African Spotlight Spotlighting Africans at Home and Abroad

The Nigerian government on Wednesday pledged to give “all necessary assistance” to ensure a successful conduct of elections in Sierra Leone. Vice President Namadi Sambo told the visiting Chief Electoral Officer and Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone, Mrs. Christiana Thorpe, in Abuja. According to Sambo, “We are in full support with the issues that have to do ...

Frequent power cuts have led people in rural areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal to turn to solar energy for electricity. Promoters of solar panels say more than 80 villages in Senegal are already benefiting from this renewable energy source; in neighboring Mali, more than 150 communities are enjoying solar power. According to solar manufacturer Sustainable Power Electric Company, ...

Israel and Egypt have begun preparations for a prisoner exchange in which Egypt will free a US-Israeli man held on spying suspicion, in return for more than two dozen Egyptians held in Israel on smuggling and immigration charges. The exchange is expected to occur on Thursday afternoon, with Israel transferring 25 Egyptians to Sinai via the Taba border crossing, as ...

Attackers on Thursday fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a vehicle and killed four people in northern Kenya, police said. “The vehicle was carrying eight people but four of them have died,” a police officer in the region said on condition of anonymity. The vehicle, carrying education and security officials ferrying secondary school examination papers, was hit in Elwak region near ...

Africans currently make up around 15% of the estimated global population of 7 billion but this figure will increase to 35% by the end of the century, according to the German Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). The reason for the increase is the continued high birth rate in Africa. Europeans make up just 10% of the world’s population, a ...