World News

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 ...

Democracy is the norm across the continent, but soldiers are still seizing power The coup is back in Africa. Last week, soldiers in Mali overthrew the unpopular president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, completing the west African country’s second coup in eight years. In Sudan, in April last year, after months of massive protests, the Sudanese military toppled the 30-year dictatorship of ...

The authorities in Niger say recent flooding in the capital, Niamey, has forced over 225,000 people from their homes. The number of deaths has risen to 45. Parts of the city have been submerged since Tuesday when the River Niger breached its banks. Heavy rain since then has caused further damage. Rescuers used canoes to help victims, the AFP news ...

West African mediators say the leaders of last week’s coup in Mali want to stay in power for a three-year transition period. But the Ecowas team say they told the coup leaders that an interim government – headed by a civilian or retired military officer – should last for a year at the most. The mediation team was led by ...

A civil society group in Malawi wants MPs to be allowed to debate in their vernacular in parliament. The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) says the legislators would better express themselves in vernacular than in English. The centre director Sylvester Namiwa said the people would also understand the debates better if they were in their language. “We ...

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says more than 40,000 people across Africa are registered as missing as a result of conflict, migration and climate shocks. It says almost half of them are children. Conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya and Cameroon are having a big impact. But the situation is most severe in ...

French President Emmanuel Macron has been urged to intervene on Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara’s bid for a third term in October’s election – which his opponents say is unconstitutional. Former Ivory Coast rebel leader Guillaume Soro has told President Macron in a letter that “Ivorians have noticed France’s deafening silence” on the matter. He said France had hailed Mr ...