Eleven people have been killed and three others wounded in a mass shooting in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, police said on Wednesday.

According to the South African Police Service (SAPS), armed assailants entered a house in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha, south of Durban, on Tuesday night and opened fire on a group of 14 people who were having a party inside. The motive for the attack has not yet been established.

Ten people, including a pregnant woman, died at the scene, while four others were taken to hospital, where one later succumbed to gunshot wounds, local media reports.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda said preliminary investigations indicated that some of the victims had been on the radar of Crime Intelligence in connection with suspected illegal activities. 

Dimpane said investigators were pursuing a “promising lead” that could help identify and apprehend the suspects. “Police must act decisively, mobilise all available resources and pursue those responsible until they are brought before the courts,” she said.

South Africa has seen a series of violent incidents in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the body of a tenth woman was discovered in Gauteng amid a string of killings in the province. The unidentified victim, believed to be in her 20s, was found wrapped in plastic in a dam in Moroka, Soweto. Police said at the time that they were investigating whether the deaths were linked.

Sudan’s army-backed government has rejected US remarks questioning its legitimacy, insisting that efforts to end the country’s civil war must respect its sovereignty and national institutions.

US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said on Tuesday that neither the Sudanese Armed Forces nor the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF), or their leaders, “represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan.” He said “the conduct of each leader of the warring factions renders them ineligible to govern the country,” adding that Washington seeks “to restore peace and give power back to the Sudanese people.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said Khartoum “strongly rejects” the State Department’s remarks and “calls for positive engagement with the Sudanese government.” It warned that negotiations must not legitimize territory taken by the paramilitaries or “reward the rebellion for its crimes against civilians and state institutions.” It demanded the dissolution of militias and exclusive state control over weapons.

The dispute comes as Washington has reportedly withheld a visa for Sudan’s transitional leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to attend the UN General Assembly in New York, making his attendance conditional on accepting a 90-day ceasefire, according to Reuters, citing sources.

The army controls Khartoum and eastern Sudan, while the RSF dominates much of the western Darfur region. The paramilitary group and its allies established a rival administration last year in Nyala, South Darfur, with Dagalo heading its governing council and Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi serving as prime minister. The conflict has displaced millions of people and pushed parts of the country into famine. Repeated ceasefire efforts, including US-Saudi talks in Jeddah, have failed to halt the violence.

Mediation difficulties Burhan rejected a US-led proposal last November as “the worst yet,” arguing it would dismantle state security institutions while leaving the RSF in place. The Quad – comprising the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE – proposed a three-month humanitarian truce followed by a political transition toward civilian rule. The RSF said it accepted the truce.

On Wednesday, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said peace remains the government’s “choice and strategic goal.” It affirmed Khartoum’s readiness “for positive and responsible engagement” with the US and other partners, including Russia, who it said are “working sincerely and impartially” to achieve stability in Sudan, “far from dictates and external interferences.”

Tanzania has announced its bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2029–2030 term, Vice President Deogratius Ndejembi said on Tuesday. 

Speaking at the 81st UN General Assembly debate in New York, Ndejembi said that if elected, the East African nation intends to focus on preventive diplomacy, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the role of women and young people in peace and security, and reforming UN peacekeeping operations.

“The African Union formally took note of Tanzanian’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the term 2029-2030 during elections to be held by this Assembly in June 2028,” the vice president said.

Tanzania has previously served two terms on the Security Council, in 1975–1976 and 2005–2006. 

The Security Council has five permanent members – Russia, China, the US, the UK and France – which hold veto powers, as well as ten non-permanent members elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms.

Africa is currently represented by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Liberia and Somalia, with Somalia’s term ending in 2026 and Zimbabwe set to replace it in January after being elected for 2027–2028. DR Congo and Liberia will remain on the Council through 2027.

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has described the continent’s exclusion as a “historical injustice,” while Russia has repeatedly backed greater representation for African and other Global South nations on the body.

Every third child is born in Africa, which is home to over 1.59 billion people and 54 countries which are members of the UN, roughly 28% of the total.

Morocco’s Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) has won the most seats in parliamentary elections, overtaking its partners in the outgoing government as turnout fell to its lowest level in nearly two decades.

Preliminary results announced by Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit on Thursday gave PAM 97 of the lower house’s 395 seats, up from 87 in 2021. The National Rally of Independents (RNI), which topped the previous election with 102 seats, fell to 66, narrowly ahead of the Istiqlal Party with 65.

Turnout in Wednesday’s vote was 38.02% of the nearly 15.8 million registered voters, according to official data, down from 50.35% in 2021 and the lowest since 2007.

The liberal-centrist PAM needs coalition partners to govern, but its leaders have ruled out another alliance with RNI. Outgoing Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, a billionaire businessman whose government faced criticism over living costs and unemployment, did not contest the election. He announced his withdrawal in January, citing RNI’s two-term leadership limit and saying the party should choose his successor before the vote.

The vote drew allegations of irregularities in several constituencies. In the northern port city of Tangier, the Left Alliance, which won eight seats nationwide, alleged ballot stuffing and demanded a rerun. Prosecutors opened investigations after a man was arrested carrying ballots at a polling site in Tangier. PAM rejected allegations linking its candidates to the incident, calling them a “political conspiracy,” and backed an investigation.

The king appoints the prime minister from the party that wins the most seats but retains sweeping authority over defense, foreign affairs, and policy direction. Potential candidates include PAM leader Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri and Budget Minister Fouzi Lekjaa, who also heads Morocco’s football federation. El Mansouri would become the country’s first female prime minister if appointed.

The election follows youth-led protests last year over unemployment, failing public services, and alleged vast spending on preparations for the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco will co-host with Spain and Portugal. At least three protesters were reportedly killed and more than 400 people arrested during the demonstrations, according to Amnesty International, which accused security forces of excessive force and arbitrary arrests.

The question of slavery and reparations has recently returned to the center of international debate, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean. The conference held in Ghana on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, as well as the petition filed by a Jamaican delegation to the British king, engaged in the struggle for historical recognition. The debate has also been brought into sharper focus by an investigation published by The Guardian, which examined the involvement of the British monarchy in the system of slavery and the historical links between the Crown and the trafficking of Africans.

Taken together, the developments raise a fundamental question: How can the British monarchy and the British state genuinely address a past in which the Crown was directly connected to the economic and political structures of slavery?

There are symbols that, on their own, encapsulate centuries of history. A crown branded with a red-hot iron onto the skin of an enslaved human being is one of them. It was a real, documented practice carried out by the South Sea Company, directly supported by the British monarchy during the reign of Queen Anne.

The monarchy as a shareholder

History often portrays the transatlantic slave trade as an impersonal economic phenomenon, driven by commercial companies, far removed from political power. The reality is very different though. The Royal African Company, one of the most important slave-trading companies in British history, was directly led by James, Duke of York, who would later become King James II. Under his leadership, the company forcibly transported at least 150,000 Africans across the Atlantic.

Around 13,000 investors in the British slave trade have been identified, more than 10,500 of whom now have detailed biographical information. They include members of parliament, merchants, more than a thousand women from the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as well as members of the royal family itself.

In total, the British slave trade forcibly removed more than 3 million Africans from their homeland and sent them to plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean, a figure that conveys the true human cost of the prosperity created by British colonialism.

In the face of these facts, the official response of the contemporary monarchy remains, at best, cautious. King Charles III has described slavery as an “atrocious tragedy” and expressed support for historical research into the links between the monarchy and the slave trade. This is a symbolic gesture, and it marks a departure from decades of near-total silence on the subject.

However, a cold fact remains: To date, no official apology has been issued by the British government, and no serious discussion of possible reparations has been initiated at the state level.

The calculated caution is not unique to the United Kingdom, but it takes on particular significance there because it is precisely the monarchy, an institution supposedly embodying the continuity and unity of the nation, that is directly implicated by the historical evidence. Acknowledging “links” with slavery, as current royal communications do, is one thing. Acknowledging direct responsibility, with all the political, moral, and financial consequences that this entails, is another. Between the two lies the space in which the struggle over Britain’s colonial memory has been unfolding for years.

From the Koh-i-Noor to the Benin Bronzes

This unease can also be seen in the objects that the monarchy continues to possess. The Koh-i-Noor, the colossal diamond taken from the Indian subcontinent during the colonial era, is the most emblematic example. At her coronation in 2023, Queen Camilla chose not to wear the Queen Mother’s crown in which the stone is set, a choice apparently dictated by diplomatic caution rather than by any fundamental reconsideration, since the diamond remains preserved, as if nothing had happened, among the royal jewels.

In both cases, the British position remains the same: Discuss, study, postpone – but do not return. These objects are material evidence of an organized system of looting, which official diplomacy continues to treat as a secondary issue.

This British debate is part of a much broader movement, driven for years by countries and peoples that directly experienced the slave trade and colonialism. Jamaica’s recent demand for reparations from the British government is one example among many, as are similar claims advanced by several African and Caribbean nations through international institutions and Pan-African forums.

These demands raise a very concrete question of the moral and material debt created by centuries of exploitation, a debt that the direct heirs of this system continue largely to evade.

The origins of the current wealth

One obvious fact, too often minimized, must be recalled here: The wealth accumulated by the British monarchy and by a large part of its aristocracy was not created in a vacuum. To a significant extent, it rests on forced labor, deportation, and the suffering of millions of human beings torn from the African continent. To celebrate royal heritage – its crowns, diamonds, and palaces – without clearly naming this origin is to erase an essential part of history.

Acknowledging “links” with slavery without drawing any concrete consequences turns a crime against humanity into a page of history accessible in archives. Words of compassion, however sincere, do not replace official apologies, reparations, or the restitution of looted cultural property.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) South Africa’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Program (BRREP) has successfully translocated 20 black rhinos from KwaZulu-Natal to Botswana.

The rhinos were moved in early September in a cross-border conservation operation involving two 36-hour road trips to a remote and secure location where the animals can breed and establish a new population.

The translocation effectively doubles Botswana’s black rhino population. The International Rhino Foundation estimates that about 25 black rhinos remained in the country following years of poaching pressure, particularly in the Okavango Delta region.

The 20 rhinos were captured in KwaZulu-Natal in early June and held in a boma during a quarantine period before being transported to their new home. According to BRREP leader Jeff Cooke, all 20 animals have arrived safely and are settling in well.

Cooke said finding areas large enough with suitable habitat for black rhinos is becoming increasingly difficult, prompting the programme to expand its operations across national borders.

”These newly translocated populations serve as incubators for the broader continental species recovery programme,” he said, adding that they could support further local range expansion in other black rhino range states.

WWF South Africa CEO Dr Morné du Plessis thanked the South African and Botswanan governments, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, funding and donor partners, and the recipient site owners for their role in the operation.

First published by IOL

Forces in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have reportedly taken control of the airport in its capital, Mekelle, prompting state-owned Ethiopian Airlines to suspend services to three local destinations. The takeover marks a sharp escalation nearly four years after a peace deal ended a brutal two-year civil war in the East African country.

The carrier announced in a social media post on Wednesday that services to Mekelle, Shire, and Axum have been halted “due to the current situation in Tigray region,” without elaborating. “We sincerely apologize to our valued customers for any inconvenience caused by this suspension. We will inform you when flight operations resume,” the state-owned airline stated.

Two local sources told Reuters that Tigrayan forces have taken control of Mekelle airport from federal police in an overnight operation.

In a statement on Wednesday, Tigray’s regional government said its forces have entered a defensive war against federal troops. It accused the federal government of launching a ground offensive after air and artillery strikes across parts of Tigray on Tuesday.

The development came days after seven armed groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that runs Tigray, announced an alliance seeking to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and establish a transitional administration. In a statement on Sunday, the coalition, known as the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, accused the ruling Prosperity Party of imposing “dictatorial” rule and pushing the East African country toward disintegration.

Ethiopia has struggled to secure lasting stability in Tigray since a 2022 peace agreement ended the two-year war between federal forces and the TPLF. The conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people. Recent clashes and reported drone strikes have threatened the fragile peace. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned last month that Ethiopia was on the brink of renewed war.

The latest disruption to Ethiopian Airlines schedule follows an earlier suspension of flights to Tigray in January amid reports of renewed military activity. At the time, passengers received cancellation messages citing unplanned circumstances, while a security official linked the interruption to fighting between federal and regional forces.

Africa’s continued lack of permanent representation on the United Nations Security Council is unjust and must be addressed, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

Speaking at the opening of the 81st UN General Assembly debate in New York on Tuesday, Guterres called for reform of the 15-member body to better reflect the modern global order. Africa remains the only continent without a permanent seat on the council despite accounting for more than a quarter of UN member states and every third child born.

“We must reform the security council ... A 21st UN security council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible. This must change,” the UN chief said.

UN Security Council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible — Antonio Guterres

‘Security Council was designed in the aftermath of WWII, but the world has fundamentally changed since then’ https://t.co/L8S7U38rY5 pic.twitter.com/wlNk3cB5sw

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) September 22, 2026

The Security Council has five permanent members – Russia, China, the US, the UK and France – which hold veto powers, as well as ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. African countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Somalia – currently only participate through the latter category.

Earlier this month, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama renewed calls for permanent African representation on the Security Council, arguing that the continent’s continued exclusion undermines the legitimacy of the UN’s most powerful body.

“It is no longer acceptable for Africa to be excluded from permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council,” the leader said.

In August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that greater representation for the continent would help correct a historical injustice, arguing that any future expansion should primarily benefit African countries rather than Western states, which he said are already overrepresented.

A former Rwandan health official has been charged by British prosecutors over his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in his home country, bringing the first UK charges linked to the massacre.

Vincent Brown, formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, appeared in a London court on Tuesday. He faces one charge of conduct ancillary to genocide and six of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity. Prosecutors allege Brown, 65, led a group to a house in Kigali’s Rugenge district on April 8 and ordered three people shot. They say he subsequently ordered the killing of a woman and her infant son, and directed a group that stoned a taxi driver to death. Brown denies involvement.

“Dr. Brown… is alleged to have directed and incited acts of murder and genocide carried out by others,” chief crown prosecutor Frank Ferguson said.

More than 800,000 people, predominantly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed in roughly 100 days after the genocide began on April 7, 1994. The UN tribunal established afterward indicted 93 people.

The UK case follows prosecutions of suspects in other countries. In 2024, a French court upheld former Rwandan gendarme Philippe Hategekimana’s life sentence for organizing roadblocks and taking part in massacres around Nyanza. A Belgian court sentenced former militia leader Seraphin Twahirwa to life in 2023 for directing killings in Kigali and raping Tutsi women. Germany arrested another suspect, identified as Innocent S., in July on suspicion of complicity in genocide and involvement in 25 murders.

Rwandan businessman Felicien Kabuga, accused of financing militias and using his radio station to incite attacks on Tutsis, died in UN tribunal custody in May before his trial reached a verdict.

South Africa will continue engaging with the US despite new visa restrictions imposed by Washington, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said, insisting Pretoria will defend its sovereignty and dignity in negotiations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the targeted restrictions last week against foreign nationals whom Washington says are responsible for, or complicit in, policies involving uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority groups in South Africa. No individuals were named when the policy was announced.

Ramaphosa was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the ANC Veterans League fundraising golf day at the Johannesburg Country Club in Woodmead on Monday. He said the government had taken note of the restrictions but remained prepared to engage with Washington. ”We are quite willing and prepared to continue engaging with the United States as we engage with all other countries in the world,” the president noted.

”Where there are challenges, we will go in with our dignity, with our sovereignty to engage with those countries without bowing our heads and treating those nations respectfully and expecting them to treat us also respectfully,” Ramaphosa added.

Ramaphosa noted South Africa remained willing to negotiate with the US to resolve the challenges in the relationship. ”We also trade with them and there are certain things or products that they need from us that we also need from them,” he said. ”So that in itself should bring about the state of equilibrium. So as we deal with each other, as states that respect each other, we will find solutions.”

First published by IOL

A Nigerian medical team has performed West Africa’s first tele-robotic surgery, remotely operating on a cancer patient from around 500 kilometers away, the hospital’s press service said on Sunday.

The procedure, a right radical nephrectomy, involved removing a kidney affected by a cancerous tumor from a patient at Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja. Surgeons at Redeemer’s Health Village (RHV) in Mowe, Ogun State, controlled the robotic system remotely via an internet connection, Punch reported on Monday. The operation was carried out in collaboration with RoboMed Global.

“We were able to operate on a patient in Abuja, 500 kilometers away. We were able to operate on a patient with a kidney tumor, a cancerous tumor. And so that was successful,” Prof. Obi Davies-Ekwenna, the robotic surgeon who led the procedure, said. The technology allows specialists to control surgical equipment from another location, potentially giving patients access to surgeons elsewhere in Nigeria or abroad.

Several days earlier, RHV announced that it had completed its first robotic surgery, a robot-assisted radical prostatectomy, a procedure to remove the prostate gland. The hospital said the operation was part of efforts to expand access to advanced surgical care in Nigeria.

Other West African countries have also recently reported complex surgical procedures. Earlier this month, a team of Malian doctors successfully separated conjoined twin girls in an operation that lasted several hours in Bamako.

@redeemershealthvillage

The moment we realised we had just made history.

♬ original sound - RHV

Seven Ethiopian armed groups, including former battlefield enemies, have formed an alliance seeking to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and establish a transitional administration.

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, unveiled on Sunday, includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Amhara Fano National Movement, and the Oromo Liberation Army, alongside four smaller groups.

In a joint statement, the groups accused Abiy’s ruling Prosperity Party of imposing “dictatorial” rule and pushing the East African country toward disintegration. “We, the peoples’ forces concerned with the survival of Ethiopia’s peoples, bear the historic responsibility of overthrowing this regime,” they declared. They pledged an inclusive transitional government tasked with ending “all wars” and organizing a national and constitutional dialogue.

The alliance urged government troops and their commanders “to join and become partners in the struggle to save” the country.” It also appealed for support from civic organizations and the international community.

Abiy’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters on Monday that the groups had long collaborated with financial backing from neighboring Eritrea. Asmara has repeatedly denied allegations of supporting the groups.

The Ethiopian government says its national dialogue aims to address political divisions and internal conflicts.

The UN said on Monday it is “deeply concerned” by Ethiopia’s worsening security situation, including the formation of the new armed coalition and reports of continued insecurity and drone strikes. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric urged all sides to avoid actions or rhetoric that could further escalate tensions and recommit to dialogue, saying “military action will not resolve political differences or address underlying grievances.”

A tenth woman’s body has been found dead in South Africa’s Gauteng province amid a series of suspected serial killings, local media reported on Monday, citing police.

The corpse of the unidentified woman, believed to be in her 20s, was discovered in a dam in Moroka, Soweto, at around 5 PM on September 20. Her body had been wrapped in a duvet, according to a police statement aired by SABC.

South African Deputy National Police Commissioner Tebello Mosikili confirmed the discovery of the tenth body on Monday as authorities continue to investigate the deaths of nine women found in neighboring Ekurhuleni since July. Police have not established whether the latest case is connected to the previous ones.

“Behind every one of these women is a human being, a family and a life that mattered. We owe it to them to find the truth. We owe it to their families to pursue justice,” South African Police Service (SAPS) said in a statement.

A multidisciplinary team of detectives, forensic experts and criminal profilers has been assigned to the cases. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has directed that the investigation must receive the “highest level of attention” from the government and law enforcement agencies.

The ninth victim, Jabulile Ntimba, was found in Dawn Park on September 17. Police arrested two women and a man in connection with her killing over the weekend.

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has denounced US President Donald Trump’s program for resettling Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority in South Africa, as refugees, describing it as “Apartheid 2.0.”

Lamola made the remarks at an African Diaspora Forum in Washington, according to footage posted on Sunday by South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). The minister argued that the program gives preferential treatment to white South Africans while excluding other racial groups.

“Only white Afrikaners from South Africa are allowed to be refugees here. And all of you or any other race is not allowed. It’s a race-based policy, which we call the Apartheid 2.0,” he said.

Afrikaners are a predominantly white, Afrikaans-speaking ethnic group descended mainly from Dutch, German and French settlers who began arriving in southern Africa during the 17th century. Afrikaner-led governments instituted apartheid, the system of racial segregation that ended in 1994.

Trump established the resettlement initiative through an executive order signed in February 2025, alleging that Afrikaners faced state-sponsored racial discrimination, violence, and farmland confiscation under South Africa’s Expropriation Act.

There is no genocide against white people in South Africa. #UnityInDiversity #SouthAfrica@UbuntuRadioZA @GovernmentZA pic.twitter.com/ROLKbFHqkD

— DIRCO South Africa (@DIRCO_ZA) September 20, 2026

Pretoria has rejected the allegations, insisting that the legislation is intended to address land inequalities inherited from apartheid and that no private property has been confiscated under it.

Trump expanded the initiative in May 2026, raising the annual US refugee admissions ceiling from 7,500 to 17,500 and reserving the additional places for Afrikaners, citing an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation.”

Applicants must establish past persecution or a credible fear of future persecution and undergo security screening. Dozens have reportedly received rejection notices that provide no detailed explanation and cannot be appealed. Cases examined through information requests included denials linked to criminal records and public-safety concerns.

In the past few years, BRICS has seen rapid expansion. In 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE joined the organization; this was followed by the introduction of a new ‘partner country’ category. As a result, BRICS broadened its geographic reach and effectively transformed into a new organization. Against this backdrop, the September 2026 summit in New Delhi might appear less groundbreaking. This time, no expansion or major political or economic initiatives were announced. However, this signals a shift in the development stage of the group rather than a loss of momentum. Following the high-profile decisions of previous years, members have decided to focus on fleshing out the new BRICS architecture. 

This process is particularly evident when it comes to Africa. Just a few years ago, South Africa was the only African country within BRICS; other African nations engaged primarily through the BRICS+ format. Now, the situation is fundamentally different. Three African states – South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia – are full members of the group, while Nigeria and Uganda have attained partner country status. The organization’s focus has shifted from building external relations with Africa to establishing an African platform within BRICS.

As a result, Africa is now represented at virtually every level of the emerging BRICS architecture: through full members, partners, and the AU as the primary pan-African organization.

The expansion of African representation within BRICS is gradually influencing the political agenda as well. In the New Delhi Declaration, BRICS reaffirmed its support for a greater representation of African nations on the UN Security Council. The broader issue of the underrepresentation of developing nations, particularly African ones, within the global governance system was also highlighted. BRICS has consistently advocated for the interests of the Global South.

The African agenda was also prominent in security matters. BRICS advocates for increasing cooperation with the AU and supporting African conflict-resolution mechanisms. The crisis in Sudan was specifically addressed in the final declaration; the organization called for a cessation of hostilities, humanitarian access, and a political settlement based on the ‘African solutions to African problems’ principle.

Therefore, the focus is shifting from merely including Africa in BRICS documents to recognizing the continent’s growing agency.

This process lays the groundwork for the NDB’s gradual transformation into a financial institution with a broader presence on the continent. At the New Delhi summit, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed proposed opening an NDB office in Addis Ababa. Should this idea move forward, the bank would gain another institutional foothold on the African continent – and moreover, in the city that hosts the AU headquarters.

September 2026 marked another significant step: the approval of NDB’s new strategy for 2027-2031. This strategy aligns with the development of BRICS itself: the expansion of membership is to be followed by an expansion of the bank’s actual operations. Key priorities include a gradual and balanced expansion of the membership base, active engagement with new members, increased financing, and the further development of operations in national currencies.

The NDB leadership aims to launch full-scale operations in all new borrowing countries. This is of fundamental importance for Africa. Currently, a noticeable gap remains between the NDB’s institutional presence on the continent and the geographical distribution of its actual projects. The bulk of the portfolio is still concentrated in South Africa. In 2026, support was provided for new projects concerning railway infrastructure, water supply, and financial guarantees.

The nature of requests from African members is also shifting. In addition to broader political representation within Africa, Ethiopia has pointed out the importance of having access to financing and markets, attracting investments, and developing regional connectivity.

South Africa advocates for a similar agenda: industrialization, local value addition, infrastructure development, and leveraging the opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area. For African states, the benefits of BRICS are increasingly tied not just to membership in a major non-Western group but to the ability to utilize its tools to address domestic and regional development challenges.

At the same time, it would be premature to claim that the transition to a new phase in the history of BRICS is already complete. Rather, the year 2026 has set the direction. The political and institutional ‘Africanization’ of BRICS is currently outpacing the economic aspect. The number of African member-states and partners has grown significantly, their representation in the NDB has expanded, and African issues have secured a firm place in BRICS documents. However, the volume of mutual investments and the number of major joint projects do not yet match the scale of the institutional changes that have taken place.

In this sense, Africa is becoming a key test for the renewed BRICS. The next stage of its development should demonstrate the extent to which the new architecture is capable of delivering tangible economic results.

Eight giraffes from Namibia have arrived in Russia by plane and are settling into their new home at Kazan Zoo, city authorities said on Friday. The group of three males and five females was transported to the capital of Tatarstan on a specially chartered Il-76 cargo aircraft.

The animals were accompanied by specialists throughout the journey, who monitored the animals and their transport conditions. According to Kazan officials, they handled the long flight well and are now being kept under observation while adapting to their new surroundings.

“We have a state-of-the-art giraffe enclosure – one that meets not only Russian zoo standards but also global ones. It has everything necessary, and every detail has been carefully thought out, including arrangements for winter housing,” noted Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin.

The animals, which are between one and two years old, will spend 21 days in quarantine, with zoo staff monitoring each giraffe individually, local media reported. Metshin said rhinos could also be brought to Kazan in the future.

The shipment marked the first time in 19 years that giraffes had been brought to Russia by air, according to Kazan officials.

The arrival comes amid efforts to bring more African wildlife to Russian zoos. In 2023, Russia’s veterinary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said it planned to discuss imports of hippos, elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and rhinos from game reserves in South Africa’s Limpopo and Gauteng provinces. As of July 2025, Russian zoos had only six female South African giraffes, with no new animals imported for more than 15 years, according to RBK.

The giraffes are not the only African animals brought to Russia this year. In July, 30 zebras from Namibia arrived in Moscow for keeping and breeding at a local zoo, along with dozens of reptiles and other exotic animals from Namibia and Togo.

Kenyan runner Agnes Ngetich has broken the women-only half marathon world record by one second, clocking 1:05:15 to win gold at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen.

The 25-year-old eclipsed the 1:05:16 mark set by compatriot Peres Jepchirchir in Gdynia, Poland, in 2020.

Race data published by World Athletics on Sunday showed that Ngetich led from the start and opened a ten-second advantage by the five-kilometer mark. She finished 50 seconds ahead of fellow Kenyan Veronica Loleo, who took silver in 1:06:05, while Rwanda’s Florence Niyonkuru claimed bronze with a national record of 1:06:08.

The women-only record applies to races contested without male athletes or pacemakers. Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey holds the overall women’s half marathon record of 1:02:52, achieved in a mixed race in 2021. Ngetich herself ran 1:03:04 in a mixed race in Valencia in 2024, the second-fastest women’s half marathon time recorded at the time.

The Copenhagen victory gave her a second global title this year following her triumph at the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, in January. She also holds the mixed-race and women-only 10 km world records of 28:46 and 29:27 respectively.

Ngetich said she would consult her coach about her next steps but planned to return to track racing for the 2027 World Championships in Beijing. “It is my dream to win a gold medal on the track,” she said, describing it as “the only one I am missing.”

Unstoppable 🤯

Agnes Ngetich storms to her second global title of 2026, dominating the women’s half marathon in a women-only world record of 1:05:15* 💪

🥇 Agnes Ngetich 🇰🇪 1:05:15* WR
🥈 Veronica Loleo 🇰🇪 1:06:05
🥉 Florence Niyonkuru 🇷🇼 1:06:08 NR

🔗 https://t.co/clRNip5jFP… pic.twitter.com/QEp0xDV7U3

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) September 20, 2026

At the 2026 championships, Kenya won the women’s team title, ahead of the US and Ethiopia. The East African country also claimed the men’s team gold, while Nicholas Kipkorir took individual silver in the half marathon.

The country will reinforce that status by hosting the 2029 World Athletics Championships, the first edition to be held in Africa. Nairobi defeated bids from London, Rome, and Munich to secure the hosting rights, World Athletics announced last week. Kenya previously staged the 2017 World Under-18 and 2021 World Under-20 championships.

African defense manufacturers should cooperate with countries such as Russia to develop licensed production on the continent, the CEO of South African defense company Milkor has said.

Speaking to RT at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2026 exhibition, Jackson Mampa said African countries need this partnership because they currently lack some of the skills required for domestic production.

“If you cooperate with a country like Russia, you know very well that their materials are better tested. So, if you produce those under license in Africa, it will be much, much better,” he said.

Russia, for its part, is placing technological partnerships at the center of its defense cooperation with foreign partners, Denis Gizunov, head of the Rosoboronexport delegation, told RT.

“We can offer projects related to production localization and, above all, other technological cooperation projects,” he added.

Russian Ambassador to South Africa Roman Ambarov told TASS that the country’s display at AAD had drawn significant interest from South African partners and representatives of other countries.

Russia showcased 494 exhibits at AAD 2026, including 30 pieces of military equipment, according to the Russian Embassy in South Africa.

The display included the Lancet-E, KUB-2E, Skat-350M, Orlan-10E, and Orlan-30E drones, as well as Mi-171Sh and Mi-28NE helicopters and the Yak-130 aircraft. The modernized RPG-29M grenade launcher was also presented in Africa for the first time.

Rosoboronexport, Russia’s military export agency, brought together products from leading Russian manufacturers for different branches of the armed forces under the joint Russian defense display.

AAD 2026 took place from September 16 to 20 at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria. The biennial aerospace and defense exhibition brings together manufacturers, government delegations, and industry representatives and showcases military and civilian technologies across the aerospace, land, and maritime sectors.

Ten lions have been found dead at Tanzania’s UNESCO-listed Ngorongoro Conservation Area, prompting an investigation into suspected poisoning, the authorities have said.

The animals were discovered on Friday in the Ndutu area of Endulen Ward, according to a notice issued by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA). “Preliminary findings suggest the animals may have died after ingesting poison,” the agency said.

The NCAA has launched an expert investigation to establish the cause of the deaths and identify those responsible. It did not disclose the animals’ ages or sexes or say what substance may have been involved.

Poisoning is a recurring threat to large carnivores in East Africa and is frequently associated with conflict between predators and livestock owners. However, the authorities have not established whether the latest deaths resulted from deliberate poisoning or identified a possible motive.

The latest deaths come a month after 18 elephants were found dead in Kenya’s Amboseli ecosystem near the Tanzanian border. Preliminary tests indicated possible exposure to a toxic substance. Four suspects were arrested and later released on bail pending further investigation. In January, six lions and more than 30 vultures were killed in a poisoning incident in Kenya’s Kitenden Conservancy, also near the Tanzanian border.

Ngorongoro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where ethnic Maasai pastoralists coexist with lions, elephants, buffaloes, black rhinos and other wildlife.

The Tanzanian Tourism Ministry said the country received 993,771 international tourists during the first half of 2026. Attractions managed by the NCAA recorded 331,349 domestic and foreign visits during the period, an annual increase of 7.6%.

Amid the migration crisis in Ceuta that erupted in late July, the dispute between Rabat and Madrid over two Spanish semi-exclaves on Africa’s Mediterranean coast once again came to the forefront. Spain called the mass border crossing by over 70,000 illegal migrants a violation of its territorial integrity. For its part, Morocco, which does not recognize Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla or the small adjacent uninhabited islands, once again raised the issue of their “occupation” by Spain and asserted its own historical right to them.

The dispute has a long history. Ceuta and Melilla did not become Spanish territories because they had once belonged to Spain; neither did Morocco’s borders as we know them today exist in the 15th century. Rather, Ceuta and Melilla came under the control of Spain as a result of the later Crusaders’ expansion in the Mediterranean and the early modern-period wars, events that later gave rise to European colonialism.

Since Morocco gained independence in 1956, Rabat has regularly raised the question of the status of the enclaves, seeking to have them brought back under its own control by means of dialogue. In 1975, Rabat unsuccessfully attempted to bring the matter before the UN; in 1987, King Hassan II officially proposed establishing a joint “célula de reflexión,” reflection cell, with Spain to negotiate the future status and eventual handover of the two cities. Unsurprisingly, Spain rejected this proposal.

In the early 2000s, diplomatic demands even escalated into a brief military standoff.  On July 11, 2002, a Spanish Civil Guard patrol boat discovered a Moroccan flag and a group of gendarmes on Perejil, a tiny islet located near Ceuta which is also claimed by Rabat.

After Morocco rejected Madrid’s demand to immediately remove both the flag and the armed personnel from the island, Spanish special forces landed there by helicopter on July 17. The Moroccan troops were disarmed without a shot being fired and were subsequently returned to their country, restoring the status quo.

In 2007, Morocco officially recalled its ambassador for consultations following a historic state visit by Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sophia to both enclaves.

The dispute over the status of the enclaves reignited in 2021, when Rabat recalled its ambassador from Madrid after Spain secretly admitted Brahim Ghali – leader of the POLISARIO Front, which fights for Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco – to a hospital for treatment. Diplomatic relations were restored in March 2022, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a letter to the King of Morocco endorsing the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara.

“They are super-Spanish”

The current events in Ceuta have once again stirred up the dispute surrounding the two enclaves, despite the strong partnership between Madrid and Rabat and their commitment to cooperation in resolving the migration crisis. Moroccan Minister of Justice Abdellatif Ouahbi spoke on the matter.

In an interview with Arab media on August 11, he stated that his country had consistently raised the issue of the status of the cities, seeking a long-term solution through dialogue. In response, Spanish authorities stated that they had always considered both cities an integral part of their territory.

“Ceuta and Melilla aren’t just Spanish; they’re super-Spanish and cannot be touched,” said Defense Minister Margarita Robles when asked to comment on Ouahbi’s remarks.

No further official statements were issued by Moroccan officials; however, a noteworthy event took place on August 24. During the Eid al-Mawlid (Prophet Muhammad’s birthday) ceremony held in the presence of King Mohammed VI, Moroccan Minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq mentioned ancient Sufi prayers and texts from the 7th and 15th centuries.

He claimed that they had served as a rallying cry for Moroccans during past battles to liberate occupied territories, such as the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. He also noted that Ceuta had given Morocco two prominent religious figures: Qadi Ayyad, author of ‘Al-Shifa’, and Abu al-Abbas al-Azafi, author of ‘Al-Durr al-Munazzam’. Although these remarks were not official, the fact that they were spoken before the Moroccan monarch sparked intense media discussions. 

In Morocco, where the words of officials spoken in the king’s presence are carefully weighed and politics is steeped in symbolism, such a historical reference is no minor detail, especially when it concerns a topic as sensitive as “occupied cities” and is voiced just weeks after a crisis that has once again thrust Ceuta and Melilla to the forefront of the debate between Morocco and Spain.

The population of the enclaves

An uninitiated observer glancing at a map of Morocco might be surprised to find two cities on its coastline belonging to a state located on another continent. Geographically, Ceuta and Melilla are situated in Africa and surrounded by Moroccan territory; yet politically and administratively, they belong to Spain.

Such ‘patches’ on the world’s political map are often the result of colonial expansion, wars, unequal treaties, and established historical borders. Many of them retain conflict potential and ignite diplomatic disputes. Examples include French Overseas Territories such as Mayotte (claimed by the Comoros) and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean (disputed by Madagascar) – as well as the Chagos Archipelago, which the UK never transferred to Mauritius.

Spain considers Ceuta, Melilla, and the nearby small islands to be its territory and has secured their inclusion within the EU, thereby establishing the EU’s southern frontier in Africa. Today, the two cities have a combined population of approximately 170,000 people, the majority of whom are of Moroccan origin.

For decades, Moroccans and Spaniards have coexisted peacefully in these two enclaves. The countries coordinated operations at border crossings and erected long walls separating both cities from Moroccan territory—structures that, in a sense, resemble the walls built by Israel in the West Bank. Spain constructed these barriers years ago with EU support and in coordination with Morocco to prevent illegal migration into Ceuta and Melilla, which are part of the Schengen Area.

Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Portuguese Ceuta 

Historically, both cities date back to antiquity and were founded by the Phoenicians. Over the centuries, they came under the rule of various empires and dynasties. Spain claims the enclaves as its own on the grounds that they were incorporated into its territory long before the formation of an independent Morocco in 1956.

Morocco, however, maintains that the cities, which are located on the African continent and directly off the country’s coast, are part of its indivisible territory, insisting that dynastic changes did not sever the close ties of Ceuta and Melilla with the surrounding region.

Ceuta is situated at the point where the Mediterranean Sea connects to the Atlantic Ocean, directly opposite Gibraltar. Historically, it has served as a transit point for ships, goods, armies, and religious missions.

The city experienced Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine periods; in the 8th century, following extensive Islamic conquests, it passed into Arab hands and was subsequently ruled for centuries by Arab and Berber dynasties of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Throughout this time, Ceuta remained an important city of the western Islamic world.

Notably, the Portuguese, not the Spanish, captured Ceuta in 1415, when the forces of King John I seized the city from the Marinid Sultanate.

This campaign, imbued with the spirit of the Crusades, is generally regarded as the beginning of the Portuguese Empire (Europe’s first colonial empire). The major overseas stronghold ushered in an era of Portuguese expansion along the African coast and, subsequently, toward India, Brazil, and the Atlantic.

Transfer of Ceuta to the Spanish Crown

Ceuta was the only territory of the Portuguese Empire to remain loyal to the Spanish Crown after Spain and Portugal, which formed the Iberian union in 1580, dissolved it in 1640. Its transfer to Spanish sovereignty was formalized by the Treaty of Lisbon: on January 1, 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal officially ceded Ceuta to Charles II of Spain.

Therefore, Ceuta came under the control of Spain not through a Spanish conquest of Morocco, but as a result of the dissolution of the dynastic union between the two Iberian monarchies; the city’s fate was determined not by its inhabitants, but by local elites and monarchs. In this context, it is difficult to assert with certainty that Ceuta is an integral part of Spain based on its historical affiliation.

The conquest of Melilla and the status of free ports

The story of Melilla is somewhat different. Located further east than Ceuta, the city also boasts a long history. By the time of its conquest by the Spanish in 1497, Morocco was undergoing a period of political fragmentation and a weakening of central authority, coinciding with the onset of active expansion by European invaders hardened by the wars of the Reconquista.

The capture of the city was almost bloodless: Melilla had been weakened by regional conflicts and could not defend itself properly. The Spanish quickly transformed the city into a military and trading stronghold on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean.

Melilla and Ceuta were not the only ports and territories in Morocco conquered by the Spanish at the dawn of the modern era. While many territories were subsequently lost, these two enclaves, administered directly from Madrid, remained under Spanish sovereignty due to their strategic and military value.

Ceuta and Melilla were repeatedly besieged by Moroccan forces. The Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859–1860 significantly strengthened Spain’s position in North Africa.

Following the Treaty of Fes in 1912, France and Spain established a protectorate over Morocco, while Ceuta and Melilla were granted the status of free ports.

The Francoist position: ‘Ancestral Spanish lands’

Melilla went down in history as the starting point of the Francoist uprising in 1936. When Morocco gained independence in 1956, Ceuta and Melilla were not included in the agreements governing the transfer of sovereignty to the new state. The fact that Spain retained control over these cities is often linked to the foreign policy of the Francisco Franco regime. 

Spain maintained that these cities had never been part of the protectorate established in 1912. Francoist diplomacy drew a sharp distinction between “protectorate territories” (which were returned to Morocco) and “ancestral Spanish lands”

Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla has been enshrined in the country’s constitutions: first, the Constitution of 1812 and then the current Constitution of 1978. In 1995, both territories were granted autonomous status and officially designated as autonomous cities of Spain.

Unfinished decolonization

Morocco calls Ceuta and Melilla occupied cities and views them within the context of an unfinished decolonization process. Politically, this stance is understandable. Morocco gained independence in 1956, yet the Spanish territories on its northern coast remained outside the new state.

Rabat is highly sensitive to any issue concerning national borders and regards Spanish sovereignty over the two enclaves as a violation of its territorial integrity, much like the dispute over Western Sahara.

One of Spain’s arguments is that Ceuta and Melilla are not on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, to which the decolonization framework of Chapter XI of the UN Charter applies. That list includes territories whose peoples have “not yet attained a full measure of self-government.”

In 1975, Morocco attempted to place the inclusion of Ceuta, Melilla, and other Spanish possessions in North Africa on the UN’s decolonization agenda, but the initiative was unsuccessful. Spain also emphasizes that both cities are not overseas territories with a separate colonial status but rather integrated parts of the state: they possess elected institutions, representation within the Spanish political system, and the status of autonomous cities.

Gateway to Europe: painful colonial legacy

The current crisis has brought this longstanding dispute back into sharp focus, demonstrating that migration has once again become a tool of diplomatic leverage. Both Spain and the EU rely heavily on Morocco to police coastal routes and the land borders around the enclaves.

The dispute over Ceuta and Melilla remains a painful legacy of the colonial era when the fate of territories and peoples was determined by the will of European powers rather than by their own right to self-determination. The fact that the issue remains unresolved serves as a reminder that colonialism left behind not only political borders but also enduring conflicts.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has secured 23,696 voting stations ahead of the November 4 local government elections, including 33 mobile stations, as preparations for polling day continue.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said the figure could still change slightly as the commission finalises lease agreements for some sites. Of the 23,696 stations secured, 22,668 are permanent, 995 are temporary and 33 are mobile voting stations.

Mamabolo said the commission remained committed to ensuring that the elections were administered in a manner that was “credible, transparent, inclusive and compliant with the law”.

The IEC said the final list of voting stations would enable it to continue with its preparations for polling day, while the number of stations could be adjusted slightly as outstanding lease agreements were concluded.

Political parties would have access to the results system from October 5 to 12 to test it using their preferred experts.

First published by IOL

South African police have found the body of a ninth woman near Johannesburg as they investigate a series of murders over the past two months.

The unidentified victim was found in Dawn Park in the Ekurhuleni municipality on Thursday morning. Her body was reportedly partially unclothed and appeared to have been dumped near a construction site. Gauteng’s Department of Community Safety said a multidisciplinary team has been mobilized to investigate the cases and identify those responsible. It has appealed to the public for information.

The latest discovery follows eight others in Kempton Park, Clayville, Olifantsfontein, Rhodesfield, and KwaThema. Most of the victims were women in their 20s and 30s whose bodies were found in open areas or near roads. Several were naked or partially clothed, while some showed signs of bruising or other injuries.

Police have not established that the women were killed by the same person or group. However, investigators have said similarities between the cases are sufficiently concerning to examine whether a serial killer could be responsible.

Among the victims was 38-year-old Elizabeth ‘Tsontso’ Moselakgomo, whose disappearance after leaving home for a run prompted a widespread appeal. Her partially clothed and bruised body was discovered near the R21 highway on September 12.

In a message delivered at a memorial event on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the killings have “disturbed our nation” and created fear in local communities. He directed police to “leave no stone unturned” and use all available means, including the latest surveillance technology, to track down those responsible.

The incidents have intensified public anger over violence against women in South Africa, where the female homicide rate is nearly six times the global average, according to UN data.

Five alleged members of the Islamist group Ansaru have gone on trial in Nigeria in connection with the kidnapping of 46 students and teachers in the state of Oyo. 

All five denied seven terrorism-related charges against them, local news agency Punch reported on Thursday, citing the country’s state security service.

Mahmud Muhammad, Abubakar Abbas, Abdulrazak Umar, Yunusa Musa, and Shamsu Sani appeared before Federal High Court Judge Salim Ibrahim in Abuja, according to Reuters. The defendants face prison terms ranging from 20 years to life if convicted, while they could face the death penalty if prosecutors prove that deaths resulted from the kidnappings under Nigeria’s 2022 anti-terrorism law.

An anonymous prosecution witness said the attack took place on May 15, when armed men targeted three schools in Oyo State’s Oriire district. The witness, identified in court only as “AAA” for security reasons, said: “School activities had just started when we heard gunshots,” according to Premium Times. She told the court that 39 pupils and seven teachers were abducted and remained in captivity for 56 days.

Nigerian security forces rescued 39 pupils and six teachers in July and arrested eight suspected kidnappers, the presidency said at the time. One teacher had been killed in captivity, while security personnel were wounded by explosives during an earlier rescue attempt.

Ansaru emerged as an armed splinter group of Boko Haram and publicly announced its existence in January 2012. The group maintains close ties with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Guinea has banned France 24 nationwide, accusing the French state broadcaster of insubordination and of using remarks deemed offensive to the West African nation’s president, Mamadi Doumbouya.

The Guinean High Authority of Communications (HAC) announced the measure on Thursday, revoking the channel’s broadcasting authorization and the accreditations of its correspondents, special envoys, and other staff. The ban covers satellite and cable television, websites, mobile applications, and social media. Canal+ Guinea was instructed to remove the channel from its packages.

“The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPT) is hereby requisitioned to proceed without delay with the technical blocking of all France 24 digital access points,” the HAC said in a statement.

The dispute erupted after a France 24 presenter referred to Doumbouya as a “coup leader” during a news bulletin on Tuesday. The HAC ordered the broadcaster the following day to withdraw the term and issue corrections, arguing that it undermined the president’s dignity.

France 24 later corrected the description and apologized. Doumbouya took power following the 2021 overthrow of President Alpha Conde but was elected president with 86.72% of the vote in December 2025.

The measure came one day after the HAC withdrew the accreditation of Mamadou Diawo Barry, a Guinean correspondent for Jeune Afrique, citing what it called serious breaches of professional ethics and failures of objectivity and balance.

France 24 has faced similar restrictions elsewhere in West Africa. Neighboring Mali permanently suspended the channel and Radio France Internationale in 2022 after accusing them of broadcasting false reports about alleged abuses by the Malian Army. Their signals remain blocked in the former French colony.

Switzerland has returned a more than 2,000-year-old funerary mask to Egypt after it was intercepted by Swiss customs four years ago, the Swiss Embassy in Cairo said on Wednesday.

The ancient mask dates back to Egypt’s Ptolemaic period and was seized by the Swiss customs authorities in 2022. It was subsequently examined and authenticated as an Egyptian artifact. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry described the artifact as “a golden mummy mask.”

The artifact was formally handed over in Bern by Swiss Federal Councilor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider to Egypt’s ambassador to Switzerland, Mohamed Negm.

“This return is another milestone in the longstanding cooperation between Switzerland and Egypt to protect cultural heritage and fight the illicit trafficking of cultural property,” the embassy said. Bern has returned around 80 cultural objects to Egypt since 2011, according to the statement. 

It comes as the North African country steps up efforts to recover antiquities taken abroad illegally. On Thursday, the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut received 74 archaeological artifacts from various historical periods from the Lebanese authorities ahead of their repatriation to Egypt. Cairo said the handover was part of work with Lebanon to protect cultural heritage and combat the illicit trafficking of antiquities.

Egypt has also recovered antiquities from the US as part of its repatriation drive. In April, the country retrieved 13 artifacts that were illegally smuggled abroad, following work with the authorities in New York. The objects included an alabaster jar for oils and perfumes from the 7th century BC, as well as cosmetic containers shaped like animals from the Middle and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has dismissed the head of the country’s electoral commission three months before its first national election since independence more than a decade ago.

Abednego Akok Kacuol was removed as chair of the National Elections Commission by a decree announced on state TV on Tuesday. Former Secretary-General Gabriel Bol Deng Majok was appointed to replace him ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for December 22.

No reason was given for the decision. South Sudan’s electoral law permits the commission’s chairman to be removed on specified grounds, including proven partiality, incapacity, or gross misconduct, and establishes a procedure that must be followed.

Akok welcomed his removal and told local broadcaster Eye Radio that he learned about it through a phone call from “somebody.” 

He had led the commission since 2012 and was reappointed when the body was reconstituted in 2023 under a 2018 peace deal – which ended five years of civil war triggered by a power struggle between Kiir and Machar that split the armed forces largely along ethnic lines and killed an estimated 400,000 people.

Political analyst Abraham Kuol Nyuon told AP that the leadership change could disrupt voter registration and other preparations. “This is a delay tactic,” he said, arguing that the new chairman would need time to assume control despite his previous role at the commission.

This comes amid renewed fighting between government and opposition forces and growing strain on the power-sharing arrangement. Machar has been suspended as first vice president, remains under house arrest, and faces treason charges, which his party says are politically motivated.

The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned in August that safeguards for credible elections were absent and that proceeding without inclusive dialogue could fuel renewed conflict.

The dismissal also follows a series of unexplained changes to senior state positions. Kiir removed Benjamin Bol Mel, a vice president and senior figure in the ruling SPLM, without explanation last November. Bol Mel was widely viewed as a possible successor to the president.

At least 82 people have been killed after an informal gold mine collapsed in Sudan’s West Kordofan state, with dozens more still missing, according to several news agencies, citing local officials.

Rescue efforts are continuing at the al-Zara mine near the town of Nuhud, an area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The collapse began in one shaft on Sunday and spread to interconnected tunnels. 

Rescuers recovered 82 bodies by Wednesday afternoon, Suleiman Abu Hmeida, a member of Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, told AP. “But dozens remain unaccounted for,” he said. 

The Emergency Response Rooms is a grassroots network that provides assistance to communities and monitors developments during Sudan’s ongoing conflict. A local administration official separately confirmed the same death toll, according to AP.

“The Network emphasizes that mining activities in areas under RSF control, in the absence of safety standards and adequate protection and rescue equipment, turn mining into a direct threat to the lives of civilians,” they said.

The Kordofan Observatory monitoring group said the mining area extends for more than a kilometer over fragile sandy soil. 

Gold is one of Sudan’s most valuable commodities, with official figures showing gold exports generating more than $1.5 billion in the first ten months of 2024, despite the ongoing conflict. The country produced 70 tons of gold in 2025, according to the figures from the state-owned the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company (SMRC).

BRICS countries have rejected any arbitrary attempt by the US to exclude South Africa from the G20, reaffirming its status as a founding and full member of the group.

The US, which holds this year’s G20 presidency, has barred South Africa from the group’s meetings and has not invited it to the leaders’ summit in Miami in December.

In a declaration adopted at their summit in New Delhi on Saturday, BRICS leaders described any arbitrary revision of the G20’s membership as “inadmissible.” The declaration said any membership change requires the consensus of all G20 members and should reflect geographical balance and the growing economic weight of the Global South.

US President Donald Trump announced the exclusion of South Africa after boycotting the G20 summit in Johannesburg last November. He accused the South African government of mistreating the country’s white minority and unlawfully confiscating land – allegations which Pretoria has denied.

Relations between the two countries have been strained over South Africa’s land reform policies, its alleged close ties with Russia and China, and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new visa restrictions targeting South African officials and other foreign nationals who the administration accuses of enacting or enabling “race-based discrimination”, “uncompensated land seizures”, and incitement to violence against minority groups.

Pretoria condemned the measure as a unilateral act based on a misrepresentation of its domestic policies. “It is our sovereign right to put in place laws that address the nation’s concern over centuries of racial injustice,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party has lost a court bid to place 181 candidates on the ballot for local elections in November, leaving it at risk of being shut out of two longtime strongholds.

The Electoral Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by the African National Congress (ANC) against an Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) decision to reject candidate lists from six municipalities.

The dispute arose after the ANC failed to complete the final electronic submission of the nominations before an August 28 deadline. The party argued that the candidates’ details and supporting documents had been uploaded before the cutoff, but technical problems had prevented officials from finalizing the process. It said pressing the system’s “submit as final” button was an administrative step rather than a legal requirement.

Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo told the court that the online system had recorded no downtime during the period in question. He said the ANC had also successfully finalized lists for other municipalities shortly before the deadline. The 181 candidates are from six municipalities across the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State. They include 130 proportional-representation nominees and 51 ward candidates.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s second-largest party, opposed the ANC’s application after being allowed to join the case. It argued that accepting the candidates would disadvantage parties that had met the deadline.

The ANC has said it respects the ruling but will pursue further legal action, insisting that it sought recognition of information captured by the IEC system before the deadline rather than an extension or preferential treatment.

The November 4 vote will test whether the ANC can reverse its declining support. Its share of the municipal vote fell from 53.91% in 2016 to 46.04% in 2021, leaving 66 councils without a majority.

The ANC faced a similar failure in 2021, when it failed to complete all its nominations by the deadline, affecting 93 municipalities. It was later allowed to register the candidates after the Electoral Commission of South Africa reopened submissions under a revised Covid-era election timetable.

The Constitutional Court rejected a DA challenge to the reopening but stressed that parties must comply with electoral deadlines once they are formally set.

The US has introduced a visa-restriction policy targeting South African officials and other individuals Washington accuses of enabling “uncompensated land seizures” and “race-based discrimination” against Afrikaners.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measure on Tuesday, saying it would cover foreign nationals responsible for or complicit in policies permitting discrimination or inciting violence against racial and ethnic minorities.

Rubio accused the South African government of failing to “adequately address” Washington’s previously stated concerns. “The South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority,” he said in a statement. The policy creates a framework for denying or revoking visas but it did not name any individuals targeted by the restrictions.

The dispute centers partly on the Expropriation Act signed in January 2025. It requires compensation for property acquired in the public interest but permits none in limited cases, including abandoned land. Pretoria says the law does not authorize arbitrary seizures and allows disputes to be settled in court.

The government describes land reform and black economic empowerment as necessary to address inequalities inherited from apartheid.

Relations between Washington and Pretoria have deteriorated sharply since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. The two governments have clashed over land reform, racial policies, Pretoria’s ties with Russia, China and Iran, and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

In early 2025, Trump froze US assistance and launched a fast-tracked refugee program for white Afrikaners, citing alleged racial persecution. Washington later expelled South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool over remarks accusing the Trump administration of mobilizing a supremacist movement. The US also boycotted the G20 summit hosted by South Africa and imposed tariffs on several major exports.

More than a year after Rasool’s expulsion, Pretoria appointed veteran apartheid-era negotiator Roelf Meyer as ambassador to Washington. It has also engaged US officials on trade and critical minerals and sought to retain access to the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

In June, after Bozell challenged Pretoria’s ties with China and Iran, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said South Africa refused to be “drawn into geopolitical contestations” or pressured to take sides.

As @POTUS has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority. The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) September 15, 2026

Russia is continuing its work in Uganda following the country’s Ebola outbreak, with specialists remaining on the ground, the head of Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Popova said Russian experts were deployed to Uganda shortly after the outbreak began and helped local authorities bring it under control. “Efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in Uganda are still underway right now,” she said.

The East African state was declared free of Ebola on August 27 after recording no new infections for 42 days. The outbreak, which began in May, caused 20 confirmed cases and two deaths in the country. Fifteen infections were imported from DR Congo, while five occurred among contacts and health workers linked to those cases, the authorities said.

Russia has provided Uganda with broader support in tackling Ebola and other infectious disease threats. Moscow sent epidemiologists to the country in May to assist with the outbreak investigation and supplied diagnostic tests, while a Russian mobile anti-epidemic laboratory was donated to Uganda in 2024. More than 80 Ugandan specialists have also received training at Rospotrebnadzor institutions in pathogen monitoring, laboratory diagnostics, biosafety, and other areas.

Earlier this month, ten specialists from the Ugandan Health Ministry and research institutions began a two-week course in Moscow covering disinfection, pest control, and field surveillance.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered police to prioritize an investigation into the deaths of eight women found across Gauteng province. The authorities said several victims had been sexually assaulted and that possible links between the cases were being investigated.

The bodies were discovered between July and September across the Ekurhuleni metropolitan area, east and northeast of Johannesburg, including Kempton Park, Olifantsfontein, Rhodesfield and KwaThema. The South African Police Service said on Monday that four of the first five victims had been sexually assaulted. The condition of another body prevented investigators from determining whether she had suffered sexual violence.

Among the victims was recreational runner Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, 38, who disappeared after leaving home for a run on September 9. Her body was found near the R21 highway three days later and identified by her family on Monday.

The authorities have not confirmed that the deaths are linked or that a serial killer is responsible. One suspect has been arrested in connection with the first killing, recorded in July. A multidisciplinary team of detectives, intelligence officers, tracking units and forensic specialists has been deployed. The authorities have offered a reward of 400,000 rand (around $24,500) for information leading to an arrest.

President Ramaphosa described the killings as “terrible events” that were causing fear, particularly among women, and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. “I have directed that these cases be prioritized and that no stone be left unturned in bringing those responsible to justice,” he said, urging residents to provide information that could help stop further attacks. Deputy National Police Commissioner Tebello Mosikili warned those responsible that their “freedom is temporary.”

South Africa classified gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster in November 2025. A 2022 Human Sciences Research Council study found that 35.5% of South African women aged 18 and older – approximately 7.85 million – had experienced physical or sexual violence during their lifetime. The South African Medical Research Council reported in 2024 that intimate partners were responsible for 60.1% of women murdered in 2020-2021. However, fewer than one in five such femicide cases result in a conviction.

BRICS is giving countries of the Global South a stronger voice in international affairs as the group expands and pushes for a more multipolar system of global governance, Raymond Matlala has told RT.

Following the last week’s 18th BRICS Summit, the founder and executive chairman of the South African BRICS Forum, said the addition of new members, partner states, and outreach countries is helping bring more developing nations into global decision-making.

“BRICS has always been positioning itself to speak for the Global South,” Matlala stressed.  

Former South African National Assembly member and Pan-Africanist scholar Dr. Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala said that BRICS could help reshape international political and financial institutions from an African perspective. She noted the continent’s vast mineral wealth remains tied to an economic system in which raw materials are largely exported for processing and value addition elsewhere.

“Everything centers around what we call the petrodollar – the struggle for resources that Africa offers or raw minerals that Africa is offering, which the West direly needs for the finished product,” she told RT.

She also called on African countries to challenge their external debt burden, arguing that much of it is owed through institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, which she described as serving the interests of former colonial powers.

The 18th BRICS Summit was held in New Delhi, India, on September 12-13. BRICS was established by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2011. The group expanded further in 2024 with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, while Indonesia became a full member in January 2025.

South Africa has secured a $1 billion loan from the BRICS-founded New Development Bank (NDB) to reform failing water, electricity and waste services across all eight of the country’s metropolitan municipalities, the National Treasury has announced.

In a statement released to the media on Tuesday, National Treasury said the loan would support the government-led Metro Trading Services Reform Programme, which focuses on improving the governance, financial sustainability and operational performance of municipal services.

The program covers key trading services including water and sanitation, electricity and energy, and solid waste management.

”The financing supports a government-led, performance-based reform program implemented through South Africa’s existing legal, fiscal and institutional framework,” Treasury said.

”This is a performance-based loan with financing linked to institutional strengthening and the achievement of independently verified measurable performance targets that are approved by metro councils for their trading service.”

The program applies to South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities: Buffalo City, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane.

”The NDB loan was prepared in coordination with development partners active in South Africa’s infrastructure sector. National Treasury extends its appreciation to the NDB for its support to this government-led reform towards better services for residents and stronger, more sustainable cities.”

First published by IOL

Kenya will host the 2029 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first African country to stage the sport’s flagship global competition.

World Athletics announced on Tuesday that Nairobi has beaten rival bids from London, Rome, and Munich. Munich was instead awarded the 2031 edition, while Beijing will host the championships in 2027.

“Taking our championships to Africa for the first time will be historic,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said. He described Nairobi’s bid as “compelling and emotional,” citing Kenya’s prominence in international athletics.

Kenyan President William Ruto welcomed the decision as a victory for the continent. “This is Kenya’s moment, Africa’s moment, and a victory for generations of athletes who made our nation synonymous with excellence on the track, on the road and cross-country,” he said. Ruto pledged that the East African country would deliver “an unforgettable championship worthy of our athletes, our country and our continent.”

Kenya has produced some of the world’s most successful runners, including Olympic champions Eliud Kipchoge, Faith Kipyegon, David Rudisha, and Kipchoge Keino.

The East African country unsuccessfully sought the 2025 championships, which were awarded to Tokyo. World Athletics President Coe said Nairobi returned with a stronger proposal supported by the ongoing overhaul of Kasarani Stadium. The venue is also being renovated ahead of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, which Kenya will co-host with Tanzania and Uganda.

The decision adds to Africa’s growing list of major international sporting events. Morocco will become the continent’s second country to host matches at a men’s FIFA World Cup when it stages the 2030 tournament with Spain and Portugal. South Africa became the first in 2010. Moroccan officials are also seeking to stage the 2030 final at the planned 115,000-seat Hassan II Stadium near Casablanca, although FIFA has yet to choose the venue.

Senegal will meanwhile host the Youth Olympic Games from October 31 to November 13, 2026. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye formally received the Olympic flame in Dakar on September 12 ahead of the event – the first Olympic sporting competition to be held in Africa.

Dakar, vous avez répondu présents à l’appel! 🤩

La première étape de la tournée de la flamme a donné le ton. 🔥

Jëxagul 👀#Dakar2026 #PassTheEnergy pic.twitter.com/SUicYGW4N5

— Dakar 2026™ (@jojdakar2026) September 14, 2026

Nigeria’s Dangote refinery has launched a $1.6 billion initial public offering to help finance a major capacity expansion, in a share sale billed as the largest in African history.

The company is offering up to 4.1 billion shares at 525 naira each, according to its prospectus. The offer opened on Monday and will close on October 13, with trading on the Nigerian Exchange expected to begin in November. The minimum application is ten shares, costing 5,250 naira (around $4).

“We are all going to fully share all our prosperity with the people, and that is why we call it the people’s IPO,” Aliko Dangote said at the launch in Lagos.

The expert also notes that the Dangote Refinery, “the sole domestic fuel producer in a country of over 200 million people who drive more than 5 million vehicles”, has acquired strategic importance for Nigeria after overcoming opposition from foreign oil companies and delays to its commissioning.

“What is particularly noteworthy is that the shares are listing on the Nigerian exchange, with capital to be raised in naira. This speaks to the maturity of the domestic stock market, sets a strong precedent for other ventures, and proves that local capital markets can serve as a viable source of funding,” Maslov said.

The roughly $20 billion refinery, Africa’s largest, with a 700,000-barrel-per-day capacity, was inaugurated in May 2023 and began commercial operations in 2024. It has been central to the Nigerian government’s efforts to boost domestic refining and reduce import reliance.

According to the IPO documents, the company expects net proceeds of around 2.11 trillion naira after expenses. The funds will finance part of a $14.3 billion program to double the Lagos facility’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day. The expansion will cover processing units, major equipment, utilities and construction work. The remaining costs will be financed through internally generated cash and other sources, with the project targeted for completion by 2030.

As of May, it supplied around 87.6% of Nigeria’s gasoline market. Dangote also plans to build a $17 billion energy complex in the northern Kenyan coastal town of Lamu, including a 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery.

Algeria and Mali have agreed to deepen economic cooperation, with mining, agriculture, energy and transport among the sectors identified for potential joint projects, the Malian government said on Monday.

The plans were discussed during talks in Bamako between Malian Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga and his Algerian counterpart, Sifi Ghrieb. Officials presented investment opportunities in Mali’s gold and lithium industries, as well as rice and cotton production, livestock, agro-industry and financial services. Mali also highlighted export opportunities involving mangoes, sesame and cashew nuts.

Transport and energy were also on the agenda, with the two sides discussing the Trans-Sahara Highway, Air Algerie links and Mali’s energy deficit. Cooperation in higher education could also be expanded to include research, according to the Malian government.

According to Algeria Press Service (APS), Ghrieb said that Algiers was prepared to resume institutional cooperation between the two countries, describing the move as part of efforts to elevate bilateral relations to a “new stage.”

The neighbors restored diplomatic ties in July, returning their ambassadors and reopening their airspace. Maiga traveled to Algiers in August in the first high-level visit since the dispute, and the two prime ministers have now agreed on arrangements for a forthcoming visit to Algeria by Malian leader Assimi Goita.

The rapprochement has since expanded into security cooperation, with Algeria deploying four Su-30 fighter jets to Niger in late August at Niamey’s request following a failed military mutiny in the capital.

South Africa wants to deepen trade and investment ties with India in critical minerals, green industrialization, infrastructure, agriculture and the digital economy, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

Ramaphosa made the remarks after attending the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, where he stressed that South Africa’s membership of the grouping provided an important platform to build political and economic ties that benefit the country.

In his weekly letter to the nation, Ramaphosa said more than a fifth of South Africa’s trade was with BRICS countries and that the grouping remained an important forum for investment and trade. He added that South Africa had used the opportunity to strengthen business ties between the two countries.

Ramaphosa said the two countries held a South Africa-India CEOs Roundtable involving leaders from major Indian and South African companies. ”We highlighted various opportunities for investment and partnership in areas such as green industrialisation, critical minerals and beneficiation, infrastructure, agriculture and the digital economy.” 

He noted that Indian companies had welcomed the structural transformation taking place in South Africa, including reforms in the energy, logistics, telecommunications and water sectors, as well as changes involving visas and public digital infrastructure.

India’s strengths in pharmaceuticals and health technology could support South Africa’s ambition to expand local production of medicines and vaccines, while its expertise in information technology, financial technology and digital public infrastructure could also support the modernisation of South Africa’s systems and services, Ramaphosa said. At the same time, South Africa’s critical minerals could support India’s growing renewable energy, battery and automotive industries, the president stressed.

The group had expanded beyond the initial group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa following a decision taken at the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are now also members. Together, the countries account for around half of the world’s population and around a quarter of global trade, Ramaphosa stressed.

He said South Africa had deepened co-operation through BRICS in areas including science and technology, research, education and skills development. The country has also accessed development finance through the New Development Bank for major energy, water and transportation infrastructure investments.

”Looking ahead, our priority as South Africa is to continue to use our membership of BRICS to deepen bilateral co-operation and expand trade and investment ties,” Ramaphosa concluded.

First published by IOL

Ebola infections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) have topped 7,200, with nearly half of confirmed patients dying since the latest outbreak began, the country’s health authorities said on Monday.

The outbreak has claimed 3,475 lives, putting the overall case fatality rate at 48.3%. A total of 1,712 patients have recovered, while 923 remain in isolation or hospital care. Health officials said 88% of identified contacts are currently being monitored.

The virus has now been detected in 62 health zones across seven provinces. Ituri remains the main hotspot, followed by North Kivu. Sud-Ubangi is among the areas more recently affected.

The outbreak, which was declared in May, is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola and has become the largest recorded in DR Congo’s history, surpassing the country’s 2018-2020 epidemic. There are currently no approved vaccines or specific treatments for the Bundibugyo strain.

“These figures represent a positive signal. They show that the efforts deployed on the ground are producing results and that our response strategy is beginning to bend the transmission curve,” Kamba said. 

Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya told the New York Times that the agency has expanded its broader Ebola response plan from $518 million to $1.4 billion. In June, Kaseya said, however, that only 13% of roughly $910 million pledged by donors had actually been released, warning that the outbreak could not be stopped without sufficient funding and measures to address the humanitarian situation. Meanwhile, African countries had pledged $120 million toward the response, of which $90 million had already been disbursed.

The Libyan authorities have seized around 100,000 narcotic pills smuggled from Europe and shaped like the face of the North African nation’s ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi, a security agency in Tripoli has reported.

The Deterrence Agency for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime identified the drugs as XTC, commonly known as ecstasy pills, in a statement issued on Saturday. Images published by the agency showed sacks of brown pills molded into Gaddafi’s head and shoulders, with his facial features and distinctive robes pressed into their surface.

The agency said investigators received information about a gang smuggling narcotics through a European country for distribution in Libya. Officers immediately began a “wide-ranging tracking operation,” following the shipment until it entered the country through a seaport. A search uncovered the pills “carefully concealed” inside a Renault Master cargo van, it added. The authority said the suspects had been referred to prosecutors but did not disclose their identities.

The country remains divided between political rivals, with the UN-recognized Government of National Unity in Tripoli and an eastern administration aligned with military commander Khalifa Haftar.

The Libyan authorities have previously reported several major drug busts. Customs officers at Benghazi port seized more than 17.8 million Captagon tablets concealed in three containers of apples shipped from Syria in March 2024. Later that month, prosecutors announced the seizure of 128 kg of cocaine stored in two food warehouses in the eastern city of Al-Bayda.

South Africa has extradited six Nigerians to the US suspected of being members of the Black Axe organized crime network, where they are wanted on wire fraud and money laundering charges, police said on Saturday.

The six men are accused of targeting more than 100 women in the US through online romance scams and defrauding them of more than 100 million rand ($5.8 million). According to South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks, the alleged victims included pensioners and businesspeople who were drawn into online relationships before being persuaded to part with their money.

Mogale noted that romance scams are often carried out by individuals, but said that the suspects had turned the scheme into “an actual regular business.” 

The suspects were handed over to officials from the FBI and US Secret Service at Cape Town International Airport on Friday. They were transferred to the airport from a correctional facility in Cape Town with the assistance of Interpol South Africa before departing for the US on a 16-hour flight.

Ukraine has deployed military specialists to Mali to train and assist armed groups fighting government forces and Russian troops, CNN reported on Saturday, citing Ukrainian soldiers and a military intelligence source.

Around 15 Ukrainian drone operators are embedded with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a predominantly Tuareg separatist group in northern Mali, according to the US outlet. The personnel reportedly provide training, operational assistance, and remote guidance rather than participating directly in frontline fighting.

“I coordinate their operations remotely. The signal from their drone comes to me over the internet, and I immediately tell them via radio what to do and where to fly,” an unnamed Ukrainian operator told CNN.

Mali has battled an insurgency since 2012, which has now spread into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. France intervened in Mali in 2013 but withdrew its troops in 2022 after Bamako ended defense cooperation with its former colonial power. Mali has since turned to Moscow for security support, with Russia deploying troops under the Africa Corps to support counterterrorism efforts.

Mali and its Alliance of Sahel States (AES) allies, Burkina Faso and Niger, jointly accused Kiev of supporting terrorism in the region. The three West African nations filed a complaint against Ukraine with the UN Security Council in August 2024. Kiev denied involvement.

Moscow made similar allegations after the 2024 ambush. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Kiev of opening a “second front” in Africa by aiding terrorist groups in countries friendly to Russia.

This week, Algeria made an unexpected announcement that it was severing diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and given 48 hours to leave. In an official statement, Algerian authorities accused Abu Dhabi of increasingly frequent “provocative and hostile actions,” noting that all “efforts to preserve bilateral ties had been exhausted.” However, no specific incident that could have triggered this decision was cited. 

The first practical consequence of the break in diplomatic ties was the closure of Algerian airspace. Starting September 11, the country’s airspace is closed to UAE civil and military aircraft. A temporary exception remains for commercial flights headed to and from Algiers’ Houari Boumediene Airport; they may continue to operate until the end of 2026, when the air services agreement signed in 2013 expires. 

For its part, the UAE expressed hope that the rupture of relations will be temporary. Anwar Gargash, an advisor to the president of the UAE, noted (without, however, directly mentioning Algeria) that diplomacy should be based on clear interests rather than “riddles and signals requiring decoding.” 

From partnership to suspicions

Diplomatic relations between the two Arab nations were established in 1974 and developed for decades without any major crises. In 2015, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed described Algeria as one of the UAE’s most important partners. A joint commission was active, and dozens of agreements were signed.

In February 2023, the two sides intended to elevate their relationship to the level of a strategic partnership. Non-oil trade turnover stood at approximately $800 million, while UAE investments in Algeria were valued at $600 million. Among the Gulf monarchies, the UAE was Algeria’s largest trading partner. However, economic and political interests increasingly diverged. 

Algeria traditionally prioritizes non-interference and the preservation of existing borders. The UAE, meanwhile, combines investments in ports and infrastructure with military cooperation and the support of certain forces. For Abu Dhabi, this is a standard method of converting capital into influence. From Algeria’s perspective, such activity becomes alarming when directed at countries vital for its own security. 

The Moroccan issue

Morocco lies at the heart of the conflict. Algeria and Morocco have been at odds for decades over the territory of Western Sahara. Rabat claims the territory as its own, whereas Algiers supports the Polisario Front and the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. The land border between the two countries has been closed since 1994, and in 2021, they severed diplomatic relations entirely.

The UAE made a clear choice in this dispute. In November 2020, it became the first Arab state to open a consulate general in Laayoune, a city in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara. For Rabat, this was a diplomatic victory; for Algiers, it was a clear demonstration of support for its primary regional rival.

That same year, both the UAE and Morocco normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords. Subsequently, cooperation between Morocco and Israel expanded to the military sphere and collaboration between intelligence agencies. From Algeria’s perspective, Morocco, Israel, and the UAE formed a sort of alliance. As their ties deepened, Algeria increasingly spoke of external pressure exerted by the UAE. These suspicions were further fueled by UAE investments in Moroccan infrastructure, including Dakhla port in Western Sahara and Nador port. Local media estimate that UAE investments in Morocco have reached €15 billion. Given the closed border and the conflict in Western Sahara, Algeria viewed these new ports primarily through a geopolitical lens.

A second issue lies to the south of Algeria. For years, Algeria acted as a mediator between the Malian government and the Tuareg movements. However, following a series of coups, its influence waned and relations with Bamako deteriorated. Russia, Türkiye, Morocco, and the UAE have increased their presence in the Sahel. Abu Dhabi cultivated ties with the region’s new authorities, extended loans to Chad, and expanded its presence in Sudan. Algeria views this as the strengthening of Morocco’s closest partner at a time when Algeria’s own relations with its southern neighbors are in crisis.

Libya is a particularly sensitive issue. The UAE has long been a key external backer of Khalifa Haftar, whose forces control the country’s east and much of southern Fezzan. For Algeria, this is not a distant civil war: Fezzan province borders its territory, and the movement of armed groups in the area is perceived as a direct threat. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune warned that his country would take action should Haftar’s forces approach its borders.

This creates the impression of a troubling ‘belt’ encircling Algeria: Morocco to the west, the unstable Sahel to the south, and UAE-aligned forces in Libya to the east. There may not be a unified plan to “encircle Algeria,” but in foreign policy, a perceived threat is often just as significant as an actual threat. 

A red line within the country 

Algeria’s most serious grievances against the UAE concern alleged interference in its internal affairs. Media outlets affiliated with the Algerian government have accused the UAE of ties to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia. This organization, which has been designated a terrorist group by the Algerian authorities, advocates for the independence of the predominantly Berber region.

Operating primarily from abroad, the movement maintains relations with Morocco and Israel and advocates for Kabylia’s independence. 

No public evidence of UAE funding of the organization has been presented. However, for the Algerian leadership, any foreign involvement in the Kabylia issue constitutes a red line. In this regard, Western Sahara and Kabylia mirror one another: Algeria supports self-determination for the Sahrawis, while Morocco supports the Kabylia movement; in Algeria’s view, the UAE aligns itself with Morocco on this issue. 

In February 2026, hints gave way to action: Algeria initiated the process of cancelling an air services agreement with the UAE. Already then, a complete rupture in relations seemed inevitable. The latest decision to recall the ambassador merely made the longstanding conflict official. 

Algeria no longer confines itself to its customary defensive posture. Following a severe crisis, relations with Mali began to improve; in the summer of 2026, the two nations reinstated their ambassadors and reopened their airspace. Simultaneously, Algeria stepped up activities in Niger, effectively signaling a readiness to deploy the armed forces beyond its borders to safeguard its interests. Consequently, the rift with the UAE can be viewed not only as a reaction to external pressure but also as part of Algeria’s bid to reclaim its role as a leading power in the Sahel.

The economic impact of the severed ties will be significant but not critical. While the partners are important to one another, they are not indispensable. The political message carries far more weight. Algeria is prepared to pay the price for a decision it deems a matter of national security, whereas the UAE is unlikely to reconsider its partnership with Morocco simply to reconcile with Algeria.

The rivalry between Algeria and Morocco has long ceased to be a dispute between two neighbors; the Gulf monarchies, Israel, and the Sahel states have all been drawn into it. Now, any port, consulate, or loan is evaluated through the prism of influence and the concern of who will benefit from it in North Africa. 

Therefore, the closure of airspace is more than just a technical extension of the diplomatic rift. Since it shares no land border with the UAE, Algeria is drawing a political border. A narrow air corridor will remain open between the two countries until the end of the year, but the era when trade could be developed independently of the struggle for influence is already over.

Malian doctors have successfully separated conjoined twin girls in what the government described as the first operation of its kind in the West African country.

The procedure was performed on Wednesday by a multidisciplinary team at Gabriel Toure University Hospital in the capital, Bamako, the Health Ministry announced the next day. The twins were born by cesarean section on August 29 following a full-term pregnancy in which congenital abnormalities had already been detected. They were joined through parts of their urinary and digestive systems and shared a bladder and colon, according to an official account reported by local outlet Maliweb.

Health Minister Assa Badiallo Toure visited the newborns and praised the medical team. “Such an operation is truly a feat,” she said, describing it as an important milestone for specialized medicine in Mali.

Hospital director Professor Thierno Madani Diop assembled a team of pediatric surgeons, anesthesiologists, intensive-care specialists, cardiologists, radiologists, pharmacists, and laboratory and operating-room personnel to carry out the procedure.

The operation in Mali follows another rare medical success in Africa in March, when doctors at Mankweng Hospital, a rural public facility in South Africa, separated conjoined newborns. The babies were reported to be in stable condition in neonatal intensive care after the procedure, according to the South African government.

At least 26 students have been killed after a fire swept through two schools and hundreds of homes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) city of Bukavu, the authorities say.

The blaze began in a house in the densely populated Cimpunda neighborhood on Thursday morning before spreading to the adjoining Furaha and Ujamaa schools, according to local officials. Several children reportedly suffocated after becoming trapped, while others were caught in a violent stampede as they tried to escape.

A statement from the South Kivu provincial authorities, cited by AP, put the toll at 19 girls and seven boys and warned that it could rise.

More than 300 homes were reportedly destroyed. The closely packed wooden buildings in the neighborhood contributed to the rapid spread of the flames, while narrow exits caused a crush at the schools, Cimpunda administrator Moise Lubala told AP.

“While the city remains under illegal occupation, we express our solidarity with the students, teachers, parents, and families affected,” he wrote on X.

The Congolese Education Ministry said students and teachers in areas under occupation remain part of the national education system and “at the heart of the nation’s responsibility and solidarity.” It ordered an assessment of the damage and measures to support victims and continue classes. The ministry said the fire was the latest in a series that have damaged schools in Bukavu. The exact cause remains unknown.

The AFC/M23 has controlled Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu Province, since February 2025, when its advance forced Congolese and allied Burundian troops to withdraw. The coalition seized Goma, the capital of neighboring North Kivu, a month earlier during clashes with government forces. Kinshasa and several Western governments accuse Rwanda of supporting the rebels, which Kigali denies. The rebels have since established parallel administrations across large areas of eastern DR Congo, where armed groups compete for control of the region’s mineral wealth.

A major accident occurred on Thursday in the eastern Congolese city of Bukavu. A fire broke out in two schools here, killing 26 students. Dozens of people were injured in this incident.#Bukavu #Congo #SchoolFire #SchoolTragedy #Students #TragicIncident #FireAccident #Breaking pic.twitter.com/IuyzcxxNMw

— VIRAL VOLT (@ViralVolT1) September 11, 2026

Morocco has once again denied facilitating the mass entry of more than 70,000 migrants into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, saying no evidence has established its involvement.

In a statement on Thursday, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry accused Spanish political groups and media of exploiting the crisis in July for domestic purposes ahead of national elections expected in 2027.

“Morocco refuses to be used as a pre-election pawn. Nor does it accept being the scapegoat for political score-settling,” the ministry stated. Rabat also questioned why Spain has not returned irregular migrants despite Morocco’s offer to readmit them, and why unaccompanied minors remain separated from their families after it requested their return.

The statement followed Spain’s release of declassified files showing that its intelligence service warned officials in Madrid and Moroccan agencies on July 29 about online calls for a mass crossing the following day. A separate police report commissioned by a Spanish judge alleged that Moroccan border forces actively facilitated the influx.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said there is no evidence that Rabat organized the influx, although he acknowledged that Moroccan forces allowed crossings during a ten-hour period on July 30. Morocco previously said its security personnel sought to avoid violence and blamed a Spanish court ruling restricting the immediate return of migrants arriving by sea for weakening border deterrence.

A similar crisis occurred in 2021, when around 9,000 people entered Ceuta after Moroccan guards temporarily relaxed border controls during a diplomatic dispute over Spain’s decision to provide medical treatment to Western Sahara independence leader Brahim Ghali. The European Parliament accused Rabat at the time of using migration as political pressure.

“One can no longer see ‘darkest Africa’ set against a ‘deep dark past’,” wrote Senegalese historian and philosopher Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986), one of the key figures in Pan-Africanism. His words resonate like a manifesto that proclaims: Africa was a center of civilizational development long before the arrival of Europeans. Diop believed that the narrative of an”underdeveloped continent” was just a political construct, and dedicated his life to debunking this myth.

Under French rule

Cheikh Anta Diop was born on December 29, 1923, in the village of Thieytou, Senegal. By that time, the territory had been under French control for several decades. The French conquest of Senegal spanned two and a half centuries, beginning with the establishment of the first trading post in Saint-Louis in 1659.

The French administration implemented a policy of ‘assimilation’, aiming to transform local elites into conduits of the metropole’s cultural expansion. The ‘white man’s mission’ revolved around introducing the ‘savages’ to French culture – however, not as ‘citizens’ with equal rights, but merely as ‘subjects’ benefiting from the ‘benevolent’ influence of culture. Only those who adopted the metropole’s culture were labeled ‘developed’ and granted access to civil society. Diop would later rise against this cultural imposition.

The region where Diop was born boasted rich intellectual traditions. From the 11th to 15th centuries, the territory of present-day Senegal was a major crossroads of interaction between the West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, as well as the states of the Wolof, Serer, and Toucouleur peoples. The region thrived thanks to trans-Saharan trade, agriculture, and pastoralism. Mosques were built, and intellectual centers sprang up around them.

Spiritual roots of the brotherhood

Diop was named after his uncle, Cheikh Anta M’Bake. His family belonged to the Mouride brotherhood, which Diop regarded as the only independent Muslim brotherhood in Africa. 

Tariqa (from Arabic tarīqa, meaning ‘path’) is a Sufi spiritual tradition that unites murids (disciples) around the marabout (their spiritual guide). Resistance to European colonization catalyzed the formation of new tariqas (Sufi orders) in Africa, including the Mouride brotherhood. It was founded in 1883 by Amadou Bamba Mbacké – a relative of Diop. Amadou Bamba was born in the village of Mbacké into a family of a marabout from the Qadiri order, the oldest order in Senegal.

The French colonial authorities viewed Amadou Bamba and the Mourides as a threat. The influence of his persona and the brotherhood was so significant that colonial administrators feared a potential jihad. As a result, he was arrested and exiled – first to Gabon, then to Mauritania, and later placed under house arrest in Senegal until 1912. Diop’s uncle faced a similar fate, being expelled from Senegal to Gabon.

The Mourides managed to overcome repression and form a union that was influential both in the religious and economic aspects. A love for work was among the brotherhood’s ideological foundations, and it also shaped Diop’s views.

Clash with the metropole

Diop first studied at a Quranic school, then graduated from the University of Dakar, and later from the Sorbonne. In 1946, at the age of 23, he left for Paris. He studied not only the humanities but also developed an interest in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Diop combined his studies at the Department of Higher Mathematics with the study of Egyptology and Linguistics at the Department of Philosophy.

Diop’s teachers included the leading thinkers of the era: historian Henri Lhote, ethnologist Marcel Griaule, and physicist Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie. The wave of decolonization had already begun, but had not yet gained full force. The ideas that had driven colonization still dominated Parisian educational institutions at the time – for example, the ‘Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races’ (1853-1855) by Arthur de Gobineau, who laid the foundations of racial theory.

In the late 1940s, Diop co-founded the journal Présence Africaine – a publication that provided African scholars with a platform for public debate denied to them by academic journals.

It was in this journal that Diop first published his essay ‘A Linguistic Study of the Ouolove: The Origin of the Language and Race of the Valaf’, dedicated to the history and culture of his native people. The journal became a space for testing Diop’s ideas about the ‘African origins of civilization’ and the significance of Ancient Egypt. He first spoke about the need to use and develop African languages ​​in his article ‘When Can We Talk About an African Renaissance?’

What is Afrocentrism?

Diop chose to return and work in Senegal to construct African history from the perspective of Africans themselves, rather than through imposed Eurocentrism. Thus, armed with knowledge derived from various academic disciplines, he fought colonialism not only in its external manifestations but also sought to liberate minds.

Afrocentrism is an intellectual and political concept that affirms the primacy of an African cultural and historical perspective in the study of humanity’s past.

In 1954, Diop published his first book, ‘Nations Nègres et Culture’. The historian postulated the primacy of African cultures, especially ancient Egyptian culture, in shaping humanity’s cultural heritage. According to his position, civilizations arose on the African continent. “These first Black civilizations were the first civilizations in the world, the development of Europe having been held back by the last Ice Age, a matter of a hundred thousand years.” It followed from this that Europe’s civilizing mission and its ‘imposition’ of education were conceptually untenable.

“All the classes of Egyptian society belonged to the same Black race”

Diop advanced the thesis that the civilization of Ancient Egypt was founded by black people. Drawing on linguistics and anthropology, the historian argued that the population of Egypt in the predynastic period was Negroid.

“The typically Negroid features of the pharaohs Narmer, 1st dynasty, the founder of the line of pharaohs, Djoser, 3rd dynasty (with him all the technological elements of Egyptian civilisation were already in place), Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid (of Cameroonian type), show that all the classes of Egyptian society belonged to the same Black race,” he wrote. According to Diop, social structures that later spread to other African cultures were first developed in the Nile Valley.

Among his major works, which shed light on the history of the development of African state formations, are ‘Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa, from Antiquity to the Formation of Modern State’, and ‘Civilization or Barbarism: an Authentic Anthropology’.

Diop sought to restore the true role of Africa and its peoples in human history and wanted others to recognize Africa’s contribution to world culture. The works of Russian scholars also aided Diop in his scientific research and in confirming his hypotheses. For example, in one of his works, Diop cites Soviet Arabist Vasily Struve.

He wrote, “Since V. V. Struve published the ‘Papyrus of Moscow’, the international scientific community knows with certainty that two thousand years before Archimedes, the Egyptians had already established the rigorous formulae of the area of the sphere: S = 4xR2… Struve writes: ‘Also, we must admit that in mechanics the Egyptians had more knowledge than we wanted to believe.’”

“The history of Black Africa has been written with dates as dry as laundry lists”

Without the liberation of consciousness, the liberation from colonial shackles remains a formality. European colonial systems deliberately alienated the African peoples from their culture and artificially constructed a ‘colonial identity’. They cultivated the idea that the culture of the metropole was Africa’s culture, and denied the existence of a local cultural and intellectual heritage.

Behind this approach, Diop saw the deep mechanism of colonialism. Restoring historical memory was for him part of the national liberation struggle. He wrote, “Until now (1960), the history of Black Africa has always been written with dates as dry as laundry lists, and no one has almost ever tried to find the key that unlocks the door to the intelligence, the understanding of African society.”

Defending the idea of cultural continuity among Africans, Diop advocated for a single federal state of Black Africa. The idea for this project was revealed in the 1974 work ‘Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State’.

Diop turned to the experience of the USSR as an example of self-reliant development and of building national identity while preserving local cultures. “It will be possible appropriately to choose one of the major African tongues and promote it to the level of sole governmental and cultural language for the entire continent. It will cover all territorial languages in the same way that Russian is overlaid on the language of each Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union,” he wrote.

Diop vs Senghor

Diop came from an environment that the colonial authorities tried to declare non-existent. A Muslim scholar from a Sufi brotherhood with a centuries-old intellectual tradition, he was able to increase his knowledge and substantiate the untruthfulness of the colonial position.

Long before French administrators declared Africa a ‘dark continent without a past’, strong mechanisms of knowledge transmission based on religious teachings existed throughout Africa and in Western Sudan. 

Diop combined scientific and political activities. He founded the opposition Bloc of the Senegalese Masses and became its secretary general. In 1962, the scientist was imprisoned for opposing the pro-French course of then President Leopold Senghor. His party, The National Democratic Rally, was officially recognized only in 1981, after Senghor left office.

To this day, Diop’s works remain the subject of heated debate and give a powerful impetus to the development of science in Africa. The Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, IFAN), created by the colonial administration, was renamed Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in 1987 in honor of the scientist.

Algeria has severed diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, accusing the Gulf state of escalating hostile conduct despite repeated warnings.

The Algerian Foreign Ministry announced the decision on Thursday after summoning the UAE ambassador and formally notifying him. The envoy was given 48 hours to comply with the measure.

Algiers had “exhausted all means” of preserving bilateral relations, the ministry said in a statement reported by the Algerian Press Service. “Despite these numerous warnings, the United Arab Emirates continued to persist in these actions,” the ministry said, adding that Abu Dhabi’s conduct could no longer be considered acceptable between sovereign states.

The statement did not specify the immediate trigger for the rupture. Relations have deteriorated in recent years amid Algerian accusations of Emirati interference and disagreements over regional issues, including normalization with Israel and Abu Dhabi’s alleged role in conflicts in Libya, Sudan, and the Sahel.

Abu Dhabi has yet to respond publicly to Algeria’s decision. It has previously denied accusations that it sought to destabilize the North African country.

In January, Somalia terminated all agreements with the UAE covering ports, government institutions, and defense cooperation. Mogadishu accused Abu Dhabi of threatening its sovereignty and political stability, although several Somali regional administrations rejected the decision.

South Africa has asked its highest court to prevent 29 objects linked to anti-apartheid leader and former President Nelson Mandela from being sold in the US, arguing that their export without authorization threatens the country’s cultural heritage.

The South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), Robben Island Museum, and the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture brought the case before the Constitutional Court on Tuesday. Judgment was reserved following the hearing.

The disputed collection includes Mandela’s identity document, iconic shirts, writings, glasses and gifts from former US presidents. In its court filing, SAHRA warned that the objects were “at risk of being lost to the national estate.”

The legal battle centers on whether the objects are protected under South Africa’s heritage laws. SAHRA says their association with the former president means they cannot be exported without its approval. Makaziwe argues that the agency has not demonstrated the historical significance of each item and has questioned its claim to be acting in her father’s interests.

The collection also includes a broken, handmade key from Robben Island. Brand says he found it in a prison desk and did not use it to open Mandela’s cell. During the hearing, his lawyer reportedly acknowledged that the object had been misrepresented in marketing material linking it directly to Mandela.

The auction was initially announced in 2021 but suspended after SAHRA intervened. The Pretoria High Court later ruled against the agency, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal in January after finding that SAHRA had not shown why each item qualified as protected heritage.

South Africa has processed 86,596 foreign nationals for deportation or repatriation in just over two months, the government announced amid heightened tensions over undocumented migration.

Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration, said the cases were handled June 14 to August 20 through coordinated law-enforcement operations.

Kubayi told reporters on Tuesday that Malawian nationals formed the largest group processed during the two-month period, followed by Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. Government data indicated that 90% of those repatriated entered South Africa illegally, with 95% classified as crossing the border outside official entry points.

The minister blamed deteriorating infrastructure along South Africa’s 4,471 km land border for creating vulnerabilities “exploited by illegal crossings, smuggling and transnational crime.”

Mozambique initially said seven citizens died following the unrest, including five in what it described as xenophobic attacks and two in a road accident while fleeing the alleged violence. The South African authorities disputed the account, linking only two deaths to the unrest.

Several African governments, including Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, have since evacuated nationals fleeing the violence.

In response to mounting tensions, President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled a five-point plan in June to deport undocumented migrants, tighten border controls, overhaul immigration laws, and expand cooperation with other African countries.

Pretoria has denied targeting foreigners indiscriminately and pledged to prosecute those responsible for violence. The government also opened a temporary processing center in Musina, near the Zimbabwean border, to handle a surge in returnees. Justice Minister Kubayi said the center processed more than 4,000 people on its busiest day in July, but only 58 in August, prompting its closure.

On September 7, 2026, a high-level Jamaican delegation delivered a historic legal petition to Buckingham Palace addressed to King Charles III. Its objective was to compel the monarch, as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the island’s highest court of appeal, three questions that have haunted the British Empire for centuries. Was the forced transportation of Africans to Jamaica and their subsequent enslavement lawful? Did this system constitute a crime against humanity? Does the United Kingdom bear an obligation to make reparation for slavery and its enduring consequences?

Culture Minister Olivia Grange, who led the delegation, shared a photo on X of herself holding the document aloft, captioned: “The petition has been filed.” King Charles III was not present at the handover. British media reported he was on vacation at the time, though Buckingham Palace said it had worked closely with the Governor General of Jamaica to ensure the petition was properly lodged.

The day before, on Sunday, September 6, the delegation had taken part in a church service in south London under the theme of “remembrance, justice and repair,” ahead of the formal filing the following day. This timing is no accident: September 6 commemorates the 1781 departure of the slave ship Zong, aboard which more than 140 enslaved Africans were thrown into the sea so their owners could collect an insurance payout. That crime, unpunished for 245 years, now stands as the symbol of a justice the diaspora refuses to let fade into oblivion.

“In relation to the wrongs that were done, we want answers,” Grange told the Associated Press the day before the filing. “Once we get those answers, then our attorneys will determine what the next move is.”

This petition is part of a strategy, built step by step by Jamaica’s National Council on Reparations chaired by Laleta Davis Mattis, with the support of a legal subcommittee led by attorney Bert Samuels, and a team of UK lawyers. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has thrown its full weight behind the effort proof that this question reaches beyond the borders of a single island. The entire post-slavery Caribbean is rising behind Jamaica.

The UN slavery resolution as a first step

But it is precisely here that Jamaica’s fight joins Africa’s own, and this link must now be made visible, since Western media have worked hard to keep it quiet. On March 25, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, on Ghana’s initiative, resolution A/RES/80/250 – the very first resolution in UN history devoted exclusively to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.

One hundred and twenty-three states voted in favor. Only three opposed it: the United States, Israel, and Argentina. Fifty-two countries, mostly European including the United Kingdom itself, chose to hide behind abstention.

Jamaican jurist Bert Samuels was not mistaken when he stated that this UN resolution strengthens Jamaica’s legal position against London. Here is the thread that binds Accra to Kingston, the African motherland to the diaspora torn from it. A single struggle is fought on two complementary fronts – one continental and diplomatic, the other insular and judicial, both aimed at the same goal of making the former empire pay for four centuries of human plunder.

A history of reversed debts

To grasp the full weight of this gesture, one must recall that Haiti, the first free black nation of the modern era, was forced in 1825 to pay France a colossal indemnity to “compensate” former slave owners for the loss of their “human property” – a debt that bled Haiti’s economy for more than a century. History, as written by the colonial powers, long decreed that it was the enslavers who deserved compensation, never the enslaved.

Jamaica’s petition overturns this criminal logic. It is no longer the victims who owe the executioner, it is the executioner who must now answer to its victims. This reversal builds on groundwork laid over more than a decade by the CARICOM itself, which as early as 2013 adopted its own ten-point plan for reparatory justice, demanding formal apologies, debt cancellation, technology transfers, and public health programs to offset the health devastation bequeathed by slavery.

The September 7 filing is therefore the legal culmination of a long matured Caribbean strategy that has now chosen to confront head on, in a court of law, the very institution that sanctioned and protected the slave system: the British Crown.

For the African diaspora across Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean alike, this filing is experienced as a long-deferred reckoning. For generations, our elders awaited a political gesture of this magnitude – a formal legal demand addressed directly to the head of the house that organized, financed, and profited from the trade.

Reparations movements that once fought each in their own corner Caribbean organizations, Afro-descendant collectives in the Americas, African diasporas in Europe, activists on the continent itself are beginning to speak with a single voice, carried by recognized institutions: the African Union on one side, CARICOM on the other, and now the UN as a global sounding board.

In West Africa, Jamaica’s move is being followed with particular attention, seen as the natural extension of the fight President Mahama carried to the UN stage. The Africa that watched its children leave in chains is, four centuries later, reunited with a part of its diaspora now come to knock, together, on the same imperial door. In Southern Africa, where the memory of apartheid remains raw, many Pan-African organizations see in this filing further proof that struggles for historical justice slavery, colonialism, apartheid can no longer be treated separately, but must be understood as a single, unified case against the West.

In Europe, among Afro-descendant communities in France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom itself, Jamaica’s petition serves as both a signal of hope and a painful reminder: That our own states of origin or residence still drag their feet on these questions, while little Jamaica, with its modest means, dared to carry the fight directly to the monarch’s door. In the Americas, Afro-descendant movements from Brazil to Colombia are also watching this case closely, seeing in it a potential legal precedent that could be mobilized for their own claims against the former Iberian colonial powers.

This convergence is visibly rattling Western capitals. The United Kingdom’s vote – an abstention, that is, a refusal to choose – speaks volumes about the quiet panic setting in London. One can sense, in the remarks of certain British political figures, particularly within Euroskeptic and identitarian factions, a desire to ridicule Jamaica’s move, to dismiss it as an expensive whim or a political stunt.

Critical voices, including within the Pan-African movement itself, warn of the risks inherent in the path Kingston has chosen. Entrusting a body like the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council – an institution shaped by the British colonial order itself – with judging the legality of slavery risks a ruling that the trade was, at the time, perfectly “lawful” under the British law then in force. Such a verdict, should it come to pass, would hand Western governments a legal argument to close the reparations file for good.

Some observers have already noted that the Privy Council may look at this petition with a degree of skepticism not over whether slavery was wrong, but over the unusual nature of the legal procedure being invoked.

This is why the battle must never be reduced to this single procedure. Jamaica’s strength lies precisely in waging the fight on multiple fronts at once: the legal path before the Privy Council, the diplomatic path through CARICOM, and now the backing of international law embodied in Ghana’s UN resolution. Prime Minister Andrew Holness has, moreover, announced plans to sever ties with the British Crown and transform his country into a republic – a signal that a rejection of the petition by London could, paradoxically, accelerate that rupture rather than prevent it.

When the Jamaican delegation crossed the palace threshold to deliver its petition, it was the echo of 123 nations gathered in New York this past March 25. It was the voice of the African Union, of Ghanaian President Mahama, of reparations movements from Accra to Bridgetown, from Lagos to Brooklyn. It was the voice of an entire diaspora that now refuses to let the history of slavery remain a closed chapter that was never paid for.

South African motorists could face record petrol prices from October as the ongoing war in the Middle East has pushed global oil prices close to $100 per barrel for the first time since July.

The latest data from the Central Energy Fund points to increases of about R2 ($0.12) per liter for petrol. This would push the price of 95 ULP up to R28.05 at the coast and R28.92 in Gauteng, beating June’s all-time highs of R27.19 and R28.05, respectively.

Diesel is also set for a significant increase, with the data pointing to hikes of between R1.50 for 500ppm and R1.80 for 50ppm. This will push the price of 50ppm up to R30.29 at the coast and R31.85 inland, close to its all-time highs of R30.62 and R31.38, seen earlier this year.

This warning does come with a disclaimer, as the predictions are based on early-month data, which is a moving target, as much can still transpire in the markets between now and the end of this month.

October’s predicted increases come in the wake of steep price hikes in September, when petrol rose by R1.34 per litre and diesel by between R2.94 and R3.15.

First published by IOL

Russia has begun training Ugandan health specialists in infection-control measures, Russia’s public health watchdog announced on Tuesday. The program comes as the East African nation remains on alert for Ebola, which continues to spread in neighboring DR Congo and has killed more than 3,200 people.

Ten specialists from Uganda’s Health Ministry and leading research institutions are taking part in the two-week course at the Erisman Institute of Disinfectology, according to Rospotrebnadzor.

The training covers Russia’s regulatory framework, methods, and equipment for disinfection, insect, and rodent control, as well as zoological and entomological surveillance. Participants will also conduct practical exercises and fieldwork. The initiative is part of its broader program to help African countries prevent infectious diseases and strengthen epidemiological preparedness.

Surveillance has continued due to the risk of further cross-border transmission. DR Congo has recorded 6,686 confirmed cases and 3,226 deaths, according to official figures reported on September 7.

No vaccine or specific treatment has been approved for the Bundibugyo strain driving the outbreak, which the WHO has classified as a public health emergency of international concern.

Moscow donated a mobile anti-epidemic laboratory to Uganda in 2024 and has supplied similar facilities to several other African countries, including Burundi, Ethiopia, Namibia, and the Republic of the Congo. More than 80 Ugandan specialists have received training in pathogen monitoring, disinfectology, laboratory diagnostics, and biosafety from Rospotrebnadzor’s scientific institutions, the agency said in May.

Western intervention in Libya worsened the security crises facing Nigeria and the Sahel by creating a vacuum that allowed armed groups to spread across the region, Nigerian Senator Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi told RT.

Abdullahi, who chairs the Senate Committee on National Intelligence and National Security, said that although the West African nation faced security challenges before the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, it was able to contain them.

He argued that Western governments removed Gaddafi “without any proper arrangement to maintain the security and unity of the Libyan state,” opening a major security gap across the Sahel.

“Several groups, armed groups, emerged. Some of them with religious agendas, some of them with ethnic agendas, some of them with separatist positions.”

Some attacks have specifically targeted Christian communities, including coordinated raids on three churches in Kaduna State in January in which more than 150 worshipers were abducted.

The violence drew criticism from US President Donald Trump, who designated Nigeria a “country of particular concern” last October over alleged violations of religious freedom, and claimed that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in the country. Trump threatened to halt US aid if Abuja fails to stop what he described as the killing of Christians.

Abuja rejected the characterization, saying it does not reflect the country’s reality or government efforts to protect religious freedom.

“The issue of Christian genocide is more or less a whitewash, and it’s promoted by people who want action in the United States, not to protect Christians, but to protect those Christians in the diaspora who want asylum in the United States,” he said.

The senator insisted that Abuja is willing to work with the US but will not accept “dictatorship or mentorship.” 
“Nigeria is free to choose who its friends are,” he said, adding that it can work with any country that understands its security needs.

The senator was visiting Moscow as part of a delegation seeking cooperation with Russian Railways on rehabilitating infrastructure in northwestern Nigeria. He said the proposed long-term partnership could help transform the region into a transport hub serving Nigeria and the wider West African region.

Hafidh Ameir Hassan, the husband of Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, has died while undergoing treatment for a heart condition in the country’s semi-autonomous Zanzibar archipelago, the government has announced.

Vice President Deogratius Ndejembi said Ameir died at around 8 AM local time on Monday at Emilio Mzena Memorial Hospital. He extended condolences to the president, the bereaved family and the Tanzanian people.

The 80-year-old was buried later that day in Kizimkazi, South Unguja, in accordance with Islamic tradition. The funeral was attended by senior government and religious officials, including Ndejembi, Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba and Zanzibar President Hussein Ali Mwinyi.

African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf described Ameir’s death as a “difficult period” for President Samia and her family and wished them “strength, courage and solace.”

“For almost five decades he stood quietly beside her, through every season of her service to Tanzania. A companionship of that depth becomes part of who a person is. To lose it is to lose a portion of oneself, and I feel for her deeply,” Nigerian President Bola Tinubu also wrote on X.

He became Tanzania’s first gentleman when Samia assumed office in 2021 following the death of then-President John Magufuli. Samia became the country’s first female president and secured a second term in a disputed election last year.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has ordered amendments to the North African nation’s penal code allowing the execution of people convicted of abducting or severely abusing children.

The proposed directive came during a Council of Ministers meeting on Sunday, amid public outrage over the killing of a five-year-old in Blida Province last month. The boy disappeared in August and his body was later found burned in a forest near Bouinan. The National Gendarmerie said four suspects, including a woman, have been arrested, while a fifth remains at large.

Meriem Cherfi, head of Algeria’s National Body for the Protection and Promotion of Children, welcomed the measure, saying it would strengthen deterrence against crimes targeting minors.

Algeria ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in 2003, both of which require states to protect minors from violence, exploitation and abduction. However, the country is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Resuming executions would end a moratorium which has held in Algeria for more than three decades. The country retains capital punishment, and its courts continue to impose death sentences, but no execution has been carried out there since 1993.

Similar penalties exist elsewhere in Africa. Uganda permits death sentences for the aggravated sexual abuse of minors, including offenses against children under 14. Nigeria’s Kaduna State introduced the death penalty and surgical castration for adults convicted of raping children under 14 in 2020.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said his African National Congress (ANC) party is considering Electoral Court action over alleged technical glitches that affected candidate-list submissions ahead of local elections in November.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has rejected the ANC’s claims, saying there were no reports of a non-functional system when nominations closed at 5pm on August 28.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the ANC’s door-to-door campaign in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, on Friday, Ramaphosa said the problems were linked to the interface with the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) candidate-capture system.

”There were some glitches, glitches with regard to just the interface with the IEC system. The candidates’ list was there for the whole country. They were submitted, and in regard to those areas there were some glitches,” Ramaphosa said.

The ANC has disputed claims that it failed to submit its nominations on time, maintaining that technical problems affected some of its remaining entries. The Commission has also said it will not reopen the system to allow parties or independent candidates to submit nominations after the deadline.

The IEC said 2,274 candidate names were captured on its online system but were not finally submitted by the 5pm deadline on August 28. The names were linked to 45 political parties, with 480 potential proportional representation candidates and 1,794 potential ward candidates among them. The IEC has said these candidates are not in contention because, although their details had been captured, they had not been formally submitted to the Commission by the deadline.

Ramaphosa described the system error as limited, saying its impact was “containable and manageable." He said several political parties had experienced problems, but the ANC was particularly affected because it was submitting a large number of candidates.

”I’m certain that a solution will be found. The Political Party Liaison Committee, as well as the IEC and the parties themselves, will be able to find a solution,” Ramaphosa said, adding that the ANC was exploring different avenues to resolve the dispute.

First published by IOL

Niger has accused French President Emmanuel Macron’s government of inciting and supporting a failed mutiny by soldiers in the capital, Niamey, late last month and threatened possible international legal proceedings.

The Council of Ministers made the allegation following a meeting chaired by Nigerien transitional leader Abdourahamane Tiani on Friday. It described the unrest as an operation with “international ramifications” sustained by a network of collaborators headed by the “French regime.”

The military-led government said “treacherous and renegade elements, promised the moon and the stars, were tasked with carrying out the unfulfilled ambitions of Macron and his cronies” to destabilize the country and undermine its efforts to assert sovereignty over its natural resources. It said “substantial documentation on this aggression has been compiled, and Niger reserves the right to initiate proceedings before international courts.”

Soldiers from the Special Intelligence Battalion launched a mutiny at Air Base 101, located within Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, on the night of August 28. The country’s Defense Ministry said they detained fellow soldiers and opened fire on sensitive sites before advancing on the presidential palace, but were repelled by the Presidential Guard. The authorities said loyalist forces, assisted by Russia’s Africa Corps, suppressed the uprising. Three Presidential Guard soldiers were killed during the clashes, according to an official press release.

Niger and its AES allies Burkina Faso and Mali have repeatedly accused France of seeking to destabilize their countries and supporting armed groups behind a deadly jihadist insurgency in the Sahel. Paris has denied the allegations.

The UN General Assembly has adopted a nonbinding resolution promoting world maps that show Africa at its true relative size, following longstanding objections that the 16th-century Mercator projection makes the continent appear disproportionately small.

The “Correct the Map” resolution, sponsored by Togo on behalf of the African Group, passed on Friday by 164 votes. The US voted against it, while Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine abstained.

The measure encourages governments, schools, publishers, international institutions, and digital platforms to use Equal Earth or other equal-area projections when comparing the size of countries and continents. It neither bans Mercator nor establishes a single official UN map. The resolution also states that it does not affect international borders or territorial claims.

Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said correcting the map would restore an accurate understanding of the continent’s true dimensions. “A more faithful representation can help better cover Africa’s real wealth and potential, particularly in global economy and commercial dynamics,” Dussey told reporters.

Created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, the old projection preserves angles and was designed for maritime navigation. However, it increasingly enlarges landmasses closer to the poles. Greenland consequently appears comparable in size to Africa, although the continent is about 14 times larger.

The vote followed the launch of the Correct the Map campaign by Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa in April 2025. The initiative described Mercator’s continued dominance as “cartographic colonialism,” arguing that making Africa appear smaller influences education, identity, and perceptions of the continent’s global importance. Those wider social effects remain an argument advanced by campaigners rather than a feature of the projection itself.

Washington said the resolution “mocks the work and purpose” of the UN and promotes an “ideological agenda.” Ukraine objected to maps on the Equal Earth website depicting Crimea as politically separate from the rest of the country.

Russia also backed the measure, saying the widespread use of Mercator maps had entrenched a misleading perception of Africa’s size. Deputy Permanent Representative Maria Zabolotskaya said the resolution sought to “correct a long-entrenched disproportion” associated with the “heavy historical legacy of colonialism,” under which Africa’s “place and significance were diminished.”

#CorrectTheMap

The maps we use shape the way we see the world.

For centuries, the Mercator projection has distorted the true size of continents, making Africa appear far smaller than it is. In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland.

Led by the African Union… pic.twitter.com/j8DvTmfUn8

— Diplomatie Togolaise (@DiplomatieTogo) September 3, 2026

At least 25 people, mostly schoolchildren and teenagers, have died after a bus fell into a ravine on Cabo Verde’s island of Fogo. The deadly crash prompted the authorities of the archipelago nation to declare a two-day mourning period.

The accident occurred on Saturday, when the bus, carrying children on a field trip, plumetted off a cliff while en route to the village of Cha das Caldeiras. The village, known for its unique wines, is located within the large crater of the active Pico do Fogo volcano.

The annual trip was set up by a private individual. The organizer, who is believed to have been behind the wheel, was killed in the crash. Most of the 32 people aboard the bus were killed in the accident, while others received injuries of varying severity.

“I am heartbroken. This is an irreparable loss, a part of the future that is being said goodbye to: the overwhelming majority of the victims are young people and teenagers,” The country’s president, Jose Maria Pereira Neves, said in a Facebook post.

The president, alongside other top officials, attended the funeral of some 18 victims of the crash on Sunday, while other deceased were buried in a separate ceremony earlier in the day. The country’s authorities are investigating the accident.

The first 2,200 of 6,000 lockable baboon-proof bins are due to reach priority areas of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula from mid-September 2026, while a northern fence project awaits final environmental and administrative approvals.

The Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team (CPBMJTT), made up of SANParks, CapeNature and the City of Cape Town, said the rollout will initially focus on areas where baboon activity and conflict with residents have been reported most frequently.

According to the CPBMJTT, the process is expected to begin later in September once environmental checklists and administrative approvals have been completed. The task team said the fence is intended to prevent baboons from entering urban areas and farmland in the northern part of the peninsula, while securing habitat for an estimated 250 baboons.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed between seven wine-farm landowners bordering Table Mountain National Park in the Constantia Valley, the Cape Baboon Partnership and the City. The agreement sets out shared responsibilities for construction, maintenance and the long-term operation of the fence. The landowners and Cape Baboon Partnership will share the construction and upgrade costs, while the City has committed a once-off R10 million contribution.

The CPBMJTT said construction is expected to take about six months if all goes according to plan. Once the fence is in place, rangers will encourage the CT1 and CT2 troops towards the mountainside and will continue monitoring the troops and patrolling the fence.

The fence forms part of the approved Cape Peninsula Baboon Strategic Management Plan and is intended to create a clearer boundary between Table Mountain National Park and neighbouring agricultural and residential properties.

A Swansea University research project involving the Da Gama troop ended on August 21. The study tested non-invasive approaches using olfactory, auditory and visual cues to examine how baboons respond to simulated risks. The collars used during the research were designed to self-release and have now been collected. Data analysis is underway, with the findings expected to be made public once the study has been completed.

First published by IOL

South Africa’s Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) has recovered 8.3 billion rand ($519 million) in assets and funds linked to corruption, Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has said, while calling for those who enable graft to face prosecution.

Speaking at the University of Johannesburg’s Combating Corruption Summit on Wednesday, Kubayi said the AFU’s recoveries had increased from about R6 billion reported at last year’s summit.

“These successes are in part because of AFU strengthened collaboration work with anti-corruption task teams, inter-agency working group on illicit financial flows. These are systems that we’ve worked or we are working on, but also these are some of the work that we are doing in partnership, not only with government but also with private sector,” the minister stressed.

But she made it clear that recovering money could not be the end of the country’s anti-corruption efforts. Kubayi challenged professional bodies, particularly those representing accountants and lawyers, to show what action they had taken against members implicated in corruption.

The warning comes as state agencies intensify efforts to recover money and assets linked to corruption. Kubayi said the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had recovered assets and cash worth R936 million, against a target of R1 billion, over the past year.

”I need to highlight what is important about the work that is being done by SIU. SIU just doesn’t recover, but also, it’s able to stop contracts so that we don’t have to come back and recover,” Kubayi added.

The Tembisa Hospital corruption case is one example of the state’s efforts to recover the proceeds of corruption. The AFU secured a final forfeiture order for about R326 million in assets linked to businessman Hangwani Maumela, including luxury properties and vehicles. The SIU helped trace the assets.

OUTA Chief Executive Officer Wayne Duvenage said the recovery of stolen money was important but should not be mistaken for victory against corruption.

He added those involved needed to face consequences beyond losing the proceeds of their crimes. Duvenage said major corruption rarely happens in isolation, often involving officials, business people, and professionals who help structure deals, move money or disguise corrupt transactions.

“If those enablers believe that the worst that will happen is that some of the money may eventually be recovered, while they remain free to continue doing business, then the system isn’t creating sufficient deterrence,” he said.

Accountability Now Director Paul Hoffman SC believes the problem is even more fundamental, arguing that South Africa lacks an anti-corruption institution sufficiently independent from the executive.

”The problem at the moment is that South Africa does not have the necessary machinery of state to deal with corruption effectively and efficiently,” Hoffman noted. He also called for legislation creating an independent, stand-alone body to deal with corruption outside Cabinet control, arguing that the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority remain under political executive structures.

”Nothing is happening if there’s an arrest. Absolutely nothing. It only happens when there’s a prosecution and a conviction. Then something is happening,” Nel said. He added that the failure to prosecute was particularly concerning when politically connected individuals were involved and questioned why there were no consequences for prosecutors responsible for decisions not to prosecute.

First published by IOL

Somali forces have “decisively defeated” militias allegedly operating alongside Al-Shabaab after they launched an attack on Baidoa, the capital of South West State, the authorities have said.

The assault began at around 4:15 a.m on Thursday with explosions intended to cause panic among civilians, the East African nation’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. Fighting continued for several hours before subsiding in the afternoon.

The ministry said government troops inflicted heavy losses on fighters loyal to former South West State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen. It did not provide a casualty figure, but said an assessment was underway.

In a separate statement on Thursday, the South West State government said the attack began with two vehicle-borne explosive devices. It said its forces killed more than 40 Al-Shabaab fighters, wounded several others, and seized weapons and military equipment. Bay Regional Hospital received 71 wounded people, including 15 women, and one dead civilian, emergency department head Abdikafi Omar Mohamud told AP. Residents reportedly fled their homes as gunfire and explosions spread into residential areas.

The latest violence follows a prolonged standoff between Mogadishu and Laftagareen. The federal government rejected his disputed reelection in March and took control of Baidoa on March 30, prompting Laftagareen, who had governed South West since 2018, to announce his resignation.
Regional lawmakers elected former Somali parliament speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur Madobe as president of South West State in June.

Baidoa, which is about 245km northwest of Mogadishu, hosts more than half a million people displaced by conflict and drought. Al-Shabaab has waged an insurgency against Somalia’s government for nearly two decades and continues to control territory in parts of the country.

Russia is now training more African students than the Soviet Union did, Andrey Maslov, director of the HSE Center for African Studies, said on Friday at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok.

The number of students from African countries enrolled at Russian universities has reached a historic high of over 37,000 this year, Olga Petrova, Russian deputy minister of science and higher education, reported at the same session. The figure is up from around 17,500 in 2020, according to Fernando Jose Sambu, the representative of the African International Congress, a Russian-based international platform.

Russia has also expanded state-funded education opportunities for African students, a policy promoted by President Vladimir Putin at the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit.

The expert noted there is strong demand among African governments for Russian expertise in financial monitoring and cybersecurity.

“This is an area that African states are only just beginning to approach systematically in terms of understanding their role in protecting their national digital environments from external influence,” Maslov stated.

The HSE Center for African Studies has been running its E-Governance Knowledge Sharing Program since 2022, providing training for African government officials in the digitalization of public administration. Its first major training school in Moscow in 2023 brought together over 40 mid- and senior-level officials from 23 African countries. The program has since expanded to activities on the continent, including a training school on e-governance held in Tanzania in May 2026.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has reported an attempted drone strike on fuel tanks at a depot in the capital, Tripoli, in the latest attack targeting the conflict-torn country’s energy infrastructure.

The remotely controlled drone targeted the Brega fuel depot on Airport Road on Thursday morning, the NOC said in a statement. It initially reported no damage but raised emergency readiness at all sites and ordered teams to lower fuel levels in the tanks as a precaution.

NOC subsidiary Brega Petroleum Marketing Company later said inspectors had found damage to several pipelines and two tanks. According to the company, a suspected drone entered the depot’s airspace before crashing near one of the storage tanks. No casualties were reported.

NOC described the incident as a “dangerous indication” of attempts to target oil facilities through “acts of sabotage.” It warned that such attacks posed “a direct threat to the supply system and essential services,” including power generation, healthcare, and industry.

The assaults have compounded an electricity crisis that triggered protests across western Libya in July. Demonstrators demanding improved services and the resignation of Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah stormed the Mellitah energy complex and temporarily shut gas lines supplying power stations.

On August 30, representatives of the rival camps signed a UN-backed roadmap aimed at holding presidential and parliamentary elections within 24 months under a single executive authority.

Since April, US President Donald Trump’s adviser Massad Boulos has also promoted a power-sharing initiative in an attempt to resolve Libya’s political deadlock. In an RT opinion piece, Libyan academic Mustafa Fetouri argued that the plan could bypass the UN process, keep the rival Dbeibah and Haftar camps in power, and deepen the country’s division.

South Africa’s police service has fired Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan after he failed to appear for an expedited disciplinary process.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, SAPS (South African Police Service) said Khan was deemed dismissed in terms of the SAPS Discipline Regulations after failing to attend proceedings before the senior officer responsible for the disciplinary matter.

“The South African Police Service confirms the dismissal of Major General Feroz Khan from the Service,” the police said. SAPS reiterated its commitment to accountability and professional conduct, stressing that all members, regardless of rank, are subject to the same disciplinary framework.

“SAPS reiterates its commitment to accountability, discipline and professional conduct within the organisation. No member, regardless of rank or position, is above the law or the applicable disciplinary framework,” the statement read.

The police added that, because the matter has been the subject of legal proceedings, it would continue to respect court processes and would only provide further information where legally permissible.

Judge Connie Prinsloo found that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter and that Khan had failed to establish urgency. The ruling effectively cleared the way for SAPS to continue with the internal disciplinary proceedings.

Khan’s legal team had argued that the disciplinary hearing proceeded in his absence while he was receiving medical treatment following a shooting in Johannesburg in June. However, the court did not consider the merits of his case, focusing instead on jurisdiction and urgency.

Khan, who served as deputy national head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, has become one of the most prominent figures in South Africa’s ongoing policing crisis.

Khan remains under subpoena by the commission, although his appearance has been delayed because of medical concerns. Separately, Khan is facing criminal charges alongside Gauteng Hawks head Major-General Ebrahim Kadwa and businessman Tariq Downes.

The trio are accused of defeating the ends of justice and contravening the Precious Metals Act over allegations that they facilitated the release of a businessman found in possession of an unwrought gold bar in 2021. All three have denied wrongdoing and are out on bail pending the continuation of their criminal case.

First published by IOL

US ride-hailing company Uber has shut down operations in Nigeria and Uganda, ending a 12-year presence in Africa’s most populous nation and a decade of service in the East African country.

The withdrawals took effect on Wednesday following what Uber described as a “thorough review” of its business. The company did not disclose how many employees or drivers were affected, but said assistance would be available during the transition.

Uber said the closures were limited to the two markets and that it remains committed to Africa. The move coincided with a global Uber restructuring involving around 3,300 job cuts, equivalent to roughly 10% of its workforce. In a message published by the company on Wednesday, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the restructuring would reduce costs and free resources for investment in growth and innovation as Uber seeks to “build the autonomous future.”

The company launched in Lagos in 2014 and Kampala in 2016. Its African operations have faced persistent disputes over driver earnings, commission rates, and regulation.

The Nigerian exit also followed a dispute over access to airports operated by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. Uber denied that the issue prompted its departure, saying the decision reflected changing business priorities and investment plans. The shutdown leaves Bolt, inDrive, and the government-backed LagRide among Nigeria’s main alternatives.

In Uganda, Uber faced competition from platforms including SafeBoda and Faras, while drivers complained about low fares and high commissions. Local reports also cited rising operating costs and difficulties retaining drivers.

The latest exits limit Uber’s direct African presence to South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, and Morocco. Its technology is also used in Mauritius by Taxi by ala-lila, a locally managed service powered by Uber.

Mozambique and Zimbabwe have launched an expansion of the Beira-Harare fuel corridor that will increase pipeline capacity by 67% and boost fuel supplies to landlocked southern African markets, the pipeline operator CPMZ said on Wednesday. 

Presidents Daniel Chapo of Mozambique and Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe broke ground on the project, which is expected to raise annual capacity from 3 million to 5 million cubic meters by the end of 2027. The upgrade will allow the corridor to transport around two billion additional liters of fuel a year. 

“The stronger Beira-Harare corridor will support Zimbabwe’s energy security while creating greater capacity to serve markets beyond our borders,” Mnangagwa said. “It shows what Mozambique and Zimbabwe can achieve through cooperation around infrastructure of shared regional importance.”  

The Mozambican president noted the project would strengthen the country’s position as a gateway for regional trade and deepen infrastructure cooperation with Zimbabwe. 

CPMZ said it is also studying a longer-term upgrade that could raise the pipeline’s annual capacity to around 12 million cubic meters to meet projected demand through 2050.   

Mozambique does not produce crude oil or operate a refinery and relies on imports for its petroleum products. However, its Indian Ocean ports serve as an important gateway for fuel shipments to landlocked countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, and the DR Congo.  

Nigeria has confirmed that around 200 US troops deployed to support its fight against armed groups will begin leaving the West African country, with most expected to withdraw by late September.

A smaller advisory and intelligence team will remain, while cooperation in training and information sharing will continue, Nigerian military spokesperson Major General Samaila Uba said on Tuesday. “The deployment of United States personnel was tied to specific operational and counterterrorism objectives,” Uba said, according to AP.

The troops arrived in February to provide intelligence, targeting, and training support. Washington subsequently deployed MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drones to Bauchi Airfield in northeastern Nigeria. The mission came after US President Donald Trump accused the Nigerian authorities of failing to protect Christians and threatened military action.

Nigeria rejected claims that Christians were being systematically targeted, saying jihadist violence, banditry, and communal conflicts affect citizens of different faiths.

US Africa Command chief General Dagvin Anderson announced in July that most of the American troops had been withdrawn, saying the campaign had successfully degraded Islamic State’s leadership and disrupted its wider network. Samuel Memeh, chairman of Nigeria’s Democratic Leadership Alliance, disputed that assessment. Memeh told RT that the deployment had produced no significant improvement in security and argued that foreign forces alone could not defeat the country’s armed groups.

Lagos-based security consultancy SBM Intelligence said in a report last month that at least 7,825 people were abducted across Africa’s most populous nation between July 2025 and June 2026, a 66% increase from the previous 12-month period.

Africa should be granted permanent representation on the UN Security Council, Ghanaian President John Mahama said on Tuesday, arguing that the continent’s continued exclusion undermines the legitimacy of the body.

Speaking at a meeting marking the 65th anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Belgrade, Serbia, Mahama said that the current international system does not reflect global realities.

“It is no longer acceptable for Africa to be excluded from permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council,” Ghanaian president said.

Mahama also urged NAM members to turn their numerical strength into greater political influence, while preserving the group’s independence and translating statements into diplomatic action.

The Ghanaian leader cited the adoption of a UN General Assembly resolution recognizing the slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity as an example of what countries of the Global South can achieve through collective action.

The Security Council currently has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US – and ten elected members serving two-year terms. Three African countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Somalia – currently hold non-permanent seats. Africa, despite having 54 UN member states, has no permanent representation on the body.

Calls for permanent African representation on the UN Security Council have intensified in recent years. African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf has described the continent’s exclusion as a “historical injustice,” while leaders including Kenyan President William Ruto have backed at least two permanent African seats with veto powers. 

Russia has also backed greater African representation. President Vladimir Putin has called for the body to be expanded to include countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

Since early 2026, there’s been a noticeable thaw in relations between Algeria and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Relations between Algeria and members of the AES had been suspended in 2025 after a diplomatic fallout. However, in March-April 2026, diplomatic reconciliation with Niger was suddenly announced, followed by the official launch of the normalization process with Burkina Faso. On July 10-11, Mali and Algeria announced the reinstatement of ambassadors and the lifting of air travel restrictions.

In April 2025, ties were severed following an incident involving the interception of a Malian drone by the Algerian armed forces near the shared border. All three AES member countries condemned the incident as a hostile act and recalled their ambassadors from Algeria. In response, Algeria also recalled its diplomatic representatives from Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou for consultations. However, the roots of the disagreements run much deeper: The events of 2025 marked the culmination of tensions that had accumulated for several years.

The rapprochement of recent months paves the way for Algeria to regain its former influence in the region. For many years, Algeria has positioned itself as the main bulwark of stability as well as a mediator and a security buffer in the Sahel, leveraging its geographic proximity, shared ethnic ties with the peoples of the desert, and its experience in the long and bloody anti-colonial war and the fight against terrorism and migration crises.

Complex situation in the Sahel

The situation in the Sahel remains extremely fragile. Since 2020, a series of internal and terrorist uprisings and eight coups have occurred in the region. The presence of Islamic extremists on the borders with Mali and Niger poses a direct threat to Algeria’s national security. 

The regional balance of power in the Sahel region underwent radical changes following the Arab Spring. The outbreak of civil war in Libya in 2011 and the NATO intervention that led to the overthrow and death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi created a power vacuum that facilitated the spread of extremist groups in the Western Sahel. Gaddafi’s assassination after 42 years in power also strengthened the Tuareg separatist movement in Mali. Furthermore, ethnic Tuareg soldiers who had been part of the Libyan Army returned to Mali with military equipment and combat experience. 

The events of the 2012 uprising in Mali were unprecedented: For the first time, they involved not only anti-government Tuareg movements but also Salafi-jihadist groups that purged Azawad region of those who supported its independence, captured the major cities of Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal, and established the so-called Islamic State of Azawad.

Mali’s call for international assistance to restore order led to the deployment of UN and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) missions to the country, as well as the deployment of French forces as part of Operation Serval and the subsequent Operation Barkhane.

Following the events of 2012, the Sahel region entered a deep crisis. Groups linked to the terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) spread from central Mali into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, while Boko Haram, which operated in Nigeria, pledged allegiance to IS in 2015 and invaded southern Niger.

How Algeria interacts with the Tuaregs

The Sahel region is of great strategic importance to Algeria due to its geographical location and historical role as a regional ‘heavyweight’. The situation along Algeria’s southern border (Mali and Algeria share a 1,300-kilometer border) could certainly pose a threat to its security.

Algeria has participated in all the negotiations on the Malian crises since the uprising in the 1990s. Algerian diplomatic efforts have repeatedly brought the conflicting parties to the negotiating table, ultimately leading to peace, with Algeria positioning itself as the traditional mediator between the Malian government and the Tuaregs and the guarantor of the peace agreements.

In 1991, the Tamanrasset Accords were concluded with Algeria’s mediation; in 2006, the Algiers Accord for the Restoration of Peace, Security, and Development in the Kidal Region was signed; and on June 20, 2015, following negotiations in Algiers, the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali was signed.

Algeria itself has experience in interacting with Berber (Tuareg) communities. Since the late 1960s, the Algerian authorities have succeeded in integrating the Tuareg population into the political process. Prominent Tuareg figures have gained representation in parliament and other government bodies, and many communities settled in the south of the country, where improved infrastructure was built.

While Algerian politicians sympathize with Mali’s Tuareg community, they are suspicious of their separatist aspirations, which they view as a threat to Algeria’s national security and territorial integrity.

Algeria also holds a negative view of foreign military involvement in the Malian conflict, believing it could strengthen jihadist ideology and consolidate separatist sentiments in the region. This, in turn, would lead to an influx of refugees to Algeria, which already hosts about 20,000 Malian refugees who arrived in the early 2010s. Algeria is also concerned that its own role in the region may be undermined. In particular, Operation Serval, launched by France in 2013, was perceived as interference in its zone of influence.

What do gas and migrants have to do with it?

The stability of Algeria’s 951-kilometer southern border with Niger is also vital for Algeria. And it’s not only because of the threats of cross-border terrorism, organized crime, and illegal immigration flows, but also because of the potential impact of massive investments in various regional projects.

These include the ambitious 4,100-kilometer Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) project to export natural gas from Nigeria to Europe via Niger and Algeria, as well as the approximately 4,800-kilometer Trans-Sahara Highway, connecting Algiers with Lagos and also passing through Niger.

Following the significant changes that occurred in Niger in the wake of the 2023 military coup, Algeria stepped up efforts to resolve the situation. In late August 2023, Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf announced at a press conference that Algeria would present the international community with an initiative on Niger, including a plan for a political resolution of the crisis with a six-month civilian-led transition period. However, in October, Algeria’s initiative was frozen due to Niamey’s refusal to accept Algerian mediation.

In January 2024, Mali’s transitional government announced the termination of the peace agreement signed in 2015 between the Bamako authorities and the Tuareg rebels of Azawad. The cited reasons were “hostile actions” and interference in Mali’s internal affairs by the main mediator, Algeria. Among other complaints, Mali accused Algeria of hosting the offices of some groups that signed the 2015 accord and have turned into “terrorist actors.”

From a border incident to a regional crisis

For Algeria, Mali’s rejection of the agreement was more than just a cancellation of a diplomatic document; it undermined the model of regional settlement on which Algerian policy had been built for decades.

The long-standing contradictions culminated in the events that occurred in the spring of 2025. On the night of March 31-April 1, Algerian air defense forces shot down a Malian reconnaissance drone near the border region of Tin Zaouatine. The Algerian side claimed that the UAV had crossed the state border and posed a security threat. Mali rejected this version and called Algeria’s actions aggression. The military leadership of Burkina Faso and Niger, which had formed an alliance with Mali as part of the AES, supported Bamako’s position.

The response was almost immediate: The three countries recalled their ambassadors from Algeria, and Algeria followed suit. Air traffic between Algeria and Mali was suspended. In public rhetoric, the conflict quickly expanded beyond the issue of the drone’s trajectory. AES leaders presented the incident as an attack on the entire confederation, while Algeria saw it as a result of the collapse of previous security mechanisms on its southern borders.

Why did Algeria seek rapprochement?

Algeria’s restoration of relations with its southern neighbors is not simply a gesture of goodwill. For Algeria, vital interests are at stake. Firstly, the situation in the Sahel has a direct impact on the national security of Algeria, which shares long borders with Mali and Niger. The routes of armed groups, smugglers, illegal migrants, and arms trafficking groups pass through the desert regions. Severed political channels hinder intelligence sharing and increase the risk of the loss of control over the border regions.

Secondly, Algeria seeks to prevent the Sahel from becoming the exclusive sphere of influence of other external players. AES countries have severed ties with France, accusing it not only of failing to contain jihadists but also of funding terrorist groups in the region. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have turned to Russia.

The Africa Corps, an expeditionary unit of the Russian Defense Ministry deployed in Mali from late 2024, provides training and combat support to national forces as part of a partnership with the alliance. Türkiye has strengthened its position as a supplier of drones and military equipment.

Morocco, a permanent rival of Algeria, is developing its own political and economic initiatives in West Africa. Under these circumstances, Algeria cannot afford to remain diplomatically isolated from its neighbors with whom it shares borders, history, and infrastructure interests.

Negotiations with Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali

In February 2026, Nigerien leader Abdourahamane Tiani’s visit to Algeria was presented as a turning point. The parties agreed to intensify bilateral mechanisms, infrastructure cooperation, personnel training, and contacts in the field of energy. At the same time, the two countries reinstated their ambassadors and the governments agreed to maintain high-level relations and intensify bilateral consultations.

Following a failed military mutiny at Niamey’s Air Base 101 on August 29, Algeria assured the Nigerien authorities of its “firm support” and dispatched four Su-30 fighter jets, accompanied by an Il-76 military transport aircraft and an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker.

With Burkina Faso, the normalization process was less visible to the public. Following the April 2025 crisis, Ouagadougou continued to criticize Algiers, but maintained interest in cooperation in the fields of mining, energy, and personnel training. In March 2026, analysts noted that the thaw in relations between Algeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso had created the conditions for a full resumption of cooperation.

Reaching an agreement with Mali was the most difficult part of the process. Bamako occupies a central place in Algeria’s Sahel policy: here, issues of cross-border security, the Tuareg movement, and rivalry between regional powers intersect. However, rapprochement with Niger and Burkina Faso could not have occurred without the approval of Mali, which is closely associated with them within the AES.

On July 10, 2026, Algeria announced the reinstatement of its ambassador in Bamako and the full opening of its airspace to Malian aircraft. Mali responded with similar measures. Official contacts also resumed. Recently, the Algerian government announced an upcoming visit by the Malian prime minister, General Abdoulaye Maiga, to Algiers, marking another step toward resolving the crisis.

According to some reports, this rapprochement was facilitated by external mediators, including Russia, which considers both countries its key strategic partners in the region. However, it remains unclear whether agreements have been reached on issues such as the drone dispute and the status of the 2015 agreement. There has also been no announcement regarding the restoration of Algeria’s previous role as mediator.

The most obvious result is that Algeria may again become a mediator on issues such as ceasefires, prisoner exchanges, border control, and interaction between local communities. However, success will depend on whether it can abandon its mentoring role and engage with AES military governments as equal partners.

For the Sahel countries, the benefits are also clear. They need additional external partners who would not be tied to the former colonial system and would lack immediate political demands. Algeria can offer access to Mediterranean ports, educational programs, medical cooperation, energy projects, and diplomatic support in international organizations.

The restoration of relations does not mean that Algeria would return to its former hegemony. A new political environment has emerged in the Sahel. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have formed their own alliance and are demonstrating a desire to pursue an independent foreign policy. Russia has become an important military-political partner for them. France has lost much of its former influence, and West African institutions are experiencing a profound crisis.

Recent months have highlighted an important feature of Algeria’s strategy: It is based not on an attempt to force the military governments of the Sahel to return to their former political models but rather on the recognition of their de facto existence. Algeria may criticize the coups while simultaneously negotiating with the military forces that have come to power. This flexibility is consistent with its traditional diplomacy based on the principles of sovereignty and non-interference.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has been sworn in for a second term following a disputed election marked by the arrest of his main challenger and the fatal shooting of a former minister.

Hichilema took the oath at National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka on Tuesday before thousands of supporters and African leaders, including the presidents of Kenya, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

The Electoral Commission declared Hichilema the winner of the southern African nation’s August 13 election with about 60% of the vote, compared with around 38% for opposition candidate Brian Mundubile.

Mundubile went into hiding after security forces raided his residence on August 14. Former cabinet minister Mutotwe Kafwaya was fatally shot and 11 people were arrested during the operation. Police said officers encountered gunfire while targeting a suspected militia and recovered military-grade weapons. Mundubile denied that his supporters were armed and described the raid as an attempt on his life.

Mundubile and his running mate, Makebi Zulu, later sought refuge at a UN building before surrendering to police. They have since been charged with treason, which they deny, and transferred to Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison.
Addressing the election violence in his inauguration speech, Hichilema said political differences were inevitable in a democracy but warned that “the pursuit of political power must never come at the expense of peace, security and stability in our country.”

Zambia has held largely peaceful elections and transfers of power since restoring multiparty politics in 1991, although previous votes have also been marred by violence. Hichilema himself was detained on a treason charge in 2017 while serving as opposition leader and spent four months in a maximum-security prison before the state withdrew the charge and released him. Four years later, he defeated then-President Edgar Lungu and was sworn into office on August 2021.

The families of 32 Kenyans killed in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash will receive a combined $87.3 million in compensation from Boeing, Kenyan media reported on Monday.

This comes more than seven years after a Boeing 737 MAX crashed shortly after leaving Addis Ababa for Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board, including 32 Kenyans, on March 10, 2019. Less than five months earlier, Lion Air Flight 610, the same Boeing aircraft model, crashed in Indonesia, killing all 189 people aboard.

The Kenyan families will receive $87,343,352.60 in total, The Star reported, citing Chicago-based Ribbeck Law Chartered. The firm represents 93 families affected by the two 737 MAX disasters.

“We have now concluded the legal work on behalf of our clients in the United States, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia,” Manuel von Ribbeck of Ribbeck Law Chartered said. “Boeing will begin compensating our clients immediately pursuant to the non-prosecution agreement entered into with the US Department of Justice.”

The Justice Department charged Boeing in 2021 with defrauding US aviation regulators after two of the company’s technical pilots concealed information from the Federal Aviation Administration about the 737 MAX flight control system. Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the department that year and agreed to establish a $500 million fund for the families of the 346 people killed in the two crashes.

The US officials determined in 2024 that Boeing breached the terms of that agreement. The department later reached a new non-prosecution agreement with the company in 2025, which included an additional $444.5 million for the victims’ families.

A Brussels court has ordered Belgian biometrics company Semlex and 13 other defendants to stand trial over alleged corruption, money laundering, and tax fraud linked to a contract to produce passports for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo).

The Brussels Council Chamber referred the defendants to a criminal court on Monday following an investigation lasting nearly nine years, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Transparency International said in a joint statement. Both organizations joined the proceedings as civil parties.

A spokesperson for the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said Semlex and an unspecified number of its employees have been referred for trial, according to Reuters. No trial date has been announced.

In May 2020, 51 Congolese citizens, supported by the ‘Congo Is Not For Sale’ coalition, filed a civil action to join the Belgian investigation into alleged foreign bribery, money laundering, and tax fraud linked to the Semlex passport contract. The International Federation for Human Rights, the Human Rights League, UNIS, Transparency International, and its Belgian branch later joined the proceedings as civil parties.

“We have a right to know where our money went,” Congolese activist and claimant Fred Bauma said, adding that “this trial will finally shed light on the matter.”

Semlex has not publicly commented on the court’s decision. The company previously said it was the target of a smear campaign.

In June 2025, the Congolese government replaced the Semlex passport system with a new $75 biometric passport produced by German firm Dermalog.

Passport-related corruption has also caused controversy elsewhere in Africa. Former Comoros President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022 over the illegal sale of passports under a citizenship program that prosecutors claimed had cost the country more than $1.8 billion.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has ordered the restoration of capital punishment for deliberate arson following wildfires that killed at least 12 people and injured dozens across the country.

Tebboune instructed the government on Sunday to amend the Penal Code before September 15 to impose the death penalty “with immediate execution” for people convicted of deliberately starting fires.

Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb said on Monday that the justice minister had been tasked, in coordination with the secretary-general of the government, with preparing the draft for consideration by the Council of Ministers before its referral to Parliament.

If implemented, the measure would mark a significant departure from Algeria’s de facto moratorium on executions. Courts have continued to impose death sentences, but the North African country has not carried out an execution since 1993.

The move follows devastating fires that broke out on August 26 and swept through several northern provinces. Interior Minister Said Sayoud put the official death toll at 12. He said at least 54 people were injured in the province of Bejaia, six of them critically.

Algeria has repeatedly suffered deadly summer wildfires. At least 90 people, including soldiers deployed in rescue operations, were killed when blazes devastated the Kabylie region in August 2021. Following those fires and related violence, dozens of suspects were handed death sentences.

Investigations have been opened into the origins of the fires, although the authorities have not concluded that all were deliberately started. In July, four suspects were placed in pretrial detention in three separate cases involving alleged deliberate fires on forest land, according to the Algerian Press Service.

More than 6,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) since the latest outbreak began, with nearly half of confirmed patients dying from the disease, according to government figures published on Monday.

The outbreak has spread to 60 health zones across six provinces – Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and Tshopo. Ituri remains the worst affected, with 28 of its 36 health zones reporting cases, followed by North Kivu with 15. The country has recorded 6,041 confirmed cases and 2,911 deaths, putting the case fatality rate at 48.2%.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday that the outbreak continues to worsen. “Although surveillance has expanded, numbers of cases and deaths continue to rise due to sustained transmission and geographic expansion,” the agency said in a post on X.

The outbreak, which was declared in May, is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola and has become the largest recorded in DR Congo’s history, surpassing the country’s 2018-2020 epidemic. There are currently no approved vaccines or specific treatments for the Bundibugyo strain.

International organizations have also stepped up in support for the response. On Monday, vehicles were handed over to health authorities and Red Cross teams in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo Province, to help contain the outbreak. “Sustained attention and resources for the Ebola response in DRC remain essential,” Ariel Kestens, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) head of delegation, said on X.

Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Ebola outbreak a “human tragedy affecting families [and] communities on an extraordinary scale.”

Around 200 members of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have defected to the army, state media reported on Sunday. 

The fighters reached Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, where they were received by units of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and members of the SAF-aligned Revolutionary Awakening Council, the state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. The group was led by Abubakr Hamouda Dahloub, identified as the RSF intelligence chief in North Kordofan.

Dahloub said the group had broken with the RSF leadership and was prepared to take part in military operations alongside the army and allied forces. Anadolu Agency quoted him as saying the fighters had realized “their mistake in following the project being implemented by the RSF militia.” The RSF has not publicly commented on the reported defection.  

The latest move follows other defections reported by the Sudanese authorities in recent weeks. Sudan Tribune said two groups had surrendered to the army in Northern State during the previous three weeks. Other reports said hundreds of fighters and several commanders had left the RSF in August and joined forces aligned with the military.

The defections come as the army has reported gains on several fronts. On Friday, the SAF said it had repelled an attack by the RSF and its allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) faction on Fazughli in the southeastern Blue Nile region. 

The Sudanese Army recently recaptured Kurmuk in Blue Nile state and, in late July, regained several areas in North Kordofan from the RSF, including Bara, Jabra al-Sheikh, and Um Sayala. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander-in-chief of the SAF and the chairman of the country’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, subsequently visited frontline positions in the region.

Libya’s rival political and military institutions have signed a UN-backed roadmap aimed at holding presidential and parliamentary elections within 24 months. The move comes after 15 years of instability triggered by the NATO-backed uprising that overthrew longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The agreement was signed on Sunday at the headquarters of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) in Tripoli, following several rounds of talks that concluded in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, on August 20. The talks involved two representatives from each of four major institutions: the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU), the High Council of State, the eastern-based House of Representatives, and the Libyan National Army.

Walid Ellafi, the unity government’s minister of state for political affairs, said the elections would be held “within a period not exceeding 24 months” under a single executive authority and unified national institutions. The roadmap seeks to resolve longstanding disputes over electoral laws and reform the national election commission. Shibani AbuHamoud, head of the army delegation, said the participants would work with UNSMIL to establish an implementation mechanism within one month.

The deal is the latest in a series of attempts to end Libya’s political deadlock. The North African nation descended into conflict following the NATO-backed uprising that ousted Gaddafi in 2011. The country split between rival eastern and western administrations in 2014.

The latest roadmap states that military personnel “shall be permitted to participate in the presidential election as candidates and voters.” Dual nationals would also be allowed to run, although a successful candidate would have to renounce any foreign citizenship before taking the constitutional oath.

The plan would also eliminate a mandatory second round when a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, require presidential hopefuls to secure 20,000 endorsements from across Libya, and remove the existing linkage between presidential and parliamentary election results.

South Africa’s National Consumer Commission (NCC) has announced a safety recall affecting 2,275 Ford Ranger Double-Cab vehicles produced for the 2026-2027 model year.

According to the consumer watchdog, Ford reported that the side curtain airbags in the affected vehicles may interact with the B-pillar trim when deployed. This could cause the trim to detach and become a projectile, increasing the risk of injury to occupants.

”The affected vehicles were sold nationwide between May 22, 2026 and June 23, 2026 through Ford franchised dealers and were also exported to Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini.”

The commission added that affected vehicle owners should take their vehicles to their nearest authorised Ford dealership for inspection and repair. The remedial work will be carried out at no cost to consumers.

”The NCC will be monitoring this and other recalls to ensure all affected vehicles in South Africa are attended to.”

Last month, the commission confirmed the recall of 314 Nissan Qashqai vehicles over a potential fuel pipe defect that could lead to a fuel leak.

It also announced the recall of 507 Toyota Land Cruiser 300 vehicles and 124 Lexus LX600 models because manufacturing debris in the engine could cause the main bearings to fail, potentially resulting in an engine stall while driving.

The commission urged owners of affected vehicles to visit authorised dealerships for inspections and repairs, which would be carried out at no cost.

First published by IOL

Countries involved directly or indirectly in the transatlantic slave trade have a present-day legal obligation to provide broad reparations for the harm caused, a UN racial discrimination committee has said.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination made the case in General Recommendation 40, published on Monday as the UN marked the International Day for People of African Descent. The document provides a new interpretation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which has 182 state parties.

“States parties must implement comprehensive reparatory measures for people of African descent, covering all aspects of remedies,” the 18-member panel said.

Committee member Pela Boker-Wilson separately told AFP that the findings marked a “paradigm shift” from treating reparations as a historical responsibility to recognizing them as a present-day legal obligation linked to continuing racial discrimination.

The recommendations are not legally binding, but the panel said they carry authoritative weight and could guide courts, governments, and future litigation.

The US, Israel, and Argentina opposed it, while 52 countries, including Britain and all European Union members, abstained. Washington has argued that international law did not establish a right to reparations for conduct that was not considered unlawful when it occurred.

Russia, which supported the resolution, has pledged to back African states seeking reparations from former colonial powers, with former President Dmitry Medvedev arguing that they have “neither legal nor moral grounds” to evade reparatory justice.

On Sunday, Ghanaian President John Mahama told African leaders at a summit in Angola’s capital, Luanda, that reparations, “a topic once considered taboo, is now reshaping global diplomacy.”

“We see the return of looted African artefacts, legislative repeals like France’s Code Noir, and historic acknowledgments and commitments from global institutions,” Mahama said.

The Somali and Turkish navies killed 14 pirates during an operation to free a hijacked cargo ship off Somalia’s coast, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The MV Latuf was seized by pirates on August 17 in waters off Jifle in Somalia’s northeastern Nugaal region. Somali forces, working alongside the Turkish Navy, carried out a ten-day operation to regain control of the vessel, according to the ministry. Four boats used by the pirates were destroyed during the operation.

The Cameroonian-flagged MV Latuf has since been returned to the control of Somali forces and resumed its journey. MarineTraffic data shows that the vessel departed Türkiye in late July and was bound for the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam.

PRESS RELEASE

The Turkish Navy, working with the Somali National Armed Forces, has freed cargo ship 𝗠𝗩 𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗙 following a 10-day anti-piracy operation off Jifle, Eyl District. The vessel is secure and has safely resumed its voyage.
Full statement below. pic.twitter.com/JdnL7hO5mq

— MoD Somalia 🇸🇴 (@MoDSomaliya) August 29, 2026

The Turkish Defense Ministry commented on the operation on Thursday, saying on X that “the Somali Turkish Task Force Command continues its support for developing Somalia’s capacity to combat terrorism and piracy within the framework of the agreements signed between the two countries.”

🔵🇹🇷 Türkiye supports vessel hijacked off 🇸🇴Somalia

🔸Turkish Ministry of National Defence: "The Somali Turkish Task Force Command continues its support for developing Somalia’s capacity to combat terrorism and piracy within the framework of the agreements signed between the two… pic.twitter.com/bdqS5CdOJp

— Defence Turk English (@Defence_Turk_EN) August 27, 2026

Somalia and Türkiye signed a ten-year defense and economic cooperation agreement in 2024, under which Ankara is helping to build, train and equip the Somali Navy. The deal also covers maritime security and efforts to combat piracy and illegal fishing along Somalia’s coastline.

The latest seizure follows another piracy incident in the region in July. Seven armed pirates hijacked the Tanzanian-flagged fuel and chemical tanker MT Asana in the Gulf of Aden after it left Yemen’s Mukalla port. The vessel, which had 20 crew members on board, was heading to Somalia’s Bosaso when the attackers seized it and forced it into Somali territorial waters near Puntland.

Nigerien forces have regained control of a strategic airbase in the capital, Niamey, after suppressing a military mutiny that triggered hours of gunfire near the presidential palace, the airport, and other government sites.

The unrest began overnight from Friday into Saturday at Air Base 101, located inside the Diori Hamani International Airport complex. The Nigerien Defense Ministry initially described it as an internal “movement of discontent” involving soldiers who had broken military regulations.

Moscow’s ambassador to Niamey, Viktor Voropayev, later confirmed that Russia’s Africa Corps had helped Nigerien forces suppress the mutiny after the command of Air Base 101 requested assistance.

A group of soldiers at Air Base 101 attempted to detain some of their fellow servicemen before firing at several “sensitive sites” in Niamey, Defense Minister General Salifou Mody said in a statement broadcast by state television.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were subsequently reported around the airport and the Plateau district, which contains the presidential palace, government ministries, and several major hotels. The mutineers reportedly tried to advance on the presidential palace but were repelled by the presidential guard. The signal of state broadcaster RTN was disrupted for more than an hour amid reports that soldiers had briefly entered the premises.

The Defense Ministry said the rapid deployment of the security forces had contained the uprising and allowed the authorities to begin recovering the affected positions. Residents were urged to remain calm and continue their normal activities.

Air Base 101 is particularly important because it houses Nigerien aircraft, Russia’s Africa Corps personnel, and the headquarters of the joint force established by Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

How was the airbase retaken from the mutineers?

Government forces regained control of Air Base 101 after the remaining mutineers surrendered or were dislodged late on Saturday, according to state media and several international news agencies.

Radio Television du Niger broadcast images of detained soldiers and reported that dozens of those involved had been killed or arrested. The authorities have not released an official casualty figure or identified the alleged organizers.

Russian Ambassador Voropayev told RT that the situation was fully under government control and that the mutineers had been “neutralized.” He described the attacks as coordinated, citing gunfire in several districts and the reported attempt to seize the national broadcaster.

Involvement of Russia’s Africa Corps in the government’s response

Russia’s Africa Corps aided Nigerien forces in suppressing the mutiny after the command of Air Base 101 asked for assistance, Ambassador Voropayev said. Africa Corps personnel subsequently provided ground and aerial support to loyalist forces attempting to recover the base, multiple outlets, including AP, reported.

After the base was retaken, Niger’s chief of the general staff, army chief of staff, and the commander of Air Base 101 visited the Africa Corps base at the airport. They “expressed gratitude to its servicemen for their assistance in suppressing the rebellion,” Voropayev separately told TASS.

The Africa Corps, which operates under the Russian Defense Ministry, has been stationed in Niger since 2024. Its personnel provide training, equipment and security assistance under agreements signed after Niamey cut military ties with France and the US.

How has the international community responded?

Russia expressed solidarity with Niger and pledged continued support for Niamey’s fight against extremists, “including those incited by former European colonial powers.”

Algeria condemned the unrest and assured the Nigerien authorities of its “full solidarity” and “firm support.” Niger said four Algerian Su-30 fighter jets, accompanied by an Il-76 military transport aircraft and an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker, landed in Niamey on Sunday as part of Algeria’s “strategic support” for its military.

Türkiye called for restraint to preserve Niger’s security and stability, saying it would “continue to stand in solidarity with Niger and support its people.”

Egypt called for the preservation of state institutions, national unity and territorial integrity, while Saudi Arabia pledged support for efforts to safeguard Niger’s security, sovereignty and resources.

The AES issued a statement on Saturday condemning the mutiny as a destabilization attempt and reaffirming its “full support” for Niger.

The group, currently chaired by Burkinabe transitional leader Captain Ibrahim Traore, praised the loyalty and courage of Nigerien security forces. It also urged people across its member states to “remain vigilant against disinformation campaigns, manipulation of public opinion and attempts to sow division.”

The uprising represents the most serious reported internal challenge to the transitional authorities since General Abdourahamane Tchiani led the July 2023 military coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

The failed mutiny also comes amid growing security partnership between Russia and the three military-led AES states. Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have turned to Moscow for counterterrorism support after accusing their Western partners of failing to contain the insurgency and severing longstanding defense ties with their former colonial power, France.

Two passenger jets flying just meters above a stadium in South Africa on Saturday have caused a stir on social media, with people describing it as a “near collision” and expressing safety concerns. The maneuver was part of a pre-match show ahead of a rugby game between the South African and New Zealand national teams.

Videos of two Embraer airliners overflying the Cape Town rugby stadium full of people quickly went viral on social networks. Clips ranging from mere seconds to several minutes showed a tight formation consisting of an Embraer E195 and a smaller Embraer E190 wearing black and green liveries with ‘Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry’ written on their hulls flying past the stadium as pyrotechnic smoke was shot into the air.

Some social media posts called the flyby “alarmingly low” while others said the planes came “dangerously close” to the stadium or even “almost hit the roof.” Some people on social media also called the flyover moment “terrifying.” The Flightradar24 aircraft tracker estimated that the two aircraft flew just between 12 and 14 meters above the roof.

A pair of Airlink Embraer E-195s nearly collided with Cape Town’s DHL Stadium while conducting a flyover this afternoon.

The first jet cleared the stadium roof by a few meters, while the second was hit by the stadium pyrotechnics. pic.twitter.com/nJmCGgQT1R

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 29, 2026

The Airlink Airlines – the company that organized the flyby – addressed what it called “concerns expressed in various social media and online forums,” insisting that the flights were absolutely safe and coordinated with the relevant authorities.

“The South African Civil Aviation Authority and Air Traffic Navigation Services provided valuable guidance, approval, and support to ensure a safe flyby,” the company said in a statement on Sunday. According to Airlink, both jets were piloted by “highly experienced” crews, each comprised of three senior captains operating as a commander, co-pilot, and a safety officer. The flights were performed within the “approved and rehearsed safety altitude and speed limits for the flypast,” it added.

📹 Watch These Planes Swoop Incredibly Low Over Cape Town Stadium

Two Airlink passenger planes flew just metres above the stadium roof before the South Africa-New Zealand rugby Test. pic.twitter.com/3VdCdE1WoJ

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 30, 2026

According to local media, the stadium flybys were part of a South African rugby tradition dating back to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final when a massive South African Airways Boeing 747 flew over Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg at low altitude.

Saturday’s feat came ahead of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry match – part of a special quadrennial tour series between South Africa and New Zealand. South Africans won the game 33-26.

For nearly a year, Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s senior advisor on Arab, Middle Eastern, and African Affairs, has aggressively pursued a diplomatic circuit connecting Tripoli, Benghazi, Paris, Rome, and Abu Dhabi. His primary objective is to push a transactional political settlement designed to resolve Libya’s administrative paralysis and the internal west-east divide by formalizing an alliance between the country’s rival power centers.

Taking shape behind closed doors since last September, first in Rome then across other capitals, the core mechanism of this US-brokered blueprint is a restructuring of the executive presidency: placing Saddam Haftar (Commander of Ground Forces in eastern Libya and deputy to his father) at the helm of a reformed Presidential Council, while keeping Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh as Prime Minister. Rather than fostering a democratic transition, the framework accepts state fragmentation as a permanent reality, securing the Dbeibeh administration in the west and the Haftar family network in the east as a dynastic duopoly.

Treating this unwritten transactional design as a national settlement fundamentally misreads the crisis.

Rather than establishing a legally grounded framework for general elections or dismantling entrenched militia networks, the arrangement codifies an elite duopoly. By relying on temporary financial distributions and supervised unified military drills to broker a top-down truce, Washington is mistaking a fragile pact between ruling families for actual state-building – guaranteeing that Libya’s hydrocarbon wealth continues to line the pockets of an entrenched cartel at the expense of its people.

Crucially, the Boulos initiative operates as an unwritten diplomatic push devoid of statutory grounding. By ignoring the foundational UN Security Council resolutions that grant legal mandate to external mediation, Washington’s ad-hoc gamble lacks the institutional backing required to bind local actors. Furthermore, the plan offers no long-term enforcement mechanisms. It relies on current US political backing and provides no protocol if the newly installed executives simply refuse to vacate power after the proposed two-to-three-year interim.

Without a universally accepted arbiter to compel compliance, the initiative risks becoming a dangerous power trap, leaving Libya vulnerable to renewed confrontation the moment external priorities shift.

The fundamental flaw of the American initiative lies in its false equivalence between the political dynamics of eastern and western Libya. While the eastern region serves as a traditional stronghold for the Haftar family, western Libya presents a fragmented power balance. Prime Minister Dbeibeh exercises no absolute command over the west, operating instead through fragile networks and pacts with autonomous armed factions, including within his own home city of Misrata.

This domestic resistance exploded into the open on July 5, when Misrata’s military and civic coalitions issued a condemnation of Washington’s plan, rejecting any settlement that involves the Haftar family. When Boulos visited the commercial hub on July 7 to smooth over opposition, local elders and municipal leaders refused to endorse an unwritten deal. Dbeibeh seems to lack the authority to deliver western compliance, and a pact struck in foreign capitals cannot override the deep-seated opposition of the ground forces and local communities required to sustain it.

This omission ignores the aspirations of the more than 2.8 million registered Libyan voters who picked up their electoral cards for the shelved 2021 polls, eager to restore popular legitimacy to their governance institutions. Instead of creating a bridge toward a democratic transition, Washington’s framework codifies the status quo, deferring the Libyan people’s right to choose their own leaders.

Another major obstacle confronting Boulos’s initiative is that Libya remains a deeply contested theater for regional heavyweights – notably Ankara, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, and Moscow – who are navigating the proposed deal with extreme caution while protecting their security, military, and economic footholds. Türkiye maintains a military presence across key bases in the west alongside extensive commercial interests, Egypt views eastern Libya as a non-negotiable border security perimeter, the UAE manages influential financial and energy networks, and Russia retains military and diplomatic leverage across both divides. While Washington seeks to build momentum through parallel diplomatic and economic pressure, these actors seem to have signaled (based on fragmented media reports) a reluctance to reshape their strategies. Instead, they are maintaining a wait-and-see stance, preferring to withhold definitive positions until an official plan is formally presented.

The core failure of the Boulos initiative is that it approaches Libya like a corporate asset undergoing restructuring rather than a sovereign state in desperate need of constitutional legitimacy. Instead of fulfilling the transition to democracy promised in 2011, when the US and its NATO allies intervened only to trigger a relentless free fall ever since, this diplomatic blueprint manages the ruins. It substitutes a genuine political horizon with an arrangement among the ruling elite. For the Libyan public, abandoned without peace or popular sovereignty, it is a pause that leaves the country vulnerable to renewed warfare the instant the bargain fractures.

South Africa has recorded 3,462 confirmed measles cases since January 2026, with outbreaks reported in the Western Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, and Northern Cape, among children aged one to 14 years, the country’s Department of Health said on Wednesday.

Department spokesperson Foster Mohale said the proportion of unvaccinated children under one year old had increased from 12.1% in 2017 to an alarming 36.3% between January and April 2026. This effectively triples the number of completely unvaccinated children and leaves hundreds of thousands of infants at risk of life-threatening illnesses.

Mohale added routine immunisation coverage had fallen severely across all 52 districts in the country, which means that, at current rates, South Africa is unlikely to reach the World Health Organization’s critical 90% coverage threshold for childhood immunisation. He said the consequences of declining coverage include the resurgence of serious vaccine-preventable diseases, erosion of community, or herd immunity, and higher rates of long-term disability and death among infants.

Mohale added that South Africa has maintained its polio-free status since 2014, while sporadic cases of diphtheria had been detected, primarily in the Western Cape, underscoring gaps in booster coverage and disease surveillance. Pertussis, or whooping cough, cases have also been identified in several provinces, predominantly affecting infants under six months who are too young to be fully vaccinated, Mohale said.

According to spokesperson, this poses severe risks for pregnant women because of the potential for congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). “Unvaccinated children can endanger infants and immunocompromised individuals who cannot be vaccinated, and weak coverage undermines early detection and rapid response to emerging threats.”

First published by IOL

Zambia’s main opposition leader Brian Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu have been accused of treason and detained after being questioned, the Zambia Police Service said on Thursday.

Mundubile and Zulu were questioned “in connection with an alleged offence of treason,” police said. Officers did not provide specifics about the nature of the transgression. The two remain in custody at Lusaka Central Police while investigations continue, according to local outlets.

The detention comes two weeks after Zambia’s presidential election, in which Mundubile finished second to Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema. Official results gave Hichilema about 60% of the vote and Mundubile about 38%. Mundubile rejected the result and said he intended to challenge it in court over alleged irregularities, claims Hichilema has denied.

Police Chief Graphel Musamba said the task force encountered “gunfire and resistance from unknown individuals” and returned fire. The government said military-grade weapons, ammunition and other materials intended for use in an armed insurrection were found at the property.

Under Zambia’s Penal Code, treason carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The country abolished the death penalty in 2022.

Hichilema, who first took office in 2021, is due to begin a second five-year term following the latest vote.

Zimbabwean police have arrested a senior local official over the Lake Kariba ferry disaster that killed 97 people earlier this month.

Ignatius Chiome, a district coordinator for the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA), has been charged with culpable homicide, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) said on X on Wednesday.

“The ZRP confirms the arrest and subsequent appearance in court of Kariba RIDA District Coordinator, Ignatius Chiome (49),” the statement read.

A ruling on Chiome’s bail application was postponed on Thursday and was expected on Friday, the Herald, a local media outlet, reported. His lawyer, Samuel Muyemeki, said the magistrate had not completed the ruling. “The court has to make a decision and that’s the position of the law. Once the decision is there, everyone concerned will have to know,” he said, as quoted by the news agency.

Prosecutors allege that administrative failures, overloading and breaches of operational safety procedures contributed to the August 11 disaster. The victims include a number of young children.

The RIDA-operated Mbuya Nehanda ferry capsized on Lake Kariba while traveling from the town of Kariba to communities and fishing camps along the lake. Local broadcaster ZBC News previously reported that the vessel encountered strong waves during the journey. 

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the sinking a national disaster and ordered maritime safety agencies and security forces to address shortcomings in Zimbabwe’s maritime capabilities. The African Union also expressed condolences, with AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf saying the bloc stood “in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and the affected communities.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola outbreak in Uganda over after the country recorded no new confirmed cases for 42 consecutive days, the UN health agency said on Thursday. 

The announcement comes a month after the Ugandan authorities declared the country Ebola-free on July 28, following 42 days without a locally acquired case. The WHO, however, continued monitoring after the last confirmed patient – an imported case from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) – was discharged on July 16. The additional 42-day period, which represents twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola and is the international benchmark for determining that transmission linked to an outbreak has ended, has now passed without further cases. 

“Uganda has demonstrated that with decisive action, Ebola outbreaks can be brought under control quickly,” WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said. 

“Uganda has shown that Ebola can be stopped when leadership acts decisively, communities are trusted and public health systems reach people quickly,” Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director-General Jean Kaseya said. “This is a victory for Uganda and an important lesson for our continent.” 

The announcement comes as the Ebola outbreak continues in the DR Congo.  According to the latest figures from the country’s health authorities, 5,713 confirmed cases have been recorded, including 2,744 deaths, putting the overall fatality rate at 48%. 

The African Union (AU) will launch a continent-wide credit rating agency in Mauritius on October 5, a senior AU adviser said on Wednesday.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an AU-backed initiative, is preparing to launch the African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) as governments across the continent seek to address high borrowing costs. It was announced by Paul Sikazwe, the technical adviser on debt to the AU Commission, at a debt and development conference in Nairobi hosted by campaign group AfroDad.

“This is a sign of progress in our ambition to provide momentum for the reform of the international financial architecture,” Sikazwe said, as quoted by Reuters. 

Misheck Mutize, the APRM’s lead expert on credit rating agencies, said earlier this month that the agency should improve the quality and diversity of information available to investors. He said its role will be to strengthen the credibility of credit opinions rather than simply provide higher ratings.

African governments have for years criticized major international rating agencies such as Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P. South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana raised similar concerns in 2025, saying countries with comparable fiscal indicators can receive different treatment. 

“There is already a bias against the African continent by multinational institutions, by the investing community, by rating agencies,” he said. Ghana and Zambia have also criticized global rating agencies, saying downgrades scare off investors and worsen their access to credit.

African gold producers are pushing for greater resource sovereignty as governments seek to retain more of the economic value generated by their mineral wealth, Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) representative has said.

Speaking to RT, Prince Kwame Minkah, the agency’s media relations officer, stated that African countries are increasingly moving away from a model in which minerals are extracted domestically and much of the processing, certification, trading, and financing takes place abroad. He noted that the shift is part of a broader African drive toward resource sovereignty and local value addition.

“If we produce the mineral, why should we capture only the value extraction while other countries continue to capture the value processing and, for that matter, trading?” Minkah said.

Ghana is among several major African gold producers tightening control over its gold sector. From September 1, gold doré purchased by self-financing aggregators under arrangements with approved offtakers must be refined in Ghana before it can be exported.

According to the Ghana Chamber of Mines, the country is now the world’s sixth-largest gold producer, behind China, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Peru, after producing about 185 tons in 2025, marking a 23.41% increase from its 2024 production of 4.82 million ounces. It is the only African state in the global top ten and remains the continent’s largest producer.

South African Minister of Employment and Labor Nomakhosazana Meth has revealed that more than 47,000 jobs were saved over the past year through interventions by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

The Minister revealed this in a written reply to Parliament after Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Tebogo Mokwele asked what concrete measures the department had taken to address South Africa’s persistent unemployment. Mokwele also asked what measures had been put in place to hold corporations accountable for exploiting workers and denying them fair wages and benefits, as well as what strategies were being implemented to boost job creation in key sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture.

”The Department has implemented a number of measures to help curb the unemployment challenge. The Department has provided in the last financial year, counselling to more than 357,000 work seekers, more than 116,000 work seekers were placed in employment opportunities,” Meth said.

On measures to ensure that companies comply with labour laws and protect workers’ rights, Meth said the department’s Inspection Services had conducted more than 309,000 inspections.

”The NPMN has created more than 96,418 employment opportunities during the last financial year. The Department has also introduced the National Labour Migration Policy and amendments to the Employment Services Act, that will create further employment opportunities for local South Africans”.

First published by IOL

The deep physical and structural wounds inflicted on the African continent by European colonialism will take generations to heal – if they ever heal at all. In today’s fast-moving geopolitical landscape, where crises like illegal migration, economic turbulence, and regional conflict dominate African headline news, the question of historical justice is often forced onto the back burner. Yet, through continental efforts, Africa refuses to let the issue recede into memory.

The landmark Algiers Declaration, adopted last December under the auspices of the African Union, marked a shift from moral grievance to a legal strategy, demanding the codification of colonial atrocities as crimes against humanity and establishing that justice requires binding legal reparations, not voluntary Western aid usually publicized as gifts.

The march through the ancestral burial grounds of the paramount chiefs stands as an active protest against modern colonial evasion – and a direct challenge to a European power attempting to settle a multi-century blood debt on its own convenient, unilateral terms.

To understand the full weight of this grievance, one must return to 1904, when Imperial German colonial forces unleashed a systematic campaign of destruction following an indigenous uprising against relentless land dispossession and colonial tyranny. In October 1904, German General Lothar von Trotha issued his notorious ‘Vernichtungsbefehl’ (extermination order), explicitly declaring: “Within the German borders, every Herero, with or without a gun... will be shot.”

Far from facing criminal prosecution, von Trotha was long celebrated as a hero at home – a street in Munich bore his name until public pressure finally forced the city council to rename it ‘Hererostrasse’ in 2006.

By the time the campaign ended in 1908, it had claimed an estimated 70,000 lives, systematically wiping out 80% of the Herero population and 50% of the Nama population in what historians and legal scholars recognize as the 20th century’s first genocide.

Yet, when confronting the modern reckoning for these atrocities, Imperial Germany’s successor state has constructed a masterclass in diplomatic and legal evasion. In May 2021, after six years of closed-door bilateral negotiations, Berlin and Windhoek initialed a joint declaration in which Germany acknowledged the atrocities as “genocide from today’s perspective” – a carefully calculated semantic formula designed specifically to avoid admitting legal liability under international law. Rather than offering legally binding reparations, Berlin committed €1.1 billion over 30 years earmarked for state-level development projects, framing the financial support strictly as a voluntary gesture of reconciliation.

The contrast with Germany’s handling of European historical crimes could not be more glaring. In the aftermath of World War II, Germany recognized direct legal liability for the Holocaust, paying tens of billions of euros in formal reparations directly to survivors and representative organizations – commitments that continue to this day. When dealing with African victims, however, Berlin invoked intertemporal legal loopholes, arguing that international law against genocide did not exist in 1904. By bypassing the Herero and Nama leaders to cut a state-to-state deal, Germany sought to buy immunity from future legal claims. This double standard is precisely why affected communities rejected the 2021 agreement.

The resulting political impasse has paralyzed parliamentary ratification in Windhoek, while opposition lawmakers in Berlin increasingly view the agreement as a diplomatic liability. By challenging a deal struck over their heads, the Herero and Nama are establishing a critical precedent: Sovereign states cannot settle the blood debt of indigenous genocide without the direct inclusion and consent of the victim communities themselves.

This domestic legal battle has become the focal point of a broader international legal push. In August 2026, Amnesty International officially filed court papers in the Namibian High Court seeking to join the Herero and Nama litigation as ‘amicus curiae’. Amnesty’s legal intervention targets a fundamental principle: State-to-state development packages cannot override the recognized rights of indigenous communities under international law to seek direct, full reparations for genocide. Former European powers have long shielded themselves behind the principle of non-retroactivity, claiming that atrocities committed prior to the 1948 Genocide Convention fall outside modern judicial frameworks. However, joint efforts between the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are systematically dismantling this defense.

As the African Union moves to codify colonial atrocities into international law, the ongoing High Court challenge in Windhoek serves as a test case for former colonial powers across the West. Until Berlin meets its obligations with the same legal and financial rigor applied to European historical crimes, the solemn gatherings in Okahandja will stand as an active front line in the global struggle against impunity.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has ordered an urgent operation to rescue people abducted by gunmen last week in the north-central Niger State region.

Tinubu said on X on Tuesday that the armed forces, police, Department of State Services, and other security and intelligence agencies have been instructed to coordinate efforts to locate and free the captives. He also ordered security chiefs to provide regular updates until all those abducted have been accounted for.

“We will not rest until your sons, daughters, mothers and fathers are brought back safely to you,” the president said, adding that those responsible for the attack “will not go scot-free.”

The order comes after an armed group released a video apparently showing hundreds of people being held captive in a forest.

An official in the Borgu district, where the attack took place, told Reuters that 30 people had been killed and were buried on Sunday. Niger State Governor Umaru Bago condemned the attack and ordered the authorities to work with security agencies to secure the release of those abducted, the Punch outlet reported.

Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have previously targeted schools in the northeast. The region has been at the center of a longstanding Islamist insurgency, with mass abductions, including the 2014 kidnapping of more than 270 Chibok schoolgirls.

Two Russian soldiers who spent more than two years in terrorist captivity in Mali have described to RT the extreme heat, constant shackling, poor food, and barely drinkable water they endured at the hands of Islamist militants.

Aleksandr Efremov and Vasily Nagalev spoke exclusively to RT’s Daria Vaganova after being brought to Libya on their way home to Russia.

The servicemen were captured in 2024 during the battle of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border, when militants from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM ambushed a Malian military convoy supported by Russia’s Wagner Group. The Malian and Wagner forces were heavily outnumbered in the fighting.

Efremov and Nagalev spent a total of 755 days in captivity, isolated from civilization and keeping track of time by counting sunrises and sunsets. They said the reality of captivity was nothing like what is typically portrayed in films.

“In movies, you can usually escape, but here there’s nowhere to run because there’s nothing but Sahara everywhere,” Aleksandr said, describing their ordeal as essentially “Sahara and chains.”

“There was hope for about the first year, but by the second year, it didn’t matter anymore whether we’d be released or not,” Aleksandr recalled. “There were moments so tense that we practically begged to be shot.”

Their release was secured through negotiations involving the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps and the Malian General Staff, mediated by forces of the Libyan National Army led by General Saddam Haftar.

A Russian medical specialist treating the men after their release said the food they had received was “extremely detrimental to their bodies,” while they had been “practically drinking from a puddle.”

“They have problems with their intestines, liver, and other organs,” he said, adding that doctors were “gradually restoring them” to health. Both men are currently in “stable and satisfactory” condition and could return to Russia within “a week or two” once their condition has fully stabilized.

The Sahel has been plagued by militant violence for more than a decade, with groups linked to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram carrying out attacks across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and neighboring countries. Moscow has repeatedly accused foreign powers, including Ukraine, of seeking to destabilize the region and undermine local nations’ ties with Russia by assisting extremist groups.

The freed soldiers said their captors appeared to be receiving substantial outside support.

“They certainly receive money because they have everything,” Vasily said.

“They have money, equipment, weapons. They have it all. And in large quantities,” Aleksandr added.

The Wagner Group, with which the two men previously served, has since ended its operations in Mali, with Russia’s Africa Corps taking over its role in supporting Sahel governments in their fight against militants and extremists.

In mid-July, Malian and Russian forces recaptured the strategic northern town of Anefis from FLA and JNIM after more than a week of intense fighting. In mid-August, Russian troops also helped the Malian military repel a large-scale attack on an army base in the central city of San.

Eighteen-year-old Amber-Rose Berry has made history after becoming the youngest South African woman to swim the English Channel.

Berry completed the gruelling 33km open-water crossing from England to France in an unofficial time of 10 hours and 27 minutes on Sunday, August 23. Her time is still subject to ratification, but if confirmed, it would place her well ahead of the average 12 to 14 hours taken to complete the crossing.

She began her swim from Shakespeare Beach in Dover at 5.27am and reached the rocks at Pointe du Riden, near Cap Gris-Nez in France, at 3.54pm.

The achievement came despite a series of challenges during the crossing, including painful jellyfish stings, strong currents, cold water and the wake of a passing ship.

“That was bloody tough,” Berry said shortly after completing the swim. “But I was motivated by the opportunity I was given to complete this swim. And by the fact that, by finishing, so many opportunities would be afforded to student-athletes like myself.”

Berry’s mother, Karen, who supported her aboard the escort vessel Sea Leopard, said her daughter faced one of her toughest moments just beyond the halfway point. “She was tired and cold, and there was still so far to go,” Karen said.

Huge congratulations to Amber-Rose Berry on completing her solo swim at just 18 years old!
Well done to all on Sea Leopard Charterhttps://t.co/3YrZI4wGUu pic.twitter.com/zPPRRfcFcb

— Channel Swimming Association (@CSAswimmers) August 23, 2026

However, Berry’s training and determination helped her push through. She was also forced to battle the huge wake created by a ship, which her mother said appeared to give her renewed energy. “Funnily enough, that just seemed to energise her,” Karen said.

Berry trained for months under the guidance of open-water swimming coach Clinton le Seuer. During the crossing, she fed regularly, taking liquid nutrition every hour for the first two hours before moving to feeds every 30 minutes.

Her latest achievement carries additional significance as it comes exactly 100 years after Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. It also coincides with South Africa’s Women’s Month, which commemorates the historic 1956 Women’s March against the Pass Laws. Berry follows in the footsteps of another record-breaking South African swimmer, Otto Thaning, who became the oldest person to complete the English Channel crossing when he swam it at the age of 73 in 2014. His record remains intact.

First published by IOL

Two UN peacekeepers have been killed and seven people injured after unidentified gunmen ambushed a patrol in South Sudan’s eastern Jonglei State, the UN mission in the country (UNMISS) said on Monday.

The patrol was attacked while traveling to Pajut, a remote area in Jonglei, according to the mission. UNMISS deployed a quick reaction force to secure the area and assist with the emergency response. Three other peacekeepers were among those injured, along with two members of the South Sudan National Police Service and two civilian staff. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. 

UNMISS chief Anita Kiki Gbeho condemned the attack, describing violence targeting personnel working to support peace in the country as “unacceptable.”

Gbeho called on the authorities to launch a “thorough and prompt investigation” and ensure those responsible are brought to justice. UNMISS also warned that attacks targeting UN peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.

The incident comes amid mounting security risks for humanitarian personnel in South Sudan. At least 36 aid workers have been killed in the country since the beginning of the year, according to the UN, already exceeding the 31 deaths recorded throughout 2025.

More than 450 incidents of violence against humanitarian workers and assets were reported between January and July, more than double the number recorded during the same period in 2025, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan Ramanathan Balakrishnan said last week.

Four people have been arrested in Kenya over the suspected poisoning of 18 elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said on Saturday. 

A representative of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Monday that all four suspects were later released on bail.

Preliminary laboratory tests suggest that the animals may have died after ingesting tomatoes contaminated with cyanide from farms bordering wildlife habitats. Officials said further scientific testing was needed to confirm the cause of death.

The first 15 elephant deaths were recorded June 24 to July 24 in Amboseli National Park, Kimana Sanctuary, and the Kuku Ranch area, prompting the KWS and other agencies to launch an investigation. 

Ten of the elephants developed similar symptoms before dying, including partial paralysis which left them unable to stand. According to KWS, “the condition primarily affected adult females and their calves, with only one adult male” among the reported cases.

A search in Tikondo in Kimana, within Loitoktok Sub-County, also uncovered chemicals and other substances believed to have been sourced from a neighboring country. The potentially toxic and unlabeled materials have been sent for analysis.

The government stressed that the arrests and seized materials do not establish criminal responsibility. The authorities said the investigation is ongoing and pledged to prosecute anyone found to have unlawfully killed, poisoned, or harmed wildlife.

Earlier in August, the Kenya Veterinary Association (KVA) called for urgent testing of agricultural produce from areas around Amboseli after preliminary findings linked elephant deaths to cyanide. The group warned of potential risks to people after tomatoes were reportedly found in the animals’ stomachs and urged the authorities to determine whether contaminated produce could have entered local food supply chains.

Chad has accused parties in Sudan’s civil war of carrying out airstrikes deep inside its territory, warning that the conflict risks spilling across the border, the Chadian Armed Forces said on Saturday. 

According to the statement, aircraft and drones believed to belong to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) or forces supporting them pursued and bombed a convoy of vehicles on Thursday. The strikes began on Sudanese soil before continuing more than 100 kilometers inside Chad, reaching the Mourdi department in the eastern Ennedi-Est province.

The military said that the extent of the incursion was established following aerial and ground checks conducted on Friday. No Chadian casualties have been reported, but the army condemned what it described as a new violation of the country’s territorial integrity.

Chad warned Sudan’s warring parties against attempting to extend the conflict onto its territory, saying that its defense and security forces remain on the highest level of alert and are prepared to respond to any threat to the country’s security. There has been no response from Sudanese authorities to the Chadian military’s allegations.

In March, a drone strike from Sudan killed at least 17 people in the same town, including mourners attending a funeral. President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno condemned the attack and ordered the military to retaliate against any future strikes originating from Sudan, whether carried out by the Sudanese army or the RSF.

A month earlier, Chad shut its eastern border with Sudan after five soldiers and three civilians were killed in clashes allegedly involving the SAF and RSF. At least 12 others were wounded in the incident, which also occurred in Tine, officials said.

Police in South Africa’s Eastern Cape have arrested two men in connection with the murder of former world boxing champion Zolani Tete, who was fatally shot in Mdantsane on Friday.

The two persons of interest, aged 30 and 22, were arrested in Ku Gompo on Saturday following a swift, intelligence-driven operation involving multiple law enforcement units, police said.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Nobuntu Gantana said the suspects were in custody and were being questioned in connection with Tete’s murder and the attempted murder of a 27-year-old woman who was wounded in the attack.

“Due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, the SAPS is unable to disclose further details regarding the motive or the circumstances surrounding the arrests at this time,” Gantana said. “Investigators are following up on several leads, and more arrests are imminent.”

“In an attempt to escape the hail of bullets, the deceased drove his vehicle into the yard. He unfortunately succumbed to his injuries and was declared deceased on the scene,” Gantana said.

The woman sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she remains. On Saturday, police confirmed Tete’s identity after notifying his next of kin.

Tete was one of South Africa’s most successful boxers, winning world titles in two weight divisions. He also holds a Guinness World Record for the fastest knockout in a world title fight.

He had not fought since July 2022, when he tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol following his victory over Jason Cunningham at Wembley. The result was overturned to a no contest and Tete was handed a four-year ban, which ended on July 29 this year. Tete maintained that he had never knowingly taken the substance. In an interview with boxing magazine The Ring in January, he said he planned to return to the ring this year.

First published by IOL

Pope Leo has called for international action to confront the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), where transmission remains active across six provinces and thousands of people have died.

On Sunday, the pontiff said on X that he often remembers the African state in his prayers, especially in light of the spread of the Ebola epidemic.

“I encourage on the part of the international community a response that also involves local communities in efforts of prevention, so that many human lives may be saved,” Pope Leo said.

The appeal came as the latest figures from DR Congo’s Health Ministry showed 5,375 confirmed cases and 2,557 deaths, putting the case fatality rate at 47.6%. 

The outbreak has reached 56 health zones across six provinces – Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and Tshopo. Ituri remains the most widely affected, with cases recorded in 28 of its 36 health zones. The authorities said transmission remains active but that there has been no further geographical expansion in the latest reporting period.

The WHO and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have also previously called for greater international support to contain the outbreak.

DR Congo declared the outbreak in May. It is the country’s 17th recorded Ebola outbreak and is caused by the Bundibugyo virus. There is currently no licensed vaccine or approved specific treatment for this specific strain.