Category Archives: Africa

US fears Russia’s influence in Africa after Niger junta cancels security pact

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Washington fears loss of bases in Niger would risk the country following its neighbours and falling under Russian hegemony

US policymakers are scrambling after the ruling military junta in Niger cancelled a mutual security pact that could lead to American forces being expelled, stirring fears of a loss of vital influence to Russia in west Africa.

In a setback for Washington’s counter-terrorism strategy against jihadist groups in the region, Niger announced last weekend that it was revoking the pact, which had been in force since 2012. There are about 1,000 US military and civilian personnel in Niger.

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Kenyan Del Monte farm seeks human rights manager after claims of violence

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Exclusive: new role created after Guardian uncovered allegations against company’s security guards

A vast Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya that supplies most British supermarkets is advertising for a human rights manager to address its “human rights challenges” in the wake of allegations of killings and violence by its security guards.

The job advert says the candidate will need to “develop a detailed action plan to address human rights challenges in the workplace and in surrounding communities”.

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West Africa heatwave was supercharged by climate crisis, study finds

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High temperatures in February affected millions of people and put further pressure on chocolate prices

A searing heatwave that struck west Africa in February was made 4C hotter and 10 times more likely by human-caused global heating, a study has found.

The heat affected millions of people but the number of early deaths or cases of illness are unknown, due to a lack of reporting.

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Move to overturn FGM ban in the Gambia postponed

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Committee will examine for at least three months a bill proposing repeal of ban on female genital mutilation

A decision on whether to overturn a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Gambia has been postponed for three months after MPs called for more consultation.

FGM was outlawed in the country eight years ago and is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.

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Libya coastguard accused of hampering attempt to save more than 170 people

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Médecins Sans Frontières says ‘dangerous manoeuvres’ by coastguard put refugees at even greater risk

An NGO performing search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean has accused the Libyan coastguard of hampering an attempt to save more than 170 people making the perilous journey across the sea to Europe.

In a statement, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said its ship had come to the rescue of two boats in international waters on Saturday: a small fibreglass boat carrying 28 people and a double-deck wooden vessel with 143 people onboard, which appeared to be in distress.

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Idris Elba reveals ‘dream’ of building eco city on island off Sierra Leone

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Actor and his childhood friend planning development on Sherbro to be a public-private partnership

Idris Elba has shared details of his “dream” to turn an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, the country where his father was born, into an environmentallyfriendly smart city.

The actor is working with his childhood friend to develop Sherbro, which is roughly the size of the Isle of Man, after the island was given enough autonomy by the west African nation’s government to allow the work to go ahead.

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Weather tracker: cyclone warning in Australia while Finland freezes in -16C lows

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Meanwhile, South Sudan has ordered schools to shut amid extreme heatwave

A cyclone warning has been issued in northern Australia for coastal communities from the island of Groote Eylandt to the Northern Territory/Queensland border. Tropical Cyclone Megan, which developed in the Gulf of Carpentaria on Saturday, has been declared a category 3 cyclone by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Megan is forecast to make landfall on Monday, but has already brought gale-force winds and heavy rainfall to some areas over the weekend. Groote Eylandt was cut off after more than 400mm of rain in just 24 hours on Sunday.

There is a chance that Megan could strengthen further into a category 4 storm before making landfall, with the potential for damaging wind gusts of up to 125km/h. Megan is the fifth named cyclone in Australian waters so far this season, which is below the average of about 10 by this stage of the year.

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South Sudan closes schools in preparation for 45C heatwave

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Authorities advise parents to keep children indoors during extreme heatwave, expected to last two weeks

South Sudan is closing all schools from Monday in preparation for an extreme heatwave expected to last two weeks.

The health and education ministries have advised parents to keep all children indoors as temperatures are expected to soar to 45C (113F).

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EU seals €7.4bn deal with Egypt in effort to avert another migration crisis

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Six of bloc’s leaders sign agreement in Cairo aimed at boosting economy and bringing stability to region

EU leaders have sealed a €7.4bn (£6.3bn) deal with Egypt to help boost the country’s faltering economy, in an attempt to bring stability to the “troubled” region and avert another migration crisis in Europe.

The three-year EU-Egypt strategic partnership involves €5bn in soft loans to support economic changes, €1.8bn to support investments from the private sector and €600m in grants including €200m for migration management.

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Niger junta repudiates deal allowing US military bases on its soil

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Spokesman for coup government stops short of calling for American personnel to leave but says their presence violates sovereignty

Niger’s ruling military junta says it has revoked with immediate effect a military accord that allows US military personnel and civilian staff on its soil.

As of 2023 there were about 1,100 US troops in Niger, where the US military operates out of two bases including a drone base known as airbase 201, built near Agadez in central Niger at a cost of more than US $100m. Since 2018 the base has been used to target Islamic State militants and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), an al-Qaida affiliate, in the Sahel region.

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‘I saw many people suffer’: former Del Monte Kenya guards speak of violence on pineapple farm

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Exclusive: Former guards tell of clashes on farm that is facing civil claims over allegations of killing, rape and beatings

Former security guards at a vast Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya have for the first time described violent clashes between guards and thieves at the plantation, which is facing civil claims over allegations of killing, rape and beatings by its guards.

This month Del Monte announced it would outsource its security operations at the farm to G4S, sacking its 214 in-house guards.

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Somalia has 99% of $2bn debt cancelled in major boost to fragile recovery

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Paris Club of creditor nations agree cancellation as Mogadishu moves towards financial normalisation amid ongoing conflict

The Paris Club, a collection of some of the world’s wealthiest creditor nations, has announced the cancellation of 99% of Somalia’s debt, in a major boost as the country continues its fragile economic recovery from an ongoing three-decade conflict.

In a statement released by the Paris Club, which is run by senior officials from the French Treasury, Somalia’s creditors, including the US, UK, Russia, Norway, and Japan, announced the cancellation of $2bn owed to club members as of January 2023.

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Darfur rape survivors gather together after ethnically targeted campaign

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Group on outskirts of Geneina share stories from November when RSF and allied militias unleashed wave of sexual violence

Twice a week, a group of women gather together in a nondescript house in Ardamata, on the outskirts of Geneina in Sudan’s West Darfur state, to tell their stories to each other, cry, and drink coffee.

The women, who work or used to work in education, are all survivors of an ethnically targeted campaign of rape and sexual abuse carried out by fighters from Arab militias backed by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group on 5 November, after the fall of the army garrison in Ardamata.

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Zimbabwe police arrest apostolic ‘prophet’ and rescue 251 children from compound

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Man claiming to be a prophet arrested along with seven aides ‘for criminal activities which include abuse of minors’

Zimbabwe police have said they arrested a man claiming to be a prophet of an apostolic sect at a compound where more than 250 children were allegedly being used as cheap labour, and where authorities found 16 unregistered graves.

In a statement, police spokesperson Paul Nyathi alleged Ishmael Chokurongerwa, 56, a “self-styled” prophet, led a sect with more than 1,000 members at a farm about 34km (21 miles) north-west of the capital, Harare, where the children were staying alongside other believers.

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European Commission accused of ‘bankrolling dictators’ by MEPs after Tunisia deal

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Members of justice committee say €150m in EU funding went straight to country’s president, Kais Saied

The European Commission has been accused of “bankrolling dictators” by senior MEPs who have claimed that the €150m it gave to Tunisia last year in a migration and development deal has ended up directly in the president’s hands.

A group of MEPs on the human rights, justice and foreign affairs committees at the European parliament launched a scathing attack on the executive in Brussels, expressing anxiety over reports that the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, was about to seal a similar deal with Egypt.

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Rwanda opposition leader barred from election over past convictions

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Victoire Ingabire, who was pardoned for terrorism and genocide denial offences, denounces court’s ‘clearly politicised’ ruling

A Rwandan court has found the opposition leader and dissident Victoire Ingabire ineligible to run in the July presidential election because of previous convictions for terrorism and genocide denial.

A fierce critic of Rwanda’s long-ruling president, Paul Kagame, Ingabire spent eight years in prison before receiving a presidential pardon in 2018 that cut short her 15-year sentence.

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Seven times size of Manhattan: the African tree-planting project making a difference

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Thousands of farmers have been persuaded by TREES scheme to replace barren monocultures with biodiverse forest gardens

In a world of monoculture cash crops, an innovative African project is persuading farmers to plant biodiverse forest gardens that feed the family, protect the soil and expand tree cover.

Could Trees for the Future (TREES) be a rare example of a mass reforestation campaign that actually works? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) certainly thinks so and last month awarded it the status of World Restoration Flagship.

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Search continues for hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren

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Two mass abductions were the latest in a series of group kidnappings by gunmen

Nigerian security forces continued to search forests and set up roadblocks in the north-west of the country on Sunday in an attempt to find hundreds of kidnapped schoolchildren, but observers said combing the woodland expanses could take weeks.

More than 280 children aged between seven and 18 were taken from a school in Kuriga on Thursday in one of the biggest mass-abductions in recent months in Nigeria’s turbulent north-west. A further 15 children were taken in another raid on a school in Sokoto on Saturday.

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Eight children and an adult die in Zanzibar after eating sea turtle meat

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Another 78 people taken to hospital after consuming delicacy, which is known to cause food poisoning

Eight children and an adult have died after eating sea turtle meat on Pemba Island in the Zanzibar archipelago, and 78 other people have been taken to hospital, authorities said on Saturday.

Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar but it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning.

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