Inmates on the run after gunmen armed with explosives attack prison near capital, Abuja
Hundreds of prisoners, including scores of terrorists, were on the run in Nigeria after suspected Islamist militants attacked a prison near the capital, Abuja.
Gunmen armed with explosives blasted into Kuje medium-security prison, on the outskirts of Abuja, at about 10pm on Tuesday, freeing nearly 900 of the prison’s 994 inmates, government officials said.
Continue reading...A toxic combination of climate emergency, conflict and Covid is pushing some of the poorest countries into an acute hunger crisis
Global hunger toll soars by 150m as Covid and war make their mark
The world is in the grip of an unprecedented hunger crisis. A toxic combination of climate crisis, conflict and Covid had already placed some of the poorest countries under enormous strain, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent grain and fuel prices soaring.
“We thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), in June. “But this war has been devastating.”
Continue reading...Country hails ‘monumental step’ towards expanding reproductive rights at a time when the US has overturned them
Ministers in Sierra Leone have taken a major step towards decriminalising abortion and overturning the country’s colonial-era law, in a move hailed by campaigners and women’s rights activists.
President Julius Maada Bio said his cabinet had unanimously backed a bill on risk-free motherhood, which would expand access to abortion in a country where terminations are only permitted when a mother’s life is at risk.
Continue reading...People are buying less, costs are up, and profits are dwindling for traders at Kaneshi market in Accra
On a quiet stretch amid the sprawling buzz of Kaneshie market in Accra, a group of traders sheltering under canopies from the blazing sun sell yams stacked along the roadside.
Rita Oboh, 32, has worked the spot, or one nearby, since she was six, following in the footsteps of her mother who also traded yams. “My mother lived good, really good,” Oboh says with pride. “She built houses, she looked after everybody, her family, people who relied on her. She was successful.”
Continue reading...Soaring inflation piling pressure on country already struggling with shortages and stirring memories of Mugabe chaos
Zimbabwe will start issuing gold coins as legal tender in late July, its central bank has said, as the country battles to control runaway inflation that has considerably weakened the local currency.
The inflation rate more than doubled last month to 191%, stoking memories of the hyperinflation of the 2000s that saw the Zimbabwean dollar redenominated three times before being effectively abandoned in 2009.
Continue reading...Prime minister Abiy Ahmed blames Oromo Liberation Army but group says government-allied militias behind attacks
An unknown number of villagers have been killed in an ethnically motivated massacre in western Ethiopia, the country’s state-appointed rights body said, in the latest wave of violence following a mass killing in mid-June.
The Oromia region, where the Amhara are a minority ethnic group, has experienced outbreaks of violence for many years, rooted in grievances about political marginalisation and neglect by the central government.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Women for Refugee Women says it is in touch with first woman considered for removal
A woman in immigration detention has been targeted for removal to Rwanda, a UK refugee charity has said.
Women for Refugee Women said it was in touch with a survivor of trafficking who was recently issued with a notice of intent that she was being considered for removal to Rwanda.
Continue reading...‘Infuriating’ exclusions made just weeks before Joe Biden’s Saudi visit and expected rapprochement with the crown prince
Family members of several US nationals who are being held in Saudi Arabia and Egypt were not invited to attend a recent call with Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, in a move that was called “infuriating and discriminatory” by one critic.
The apparent decision to exclude the families from a 22 June call between Blinken and relatives of US nationals who are hostages or otherwise wrongfully detained in Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda and other countries, was made just weeks before Joe Biden’s controversial trip to the Middle East and an expected rapprochement between the US president and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.
Continue reading...West’s response to effects of Covid and Ukraine war condemned as shortsighted ‘collective failure’ to invest in future human capital
The international community would be “playing with fire” if it failed to help Africa recover from Covid and the impact of the Ukraine war, the International Monetary Fund’s director for the continent has said.
Failure to invest and support the continent was shortsighted and detrimental to the global economy, as half of the new entrants into the global workforce over the next decade would come from sub-Saharan Africa, Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF’s Africa department, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...A Romanian and an Austrian die within 600 metres of each other south of city of Hurghada
Two women have been killed in shark attacks in Egypt’s Red Sea, south of the city of Hurghada, the Egyptian environment ministry has said.
Two sources told Reuters that the body of a Romanian tourist in her late forties was discovered hours after an attack that left a 68-year-old Austrian woman dead. Both attacks happened within 600 metres of each other, off the coast of Sahl Hasheesh, according to the sources.
Continue reading...Flight could take off within weeks and before court has ruled on whether scheme is lawful
The Home Office is planning a second flight to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which could take off before the courts have ruled on whether the scheme is lawful, the Guardian has learned.
It is understood that a second flight could take off in a matter of weeks despite the fact that the full high court hearing to examine the government’s Rwanda plans does not begin until 19 July.
Continue reading...Tripoli sees biggest rallies in years on weekend of demonstrations over political deadlock and living conditions
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed for calm as street demonstrations spread across Libya in protest over power cuts and the failure to hold national elections.
Talks between the Libyan factions in Geneva convened by the UN special adviser Stephanie Williams made progress last week but without agreement on a constitution for the elections.
Continue reading...Officials allege contract was corruptly procured by business duo behind P&ID as saga of energy project and secretive tribunal heads for high court
It has been described as one of the most extraordinary cases ever to come before the high court, involving an Irish impresario, an alleged $50,000 bribe stuffed into a bag and potentially one of the biggest payouts in legal history.
The saga of two Irish businessmen, Michael Quinn and Brendan Cahill, who promised to revolutionise Nigeria’s energy sector, will be at the centre of a high court trial early next year.
Continue reading...Demonstrators storm eastern city’s legislature over political deadlock and deteriorating living conditions
Protesters have stormed Libya’s parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk and set parts of it ablaze, venting their anger at deteriorating living conditions and months of political deadlock.
Black smoke billowed as men burned tyres and torched cars during the incident on Friday after a protester smashed through the compound’s gate with a bulldozer and others attacked the walls with construction tools, local media reported.
Continue reading...Two countries sign restitution agreement covering more than 1,000 items in German hands
Germany has physically handed over two Benin bronzes and put more than 1,000 other items from its museums’ collections into Nigeria’s ownership, more than a century after they were looted by British soldiers from the once powerful kingdom in west Africa.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and the culture minister, Claudia Roth, signed a restitution agreement with their respective Nigerian counterparts, Zubairu Dada and Lai Mohammed, in Berlin on Friday afternoon.
Continue reading...Coffin containing tooth is buried in ceremony on 62nd anniversary of DRC’s independence
The family of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s murdered independence hero Patrice Lumumba buried his only known remains – a tooth – in the capital, Kinshasa, on Thursday, 61 years after his death at the hands of Belgian-backed secessionist rebels.
Hundreds gathered in a vast square for the occasion, waving flags and looking upon a large photo of Lumumba, with his trademark horn-rimmed glasses and side-swept hair, framed by white flowers.
Continue reading...Human rights groups say there have been no autopsies or identification of the 23 people killed trying to cross into Spain
Seconds after Mohamed stepped on to Spanish soil, he turned around to see how his friends had fared along the metres-high chain link fence that slices off the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco.
“It was horrible,” said the 20-year-old from Sudan. “It was a bloodbath; many of them appeared dead and many were injured.”
Continue reading...Climate activists say plight of jailed Alaa Abd El Fattah shows protesters’ voices will be ignored at Sharm el-Sheikh summit
Five months before a pivotal UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, one of Egypt’s most prominent political prisoners remains behind bars. Now on his 89th day of a hunger strike, Alaa Abd El Fattah is subsisting on just a hundred calories a day, normally in the form of skimmed milk or a spoonful of honey in his tea.
Abd El Fattah, a figurehead of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, has spent most of the past decade in prison. First jailed for organising demonstrations against a law that in effect banned protest altogether, he was re-arrested in 2019 during anti-government protests in which he had no involvement, and last year was sentenced to a further five years in a maximum security prison on charges of “spreading false news undermining national security”, for comments about torture on social media.
Continue reading...Fossils from South African cave are 3.4 to 3.6m years old and walked the Earth at same time as east African relatives
The fossils of our earliest ancestors found in South Africa are a million years older than previously thought, meaning they walked the Earth around the same time as their east African relatives like the famous “Lucy”, according to new research.
The Sterkfontein caves at the Cradle of Humankind world heritage site southwest of Johannesburg have yielded more Australopithecus fossils than any other site in the world.
Continue reading...Nairobi biodiversity talks end in stalemate, prompting open letter to world leaders calling for action before Montreal conference
UN biodiversity negotiations have reached crisis point due to a lack of engagement from governments, leading NGOs have warned, three years after experts revealed that Earth’s life-support systems are collapsing.
Last week, countries met in Nairobi for an extra round of talks on an agreement to halt the human-driven destruction of the natural world, with the final targets set to be agreed at Cop15 in Montreal. Governments have never met a target they have set for themselves on halting the destruction of nature despite scientists warning in 2019 that one million species face extinction, and that nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history.
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