(AFP) — The United States will provide more than $1 billion in humanitarian aid for people displaced by drought or conflict in 31 African countries, U.S. President Joe Biden said in Angola Tuesday.

The assistance would address food insecurity and other urgent needs of refugees, internally displaced persons and affected communities in 31 African countries, a statement from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) added.

While North Carolinians fight to rebuild their lives after being devistated by Hurricane Helene, lacking essential resources, Joe Biden has flown to Africa, promising over a billion dollars for flood recovery there. It seems hard to believe that this is the reality we’re… pic.twitter.com/GYZOJ6L7vm

— Ashley (@Wnc_Ash) December 3, 2024

“Today, I’m announcing over $1 billion of new humanitarian support for Africans displaced from homes by historic droughts,” Biden said in an address in the Angolan capital Luanda, where he arrived late Monday for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president.

(AP) — President Joe Biden arrived for his long-awaited first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa on Monday to the cheers of thousands in Angola, where he will highlight an ambitious U.S.-backed railway project meant to counter China’s influence on the continent of over 1.4 billion people.

Biden’s three-day visit to Angola will focus largely on the Lobito Corridor railway redevelopment in Zambia, Congo and Angola. It aims to advance the U.S. presence in a region rich in the critical minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies.

President Joe Biden arrived in Angola on Monday for his long-awaited first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa.

He will use the three-day trip to counter China’s influence by highlighting an ambitious U.S.-backed railway project.https://t.co/5AGhrGFld3 pic.twitter.com/NFjv3A8JCK

— Voice of America (@VOANews) December 3, 2024

Biden’s trip comes weeks before Republican Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, finally delivering on Biden’s pledge to visit sub-Saharan Africa. On his way to Angola, he stopped in the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde for a brief, closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva.

(AFRICA NEWS) – More bodies buried under the mud were retrieved in eastern Uganda on Friday and an injured person died in a hospital, bringing the death toll from this week’s landslides to 20, officials said as search efforts pressed on in the stricken area.

Heavy rains had triggered the landslides that engulfed six villages in the mountainous district of Bulambuli, 280 kilometers (175 miles) east of Kampala, Uganda’s capital, on Wednesday night. Some 125 houses were destroyed.

The Uganda Red Cross Society spokesperson Irene Kasiita told reporters that bodies of four more people were found on Friday while a fifth person, one of the injured in the landslides, died at Mbale Hospital.

(ZEROHEDGE) – At the APEC annual summit in Lima, Comrade Xi Jinping was practically coronated as the King of Peru, as a lively moveable feast celebrated the brand new $1.3 billion Chancay-Shanghai Maritime Silk Road across the Pacific.

There could hardly be a more auspicious counterpart to the action in South America than to gather in BRICS member South Africa to discuss African Unity in a Multipolar World, as well as the perennial plagues of racism, fascism, Russophobia and other forms of discrimination. The meetings were coordinated by the Mouvement Russophile International (MIR), who is not only Russophile but most of all, multi-nodal-phile. It’s as if this was an extension of the memorable BRICS 2024 summit in Kazan.

In Kazan, BRICS de facto expanded out of 9 members, adding 13 member-partners and reaching 22 nations (Saudi Arabia, an immensely complex case, remains on the fence). BRICS+ now largely surpasses the – waning – influence of the G20, whose annual summit is ongoing in Rio, at least focused on social issues and the fight against poverty and hunger, and not war. Still, the crisis-riddled G7/NATOstan did try to hijack the agenda.

(VOICE OF AMERICA) — NAIROBI, KENYA — The spread of a mosquito in East Africa that thrives in urban areas and is immune to insecticide is fueling a surge in malaria that could reverse decades of progress against the disease, experts say.

Africa accounted for about 95% of the 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said children under 5 accounted for 80% of deaths in the region.

But the emergence of an invasive species of mosquito on the continent could massively increase those numbers.

(AFRICA NEWS) – South Africa’s government says it will not help an estimated 4,000 illegal miners inside a closed mine in the country’s North West province who have been denied access to basic supplies as part of an official strategy against illegal mining.

The miners in the mineshaft in Stilfontein are believed to be suffering from a lack of food, water and other basic necessities after police closed off the entrances used to transport their supplies underground.

It is part of the police’s Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole, operation, which includes cutting off miners’ supplies to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

(ANADOLU AGENCY) — African leaders said categorically on Tuesday at the World Leaders Climate Action Summit (WLCAS) in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, that they are taking steps to reduce carbon emissions but will be unable to meet climate goals without funding from wealthier nations.

“We cannot reach our climate goals alone, we call on our global partners to honor their commitments ensuring accessible concessional financing for sustainable development in Africa without unsustainable debt,’’ Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said.

Addressing the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP29 summit, Akufo-Addo said his country has planted 50 million trees and undertaken forest restoration efforts covering 721,000 hectares of land since 2017, aiming to cut emissions by 64 million metric tons by 2030.

(WORTHY NEWS) – The north-central African country of Chad is struggling to fight the increasingly strong presence of jihadist terrorists in its midst, the US State Department has reported. Most of the terrorism in Chad is perpetrated by the Boko Haram Islamic extremist insurgency group that is also active in the neighboring countries of Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Libya, Nigeria, and Niger.

While Chad has a Muslim government, the country’s High Council of Islamic Affairs has “promoted peaceful coexistence and tolerance, and diverse faith groups used the Dialogue to mitigate conflict,” the US State Department said in a recent report on the situation.

Nevertheless, the US State Department said, “Security forces and basic government services remained underresourced, which limited the Chadian government’s ability to address all security concerns.”

(AFRICA NEWS) – Eight miners died after being buried under mounds of earth that collapsed on them in an open-pit copper mine in Zambia on Wednesday, police said.

One miner was missing and another two survived, provincial police commissioner Peacewell Mweemba said. State media reported that six of the miners who died at the mine in Chingola, a city in Copperbelt Province, were from the same family.

The victims were not employees of the mining company but part of a group who had been searching for copper at the mine without permission, a common phenomenon in Zambia.

(DETROIT LAKES TRIBUNE) — DETROIT LAKES, Minnesota — A missionary from Detroit Lakes, Beau Shroyer , was killed in Angola, Africa, on Friday, Oct. 25, according to a notice from Lakes Area Vineyard Lead Pastor Troy Easton.

The notice, addressed to the Lakes Area Vineyard congregation, states that Shroyer was killed in an act of violence while doing mission work and that details about the incident remain unknown at this time.

Shroyer had a wife and five children.

(AFRICA NEWS) – Algeria is gradually moving towards a digital payments system. The country saw a 71% increase in digital financial transactions in the first quarter of 2024.

The government’s push for a modernised financial infrastructure aims to improve efficiency and transparency. However, concerns over data security and public trust remain critical.

Algeria’s evolving payments landscape represents an important step towards a more connected, cashless economy.

(VOA) — South Africa’s decision to further downgrade relations with Taiwan, comes as the dominant political party, the African National Congress, or ANC, strives to reassure longtime ally Beijing after the formation of a coalition government, analysts tell VOA.

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation confirmed last week it had asked Taiwan to move its unofficial embassy – called the Taipei Liaison Office – out of the capital Pretoria.

In a statement, the department said the liaison office would be rebranded as a trade office and moved to the economic hub of Johannesburg, which would “be a true reflection of the non-political and non-diplomatic nature of the relationship between the Republic of South Africa and Taiwan.”

(NEW YORK POST) – This good boy is top dog. A man paragliding over Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza on Monday spotted the jaw-dropping sight of a barking dog atop the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The footage of the Egyptian landmark – built more than 4,500 years ago – shows Marshall Mosher soaring in the desert sky in a paramotor when he zooms in on the top of the pyramid to find a dog casually having his day.

“A dog climbed all the way up the Great Pyramid of Giza!” Mosher wrote in amazement, with his clip going viral on Instagram.

(REUTERS) — A fuel tanker overturned late on Tuesday in Nigeria’s northern state of Jigawa after the driver lost control of the vehicle, spilling petrol which exploded and killed at least 147 people, police and state emergency services said on Wednesday.

The accident is one of the worst in recent times in Africa’s most populous nation, which is battling with widespread security threats and a cost of living crisis.

BREAKING
Tanker Explosion Kills 94 People Collecting Spilled Fuel in Nigeria

A fuel tanker accident in Jigawa state, Nigeria, led to an explosion, killing at least 94 people who were collecting the spilled fuel.

“The driver lost control, causing the tanker to overturn, and… pic.twitter.com/mCKpvVE6nt

— Past To Present Stories (@past2present_x) October 16, 2024

Haruna Mairiga, head of Jigawa state emergency services, put the death toll from the accident at 147.

(THE GUARDIAN) — Remember when we said that Black Lives Matter? We didn’t mean it. That much is clear now, as the world watches a war that is killing tens of thousands, that has displaced more than 10 million and which is threatening to devour 13 million more through famine – and barely gives it a glance. Most of those are Black lives and it could not be more obvious that, to an indifferent world, they don’t matter at all.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you haven’t yet guessed which conflict, and project of ethnic cleansing, I’m speaking of. With a few honourable exceptions, it’s barely covered on TV, on the radio or in the papers. Most politicians never mention it.

There are no mass demonstrations on the streets, no hashtags on social media. Instead, the war in Sudan is out of sight and out of mind – for reasons that say a little about Africa and much more about everyone else.

(AFRICA NEWS) – An area has been set aside in Kenya’s southern county of Kilifi for the construction of the country’s first nuclear facility. The project on the coast of the Indian Ocean is expected to be fully operational by 2034. But it has faced fierce opposition.

On Friday (Oct. 11), a group of activists and environmentalists took to the streets. “We say that this project has a lot of negative effects, there will be malformed children born out of this place, fish will die, and our forest Arabuko Sokoke, which is known to harbour birds from abroad, will be lost,” Francis Auma, a human rights activits said.

With an estimated budget of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.9 billion). The plant is expected to generate 1,000 megawatts of power and is part of Kenya’s long-term strategy to reduce its reliance on hydroelectric and fossil fuel energy sources.

(AFRICA NEWS) – In September, the U.S. Department of Labor added the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt to its list of goods that may be produced using forced or child labor.

This action has prompted responses from both authorities and civil society in the country, the world’s leading cobalt producer, as they worry that this decision could drive away investors. The Congolese authorities assert that they are making efforts to enhance the cobalt supply chain.

In 2023, the DRC produced 170,000 tons of cobalt, maintaining its status as the global leader. However, concerns linger about how long this will last.

(AFRICA NEWS) – Bhalil is a small, traditional town near Fez in Morocco.

All who enter it are welcomed with an enormous “I love Bhalil” sign fixed onto the town’s only major roundabout. And it’s easy to understand why – for behind Bhalil’s ordinary looking buildings lie hidden gems.

Bhalil is one of the most unique hillside towns in Morocco, thanks to its historic cave houses. Dating back to the fourth century, the caves were first inhabited by the Amazigh, then by the Volubilis, followed by the Banu Hilal in 1270.