to diverge yet again and further curtail Scotland’s aviation and travel industries in their recovery”.
He said: “We are now the most restrictive country in Europe yet there is no justification or health benefit to retaining testing measures, something clinical professionals and experts have themselves said.
Continue reading...Photographer Tommy Trenchard documents students whose stories of transformation at the Hogwarts of South Africa are more than just fairytales
To fans of JK Rowling’s books, the story may sound somewhat familiar: a young boy living in difficult circumstances is enrolled in a mysterious school far from home, where his life is changed for ever by the transformative power of magic.
Anele Dyasi’s story is no fairytale, though, and the school in question is not Hogwarts, but the College of Magic in Cape Town, a unique institution that has been training some of the continent’s most skilled illusionists since the 1980s.
Continue reading...Fikile Ntshangase was involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine when she was shot dead in her home. Her daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells her story to Rachel Humphreys
In October last year, Fikile Ntshangase, 65, was at her home in Ophondweni in South Africa when three men burst in and she was shot dead. The murder was witnessed by her 13-year-old grandson. No one has so far been charged with any part in the crime.
Ntshangase’s daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells Rachel Humphreys that her mother had been involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, close to Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa. She campaigned as part of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation.
Continue reading...