An attempt at radical transparency by the election commission, which uploaded raw ballot numbers online, led to divergent tallies. “People are so tense that they cannot even think straight.” Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. By Declan Walsh […]

DOOLOW, Somalia — When her crops failed and her parched goats died, Hirsiyo Mohamed left her home in southwestern Somalia, carrying and coaxing three of her eight children on the long walk across a bare and dusty landscape in temperatures as high as 100 degrees. Along the way, her 3-and-a-half-year-old son, Adan, tugged at her […]

JOHANNESBURG — Only nine African countries have met a target of vaccinating 10 percent of their populations against Covid-19 by the end of September, the World Health Organization said on Thursday — a statistic that illustrates how far the continent is lagging behind global vaccination rates. The W.H.O. set the benchmark this year, as part […]

Doctors and other staff members working for the World Health Organization to render aid during an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo sexually abused or exploited women and girls there, a commission appointed by the head of the agency reported on Tuesday. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the agency’s director general, apologized directly to […]

More than 60 endangered African penguins were recently found dead, all with multiple bee stings and no other external injuries, according to officials in a coastal city in South Africa where the birds regularly migrate. Sixty-three dead African penguins were found Friday at the Boulders Penguin Colony, in Simon’s Town, about 25 miles south of […]

In an executive order, President Biden targeted all sides of the widening conflict in Africa’s second most populous country, demanding an end to fighting and safe passage for aid. By Declan Walsh NAIROBI, Kenya — President Biden signed an executive order on Friday threatening sweeping new sanctions against leaders in the widening war in northern […]

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced Wednesday that French military forces had killed the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. “It’s another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel,” Mr. Macron said in a tweet. The militant leader, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, oversaw a group that claimed responsibility […]

Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, has been released on medical parole a little over two months after he was ordered imprisoned on contempt charges, triggering violent protests that devolved into deadly clashes and looting. The government’s department of correctional services said in a statement on Sunday that Mr. Zuma’s parole had been […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in his first visit to the capital of Sudan, said Thursday he was hopeful that the Sudanese government would turn over former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of genocide and war crimes in the region of Darfur. Mr. al-Bashir, 77, was ousted […]

KWAHLATHI, South Africa — Sbusiso Molefe stretched the pickax high above his head and hacked into the clumpy black dirt around his feet. He took a few more vigorous whacks into the edges of the shallow crater he had dug at the bottom of a hillside, before scooping up a handful of loose dirt and […]