AFRICA

With Africa’s youth increasingly taking to smartphones to engage in a variety of activities – including civic and political activism – on social media, smart handset shipments are on the rise across the continent. They have now overtaken feature phone shipments for the first time, according to new reports. SPECIAL …

ARUSHA, Tanzania | Xinhua | Experts on Sunday renewed their calls for the East African Community (EAC) Council of Ministers to expedite amendments to the EAC Treaty to enable Kiswahili as the regional bloc’s official language. In a statement from the EAC headquarters in Arusha Monday, experts urged all member …

MWANZA, Tanzania | Xinhua |  Peter Ngonyani, a 35-year-old resident of Kigongo, near the Kigongo-Busisi ferry on Lake Victoria in Tanzania’s northwestern Mwanza region, is all smiles. As a father of three, he has lived in the area for over 20 years and is excited to see the completion of …

  No one size fits all – smaller economies can have significant numbers of active soldiers or substantial defence budgets, as different countries prioritize different aspects of bolstering their peacekeeping efforts. SPECIAL REPORT | BIRD AGENCY | In a recent global power ranking of 145 nations, it is evident that …

ABUJA | Xinhua | Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu on Sunday called on West African leaders to work together to establish and sustain a regional standby force in the face of the growing security threats in the region. Speaking during the opening of the 65th ordinary session of the Authority of …

Why and what can be done about it to reverse the trend going forward ANALYSIS | DANNY BRADLOW | The recent Kenyan protests are a warning that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is failing. The public does not think it is helping its member countries manage their economic and financial problems, which …

NIAMEY | Xinhua | Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have announced the creation of the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States during the institution’s first summit held here on Saturday, marking a significant step toward establishing an economic-military bloc and moving away from regional and Western countries following a …

YAOUNDE, Cameroon | Xinhua | Samuel Eto’o, the president of the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT), intends to appeal the decision of the Disciplinary Commission of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that fined him 200,000 U.S. dollars for ethical breaches, his lawyers said on Friday. CAF opened a formal inquiry …

JUBA, South Sudan | Xinhua | South Sudan’s negotiation team in the ongoing peace talks in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, said Friday that substantial progress had been made towards achieving lasting peace and stability in the world’s youngest nation. Albino Mathom, the special envoy to South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir …

NAIROBI, Kenya | Xinhua | Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday announced a raft of austerity measures aimed at addressing revenue shortfalls in the 2024/2025 fiscal budget caused by the withdrawal of the contentious Finance Bill 2024. Ruto said the National Treasury will cut government spending by 177 billion shillings …