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Eritrean aggression must not be overlooked | Letter
Biruk Mekonnen, the Ethiopian ambassador to the UK, responds to an editorial on the war in Tigray Your attention to Ethiopia is welcome, but your editorial (8 October) presents an incomplete account of the crisis, framing Ethiopia’s national interests as sources of regional instability while insufficiently examining the actions of other actors. The opening reference to the Nobel peace prize is particularly telling.
Repressive, secretive and highly militarised: Eritrea, the east African country facing UK visa ban threat
Country has not had an election in 33 years and has withdrawn cooperation with UK on migrant returns Eritrea, the east African country embroiled in a row with the UK over its refusal to accept the return of rejected asylum seekers and criminals, is considered one of world’s most secretive and repressive states, with reports of arbitrary detention and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, opinion and religion.
Tim Jeal obituary
Biographer who altered perceptions of Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone, Robert Baden-Powell and other figures active in Africa
LGBTQ+ people go into hiding in Senegal as hundreds are arrested
At least 320 people detained for ‘acts against nature’ after law criminalising homosexuality toughened, HRW reports
Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI to write prize-winning story
Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers
Guinea-Bissau denies it has approved controversial vaccine trial in newborns
Health minister says government ‘did not authorize’ Danish-led hepatitis B trial in babies backed by RFK Jr
From black soldier flies to mealworms: farming insects for food, fodder and fertiliser in Uganda
Cultivating the nutritious bugs means families can raise livestock and enrich their own food, while lowering pressures on the land
What is state capture and why does it matter?
Different forms are distinguished by who exercises control and which institutions they target
How Europe’s most wanted cocaine trafficker turned Sierra Leone into the world’s first true narco state
Drawing on dozens of interviews with intelligence and police officers across two continents, a Guardian investigation reveals the murderous cost of our insatiable appetite for cocaine
I was kidnapped and held hostage for 977 days. Could I forgive my captors?
The long read: At first the idea of mercy was something that helped me through the ordeal. But would real forgiveness be a form of Stockholm syndrome?
Gabrielle Goliath: Elegy review – devastating lament is a furious, single-note call to action
Ibraaz, London Too controversial for the Venice Biennale, this haunting video and audio work commemorates murders and genocides with an angry act of mourning The sound of mourning spills out into the streets. A single, endless wailing note echoes out of the basement of Ibraaz, a relatively new cultural centre in London’s Fitzrovia. This is Gabrielle Goliath’s heart-wrenching Elegy, each of its three films featuring a woman singing just one note until their lungs falter and another woman steps up to fill in for her.
At least 139 dead including children after migrant boat capsizes off Djibouti
More than 116 others still missing from vessel heading to Yemen with 305 people onboard, UN migration agency says
‘I didn’t want to write about this’: the man who first saw chimps waging civil war
John Mitani spent years studying a huge community of chimpanzees in Uganda. But then things took a dark turn – and his findings stunned the scientific world
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers A controversial research trial that will withhold hepatitis B vaccines from some African newborns was given approval to move forward this week. It is a central part of the vaccine vision for Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine opponent. Continue reading
In the Shadows review – true tale of Ramla Ali’s remarkable rise through the boxing ranks is a knockout
Jasmine Jobson goes the distance as the British-Somalian boxer battling pain from her past and her family’s disapproval in a heavyweight, tick-the-boxes production
Nobel peace prize winner Navi Pillay jokes about sharing award with Donald Trump – video
The South African-born jurist and former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has won a Nobel her efforts to promote peace and international law. The 85-year-old, who is an ad hoc judge at the international court of justice, received the news while attending the Nuremberg Forum. The forum is an annual gathering of legal scholars, practitioners, policymakers and civil society in Nuremberg, Germany, the location of the trials of Nazi war criminals that helped lay the foundations of international law.
Isaias strengthens to become first Atlantic hurricane of 2026 season
Storm expected to make landfall on US’s northern Gulf coast with risk of flash floods and isolated river flooding
ICJ judge Navi Pillay wins Nobel peace prize for promoting international law
Norwegian committee recognises achievements of former UN rights chief who stood up against apartheid in South Africa Nobel peace prize – latest updates Former UN human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a judge on the international court of justice (ICJ), has won the Nobel peace prize. Pillay, 85, from South Africa, who is a judge with the international court of justice, was recognised for her efforts to promote peace and international law, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. Continue reading
Egyptian journalists plan weekend protest over detention of six colleagues
Matsadaash staff allege torture and forced confessions after being held on charges of working for Muslim Brotherhood
The Guardian view on Ethiopia’s return to conflict: civilian catastrophe and a spiralling regional polycrisis | Editorial
Editorial: The escalating violence reflects deep domestic rifts – but is fuelled by broader geopolitical power games
Scientists discover 180,000 giant tortoises on one Seychelles island
Free-roaming Aldabra population thrives on Indian Ocean atoll due to decades-long recovery programme A survey of the world’s largest free-roaming giant tortoise population has revealed that the once endangered species is thriving. A population of Aldabra giant tortoises lives on an island in Seychelles called Aldabra Atoll. Continue reading
Ethiopia launches drone attack against Eritrean troops who crossed into Tigray
Government forces’ attack raises risk of internal conflict in Ethiopia that could trigger regional war
‘Cancer is tripling and will keep increasing’: first African to lead global action against disease ready for battle
With cancer cases rising fastest in poorer countries, Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, president-elect of the Union for International Cancer Control, says Africa needs investment in research, diagnosis and prevention
Bullet and blast injuries … and a constant need for blood: inside South Sudan’s overwhelmed trauma wards
Renewed fighting is bringing a flow of wounded to Juba’s military hospital, where medics never know what the next day will bring
The US has backed Libya’s Haftar clan. The UK should not make the same mistake | Letters
Letter: Steven Kay says Britain should act independently and in a role consistent with its status as a member of the UN security council
‘Green, red, yellow, blue’? Beneath the surface, diaspora language is anything but Black and white
Black communities across the globe have large and complex vocabularies to describe race, shaped by their specific cultures and histories
Women behind the lens: ‘I felt suspended between hope and giving up’
The Ethiopian photographer Sosina Mengistu’s self-portraits draw on personal experience to reflect young people’s anxiety and frustration
I was tortured because I’m a Somali woman who dared to speak out | Sadia Moalim Ali
I was sentenced to three years in jail for insulting government institutions. Now I am free, I will carry on fighting for the women I met in prison, writes Sadia Moalim Ali
The Register that shatters the myth of Britain’s role in profiting from enslavement
In this month’s newsletter: for Caribbean scholars, the evidence of how deeply slavery shaped Britain’s wealth has never been in doubt. Plus, heritage walks in Manchester
The west has a blinkered view of African music – and it’s hurting the whole continent’s culture
The term Afrobeats is applied to all sorts of genres, flattening them into one. Artists, media and the music industry must do better at showing off the richness of African pop
Kenya confirms first Ebola case as virus ‘surges’ in DR Congo province
Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, after a Kenyan man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) died after returning to the country. In mid-May, the DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak, an extremely deadly disease that has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years. Continue reading
‘There’s always been a belittling of African women’: honouring history’s invisible heroines
Congolese photographer Pamela Tulizo uses costume and vivid scenery to celebrate women’s strength and give a new perspective on slavery
Tigray rebel groups ‘forcibly recruiting boys as young as 15’ as fighting spreads
Civilians try to flee as men and boys rounded up on streets by new alliance as Ethiopia conflict erupts again
Guardian readers fund life-changing surgery for Somali boy injured in US airstrike
After Guardian investigation uncovered drone strike that killed 12 civilians and injured many more, seven-year-old Abdiqadir Salah underwent vital operation in Mogadishu
Skull fractures suggest servants of Egypt’s ancient kings were sacrificed
Study of remains taken from royal cemetery at Umm el-Qa’ab appears to confirm early Egyptologist’s theory Court officials and craftspeople serving early Egyptian kings may have been sacrificed when their ruler died, according to research that found fractures in several ancient skulls. The royal cemetery of Umm el-Qa’ab near Abydos features the tombs and enclosures of the First Dynasty rulers of Egypt, and dates as far back as 3,000BC. Continue reading
Knox Chitiyo obituary
My friend and former colleague Knox Chitiyo, who has died aged 65 of bowel cancer, was a Zimbabwean academic and later an important voice in Britain on his homeland and its future. He was regularly consulted by diplomats, business people, journalists, academics and activists.
Egyptian journalist faces terrorism charges after entire newsroom detained
Calls for release of six Matsadaash staff after one is charged, while whereabouts of other five remain unknown
Libyan unity talks upended as warlord’s son linked to drone attacks on fuel facilities
Western Libya’s GNU say working with Saddam Haftar ‘impossible’ as US-backed merger plan breaks down Allegations that the son of the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar oversaw a “terror cell” that launched drone attacks on fuel storage facilities and power stations in western Libya have upended plans for the Tripoli-based government of national unity (GNU) to continue cooperating with Haftar on a plan to unify the country.
John Iliffe obituary
Pioneering historian who transformed the study of Africa by seeking out the testimonies of Africans When John Iliffe, who has died aged 87, wrote his book The African Poor: A History (1987), the continent was readily dismissed by many academics as a home of problems and poverty, with no intellectual depth. But Iliffe acknowledged no such limitations, and it came as no surprise that it won the African Studies Association’s best book prize, then known as the Herskovits prize.
Trump is disappearing refugees into the hands of torturers – and rewarding them handsomely | Tutu Alicante and Uzra Zeya
Refugees from third countries are being sent to Equatorial Guinea, where they are often sent back to the very countries they fled
Row erupts over Cairo mural depicting Tutankhamun and Nefertiti with dark skin
Artwork created in Tahrir Square for Chinese president’s state visit to Egypt is painted over amid allegations it revived Afrocentric claims about Pharaohs’ origins
One green shoot at a time: the women restoring mangrove forests in the oil-ravaged Niger delta
In a region of Nigeria blighted by decades of pollution, Martha Agbani and her team are not just replanting trees but regaining ownership of their lost lands and livelihoods
Alan Ferguson obituary
My brother, Alan Ferguson, who has died aged 79, was a Scotsman who began his working life as a geography lecturer at Nairobi University in Kenya, before working with aid agencies in that country. Alan joined the university in 1972, but left after a couple of years to teach in Britain at Cambridge University, and then in the US at NorthEastern University in Chicago. Continue reading
‘They raped our country’: documentary follows Kenyans’ fight for restitution over stolen land
Multinational tea companies still occupy ancestral highlands of communities displaced during British colonial era
South African leader urges men to speak up on gender-based violence after series of killings
President announces measures amid anger at authorities over recent murders of women South Africa’s president has called on men to take more responsibility for violence against women as he announced measures to tackle the problem, amid anger at authorities over a recent wave of murders. Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that not enough had been done to protect women.
Who’s your Uber driver on the phone to? Welcome to the long, long diaspora phone call
For those employed in arduous solitary work such as cab driving, a marathon phone call is the perfect place to navigate the dislocations of immigrant life
Burundi agrees to receive ‘third-country’ migrant deportees from US
Burundi joins several other African nations in accepting people deported under Trump’s hardline policy
Top Trump figures push to direct human rights funding to rightwing causes
Support such as for white Afrikaners and anti-communism reveals how US is redefining what qualifies as human rights
Cotton Queen review – mystery, matriarchs and magic in pioneering Sudanese debut
Suzannah Mirghani’s first feature contains a powerful performance by Rabha Mohamed Mahmoud as a village’s elder woman and tackles the long shadow of British imperialism and women’s rights
The secret Trump deals sending migrants across the world - Full Story podcast
A Sierra Leonean nurse detained, handcuffed and flown to Ghana. An Iranian dissident sent to Central African Republic. A Cameroonian deported to Equatorial Guinea.
Economic growth and democratic decline: the ‘cotton king’ who reshaped Benin
Patrice Talon has transformed the west African country’s economy and infrastructure at the expense of political freedom
The Guardian view on Morocco’s election: hosting a World Cup will not placate a disillusioned generation | Editorial
Editorial: A year after mass protests demanding a change in political priorities, gen Z opted out of last week’s poll en masse
Murdered for their eyes: people with albinism living in terror in Madagascar
The country is struggling to address a rise in attacks, with a record 13 people – mostly children – killed this year for body parts, which some believe can bring good fortune
DRC politician beaten to death after radio appearance about Ebola outbreak
Marie-Celestin Karondwa was attacked on Sunday after promoting measures to prevent spread of disease, his party says
Banished: the secret Trump deals sending migrants across the world - podcast
Investigations correspondent Louisa Loveluck reports on the Trump administration’s secret deportation deals, sending thousands of migrants to ‘third countries’ across the world
‘It’s hard to sell a house when it’s covered in baboon faeces’: Cape Town divided over plan to remove its monkeys
Two troops of chacma baboons are breaking into homes and shops but animal rights activists insist coexistence is the answer
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