Vice President Kamala Harris has begun a weeklong tour of Ghana and two other African nations as the Biden administration hopes to set a new path for U.S.-Africa ties that focuses on collaboration rather than crises, a trip seen as a significant step toward revitalizing a relationship with Africa that was widely thought to be […]
Tag: Africa
American Held Hostage in Africa Is Freed
WASHINGTON — An American aid worker abducted by militants more than six years ago in West Africa has been freed, his wife and a senior military official said on Monday, but the circumstances of his release were not immediately clear. The aid worker, Jeffery Woodke, was kidnapped in Niger in October 2016 and then was […]
Cyclone Freddy Persists, Leaving Dozens More Dead in Africa, Red Cross Says
LILONGWE, Malawi — Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, swept in from the southeastern coast of Africa and traveled to the landlocked nation of Malawi, where by Monday it was responsible for at least 66 deaths, the Red Cross said. Large swaths of Blantyre, the second-largest city in Malawi, […]
South Africa and Russia Are Old Friends. A War Isn’t Going to Change That.
JOHANNESBURG — Ships, sailors and soldiers from Russia and China have begun arriving in South Africa for joint military drills that feature a Russian warship bearing the letters Z and V — Russia’s patriotic symbols for its war in Ukraine — and carrying what Russia boasts is a hypersonic missile. At a time when many […]
Pope Francis, in Africa, Urges an End to Congo’s Cycle of Violence
The thumping church music, booming choir and exuberant crowd of about a million people greeting Pope Francis for an open-air papal Mass on Wednesday in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, felt a world away from the violence ravaging the country’s east, where scores of competing armed groups are pillaging villages, plundering resources […]
White Men Charged in Attack on Black Teenagers at Pool in South Africa
Working-class white farmers frequently raise concerns about being killed or driven off their land. Black laborers have lamented the strenuous working conditions and unrealized promises of land ownership that were supposed to materialize in a democratic South Africa. After video of the violence at the pool surfaced, President Cyril Ramaphosa released a statement calling on […]
Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa
BANGUI, Central African Republic — In early March, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third week, a Russian diplomat nearly 3,000 miles away in the Central African Republic paid an unusual visit to the head of this country’s top court. His message was blunt: The country’s pro-Kremlin president must remain in office, indefinitely. To […]
Cyril Ramaphosa Unlikely to Face Impeachment in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, is standing by its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, rejecting calls that he face an impeachment hearing over accusations that he kept a large sum of cash in a sofa at his game farm and failed to report a crime when it was stolen. The decision by […]
U.N. Ship to Carry Ukrainian grain Directly to Horn of Africa
The first ship hired to carry Ukrainian grain directly to famine-stricken parts of the Horn of Africa since the Russian invasion halted food exports six months ago will arrive in Ukraine on Friday, U.N. officials said. The U.N.-chartered bulk carrier, the Brave Commander, is expected to dock at the Yuzhny port in southern Ukraine, where […]