Geography of Africa

From Zimbabwe, where many must work at night because it's the only time there is power, to Nigeria where collapses of the grid are frequent, the reliable supply of electricity remains elusive across Africa.

The electricity shortages that plague many of Africa's 54 countries are a serious drain on the continent's economic growth, energy experts warn.

In a new episode of the great power struggle for influence in Africa, Washington and Moscow continue to use their strongest trump cards, and this time the center of that conflict is the African country of Chad.

Alamy Photo

Angola said on Saturday it will send a military unit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, after a ceasefire it brokered between rebel militiamen and government troops collapsed.

The DR Congo's restive east has witnessed a flare up in violence since a militia called M23 took up arms again in late 2021, going on to capture swathes of territory.

The World Bank is pausing talks over its future engagement with Tunisia following anti-immigrant comments made by the country's president, Kais Saied, according to an internal message to staff seen by AFP.

A decade ago this year, the head of the European Union's executive branch stood, visibly shaken, before rows of coffins holding the corpses of migrants drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Some of them, small and bone-white, contained the bodies of infants and children.

Italian energy giant Eni signed an $8 billion gas deal with Libya's state-run National Oil Corporation on Jan. 28 as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Tripoli.

As Sudan's economic crisis drags on, grocer Hassan Omar keeps busy cleaning packaged food items that have been gathering dust for months as his dwindling customer base make fewer purchases.

"People can no longer afford to buy all their needs," Omar, 43, told AFP at his grocery store in the capital Khartoum.

Egyptian archaeologists said on Jan. 24 they had discovered an 1,800-year-old "complete residential city from the Roman-era" in the heart of the southern city of Luxor.

The city, dating to the second and third centuries, is the "oldest and most important city found on the eastern bank of Luxor," according to Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) for political consultations between the foreign ministries of Greece and Mozambique "opens a line of communication" between the two countries, Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias said on Wednesday.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni is looking to boost already strong energy ties with Algeria to further wean Italy off Russian energy, a focus of her two-day visit to the North African nation that started yesterday.