Category: Headlines

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council is meeting Friday to discuss the escalating war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. The conflict-resolution body is to receive a briefing from AU special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, who has been leading efforts to mediate talks between the Tigray rebels and Ethiopia’s federal government. The United Nations Security Council was also set Friday to discuss the conflict in Ethiopia at a private meeting requested by Gabon, Ghana and Kenya this week. Both meetings are being held a day after Ethiopia announced it will send representatives to AU-sponsored peace talks on October 24. Leaders of

In late August, health ministers from across Africa held a meeting in Togo in which they adopted a common strategy to confront health emergencies.   The so called “Regional Strategy for Health Security and Emergencies” commits African countries to concrete steps to strengthen disease surveillance, response and preparedness.   There are over 100 health emergencies in Africa each year — including outbreaks of infectious and deadly diseases like Yellow Fever, meningitis, and ebola. And it is sometimes the case that diseases endemic only in parts of Africa, like MonkeyPox, can spread globally precisely because of limited local capacity to contain

ABUJA— A four-story building under construction in Nigeria’s southern state of Akwa Ibom collapsed on Saturday, leaving an unknown number of people trapped, a local official said. Located in the Plaza area of Uyo, the state capital, the building fell on another building next to it on Saturday evening, said Godwin Tepikor, coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the southern region. A combined team of responders from the NEMA and other agencies have arrived at the site to search for people trapped under the debris, said Tepikor. The coordinator said the site has been cordoned off, and

The annual gathering of leaders at the U.N. General Assembly is taking place this year in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and as the war in Ukraine heads into a possibly decisive period. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is skipping the Queen’s funeral to remain in New York to oversee an Education Summit on Monday. He will then participate in the opening of the annual debate Tuesday morning, telling reporters it would be “inconceivable” that he would miss it. U.S. President Joe Biden as host country leader would traditionally be the second head of state to address the assembly Tuesday,

Eritrean authorities have called on their armed forces to mobilize in response to the renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia, the British and Canadian governments said. The return to combat last month shattered a March truce and dashed hopes of peacefully resolving the nearly two-year war between Ethiopian authorities and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Tigrayan authorities have since expressed readiness to hold talks led by the African Union, but the Ethiopian government has not responded publicly to the overtures, other than saying it remains “committed” to the AU-led peace process. Both sides have accused the other of firing first,

UNITED NATIONS, The UN General Assembly is back in person after the pandemic disruption but in a world as full of crises as ever, with the war in Ukraine set to pit the West against Russia. Some 150 world leaders will descend on New York for a week of diplomacy, with all required to come in person to speak save one — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, granted an exception as he leads the fight against Russian invaders. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking ahead of the summit that formally begins Tuesday, said that the world’s divisions “are the widest they have