NEWS ANALYSIS

Morogoro, Tanzania | AFP | Sixty-four people perished in Tanzania Saturday when a fuel tanker overturned and then exploded as crowds of people rushed to syphon off leaking fuel. The deadly blast, which took place near the town of Morogoro, west of the economic capital Dar es Salaam, is the latest …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Excitement will be mixed with concern when four of Europe’s leading rugby nations begin their World Cup warm-up programme this weekend. Ireland play Italy in Dublin on Saturday, with England facing Wales at Twickenham a day later. While some players can be reasonably certain of …

Paris, France | AFP | Not everyone needs to become a vegetarian, much less vegan, to keep the planet from overheating, but it would surely make things easier if they did. That’s the ambiguous and — for many on either side of this meaty issue — unsatisfying conclusion of the most …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  The only hint that something extraordinary lay inside the plain wooden drawer in an unassuming office behind Nairobi National Museum was a handwritten note stuck to the front: “Pull Carefully”. Inside, a monstrous jawbone with colossal fangs grinned from a bed of tattered foam — the …

Des Moines, United States | AFP | Deep-fried corn dogs, a blistering summer sun, and discerning American voters greet the presidential candidates at Iowa’s state fair, a must stop on the early road to the White House. Two dozen candidates — 23 Democrats and a longshot Republican primary challenger to President …

Berlin, Germany | AFP | Niko Kovac’s Bayern Munich launch their 2019/20 season as German Cup title holders in the first round this weekend, but the traditional season curtain-raiser will be overshadowed this year by a string of scandals rocking football in Germany. While coaching prodigies Julian Nagelsmann and David Wagner …

Freetown, Sierra Leone | AFP |  Wearing a fading Mickey Mouse T-shirt, her knees hugged to her chest, eight-year-old Musu Kamara sits in a corrugated shack in Sierra Leone’s capital waiting for her initiation into a secret society. Kamara will leave for two weeks in the bush with a sisterhood called …

Toronto, Canada | AFP |  Serena Williams and Japan’s Naomi Osaka booked a rematch of last year’s US Open final in the WTA Toronto quarter-finals after straight-set triumphs Thursday. Reigning US and Australian Open champion Osaka broke at love in the final game to defeat Polish teen Iga Swiatek 7-6 (7/4), …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Premier League clubs splashed out well over £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in the transfer market arms race ahead of the start of the new season on Friday. The vast majority of that sum was again spent by ‘top six’ powerhouses Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | Humanity faces increasingly painful trade-offs between food security and rising temperatures within decades unless it curbs emissions and stops unsustainable farming and deforestation, a landmark climate assessment said Thursday. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that efforts to limit global warming while feeding …