AFP Africa

In the streets of Anyama, children play and braziers smoke on corners. There is little to show that the ground of this everyday Ivory Coast neighbourhood conceals seminal prehistoric treasures.Near the local storefronts lies the site of an excavation that unearthed stone tools from 150,000 years ago — the earliest sign ever of humans inhabiting …

Ivory Coast’s epochal prehistoric finds pass unseenTue, 18 Mar 2025 06:25:09 GMT Read More »

The Rwanda-backed M23 group said it would not attend Tuesday’s peace talks with the DR Congo government in the Angolan capital Luanda following EU sanctions on some of its top brass.But Kinshasa said it would participate despite the M23’s announced no-show.Tina Salama, the spokeswoman for DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, told AFP: “The Congolese delegation has …

M23 shuns DR Congo peace talks at 11th hour after sanctionsMon, 17 Mar 2025 19:52:26 GMT Read More »

The European Union sanctioned three Rwandan military commanders and its mining agency chief Monday over support for armed fighters in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a day before planned peace talks. Rwanda at the same time announced that it had severed diplomatic ties with Belgium, saying the former colonial power had “consistently undermined” it.The Rwanda-backed …

EU sanctions Rwandan commanders over M23 in DR CongoMon, 17 Mar 2025 17:08:28 GMT Read More »

In a war-ravaged neighbourhood of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, the stench from a gaping sewage pit is unbearable as Red Crescent workers pull a bloated body from deep underground.The volunteers say 14 more remain below.”They were shot in the head, some have crushed skulls,” Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of forensic medicine at Sudan’s health ministry, told …

Stench of death as Sudan army, paramilitaries battle for capitalMon, 17 Mar 2025 14:24:31 GMT Read More »

Countries must move rapidly to slash CO2 emissions from homes, offices, shops and other buildings — a sector that accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas pollution, the United Nations said Monday. Carbon dioxide emissions from the building sector rose around five percent in the last decade when they should have fallen 28 percent, according …

‘More and faster’: UN calls to shrink buildings’ carbon footprintMon, 17 Mar 2025 14:02:00 GMT Read More »

In a corner of his mother’s backyard, 30-year-old Thabang Moshoke runs a clipper through a client’s hair at a makeshift barbershop that has only a rough roof to shield it from the skies.A queue of men and boys wait their turn for a 60-rand ($3.50) trim from this self-taught barber, who defied South Africa’s massive …

From determination to despair: S.Africa’s youth battling for workMon, 17 Mar 2025 10:14:21 GMT Read More »

Underperforming Nigeria and disadvantaged Sudan share the spotlight ahead of two 2026 World Cup qualifying matchdays in Africa from Wednesday. Seeded to win Group C and automatically qualify, a Nigerian team boasting the past two African Footballers of the Year Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman lie fifth in a six-team section.In a qualifying competition spanning three …

Nigeria seek World Cup redemption, Sudan eye historyMon, 17 Mar 2025 07:11:33 GMT Read More »

Like something from the science fiction film “Dune”, the “world’s biggest mining dredger” has been swallowing acre after acre of the fertile coastal strip where most of Senegal’s vegetables are grown.The jagged 23-kilometre-long (14-mile) scar the gigantic rig has left mining for zircon — which is used in ceramics and the building industry — is so …

Giant mine machine swallowing up Senegal’s fertile coastMon, 17 Mar 2025 02:19:19 GMT Read More »

With a few taps on his phone, Dandam Nangor knows exactly what temperature his greenhouse is at, when to water his crops and even the pH of the soil.Backed by artificial intelligence, it’s all designed to make growing his peppers easier — and perhaps usher in a sort of agriculture 2.0 in Nigeria, where millions …

In Nigeria, tech workers and farmers bring AI to the fieldsSun, 16 Mar 2025 06:35:09 GMT Read More »

Beneath the broken earth of the besieged Sudanese city of El-Fasher in the western region of Darfur, Nafisa Malik clutches her five children close.As shells rain down, the 45-year-old mother tries to shield them in a cramped hole barely big enough to crouch in.”Time slows down here,” Malik said, from her home near El-Fasher’s Hajer …

Sudanese seek refuge underground in besieged Darfur citySun, 16 Mar 2025 01:46:51 GMT Read More »