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Amid COVID-19, Mali has been in international news for months in a row. The issue is not an uptick in COVID cases, as most people would expect. Rather, popular protests against the Malian government, which started in May, kept growing until it culminated in a military coup on the 18th of August that deposed the incumbent President – Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that once a COVID-19 vaccine is approved, Africa will get at least 220 million initial doses. The first batch will prioritise front-line healthcare workers and vulnerable groups, according to the WHO Africa Program Area Manager Richard Mihigo. He said distribution will be based on the population of each country. Mr Mihigo said all 54 countries ...

The jihadist group Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) has said its fighters killed at least 10 Nigerian soldiers in the town of Magumeri in the north-east. Security sources have confirmed the attack, but not the death toll. Reports suggest the militants arrived in several trucks fitted with machine-guns and overran the army’s positions. Iswap also said 10 Nigerian troops ...

The World Health Organization wants to secure an initial 230 million doses of any COVID-19 vaccine for Africa, officials said Thursday, while emphasising that any vaccine in development should also be tested on the continent. The global vaccine allocation plan, called COVAX, aims to help buy and fairly distribute deliver 2 billion doses of approved vaccines by the end of 2021. “This ...

The US assistant secretary for African affairs, Tibor Nagy, has held talks with Rwandan ambassador to the US over the arrest of Paul Rusesabagina, who was portrayed in a Hollywood film about the Rwandan genocide. Rwandan officials said Mr Rusesabagina, 66, was arrested under an international warrant for leading “terrorist movements”. But his daughter told the BBC the allegation was ...

The charity Save the Children is warning that nearly 70,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of dying from extreme hunger before the end of the year. It says that the Covid-19 lockdown measures have meant families are facing a serious decline in their livelihoods, and nutritious food is becoming increasingly hard to find, or expensive. The charity says ...

Ethiopia’s government has demanded an explanation from the US over a report that it has reduced its funding of Ethiopia as the dispute continues over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd). Last week, Foreign Policy magazine reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has approved the withholding of up to $130m (£98m) in a bid to pressurise Ethiopia into coming ...

Recent heavy rains and flooding have killed 51 people in Niger, Reuters news agency quotes officials as saying. More than 26,000 houses have collapsed and some 280,000 people are in need of help, President Mahamadou Issoufou said. In Sudan, 89 people have died as a result of rains and flooding, AFP news agency reports, quoting officials. More than 38,000 homes ...

NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye has called on government to assist private schools and their teaching staff as the closure of some Senior and Junior High, primary and basic schools extends to next year. President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his 16th nation address on COVID-19 on Sunday, August 30, 2020 annonced that the schools will reopen in January, 2021. “The Ghana ...

The Executive Director of the Center for Social Impact Studies (CESiS), Mr. Richard Kojo Ellimah has called on operators in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining sector to consider using modern technology to find gold deposits instead of the current try and error method which comes with several environmental challenges contributing to climate change.  To him, the use of technology such ...