William Ruto was recently declared president-elect of Kenya, but victory did not not come without contestation. Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the runner-up, is challenging the results. Odinga received 48.8 % of the votes compared to 50.5 % for Ruto. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Odinga referred to the results as “null and void.”…
AURORA (Africa News Matters) – On the evening of Saturday, July 30, natives, friends, and well-wishers of the African nation of Liberia filled the corridors and ballroom of the Holiday Inn Express in Aurora to celebrate 175 years since its independence. Formerly a US territory, Liberia was founded by freed American slaves on July 26,…
DENVER (Africa News Matters) — There are no doubts about the strategic importance of the African continent to the world’s superpowers. Just as Russia, China, and India have upped the ante in relations with African nations, the United States, considered grossly lagging in its strategic relations with the continent, appears ready to change its ways. The Obama…
The recent achievement of a group of female volunteers opposed to ‘violence against women’ in central Mozambique provides a good chance to examine the country’s gender-based violence problem in greater depth. Recognizing the deficiencies and a lack of progress in human rights in Mozambique, Mariem Marouani takes a look at the critical impact that these…
DENVER (Africa News Matters) —Since its inception in 2014, the Mandela Washington Fellowship program has seen participation from more than 5000 young African leaders from all countries on the continent. That’s according to the Department of State’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) program website. The fellowship program, a significant part of YALI, works in collaboration…
It was a festive Sunday in Philadelphia, as folks celebrated Juneteenth in several parts of the city. In Center City, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, or AAMP, hosted a Juneteenth block party where hundreds of people jammed to hip hop and dance classics like “The Wobble” and Jay‑Z’s “I Just Wanna Love You.” The block party…
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo — King Philippe of Belgium, in a historic visit to Congo, said on Wednesday that his country’s rule over the vast central African country had inflicted pain and humiliation through a mixture of “paternalism, discrimination and racism.” In a speech outside Congo’s parliament, Philippe amplified remorse he first voiced two years…
Summary During his first term, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to revitalize his country’s diplomatic outreach to countries throughout Africa. Some aspects of this pivot were designed to more directly address the legacy of French colonialism in Francophone countries. He also sensed that the growing stature of non-Western powers like China has given African counterparts…
Following a recent agreement signed between the British and Rwandan governments on asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, several international aid agencies report that some asylum seekers in the UK have gone into hiding for fear of being sent to Rwanda. Under the agreement, people suspected of illegally entering the UK would be flown to…
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief. The highlights this week: Tunisia’s largest trade union calls a strike over wages, a politician in Algeria seeks to criminalize normalization of relations with Israel, and the Meroe pyramids in Sudan are digitized. If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.…