Category Archives: Africa

Kenya tells tea factories to cut ties with Rainforest Alliance due to costs

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Government says ethical certification is adding financial strain on smallholders rather than being paid by customers

The Kenyan government has told its tea factories to stop working with the Rainforest Alliance because it says the costs involved in securing the ethical label don’t add up for farmers.

The non-profit organisation is one of the world’s most recognisable certification schemes with its green frog seal on food packaging a sign consumers “can feel confident that these products support a better world”.

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Group stranded with Ice in Djibouti shipping container after removal from US

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Deportees and officers are ‘ill’ and face risks after flight to South Sudan was stopped by US court in late May

A group of men removed from the US to Djibouti, in east Africa, are stranded in a converted shipping container together with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sent to supervise them after a deportation flight to South Sudan was stopped by an American court.

The eight deportees and 13 Ice staff have begun to “feel ill”, the US government said.

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Dehorning rhinos reduces poaching by 80%, study finds

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Cutting off the animals’ horns more effective than traditional protection methods such as rangers and costs less, say experts

Cutting the horns off rhinos causes a large reduction in poaching, according to a new study, which raises questions about the effectiveness of expensive anti-poaching techniques used to protect the African mammals.

Poaching for horn is a significant threat to the world’s five rhino species. The substance, which is similar to human fingernails, is commonly used for traditional medicine in China, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Dealers in the hidden market will pay tens of thousands of dollars for the horns, which are falsely believed to be effective at treating fevers, pain and a low sex drive in traditional medicine.

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Idris Elba: ‘I want to build the African Odeon’

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Speaking at an SXSW London event, the actor outlined his desire to ignite the cinema experience for a new generation across the continent

Idris Elba has spoken of his ambition to create the “African Odeon” – a chain of cinemas to ignite the cinemagoing experience across the continent.

Elba was speaking at an event at SXSW London in which he spoke to host Clara Amfo in a session called Creativity as Capital for Change. In remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Screen, Elba said: “There’s a crazy number across the entire continent – less than about 3,000 cinemas, actual cinemas that you and I have grown up with. I would love to be able to tackle some of that, because I believe that the cinema experience that we all have gone through should be experienced by a new generation. I don’t think it should all be on a phone.”

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Home Office accused of ‘racist crackdown’ on Nigerians after denial of visit visa

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Officials refused entry to man who runs top security firm in Nigeria and his family to spend holiday with his sister

The Home Office has been accused of a “racist crackdown on Nigerians” after refusing a visa to a man who runs one of the west African country’s top security firms for a holiday to see his family.

Samuel Onyekachi Ibeawuchi runs BKay Security Ltd, which provides close protection for high-profile people in Nigeria and abroad. He and his wife, a successful businesswoman, had applied to come to the UK with their 18-month-old child for three weeks in the summer so they could spend time with his sister, Hope Ibeawuchi-Beales, and her husband, Nick Beales, who is head of campaigning at Ramfel, which supports vulnerable migrants.

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Bill Gates vows to give most of $200bn fortune to African health and education

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Tech mogul says: “Every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity’

US tech mogul Bill Gates has pledged the majority of his $200bn fortune towards health and education services in Africa.

Speaking at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, the 69-year-old said that his pledge would focus on “unleashing the human potential through health, through education” across the continent, adding: “Every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity.”

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‘Multiple casualties’ reported after attack on UN aid convoy in Darfur

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Trucks carrying food for 2m people in famine-threatened El Fasher targeted in RSF-controlled Al Koma, western Sudan

A UN aid convoy carrying critical food supplies to a famine-threatened city in western Sudan has been targeted in an attack that killed five people and injured several others.

Trucks belonging to the UN’s food and children’s agencies were struck as they headed towards El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, which has been besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year.

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Outrage over arrest of Kenyan software developer as regional repression grows

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Rose Njeri charged with breaching cybercrime law over tool for people to show opposition to proposed tax changes

A Kenyan software developer who was arrested last week after creating a tool for people to express their opposition to a proposed law has been arraigned in court and released on bail, amid public anger at her detention and growing signs of repression in the east African country and its neighbours.

Rose Njeri was charged on Tuesday with “unauthorised interference with a computer system” in violation of the country’s computer misuse and cybercrime law.

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High-rise, high expectations: is Casablanca’s finance hub a model for African development?

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Morocco’s commercial centre has brought investment to the continent – but critics say it masks domestic inequality

For centuries, Casablanca was a significant trading hub for merchants from across the breadth of the Atlantic coast, given its geographical position between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

These days, Morocco’s economic capital is merging those historical roots with a strong modern commercial identity. One such manifestation is the Casablanca Finance City (CFC) district, whose high-rise buildings stand as a symbol of the city’s dream of being a main gateway for international investment into Africa.

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Al-Qaida affiliate attacks Mali army bases as junta struggles to contain jihadist threat

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Attack in Timbuktu comes as Islamist group JNIM claims separate assault near border with Burkina Faso

An al-Qaida-linked group has launched an assault on a Malian army base in Timbuktu, according to military sources and local officials, a day after it claimed responsibility for another attack near the border with Burkina Faso.

“The terrorists arrived today in Timbuktu with a vehicle packed with explosives,” a local official told Agence France-Presse. “The vehicle exploded near the [military] camp. Shooting is currently continuing.”

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Inquest into notorious apartheid-era killings opens in South Africa

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‘We want to correct the historic record’ – families of the Cradock Four, beaten and killed in 1985, seek justice 40 years on

An inquest has opened into one of the most notorious killings of South Africa’s apartheid era, with a former general denying he ordered the deaths of four men who became known as the Cradock Four.

Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto were stopped at a roadblock on 27 June 1985 by security officers and beaten, strangled with telephone wire, stabbed and shot to death.

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UK should impose sanctions on Egypt over jailed activist, says Helena Kennedy

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Top human rights lawyer calls for UK to take case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah to international court of justice

The UK government should impose sanctions on key figures in the Egyptian government in response to its refusal to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Labour’s most prominent human rights lawyer has proposed.

Writing in the Guardian, Helena Kennedy called for the UK to take the case to the international court of justice, as France has recently done in the case of a national held by Iran.

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Weather tracker: Nigeria hit by deadly flooding described as ‘worst in 60 years’

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At least 150 people killed, thousands displaced and buildings destroyed after heavy rains in north of country

Significant flooding affected Nigeria last week, with more than 150 deaths reported so far. Heavy rain struck the north of the country on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday, leading to flooding along the Niger River, displacing thousands and destroying hundreds of homes. The district head said it was the region’s worst flood in 60 years.

Heavy rain is not unusual at this time of year in Nigeria. The country has a tropical climate and is influenced by the west African monsoon, with the wet season running from April until October. This type of seasonality is linked to land-sea temperature differences, alongside the shifting intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a band of low pressure roughly around the equator that shifts north and south with the angle of the sun.

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Women and girls ‘not safe anywhere’ as Darfur suffers surge in sexual violence

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Médecins Sans Frontières report sparks calls for Sudan’s warring parties to be held to account for rapes and attacks

As Sudan’s Darfur region has been overrun by militias, women are facing the constant threat of sexual violence, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported.

The medical charity said in the South Darfur region alone its workers treated 659 sexual violence survivors between January and March this year, more than two-thirds of whom had been raped.

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Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist hospitalised after 242 days on hunger strike

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Laila Soueif continues protest against detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo

The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been admitted to hospital after spending more than 240 days on hunger strike.

Laila Soueif’s family said she had been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday night with dangerously low blood sugar levels, but continues to refuse medical intervention that would provide her with calories.

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Sidi Ould Tah named African Development Bank president

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Mauritanian economist who led Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa will succeed Akinwunmi Adesina

The African Development Bank has chosen the Mauritanian economist Sidi Ould Tah as its president-elect after three rounds of voting on Thursday afternoon.

The election took place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at the end of the annual meeting of the continent’s biggest multilateral lender.

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Former ambassador calls on UK to advise citizens against travel to Egypt

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John Casson says Cairo ‘fobbing us off’ by refusing to release British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah

The former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to Egypt, in response to Cairo’s refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access – let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.

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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, giant of African literature, dies aged 87

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Kenyan writer’s death announced by his daughter, who wrote: ‘He lived a full life, fought a good fight’

The Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who was censored, imprisoned and forced into exile by the dictator Daniel arap Moi, a perennial contender for the Nobel prize for literature and one of few writers working in an indigenous African language, has died aged 87.

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dad, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, this Wednesday morning,” wrote his daughter Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ on Facebook. “He lived a full life, fought a good fight.”

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Namibia pushes for German reparations on first genocide remembrance day

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Event commemorates estimated 75,000 Herero and Nama people killed under German colonial rule

Namibia has observed its first genocide remembrance day, honouring the estimated 75,000 victims who were massacred by soldiers or forced into concentration camps during German colonial rule.

Between 1904 and 1908, an estimated 65,000 Herero people and 10,000 Nama people were killed when the groups rejected colonial rule. It amounted to 80% and 50% of their respective populations at the time.

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Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d’Or, dies aged 95

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Chronicle of the Years of Fire took the prize in 1975 for its portrayal of the Algerian war of independence, drawing on his own traumatic history

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 91, his family said Friday.

The film-maker was awarded the prize in 1975 for Chronicle of the Years of Fire, a historical drama about the Algerian war of independence.

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