Africa

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South African Prez Fires AIDS Crusader

Minister sacked as Mbeki continues to deny science of HIV

(Newser) - South Africa's president has fired his government's leading HIV/AIDS crusader, the prime mover of a plan to offer free treatment to millions. Thabo Mbeki dismissed his deputy health minister, who has opposed his AIDS denialism for years, the Mail and Guardian reports.  Mbeki has drawn worldwide outrage for the...

Kenyan Fossil Rattles Human Family Tree

Skull suggests two precursors were actually concurrent

(Newser) - Two of our ancestors apparently lived alongside each other in Africa rather than evolving from one to the next on the path to Homo sapiens, as scientists once believed. National Geographic reports that a Homo habilis skull dug up in Kenya is surprisingly young, making its 1.4 million-year-old owner...

African Villagers Sold on the Simpsons

Tribe members market soapstone carvings of the cantankerous family

(Newser) - Villagers in a remote Kenyan village are thrilled about tomorrow’s premiere of The Simpsons movie, but not because it’s playing in a theater near them. Most, in fact, have never even seen the TV show. But their soapstone busts of the cartoon characters have been declared official Simpsons...

Darfur Lake Is Dried Up, Draining Hope

Huge underground lake, a hope for peace, emptied 5K years ago

(Newser) - Hopes for an enormous underground lake discovered recently in Darfur might supply enough water to end starvation and violence in the area were dimmed by a second opinion from  a French geologist. The area receives too little rain and has the wrong type of rocks for water storage, said a...

Elephants Go on the Offense in Africa
Elephants Go on the Offense in Africa
Jul 15, 2007 12:57 PM CDT

Elephants Go on the Offense in Africa

Farmers all ears on ways to stop attacks by vengeful beasts

(Newser) - Elephants are now endangering Southern Africans, as attacks on humans increase and the creatures savage farms. While tourists tend to see the mammoths as cuddly and harmless, Africans tell the Times that the peril is becoming an elephant in the room. "Elephants are horrible things to live next door...

Don't Think Pink: Factory Threatens Flamingo Species

Endangered lesser flamingos breed in only one lake in eastern Africa

(Newser) - An Indian company's plans to build a plant to harvest soda ash, or sodium carbonate, from Lake Natron in northern Tanzania could spell the end for the endangered lesser flamingo, the smallest of the six flamingo species. The lake is the only major breeding site, and half a million of...

5 Kidnapped From Nigerian Oil Rig
5 Kidnapped From Nigerian Oil Rig
Jul 5, 2007 3:30 AM CDT

5 Kidnapped From Nigerian Oil Rig

Rebels seeking oil revenues end truce; 5 oil workers abducted

(Newser) - Five expat contractors were taken abducted yesterday during an attack on a Shell oil rig in the Niger Delta, just as a rebel group responsible for many similar attacks called off a one-month truce. The hostages include two New Zealanders, one Australian, one Lebanese and one Venezuelan; more than 200...

Son of Chad Prez Probable Murder Victim

Body with head wound found in Paris suburb

(Newser) - French police have launched an investigation into the death of Brahim Deby, whose body was recovered in the parking lot of his apartment building, Reuters reports. Once touted as a possible successor to his father, the younger Deby had become a controversial figure, doing time in France for drugs and...

China Raises Profile in Africa
China Raises Profile in Africa
Jun 27, 2007 9:28 AM CDT

China Raises Profile in Africa

UN peacekeepers, volunteers, economic efforts reflect Beijing's new commitment

(Newser) - China is increasing the number of UN peackekeepers it sends to Africa and raising its profile on the continent, creating a kind of "peace corps" to address problems from job shortages to health care, the Christian Science Monitor reports. China, itself a developing nation, appears determined to both do...

World Bank Confirms New Prez
World Bank Confirms New Prez
Jun 26, 2007 5:48 AM CDT

World Bank Confirms New Prez

Robert Zoellick to take over July 1

(Newser) - Declaring that he's looking forward to "encouraging hope, opportunity and dignity," Robert Zoellick was elected yesterday to succeed the embattled Paul Wolfowitz as new chief of the World Bank. The Goldman Sachs investment banker and former US deputy secretary of state will officially step into office July 1....

Africans OK Nine-Year Ivory Ban
Africans OK Nine-Year
Ivory Ban
Jun 15, 2007 6:30 AM CDT

Africans OK Nine-Year Ivory Ban

But first, countries approve a one-time mammoth sale

(Newser) - Four southern African countries will hold a one-time sale of 200 tons of stockpiled ivory before the start of a nine-year moratorium, in a hard-fought conservation compromise. Proceeds from the blowout will be used in elephant conservation efforts in the future. "It's the best we could achieve for the...

Collapse Looms in Zimbabwe
Collapse Looms in Zimbabwe
Jun 14, 2007 9:56 AM CDT

Collapse Looms in Zimbabwe

Economy may dissolve within six months as inflation spirals

(Newser) - Zimbabwe could suffer a full structural collapse in the next few months, the BBC reports. According to a memo distributed to aid workers, shops may resort to barter and utilities may shut down entirely in the country, on account of unbridled inflation that's already the world's highest at 3,714%.

Deal Threatens Ancient Tribe in Tanzania

Government agrees to rent safari land, pushing endangered people to the brink

(Newser) - The Hadzabe people of Tanzania walk in age-old footsteps near the once-bountiful Serengeti plain, starting fires with sticks and hunting with handmade poison arrows. Now the tribe has crossed paths with the royal family of Abu Dhabi, and the resulting conflict endangers a way of life that has endured for...

G8 Concludes with AIDS Pledge
G8 Concludes with AIDS Pledge
Jun 8, 2007 3:22 PM CDT

G8 Concludes with AIDS Pledge

World leaders renew $60B pledge to fight disease in Africa

(Newser) - Global leaders renewed their vow to spend $60 billion to help fight AIDS, TB, and malaria in Africa today as the G8 summit wrapped up. But they set no deadlines for delivering the relief, leading critics to question the pledge. "I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation,...

China to Test Controversial Malaria Treatment

Researchers aim to eradicate disease on African island

(Newser) - A Chinese researcher will test a radical new strategy designed to wipe out malaria on a small African island, the International Herald Tribune reports. Mass treatment with a highly effective antimalarial drug would virtually clear the parasite from patients' blood, but critics fear the plan could backfire, causing drug resistance...

Charles Taylor Skips War Crimes Trial

Former President of Liberia accused of atrocities in Sierra Leone

(Newser) - Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, didn't show up for the opening of his  war-crimes trial in The Hague today, the BBC reports. He is accused of fostering a long bloody civil war in Sierra Leone marked by crimes against humanity, terrorism, rape and the use of child soldiers....

Desmond Tutu to Anglicans: Get Over It

Church should attend to AIDS, corruption, Darfur—not gay priests

(Newser) - Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on Africa's Anglican church to let go of what he called its "extraordinary obsession" with gay priests and same-sex marriage.  The church should, instead, be paying attention to the crises caused by AIDS, Darfur and Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe's corruption. 

Philanthropist Bets $40M on Eco-Tourism

Greg Carr would put nature back in Mozambique nature preserve

(Newser) - Philanthropist Greg Carr wants to turn an African ecosystem around—and he’s willing to pay to do it. The tech-bubble whiz kid will spend $40 million over the next 30 years to restore Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, destroyed during the country's 16-year civil war. Stephanie Hanes follows Carr as...

African Colleges Fail a Generation
African Colleges Fail
a Generation
May 19, 2007 9:49 PM CDT

African Colleges Fail a Generation

Underfunded and overcrowded, promising universities begin to buckle

(Newser) - Once a beacon of hope for the world's poorest continent, Africa's colleges are collapsing under the weight of too many students and too little cash, the Sunday Times reports. At Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, students are packed into overcrowded dorms and classrooms, labs are dilapidated, and qualified teachers...

Secretive French Office Wields Power in Africa

New regime may sever link to colonial past

(Newser) - The election of Nicolas Sarkozy could end the influence of the "African Cell," a tiny French government office that exerts great power in Africa. Since 1958, the Cell has used the French military to install and protect African leaders it considers friendly, opening it to charges that it...

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