A US citizen has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing two teenage girls while serving at the American embassy in Burkina Faso, the US Department of Justice has announced. Fode Sitafa Mara, 41, of Maryland, was convicted following a two-week trial in October 2025 at a federal court in Maryland. On Wednesday, […]

Zimbabwe has turned down a proposed $367m (£272m) health funding agreement with the United States, citing concerns over sovereignty and the handling of sensitive biological data. Details of the decision emerged after a government memo from December was leaked, indicating that President Emmerson Mnangagwa considered the deal “lopsided”. The funding, spread over five years, would […]

Pope Leo XIV will begin a 10-day visit to four African countries on 13 April, marking his first pastoral trip to the continent since becoming head of the Catholic Church, the Vatican has announced. The pontiff will travel to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. In Cameroon, he is scheduled to visit the capital Yaoundé, […]

Police in South Africa are investigating a deadly shooting outside a secondary school in Cape Town that left a 14-year-old pupil and a taxi operator dead. According to authorities, an unidentified gunman opened fire on a minibus taxi on Wednesday afternoon as the driver waited to collect students. The driver, 42, was fatally shot inside […]

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for assisting in the return of 17 South Africans who were allegedly misled into joining the war between Russia and Ukraine. The group had reportedly travelled to Russia believing they would receive bodyguard training, only to find themselves deployed to the front lines of […]

A confidential Kenyan intelligence report has revealed that up to 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited to fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine, exposing what lawmakers describe as a deeply troubling network of rogue officials and human trafficking syndicates. The report, submitted to parliament by the National Intelligence Service, says 89 Kenyans were on […]

The rolling green hills of KwaZulu-Natal appear calm and picturesque, but beneath the surface farmers are grappling with deep anxiety. The province has become the epicentre of a fast-spreading foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that, over the past year, has reached eight of South Africa’s nine provinces. The highly contagious virus has devastated herds, with thousands of […]

A toxic gas leak at a mine in north-central Nigeria has killed 37 people and left 26 others hospitalized, police said. The incident occurred in the early hours of Tuesday in Kampani Zurak community in the Wase area of Plateau State, according to police spokesperson Alfred Alabo. “Preliminary investigations revealed that the miners were exposed […]

Police in South Africa have detained the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe following a reported shooting at a property in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg. Bellarmine Mugabe, believed to be in his late 20s, was taken into custody after allegations that a 23-year-old man — reportedly a gardener at the property — […]

Rev. Jesse Jackson, the veteran civil rights leader and two-time US presidential candidate who spent more than five decades fighting for racial equality and economic justice, has died aged 84. His family confirmed that he died peacefully on Tuesday, surrounded by relatives. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but […]