African nations can expect 5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the United States, according to U.S. President Joe Biden. The commitment was announced Thursday as part of a U.S. plan to send vaccines to low-income nations still waiting for the lifesaving medicine. Biden described an allocation of the…
President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo co-hosted a summit on financial assistance for African economies on Tuesday, joining French President Emmanuel Macron at the Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris to discuss strategies for boosting recovery aid following the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. Tshisekedi, speaking in his…
Egypt plans to expand the southern part of the Suez Canal, where the MV Ever Given captured global attention after getting stuck for nearly a week and shutting down the key marine shipping route. Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, made the announcement Tuesday during events attended by…
Morocco and Kenya are leading the way on Africa’s clean energy transition, but more progress is needed as two-thirds of the continent’s expanding power generation is still supported by fossil fuels. That’s according to a new Global Electricity Review released by campaigners with the British NGO Ember. At 16 percent,…
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says his country will begin reducing carbon emissions in 2025, 10 years earlier than previously projected. “With regard to our energy resources, we plan to build capacity to generate over 17 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030,” said Ramaphosa, speaking at the Leaders Summit on…
The British government’s investment in developing liquified natural gas (LNG) projects in Mozambique – projects contributing to the conflict and instability in the country’s north – is headed for judicial review following a successful legal filing from the Friends of the Earth. The London-based NGO says the decision to approve…
There are at least 32 million more people living in extreme poverty across sub-Saharan Africa because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and countries in the region will need about $425 billion in additional external funding over the next five years, the IMF said on Thursday. “The outlook for sub‑Saharan Africa is…
Top African health officials are calling for more equitable vaccine distribution, noting that less than 2 percent of the vaccines delivered to date have been for people on the continent and most of that is in just 10 nations. “Although progress is being made, many African countries have barely moved…
The massive container ship that blocked the Suez Canal to shipping traffic for nearly a week is free and the first southbound convoy of ships began moving on Monday. Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), said the MV Ever Given was refloated by using tugboats to strategically…
There are now at least 327 vessels waiting to transit through the Suez Canal in Egypt, as Saturday’s efforts to move the grounded MV Ever Given proved unsuccessful in an operation experts say now may take days if not weeks. “Unfortunately, the tidal conditions didn’t help re-floating Ever Given tonight,”…
Authorities in Egypt say they’ve been able to partially remove the container ship that’s blocked the Suez Canal for a second day, creating a bottleneck for dozens of other vessels and upsetting maritime traffic. An update from port manager GAC, issued at noon local time, said the grounded MV Ever…
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a sobering impact on global nature conservation, with Africa and Asia the most severely affected, according to new research papers published in PARKS, the journal of the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. More than half of protected areas in Africa reported that they were…
The United States has reinstated sanctions against international businessman Dan Gertler, a close ally of former president Joseph Kabila whose interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo are under renewed scrutiny. Gertler was placed under U.S. Magnitsky sanctions in 2017 but was issued a one-year reprieve in January by outgoing…
The anti-corruption organization Transparency International (TI) says that a fake YouTube channel in its name is being used to post videos targeting groups doing similar work against corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The channel, which was created on 26 February, has no relationship to Transparency International whatsoever,” the…
With the COVID-19 pandemic has come a global spike in the demand for oxygen, and 25 countries – most of them on the African continent – are reporting a surge in demand they cannot meet. To that end, global health officials announced Thursday the creation of a new COVID-19 Oxygen Emergency…