Village Blog

Cape Verde votes in presidential elections on Sunday marked by debate over the future of a country battered by a slump in global tourism and worried by surging inflation. Nearly 400,000 voters, including over 50,000 outside the country, will choose a successor to Jorge Carlos Fonseca, head of state since 2011. There will be seven names on the ballot paper, but all indications are that the race will be limited to candidates backed by Cape Verde’s two main parties. Tourism accounts for a quarter of the economy of the tiny…

Burkina Faso commemorated Friday the 34th anniversary of the death of former revolutionary president Thomas Sankara, assassinated on October 15, 1987, and whose bust was unveiled at the university that bears his name in Ouagadougou, in the presence of his widow Mariam. “This work placed at the entrance of the university is a work of remembrance and memory for current and future generations of teachers and students,” said Mariam Sankara in inaugurating the bust. “My dream is that this statue reminds us daily of the memory of the revolution led…

Beneath the defiant flag of their self-declared republic, young Somalilanders considered life as fresh university graduates in their unrecognised homeland — a country in name only, proud but alone in the Horn of Africa. These students were not yet born when Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991, an act still unrecognised by the international community that has left the breakaway region poor and isolated. Lack of recognition has made life even harder in one of the world’s most impoverished regions, government officials say, frustrating access to foreign loans, aid…

Last updated: 14 hours ago A day after clashes that took the lives of 7 people, injured dozens and a moment that took many Lebanese to the days of civil war, a tense calm now ensues in the street as people clean up the mess. Residents in the Tayouneh area of Beirut were most of the fighting played out swept glass from the streets in front of shops and apartment buildings. Soldiers on armoured personnel carriers were deployed on the streets, and barbed wire was erected at some street entrances.…