AFRICA

Security hampers 10-year African governance growth London, United Kingdom | AFP | Governance in Africa has gradually improved over the past 10 years but has been held back by deteriorating security and the rule of law, an annual index tracking development showed Monday. Some 70 percent of African citizens now …

News of plans to set up of a craft brewery being in advanced stages has recently swept through Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. As the name suggests, the planned brewery will be small and independently-owned by a renowned name in Kigali’s entrepreneurial and restaurant-owners community, Josephine `Fina’ Uwineza. Uwineza is …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  Skilled workers are leaving sub-Saharan Africa in rapidly increasingly numbers, producing a “brain drain” that causes long-term social damage, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday. The IMF said that the number of sub-Saharan migrants living in developed countries could increase from about seven million …

Rwanda’s President Kagame asserts Africa’s right to self-determination in Coca-Cola lecture at Yale A speech President Paul Kagame delivered during a public lecture at the Coca Cola World Fund Lecture at Yale University has sparked wide-ranging debate for its emphasis on the right of Africans to self-determination. Speaking before over …

Bishoftu, Ethiopia | AFP | Fifty-two people died on Sunday at a religious festival in Ethiopia to celebrate the end of the rainy season after police fired tear gas at protesters triggering a stampede. Violence broke out at the gathering in the town of Bishoftu near the capital Addis Ababa …

Paris, France | AFP |  Gabonese intelligence wiretapped EU election observers who voiced grave doubts over the outcome of hotly disputed August 27 polls in the oil-rich central African nation, a French weekly reported Sunday. In what it dubbed Gabon’s “Watergate”, the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) did not say how …

  Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission on Saturday said it would seek to delay calling voters to the polls until late 2017, though the opposition swiftly rejected the proposal. The announcement came amid opposition fears that President Joseph Kabila will not step …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Balogun Shakirat woke up with a start at 3:00 am and put on the light in her workshop in a crowded working class district of Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. In the following three hours, she was able to sew shirts, trousers and a jacket. Then …

  Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Chevron and Total on Friday failed to have a court throw out a case implicating them in the alleged failure to declare billions of dollars of crude exports from Nigeria. The US and French companies are among up to 15 oil majors reportedly targeted …

  Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The UN decided Friday to send a high-level team of investigators to Burundi to probe rights violations after a report warned of possible “crimes against humanity” and the risk of genocide. The UN Human Rights Council voiced “grave concern” at soaring violations seen in …