Features

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | More than a century after a colonial railway gave birth to modern Kenya, the country is betting on a new Chinese-built route to cement its position as the gateway to East Africa. The $3.2 billion (2.8 billion euro) railway linking Nairobi with the port city …

Gambia: Known until now to tourists mainly for muscular young men selling themselves on beaches to much older women from Europe Serrekunda, Gambia | AFP | For decades, The Gambia has built a reputation as a haven for tourists willing to pay for sun, sand, sea… and sex. But its tourism …

Cape Town, South Africa | AFP |  When an emergency call comes in from one of South Africa’s most crime-ridden neighbourhoods, ambulances do not rush straight to the scene but to a police station first to request an armed escort. A surge in attacks on ambulance workers has led to …

Paris, France | AFP |  Once his high school drama teacher, now wife of incoming French president Emmanuel Macron, 64-year-old Brigitte Macron stepped into the spotlight long before her husband was elected. The 25-year age difference and the extraordinary way they met — he pursued her when he was her …

Palma, Mozambique | AFP |  The small, palm-fringed fishing town of Palma was meant to become a symbol of Mozambique’s glittering future, transformed by one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas projects. But construction has fallen far behind schedule and the town’s fate is uncertain after gas prices fell …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Sunday morning is usually the preserve of Christian pastors in the Nigerian megacity of Lagos but a new form of worship is emerging to challenge the monopoly. “Praise Allah!” shouts the imam of the Nasrul-lahi-li Fathi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT) before thousands of his faithful, …

There are 450 languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | “I haven’t once spoken my mother tongue Kilokele in the 62 years I’ve lived in Kinshasa. None of my nine children speak it,” says Charles Tongohala. Tongohala’s native tongue is one of 450 spoken …

Yumbe, Uganda | AFP | Michael O’Hagan Ugandan motorbike taxi driver Sadiq Agotre grumbles as he waits for a rare client among thousands of South Sudanese refugees hoping to receive food rations in the outskirts of his town. “Business is not good. These people don’t have money,” he says, gazing out …

Washington, United States | AFP | Africa’s Matabele ants, fierce predators of termites, rescue their wounded soldiers and bring them back to the nest where they are “treated,” a new study showed Wednesday. This helping behavior for the injured is the first to be detected in the insect world, according to …

Ngomoromo, Uganda | AFP | Michael O’HAGAN |  In the no man’s land between South Sudan and Uganda wind lashes though scrubland, whipping hot dust into the eyes of David Otong Oroma and his sister as they struggle to push their heavily laden motorbike over the border. The pair fled …