NEWS ANALYSIS

Berlin, Germany | AFP |  Bayern Munich resume their power struggle with Borussia Dortmund on Saturday for the German Super Cup with the Bavarians chasing Manchester City star Leroy Sane to reinforce their squad. The blockbuster Bundesliga curtain-raiser in Dortmund once more pits Germany’s top clubs together after Bayern held off …

Goma, DR Congo | AFP | An Ebola epidemic in eastern DR Congo marked its first anniversary on Thursday with two more cases in the densely-populated frontier city of Goma and accusations by Kinshasa that Rwanda had rushed to shutter its border in response to the crisis. The two new cases …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Until the 1990s, Uganda’s coffee industry had the same characteristics with that of Vietnam: low productivity, poor agriculture inputs and slow growth. But today, Vietnam produces 27m bags annually while Uganda produces 4.7m bags. Now in a bid to boost production, Uganda is mooting …

Detroit, United States | AFP | Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden went on the offensive Wednesday against his main 2020 opponents but was rapidly assailed on the debate stage over key issues like health care, race, immigration and criminal justice. Tensions rose rapidly between the former vice president and Senator Kamala Harris, the …

New York, United States | AFP |  The US women’s football team is the best on the planet, but the sport’s domestic league is virtually unknown. Players, organisers and fans hope that is about to change as the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is looking to capitalise on the national team’s …

Benin City, Nigeria | AFP | She was only just 18 when she gave birth without a doctor in a Tripoli apartment, gripping the hand of her best friend who had come on a journey they hoped would lead from Nigeria to Europe. For Joy, who told her story to AFP on …

Bobrovka, Russia | AFP | Anatoly Rubtsov looked despondently at the beehives lining his property. “The farm used to be loud, it sang,” he said.  Today just a faint buzz is audible but an overpowering rotting stench hung in the air after his bees were likely poisoned by a pesticide. Rubtsov, …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP |  Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema will celebrate forty years in power on Saturday, highlighting his status as Africa’s longest-serving head of state. Since he seized control in a 1979 military coup, rights groups have described Obiang Nguema, 77, as one of the continent’s most brutal …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  The 2019/2020 South African Premiership season kicks off Saturday with Mamelodi Sundowns favourites to complete a hat-trick despite uncertainty over the future of multiple title-winning coach Pitso Mosimane. He is reportedly upset that the 2016 CAF Champions League trophy-holders want to hire an unnamed Spanish …

Goma, DR Congo | AFP | An epidemic of Ebola in eastern DR Congo sharply widened on Wednesday, the eve of the first anniversary of the outbreak, with the announcement of a death in a major city and the quarantining of 15 people in a province that had previously escaped the …