The ‘rare and beautiful’ 3,000-year-old sculpture goes under the hammer in defiance of claims it was stolen
A brown quartzite head of young king Tutankhamun has sold at auction in London for more than £4.7m despite Egyptian demands for its return.
The more than 3,000-year-old sculpture, displayed at Christie’s London auction house, shows the boy king taking the form of the ancient Egyptian god Amen.
Continue reading...Four men were pulled from sinking vessel with one later dying in hospital, says official
More than 80 people trying to reach Europe from Libya are feared dead after their boat capsized off the coast of Tunisia, according to the UN migration agency.
The boat sank on Wednesday off the port town of Zarzis and 82 of the migrants who had been onboard were missing, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Fishermen pulled four men from the sinking boat, said Lorena Lando, the agency’s head in Tunisia. One of the four died later in hospital.
Continue reading...High court judge rules that gay asylum seeker who feared persecution in Uganda should have been allowed to remain
The Home Office has been ordered to help a woman deported to Uganda six years ago to return to Britain after a high court judge ruled that the handling of her case was “procedurally unfair”.
If the judgment stands, the woman may become the first deportee whose case was processed through fast-track rules operational between 2005 and 2015 to return to the UK and appeal against the decision to deport her.
Continue reading...Reports suggest guards shot at refugees as they tried to flee after first missile hit
Libya’s government is considering closing all migrant detention centres in the wake of an airstrike that killed 53 people after it was reported that guards shot at detainees trying to flee the attack.
Overnight the air force of Gen Khalifa Haftar kept up its bombardment of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, mounting raids on the international airport.
Continue reading...Government dismisses UN allegations of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and sexual violence
Opponents of Burundi’s government are being subjected to numerous human rights violations, according to a UN commission.
Returning refugees and even Catholic bishops are being targeted, the commission found, as well as those who refuse to join the ruling party or its youth wing, the Imbonerakure, which is accused of gang-rape and torture.
Continue reading...Doyte lives in South Omo, Ethiopia, one of the most remote areas in the world and hard hit by the climate crisis. As Lord of the Rain, it’s Doyte’s job to summon the rains, but for five years they haven’t come. Ethiopia’s economy is booming, fuelled by green power and climate-resilient policies. But neither the government, nor Doyte, can reverse the catastrophic change that’s devastating their environment
Continue reading...Attack widely blamed on warlord Khalifa Haftar, which left at least 44 dead, labelled ‘war crime’
The United Nations has called for an independent inquiry into the bombing of a Libyan migrant detention centre that left at least 44 dead and more than 130 severely injured, describing the attack as “a war crime and odious bloody carnage”.
The detention centre east of Tripoli was housing more than 610 people when it was hit by two airstrikes. The bombing was attributed to the air force of Gen Khalifa Haftar by the Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, as well as by the UN-recognised Government of National Accord.
Continue reading...The EU has long been aware of the terrible plight of migrants detained or trapped in Libya
Shocking as the precise circumstances are behind the deaths of at least 44 people in an airstrike that hit a detention centre in Tajoura in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, it is a predictable incident.
Even as footage circulated online claiming to show blood and body parts mixed with rubble and migrants’ belongings from the air raid blamed on the forces of the warlord Khalifa Haftar, it emerged the detainees had been housed in a hangar next to a weapons store – the likely target of the strike.
Continue reading...Experts suggest heat sensors could help detect people hiding in landing gear compartment
There have been calls for fresh scrutiny of aviation security as efforts continue to identify a man whose frozen body fell into a garden in London from the landing gear of a Kenya Airways plane.
Investigations have centred on Nairobi airport, where the man is believed to have concealed himself in the aircraft, but one aviation expert suggested airlines and plane manufacturers could take steps including fitting heat sensors to detect stowaways.
Continue reading...Claim that victims could return to Africa ‘wealthy and held in high regard’ sparked outrage
The Home Office is to rewrite guidance on handling asylum claims for women trafficked into the UK from Nigeria after it emerged the advice claimed victims could return to the African country “wealthy from prostitution” and “held in high regard”.
The comments were found in an official policy and information note on the trafficking of women from Nigeria, which is used by Home Office decision-makers dealing with protection and human rights claims.
Continue reading...Biodun Fatoyinbo steps aside amid allegations of historical attack on photographer
A celebrity pastor in Nigeria is to take a leave of absence after a photographer accused him of rape.
Nicknamed “Gucci Pastor” for his expensive taste in clothes and cars, Biodun Fatoyinbo runs the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (Coza), one of the country’s fastest-growing pentecostal churches.
Continue reading...Tributes pour in for head of Safaricom, who helped east Africa pioneer cashless payments long before Apple Pay
Bob Collymore, the chief executive of east Africa’s largest and most profitable mobile network operator Safaricom, died on Monday aged 61, after a two-year battle with cancer.
Tributes poured in from across east Africa for the Guyana-born British businessman, who steered Safaricom through nearly a decade of innovative expansion during which its user base doubled and profits increased 380%, turning it into a $10.8bn company. According to the company’s most recent annual report, Safaricom’s business contributed 6.5% to Kenya’s total GDP in 2018.
Continue reading...Security forces block roads and fire teargas in Khartoum in first protests since army crackdown
Seven people have died and nearly 200 have been wounded during huge demonstrations in Sudan, the first large-scale protests since a crackdown on a camp early in June left at least 128 people dead.
Tens of thousands took part in protests across the country. In Khartoum, the capital, protesters demanded that the ruling transitional military council (TMC) hand over power to civilians, as security forces fired teargas at them.
Continue reading...Carola Rackete says act of ‘disobedience’ in Lampedusa was necessary to avert tragedy
An NGO rescue boat captain who has risked jail time after forcing her way into Lampedusa port in Italy with 40 migrants onboard has defended her act of “disobedience”, saying it was necessary to avert a tragedy.
“It wasn’t an act of violence, but only one of disobedience,” the Sea-Watch 3 skipper, Carola Rackete, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Sunday, as donations poured in for her legal defence.
Continue reading...Europe’s museums serve a nuanced purpose and shouldn’t automatically bow to calls to return artworks plundered by 19th-century colonisers, writes V&A director Tristram Hunt
“I am from a generation of the French people for whom the crimes of European colonialism are undeniable and make up part of our history,” announced Emmanuel Macron to a crowded lecture theatre at Ouagadougou University, in Burkina Faso, in November 2017. “I cannot accept that a large part of cultural heritage from several African countries is in France … In the next five years, I want the conditions to be created for the temporary or permanent restitution of African patrimony to Africa.” In case anyone missed the significance of the French president’s remarks, the Elysée Palace was swift to spell out the new policy: “African heritage can no longer be the prisoner of European museums.”
The following year brought another notable intervention, this time from supervillain Erik Killmonger in the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. Surveying the African collection at the “Museum of Great Britain”, Killmonger corrects the exhibition’s patronising white curator about the provenance of an axe: “It was taken by British soldiers in Benin, but it’s from Wakanda. Don’t trip – I’m gonna take it off your hands for you.” When the woman replies that the items are not for sale, Killmonger says: “How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?” As the poisoned curator collapses, Killmonger deaccessions the artefact. Black Panther took just 26 days to reach $1bn (£784,000) in worldwide box office sales and, in one compelling scene, highlighted all the current controversies over museum collections and colonial injustice.
Continue reading...With over 200 million people and an emerging middle class, Nigeria is witnessing a boom in demand for meat. Most of the demand is met by pastoralists from the ethnic Fulani group, who follow time-honoured techniques of raising cattle, driving them south to pastures and taking them to market
Continue reading...Somali people at Kenya’s sprawling refugee camp allege that UN staff want money for everything from food to repatriation
Four years ago, Asha made what seemed like an impossible decision. She knew the journey from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp back to her native Somalia was risky. But after an attack by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, the Kenyan government had threatened to close the vast, sprawling camp for security reasons. Asha feared for her family’s safety if Kenyan soldiers moved in to evict them.
“I wanted to be gone before the rough-up,” recalls Asha. “I didn’t want my girls raped by [the] military forcing them on buses. I wanted to protect myself too.–
Continue reading...Minister says full investigation into the matter would require ‘extensive resources’
The government has quietly ruled out compensating black African veterans of the second world war who were paid a third as much as their white counterparts.
Following months of silence since the Guardian and al-Jazeera first revealed the discriminatory policy, the defence minister Tobias Ellwood has privately told MPs there were “no current plans to take forward any further investigations of this matter”.
Continue reading...Strategically significant victory in Gharyan puts pressure on General Haftar’s backers Egypt and UAE
Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord say they have captured a strategic town from General Khalifa Haftar, the warlord mounting a deadly siege of the capital, Tripoli.
GNA forces were shown on social media celebrating in Gharyan, a town 50 miles south of Tripoli that served as a supply line for Haftar. The GNA’s air force chased convoys of soldiers from Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) leaving the city, and inflicted further casualties.
Continue reading...Abdul Aziz Muhamat delivers a plea for urgent action to the Human Rights Council
Since Abdul Aziz Muhamat left Manus Island for the last time, he has climbed a mountain in his new home of Switzerland, and then returned to advocating for the resettlement of the hundreds of men and women he left behind.
The Sudanese refugee spent more than six years in Australia’s offshore processing and detention system in Papua New Guinea, before he was granted residency in the European nation earlier this month.
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