Category Archives: Africa

Global report: WHO warns of accelerating Covid-19 infections in Africa

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Continent is seeing more cases spread to the provinces; Trump supporters can’t sue over catching Covid-19 at rallies; Brazil confirms 30,000 new cases

The World Health Organization has warned that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating in Africa, after the continent hit 200,000 cases earlier this week.

Speaking at a video briefing hosted by the UN press association in Geneva on Thursday, Doctor Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said, “It took 98 days to reach the first 100,000 cases, and only 18 days to move to 200,000 cases.” Africa has so far recorded 5,635 deaths.

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Eight mass graves found in area retaken from Libyan rebel general

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UN expresses horror at finds, mainly in town of Tarhuna, and backs GNA investigation

The United Nations has expressed horror at the discovery of eight mass graves in Libya, mainly in the town of Tarhuna, south of Tripoli, in an area recently retaken from forces loyal to Gen Khalifa Haftar.

The UN mission in Libya said it welcomed the decision by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) to launch an investigation into the gravesNo estimate of the number of dead has been made public, but one grave contained at least 15 badly decomposed bodies. Some graves are said to contain entire families.

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Global report: India reports surge in Covid-19 cases as lockdown eased

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Almost 10,000 new cases in India on Thursday as WHO warns situation outside Europe deteriorating

India reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with hospitals swamped in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, and predictions that the infection rate will not peak before the end of next month.

The country of 1.3bn people now has the fifth highest number of confirmed cases in the world, at 286,579. Over the last 24 hours 357 people have died from the virus, bringing the official toll to 8,102.

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‘I raised hell’: how people worldwide answered the call of World Oceans Day

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From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean

World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.

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Coronavirus live news: Argentina records more than 1,000 daily cases for first time

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WHO official walks back asymptomatic transmission comments; world faces worst food crisis in 50 years; UK NHS waiting list could hit 10m

Japan’s lower house of parliament has approved an emergency budget worth nearly over £230bn, doubling the scale of measures to pep up the world’s third-biggest economy after the coronavirus tipped it into recession, AFP reports.

Their raucous clucking deprives residents of sleep. They leave the neighbourhood “wrecked”. And food left out for them attracts “rats the size of cats” to an otherwise peaceful, leafy suburb.

New Zealand’s national lockdown to quell the spread of Covid-19 appears to have vanquished the virus, but it has had one unintended consequence: the re-emergence of a plague – not of frogs or locusts but of feral chickens, a flock of which is once again menacing an area of west Auckland.

Related: 'Like a Stephen King movie': feral chickens return to plague New Zealand village

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Coronavirus live news: Africa passes 200,000 confirmed cases after Burundi president dies of suspected Covid-19

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Asylum applications in Europe fall to lowest level for a decade as borders closed; world faces worst food crisis in 50 years

Louise Taylor and David Conn report:

Premier League clubs should be braced for a collective £500m loss of revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic, Deloitte has warned.

Related: Premier League clubs set for £500m collective loss due to coronavirus

Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak so far today include:

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Nigeria to cut healthcare spending by 40% despite coronavirus cases climbing

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Nurses say they have been left without promised compensation as £75m set aside for renovation of parliament buildings

Plans by Nigeria’s government to cut healthcare spending risk undermining the country’s coronavirus response and severely impacting already strained services, health and transparency groups have warned.

Funding for local, primary healthcare services will be cut by more than 40% this year in a revised budget expected to be passed into law in the coming weeks.

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Notorious Sudanese militia chief in Darfur conflict arrested in CAR

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Ali Kushayb, wanted for human rights abuses and war crimes, faces trial in The Hague

One of the most notorious Sudanese militia leaders in the brutal conflict in Darfur has been arrested in the Central African Republic and handed over to the International criminal court.

Ali Kushayb, who had been on the run for 13 years, surrendered to authorities in a remote corner of northern CAR near the country’s border with Sudan, said a spokesman for the ICC.

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Global report: Moscow relaxes lockdown despite high caseload; Nigerian deaths rise

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South Africa warns pandemic could last up to two years; Indonesia reports largest daily rise in infections

Moscow has partially lifted its lockdown despite Russia reporting thousands of new daily cases and Spain’s government said face masks would remain mandatory in public as Europe continued to emerge from the first phase of its struggle against Covid-19.

Concern mounted, however, over the spread of coronavirus in Africa and elsewhere, with Nigeria confirming 600 deaths from a previously undetected outbreak and South Africa warning its pandemic could last up to two years.

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‘They have killed us more than corona’: Kenyans protest against police brutality

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Peaceful demonstration in Nairobi a response to increase in violence and killings during the coronavirus curfew

Photographs by Ed Ram

A crowd of up to 200 people peacefully marched through Mathare slum in Nairobi on Monday to protest against police brutality and an increase in extrajudicial killings in the Kenyan capital.

The march was organised by three grassroots organisations from the area in response to a rise in the number of police killings since a dusk-till-dawn curfew was enforced in March to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. It was also organised to show solidarity with movements worldwide to protest against police brutality. 

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‘We feel like prisoners’: the Moroccans stuck in Spanish enclaves during lockdown

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More than 500 Moroccans remain in limbo, far from home and with few resources to support themselves

On 14 March, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, ordered the country into Covid-19 lockdown, saying “extraordinary decisions” needed to be taken as the country struggled with a “health, social and economic crisis”.

The Moroccan authorities had taken their own extraordinary decision the day before, when they ordered the shutdown of the border crossings that connect the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla with the rest of the country. With the only land borders between Africa and Europe closed, many citizens from both continents found themselves trapped.

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South Africa may hold the answer to who murdered Olof Palme

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The trail for the killer of the Swedish prime minister had gone cold until a diplomat picked up the 1986 case as a hobby

Dag Hammarskjöld brought me to Olof Palme. Two Swedish leaders, both supporting small nations on the world scene, both of whom refused to be controlled by global superpowers; both died a violent death. Were they also victims of the same forces?

For 11 years I investigated the mysterious aeroplane crash that killed the former UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld, a a project that became the subject of the documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld.

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‘Rolling emergency’ of locust swarms decimating Africa, Asia and Middle East

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Unseasonal rains have allowed desert pests to breed rapidly and spread across vast distances leaving devastation in their wake

Locust swarms threaten a “rolling emergency” that could endanger harvests and food security across parts of Africa and Asia for the rest of the year, experts warn.

An initial infestation of locusts in December was expected to die out during the current dry season. But unseasonal rains have allowed several generations of locust to breed, resulting in new swarms forming.

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Egyptian president announces plan for ceasefire in Libya

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Sisi’s initiative includes peace talks in Geneva and is backed by rebel general Khalifa Haftar

Egypt’s president has announced an initiative to end nearly a decade of civil war in Libya, backed by the main commander in the oil-rich country’s east, whose siege of the capital, Tripoli collapsed this week.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said a ceasefire will start on Monday and is meant to pave the way for elections. He called for peace talks in Geneva and the exit of all foreign fighters from Libya.

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French forces kill al-Qaida’s north Africa chief in Mali

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Abdelmalek Droukdel was one of the Maghreb’s most experienced Islamist militants

French forces in northern Mali have killed al-Qaida’s north Africa (AQMI) chief, a key Islamist fighter whom its forces had been hunting for more than seven years.

“On 3 June, French army forces with the support of their local partners, killed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s emir, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest collaborators, during an operation in northern Mali,” the French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, wrote on Twitter on Friday.

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Malawi factories ordered to close after ignoring plastics ban

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Activists welcome move but say government is still dragging its feet over crackdown on waste in lakes and waterways

The Malawian government this week ordered the closure of factories belonging to two major plastic producers for flouting the country’s plastics ban.

The companies – OG plastics and City Plastics – were found to still be manufacturing thin plastics, often used to make plastic bags, despite a ruling last year that banned its production, import and use.

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Egyptian father to stand trial on charges of forced FGM of three daughters

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Girls were allegedly told they were to have Covid-19 vaccinations but were cut by doctor after being sedated

Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the immediate trial of a father on charges of forcing his three young daughters to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), after he told them they were going to be vaccinated against coronavirus. The doctor involved will also go on trial.

The procedure was banned in 2008 and criminalised in 2016.

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Zimbabwe accuses MDC activists of made up state torture claims

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Women arrested in May went missing for two days before reappearing badly injured

Zimbabwe’s government has accused two opposition activists and an MP who described torture, humiliation and repeated sexual assaults after being abducted by suspected state security services of inventing the entire episode.

The three women, all leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change’s youth section, were arrested at a roadblock guarded by police and soldiers last month at a protest in Harare against the state’s failure to provide for the poor during the country’s Covid-19 lockdown last month.

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Facebook deactivates accounts of Tunisian political bloggers and activists

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Several accounts reactivated after protests with social media giant blaming ‘technical error’

The Facebook accounts of several high-profile bloggers and activists in Tunisia were among those deactivated without warning over the weekend.

Up to 60 accounts are understood to have been deactivated, including that of journalist and political commentator Haythem El Mekki.

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