Togo’s opposition calls for protests to stop president from signing off on a new constitution

Togo’s opposition calls for protests to stop president from signing off on a new constitution

The new constitution also increases presidential terms from five to six years. The almost 20-years that Gnassingbe has served in office, after taking over from his father, would not count toward that tally.
The opposition and the clergy say the legislation is an effort by Gnassingbe to prolong his rule. Some have promised to stop it from becoming law by calling on the people to rise up and protest.

Read more
Rwanda-backed M23 rebels expand territory under their control as UN warns security in eastern DRC is worsening

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels expand territory under their control as UN warns security in eastern DRC is worsening

Last month, the United States told Rwanda and Congo that they “must walk back from the brink of war,” the sharpest warning yet of a looming conflict.

Read more
Results: Opposition figure who became Senegal’s president-elect won over 54 per cent of the vote

Results: Opposition figure who became Senegal’s president-elect won over 54 per cent of the vote

President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s release from prison followed a political amnesty granted just in time for the balloting. He was little known until popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was barred from running due to a prior conviction, chose Faye to run in his place.

Read more
Trump resorts to selling ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $59.99 as a pitch for his campaign

Trump resorts to selling ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $59.99 as a pitch for his campaign

Besides a King James Version translation, it includes copies of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as a handwritten chorus of the famous Greenwood song.

Read more
UN: 783 million people face chronic hunger yet the world wastes 19 per cent of its food

UN: 783 million people face chronic hunger yet the world wastes 19 per cent of its food

Researchers analysed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilogrammes (about 174 pounds) of food annually, equal to at least one billion meals wasted worldwide daily.

Read more
US Marine Corps Gen Michael Langley: Terrorism, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and migration shatter African lives

US Marine Corps Gen Michael Langley: Terrorism, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and migration shatter African lives

Africom espouses the 3D approach: diplomacy, development and defence professionals, to ensure a synchronised whole-of-government effect.

Read more
White-led South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance party ready for a coalition with ANC

White-led South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance party ready for a coalition with ANC

The DA has banded together with smaller parties to try to capture the more than 50 per cent of the vote needed to take power. They include the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, long a bitter rival of the ANC, as well as Freedom Front Plus, which appeals to rural white South Africans who feel politically marginalised since the fall of apartheid, and Action SA, which has built a platform on a tough anti-immigration stance and appeals to working- and middle-class voters.

Read more
Not in Jesus’ name: Kenya starts to hand over to relatives bodies of 429 followers of a doomsday cult

Not in Jesus’ name: Kenya starts to hand over to relatives bodies of 429 followers of a doomsday cult

The Kenya Human Rights Commission last week said police failed to act on reports that could have prevented the deaths in the remote Shakahola area. Several reports had been filed at police stations by people whose relatives had entered the forested area.

Read more
Trump handed gag order in New York hush money criminal case but his team terms directive illegal

Trump handed gag order in New York hush money criminal case but his team terms directive illegal

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to his former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she claimed to have had with Trump a decade earlier.

Read more
South Africa’s ANC fails to move court to ban ex-President Zuma’s party Umkhonto Wesizwe

South Africa’s ANC fails to move court to ban ex-President Zuma’s party Umkhonto Wesizwe

South Africa’s May 29 elections are expected to be highly contested with the ANC, once led by anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, under pressure to remain in power following declining support in successive elections as the country faces stagnant economic growth, high levels of poverty among its Black majority, and an unemployment rate of over 32 per cent.

Read more