Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Hundreds of workers at Sudan’s banks and government offices, including the key oil ministry, went on strike for a second day Wednesday to demand the country’s ruling generals step down. The two-day strike, which one protest leader said was “90 percent successful”, aimed to pressure the …
Read More »From European dream to global giant: Airbus marks half century
Paris, France | AFP | Fifty years ago at the Paris air show, France’s transport minister and Germany’s economy minister signed an agreement that would change aviation history. The year was 1969 and Europe needed a smaller, lighter and more cost-effective passenger aircraft than American rivals. Five years later, the A300B2 …
Read More »Ghana jabs back against malaria’s devastation
Cape Coast, Ghana | AFP | Abigal Aguanyi, a trader and mother in the West African nation of Ghana, knows first-hand how dangerous malaria can be — her two-year-old niece nearly died from it. So when she heard that a new vaccine was being rolled out against the disease, that across …
Read More »Mozambique islamists step up attacks after cyclone
Maputo, Mozambique | AFP | Islamist insurgents have resumed attacks in northern Mozambique after a cyclone last month, killing nearly two dozen villagers and torching homes in a mounting political threat in the run-up to a general election. A shadowy jihadist group that has targeted Cabo Delgado province since October 2017 …
Read More »President calls for opposition to accept Malawi vote result.
Blantyre, Malawi | AFP | Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika on Tuesday urged opposition parties to accept the outcome of an election clouded by fraud allegations as he was sworn in for a second term. Thousands of supporters gathered at a sports stadium in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre to watch him take …
Read More »Malawi’s Mutharika: law professor turned graft-accused president
Blantyre, Malawi | AFP | Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika, 78, is a former Washington law professor with two successive election victories to his name and a political career clouded by claims of corruption, even treason. He won his first term in a closely-contested poll in 2014 — two years after …
Read More »Museveni’s GMO law dilemma
He’s damned if he signs law, and damned if he doesn’t Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | Six months since Parliament passed a revised Genetic Engineering Bill, 2018, that included demands by President Yoweri Museveni, he has not signed it into law. But he has also not written to Parliament …
Read More »Liverpool or Tottenham to finally reap rewards of Klopp, Pochettino’s good work
London, United Kingdom | AFP | The transformation of Liverpool and Tottenham’s fortunes under Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino has so far been measured in progress rather than trophies. That will all change for the winner of Saturday’s Champions League final with one of the two claiming the biggest prize in …
Read More »Nigeria’s president signs ambitious 2019 budget
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed an ambitious budget into law Monday, days ahead of the official start of his second term leading Africa’s largest oil producer. Buhari approved the spending plan worth 8.92 trillion naira — about $29 billion based on the official fixed exchange …
Read More »Behind the sugar zoning politics
Why the new proposal is bad for the country’s sugar industry Kampala, Uganda | ISAAC KHISA | Ugandan sugar millers, cane farmers and the government have for sometime been at loggerheads over a proposal to introduce zoning in the sugar cane growing areas. The proposed Sugar Bill, 2016, seeks to …
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