President Donald Trump of the United States escalated the controversy over his response to the global coronavirus pandemic with the announcement Tuesday night that the U.S. has frozen all funding to the World Health Organization, over what Trump claims were its management failures and its support for China in the…
The African Development Bank Group on Wednesday announced the creation of a US$10 billion COVID-19 response package to assist regional member countries in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The bank, based in Abidjan, says this is the latest measure to support the pandemic response and will be the institution’s primary channel…
There are now nearly 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in 51 African nations, with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 442 fatalities as of Monday. Yet as the global pandemic continues to impact the continent, there’s growing concern over the economic impacts as well. A newly released report…
The G7 nations completed a conference call on Monday to discuss the global health and economic risk caused by the coronavirus pandemic, as the European Union issued its set of proposals to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. Some of the G7 nations are now among the hardest-hit on the planet,…
New swarms of locusts are coming from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its partners continue to fight back against crop destruction in a part of the world where it is least afforded. The FAO said Friday it was…
By NJ Ayuk, African Energy Chamber Sometimes it is easy to forget how interconnected human lives across the globe have become. Perhaps we no longer talk as much about globalization as we used to in the 1990s because it is no longer an issue to be discussed or protested against,…
By Dr. Jemimah Njuki A man and a woman are heading to a flood plain in Zambia. They part ways upon arrival: he disappears on a boat to go fishing, and she makes her way to collect firewood to fry fish by the roadside. He will earn much higher wages…
The European Union (EU) announced it is committing €100 million to support the democratic transition in Sudan, a three-year process that is expected to lead to free and fair elections in 2022. “Besides political support, financial assistance to Sudan remains crucial, given the severity of the economic crisis in the…
Lawmakers in Spain have approved a motion that supports a “firm position in defense of the integrity of the land and maritime territory” of the Canary Islands, as Morocco moves to redefine its territorial waters in a way that creates overlap with Spain’s maritime border there. This week’s decision is…
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is sending $10 million to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help combat a devastating locust infestation in East Africa and Horn nations. “The locust invasion is the worst Kenya has seen in 70 years, and the worst in nearly a…
The European Union has placed the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles on its “taxation blacklist,” which it says is meant to encourage good governance and help countries reform their tax-haven policies. The EU list of “non-cooperative jurisdictions” now includes 12 nations listed because of concern that their policy environments…
Repairs on two undersea cables that provide Internet and phone service to southern African nations have finally been completed after more than a month of disruptions. That’s according to Openserve, the infrastructure arm of South Africa’s Telkom charged with coordinating the repairs on two damaged cable lines, the WACS and…
The desert locust swarms that have devastated crops on the Horn of Africa are rapidly multiplying in affected countries and likely to spread into other nations, according to an update from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and partner agencies. FAO says swarms are the worst…
The African Development Bank delivered a forceful response on Thursday, after World Bank President David Malpass suggested the AfDB was among multinational development banks that are too quick to lend and therefore adding to the debt burden in African nations. Malpass specifically mentioned AfDB loans to Nigeria and South Africa…
The sound of a US$4 billion loss to the African continent because of China’s coronavirus outbreak is sobering, but that’s the estimate from one expert report that warns of financial losses if 2019nCoV continues to spread – and those losses are possible even without a single case ever being confirmed…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times