Conakry

What can be done to prevent Africa from becoming the world's biggest dumping ground for plastic?

That's one of the big questions facing United Nations members next week at a stock-taking on Earth's environmental woes.

From Antananarivo to Dakar via Nairobi and Conakry, African cities are scarred by huge landfills where plastic waste is measured in the thousands of tonnes.

Mory Kante, who helped bring African music to the world audience with hits like Yeke Yeke, has died in the Guinean capital Conakry on May 22 at the age of 70, local media reported.

He was suffering from a chronic disease and died at his home in Conakry.

Kante was a Guinean vocalist and player of the kora harp, a string instrument extensively used in West Africa.

The Turkish Airlines CEO has criticized the British ambassador to Ankara over the U.K.'s ban on carrying electronic devices inflight from airports in Turkey following the envoy's congratulatory tweet on a baby who was born mid-air onboard the flagship carrier.

A woman successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl during a Turkish Airlines (THY) flight to Istanbul late on April 7.   

Diaby Nafi, the passenger who gave birth on board, had not appeared to be nine months pregnant and had not told the airline or crew of her condition, according to cabin crew. 

Every year Mercer, one of the world’s top Human Resources (HR) consultancy companies its quality of life Index, providing details on the quality of life in cities around the globe. On the opposite side of the spectrum are those places that would be the worst places to lice in.

Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh flew out late Jan. 21 from the country he ruled for 22 years to cede power to President Adama Barrow and end a political crisis.

Jammeh refused to step down after a Dec. 1, 2016 election in which Barrow was declared the winner, triggering weeks of uncertainty that almost ended in a military intervention involving five other west African nations.

The city of Athens has been announced from UNESCO as the World Book Capital for 2018. The proposed program includes meetings with writers, translators and illustrators, concerts, thematic exhibitions, poetry readings and workshops for publishing professionals. The aim of the program is to make books accessible to the city’s entire population, including migrants and refugees.

Guinea was declared free of Ebola on Dec. 29 after more than 2,500 people died from the virus in the West African nation, leaving Liberia as the only country still awaiting a countdown for the end of the epidemic.

Öztürk Y?lmaz, the former Turkish consul general to Mosul, who was taken hostage last year along with 48 others by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants for 101 days, has been appointed as an ambassador to Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe.

Global aid agency Doctors Without Borders said on Nov. 13 it would begin unprecedented trials within a month on Ebola drugs and blood from survivors using patients in west Africa.
      
The trials in Guinea are aimed at rushing out an emergency therapy to battle an epidemic which has taken more than 5,000 lives since December.