Category: Africa

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The Secretary General of SWAPO, Namibia’s governing party, appears to have been napping as women around the world stepped up to demand tough measures from their political leaders against gender-based violence. Sophia Shaningwa, who serves in SWAPO’s upper echelon of party officials, left her party’s […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The much-awaited pan-African film festival opened on October 16 in Burkina Faso’s capital city of Ouagadougou at the Palais des Sports with dancers, acrobats and celebrities, including Senegalese Grammy nominee Baaba Maal. This year’s theme was Cinemas of Africa and the Diaspora: New perspectives, new […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The trial of the accused killers of Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso—including his former friend Blaise Compaore who succeeded him as president and went on to rule for 27 years— has now been adjourned to October 25 after defense lawyers asked for more […]

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network New YORK (IDN) — In the years he’s been president, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has never learned to love free speech on the internet. Long before the trial of prominent YouTube commentator and genocide survivor, Yvonne Idamange, the President issued a dire warning: “Those that you hear speak on […]

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Facing a devastating report by the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledging sexual exploitation of Congolese women by WHO and local staff, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has called for a “frank” judicial collaboration between national and international authorities on the matter.

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The consortium of cross-border journalists that produced the massive investigation into corruption known as the Panama Papers has released a new work that digs into the proliferation of offshore accounts, the mechanisms used to hide money and the millionaires and billionaires quietly siphoning money into […]

By Devendra Kamarajan NAIROBI | KINSHASA (IDN) — Ahead of international donors announcing a 1 USD billion forest protection agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo, NGOs are urging that such funding for the Central African country should be conditional on a moratorium on any logging concessions, reports Greenpeace. The ban has stood since 2002 […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network New York (IDN) — On February 5, 1820, the first organized group of emigrating freed slaves departed from New York to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. Next year, Liberia will mark the date with a bicentennial celebration beginning January 2022 and running through December 2022, according to a […]

Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — The guns of Nigeria’s three-year civil war were silenced 51 years ago, but in the battle for a truly federal state, the echoes of warfare have never been more resonant. On August 10, Rivers State, […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — A billionaire appointed by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, will lead a new government after long-ruling Islamists were defeated in parliamentary elections. Businessman Aziz Akhannouch of the National Rally of Moroccan Independents (RNI), one of the country’s richest men with a fortune estimated at $2 billion, […]