AFRICA

Garowe, Somalia | AFP | The new freezers at Somalia’s only forensic laboratory can store thousands of DNA samples, although for now there are just five. The big hope is that they could be the start of a revolution in how the troubled Horn of Africa country tackles its widespread …

Kampala, Uganda | MATY KONTE | There’s no disputing that many African countries’ education systems are in trouble. Despite significant investment and some improvements linked to the push to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, children in large parts of Africa are simply not being well taught or learning what is needed …

Kolwezi, DR Congo | AFP | In global markets the price of cobalt, a mineral used in batteries for high-tech products from iPhones to Tesla electric cars, has nearly tripled to $81,500 a tonne in two years. But in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which produced two-thirds of the global …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | More than a hundred Tanzanian civil society groups raised their voices on Wednesday against “unprecedented” violations of human and democratic rights under the government of President John Magufuli. In a rare act of public solidarity, 105 organisations signed a statement warning of “multiple cases (of …

Damaturu, Nigeria | AFP | More than 100 girls were missing on Wednesday, two days after a Boko Haram attack on their school in northeast Nigeria that has raised fears of a repeat of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping that shocked the world. Islamist militants stormed the Government Girls Science Secondary …

Cape Town, South Africa | AFP | South Africans were hit by the first sales tax increase since apartheid when the country’s finance minister delivered a tough budget on Wednesday, dampening optimism spurred by the country’s new reformist president. President Cyril Ramaphosa took over last week from the scandal-plagued Jacob …

Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP | Hundreds of African migrants launched a hunger strike to protest Israel’s implementation of its controversial policy to expel or indefinitely imprison them, a spokesman for the group said Wednesday. Israel has resolved to expel thousands of Eritreans and Sudanese who entered illegally over the years, …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s aviation authorities said Wednesday they had launched an investigation into how a passenger plane overshot the runway while landing in the southern city of Port Harcourt. The incident involving a Dana Air Boeing MD-83 jet happened at about 7:30 pm (1830 GMT) on Tuesday. …

Gbah, Liberia | AFP | Morris Kidir gestures at a wide expanse of dark-green land he says was earmarked for a school or clinic in his northern Liberian village, now covered in young oil palm trees. In October last year, he recalls, workers from Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby arrived at …

Port Elizabeth, South Africa | AFP | An armed gang stormed into a rural police station in South Africa on Wednesday and stole firearms in an attack that left five officers and a soldier dead, police said. The robbers entered the police station in the southern village of Engcobo shortly …