AFRICA

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The World Health Organization said Tuesday it was extending its global emergency designation of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after fresh cases were detected. The announcement comes just a day after the vast central African country had been expected to announce that its outbreak was …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | African countries are seething over accounts that Africans are battling stigma and discrimination in China over the coronavirus pandemic, apparently linked to a cluster of cases in the Nigerian community in the southern city of Guangzhou. The African residents say they have suffered forced evictions, arbitrary …

  Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Women and children fell to the ground, bloodied and trampled in a desperate surge for food being handed out in a Nairobi slum, as police fired teargas and men with sticks beat the hungry. As African countries grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, observers warn that …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | As the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread globally with positive cases going to the highs of 1.9 million people, over 117 million children in 37 countries may miss out on receiving life-saving measles vaccine as measles immunization campaigns in 24 countries have already been …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP |  Forces backing Libya’s unity government captured two coastal cities west of Tripoli on Monday in a new blow to military commander Khalifa Haftar a year after he launched an offensive on the capital. They also routed his forces from three smaller cities, sparking rocket attacks on …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP |  Saudi Arabia has deported nearly 3,000 Ethiopian migrants in recent days, despite concerns that such operations could hasten the spread of the coronavirus, the United Nations says. Since mid-March, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has registered 2,870 Ethiopian returnees, all but 100 of …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Swarms of locusts in Ethiopia have damaged 200,000 hectares (half a million acres) of cropland and driven around a million people to require emergency food aid, the United Nations said Monday. The findings from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which recently concluded a …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to Nigerians to stay at home to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but the government has still not said whether it will extend a two-week confinement order on three states that ends Monday. Residents in Lagos, Ogun and the capital Abuja have been confined …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | Sub-Saharan Africa has not been as badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic as some other parts of the world, but the economy is being pummelled. Here’s a look at the main issues. – Perfect storm recession – For the first time in 25 years sub-Saharan …

Algiers, Algeria | AFP |  Algeria faces economic and social turmoil if crude prices continue to collapse, experts have warned, with the oil-dependent country reeling from a year of popular protests, political turmoil and now, coronavirus. The North African country is an example of how hydrocarbon economies are likely to face …