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Dec
16
2025
By CONRAD ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY
West Africa’s push for cheaper flights

West Africa’s push for cheaper flights

NEWS
WEST Africa is bracing for a jump in air travel demand as its heads of state prepare to cut taxes and fees that make up nearly half of a flight ticket, starting January 2026. The heads of state and government in the region approved the measures at their December 2024 summit in Abuja, aiming to dismantle the cost barriers that have made West Africa one of the world’s most expensive regions for air travel. Under the new Supplementary Act on Aviation Charges, Taxes and Fees, all the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member countries will eliminate air transport…
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Dec
16
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Uganda’s military grip: how security forces orchestrate electoral repression

Uganda’s military grip: how security forces orchestrate electoral repression

NEWS
AS Uganda lurches toward its January 15, 2026, general elections, a chilling pattern has emerged: the country's military and security apparatus has transformed into President Yoweri Museveni's most potent electoral weapon, systematically crushing dissent through arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and violence that has drawn unprecedented international alarm. The detention of Reverend Father. Deusdedit Ssekabira, a Catholic priest from Masaka Diocese who vanished on December 3 and resurfaced in military custody more than a week later, represents merely the latest manifestation of a security state apparatus that has perfected the art of pre-election intimidation over four decades of Museveni's rule. The…
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Dec
15
2025
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
The 8-day peace: Trump-brokered DRC-Rwanda accord unravels as war rages on

The 8-day peace: Trump-brokered DRC-Rwanda accord unravels as war rages on

NEWS
THE optics should have been the first warning. In the grand theatre of the White House, under the glare of cameras meant to capture a historic moment, two presidents stood carefully apart. Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo could not bring themselves to look at one another. A handshake - that most basic diplomatic gesture - was impossible. Yet US President Donald Trump proclaimed the moment "historic," the beginning of the end to a decades-long conflict that has claimed countless lives and displaced millions. Eight days later, the fiction collapsed entirely. On Wednesday…
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Dec
15
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
The ‘peacekeepers’ who wage war: armed forces exploit Africa’s security crisis

The ‘peacekeepers’ who wage war: armed forces exploit Africa’s security crisis

NEWS
ACROSS Africa, a disturbing pattern has emerged: armed forces arriving under promises of security and stability have instead perpetrated the very atrocities they claimed to prevent. From Mali to Kenya, reports of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, and systematic abuse by supposed peacekeepers reveal a crisis of accountability in international military interventions. Russia's Africa Corps: Wagner's Violent Legacy Continues In the dusty refugee camps along Mali's border with Mauritania, survivors interviewed by the Associated Press tell stories that contradict Russia's stated mission of bringing stability to the troubled Sahel region. What began as the Wagner Group's mercenary operations has transformed into…
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Dec
15
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Tunisia’s democracy crisis: a nation on the brink

Tunisia’s democracy crisis: a nation on the brink

NEWS
FOURTEEN years after Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation sparked the Arab Spring and toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia stands at a devastating crossroads. The nation once celebrated as the sole democratic success story emerging from that revolutionary wave now teeters on the edge of constitutional calamity, its fragile democratic gains dismantled piece by piece under President Kais Saied's increasingly authoritarian grip. The crisis has reached a critical inflexion point. What began in 2021 as Saied's self-proclaimed mission to cleanse Tunisia of corruption has metastasised into a comprehensive assault on democratic institutions, civil liberties, and political opposition.…
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Dec
15
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Musk’s Starlink opens apartheid wounds as South Africa’s fragile unity government faces existential test

Musk’s Starlink opens apartheid wounds as South Africa’s fragile unity government faces existential test

NEWS
SOUTH Africa stands on the precipice of a political rupture that could unravel its government of national unity, after Communications Minister Solly Malatsi's controversial decision to effectively waive Black ownership requirements for foreign satellite internet providers - a move that critics say amounts to a capitulation to billionaire Elon Musk and threatens the country's hard-won framework for racial redress. The Friday gazette notice, which allows companies like Musk's Starlink to substitute "equity equivalent" programs for the mandatory 30% Black ownership stake, has ignited what observers are calling the most serious challenge to South Africa's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) framework…
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Dec
13
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Kidnapping crisis in West Africa shifts from foreign to local targets, new research shows

Kidnapping crisis in West Africa shifts from foreign to local targets, new research shows

NEWS
KIDNAPPING for ransom in West Africa's Sahel region has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade, with violent extremist groups increasingly targeting local civilians rather than Western hostages, according to new research published in The Conversation. The study, conducted by Alexander M. Laskaris, a visiting scholar at the University of Florida, and Olivier Walther, an associate professor of geography at the same institution, analysed nearly 58,000 violent events across 17 West African countries from January 2000 through June 2024. These incidents resulted in more than 201,000 deaths. Researchers found that abductions and forced disappearances have increased twentyfold since 2017,…
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Dec
12
2025
By ALESSANDRO DE COLA; GIORGIO TOSCO, and MARIELLA TERZOLI
Early shoppers: how African consumers set global trade trends in the 1800s

Early shoppers: how African consumers set global trade trends in the 1800s

NEWS
A dynamic new “consumer class” emerging from Africa is attracting international attention. With the prospect of rising incomes and a young population, international consulting firms see the continent as the next frontier for consumer goods. Global entrepreneurs even warn of the increasing savviness of African buyers. But the influence of African consumers on global markets is far from a new thing. In the 1800s, the continent’s consumer demand called the tune for European factories. We’re a team of economic and social historians, anthropologists, and African studies specialists. Our research project investigates the roots of these dynamics. Focusing on the African…
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Dec
13
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Fear, uncertainty: Trump’s immigration crackdown targets East African communities

Fear, uncertainty: Trump’s immigration crackdown targets East African communities

NEWS
THE early morning knock came without warning. Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement stood at the door of a St. Paul home, demanding entry. Inside was a Somali woman with permanent legal status to remain in the United States. For three hours, she scrambled to prove her right to be in the country she had called home for years, her hands trembling as she searched for documents while armed officers occupied her living room. This scene, recounted by Minneapolis immigration attorney Amiin Harun, has become increasingly common across Minnesota as the Trump administration intensifies what it describes as a…
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Dec
12
2025
By OWN CORRESPONDET
Ghana expels Israeli nationals as airport dispute exposes cracks in Israel’s Africa diplomacy

Ghana expels Israeli nationals as airport dispute exposes cracks in Israel’s Africa diplomacy

NEWS
JUST one month after Israeli President Isaac Herzog declared "Africa is the future" while embarking on a historic tour of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel now faces a diplomatic crisis with Ghana that exposes the fragility of its African courtship and raises fundamental questions about whether warm words can survive harsh airport realities. The contradiction could hardly be starker. In November, Herzog became the first Israeli president to visit Zambia in a carefully choreographed diplomatic push designed to break Israel's growing international isolation. He spoke of expanding cooperation in agriculture, technology, and innovation. Israel reopened its embassy…
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