Burkina Faso’s military has overthrown the interim government in a coup that has plunged the capital city, Ouagadougou, into panic. It happened just three weeks before the country was due to hold general elections. General Gilbert Diendere has been declared the country’s new leader. Burkina Faso is not an exception in Africa. The continent has seen at least 200 successful or failed coups since the 1960s. Some thought the continent had begun to shake off its reputation for military takeovers – especially after the democratic changes of the 1990s. So, why are coups so common in some parts of Africa?…
Author: AMA
The military in Burkina Faso has taken to the airwaves to declare it now controls the country, confirming that a coup has taken place – just weeks before national elections. In the announcement aired early on Thursday on national television and radio, the statement said that the transitional government had been dissolved. The statement came a day after members of the elite presidential guard unit of the military arrested the transitional president and prime minister. Fanny Noaro, a journalist based in the capital Ouagadougou, told Al Jazeera gunfire could be heard on the streets of the city. “There is a…
Seven senior political figures have been expelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s ruling coalition for signing a letter urging President Joseph Kabila not to cling to power after his term expires next year, government officials have said. The planning minister was also sacked from his post later on Wednesday on an order from the president, as was another longtime ally of Kabila whose party signed the letter. In Monday’s letter to Kabila, the leaders of the G7, a group of parties within the coalition, demanded immediate steps to ensure a presidential election scheduled for November 2016 was held on…
Zimbabwean politicians have been recalled for a special sitting a day after President Robert Mugabe delivered the wrong speech at the opening session of parliament. The government-owned Herald newspaper said all parliamentarians were required to attend Wednesday afternoon’s session called by Mugabe. The 91-year-old leader on Tuesday gave the same speech he delivered at a state of the nation address in August. The Herald and other state-owned media outlets later published the intended speech, which announced restrictions on imports, land reforms and measures to protect employees from unfair dismissal. Common mistake The newspaper’s editor, Tichaona Zindoga, defended the mix-up in…
Soldiers have detained Burkina Faso’s transitional president, prime minister and an unknown number of cabinet members, raising fears of a coup. Members of the military showed up at the presidential offices on Wednesday afternoon and barred the transitional leaders from leaving, Achille Tapsoba, who works at the presidency, told the Associated Press news agency. The raid comes weeks before the country is due to hold elections to replace its longtime leader who was ousted in a popular uprising late last year. Interim president Michel Kafando and Lieutenant Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida, the interim prime minister, were tasked with organising the…
Violent clashes have broke out in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after an opposition rally was attacked by unidentified youths hurling stones, sparking a lynching attempt and a police crackdown. Up to 3,000 people had gathered in a southern area of the DR Congo capital to oppose any bid by President Joseph Kabila to seek a third term in elections due at the end of next year, said a journalist from the AFP news agency at the scene. Kabila, in office since 2001, is constitutionally ineligible for next year’s poll as he nears the end…
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has delivered the wrong speech at the opening of a new session of parliament, repeating an address he gave to the legislature last month. The 91-year-old leader read the 25-minute-long speech through to the end on Tuesday, apparently unaware that he was delivering the same text he presented during his state of the nation address last month. “There has been a mix-up of speeches resulting in a situation where… the president delivered the wrong speech,” said presidential spokesman George Charamba. “The mix-up happened in his secretarial office,” Charamba was quoted as saying in the state-owned Herald…
Bukavu, DR Congo – Inside a small wooden house overlooking the massive Virunga National Park, Bakazi Ndazimo, 70, relives the worst day of her life – the day she stopped feeling human; the day she was beaten and raped. “The only reason I am able to talk about this is because of my age, and the fact that I am not going to remarry,” Ndazimo told Al Jazeera. The attack happened in late November 2012, just after the M23 militia took control over Sake, Ndazimo’s hometown, situated 27km west of Goma in the eastern province of North Kivu. She was…
Cameroon striker Albert Ebosse died over a year ago after a domestic football league match in Algeria. He was hit on the head by an object thrown from the crowd as the teams walked back towards the tunnel. The Algerian league was suspended. But 12 months on, his family is still looking for answers. A very promising footballer on the brink of a move to Europe and a call-up to the national team, Ebosse’s career was on a roll. The striker’s 20 goals in 36 appearances for Algerian club JS Kabylie (JSK) had forced his name in the scouts’ notebooks…
The President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika has replaced the long-standing head of Algeria’s military intelligence agency, in his latest move in a campaign to curb the spy chief’s influence in politics. The removal on Sunday of Mohamed Mediene, chief of the intelligence service for more than two decades, sidelines a powerful figure in the country. Known by his nickname Toufik and seldom seen even in photographs, Mediene had long played the role of political kingmaker, analysts said, influencing leadership choices in Algeria’s backroom tussles between civilian and military factions within the leadership. Mediene was replaced by General Athmane Tartag, a…
Team captain Bornor is an amputee who plays football in Sierra Leone to cope with the horrors of war he suffered a decade ago. As he dreams of playing internationally, he wrestles with nightmares that haunt his daily life and threaten the very family he is trying to feed. Can Bornor overcome his postwar trauma and score a victory for his children off the soccer pitch? FILMMAKER’S VIEW By Ngardy Conteh George and Allan Tong The civil war of Sierra Leone lasted from 1991-2002 and in that time rebel soldiers waged a campaign of terror by amputating innocent children, while…
It is one of the greatest fossil discoveries of our time, a trove of bones hidden deep inside a cave, outside Johannesburg in South Africa. The team of scientists – from the Rising Star expedition – who made the discovery say the remains are that of ‘Homo Naledi’. A new species of our human ancestor. Homo Naledi is small-brained and primitive – yet revolutionary and complex in behaviour. Its place in time is uncertain. It may have lived as far back as three-million-years ago … or could have roamed the earth as recently as 100,000 years ago. So, is human…
The head of Burundi’s armed forces has survived an assassination attempt in the capital Bujumbura, police said, adding that at least seven other people were killed in the attack. “There was an attack against the armed forces chief, General Prime Niyongabo, but happily he was unharmed,” Burundi’s deputy police chief, General Godefroid Bizimana, told AFP news agency. He said two attackers were killed in the clash, and a third arrested. Another senior police source said four bodyguards were also killed, as well as a female police officer. “Reinforcements have arrived. We are pursuing the remainder of the commandos,” Bizimana. Another…
Guinea Bissau’s President Jose Mario Vaz has dismissed his two-day-old cabinet after the Supreme Court ruled that his appointment of a new prime minister was unconstitutional, a presidential decree has said. Vaz removed popular prime minister Domingos Simoes Pereira in August and replaced him with Baciro Dja, plunging the coup-prone nation into a political crisis. Members of the ruling PAIGC party, to which all three men belong, objected to the appointment and appealed to the Supreme Court which found in their favour on Wednesday. “The head of state can take no other approach than conforming with the decision of the…
Archaeologists in South Africa have announced the discovery of a new human species, a find they say could change our understanding of our ancestors. Researchers at Witwatersrand (Wits) University said on Thursday that the species, which they named Homo naledi, appeared to have intentionally interred its dead – a feature that was once thought to be limited to modern humans. The scientists at Wits say they have recovered parts belonging to at least 15 individuals of the same species. “With almost every bone in the body represented multiple times, H. naledi is already practically the best-known fossil member of our…
Rwanda’s Supreme Court has said it will hear a case on whether the country’s President Paul Kagame should be allowed to run for a third term as leader. The move on Wednesday came after parliament voted to change the constitution and lifted a two-term limit amid widespread calls for Kagame not to stand down after his current term. The proposals were voted on after the presentation of a petition to legislators that had garnered more than 3.8 million signatures in support of the move. Kagame still has two years remaining before his current mandate expires. Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting…
“[Sport] is a powerful tool for progress and for development,” according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In post-genocide Rwanda, Felicite Rwemalika’s work is an embodiment of this idea. She has forged opportunities which have brought increased wealth and skills to women and their families – all by getting women to play football. Rwemalika used to run a beauty salon, where she encountered many women who were traumatised by the genocide. “Women are the most vulnerable after the genocide. They were raped several times, their husbands left them, they were killed, children were killed, and they didn’t have hope for the…
Across the world, almost 1.2bn people live in areas where water is physically scarce and this has an enormous impact on the quality of life. Without clean water, communities suffer from recurrent diarrhoea and other debilitating or fatal diseases which, together with the time spent going to collect it, means a significant amount of time for education and employment is lost. Collectively, women in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa spend at least 16 million hours each day collecting drinking water. So, how could things be different? In this film we head to the western Kenyan town of Kakamega and to…
Cape Town, South Africa – For almost two years now, the chattering classes have been deliberating the killing of Reeva Steenkamp. The case recently became a popular topic again after Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius – the man accused of killing his blonde-model girlfriend – had his parole put on hold by South Africa’s Department of Justice, just two days before he was to be released. Questions over Pistorius’ guilt or innocence have given way to a more profound conversation about the relationship between the criminal justice system and many South Africans, according to residents of some impoverished Cape Town townships.…
With more than 500 million books sold worldwide last year, passion for Japanese comics known as ‘manga’ continues to grow. Despite the increasing appetite from readers for these stories, however, finding mangas in West Africa, let alone Senegal, has been near impossible. But that is changing. Tired of telling the stories of other people’s cultures, an animation artist has moved back to Senegal, after working in India’s animation industry. Now with a small team, he is starting to tell African stories using manga animations. http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201509/3702/665003303001_4466671563001_20150906-senegal-library-nha-nostraps.mp4 Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque reports from Dakar. Source:: Al Jazeera The post African stories told…