Top Africa News

Rihanna is giving bikes to girls in Malawi to help them get an education. It’s part of a new partnership between the singer’s Clara Lionel Foundation and Chinese bike-sharing company Ofo. The campaign called 1 Km Action will fund scholarships to help hundreds of girls attend secondary schools in Malawi. Those who qualify for a scholarship will receive bikes to ...

A massive Buddha statue weighing about half a tonne has been stolen from a temple in the Botswana capital, Gaborone, police say. The Buddhist community in the city say they are devastated by the loss and have appealed for help to retrieve it. The bronze statue was donated by Thailand in 1996 and is 1.5m (5ft) tall and 1.2m wide. ...

A large fire has ripped through a residential skyscraper in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates – for the second time in two years. Footage posted on social media showed flames spreading up the Torch Tower, and burning debris falling down. The authorities later said that civil defence workers “successfully evacuated” the building and the blaze was brought under control. ...

The special counsel investigating claims of Russian meddling in the US election has begun using a grand jury in Washington, reports say. The move suggests Robert Mueller may be taking a more aggressive approach to gathering data on possible collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign team. Grand juries are used to issue subpoenas to compel people to testify. The president has ...

Nigeria’s former President Goodluck Jonathan says that six televisions and three refrigerators were stolen from his home in Abuja – not 36 televisions and 25 refrigerators as some media outlets had reported. Six policemen guarding the house have since been arrested, his spokesman added. An investigation into the theft is now under way. Mr Jonathan lived in the home when ...

Anthony Baffoe is to be a brand ambassador of the Bundesliga. Baffoe is now part of a “team” of prominent figures from the Bundesliga’s history with which the Bundesliga is taking the next steps in its journey of internationalisation. As members of the “Bundesliga Legends Network”, ex-Bundesliga players will be spreading the values and unique features of the Bundesliga all ...

Rabat – Human rights groups have raised fears for a detained Moroccan activist who was hospitalised a month into a hunger strike over his arrest following protests in the troubled Rif region. Detained in the northern town of Al-Hoceima in late June and held in Casablanca’s Oukacha prison, 34-year-old Rabii Elablaq immediately began refusing food to demand his release. “His ...

Kano – Boko Haram jihadists have killed three loggers near a remote village in Nigeria’s restive northeast Borno state, local militia assisting the military to fight the Islamist group told AFP on Wednesday. “The decapitated bodies of the three loggers were found by the roadside,” on Monday, said local vigilante Ibrahim Liman in Maiduguri, the state capital. “Decapitation is a ...

The US government is not seeking a regime change in North Korea, the secretary of state says, amid tensions over Pyongyang’s weapons programme. “We’re not your enemy,” Rex Tillerson said, adding that the US wanted a dialogue at some point. But a Republican senator said President Donald Trump had told him there would be a war with North Korea if ...

Liberia’s 20 presidential candidates, including a former warlord, footballer George Weah and a former fashion model, started campaigning Monday to succeed Africa’s first female head of state in October’s election. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is stepping down and there is no obvious front-runner to lead the fragile west African state. The Nobel Prize-winning Sirleaf was elected to run in 2005 following ...