In the news

Ghana, the first country to receive COVAX vaccines last month, began its mass vaccination drive on Tuesday. 600,000 doses of Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccines are being given to frontline health workers, security personnel, people aged over 60 and those with pre-existing conditions. To ensure that Ghanaians are convinced to get jabbed, President …

Salva Kiir, South Sudan’s President has ordered the suspension of the operations of a local airline whose plane crashed on Tuesday, killing all on board. The small plane operated by South Sudan Supreme Airlines Aviation Company crashed in the eastern Jonglei State shortly after take-off at Pieri airstrip. The dead …

Chaotic scenes were observed on Wednesday in north-western Nigeria as parents were reunited with their kidnapped daughters in the town of Jangebe. According to eyewitnesses, at least three people were shot by the security forces. The shooting reportedly happened after parents, frustrated by the length of the handover ceremony, started …

At a joint news conference in Cairo on Tuesday, the foreign ministers of Sudan and Egypt met to discuss bilateral cooperation. They also discussed the urgency of reaching a legal agreement on the filling and operation of the Ethiopian Renaissance Grand Dam on the Nile, which has sparked controversy in …

As BBC News reported, footballers who play for clubs in Mozambique’s top football league have been allowed to return to training. But the national championship, known as Mocambola, is not being allowed to resume yet. It was suspended in early February because of a spike in coronavirus cases. President Filipe …

Research by South African scientists suggests that antibodies triggered by exposure to the country’s dominant coronavirus variant can prevent infection by other variants, the scientists said on Wednesday. The findings in laboratory studies offer hope that COVID-19 vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year could protect …

Prominent Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko has been arrested. The announcement was made by his lawyers. He is accused of disturbing public order in the capital, Dakar, as he travelled to court for a hearing in a rape case. His motorcade was followed by hundreds of chanting supporters, who were …

UNICEF on Tuesday unveiled a “pandemic classroom” at the United Nations headquarters in New York. It is a way for the organization to draw attention to the need for governments to prioritize the reopening of schools. Around 214 million children worldwide, or 1 in 7, have missed more than three-quarters …

At least five people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in Burkina Faso when the ambulance they were traveling in was destroyed by a mine, BBC News reports. The ambulance was carrying the woman, her husband, a girl and two other women. Officials say the incident happened in Gaskindé, close …

Rwandan health minister received this day first batch of Covid-19 vaccine doses from the UN-backed Covax distribution initiative. The country received 240,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and with a further 102,960 doses of Pfizer vaccine expected to arrive later in the day, according to the health ministry. Rwanda expects …