The torch-lighting ceremony for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was held last week, and the International Olympic Committee has consistently said the games are still planned despite the global coronavirus pandemic. That’s what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says too, framing the Olympics as a chance to overcome the virus and…
The New York Times is reporting that two people, an Italian man and Canadian woman taken hostage in Burkina Faso in December 2018, have been released. Edith Blais, 35, and Luca Tacchetto, 31, were taken to Mali after their abductions, and now are believed to be in Bamako. They are…
People in parts of Tanzania and neighboring Kenya experienced a light earthquake late Friday in a border region near the Indian Ocean coast. The magnitude-4.9 earthquake struck at 9:37 p.m. local time, about 19 kilometers from the mountain village of Maramba, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The…
Another painting by Nigerian master Ben Enwonwu is headed for auction at Sotheby’s later this month, this time with an intriguing story believed to link the work to the Ebira people of central Kogi state. Painted in 1953, “Sefi” features a woman who until recently was known only as the…
Zimbabwe’s government has recalled a diplomat serving in the United States, following an incident in which he tried to break in to a home in suburban Washington D.C. in January. Constance Chemwayi, a spokeswoman for Zimbabwe’s foreign ministry, said Macmillan Moyana was granted diplomatic immunity in the U.S. but his…
Global leaders offered their condolences to the Egyptian people on Tuesday following news that former president Hosni Mubarak had died in Cairo. Mubarak, 91, was a former military chief with a complicated legacy who was forced from office during the Egyptian uprising in 2011. He had been ill and required…
Authorities in the Canary Islands called for evacuations as a Saharan dust storm, in some places driven by hurricane-force winds, fueled wildfires that drove people toward the beaches to seek refuge. In Tasarte, fires broke out on Saturday night and claimed some homes, although firefighters appeared successful in setting up…
The locust swarms wreaking havoc in the Horn of Africa have now spread across the Arabian Peninsula and into Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the southwest coast of Iran, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They’re also affecting Red Sea nations, as well as those already hardest…
Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane, due to faces charges Friday in connection with the murder of his former wife, has fled the country for South Africa, according to a press statement. Reporters with South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said both Thabane’s attorney and the police were surprised by the move,…
In October 2018, it was the impending storm Leslie that forced a decision to rescue 10 crew members and abandon the MV Alta, a Tanzanian-flagged ship with disabled engines floating adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. On Sunday, it was the unusually powerful Storm Dennis that finally forced the “ghost ship”…
A Ugandan teen made famous by the Disney movie “Queen of Katwe” has died, according to the school she attended in Gayaza, a community just a few miles north of Kampala. “Fare thee well Nikita Pearl Waligwa,” the school said in messages that followed news accounts of the 15-year-old actor’s…
The word “hirwa” means “lucky one” in Kinyarwanda, a language shared across regional borders in a pocket that includes parts of Rwanda, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and southern Uganda. Yet misfortune has struck nonetheless for the Hirwa mountain gorilla family living in the Virunga conservation area. Four of…
Nearly 8,000 people face displacement because of a dam under construction in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, and the Amnesty International organization is calling on authorities to stop the work until the affected Mokhotlong district is properly compensated. “As the construction of the Polihali Dam begins with work on…
Police in Lesotho say the country’s first lady, Maesiah Thabane, has returned from South Africa after fleeing from authorities investigating the 2017 shooting death of Lipolelo Thabane, the former wife of Prime Minister Thomas Thabane. She is in police custody pending formal murder-related charges, according to journalist Nthakoana Ngatane of…
Caribbean nations affected by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake continued to deal with impacts late Tuesday, including a 6.1-magnitude aftershock near the Cayman Islands. The original quake struck at 2:15 p.m. local time and was centered 125 kilometers offshore from Lucea, Jamaica, according to the United States Geological Survey. It was felt…