By Kizito Makoye DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania | 16 April 2024 (IDN) — In a hazy paediatric ward at Mlimba District Hospital, nestled in Tanzania’s eastern Morogoro region, Zuhura Mashaka cradles her two-year old daughter, Amina, in her arms as a nurse administers a jab to quell insidious infection racking the toddler’s body. With meticulous […]
Niger Dumps US Soldiers, Greets Russian Instructors
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 15 April 2024 (IDN) — When Niger suspended military cooperation with the US earlier this year, it was a major story for a country rarely in the media spotlight. The story has only grown bigger since then. This week, thousands of Nigerien protesters gathered in Niamey, […]
Senegal’s New President Should Begin a Strategic Reset of Relations with France
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA | 09 April 2024 (IDN) —The words of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye were honey to taste. Following the bitter ending of the 12-year rule of Macky Sall, highlighted by the widespread belief that France is at the heart […]
Kenyan Doctors’ Strike Enters Third Week As Gov’t Stonewalls Talks
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — Kenya’s health sector, underfunded and understaffed, is closed for business until the government makes good on salary arrears and agrees to hire badly needed trainee doctors as promised to the union. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) also […]
New Leadership in Senegal Inspires a Continent Seeking Change
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — A firebrand politician and a young tax inspector opposed to French colonialism have taken the government of Senegal by storm, say journalists inspired by the electoral victory of Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, and Ousmane Sonko, 49, on a platform of major […]
A Flame of Remembrance for Victims of the Rwandan Genocide
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 7 April 2024 (IDN) — Rwandans are marking the 30th anniversary of a genocide that took the lives of an estimated 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis over 100 days between April and June 1994. President Paul Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame laid wreaths at the Kigali […]
Gambian Women Furious Over Vote to Restore Female Circumcision
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 1 April 2024 (IDN) — ‘Over my dead body!’ That was how one Gambian woman expressed her frustration with a vote by the country’s majority male legislators to end the prohibition of female genital mutilation (FGM). The practice has been on the rise in recent years […]
Drought Grips Southern Africa, Hunger Crisis Foreseen
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 1 April 2024 (IDN) — A severe dry spell in southern Africa linked to the El Nino weather pattern is crippling the nations of Malawi and Zambia. Zimbabwe has seen much of its crops decimated, underlining concerns by the UN World Food Program that numerous nations […]
West African Philosopher Who Challenged Colonialism Leaves Major Legacy
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 31 March 2024 (IDN)—Paulin Jidenu Hountondji of Benin, West Africa, considered one of the founding fathers of modern African philosophy, has recently passed away at the age of 82. His work “On African Philosophy” (1976) greatly clarified the debate over African philosophy—freeing it from the colonial […]
There Is More to Write About Africa’s Agriculture Than Famines
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 26 March 2024 (IDN) — Once again, the media is presenting us with images of the mother of all famines — stretching from Yemen to Somalia, to Sudan and South Sudan, to the Central African Republic, to northern Nigeria and, most recently, to Gaza. It’s a bad famine, but […]