Paris, France | AFP | Wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now “vulnerable” to extinction, a top conservation body warned Thursday. The population of the world’s tallest land mammal dropped to below 100,000 in 2015, mainly due to shrinking …
Read More »‘A New Gambia’ is promised after surprise opposition win
Gambia’s newly elected president has vowed to free all political prisoners and urged exiles who fled the 22-year reign of Yahya Jammeh to return from abroad and help him reform the tiny West African country, writes Carley Petesch “A new Gambia is born,” Adama Barrow said in an interview with …
Read More »Five things to know about Ghana
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana is a resource-rich west African country where worries about the economy are set to dominate Wednesday’s presidential election. Major producer of cocoa, gold Ghana is the world’s second biggest producer of cocoa after Ivory Coast and Africa’s second biggest gold producer after South Africa. …
Read More »AHF strengthens fight against HIV in Rwanda
By Susan Babijja AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) combines efforts with the ministry of health in the fight against HIV in Rwanda as well as controlling new infection that is becoming a challenge. Every 1st of December Rwanda joins the rest of the world in observing the World AIDS day. On …
Read More »Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana’s veteran runner-up
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Nana Akufo-Addo is hoping it’ll be third time lucky when the country votes for a new president on December 7. Akufo-Addo, an erudite rights lawyer and former government minister with round tortoiseshell glasses, narrowly lost the 2008 and …
Read More »The snake-catchers’ cooperative saving lives in India
Chengalpattu, India | AFP | A small scythe, a crowbar and a bundle of canvas bags are all that Kali and Vedan carry when they venture into the fields of southern India to catch some of the world’s deadliest snakes. Their skills, passed from generation to generation of the Irula …
Read More »The Trump administration turning into club for the wealthy
Washington, United States | AFP | The US administration-in-waiting nominated by President-elect Donald Trump is a circle of multimillionaire businessmen and women the public may view as a cabinet whose wealth is unprecedented in US history. Himself a billionaire real estate developer, Trump could entrench this characteristic should he choose …
Read More »How lawyer turned fighter Castro turned Cuba into a thorn to US
Havana, Cuba | AFP | Guerrilla revolutionary and communist idol, Fidel Castro was a holdout against history who turned tiny Cuba into a thorn in the paw of the mighty capitalist United States. The former Cuban president, who died aged 90 on Friday, said he would never retire from politics. …
Read More »Tracksuited Thai junta chief leads workout for bureaucrats
Bangkok, Thailand | AFP | He’s a mercurial army general known for penning saccharine ballads and angry tirades against his critics. Now Thailand’s junta chief has launched a new eye-catching project: trimming the waistlines of the kingdom’s civil servants. Former army chief turned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha ditched his fatigues …
Read More »In Somalia, voting under way but democracy delayed
Baidoa, Somalia | AFP | With its security-sealed plastic boxes and cardboard polling booths, Somalia’s election –- under way since last month and still ongoing –- has the trappings of democracy, but few of the functions. Last week in the western city of Baidoa, 51 handpicked representatives of the Reer …
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