West Africa

Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed readies ‘Thundering Smoke,’ a bold return to East Africa’s silver screen LONDON — One of the most intriguing new voices in African cinema is setting his sights on a daring second act. Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, the Somali director who charmed Cannes and gathered armfuls of festival prizes with his feature debut The Gravedigger’s Wife, is preparing his next film: a genre-bending thriller about a middle-aged Somali hitwoman who returns to the village that once expelled her. A hitwoman comes…

U.S. Envoy and Special Operations Commander Praise Puntland State’s Anti-ISIS Push in Bosaso as Airstrike Controversy Lingers BOSASO, Somalia — In a high-profile show of support, the U.S. ambassador to Somalia and the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa met Puntland State’s president on Saturday in the bustling port city of Bosaso, commending local forces for pushing Islamic State militants from their mountain redoubts and helping keep some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes safe. U.S. Ambassador Richard H.…

Minnesota charges eight in alleged Medicaid housing fraud as state moves to reboot troubled program Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged eight people with orchestrating more than $8 million in alleged wire fraud tied to the state’s Housing Stabilization Services program, a Medicaid benefit intended to keep disabled and elderly residents housed. The indictments, announced Thursday in Minneapolis, mark what prosecutors called the “first wave” in a widening probe into a program that ballooned far beyond its original…

France-Mali Relations in Crisis: A Diplomatic Breakdown In a move that echoes the increasingly fraught ties between France and Mali, Paris has announced the suspension of counterterrorism cooperation with the West African nation. This decision follows the August arrest of a French diplomat in Mali's capital, Bamako, and marks a significant escalation in a diplomatic rift that has been deepening since military coups shook the country in 2020 and 2021. The Unraveling of Cooperation The French government has ordered its…

Deportees' Legal Battle Shines a Light on Ghana's Immigration Policies In a poignant and complex clash of rights and national policy, eleven Ghanaians recently returned from the United States are taking unprecedented legal action against their own government. These individuals, who were deported under the controversial immigration stance of the Trump administration, claim their detention upon arrival violated their rights. The case encapsulates the delicate interplay between international agreements and domestic law,…

‘We Know Hunger’: Somali Donors Keep a Gaza Kitchen Alive, One Pot at a Time In the crowded lanes of Gaza, where fuel is scarce and days are measured by the arrival of bread, a line forms before noon. Children clutch metal bowls, women balance plastic containers, and an old man steadies himself on a cane as steam curls from vast metal pots. The kitchen—funded by Somalis thousands of miles away—has been serving up a rare constant amid the chaos: a hot meal. For 50 days and counting, a grassroots Somali initiative has pushed…

U.S. bill to lift Zimbabwe sanctions opens a fraught debate over land, justice and global finance In Washington, a seemingly technical change to U.S. law has the potential to reopen some of the oldest wounds in southern Africa. A new bill in the House of Representatives would repeal a cornerstone of American policy toward Zimbabwe — the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001 — removing a U.S. veto over loans, debt relief and funding from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. But the repeal…

Somalia Says Voter Registration in Jubbaland to Start Soon, Pushing Toward One-Person, One-Vote Somalia’s prime minister says voter registration in Jubbaland will begin “soon,” a fresh signal that the federal government is pressing ahead with a long-promised shift to one-person, one-vote elections across the country. The announcement, delivered Wednesday, is meant to reassure Somalis that preparations are on track for landmark local government polls slated for October 2025. But the path ahead remains bumpy, with political…

Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Report: A Pattern of Violence, State Complicity and Vulnerable Lives When the Zimbabwe Peace Project released a terse but damning account this week documenting more than 3,000 victims of rights abuses in a single month, it read like a catalogue of a nation trapped between political control and social distress. The group documented at least 121 distinct incidents in August, finding that women and people with disabilities were disproportionately affected. Nearly half of the violations, the report says,…

House GOP moves to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar over posts about Charlie Kirk killing; Democrat calls effort “baseless” WASHINGTON — A fresh clash over speech, identity and the limits of political punishment is heading for the House floor, where Republicans are moving to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for her online activity following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Omar, a Somali-born lawmaker who has long attracted outsized attention from the right, is calling the push meritless and rooted in…