Worldcrunch
Paul Biya, 92, has been reelected for an eighth seven-year term, while Alassane Ouattara, 83, will serve a fourth five-year term in Côte d’Ivoire. The question of democracy remains unresolved in Africa, where countries that regularly change their leadership are still in the minority.
A chapter of history is closing: that of the active French military presence on the African continent, which will soon be reduced to a bare minimum after being a central element of France’s presence in its former colonial empire.
As the Olympic flame of Athens prepares to illuminate the world of sports, Africa remains in the shadows. Yet the world’s youngest continent has an unparalleled potential to become a major hub for sports on a global scale.
The election of the new president of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, paves the way for a period of deep uncertainty between Paris and Dakar, amidst the spread of an “anti-French sentiment” in West Africa.
At the end of October in western Senegal, a mob exhumed the body of a man, Cheikh Fall, then burnt it in a public square, on the grounds that he was homosexual. Since then, his relatives have been fleeing death threats.
The surprise election of Bassirou Diomaye Faye appears to be a wakeup call for French President Emmanuel Macron.
The number of pirogues leaving the African coast to reach the Canary Islands more than doubled in 2023. Among them are many Senegalese fishermen forced to leave because of the scarcity of fish resources that trawlers, some of them foreign, come to fish in their waters.
The next major geopolitical conflict is brewing in the Sahel region, in the north-central stretch of Africa south of the Sahara. Islamists and armed militias are plunging the entire region into chaos, and it is even possible a new jihadist emirate may emerge. Experts are already predicting there will be thousands of new refugees. Their destination: Europe.
President Macky Sall’s decision to suspend the February 25 presidential election has plunged Senegal into chaos. It’s also grim news for those seeking institutional reform across Africa, where Dakar was long seen as a democratic model.
An interview with Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, whose movie Me Captain is nominated for an Oscar, after he won the Silver Lion for directing at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. The tale centers around the life-and-death quest of migration, a topic that remains at the center of debate in Italy — and beyond.
Nearly 200 people are running to be the president of Senegal in the 2024 elections. What does this say about the state of Senegalese democracy? Financial Afrik takes a closer look.
Spain’s national anthem, dating back to 1770, is the oldest in continual use — it also happens to be wordless. For other nations, what can be done about aging anthem lyrics that may need to be placed in their original context to avoid upsetting or offending contemporary ears.
The death of Nahel, a 17-year-old killed by a police officer in Nanterre, France, and subsequent riots shocked the world. It’s familiar territory for acclaimed film director Alice Diop, whose latest project, “Saint Omer,” was France’s nominee for the best foreign language film at the Oscars, examining what it means to be an immigrant, or the child of immigrants, in France.
African leaders traveled to both Kyiv and Moscow to discuss a potential “peace plan” for the war in Ukraine. Predictably the envoys failed, and others will likely meet the same fate as Ukraine’s counteroffensive kicks into gear and Putin keeps digging in.
The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France’s colonial past.
Recent allegations by the U.S. ambassador to South Africa that the African nation gave ammunition and weapons to Russia in December 2022, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, illustrate the complexity of U.S.-Africa relations.
UK has called the trial in Russian-occupied Donetsk a “sham” after the death sentences of two UK citizens and a Moroccan who were fighting in the Ukrainian army. Other breaking stories include Putin’s Peter The Great comparison and a new post-McDonald’s logo in Moscow.
Femicide is a major problem in the West African country. A French entrepreneur of Senegalese origin is hoping her invention — App-Elles — can help end it.
After earning fame and fortune in France, fighter Souleymane Mbaye made good on a promise to open a professional-level boxing club in Dakar.
PARIS — Political conflict and social movements around the world in 1968 made it a year for the history books. The 50th anniversary of several signature episodes are being marked throughout this year, from the Prague Spring and monthlong French student uprising of May “68, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy […]
On the coast of Senegal, fish stocks have fallen 80% in the past year alone. The women fish processors of the region have been hit hardest, with consequences across society.
DAKAR — A cartoon of an early 20th-century Senegalese Muslim leader has sparked a nationwide uproar, with the vignette criticized by civilians and political leaders alike. The Paris-based African news magazine Jeune Afrique published a cartoon of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride Brotherhood, last week in which a passing Westerner asks why the […]
THIAROYE — Sitting on the corner of his bed, behind the curtains drawn to hide the blazing sun, Saada Ndiaye is waiting for the moment to come. That moment is his would-be departure to Spain, via a clandestine and uncertain path from this small town in Senegal, and onward through Morocco. Ndiaye, who introduces himself […]
Photo: Li Jing/ZUMA TURKEY TO BOOST SECURITY POST ISIS ATTACK The Turkish government is set to bolster its security along the border with Syria after a suspected ISIS bombing in the town of Suruc killed 30 people, mostly students, yesterday. At a news conference, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “measures on our border with […]
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Senegalese soul, English surf-psych rock, German slow dancing … Only on Worldcrunch’s weekend playlist!
Clychau Dibon is a one-of-a-kind album. The first collaboration between Welsh classical harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita, the album brings to life an extraordinary combination. The two instruments have actually a lot in common. Originally from the same musical family, they play central roles both in Wales and Senegal, where oral […]
First established in Colombia, kangaroo care for underweight babies relies on constant mother-child contact and avoids costs and complications of incubators that rarely arrive in Africa.
JOAL — On the beach here in Joal, a large fishing harbor south of Senegal’s capital of Dakar, a group of women watch as fishermen unload their catch from their motor boats. It wasn’t such a good day. But empty nets are not the only disappointment here. A Russian factory that will transform fresh fish […]
MBALLING — Some 20 people, all officially cured of leprosy, are sitting together at the functional rehabilitation center in Mballing, Senegal. But seeing them calls to mind the ancestral fears linked with this disease: club foots, mere leg or arm stumps, hands without fingers, misshapen faces, washed-out eyes that can no longer be opened. The […]
SAINT-LOUIS — In front of the houses in Pilote Barre, tires inexorably creep up on a shoreline that is gradually disappearing. The tide easily swallows these futile rubber fortifications along the Senegal coast. Only the large stones seem to be able to withstand the assaults of the ocean, but for how long? For several years, […]
Peace is a process, never a single event. Negotiations for peace are always far more complicated than the public understands, and the results are not always miraculous. Even so, the majority of modern conflicts — 80%, according to the School for the Culture of Peace in Barcelona — eventually end after negotiations. The school’s reports […]
SAINT-LOUIS — The African Virtual University is hardly a new project, as it was first founded in 1997 by the World Bank as an ambitious attempt to expand higher education across the continent. It is now run by some 15 African governments, but officials have looked for ways to expand it as Africa looks to […]
Massive fishing ships from virtually all the major world powers are draining a way of life from the local fishing-based economy. It could also presage larger geopolitical battles to come.
A “crazy” pan-African plan is looking to fight desertification in the Sahara with a giant green belt. The ambitious initiative calls for planting millions of trees – from Senegal all the way to Djibouti.