The Sahel Alliance contributed the majority of 2.4 billion in development funding pledged Thursday aimed at preventing terrorism in Sahel African countries, as the region struggles with jihadism and lawlessness. The Alliance -- which was launched last year and includes the European Union, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the UN Deve ...

Accra, December 7, 2018 ndash; The Golden Baobab Prize today announces its 2018 Longlist. The Prize, considered as one of the most respected awards in the African children rsquo;s literature industry, champions opportunities for African writers and illustrators to produce more culturally-relevant children rsquo;s books. The 2018 Golden Baob ...

Accra, Dec. 7 ndash; Rwanda and Tanzania face the African Court on Human and People rsquo;s Rights (African Court) at the close of the Continental Court rsquo;s four-week sitting of the 51st Ordinary Session in Tunis, Republic of Tunisia. The Session was held outside the seat of the African Court in Arusha, Tanzania, at the invitation of the Go ...

Danish-American actor Viggo Mortensen, who presented his latest film this week at Morocco's Marrakesh film festival, is ready to make his directorial debut. He sat down with AFP on the sidelines of the festival to speak about Green Book , which won the Toronto International Film Festival audience prize, in which he leads, and his plans to go be ...

Road accidents kill someone every 24 seconds, with a total of 1.35 million traffic deaths around the world each year, the World Health Organization said Friday, demanding global action. The number of fatalities annually has swelled by around 100,000 in just three years, with road accidents now the leading killer of children and young people betw ...

The charity-run migrant rescue ship Aquarius will end its missions in the Mediterranean, with humanitarian group MSF blaming Italy and other European states for smearing and obstructing its work. The vessel, chartered by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has been stranded in Marseille, in the south of France, since October afte ...

Champions of the fight against sexual violence, Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, a former captive of jihadists, will on Monday receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which this year highlights rape as a weapon of war. Murad, 25, and Mukwege, 63, will be jointly presented with the prize in Oslo, after they were announced as ...

A museum showcasing black heritage from the dawn of time to the modern era opened in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Thursday. The opening came as African countries press harder for the restitution of artwork from their former colonial masters -- and as France made its first steps in that direction, pledging to return artworks to Benin. The M ...

Western donors said Thursday they have pledged 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in funding aimed at preventing terrorism and lawlessness along the southern rim of the Sahara. The updated pledge total was announced in a final statement from a donors conference held in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. These pledges from our partners broadly ...

A museum showcasing black heritage from the dawn of time to the modern era was inaugurated in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Thursday, as demands by African countries for the restitution of artwork by their former colonial masters gain traction. Senegalese President Macky Sall cut the ceremonial ribbon at the ceremony attended by Chinese Cultur ...

OPEC members and other oil-producing countries may not be able to agree a reduction in output to help shore up plunging prices, Saudi Arabia said on Thursday. No, I am not confident, Saudi oil minister Khalid Al-Falih told reporters after coming out of a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna. We're still de ...

The first talks in six years on the disputed Western Sahara region ended in deadlock Thursday, with key players Morocco and the Polisario Front pledging to meet again early next year. The two sides remained at loggerheads over the prospects of an independence referendum, something demanded by Polisario, but an option categorically rejected by Ra ...

The European Union and France on Thursday said their total investment in development funding aimed at preventing terrorism in African Sahel countries would rise to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion), as the region struggles with jihadism and lawlessness. The five Sahel states -- Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger -- have been struggli ...

OPEC members and other oil-producing countries mulled cuts in output Thursday to prop up plunging prices, defying repeated calls by US President Donald Trump that they keep the taps open. We're looking for a sufficient cut to balance the market, equally distributed between countries, Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters ahead of a ...

Respect Ruvimbo Topodzi was 15 and walking home from school in her native Zimbabwe when a 22-year-old man asked her out. She turned him down but it was too late. Her father saw them and assumed they were already together. He told her she had to marry the man and live with him. She dropped out of school and soon became pregnant. It was only wh ...

OPEC members and other oil-producing countries gather in Vienna on Thursday to discuss cutting output to prop up prices, as US President Donald Trump urged them to keep the faucets open. Oil ministers from 20 or so countries busily criss-crossed the Austrian capital on Wednesday for preparatory negotiations ahead of the two-day meet at the headq ...

Even as China struggles to curb domestic coal-fired power and the deadly pollution it produces, the world's top carbon emitter is aggressively exporting the same troubled technology to Asia, Africa and the Middle East, an investigation by AFP has shown. The carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from these Chinese-backed plants could cripple global effo ...

Among the least responsible, but definitely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, Africans are expecting concrete action from the Cop24 conference in Poland. Yet a transition from fossil fuels to a renewable future is proving challenging as protests against fuel tax rises in France highlight. After weeks of violent demonstrations over fue ...

The seven French monks among 19 Catholics murdered in Algeria in the 1990s, and being beatified Saturday, were killed in murky circumstances with damning claims years afterwards casting doubt on the official version. Only the heads of the men, aged between 45 and 82, were ever found after their kidnapping, which came as Algeria was deep in the 1 ...

The first UN-backed discussions on the disputed Western Sahara region since 2012 open in Geneva Wednesday, but expectations remain low, with the meeting seen as just a first step towards resuming dialogue. Six years after direct talks broke down, Morocco and the Polisario Front, who fought a war over the region until a 1991 ceasefire, will take ...