Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga’s symbolic swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi is considered “a well- choreographed attempt to subvert or overthrow the legally constituted Government of the Republic of Kenya,” according to a statement released Wednesday. Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i said full investigations into Odinga and his Nasa “co-conspirators and facilitators” are…
Angola’s new president announced Wednesday the removal of Isabel dos Santos as board president of Sonangol, the state-controlled oil company. She has been replaced by Carlos Saturnino, according to ANGOP, Angola’s news agency. Dos Santos, the daughter of longtime former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, was removed by President João…
In Zimbabwe, the country’s ruling Zanu PF party denied there is any coup in progress, and a local media outlet said President Robert Mugabe is in command of military forces that descended on the capital city of Harare on Tuesday. Yet by 4 a.m. Wednesday, amid confusing reports of explosions…
More than 15 journalists were among those arrested or detained while covering protests in Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, drawing the condemnation of both MONUSCO and media advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders. The arrests were among more than 120 documented by the United Nations in Kinshasa and other cities…
The big news about NBA star Serge Ibaka on Sunday was that he had signed a USD$65 million, three-year contract to continue playing basketball for the Toronto Raptors, resolving all speculations about Ibaka’s free agency. What Ibaka said on Saturday, though, piqued almost as much interest. After suspicions about his…
More than 100 websites have been blocked in Egypt across the last month, according to a June 22 update from an Egyptian human rights and free speech advocacy group. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) says there were 103 such shutdowns at various times since May 24,…
The nation of Eritrea remains one of the most repressive environments in the world for working journalists, with only North Korea ranked worse in the new Reporters Without Borders analysis released Wednesday. The 2017 World Press Freedom Index rankings are based on a range of criteria that include transparency, diversity…
The English-language New Times in Rwanda on Saturday described the Burundi government’s refusal to accept humanitarian aid because the food was grown in Rwanda as folly and “misplaced obstinacy.” “It is those kinds of immature politics we are witnessing across the border that has destroyed many countries,” the news outlet…
There were 438 reported cases of interference with media professionals across Egypt in 2016, according to a new report from the Egyptian Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE). The annual report on Egypt’s climate of repression found that journalists across the country’s 22 provinces were among the most…
Ethiopia’s state of emergency dramatically reduces access to information about the Oromo population from within the country, where independent journalists and bloggers have been silenced for weeks. From outside Ethiopia, however, Oromo journalists and activists continue to provide news of what’s happening behind the veil of tightly controlled state media….
Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, has threatened to introduce new harsher and more rigid media laws after he accused the press of lying and writing fiction about him, New Zimbabwe reported. The statement was made during Mugabe’s speech at the luncheon of the third session of the 8th Parliament on Thursday….