NEWS ANALYSIS

Stuttgart, Germany | AFP | USA gymnastics queen Simone Biles is set to be the undisputed star of the world championships, enhancing her status as the sport’s greatest athlete — even if she does not feel it. “I never really feel like I’m a big name,” she told reporters in …

Kano, Nigeria | AFP |  Horrific revelations of torture and abuse at a compound billing itself as a Koranic reform school in northern Nigeria have shone a spotlight on Islamic institutes unregulated by the authorities. Last week police in the city of Kaduna raided a building to find hundreds of men …

Tunis, Tunisia | AFP |  Just weeks after Tunisians rejected ruling political parties in the first round of presidential polls, voters are set to return to the ballot box on Sunday to elect a new parliament. Roughly seven million voters are spoilt for choice in this parliamentary election, the second since …

Oslo, Norway | AFP |  Eighty years ago on the brink of the bloodiest conflict in history, Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, illustrating that literally anyone can be nominated. From the Fuhrer to the “King of Pop”, in the nearly 120 years the prize has been awarded …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | Since 1901, the Nobel prizes have been awarded to men, women and organisations whose work has led to great advances for mankind, in line with the wishes of Alfred Nobel. Here are five things to know about the prizes and their creator. – Nobel the poet …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Reeling from a terrifying surge of unrest that saw his shop wrecked and plundered, Nigerian-born Alvan Akujinwa toyed with the possibility of leaving his adopted home of South Africa for the first time in 10 years. His mobile-phone repair business in downtown Johannesburg was targeted …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP |  Faraj al-Doukali hastened to unload the dozens of rubbish bags from his van onto a sidewalk dump in Siyahiya, a residential district west of the Libyan capital. “Each weekend I collect the rubbish from my four brothers at the farm where we live and I look …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP |  The lush green canopy stretches over the Akanda National Park — one of the many forest jewels that Gabon is fighting to conserve. But those living in poverty in the shadow of the park are ambiguous. They see the forests less as a global treasure to …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  With a just a month away to the Primary Leaving Examinations-PLE, Uganda National Examinations Board-UNEB has stepped up efforts to sensitise school authorities against examination malpractice.   The vice, which has increasingly become part of Uganda’s education system, is attributes to various factors including commercialization of …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | A witch’s brew of unemployment, inequality and poverty, mixed with South Africa’s violent past, are to blame for attacks on foreigners that so tarnished the country’s image last month, experts say. The deadly assaults rocked South Africa’s relations with its neighbours but especially with Nigeria, …