You are watching Africa 54, your daily news and feature magazine-style program, from the Voice of America. Host Esther Githui-Ewart and a team of correspondents zero in on the big stories making news on the continent and around the world with context and analysis.
Top Stories:
Nigerian lawmakers and property developers have raised concerns that a cement monopoly is keeping prices high and impeding construction - seen as crucial to the economic recovery of Africa's largest economy. Managing Editor TV Vincent Makori has our story.
Egyptians said on Wednesday that attitudes towards women need to change to end sexual violence in the north African country, after a high-profile gang rape case was shelved. Public prosecutors on Tuesday freed four suspects in a case involving a woman who said she was drugged and raped in 2014 at the Fairmont Hotel in the capital, Cairo. They cited insufficient evidence. .... A 2017 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll found Cairo to be the most dangerous megacity for women, and 99 percent of women in Egypt interviewed by the United Nations in 2013 reported sexual harassment.
Malawi's President Lazarus Chawera warned on Wednesday that tobacco is in terminal decline and called for a switch to high-growth crops like cannabis. Julian Satterthwaite of Reuters reports.
The Ugandan and Congo armies are setting up an operations center in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo for a joint offensive against Islamist rebels who have killed hundreds of people in the last year, according to Congo's government. On Sunday a delegation from the Ugandan Peoples Defense Force, including the commander of Uganda's ground forces arrived in Beni in Congo's North Kivu province to establish a coordination center for the two armies, Kinshasa's communications ministry said on Wednesday.
The discovery of a child's burial site in a Kenyan cave - dating back 78,000 years - sheds new light on the emotional life of early man, the head of archeology for Kenya's museums said on Wednesday. David Doyle of Reuter has more.
Ivory Coast Prime Minister Patrick Achi, aged 65, has been admitted to a hospital in Paris, where he was being treated for severe fatigue, according to two sources close to him. Achi, a close confidant of President Alassane Ouattara, was named Prime Minister in March following the death of the West African cocoa producer's second premier in less than eight months. He visited France for health reasons last week but left prematurely to participate in discussions about the electric power problems at home. He then returned to Paris on Tuesday, canceling a tour of hydroelectric dams, according to sources.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken released the State Department's annual international religious freedom report, singling out Iran, Myanmar, Russia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and China as some of the world's worst violators of what Blinken termed a core human right. VOA's Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has the story.
The United States improved from 48th to 44th last year in the Reporters Without Borders 2020 press freedom ranking. But violent incidents committed by both authorities and civilians against journalists prompted law enforcement to team up with a non-profit to deescalate tensions before tempers run over. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked Congress for an unprecedented $1 billion to fight violence against women, including domestic abuse and sexual assault. VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports on the challenges so many survivors face.
Washington plans to lift many coronavirus restrictions and aims for a full reopening by mid-June. The U.S. capital has already vaccinated more than 70 percent of its residents. Saqib Ul Islam reports on a unique vaccine drive in the city.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab near Chicago is probing the unseen forces that make up the basic building blocks of all matter – and life. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports the project could change scientists’ understanding of particle physics and the very fabric of the universe.
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