The United Nations has warned the famine in Somalia could get worse, and about R36 billion in funding is needed. There have been four successive failures in its rainy seasons, and there are concerns about a fifth failure. About half the population, or 7.8 million people, are affected by the drought. Somalia faces famine on…
Oct 18 (Reuters) – South Africa’s state-owned logistics company Transnet on Tuesday said its freight rail and port operations were returning to normal service after a 12-day strike that throttled commodities exports and impacted Africa’s most industrialised economy. Transnet agreed a three-year wage deal with majority labour union United Transport and Allied Trade Union (UNTU) on Monday, paving the…
Mali’s foreign affairs minister on Tuesday said the military government would exercise its right to self-defence if France continued to undermine the West African country’s sovereignty and national security. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council briefing on Mali in New York, Minister Abdoulaye Diop repeated allegations that France had violated its airspace and delivered arms to Islamist militants that have been waging an offensive in northern…
By Farouk Chothia & Teklemariam Bekit Hyenas scavenging on the corpses of villagers, cities and towns hit in air strikes, elderly men and young women conscripted into armies – these are the horrific accounts emerging from a war that has left tens, if not hundreds, of thousands dead in Ethiopia’s historic region of Tigray. The…
Morocco signed a “green partnership” deal with the European Union in Rabat, Tuesday (Oct 18). The two parties hope the agreement will bolster cooperation on renewable energy. Morocco’s top diplomat Nasser Bourita welcomed Tuesday the EU Commission deputy head Frans Timmermans. The statesmen officially launched in Rabat, the European Union and Moroccan “green partnership” deal…
Andrea ShalalReuters WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) – International Monetary Fund staff on Monday reached a staff-level agreement with Somalia that will allow the release of about $10 million to the East African country, once approved by the board, the head of the IMF mission told Reuters. IMF mission chief Laura Jaramillo said the deal came after an…
Johannesburg residents are contending with water outages. Water tankers were dispatched to feed severely affected areas. A tanker driver said he was emotional after seeing how the situation was affecting residents. “What we are seeing is emotional. It is something that shouldn’t have happened.” These are the words of a water tanker driver operating in…
A crackdown by authorities in Zimbabwe to support the local currency and fight inflation has increased the use of US dollars in the economy, according to the country’s oldest brokerage. “Ironically the authorities’ clampdown on Zimbabwe dollar payments created such a squeeze that it has had the unintended consequence of driving dollarization at a faster…
Kalkidan Yibeltal BBC News Forces in the embattled northern Ethiopian region of Tigray say government forces and their allies have entered the strategic city of Shire, one of the biggest in the region, adding that they continue to engage in a “life and death struggle”. On Monday, the Ethiopian government said it intended to control…
Kenya’s Lake Turkana is expanding rapidly despite four failed rainy seasons, devastating the livelihoods of pastoralists hit by the effects of man-made climate change, reports BBC Newsnight’s Joe Inwood. As she sits on the parched, cracked earth that used to be her pasture, Anna Elibit is a woman living on the edge. Just a few…