Global trade in chocolate, worth more than $1tn a year, is leading to widespread deforestation in Ivory Coast and Ghana
The world’s hunger for chocolate is a major cause of the destruction of protected forests in west Africa, scientists have said.
Satellite maps of Ivory Coast and Ghana showed swathes of formerly dense forest had become cocoa plantations since 2000, according to a study.
Continue reading...Tory senior treasurer Mansour says he wants to assist ‘very capable prime minister’ Rishi Sunak
The Conservatives have accepted a £5m donation from an Egyptian-born billionaire who served as a minister in the government of the former president Hosni Mubarak.
Mohamed Mansour, who was made senior treasurer of the Conservatives in December, announced he had given the sum to the party, its biggest one-off donation for more than 20 years.
Continue reading...Deal to stop violence comes as journalists’ syndicate accuses paramilitary group of targeting reporters
A weeklong ceasefire in Sudan intended to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid got off to a shaky start on Monday evening as witnesses in the capital, Khartoum, reported fighter jets over the city and continued fighting in some areas.
The US and Saudi Arabia announced the deal to stop six weeks of fighting, saying it would come into force at 9.45pm (7.45pm BST). World powers had put pressure on the army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to sign a deal. Previous attempts have fallen apart.
Continue reading...MPs back new bill for medical graduates, designed to limit brain drain to countries including the UK and US
A new bill to impose five years’ mandatory service on Nigeria’s medical graduates in an effort to stop the exodus of doctors to the UK and the US has been attacked as “obnoxious”.
The bill, which could be put to a public hearing in the next few days, passed its second reading in the Nigerian parliament’s lower house last month.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s leader knows he needs to win over nonaligned countries such as Brazil and India to increase the pressure on Russia
Normally G7 summits are about battling for the free world comma by comma, as diplomats parse lengthy communiques of ephemeral significance long into the night. Words, after all, constitute much of a diplomat’s work.
At the Hiroshima G7 some of the communiques emerging from the summit do matter, notably the toolbox on de-risking trade with China, but the true significance of the summit lay in Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s scene-stealing visit courtesy of a ride in Emmanuel Macron’s French aircraft.
Continue reading...US and Saudi Arabia announce deal that comes after six weeks of fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
Sudan’s warring factions signed an agreement late on Saturday for a seven-day ceasefire, the US and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement, as fighting that has plunged the country into chaos and displaced more than a million entered its sixth week.
The fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a collapse in law. Stocks of food, cash and essentials are rapidly dwindling, and mass looting has hit banks, embassies, factories and aid warehouses.
Continue reading...Report implicates Wagner group fighters in Moura atrocity, including the torture and rape of civilians
First came a single helicopter, flying low over the marshes around the river outside the village, then the rattle of automatic fire scattered the crowds gathered for the weekly market.
Next came more helicopters, dropping troops off around the homes and cattle pens. The soldiers moved swiftly, ordering men into the centre of the village, gunning down those trying to escape. When some armed militants fired back, the shooting intensified. Soon at least 20 civilians and a dozen alleged members of an al-Qaida affiliated Islamist group, were dead.
Continue reading...Torrential rain, coming on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades, has forced 250,000 people to leave their homes
Jamal Ali Abdi has seen flooding in Beledweyne before but never on the scale witnessed earlier this month when the Shabelle River burst its banks, causing devastation to the central Somali town and displacing almost the entire population.
As water gushed through the streets, Ali’s home was soon surrounded by murky brown flood water.
Continue reading...Penny Wong says the 88-year-old Perth man, who was kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2016, has been reunited with his family
Dr Ken Elliott, the Australian who was kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in Africa in 2016, has been released.
Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, were in their 80s when they were kidnapped by extremists in Burkina Faso. The Perth couple had lived in the country since 1972 and had built a medical clinic in the northern town of Djibo.
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Continue reading...Limits on numbers at Paris summit mean some of those ‘most needing to be heard’ will not be in attendance
Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.
Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.
Continue reading...Murder of Ralikonelo ‘Leqhashasha’ Joki prompts crackdown in southern African nation amid warnings of threat to media freedom
Lesotho has imposed anationwide curfew after the killing of a prominent radio presenter in the capital, Maseru, this week.
Ralikonelo “Leqhashasha” Joki, who worked for Ts’enolo FM radio station, was shot at least 13 times by unknown assailants as he left the studio at 10pm after his Sunday evening show.
Continue reading...Indian drug company to make cheaper generic version of CAB-LA, potentially protecting millions of people in Africa from the virus
An affordable version of a groundbreaking HIV-prevention drug will be made in South Africa for the first time, potentially giving millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa access to a two-monthly jab that can almost eliminate their chances of contracting the virus.
The Indian drug company Cipla confirmed that a generic version of the prophylaxis, long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), would be manufactured at its plants in Benoni, near Johannesburg, or Durban.
Continue reading...Since fighting erupted last month, dozens of people have vanished, but communities are organising to find and bring them home
Kamal Ali Osman sent a text message to his family saying he was being stopped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia group whose checkpoints now throttle the roads of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Minutes later, the text was deleted from his phone. He has not been heard from since.
Continue reading...Triumphal arch in Cinquantenaire park ‘linked to exploitation of Congo’, says cultural group in Belgian capital
For many Belgians, the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels evokes memories of childhood visits to see the stuffed horses of the military history museum, or vintage cars at Autoworld, two institutions on the edge of the park.
The much-loved green space’s cheerful flowers and whimsical follies contrast with the steel canyons and beeping traffic of the adjacent EU quarter, but above all it is an expression of national pride, with a giant Belgian tricolour often suspended underneath a massive triumphal arch. Built in 1880 to mark 50 years of the Belgian state, Belgium’s federal government last month launched a redevelopment plan for the 200th anniversary in 2030.
Continue reading...Climate crisis a key factor in flash flooding of Beledweyne as rains end drought and Shabelle River breaks its banks
Floods have caused almost a quarter of a million people to flee their homes after the Shabelle River in central Somalia broke its banks and submerged the town of Beledweyne, even as the country faces its most severe drought in four decades, according to the government.
Aid agencies and scientists have warned that the climate crisis is among the most significant factors accelerating humanitarian emergencies, while those affected are some of the least responsible for CO2 emissions.
Continue reading...International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi
European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.
The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.
Continue reading...Schools told to honour court order as families seek compensation and training for pupils who missed education because of their hair
About 1,200 Rastafarian children in Malawi are expected to return to state schools over the next month after being banned for a decade because of their hair.
After a landmark decision at the high court in March, letters have now been sent out to about 7,000 schools telling headteachers that the exclusion of children with dreadlocks from the classroom has been ruled as unconstitutional.
Continue reading...Police in Nsanje say canoe was carrying 37 people across the Shire River when incident took place
A baby has died and 23 people are missing after a hippopotamus hit a boat travelling on the Shire River in Malawi, authorities have said.
Police in the African country’s southern district of Nsanje said the canoe was carrying 37 people across the waterway when the incident took place on Monday morning.
Continue reading...Rapid Support Forces claim to have captured 700 soldiers at base during new battles in and around capital
Airstrikes and artillery fire shook much of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and its neighbouring cities on Tuesday as fighting between the country’s warring factions intensified sharply.
New battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) flared from dawn in north and south Khartoum, as well as in the adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri, as the army sought to defend its bases from its paramilitary rival.
Continue reading...Union says increased sentence against Khalifa Guesmi under anti-terrorism law represents ‘dangerous authoritarian drift’
A Tunisian appeals court has sentenced a radio journalist to five years in prison for disclosing information about the country’s security services.
Khalifa Guesmi, of the Mosaique FM radio station, had appealed against a one-year term handed down in November before the sentence was increased under an anti-terrorism law.
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