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 …

“We make a living by what we get, and we make a life by what we give,” – Winston Churchill Family, friends and associates of Kenneth Alaekwe, who died recently, gathered in Berlin on Saturday to bid him farewell. The late president of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) Germany passed away on 17 February at the age of 55 …

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has revealed the process and details that led to a surprise reconciliation with the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. The two politicians who have not been seeing eye to eye since the disputed August 8, 2017 presidential elections, held a meeting and addressed the press together last week on 9 March. They told Kenyans that they …

Botswana’s President Ian Khama has accused the US government of encouraging elephant poaching following its recent decision to reverse a ban on imports of sport-hunted trophies. Khama was speaking on Friday at an African elephant conservation conference in Botswana. “I want to take this moment to condemn in the strongest possible terms, the decision taken by… the (Donald) Trump administration …

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a US$31.6 million grant from the Government of China for the construction of a new headquarters for the regional body in Abuja. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Brou, and the Ambassador of China to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Zhou Pingjian, signed for both …

Chancellor Angela Merkel and several members of the new federal cabinet have responded to the interior minister’s remarks on the position of Islam in Germany. New Interior Minister Horst Seehofer had told Bild newspaper “Islam doesn’t belong to Germany,” but added that “the Muslims who live with us are, of course, part of Germany.” Seehofer, a former head of Bavaria’s …

Israel’s Supreme Court has suspended a controversial government plan to deport thousands of African migrants. The court issued its ruling on Thursday, following a legal challenge by a group of migrants from Eritrea and Sudan. The government now cannot deport African migrants until the court receives additional information Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January announced the implementation of the programme …

New Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has said Islam is not part of German culture. His comments underscore his efforts to push the government to the right. Rebecca Staudenmaier reports. Germany’s new government may now finally be in place, but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition appears to be off to a rocky start. On Thursday, newly inaugurated Interior Minister Horst Seehofer …

The German soccer federation says it has fired Steffi Jones as coach of the women’s national team following recent poor results. The Afro-German (45) was sacked following a disappointing showing at the SheBelieves Cup, in which the team failed to win a single game. The 2016 Olympic champions were last in the four-team competition, which was won by the host …

Frankfurt police have praised the actions of a man who thought he stumbled across the fortune of a lifetime and still turned it over to the authorities. In the early hours of Monday morning, a 56-year-old bakery worker came across an astonishing find, police said in a statement on Tuesday (13 March). Sitting in a food waste bin, the man …

Facebook has banned a far-right UK party that came to global attention after US President Donald Trump retweeted some of its anti-Islamic posts. The social media giant said it had blacklisted Britain First for repeatedly violating rules designed to stop the incitement of hatred against minority groups. It comes a week after the group’s leader and deputy — Paul Golding …

Germany’s parliament has elected Angela Merkel as the country’s new leader. The conservative Merkel will govern in a grand coalition with the Social Democrats. But the vote was much closer than expected. Merkel’s election by Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday ends 171 days of waiting after Germany’s national election on September 24, 2017. Merkel was elected …

Sierra Leone will hold a runoff vote for president on 27 March, the election commission said Tuesday, after the country’s main opposition finished slightly ahead of the ruling party in the first round of voting. Opposition leader Julius Maada Bio, from the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), took 43.3 percent of votes in the 7 March election, while Samura Kamara …

A food bank in the city of Essen will once again serve non-Germans after it stopped offering membership to foreigners in January. The chairman had defended the decision, saying 75 percent of those served were foreigners. The Tafel food bank in Essen will once again offer membership to foreigners after its decision to provide that service only to Germans stirred …

Less than a day after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, Rex Tillerson has been fired as the US Secretary of State. President Donald Trump fired Tillerson on Tuesday. “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State,” the US leader announced on Twitter. “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will …

Chances of being granted asylum may depend on the state in which the application is filed. Figures provided by the German Office for Migration and Refugees reveal significant differences in protection rates in individual states, reports Charlotte Hauswedell. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is responsible for the processing of asylum requests in all sixteen German states. In …

Nigerian Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji has been elected president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a three-year term. He takes over from Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi whose term has ended. Judge Robert Fremr from the Czech Republic was elected First Vice-President with Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut of France as Second Vice-President. ICC in a statement said judges elected …

A memorial church service for Kenneth Chukwudi Alaekwe, who passed away recently, will hold on Saturday 17 March in Berlin Schöneberg. The president of the German chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) died on17 February at the age of 55 in a Berlin hospital after a brief but serious illness. Kenneth is survived by his wife Ulla and …