Africa

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election was big news across Africa, although much of the news coverage was not jubilant.

Gay-rights activist Father Timothy Radcliffe, who will be made a cardinal by Pope Francis in December, has blamed African opposition to homosexuality on “intense pressure” from outside influences like American evangelicalism.

China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical announced the first phase of its new manufacturing plant in the Ivory Coast will be completed by the end of this year.

The Center for Information Resilience (CIR), a non-profit human rights group, and the UK Guardian on Wednesday accused fighters from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of gleefully posting images of themselves committing war crimes, including the burning of civilian homes and the torture of prisoners.

ROME — Immigration laws should not be made stricter but rather looser, to allow more immigrants to cross international borders, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

The Chinese government has implemented tighter health screening for travelers from Africa, where a new outbreak of monkeypox or “mpox” was recently declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.).

The World Health Organization on Wednesday took the long-discussed step of declaring a global health emergency over the monkeypox or “mpox” outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has begun spreading into neighboring African nations.

The United States on Monday formally handed its last military base in Niger over to the ruling military junta, completing a pullout ordered by Niger’s rulers in March.

Researchers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) warned on Tuesday that a new and deadly strain of monkeypox, or “mpox,” is spreading among “sex workers” in the conflict-prone eastern part of the country.

Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia were elected by the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday to serve two-year terms on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), taking over five rotating “non-permanent” membership slots from Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Switzerland, and Mozambique.

President Joe Biden said he would help Africa “build back better” in a second term, if reelected, during an interview on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden promised to designate Kenya as a “Major Non-NATO ally” during a state visit by Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday.

Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine said in an interview on Tuesday that his government’s relations with the United States broke down because the Biden administration adopted a “condescending tone and lack of respect.”

The first “illegal migrants” to be deported to Rwanda have been detained, but thousands have already slipped through the net or gone missing.

U.S. forces were expelled from both Niger and Chad this week, dealing a serious blow to the Biden administration’s diplomacy and counter-terrorism policies in Africa.

The Congo has sent Apple a cease-and-desist order threatening legal action unless the tech giant stops using allegedly illegally exported minerals.

“Poster boy” for the anti-deportation movement who held a “migrants are not criminals” sign at a protest has pleaded guilty to rape.

China’s state-owned oil company CNPC, the China National Petroleum Corporation, has signed a $400 million deal with the military junta that controls Niger, providing a much-needed infusion of cash after the coup damaged relations with Niger’s previous big oil customers, the United States and France.

Roughly 1,300 African migrants gathered outside New York City Hall on Tuesday over what some believed were promises of a green card.

Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah told a meeting of Catholic bishops in Cameroon this week that they had offered an inestimable service to Church unity by their “courageous and prophetic” opposition to the blessings for gay couples recently permitted by the Vatican.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a think tank based in Washington, DC. issued a report on Monday that advised the U.S. to develop stronger trade relationships with African countries in order to become less dependent on Communist China for vital minerals.

At least 94 people were killed after an unlicensed and heavily overloaded ferryboat capsized off the northern coast of Mozambique.

Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency on Friday over surging abuse of kush, an addictive drug that can be manufactured from powdered human bones. Addicts have been digging up graves to get the bones they need, prompting the police to station guards around cemeteries in the capital city of Freetown.

France will aim to renew ties with Africa and build “balanced partnerships” that are beneficial to the continent, France’s top diplomat said.

Senegal’s outspoken and combative opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was disqualified from running for president in the March 24 presidential election, but he had the last laugh on Thursday when his former lieutenant Bassirou Diomaye Faye appointed him as prime minister. Faye ran in Sonko’s place and won a resounding victory with over 54 percent of the vote.

The leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah terrorist organization, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced on Thursday that his jihadists would expand their attacks on random commercial ships beyond the greater Red Sea region in an attempt to disrupt shipping routes around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

Cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) top 230 million worldwide and show no sign of slowing down, UNICEF said in a report released Friday, citing a dramatic increase of 15 percent since 2016 with most cases being reported in Africa.

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) reported on Monday that some 10,000 children remain under the control of militant groups, who use them as soldiers, spies, servants, and sex slaves.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a visit to Africa on Sunday that will take him to Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Angola, mere days after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi concluded his own tour of the continent.

China’s state-run Global Times on Sunday praised Foreign Minister Wang Yi for paying his first overseas visits of 2024 to Africa and Latin America, where China wants to build closer ties with developing nations of the “Global South.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) immediately criticized Secretary of State Antony Blinken for once again leaving Nigeria off the State Department’s annual list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) for religious oppression. 

Demographic decline was a big story around the world in 2023, as most industrialized nations wrestled with lower fertility rates while countries like South Korea and China slid into population crises.

Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of Karonga Diocese in Malawi says that he will “reject” and ignore the Fiducia Supplicans, the declaration of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) permitting the blessing of same-sex couples.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre abruptly left Thursday’s press conference after she refused to call on an African reporter. 

Upwards of 150 people have been abducted by gunmen in Nigeria’s northwest, local residents said, pointing to dozens of armed men on motorcycles who stormed villages in Zamfara state for the punitive raid.

El Salvador imposed a $1,000 fee on travelers from India and Africa this week in an effort to curb illegal migration to America.