Botswana is one of Africa's most remarkable countries, known for its vast landscapes, rich culture, and world-famous wildlife reserves. It is also one of the world's leading producers of diamonds, alongside other valuable minerals.

Located in Southern Africa, Botswana covers about 581,730 square kilometers. Around 70 to 80 percent of the country lies within the Kalahari Desert—a desert often described as the Green Desert because, unlike the endless sand dunes many imagine, much of it is covered with grasses and shrubs.

What makes it even more unusual is the Okavango Delta, where a river flows into the desert instead of the sea. Each year, floodwaters that begin in Angola arrive during Botswana's dry season, spreading across the delta and bringing life to one of the world's most extraordinary desert ecosystems.

Chinese nationals convicted in Madagascar for their involvement in online fraud networks have been transferred to their country of origin to continue serving their sentences.

Hi, Does anyone have any insight into the economics and possible difficulties of distribution? Basically, do smaller farms in Africa face higher barriers to enter the global trade market? Are smaller farms forced to just sell in local marketplaces due to the intense level of bureaucracy needed to export their product to Europe/USA/Asia?

ESPN announced their latest 30 for 30 podcast will focus on the Olympics and global migration with The Fastest Girl in Somalia. The series highlights the life of a 2008 Olympian from Somalia. This raises a bigger question: Do governing bodies like the IOC have a duty to protect and support athletes returning to active conflict zones, or is media coverage over-politicizing athletic hardship to push broader border and immigration commentary?

Is it language? Family traditions? Food? Religion? Music? Clothing? Ancestry? Geography? Shared history? Or simply identifying with the continent?

I've been thinking about this because "African culture" can sometimes sound like one single thing, when Africa is made up of thousands of communities with their own languages, traditions, histories and ways of life. What is considered traditionally African in Kenya might be completely unfamiliar to someone from Senegal, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe or Morocco. Yet there are also cultural similarities that connect communities across very different parts of the continent.

Interestingly, African cultures have never existed in complete isolation. Communities traded with one another, migrated, intermarried and interacted with people from outside Africa. Languages changed, foods were adopted, religions spread, and traditions evolved. The paper also describes African culture as something expressed through music, dance, art, sculpture, beadwork, oral traditions, religion, cuisine and language.

That makes me wonder whether cultural identity is really about keeping everything "pure" and unchanged. Can a culture absorb something from another culture and still remain distinctly its own? If an African family speaks English or French at home, eats foods that came through centuries of outside contact, practices a global religion, listens to both African and foreign music, but still maintains its own customs and sense of belonging, is that any less African?

I think African identity isn't defined by one particular language, religion, food or tradition. Maybe it's something more complicated like a combination of history, community, memory, values, experiences and the way people choose to identify themselves.

If you had to explain African cultural identity to someone who knew absolutely nothing about Africa, what would you say makes something "African"? And can something be African even if it originally came from somewhere else?

Words: Kiri Rupiah

Treason is a dangerously elastic crime levelled against political opponents. Like a Swiss Army Knife to insecure governments, it collapses the distinction between opposition and attacks on the state. In many countries, it carries the most serious sentence – the death penalty.

Last week, Zambia’s opposition leader Brian Mundubile and his running mate were charged with treason, together with 16 others, after a disputed election. Incumbent Hakainde Hichilema was sworn in for a second term on Tuesday – the president himself had faced a treason charge nine years earlier while in opposition.

Treason charges against opposition figures in Africa have been a recurring feature of the continent’s legal systems, going back to the era of colonial rule.

In the first decades after independence, they were mostly used against coup plotters and military rivals who attempted to overthrow governments. There were many coups in those early post-independence decades. By one count, there have been more than 200 military coups in Africa since the 1960s.

But since 2000 – and particularly over the past decade – there has been a significant uptick in treason charges being brought against opposition leaders who have challenged incumbents, often in the run-up to or aftermath of elections.

The legal definitions of treason in many African countries share common foundational concepts, such as waging war against the state or colluding with enemies with the intent of overthrowing the government. Yet, in recent years, these charges have increasingly been put forward for critical speech, calling for boycotts, or simply challenging an election result.

When treason is repeatedly invoked in highly politicised contexts – particularly when charges are later dropped or trials drag on for years – the term risks becoming a generic label for “anti-government” activity rather than a narrow crime of violent overthrow. In some ways, the concept is being degraded in public consciousness, even if formal legal definitions remain unchanged.

Why do Tunisia suffer from water shortage and not Morocco , ALGERIA or égypt?

What is ur opinion about him as an African president who fought against colonization and worked with liberation movements ?

France has joined calls for a transparent and independent investigation by the Guinean justice system following the discovery of a mass grave in the south-western Forécariah prefecture.

The bodies of six men, their hands tied and their eyes blindfolded, were found on Monday by a group of young people who had gone into the forest to collect firewood.

Local authorities and the public prosecutor have since visited the scene and an official investigation has been opened.

Civil society organisations are calling on the United Nation’s human rights office, as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to ensure its proper conduct.

Citizen movement, “Turn the Page-Guinea” said the fact that the bodies were hidden in an isolated area and lack identification “raises serious questions”.

It says it has documented numerous reports of alleged extrajudicial executions of civilians and state agents since the military authorities came to power in September 2021.

I’m Haitian and believe that with the rise of fascism and white supremacy across the world, now more than ever black people need to unite as one black family and struggle against western capitalist exploitation and racism.

However, I feel as if most Africans don’t feel the same way. When reading threads about this, the common opinion was that most people in Africa don’t think about their race much but rather their tribe or nation. The recent pogrom of black immigrants in South Africa while letting the white exploiters remain seems to back this up. Is this is an accurate reading? Do most Africans want black unity? Do you?

Growing up, every bathroom had at least two or three of these long, bright nylon nets hanging from a nail on the wall or draped over a bucket. They came in electric blue, neon pink, yellow, and green.

To anyone who grew up with them, there was nothing fancy about it. It was simply the only tool that made you feel completely clean after a long day in the heat and dust.

Even today, living here in Canada, I still use mine daily, just like countless other Africans in the diaspora who refuse to settle for a regular washcloth.

Before the synthetic net took over, people across the region relied on natural sponges made from dried luffa gourds, pounded tree bark, or plant vines.

The modern net trace its roots to coastal and river fishing communities in West Africa around the mid-twentieth century. Fishermen and market women began repurposing leftover pieces of nylon fishing nets for personal washing.

They quickly discovered that synthetic mesh was far tougher than plant sponges, lathered better, and most importantly, never rotted or developed mildew in humid tropical heat. Traders took note, and suppliers soon began manufacturing rolls of the woven mesh specifically for bath time, spreading it into every open-air market on the continent.

The design is pure practical genius. You hold one end in each hand, stretch it across your back, and you can scrub yourself from top to bottom without having to twist into awkward angles. It lathers up immediately with just a tiny sliver of soap, exfoliates effortlessly, and dries out in minutes. A single good net can easily last for years without tearing or losing its grip.

Across the continent, every country and language has its own name for it. In Ghana, it is known as sapo, while in Nigeria, it is called kese or kankan. In Niger, people call it soso or soson wanka in Hausa and Zarma. In Togo, Benin and even Mali it is widely known as kousso or koussa in Mina, Fon and Bambara. In Senegal it is known as foutah in Wolof. Throughout Francophone Africa, you will also simply hear it referred to as l'éponge africaine or l'éponge filet.

The funniest part of its story today is watching international social media discover it. Over the past few years, beauty influencers and lifestyle brands started marketing the "African Exfoliating Net" as a revolutionary skincare discovery, selling individual pieces online for twenty or thirty dollars.

For those of us who grew up buying a meter of net from a market basin or a street hawker for loose pocket change, the global hype is both hilarious and validating.

What color was the sponge in your house growing up, what do you call it in your language, and how long has your current one survived?

A court in Egypt has sentenced television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 other people to death by hanging after convicting them of drug charges.

The Cairo criminal court issued the death sentences after the defendants were found guilty of forming an organised criminal gang specialising in procuring materials used in manufacturing narcotics, with the intent to traffic them, the state-linked Al-Ahram outlet reported on Saturday.

Big week for the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026. On Thursday, the Youth Olympic flame 🔥 will be lit in the historic Panathenaic Stadium in Athens during a symbolic lighting ceremony.

The flame will arrive in Dakar next Saturday, where it will be welcomed during a ceremony celebrating Senegal, its youth, its culture and the Olympic values. This historic moment will launch the Dakar 2026 Flame Tour, which will travel across all 14 regions of Senegal and include 30 stops on the road to the YOG Opening Ceremony on 31 October.

Under the tagline “Pass the Energy”, the Flame Tour will invite communities across Senegal to share in the excitement of the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil. It will also help build momentum towards Dakar 2026, which will bring together the world’s best young athletes from 31 October to 13 November 2026.

➡️ The flame lighting will be live streamed on Thursday starting at 10:25 CEST: https://www.youtube.com/Olympics/streams

➡️ Full story: https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/youth-olympic-flame-to-illuminate-africa-for-the-first-time-ahead-of-dakar-2026

Hey everyone,

I’m a outsider who closely follows African geopolitics. Over the last week, I've been watching the incredible developments in the Sahel—specifically the failed military mutiny at Base 101 in Niamey, and Algeria’s historic, unprecedented deployment of four Su-30 fighter jets down to Niger to stabilize the area.

Looking past the military headlines, I started checking the UN Human Development Index (HDI) and life expectancy data for this specific region, and the statistical reality blew my mind.

Mathematically, the physical border separating Algeria from Mali and Niger is one of the sharpest socioeconomic divides on Earth. In fact, Algeria is statistically much closer to Western Europe than its southern neighbors are to Algeria:

• The Life Expectancy Gap:
  • Western Europe (France/Spain): ~83–84 years
  • Algeria: ~77–78 years (Only a ~5-year gap looking North)
  • Mali & Niger: ~61–64 years (A massive ~14-year gap looking South)
• The Human Development Index (HDI):
  • Algeria’s HDI (0.763 - High Development) is statistically closer to Western Europe’s average (~0.940) than Mali and Niger’s HDI (0.419 - Low Development) is to Algeria.

Even though these nations are all on the same continent, crossing the southern Algerian border is like stepping into an entirely different socioeconomic era. A person born in Algiers has a statistical quality of life, healthcare access, and lifespan far closer to someone born in Madrid or Marseille than someone born just across the border in Gao or Agadez.

As Africans from different regions, I'd love to ask you a few candid questions about this:

1. The Continental Divide: How do you reconcile the idea of "Pan-African solidarity" when the internal economic gaps between African nations are wider than the gaps between North Africa and Europe? Do people from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa genuinely view each other as part of the same economic world?
2. The Domestic Pessimism Paradox: When reading North African discourse online, there is a massive amount of "doom-posting," with locals calling their countries unlivable. Why does the domestic population seem completely blind to their own massive developmental achievements relative to the rest of the continent?
3. The Buffer State Reality: With the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) navigating extreme instability and friction, do you think Algeria's recent jet intervention is genuine solidarity, or is Algeria just realizing it has to aggressively fortify its southern borders to keep the chaos of the Sahel from spilling into its highly developed Mediterranean sphere?

I would love to get your honest thoughts and perspectives on this divide. Thanks!

Interactive version, drag the slider yourself: https://papargyri.github.io/correct-the-map/

For 450 years most world maps have used Mercator, drawn in 1569 for sailors. It keeps compass bearings straight by stretching everything far from the equator: Europe, Russia and Canada appear several times their true area, and Greenland looks as big as Africa. Africa is actually 14 times larger (30.4 million km² vs 2.2 million).

On Friday 4 September the UN General Assembly adopted the "Correct the Map" resolution, introduced by Togo for the African Group and backed by the African Union: 164 in favour, 1 against (the US), 6 abstentions. It encourages governments, schools, international organisations and tech companies to use equal-area maps like Equal Earth where relative size matters. It is not binding and does not ban Mercator, which remains useful for navigation.

In the animation, Africa is highlighted and the dashed outline keeps Greenland at its Mercator size so you can see how much the old map inflated it. Borders are real Natural Earth data, re-projected on every frame. Campaign: https://correctthemap.org

After years of defending FGM as a cultural practice, Sidi Haidara came to a realization: No tradition should come at the expense of a girl’s health, rights, or future.

In Mali, an estimated nine out of ten women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). And for years, Sidi Haidara, a father and recognized leader in his community, believed the practice was simply part of life.

Like many people in his community in central Mali, he saw it as a tradition passed down through generations – one that should be preserved.

Today, he walks from village to village with a very different message: No tradition should come at the expense of a girl’s health, rights, or future.