Africa

The head of Niger's military government on Thursday ordered the dissolution of all local councils and put an army officer in charge of the capital, state media announced.

Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio said Thursday that drug abuse in the country was a "national emergency", outlining plans to combat a synthetic drug popular with young people.

Ivory Coast's biggest city Abidjan with a population of six million has announced a ban on begging in a bid to combat "urban disorder".

Doctors working in Kenyan state-run hospitals rejected a government offer on Thursday aimed at ending a three-week-long strike, as a court set a deadline for the dispute to be resolved.

A traditional animist priest in Ghana has sparked a national outcry after marrying a young girl, prompting calls for his arrest. The 63-year-old priest, Nuumo Borketey Laweh Tsuru XXXIII, also known as Gborbu Wulomo, married the girl in a ceremony on Saturday near the capital Accra. Her age is in dispute between 12 to 16,…

Uganda's Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected a bid to scrap a controversial anti-gay law that is considered one of the toughest in the world. "We decline to nullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 in its entirety, neither will we grant a permanent injunction against its enforcement," Justice Richard Buteera, Uganda's deputy chief justice and head of…

Rwanda on Sunday begins sombre commemorations for the 30th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, a mass slaughter orchestrated by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi minority over 100 bloody days. More than 800,000 men, women and children, mainly ethnic Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were killed in the murderous onslaught that saw families and friends turn…

Left-wing pan-Africanist Bassirou Diomaye Faye on Tuesday became Senegal's youngest president, pledging systemic change after years of deadly turmoil and announcing his mentor, opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, as prime minister. Faye, 44, has never previously held an elected office. He swept to a first-round victory on a promise of radical reform just 10 days after…

Kenya's largest referral hospital said on Tuesday it would dispose of more than 500 bodies, most of them children, that lay unclaimed. Families have up to seven days to identify and collect the 541 bodies at the Kenyatta National Hospital mortuary, it said in a notice on its website. "Failure to which the hospital will…

Propelled to power from humble roots despite never holding national elected office, Senegal's president-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye, defied the odds by promising radical change and being guided by a charismatic mentor. Commonly known as Diomaye, which means "the honourable one" in the local Serer language, he won the March 24 presidential election with 54.3 percent…

Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a left-wing pan-Africanist, was sworn in Tuesday as Senegal's youngest president after sweeping to a first-round victory on a pledge of radical reform 10 days after he was released from prison. The 44-year-old has never before held an elected office but several African leaders attended the ceremony in the new town of…

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was sworn in Tuesday for his third term as leader of the Arab world's most populous nation. In power for the past decade, the 69-year-old former army chief is set to remain president until 2030. Speaking before parliament, Sisi vowed to "remain faithful to my work, my eyes seeing only…