The incumbent seeks to extend his family’s half-century political domination
Togo voted Saturday in an election widely expected to see president Faure Gnassingbé claim a fourth term in power and extend his family’s half-century domination of the west African nation.
The incumbent, 53, was running against six other candidates but with the opposition divided they face a mammoth task to persuade the 3.6 million registered voters to oust him.
Continue reading...Defence minister hails ‘cooperation’ in fight against militants after Nigerien and French forces’ offensive in restive Tillaberi region
More than 100 “terrorists” have been killed in south-west Niger by local forces in a joint operation with French troops, the country’s defence ministry said.
As of Thursday “120 terrorists have been neutralised” in the operation in the vast Tillaberi region near the border with Mali and Burkina Faso, the statement on Friday said, adding there had been no losses among Nigerien or French troops. Vehicles and bomb-making equipment were seized.
Continue reading...As the country goes to the polls, the ruling Gnassingbé dynasty has a stranglehold on power that looks unshakeable
A familiar quote in Togo comes from the president, Faure Gnassingbé, who once said: “My father told me to never leave power.”
He has heeded that advice. The first African country where a coup d’etat occurred after independence and where the elected head of state was assassinated, Togo stands to be the last country in Africa to see the lights of a democratic alternation.
Continue reading...Writer and activist who was imprisoned for insulting Ugandan president calls on him to go as 18-month sentence is revoked
The feminist academic and writer Stella Nyanzi has been released from prison after her 18-month sentence for insulting Uganda’s president was quashed.
Nyanzi collapsed as she left court in Kampala on Thursday, and scuffles broke out between her supporters and prison wardens, who fired live rounds into the air to disperse the crowd.
Continue reading...Macron’s autocratic attitude towards dissent in countries such as Niger and Mali is only stoking anti-French sentiment
Large protests have been taking place in Bamako, the capital of Mali, demanding that French troops leave the country. “We marched for them to leave, and now they send 600 more,” one blogger in Mali wrote in response to the news that more French soldiers were to be deployed to the Sahel. In total, roughly 5,100 French troops are deployed in Mali, as well as across Chad, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. Public opposition to French military intervention in the Sahel, seen as undermining national sovereignty, has been growing over the last year across francophone Africa. The popular Cameroonian musician Géneral Valsero recently declared, “The presence of the French army is an insult.”
French troops have been in the region on and off since they occupied it in the 19th century, seeking to secure French access to labour and resources. They have remained, and returned, since independence. The French launched Operation Serval in 2013 in response to gains made by insurgent groups in the north of Mali. Since then, instability has spread and different states in the region are now dealing with repeated attacks and insurgencies from a range of groups, some linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Continue reading...Young people found to be ‘overwhelmingly keen’ to tackle Africa’s challenges head on, challenging negative stereotypes
Young people across Africa are confident that the continent is heading for an era of success fuelled by technology and entrepreneurship, according to a new survey.
The Africa Youth survey, which claims to be the largest of its kind, said there is growing belief in the concept of “Afro-optimism”, fighting persistently negative stereotypes of the continent.
Continue reading...UN warns 25 million people could be affected as wartorn country is beset by fresh wave of insects
Swarms of desert locusts, which have been ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa, have now crossed the border into South Sudan, a country already struggling from widespread hunger and years of civil war.
The UN has warned that an imminent second hatch of the insects could threaten the food security of 25 million people across the region.
Continue reading...Bones of fish eaten by humans thousands of years ago offer clue to region’s ancient climate
The Sahara’s shift from savannah with abundant lakes to a largely arid expanse has been traced in the remains of fish eaten thousands of years ago.
Researchers analysing material found in a rock shelter in the Acacus mountains in south-west Libya say they have found more than 17,500 animal remains dating from between 10,200 and 4,650 years ago, 80% of which are fish. About two-thirds of the fish were catfish and the rest were tilapia. The team say telltale marks on the bones reveal the fish were eaten by humans who used the shelter.
Continue reading...Invasion is further food shortages in country struggling with drought and legacy of civil war
Swarms of locusts ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa have reached South Sudan, already reeling from widespread hunger and years of civil war, the country’s agriculture minister said on Tuesday.
Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti are battling the worst locust outbreak in decades, and swarms have also spread into Tanzania and Uganda.
Continue reading...Acid attacks have been on the rise in Uganda. Organisations such as End Acid Violence Uganda are pushing for a law that would see harsher punishments for perpetrators such as a ‘no bail policy’, satisfactory compensation for victims, and implementation of a medical care policy paid for by the government. End Acid Violence Uganda officers make regular home visits to survivors to offer support and guidance.
Continue reading...Once lauded as one of Sudan’s finest musicians, Abu Obaida Hassan faded into obscurity under the Bashir regime and was even pronounced dead. Now he is back – to global acclaim
The unpaved outskirts of Omdurman, Sudan’s second city, seem like an unusual place to find a musical superstar, but Abu Obaida Hassan is far from ordinary. The frail man in his 60s who holds court in the shaded yard of a squat brick house represents a musical revolution, one that electrified traditional Sudanese music. Stranger still, in the eyes of the Sudanese public he is back from the dead.
In his 70s heyday, Abu Obaida travelled from Merowe, the home of the Shaigiya people and a centre of Nubian culture, to Khartoum, finding fame as a renegade player of a local stringed instrument known as the tambour.
Continue reading...Operation to come into force as mission to save migrants and refugees from sea is wound down
The EU has agreed to deploy warships to stop the flow of weapons into Libya, as the bloc wound down a military mission that had once rescued migrants and refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, announced that 27 foreign ministers had agreed to launch a new operation with naval ships, planes and satellites in order to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya.
Continue reading...Rights groups and UN warn of rapidly accelerating danger as banned cluster weapons are deployed
The threat posed by unexploded bombs is rising exponentially in wartorn Libya, experts have warned, with the use of banned cluster weapons a source of particular concern.
The UN’s Mine Action Service (Unmas) said that even parts of the country previously cleared of explosive material had been recontaminated following a surge in fighting since April last year, when the warlord Khalifa Haftar launched a campaign to seize the capital, Tripoli.
Continue reading...Celebrations as a TUI flight from Gatwick becomes one of the first to land in the Egyptian resort town after the bombing of a Russian airliner
British tourists have arrived on one of the first flights from the UK to the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh since restrictions were lifted.
Flights between Britain and Sharm el-Sheikh were halted in November 2015, following the bombing of a Russian airliner soon after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport, which killed all 224 people on board.
Continue reading...Blunt assessment follows Munich meeting to try to mediate between warring sides
The UN-backed arms embargo in Libya has become a joke and the country’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly, the UN deputy special envoy for Libya, Stephanie Williams, has said after foreign ministers met in Munich to try to enforce a ceasefire between the two warring sides.
Since a meeting of world leaders in Berlin last month to draw up a Libyan peace plan, both sides in the civil war have ignored international appeals and turned back to their external sponsor nations for further arms and mercenary support. Last week the UN security council passed a resolution calling for enforcement of the arms embargo and a ceasefire.
Continue reading...As six countries are added to the list of restrictions, Nigerian and Eritreans in the US say the ban is devastating their lives
It started out as a joyous day for Olumide. On 31 January, the 32-year-old Nigerian American learned in an email that the US was finally processing the visa applications of his wife and daughter in Nigeria.
Hours later, Donald Trump shattered their celebration, announcing that he was adding six countries to the travel ban, including Nigeria. The decision cuts off pathways to permanent US residency for Nigerians, throwing Olumide’s case into limbo at the final stage of the process. It leaves his wife and and 11-year-old girl stuck across an ocean with little hope of making it to the US.
Continue reading...Discovery largest since excavations launched to help country come to terms with troubled past
More than 6,000 bodies have been found in six mass graves in Burundi. The discovery in Karusi province is the largest since the government launched a nationwide excavation in January.
Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, the chairman of the Burundi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said the remains of 6,032 victims, as well as thousands of bullets, had been recovered. Clothes, glasses and rosaries were used to identify some of the victims.
Continue reading...Gunmen kill at least 31 people, set huts and crops alight and burn livestock in village of Ogossagou
Forty people, including nine soldiers, have been killed in a spate of attacks in central Mali, authorities said, with most of the deaths caused by inter-ethnic violence in the deeply troubled region.
Thirty-one people were killed in an attack overnight Friday in Ogossagou, a village mainly inhabited by Fulani people, where 160 died last March in a massacre blamed on Dogon militiamen, the government said.
Continue reading...Human rights activist Patrick Zaky had been studying at the University of Bologna
The family of an Italian doctoral student murdered in Cairo have urged “democratic governments” to intervene in the case of an Egyptian master’s student in Italy who was detained on arrival in Egypt last week.
Paola and Claudio Regeni, the parents of Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated corpse was found in 2016, called on Italy to do more to help Patrick Zaky, an Egyptian student and activist studying at the University of Bologna who was detained and reportedly tortured on arrival in Cairo to visit his family.
Continue reading...(Nyege Nyege Tapes)
DJ Diaki’s debut is a speeding cascade of sound that skilfully re-creates the pounding atmosphere of Malian street party Balani Show
Recent years have seen some of the most exciting dancefloor-focused music moving further and further away from its spiritual homes of Detroit, Chicago, Berlin or London. Now, styles such as South African gqom or Angolan kuduro-techno are pushing their way into club sound systems with rattling tempos in excess of 200bpm and unpredictable polyrhythms replacing the familiar four-to-the-floor kick.
The work released by Ugandan label Nyege Nyege Tapes is among the most inventive of these styles. Encompassing sounds from the ground-shaking rhythms of Tanzanian singeli to the electro-synths of Ugandan acholi, the label has been challenging a recent trend towards often purposefully punishing “deconstructed” club music with their joyous reimaginings of east African music. Their latest release by Malian DJ Diaki is no less formidable. A stalwart of the Balani Show sound system – a party setup playing electronic, layered versions of the marimba-style instrument balafon – Diaki now releases his debut on Nyege Nyege.
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