World News

The African continent cannot continue to rely on foreign aid to finance its transformation, President Paul Kagame has said. Kagame was speaking in Abidjan at the 8th CGECI (Confédération Générale des Entreprises de Côte d’Ivoire) Academy, the largest annual gathering of Private Sector in the West African country. The summit brings together the private sector of the West African countries ...

West African politicians and film stars are among thousands calling for action following a BBC report into sexual harassment at top universities. A year-long investigation by BBC Africa Eye, released on Monday, explored student harassment at the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana. The film showed lecturers propositioning undercover journalists. Three of the men featured, two in Ghana ...

Following the revelation in the ‘Sex for Grade’ documentary video released by BBC Africa Eye, the University of Lagos has shut-down the ‘Cold Room’, where lecturers allegedly sexually assaulted students. The development was announced on Monday by the Principal Assistant Registrar (Communication Unit) of the university, Taiwo Oloyede. The ‘Cold Room’ was mentioned by a lecturer of the school, Boniface ...

Advances in weaponry have made the world smaller, which means leaders are not only responsible for the fate of their citizens but of everyone else on the planet, the President of Ukraine told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ongoing conflict in places such Syria and Yemen, and his own country, reveal that war is the biggest threat to ...

Our oceans and frozen spaces have been “taking the heat” for global warming for decades, climate experts said on Wednesday, warning that without a radical change in human behaviour, hundreds of millions of people could suffer from rising sea levels, frequent natural disasters and food shortages. “The ocean is warmer, more acidic and less productive”, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel ...

A special climate summit organised by UN Secretary General António Guterres is set to open in New York, but some key world leaders, including Donald Trump, will not take part. Mr Guterres expects leaders to come with new and ambitious plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Youth activists, including Greta Thunberg, will address delegates. Ahead of the one-day summit, scientists ...

Top climate scientists issued a report on Sunday showing that over the last several years, sea-level rise, planetary warming, shrinking ice sheets and carbon pollution have accelerated; a sobering call to action for political leaders headed to New York for summit-level climate change talks tomorrow at the United Nations. The landmark new report, which will be presented to the UN Climate Action ...

Incidents of modern-day slavery are “only likely to increase” as a result of some of biggest challenges facing the world today, a UN expert outlined in a report for the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Urmila Bhoola, explained that over 40 million people are enslaved around the world, a quarter of them ...

Despite progress in national prevention strategies, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General lamented on Monday, highlighting key findings of the agency’s latest report on global suicide estimates. Speaking in Geneva ahead of World Suicide Prevention day, recognized on 10 September, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “every death is a tragedy for family friends and colleagues,” yet ...

Although terrorists have become skilled at manipulating the Internet and other new technologies, artificial intelligence or AI, is a powerful tool in the fight against them, a top UN counter-terrorism official said this week at a high-level conference on strengthening international cooperation against the scourge. Co-organized by Belarus and the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), “Countering terrorism through innovative ...