Africa

News brief: Senate passes major bill, Blinken in South Africa, health poll

6:52am August 08, 2022

Senate Democrats pass a climate, health care and tax bill after months of negotiations. Secretary of State Blinken holds high-level talks in South Africa. A poll delves into some racial disparities.

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Blinken is in South Africa for talks on a new strategy for the region

5:07am August 08, 2022

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers a major speech on U.S. policy in Africa, following his visit to Cambodia, and a trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan that drew China's ire.

The Horniman Museum's collection of artifacts from the ancient kingdom of Benin includes 12 brass plaques, ceremonial objects and a key 'to the king's palace'.

Arts

A London museum agrees to return more than 70 pieces of looted Nigerian art

8:33pm August 07, 2022

by Emma Bowman

The Horniman Museum promised to repatriate a trove of artifacts, which include objects known as Benin bronzes, looted from West Africa during a British military invasion in 1897.

Kenya's pro-pot presidential candidate

5:06pm August 07, 2022

by Eyder Peralta

One of Kenya's presidential candidates is promising to legalize weed. His long-shot campaign has entertained, but it might also mark a different kind of politics for the East African nation.

'Scream for Me, Africa!': How the continent is reinventing heavy metal music

1:07pm August 07, 2022

by Malaka Gharib

Africa's metalheads have a bold vision. We talk to Edward Banchs, author of a new book about Africa's metal scene, and to a heavy metal singer in Botswana known as "Vulture."

The run up to Kenya's election is messier than normal. Voters wonder if it's for show

5:12am August 04, 2022

by Eyder Peralta

Ahead of an election next Tuesday, Kenya's presidential race has been full of twists and turns that have shocked voters.

World News

The Arab Spring's last experiment in democracy is over

4:41pm July 29, 2022

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about Tunisia's new constitutional referendum that gives President Kais Saied near total power.

Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is shown in custody in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2008. Bout was later extradited to the U.S. and convicted of conspiring to kill Americans. He's serving a 25-year sentence, but he may be part of a prisoner swap the U.S. and Rus

Who is Viktor Bout, the prisoner the U.S. may trade for Brittney Griner?

10:19pm July 28, 2022

by Greg Myre

Bout is a Russian who was the world's most notorious arms dealer in the 1990s and early 2000s. He's serving a 25-year prison sentence in Illinois, but could be freed as part of a U.S.-Russia swap.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken sits with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as they meet with African ministers at U.N. headquarters, May 18, 2022.

Russia and the West are vying for influence in Africa and Ukraine is a big reason why

5:55am July 28, 2022

by The Associated Press

Russia's foreign minister and France's president are visiting this week along with visits by U.S. officials in what some say is the most intense competition for influence there since the Cold War.

A big pink diamond has been discovered in an Angola mine

5:45am July 28, 2022

The rare stone is the largest one discovered in over three centuries — weighing just under a pound. Similar diamonds have been purchased in the past for tens of millions of dollars.

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