AFRICA

Brussels, Belgium | AFP |  The UN food agency’s director urged the European Union on Monday to help raise the $1 billion needed over the next few months to save hundreds of thousands of children from starving to death in Yemen and three African countries. In an interview with AFP, …

Riek Machar, the chairman and commander in chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army SPLMA/SPLA (IO) has rebuffed a call to join the ongoing South Sudan National Dialogue. The South Sudan opposition leader said focus should be on ending the war, through a mediated peace process. He said …

  Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has marked the end of Ramadan with an audio broadcast to the nation, the presidency said, his first public statement since going on medical leave in early May. The recording attributed to the president features a tired-sounding and hesitant voice, …

  CONDE: Museveni one of founding fathers of new dynamism in Africa Kampala, Uganda | PPU|  President Yoweri Museveni has commended President Alpha Conde of Guinea, and also Chairman of the African Union, for his personal efforts aimed at accelerating the implementation of strategic issues of high importance to Africa. “We have …

El Daien, Sudan | AFP | Sudan has made “positive” steps towards meeting Washington’s conditions for permanently lifting 20-year-old sanctions on the African country, the US envoy to Khartoum told AFP in an interview. Then-president Barack Obama eased the sanctions in January, but made their permanent lifting dependent on Khartoum’s …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP | South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation gripped by civil war, has cancelled its official independence day celebrations for the second year running. “We are not celebrating… because our situation does not require us to celebrate at a time when there are people in need …

Dakar, Senegal | AFP | As a girl, Karelle Vignon-Vullierme loved eating the Beninese dishes her mother cooked but never bothered following her into the kitchen to learn how to make them herself. But that has not stopped the Senegal-based blogger, now in her 30s, from building up an adoring …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Zimbabwe’s Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday pledged that next year’s elections will be peaceful, “free and fair” despite opposition concerns about electoral interference. Speaking on the sidelines of a conference aimed at courting South African investors, Mnangagwa noted that the last election in …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Tanzania President John Magufuli said students who become pregnant should not be allowed to finish their studies after giving birth, sparking outrage from women’s rights campaign groups. “I give money for a student to study for free. And then, she gets pregnant, gives birth and …

Politicians from at home and abroad led the tributes as Botswana mourned the passing of former President Sir Ketumile Masire. “He had the charisma, people would come and follow his rallies. This man had the gift of the gab,”  said former Speaker of the National Assembly Margaret Nasha. That charisma, combined …