Underwater proposal gone tragically wrong was recorded and posted to Facebook
A woman has paid a heartbreaking tribute to her boyfriend, who drowned while proposing marriage to her in Tanzania.
Kenesha Antoine posted a video on Facebook of her boyfriend, Steven Weber, swimming up to the window of their underwater room at the Manta Resort on Pemba Island, off Tanzania.
Continue reading...At least 55 people reported arrested over protests calling for President Sisi to stand down
Hundreds of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo and other cities in rare protests against the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, responding to an online call for a demonstration against government corruption.
Videos shared on social media showed protesters in central Cairo as well as the port cities of Alexandria and Suez, demanding that Sisi leave office. Protests also occurred in the towns of Damietta, Damanhur and Mahalla.
Continue reading...Action Against Hunger urges authorities to allow ‘life-saving’ work to continue after sanction imposed without ‘notice or explanation’
The Nigerian army has ordered Action Against Hunger to close its main office in Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, amid allegations the group has been “aiding and abetting terrorism”.
Soldiers forced the organisation to stop its work in the region on 18 September.
Continue reading...Peter Magombeyi, who was overseeing a doctors’ strike, turns up confused and in pain
A doctor and labour activist in Zimbabwe whose reported abduction led to widespread protests by medical staff has been found, disoriented and in pain but alive.
Peter Magombeyi, the acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), disappeared at about 10pm (2100 BST) local time on Saturday. The union leader sent a short message to colleagues saying he believed he was being kidnapped before all communications ceased.
Continue reading...Growing number of young fighters combined with sexual violence and ethnic tensions threatens return to civil war, UN warns
UN investigators have warned that despite the fragile peace in South Sudan, the recruitment of children into the army and militias is on the increase as each side seeks to bolster infantry numbers.
The investigators also warned that sexual violence against women and localised ethnic violence are increasing tensions that could return the country to civil war.
Continue reading...Beehives built out of scrap wood in the country’s virgin forests have reaped rewards for 10,000 local families
A former hedge fund manager has become one of Africa’s most prolific single-source honey producers through a social enterprise that impacts thousands of families.
The Zambia-based organisation, Mama Buci – meaning “Mother Honey” in Bemba, the local language – was started 10 years ago by former trader Martin Zuch and has since grown to provide more than 10,000 families with income.
Continue reading...Activists fear Peter Magombeyi was kidnapped by state agents for role in doctors’ strike
Concerns are growing for a doctor and labour activist in Zimbabwe who remains missing more than 48 hours after his abduction by suspected state security agents.
Peter Magombeyi, the acting president of the Zimbabwean Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), disappeared at around 10pm on Saturday. The union leader sent a short message to colleagues saying he believed he was being kidnapped before all communications ceased.
Continue reading...Oly Ilunga detained in connection with $4.3m allocated for fighting the deadly virus
The former health minister for the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been arrested over the alleged mismanagement of $4.3m (£3.4m) dedicated to the Ebola response.
Oly Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July having been removed from leading the Ebola response by President Félix Tshisekedi, has denied any wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Kaïs Saïed and media mogul Nabil Karoui appear to have taken the top two spots and will progress to a runoff
The first exit polls in Tunisia’s presidential elections suggest a shock victory for two political outsiders, law professor Kaïs Saïed and media mogul Nabil Karoui, who is on remand in prison on corruption charges he denies.
The early results indicate that faced with widespread disillusion over the country’s progress in the past eight years since its revolution, Tunisians have rejected politicians associated with the country’s two main political trends who have dominated for the last years, including the moderate Islamist Ennahda party.
Continue reading...The bands played but the funeral of Zimbabwe’s ex-president was a strange affair in a divided nation
At just before 11.30am, the thousands of mourners in the vast bowl of Zimbabwe’s national stadium stood and the casket carrying the mortal remains of Robert Gabriel Mugabe began its short journey across the green grass to the podium where it would lie during the long, hot hours of the funeral.
A military brass band led the procession. Then came the bereaved family and Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, followed by foreign dignitaries, before a small crowd of ministers and officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Continue reading...Foreign dignitaries and opposition leaders attend service for Zimbabwe’s founding president
Thousands of mourners sang the praises of Robert Mugabe on Saturday at the official funeral ceremony for the Zimbabwe’s founding president in Harare.
A military brass band led family members, officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party and foreign dignitaries from across Africa on a short parade across the grass of the national stadium in front of the coffin, which was draped in the national flag.
Continue reading...Jailed Nabil Karoui hopes to appeal to voters disillusioned by lack of progress since Arab spring
Campaigning ends on Friday in Tunisia’s presidential election before Sunday’s first round of voting, pitting more than two dozen candidates against each other, including a media mogul running for office from jail.
Tunisia is the last of the Arab spring countries still on a democratic track, after Egypt slipped back toward authoritarianism and Syria and Libya descended into conflict.
Continue reading...Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technology
Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.
According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.
Continue reading...Teenager who had her first period during school lesson was reportedly branded ‘dirty’ and expelled from classroom
A 14-year-old schoolgirl in Kenya took her own life after a teacher allegedly embarrassed her for having her period in class.
The girl’s death has prompted protests from female parliamentarians and reignited a national conversation about “period shaming” and access to menstrual products.
Continue reading...Family says former Zimbabwe leader will be buried at home, against authorities’ wishes
The family of Robert Mugabe has said he will be buried in his home town in private, in an apparent snub to Zimbabwe’s government, which wants to inter his body at a national monument.
Leo Mugabe, a nephew of the late ruler, said the ceremony would probably be held early next week in Zvimba district, about 60 miles (95km) north-west of the capital, Harare. “That is the decision of the family since last night unless something changes,” he told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Charges against Erick Kabendera preclude bail, say lawyers, as national media council claims case has been ‘politically handled’
A Tanzanian journalist charged with money laundering and leading organised crime could face up to five years in jail without trial because bail is not guaranteed in cases involving alleged economic crimes, his legal team has warned.
Erick Kabendera’s lawyers and family also criticised Tanzanian immigration authorities for refusing to return his wife and children’s passports, even though allegations over his citizenship have been dropped.
Continue reading...More than 115,000 people allege they were forcibly removed by colonial-era army
Thousands of Kenyans who say they were driven from their homes and abused under British colonial rule and subsequently faced hardship and poverty have called on the UN to launch an investigation into their treatment.
British and Kenyan lawyers submitted a complaint to the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of justice, Fabián Salvioli, on behalf of more than 115,000 people originally from Kericho county, who claim they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands by the British army.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says thousands of children were detained in distressing conditions by military over last six years
The Nigerian military arrested thousands of children it suspected of involvement with Boko Haram, holding them in squalid conditions for years in some cases, according to a new report.
Some of the children detained were as young as five, and others described being crammed into overwhelmingly hot, crowded cells in a notorious military facility in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri called Giwa barracks, said a report released by Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...First group expected to leave dire detention centres in days, as UN denies reports that plan is part of EU strategy to keep refugees from Europe
Hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Libyan detention centres will be evacuated to Rwanda under a “life-saving” agreement reached with Kigali and the African Union, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
The first group of 500 people, including children and young people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, are expected to arrive in Rwanda over the coming days, out of 4,700 now estimated to be in custody in Libya, where conflict is raging. The measure is part of an “emergency transit mechanism”, to evacuate people at risk of harm in detention centres inside the county.
Continue reading...At least 10 people have been killed so far this month in a surge of attacks targeting foreign-owned businesses in and around South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg. What is behind the wave of xenophobia?
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