The Latest Breaking News from Africa

Militaries that have taken power in Africa’s Sahel region – notably Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – have put pressure on western mining firms for a fairer distribution of revenue from the lucrative mining sector.

The African continent finds itself in a predicament. Advanced economies in the rest of the world developed through industrialisation: their economies transformed from mainly agricultural to industrial. This involved burning fossil fuels like coal, generating greenhouse gas emissions that caused global warming.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday asserted South Africa was "confiscating" land and "treating certain classes of people very badly" as he announced he was cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.

Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso were to officially quit the West African bloc Ecowas Wednesday, severing ties after years of strained relations that have reshaped trade routes in the Sahel.

In mid-January 2025 over 1,000 hunger-weakened miners exited two abandoned mine shafts in Stilfontein, near Johannesburg in South Africa. They had been starved out by the police in Operation Vala Umgodi — meaning “plug the hole” – which had cut off food and water in an effort to “smoke out”…

In this edition of the Spotlight on Africa podcast, experts and analysts delve into Africa's evolving diplomacy as the continent approaches 2025. Topics include South Africa's G20 leadership, the division within the West African bloc ECOWAS, and emerging partnerships with the US and China.

A bloodless coup in 2020 saw the military take control of Mali. Since then there have been growing reports of a declining human rights record in the west African country.

South African authorities have ome under intense scrutiny for their response after civic groups said hundreds of miners have been trapped deep in an abandoned gold mine for months

A huge underground water resource the size of Austria, the Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System, stretches for 87,000km² across Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. It supplies 50,000 people in several towns with water pure enough to drink, and is their only source of water. But the Namibian government has awarded uranium…