AFRICA

The Minerals Commission’s Alternative Livelihood Project on Oil Palm for 2020 planting season, will distribute over 1,057,000 oil palm seedlings freely to farmers in mining districts in the Eastern region. These seedlings are targeted at the youth to discourage them from engaging in illegal mining. This was made known during …

A fire tore through an overcrowded maximum security prison in Cameroon’s port city of Douala on Thursday leading to the hospitalisation of three prisoners with serious burns, a local fire chief said. Firefighters backed up by police were able to contain the blaze and stop it spreading beyond New Bell …

Sex workers living with HIV in Uganda have stopped taking their medication because of a lack of food and income as restrictions have left them with no clients. The government has been giving food aid to some of those who are most affected by the restrictions that have been in …

Two UN peacekeepers in Mali have died from the coronavirus, officials said Friday. Out of the some 100,000 UN troops deployed on about 15 different missions around the world, these two are the first whose deaths were directly linked to the pandemic. “Unfortunately, I also want to say that yesterday …

A Chief Magistrates’ Court in Kafanchan, Kaduna State has jailed a 35-year-old man, Abdullahi Sani, and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sarah Paul, for stealing 64 chickens. The police charged Sani and Paul with criminal conspiracy, housebreaking, theft and mischief, contrary to sections 58, 332, 270 and 312 of the Kaduna State …

An Ethiopian soldier shot a man dead in front of several people after his phone rang during a public meeting, Amnesty International says. It is one of many incidents the rights watchdog recorded from a security crackdown in Oromia regional state at the end of 2018 and 2019. This was …

As Turkish drones helped drive eastern Libyan forces back from Tripoli this month, Russia was said to be reinforcing them with warplanes, raising the stakes in a stalemated civil war that has partitioned the country. Recent weeks have marked a turning point in a complex conflict between two uneasy coalitions …

Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, has condemned the killing of a unarmed black man in the US city of Minneapolis, calling it “murder”. George Floyd, 46, died in police custody on Monday. A white police officer was filmed kneeling on his neck, despite him …

South Africa’s firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema has urged people not to fall for the “trap” of going to church, saying they will die after contracting coronavirus. Places of worship are set to reopen from 1 June after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced easing of lockdown restrictions to level three – …

Armed men on motorcycles killed 27 civilians in central Mali in three attacks on ethnic Dogon farming villages in less than 24 hours, local officials said on Thursday. Central Mali has been ravaged in recent years by ethnic reprisal killings, as recriminations between herding and farming communities over jihadist violence …