East Africa

A year after fighting began in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, rebel forces are advancing on the country’s capital as the authorities urge citizens to mobilize.

Ethiopians head to the polls on Monday, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promoting a message of unity against a backdrop of conflict and impending famine in the north of the country.

Four months after the Ethiopian government declared victory, conflict continues to escalate in the state of Tigray, hitting the country’s recovery prospects.

Ugandans head to the polls on Thursday as singer-turned-lawmaker Bobi Wine looks to deny incumbent President Yoweri Museveni a sixth term.

Ethiopia is teetering on the brink of civil war as fighting intensifies in the north of the country, sparking fears that its economic transformation could be stymied by protracted conflict.

As millions of desert locusts descend on Kenya, farmers flail their arms and shout, bang pots and pans, and even swing shovels and blankets to try to stop the insects from destroying their crops. But they are making little difference amid the country’s worst outbreak of the bugs in 70 years. The locusts have swarmed in from Somalia and Ethiopia...

Protesters in cities across the world staged rallies Friday demanding leaders take tougher action against climate change, days before the latest global conference, which this year takes place in Madrid. The rallies kicked off in Australia, where people affected by recent devastating wildfires joined young environmentalists protesting against the government’s pro-coal stance. Janet Reynolds said she had come to the...

The United Nations’ mission for Iraq on Sunday proposed a roadmap out of the country’s social upheaval, while Amnesty International said Iraq’s crackdown on anti-government protests has descended into a “bloodbath.” At least 319 protesters have been killed by security forces since the economically driven protests and unrest began last month, according to the latest figures from the Iraqi Human...

Rare anti-government protests broke out in Egypt Friday calling on President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to step down. The former army general has overseen an unprecedented political crackdown, silencing critics and jailing thousands. El-Sissi came to power with the military’s ouster of an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013, amid mass protests against his one-year-rule. In the capital, Cairo, dozens of...

A damaged tanker truck exploded in eastern Tanzania Saturday as people were trying to siphon fuel out of it, killing at least 62, in one of the worst incidents of its kind in the East African country. Citing police figures, state broadcaster KBC said a further at least 70 people were injured in the incident early Saturday in the town...

Egyptian pro-government media, business people and activists urged a “yes” vote Sunday on constitutional changes that would allow President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to stay in power until 2030. Some voters were offered free rides or food parcels to increase turnout in the national referendum. Critics have blasted the constitutional changes as a major step in the return to authoritarian rule, eight...

An Ethiopian Airlines jet faltered and crashed Sunday shortly after takeoff from the country’s capital, carving a gash in the earth and spreading global grief to 35 countries that had someone among the 157 people who were killed. There was no immediate indication why the plane went down in clear weather while on a flight to Nairobi, the capital of...

There are more gorillas in the mist — a rare conservation success story, scientists say. After facing near-extinction, mountain gorillas are slowly rebounding. On Wednesday, the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature updated mountain gorillas’ status from “critically endangered” to “endangered,” a more promising, if still precarious, designation. There are now just over 1,000 of the animals in the...

After a very public wedding, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle managed to pull off a very private honeymoon. Close to a month after the couple said “I Do” at St. George’s Chapel, E! News is learning more about how the newlyweds celebrated when the cameras weren’t around. Reports that the couple were in Canada and Ireland are not true. Instead,...

The Pentagon has been sharply criticized by two leading human rights groups for saying this week that the United States military will never know the exact number of civilians killed in the four-year fight against the Islamic State, NBC News reported. Both Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch condemned the remarks as an abdication of responsibility to avoid civilian...

The Pentagon has been sharply criticized by two leading human rights groups for saying this week that the United States military will never know the exact number of civilians killed in the four-year fight against the Islamic State, NBC News reported. Both Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch condemned the remarks as an abdication of responsibility to avoid civilian...

The elephant staggered and keeled over in the tall grass in southern Tanzania, where some of the world’s worst poaching has happened. It wasn’t a killer who targeted her but a conservation official, immobilizing her with a dart containing drugs. Soon she was snoring loudly, and they propped open her trunk with a twig to help her breathe. They slid...

Three Illinois men are accused of bombing a mosque in suburban Minneapolis in an attempt to scare Muslims into leaving the United States, authorities said.

On the outskirts of a sprawling reserve of Kenyan grasslands where endangered animals roam wild, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lavished praise on an American-funded forensics lab that tracks down elephant-poachers for prosecution, and urged aggressive action in Africa on conservation. Yet earlier this month, the Trump administration quietly lifted the U.S. ban on importing African elephant trophies, to...

A director who has taken opera from the concert hall to the streets of Los Angeles and an organizer who helped put a human face on the plight of young undocumented immigrants are among this year’s MacArthur fellows and recipients of the so-called “genius” grants. The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Wednesday announced the 24 fellows,...