Author: Amnewsworld

Standing in a barren schoolyard surrounded by baobab trees at the end of a dusty road in central Senegal, Leila Sy takes a look around and smiles. “The light makes all the difference,” she says. “Everything is beautiful — the colour, the people, the energy.” The film director is shooting “Banlieusard 2”, the sequel to a 2019 French hit starring French rapper Kery James. The movie is scheduled for release on Netflix later this year. The American streaming giant is making its mark in francophone West Africa, part of a broader surge in audiovisual production in the region following years…

In Nairobi, motorcyclists are going electric as new increase in charging points pop up throughout the capital. More charging stations and lower running costs are making it easier to switch away from polluting petrol vehicles. The vehicles are gaining traction as electric mobility companies set up ways to charge the batteries. Electric charging cuts carbon emissions, crucial in the battle against climate change. Ampersand is an e-mobility start-up which began operating in Kenya in May 2022. It has seven battery swapping stations in the capital and around 60 customers. Ian Mbote, Ampersand’s expansion lead, says this form of transport is a money…

Chadian president Mahamat Deby met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday. Mahamat Deby is visiting Israel to open the central African nation’s embassy in the Jewish state, building on their diplomatic relations, established five years ago. In 2019, during Netanyahu’s last term, he and late president Idriss Deby Itno, Mahamat Deby’s father, announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. The elder Deby, who ruled the Muslim-majority nation for more than three decades, was killed in 2021 on the battlefield in a fight against rebels. His son replaced him as president at the head of a military junta. Upon landing in…

Petrol shortages, chaos at banks, in addition to insecurity and the chronic lack of water and electricity, have added to the plight of many in Nigeria. Muhammed Bazza has been queueing for petrol under the blazing sun for four hours, while Alexander Okwori has spent the last two waiting at a cash dispenser. And these days Awolowo, a main commercial road of Lagos, Nigeria’s megacity of 20 million people, is constantly blocked by traffic jams worsened by the waits for fuel, spelling further misery for residents. From north to south, the country of about 215 million people is facing a…

On this special interview segment on Africanews, UNICEF goodwill Ambassador Vanessa Nakata. The Ugandan climate activist plays an instrumental role in amplifying African voices in the climate crisis global conversation. You were recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and before that last year you were in Sharm el Sheikh for the U.N. Climate Conference. Did you hear anything that made you believe world leaders are keeping the pace on climate action? Vanessa Nakate: Well, thank you. I can talk about the COP 27, which is in Egypt. One thing that we saw was the establishment of a…

It took years for Marie Louise Wambale and her three kids to re-establish her life after fighting between M23 and the Congolese army forced her to flee with almost nothing more than a decade ago. Like most Catholics in eastern Congo, the 42 years old woman hoped that Pope Francis could bring a message of hope at a time when the M23 rebels are posing their greatest threat here since 2012. “For his arrival we expect a message of peace, of hope, because he has always said, no matter how difficult life is we must keep the faith and we…

With anti-France feelings running high in many of its former colonies in West Africa, Paris is being forced to retreat ever further from the increasingly unstable region and re-think its presence, experts say. After Mali forced French troops out last year, neighboring Burkina Faso followed suit this week, asking Paris to empty its garrison in the next month. France was already drawing down its troops across the Sahel region, who just a few years ago numbered more than 5,000, backed up with fighter jets, helicopters and infantry fighting vehicles. Around 3,000 remain, but the forced departures from Mali and Burkina…

Angolan President João Lourenço on Friday inaugurated the country’s first satellite control centre. Its main task is to monitor the activity of the satellite “ANGOSAT 2”. The southern African country had in October launched the main satellite with the help of Russia The inauguration took place at Funda area within Luanda, the capital city of Angola and fully equipped with technical and technological means. “With the launch of this satellite and its commissioning, Angola will win in all services, so we will improve our telecommunications and our social communication and will also benefit from this important project,” said President João.…

Noura paces around the center of Tunis in search of milk. “When I find it, I can not buy more than two bricks,” she said about a shortage that illustrates the plight of a sector “in slow collapse. The Tunisian market absorbs 1.8 million liters daily while production reaches a maximum of 1.2 million, according to official data. “Milk is essential, especially for our children,” Noura Bchini, a housewife in her fifties, told AFP. Near her, another customer, Leila Chaouali, says she gets it “but at specific times, especially in the morning. The afternoon there is more. This shortage came…

The M23 rebel group has captured Kitshanga, a stratregic town in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from government troops, in its latest seizure of territory in North Kivu province. Hundreds of civilians have fled their homes. The rebels took the town on Thursday evening, after capturing several villages on the road that links it to the provincial capital Goma. Kitshanga sits on the last open route between North Kivu’s main economic hubs of Goma and Butembo. The others were cut off due to the fighting. “We tactically withdrew outside the city, in order to attract these genocidaires in depth…