[allAfrica] As of December 21, 2021, confirmed cases of Covid-19 from 55 African countries reached  9,217,308 while over  173,823,259 vaccinations have been administered across the continent.

[allAfrica] "Africa imports excessively from the rest of the world, manufactures exceedingly too little and hence trades too little," Wamkele Meme,  who heads Africa's free-trade agency, said during a visit to Washington, DC last week.

[UN News] There is now "consistent evidence" that the Omicron variant is outpacing Delta, as COVID-19 continues to account for around 50,000 deaths worldwide every week, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

[RFI] A Sudanese protester was shot dead during a "savage" crackdown on mass pro-democracy rallies Sunday, medics said, and 125 others were injured according to the health ministry.

[DW] The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) said its forces will be returning to Tigray. The group's head said the move " will be a decisive opening for peace."

[UN News] Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka this year's Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation, has spent three decades helping to safeguard some of the world's rarest primates, including endangered mountain gorillas.

[RFI] Five civilians and a soldier were killed in the latest attack by armed groups in the Central African Republic, a local official said Monday.

[Capital FM] Nairobi -- As the Omicron variant dominates the COVID-19 news cycle, new research from the Partnership for Evidence-Based Response to COVID-19 (PERC) indicates that people in African Union (AU) Member States are overwhelmingly willing to...

[HRW] Abuja -- Ensure Rights, Wellbeing of Those Affected

[Premium Times] Officials give reasons for the parlous state of Sokoto's only government-owned vocational training school.

[Vanguard] Says imposing direct primaries on political parties'll cause trouble in polity Asks NASS to rework bill, remove direct primaries, return for assent NASS should extricate itself from public odium by overriding Buhari -- Urhoghide We have n...

[Capital FM] Nairobi -- Flights from Kenya to Dubai have been temporarily suspended for 48 hours following a directive by the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA).

[This Day] Kaduna -- The death toll from the attacks on communities in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna state has risen to 40 following the discovery of two corpses in the bush by security operatives.

[VOA] Blantyre, Malawi -- Malawi's former president, Peter Mutharika, has accused President Lazarus Chakwera's government of political persecution in arresting former officials linked to the former leader. Mutharika made the comments Sunday at his fi...

[UN News] The UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan has strongly condemned the killing of a UN-contracted aid worker on Sunday, that also left another injured, after the convoy they were travelling in came under attack.

[UNFPA] Luambo -- At only 35, Nsenga Malu has lived many lives. In one, she was a girl growing up in the city of Luambo, in her home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then, her childhood halted abruptly when she married at the age of 1...

[UCT] A young mother in Philippi sits nursing her baby while operating a foot-cranked washing machine. Across the city, a student in digs is studying for a test while pedalling away to get his week's washing done. And in an off-grid home beyond the u...

[DW] The country's military government has its work cut out for it, as it copes with the threat of Islamic extremism and ECOWAS sanctions.

[DW] Alaa Abdel Fatah was a prominent figure in the 2011 revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. The activist's family have long decried the conditions of his years-long detention.

[Chatham House] African leaders and negotiators came to COP26 with well-coordinated joint policy positions and high ambition. But the result fell short of what they need.

[IPS] United Nations -- The 21-month-long corona virus pandemic has triggered three new phrases in the UN lexicon: "vaccine famine, vaccine apartheid and vaccine nationalism".

[New Times] The World Bank's Board of Directors last week approved $175million in International Development Association (IDA) financing to help advance Rwanda's policy and institutional reform program for human capital development and inclusive econo...

[UNEP] Last week, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, 38C, on 20 June 2020. This warming is causing previously permanently frozen permafrost below ground to thaw.

[Vanguard] Abuja -- The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has disclosed the three countries in West Africa has yet to pay for electricity supplied to them from Nigeria in the second quarter of 2021.

[UN News] Roughly 7.7 million people in Somalia will need assistance and protection in 2022, a 30 per cent rise in just one year, the UN and partners said on Monday, launching a nearly $1.5 billion Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the country.

[Namibian] THE Namibian Lives Matter Movement (NLMM) believes the Namibian and Botswana governments never conducted a joint investigation into the deaths of the Nchindo brothers and their Zambian cousin on 5 November last year.

[Addis Standard] Addis Abeba -- The UN Security Council members will discuss the situation in Ethiopia under "any other business" today. The meeting was requested by Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the UK and the US. Under-Secretary-General for Hum...

[Addis Standard] JAKENN Publishing PLC, the publisher of Addis Standard publication, is alarmed by the repeated dissemination of unfounded allegations and dangerous defamation by the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC).

[Independent (Kampala)] Kampala, Uganda -- A presidential election. A new majority opposition party. A spate of kidnaps and torture. That was the script of 2021 stemming from Bobi Wine's presidential bid that jolted President Museveni's 35-year long ...

[Independent (Kampala)] Kampala, Uganda -- All Uganda's forests will have disappeared in the next 30 years, if nothing is done to save them today. That is what the experts at the National Forestry Authority (NFA) say. But not many people believe them...