By Rédaction Africanews Ahead of Ivory Coast’s Saturday election, there is an air of apathy in Abidjan’s Blockhauss neighborhood, where hundreds of protesters were arrested and several wounded during protests earlier this month. Security forces launched tear gas at demonstrators during the protest, which authorities claimed was illegal as they had banned political marches days earlier. Elections in Ivory Coast have often been fraught with tension and violence, but despite October’s protests, this year has been relatively calm. In a barbershop in the neighborhood, Pierre Kouame said the entire neighborhood was affected by October’s violence, with tear gas entering several…
Author: Montage Africa
By Rédaction Africanews In Yopougon, a popular district of Abidjan, the former First Lady of the Ivory Coast, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, held a campaign rally this Wednesday, October 22, focused on mobilizing women. Under a blazing sun, several hundred women dressed in the colors of the Generations Capables Movement (MGC) responded to the call of their leader. “The various meetings in the interior of the country and in Abidjan have generated real enthusiasm among the population. She was warmly welcomed, which led to today’s gathering with the women. Everywhere she went, her message was heard and listened to attentively. The…
Lab-grown diamonds are losing their appeal due to oversupply, and consumer preferences are starting to shift back to natural stones, World Diamond Council President Feriel Zerouki has said. The natural diamond industry has seen a price slump since mid-2022 after peaking earlier that year, mainly due to the rising popularity of lab-grown gems, especially among younger jewelry buyers. But a collapse in lab-grown diamond prices on the back of increased production in China and India has started to undermine confidence in the synthetic gems, Zerouki said in an interview at a mining conference in Luanda on Wednesday. “If you look…
By Rédaction Africanews with AP Forty people, including infants, died when a boat carrying migrants seeking to reach Europe sank Wednesday off the coast of Tunisia, according to local judicial authorities. Around 30 others were rescued. Tunisian naval units that arrived on the scene rescued 30 other migrants on board the boat, which sank off the Mediterranean port of Mahdia in central Tunisia, Mahdia court spokesman Walid Charbi said. Charbi said those aboard were from sub-Saharan Africa, without providing further details. The prosecutor’s office has ordered an investigation to determine the causes and circumstances of the sinking, Charbi said. Mahdia…
By Africanews with AP For Donah Falia and the other young people whose weeks of protests paved the way for Madagascar’s military coup last week, the change at the top has brought no immediate relief to their lives. The 20-year-old accounting student still has to wait in line for hours to get water from a tank in his neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, Antananarivo, because the taps at home generally only work at night, and sometimes not even then. The job market is just as dry. “For us, personally, there is no answer here yet. I still don’t…
The Nigerian Government has expressed concern over the increasing cases of killings and abductions of its citizens residing in some cities across South Africa. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, raised the concern during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Political Consultation with the South African Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Thandi Moraka, in Abuja. Ambassador Odumegwu-Ojukwu said Nigerians were deeply worried about the rising incidents of extrajudicial killings and the delays in court proceedings for murder suspects, many of whom, she noted, often disappear without trace after being granted bail.…
By Agencies Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi met European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday for the first-ever EU-Egypt summit, marking a new chapter in relations between Cairo and the 27-member bloc. The high-level meeting focused on security, trade, migration, and regional stability, particularly the ongoing crisis in Gaza. During the summit, el-Sissi joined European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in signing three key agreements covering macro-financial assistance, support for reforms, and Egypt’s association with Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation program. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen underlined Egypt’s strategic role in the region, particularly as the Mediterranean faces shifting geopolitical dynamics.…
Uganda projects its coffee production in the 2025/26 (Oct-Sept) crop year will surge 14.8% from the previous period, boosted by yields from newly-planted acreage, a senior official from the agricultural ministry said on Thursday. The East African country is the continent’s leading exporter of beans and predominantly cultivates the Robusta variety. Production and export volumes have been climbing sharply in recent months, riding a global coffee price boom and extra harvests from maturing new trees. In the crop year spanning 12 months to next September, Uganda expects to produce 9.3 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee, up from a forecast of…
By Rédaction Africanews with AP An American missionary has been kidnapped in Niger’s capital, Niamey, according to security sources and local media. The unidentified man was kidnapped overnight Tuesday into Wednesday by three armed individuals in a Toyota Corolla and was probably driven out of town, according to a security source with direct knowledge of the incident but who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. No armed group has claimed responsibility for the abduction. Niger has long faced attacks from armed groups including jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization. The security source said that Nigerien…
By Mnena Iyorkegh, Abuja The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to deepen collaboration and strengthen their partnership in support of inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth across West Africa. The agreement was signed by the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray and the Secretary-General of the OECD. In a statement by the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, both parties explained that: “the partnership provides a framework for cooperation across critical policy areas such as regional economic integration and the…