Category Archives: Africa

Ugandan MPs pass bill imposing death penalty for homosexuality

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Human rights campaigners condemn bill introducing capital and life imprisonment sentences

MPs in Uganda have passed a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which would make homosexual acts punishable by death, attracting strong condemnation from rights campaigners.

All but two of the 389 legislators voted late on Tuesday for the hardline anti-homosexuality bill, which introduces capital and life imprisonment sentences for gay sex and “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities”.

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US calls conditions in Rwanda’s detention centres harsh to life-threatening

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Ally’s criticism will be hard to dismiss as UK tries to push through £120m migrant scheme

Britain’s closest ally, the US, has criticised Rwanda’s dire human rights record, describing conditions in the country’s detention centres as harsh to life-threatening.

The British home secretary, Suella Braverman, took a group of journalists on a trip last week to reveal details of her £120m scheme to send all migrants arriving in the UK through irregular means to Rwanda whether they claim asylum or not. The legality of the scheme is due to be tested shortly in the UK court of appeal.

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Drought caused 43,000 ‘excess deaths’ in Somalia last year, half of them young children

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New report uncovers tragic scale of climate-led crisis and warns of up to 34,000 more deaths so far this year

A new report released by the Somalian government suggests that far more children died in the country last year due to the ongoing drought than previously realised.

The study estimates that there were 43,000 excess deaths in 2022 in Somalia due to the deepening drought compared with similar droughts in 2017 and 2018.

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World’s biggest single eradication operation aims to remove mice from island

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Invasive house mice threaten endangered seabirds and wildlife on Marion Island in Indian Ocean

Non-native house mice are to be removed from Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean to protect the wandering albatross and other endangered seabirds, in the world’s largest eradication programme of its kind.

Mice accidentally introduced on to the remote island by 19th-century seal hunters have thrived in warmer and drier conditions over the past 30 years, devastating the island’s invertebrates and plants, and then devouring the chicks and even adults of ground- and burrow-nesting seabirds.

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‘War crimes’ committed by all sides in Ethiopia, says US secretary of state

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Ethiopian, Eritrean and rebel forces committed offences during two-year conflict, Antony Blinken has said

The United States has concluded that Ethiopian and Eritrean troops as well as rebels committed war crimes during the brutal two-year conflict, secretary of state Antony Blinken has said after visiting Addis Ababa.

Blinken, who had sounded upbeat in Ethiopia about the prospects for peace after a breakthrough 2 November accord, made a forceful call for accountability on his return to Washington.

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Experts cast doubt on Braverman’s hopes of ECHR rule change on Rwanda

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Home secretary’s claims of ‘constructive’ talks regarding Strasbourg’s injunctions disputed by legal scholars

Legal experts have cast doubt on the UK’s claims of “possible reforms” to European court of human rights procedures that stopped an asylum seeker from being deported to Rwanda last year.

During a two-day visit to the country’s capital, Kigali, Suella Braverman told a selected group of government-friendly papers that she was “encouraged” by the government’s “constructive” talks with Strasbourg to overhaul court injunctions. An ECHR injunction last June prevented an Iraqi national from being deported from the UK to the east African country.

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US aid worker and French journalist freed after years held hostage in Africa

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Jeffery Woodke and Olivier Dubois, who had been kidnapped by jihadists in the Sahel, were released in Niger

A US aid worker and a French journalist who had been kidnapped by jihadists in the Sahel and held for years have been released.

American aid worker Jeffery Woodke and French freelancer Olivier Dubois emerged from a plane that landed on Monday at an airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger.

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Armed men kill nine Chinese nationals in Central African Republic

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Rebel alliance Coalition of Patriots for Change denies responsibility after mayor accuses them of attack

China’s embassy in the Central African Republic has urged its citizens to avoid travelling outside the capital Bangui after nine Chinese nationals were killed in an attack by militants at a gold mine outside the city.

The embassy said in a statement on Sunday there had been many “vicious” security incidents against workers of foreign mining enterprises in the area, and Chinese citizens still outside Bangui were requested to evacuate immediately.

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Weather tracker: Cyclone Freddy leaves trail of devastation

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Hundreds killed in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi in what may be longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record

Cyclone Freddy, which developed over the Indian Ocean more than a month ago, has dissipated this week, after making landfall a second time in southern Africa. The death toll had exceeded 300 across Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi by Thursday, with more than 700 people injured, 40 missing and 80,000 displaced.

The devastation was caused by severe flooding and landslides, which swept away roads and buried homes in mud. Power outages in Mozambique have affected small villages since last weekend, hindering rescue efforts as people await food and medical assistance.

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Libyan general says 2.5 tonnes of missing uranium found near storage base

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UN nuclear watchdog raised alarm hours earlier amid concerns about radiological and security risks

More than 2 tonnes of natural uranium reported missing by the UN’s nuclear watchdog in war-torn Libya have been found, a general in the country’s east has said.

Gen Khaled al-Mahjoub, the commander of eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s communications division, said the containers of uranium had been recovered barely 5km (3 miles) from where they had been stored in southern Libya, and after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported their disappearance earlier on Thursday.

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Cyclone Freddy death toll passes 200 as rescue workers warn more victims will be found

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People in Malawi and Mozambique picking up the pieces after fierce storm swept through at the weekend

The death toll from Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and Mozambique has risen past 200 on Tuesday, after the record-breaking storm triggered floods and landslips.

Rescue workers warned that more victims were likely as they scoured destroyed neighbourhoods for survivors even as hopes dwindled.

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‘Trail of war crimes’ left by DRC rebel group as recent attacks leave 300,000 displaced

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After a year of murder, rape, disease and looting, aid workers ask the international community: ‘Where the hell have you been?’

More than 300,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have had to abandon their homes because of fighting between the M23 rebel group and the government last month.

According to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 800,000 people have now been displaced by the conflict since last March, and there is a humanitarian crisis that regional and international powers have allowed to fester.

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LGBTQ+ groups face crackdowns in Uganda as environment turns hostile

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Activists fear a systematic ‘witch-hunt’ against sexual minorities by parliament, police and religious conservatives

A dramatic surge in attacks on LGBTQ+ people in Uganda has been recorded by rights groups this year, as the environment for sexual minorities turns increasingly hostile.

More than 110 people reported incidents including arrests, sexual violence, evictions and public undressing, to advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) in February alone. Transgender people were disproportionately affected, said the group.

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More than 100 killed as Storm Freddy returns to Mozambique and Malawi

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One of the strongest storms recorded in the southern hemisphere hit region for second time in a month

Mozambique and Malawi have been left counting the cost of Tropical Storm Freddy, which killed more than 100 people, injured scores and left a trail of destruction as it ripped through southern Africa for the second time in a month over the weekend.

Freddy is one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere and could be the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

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Press banned from opening session of new Tunisian parliament

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Independent media barred from building to avoid ‘disorder’, as president tightens autocratic grip

Independent and foreign journalists have been barred from attending the first session of Tunisia’s new parliament, which has been largely stripped of its powers by the increasingly autocratic president.

The ban on journalists entering the parliament building is the first since the revolution that ousted the late dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

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Dozens of people reported missing in Mediterranean after vessel capsizes

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Rescue organisations say passengers on boat attempting crossing from Libya to Italy are feared dead

Several dozen people are missing and feared dead in the central Mediterranean after the boat in which they were travelling from Libya capsized in bad weather, two rescue organisations have said.

The Mediterranea Saving Humans NGO tweeted that according to several sources, the vessel, travelling in the direction of Italy, capsized this morning about 110 miles (180km) north-west of Benghazi.

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‘Farmgate’: Cyril Ramaphosa inquiry ‘clears’ South African president but police still investigating

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ANC leader was accused of failing to report theft of foreign cash hidden in sofas at his ranch

South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog has reportedly cleared president Cyril Ramaphosa of any wrongdoing in a preliminary report on a cover-up scandal known as “farmgate”, involving between $580,000 and $5m of foreign currency hidden at his private game farm.

The Public Protector said it had notified implicated parties of the preliminary findings of its probe over the theft of the cash from Ramaphosa’s luxury farmhouse – something the president is accused of having attempted to conceal.

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Children face acute risk amid Malawi’s deadliest cholera outbreak

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The disease, which has killed 1,500 people since last March, has been aggravated by heavy rains and an overburdened health system

Malawi’s cholera outbreak is the country’s deadliest on record, claiming more than 1,500 lives, according to the UN.

More than 50,000 cases have been detected in the landlocked country in south-east Africa since an outbreak was declared in March last year, triggered by two devastating tropical storms that hit the region. Almost 200 children have died.

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Nigeria postpones state elections amid dispute over presidential vote

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Electoral commission says it is pushing back polling due to problems with digital voting system

Nigeria has postponed Saturday’s crucial state elections amid wrangling over a presidential vote that opposition parties claim was rigged.

The electoral commission emerged from an hours-long meeting on Wednesday night to announce it was pushing back polls to elect powerful state governors by a week.

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Sphinx-like statue and shrine discovered in southern Egypt

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It is thought the Roman emperor Claudius could have inspired work found in the temple of Dendera

Archaeologists have unearthed a sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine in an ancient temple in southern Egypt.

The artefacts were found in the temple of Dendera, in Qena province, 280 miles (450km) south of Cairo, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said.

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