Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Senegal’s youth want jobs from Faye, investors wary of radical ideas

Senegal’s youth want jobs from Faye, investors wary of radical ideas

SENEGAL'S President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye rode to victory in Sunday's poll on a wave of protest votes against the West African country's current leader, fuelled by discontent that infrastructure-fuelled growth has failed to benefit all. While the young people who formed the backbone of Faye's support base want jobs and more even wealth distribution, investors expressed hope that pledges to create a new currency and renegotiate energy contracts won't be followed through. During outgoing President Macky Sall's 12 years in power, economic growth averaged almost 5%, boosted by spending on roads, railways, ports and airports, while Senegal had a reputation for being…
Read More
Several people killed in accident at abandoned Liberia gold mine

Several people killed in accident at abandoned Liberia gold mine

SEVERAL people have been killed in Liberia in an accident at an abandoned gold mine, the West African country's mines minister said. Minister Wilmot Paye said that seven people died in Monday night's incident but acknowledged the authorities could not yet provide an exact death toll until a team reached the site in River Cess County in south-central Liberia. "I was told that seven persons died, but I can't say much until the team gets there. The mines had been abandoned several months ago," Paye told Reuters, adding that he did not know which company had operated the site. "If…
Read More
Ghana seeks to speed up debt restructuring negotiations

Ghana seeks to speed up debt restructuring negotiations

GHANA wants to speed up remaining debt restructuring negotiations, its finance minister said, as the government pushes for a deal to rework over $13 billion of international bonds. The West African country has been overhauling its debts as it tries to emerge from its worst economic crisis in a generation with the help of a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. The government reached a deal in principle in January to restructure $5.4 billion of loans with official creditors. It has since started formal talks with one bondholder group under non-disclosure agreements, Reuters reported about two weeks ago, citing sources familiar…
Read More
Ex-Ivory Coast President Gbagbo agrees to contest 2025 election

Ex-Ivory Coast President Gbagbo agrees to contest 2025 election

FORMER Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo agreed to lead the party he founded into the 2025 presidential elections, spokesman Katinan Kone told Reuters following a meeting of the party's central committee. Gbagbo, president of the West African country from 2000 to 2011, launched his African People's Party - Cote d'Ivoire (PPA-CI) in 2021 following his acquittal on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and return from a decade abroad. He was acquitted in 2019 by the Netherlands-based ICC on charges relating to his role in a civil war sparked by his refusal to concede defeat in an…
Read More
Ghana’s president says anti-LGBTQ bill has not reached his desk

Ghana’s president says anti-LGBTQ bill has not reached his desk

AN anti-LGBTQ bill passed by Ghana's parliament last week, which could derail international aid for the West African country if it becomes law according to an internal government memo, has not yet reached the desk of President Nana Akufo-Addo, he said on Monday. In his first comments on the bill's passage, he said Ghana would not backslide on its human rights record and added that the bill had been challenged in the Supreme Court. "I have learnt that today, a challenge has been mounted at the Supreme Court," Akufo-Addo said in a statement. "In the circumstances, it would be as well…
Read More
Gambian parliament to discuss bill to decriminalise female genital mutilation

Gambian parliament to discuss bill to decriminalise female genital mutilation

A bill seeking to repeal Gambia's ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) was presented in the West African country's parliament and will be discussed by lawmakers later this month. Former president Yahya Jammeh banned the practice in 2015 and introduced steep fines and jail sentences for perpetrators. However, many Gambians still believe that FGM is a requirement of Islam and the bill -- introduced by lawmaker Almameh Gibba -- argues that the current ban violates citizens' rights to practice their culture and religion. The bill has divided public opinion. Anti-FGM advocates point to the harmful physical and psychological effects of…
Read More
Ghana LGBTQ activist says friends in hiding after crackdown bill passes

Ghana LGBTQ activist says friends in hiding after crackdown bill passes

GHANAIAN trans woman and activist Angel Maxine fled to Berlin before parliament passed an anti-LGBTQ bill. She fears for the safety of the friends she has had to leave behind. Lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously passed the legislation that will intensify a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those accused of promoting lesbian, gay or other minority sexual or gender identities in the West African country. "I needed a safe place to continue my work as an activist," said Maxine, who left the country last week. "The threats were just so much and I had to just find a way…
Read More
Ghana parliament passes stringent anti-LGBTQ law

Ghana parliament passes stringent anti-LGBTQ law

GHANA'S parliament passed legislation that intensifies a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those promoting lesbian, gay or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities in the West African country. Gay sex was already punishable by up to three years in prison. The bill now also imposes a prison sentence of up to five years for the "wilful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities". The bill, one of the harshest of its kind in Africa, still needs presidential assent to come into force. President Nana Akufo-Addo has not confirmed if he will sign the bill into law. A…
Read More
Strike paralyses Guinea’s capital, vital mining sector

Strike paralyses Guinea’s capital, vital mining sector

WORKERS started a national strike in Guinea, shutting businesses and disrupting operations across the mining sector as they demanded higher wages, the lifting of web restrictions and the release of a detained trade union leader. Streets were largely empty, banks closed and normally bustling markets deserted in the West African country's capital Conakry. Security forces were deployed at major road junctions. There was no immediate comment from the government which was set up by a military junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. It has quashed recurring anti-government protests, sometimes violently, in the last few years. A senior official of…
Read More
Nigerian E-payments eclipse South Africa’s 2022 GDP, in latest surge

Nigerian E-payments eclipse South Africa’s 2022 GDP, in latest surge

WHEN the Nigerian Central Bank introduced newly designed currency notes in November 2022 and a month later put a cap on the maximum amount of hard cash that individuals and corporations could withdraw, the idea was to tame money laundering in the country. During that year’s Christmas festive season and in the run-up to the 2023 Nigerian presidential election in February 2023 –– two high spending seasons –– the country was hit with shortages of the naira currency. Nigerians, however, appear to have found solutions to the problem, according to official statistics. In December 2023 alone, 968 million transactions took…
Read More