Africa

COVID-19 Alcohol Bans In South Africa Reveal Painful History

7:37am April 09, 2021

by Eyder Peralta

South Africa banned alcohol to enforce social distancing during the worst of the pandemic, but the ban also had a surprising effect, exposing the country's complicated relationship with alcohol.

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World News

Historians Say France Was Not Complicit In Rwanda Genocide, But Did Turn A Blind Eye

4:28pm April 07, 2021

by Eleanor Beardsley

A report by historians has concluded the French government was not complicit in the Rwanda genocide of 1994 — but turned a blind eye to it and so bears overwhelming responsibility.

Writer-director Oliver Hermanus created Moffie from an autobiographical novel by André Carl van der Merwe — but he gives the film an air of lived experience.

Basic Training Proves Anything-But-Basic In The Powerful South African Drama 'Moffie'

4:42pm April 06, 2021

by Bob Mondello

The effect of so much institutional hatred within the military of South Africa in the early '80s was to leave a generation traumatized, the film concludes.

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African Immigrant Organizations Are Fighting To Ease Vaccine Hesitancy

8:01pm April 05, 2021

by Eva Tesfaye

Efforts to fight vaccine hesitancy among Black people often miss African immigrants who have a different colonial history and experience with Western medicine, which grassroots groups are addressing.

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World News

At Least 48 Dead After Train Crashes In Eastern Taiwan

6:26am April 02, 2021

Rescue efforts are underway after a passenger train crashed into a vehicle on its tracks and partially derailed outside a rail tunnel in Taiwan.

The Suez Canal Was Blocked For Under A Week — Here's How That Will Affect The World

4:53pm March 29, 2021

by Camila Domonoske

The container ship Ever Given has finally been unstuck from the Suez Canal, but there will be lingering consequences to its nearly week-long blockade of the vital trade corridor.

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The Sea Star 1, owned by the Tanzanian Zan Ferries, docked on Monday at the port in Pemba, Mozambique. The vessel has been used to evacuate people, mostly foreign gas workers, from fighting in Palma, Mozambique.

World News

Insurgents Kill Dozens In Attack On Natural Gas Complex In Mozambique

4:39pm March 29, 2021

by Scott Neuman

Days of fighting in the northern port city of Palma have left dozens of civilians dead as security forces battled to turn back an assault by a suspected ISIS-linked insurgent group.

World News

The History Of The Suez Canal

4:23pm March 29, 2021

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Zachary Karabell, author of Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal, about the dream to build a waterway that would unite the East and the West.

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Sarah Obama holds a photograph of her grandson, Barack Obama in Kogelo, Kenya while awaiting the results of Super Tuesday's primary in Feb. 2008. She died on Monday after a brief illness, and is being remembered as a beloved matriarch and philanthropist.

World News

Remembering Mama Sarah: Philanthropist And Obama Family Matriarch Dies In Kenya At 99

3:45pm March 29, 2021

by Rachel Treisman

Sarah Obama, the former president's step-grandmother who helped raise his father, died Monday morning after a brief illness. She spent much of her life promoting education for girls and orphans.

World News

Salvage Teams Race To Reopen Blocked Suez Canal

5:55am March 29, 2021

by Jackie Northam

A massive container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal for six days has been partially freed. Traffic has not yet resumed in the canal, which is among the world's most important waterways.