The Latest Breaking News from Africa

South Africa is famous for its amazingly rich and diverse fossil record. The country’s rocks document more than 3.5 billion years of life on Earth: ancient forms of bacterial life, the emergence of life onto land, the evolution of seed-producing plants, reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals – and humanity.

South Africa is a country that experiences a very high level of gender-based violence. During the UN’s annual international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign, the country’s news media coverage of violence against women and children increases. As well-intentioned as this may be, studies have exposed several shortcomings…

South Africa has experienced power shortages with rolling blackouts on an unprecedented scale in 2022. This state of affairs is largely due to technical failures at its ageing fleet of coal power plants.

African nations must be allowed to develop fossil fuel resources to help lift their people out of poverty, governments said at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt, which welcomed leaders of oil and gas companies sidelined at previous talks.

Adapting to a world that is warmer than today is a huge undertaking, even if the most ambitious temperature ceiling is met. Increasing climate risks mean that millions of Africans could be uprooted or trapped where they are due to climate change.

Monkeypox is the latest case of how global health inequities persist. Vaccines went to the rich world while Africa lacks access. African scientists call for a bold plan to protect against pathogens.

Zanyiwe Mavebenwane, from Cape Town in South Africa, hasn’t seen her eldest daughter in two months. It’s the fifth time she has had tuberculosis, and is receiving long-term care in hospital. The unemployed mother of five runs a soup kitchen a few times a week and is taking care of…

South Africa’s 28-year-old, continuously transforming multiparty democracy was reminded of its own fragility when, in September, a coalition running its biggest city, Johannesburg, collapsed. The speaker and the mayor lost their jobs. A new coalition took office, only to be removed by a high court verdict three weeks later. This…

Africa's top public health body said on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda was "not getting out of hand" and that it was still under control, despite an increase in cases that have spread to the capital Kampala.