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Mali’s military government has sought to calm anger over a blockade by Islamist militants on major highways where lorry drivers have been facing ambushes and arson attacks. In a rare acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation affecting the landlocked country, Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maïga said the authorities were trying to improve security on the […]
People in parts of the Angolan capital, Luanda, are still afraid to talk openly about what happened in July when protests brought part of the city to a standstill and disturbances rocked other provinces too. What began as a call among taxi drivers to come out against the jump in the price of fuel turned […]
A Kenyan High Court has issued an arrest warrant for a British national suspected of murdering a 21-year-old woman more than a decade ago. Agnes Wanjiru was killed in March 2012 and her body later found in a septic tank of a hotel in the central garrison town of Nanyuki nearly three months after she […]
Former Arsenal footballer Thomas Partey has denied raping two women and sexually assaulting a third woman. The Ghanaian midfielder pleaded not guilty to five counts of rape and one charge of sexual assault when he appeared at Southwark Crown Court. The alleged offences took place between 2021 and 2022, when the 32-year-old regularly played in […]
Gunmen on motorbikes have shot dead 22 people, most of them attending a baptism ceremony, in an attack on a village in western Niger, reports say. A resident told the French news agency AFP that 15 people were killed at the ceremony in Tillaberi region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, before moving elsewhere and […]
Former Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) member of parliament Charmaine Tjirare announced her resignation from the party after a number of recent resignations. She is the fifth PDM member to resign from the party after Vakamuina Kamutuezu, Yvette Araes, Esmeralda !Asbes and Shonena Nathanael resigned last week. She gives Desert FM more insight into this move […]
A court in Zambia has sentenced two men to two years in prison for attempting to use witchcraft to kill President Hakainde Hichilema. Zambian Leonard Phiri and Mozambican Jasten Mabulesse Candunde were convicted under the Witchcraft Act after being arrested in December with charms in their possession, including a live chameleon. “It is my considered […]
Police have physically removed The Gambia’s auditor general, Momodou Ceesay, from his office after he refused to give up the post, in a government reshuffle carried out by President Adama Barrow. Ceesay, who has spent almost three years as auditor general in the West African state, says he had turned down Barrow’s recent offer to […]
Malawians are voting in presidential and parliamentary elections, following a turbulent five years that has seen the economic crisis worsening in the southern African nation. President Lazarus Chakwera is vying for a second term, his main rival being Peter Mutharika, an octogenarian who has previously been in office. In the cities, campaigning has been overshadowed […]
Nigerian chef Hilda Baci has broken the world record for cooking the largest ever pot of jollof rice in Lagos last week. Guinness World Records (GWR) confirmed the achievement on social media, saying Ms Baci’s concoction of the popular West African dish weighed in at a staggering 8,780kg. After nine hours of cooking, the effort […]