The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has successfully completed its mandate after almost 15 years of supporting the West African nation in its transition to peace and democracy. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, at a ceremony on 16 March in Monrovia attended by President George Weah, said the completion of UNMIL’s mandate was a pivotal moment for the history of …

Sierra Leone’s presidential runoff vote has been postponed to Saturday, March 31 by the Supreme Court, the elections body announced late Monday (March 26) in an official statement. The original date was Tuesday, March 21 but a High Court injunction affected the electoral body’s preparation leading to the four-day extension. Lawyers for the Sierra Leone National Electoral Commission (NEC) approached …

The son of Angola’s ex-president, José Filomeno dos Santos, has been charged with fraud relating to the illegal transfer of $500 million to a British bank out of an account belonging to the country’s Sovereign Fund, the prosecutor general’s office said on Monday. Dos Santos is the highest profile figure to be charged since President Joao Lourenco succeeded former leader …

Nigerians in the Diaspora will converge on the British capital in July to mark this year’s Diaspora Day, the first time the event will be held outside Nigeria. The Governing Council of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation Worldwide (NIDOWW) has announced that the Nigerian Diaspora Day will take place on 26-28 July in London. It’s the first time that the …

Spanish police have arrested 89 persons and broken up what they said was a sex trafficking ring. Spanish police have rescued 39 women and girls smuggled in from Nigeria and trafficked into sex work by a notorious Nigerian gang. Europol says the victims were kept in “squalid conditions in caves” and intimidated with voodoo threats. According to the BBC report, …

The number of migrants who cannot be deported rose in Germany in 2017. Authorities often struggle to obtain the relevant travel documents from their countries of origin, according to a report. The number of rejected asylum seekers and migrants who cannot be deported as they lack the necessary travel documents has increased by 71 percent, to 65,000 in 2017 from …

Polls have opened in Egypt for a presidential election in which voters will choose between the current president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and a little-known challenger. Some 60 million people are eligible to vote. Polls opened on Monday morning in Egypt for a three-day vote where President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is virtually guaranteed to win his second term.  El-Sissi voted in Cairo just …

Uncertainty clouds Sierra Leone’s presidential election run-off, scheduled for Tuesday, March 27, as different institutions offer conflicting statements as to whether it will be held or not. In a controversial ruling issued on Saturday (24 March), a high court in Freetown restrained the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and its chair from organizing the polls pending hearing of the case before …

Rejected asylum seekers in Germany almost always challenge the decision in court, and around 40 percent of them win. The number of such appeals nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017. Nearly half of all rejected asylum seekers win their challenge against the decision, according to a report published Friday (23 March). Over 328,000 asylum seekers appealed the decision to deny …

In the first major speech of her new term, German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a conciliatory tone on immigration while offering an inclusive message on Islam. “Germany can do it,” she said, and “we are all Germany.” Jefferson Chase reports. Wednesday 21 March was the first time Angela Merkel addressed the Bundestag after the unprecedentedly long and difficult process of …

Asylum-seekers arriving in Germany are to be sent to centres where they will stay until their application is decided, under a plan by the new coalition government. The move is intended to make the process more efficient, but critics are worried that vulnerable and traumatized people may be put at increased risk. The plan to establish all-in-one processing centres for …

NneNne Iwuji-Eme, who has spent 16 years in the British Foreign Office, will take up her role as British high commissioner to Mozambique in July, taking over from Joanna Kuenssberg. The history making career diplomat told British newspaper The Guardian that her promotion was ‘an honour and a privilege’. ‘‘I hope my appointment as the first British Black female career diplomat to …

Representatives of 44 out of 55 member countries of the African Union have signed an agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area at an extraordinary AU Summit in Kigali. The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (CFTA ) could enter into effect by the end of this year following signing by 44 countries yesterday at the 10th extraordinary African …

The BBC today officially opened its new bureau in Lagos, home to three new services in Igbo, Pidgin, and Yoruba. The bureau boasts a new state-of-the-art TV studio and two radio studios and can house up to 200 people. The BBC’s investment in Nigeria has created over 100 new jobs in Lagos and means that BBC News is now available in five …

African migrants pose a greater threat to Israel than Islamist terrorism, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader made the remarks as he complimented the country’s border ‘wall’ with Egypt. Speaking at the Negev Conference in the Israeli city of Dimona, Netanyahu said the fence along the Israel-Egypt border is all that stands between Israel’s Jewishness and …

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of fallen Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has welcomed the detention of former French president Nicholas Sarkozy and reiterated his offer of evidence showing that Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign was funded by illicit funds. Saif al-Islam alluded to the evidence he gave to European media channel, Euronews in Tripoli in 2011, and lamented that it had …

President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim of Mauritius has resigned amidst allegations of a credit card fraud, and will leave office on Friday, March 23. Her lawyer, Yusuf Mohamed, made the announcement on Saturday. Last month, it was reported that the president, who has a largely ceremonial function in Mauritius, had done quite an amount of shopping for clothes and jewellery in Italy …

Africa and Europe-based institutions have just concluded a week-long training in Dakar to deepen understanding of migration-related issues and strengthen its media coverage on the continent. The workshop has received generous support from the Germany-based Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism of TU Dortmund University, the German magazine Africa Positive, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the African Media Initiative (AMI). …

Some 500,000 more people moved to Germany than left in 2016, Germany’s statistics office says. The figure is less than half that of the previous year. Net migration to Germany fell by more than half from 2015 to 2016, figures released on Tuesday by the German Federal Statistics Office show. Altogether 1,865,000 people came to Germany in 2016, while 1,365,000 …

A decades-long corruption charge has finally caught up with former South African President Jacob Zuma, who resigned under pressure from the ruling ANC in February. The case centres on a 30bn rand ($2.5bn) deal to modernise the country’s defence in the late 1990s, when Zuma was deputy president. Zuma is alleged to have sought bribes from a French company to …