World News

A court in Bahirdar, northern Ethiopia, has sentenced the country’s former communications minister and close ally of late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to six years in prison for corruption. Bereket Simon was arrested in January 2019 at his residence in the capital, Addis Ababa, and taken to Bahirdar, capital of the Amhara region – the second largest of Ethiopia’s nine ...

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,United Nations agencies called on Wednesday for South-East Asian governments to show compassion to boats full of vulnerable people adrift in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that ...

Lockdowns, travel restrictions, resource cutbacks and other measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus are putting victims of human trafficking at risk of further exploitation, while organized crime networks could further profit from the pandemic, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). New analysis from the agency shows that the crisis is having an impact ...

Burundi’s Attorney General Sylvestre Nyandwi has urged politicians not to incite violence following several clashes, some involving machetes, between governing party supporters and those backing the opposition. There have been attacks in various parts of the country ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in two weeks. At least two people have been killed in recent days. ...

The sentencing to death of a Nigerian driver via Zoom is “inherently cruel and inhumane”, Human Rights Watch has said. It comes after Nigeria issued a death penalty ruling using the video chat app because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lagos judge Mojisola Dada sentenced Olalekan Hameed to death by hanging for the murder of his employer’s mother. The hearing lasted ...

Russian army medical personnel sent to fight the coronavirus outbreak in Italy are heading home. Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said the teams would start to leave on Thursday, according to Interfax news agency. Russia sent equipment and 100 soldiers in March as the outbreak threatened to overwhelm northern Italy. The deployment provoked controversy in Italy, as many saw it as ...

The United Nations Childen’s Fund (UNICEF) welcomed the landmark move by Sudan’s transitional government this week to criminalize female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), with a three-year jail sentence for offenders. “This practice is not only a violation of every girl child’s rights, it is harmful and has serious consequences for a girl’s physical and mental health,” said Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Sudan. Sometimes called ...

A new UN report finds that some 19 million children were displaced within their own countries due to conflict and violence in 2019, more than in any other year, making them among the most vulnerable to the global spread of COVID-19.  According to the “Lost at Home” report, published on Tuesday by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there were 12 ...

East Africa’s Lake Victoria, the continent’s largest freshwater lake, has seen its shores rise to record levels, submerging businesses, homes and threatening thousands of lives and livelihoods. In Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania the rising waters have forced families to abandon their flooded homes. In Budalangi, Western Kenya, dozens of families have been left stranded on the swollen shores. Rising water ...

Cameroonian journalists are marking World Press Freedom Day with protests against abuse from the government as well as from rebels fighting for an independent English-speaking state. Reporters Without Borders, in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index, ranks Cameroon 134th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. Some Cameroonian journalists have been detained for their reporting or are ...