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By Adrien MAROTTE When Bassirou Diomaye Faye is sworn in on Tuesday after winning Senegal’s presidential election on a wave of change, the challenges he faces seem as tough as the expectations are high. AFP takes a look at the intentions of the anti-establishment leader. – Priority projects – Faye set out his priorities in his first public statements after his election victory: Lower the cost of living, fight corruption, and ensure national reconciliation. Despite […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain’s coastguard was on Tuesday searching for three migrant boats reported lost at sea by an NGO a day after rescuing scores of people from another vessel near the Canary Islands. A spokeswoman for Salvamento Maritimo told AFP a rescue plane had been deployed to the area but “did not find anything”. The coastguard has also requested other ships in the area to be on the lookout, she added. During their […]
By Malick ROKHY BA Agence France-Presse DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — Violence erupted in Senegal’s capital Dakar on Thursday after a court sentenced firebrand opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to two years’ jail for “corrupting youth,” a move that dims his hopes of contesting next year’s presidential election. Sonko, President Macky Sall’s fiercest opponent, was absent when the judgement was handed down. He also did not attend the trial. Two police officials told AFP on condition of […]
DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — Twenty-two people died on Monday when a bus and a truck collided in northern Senegal, firefighters said, a week after a smash between two buses left 40 dead. Over 20 people were injured in the latest accident, which occurred near Sakal in the Louga region, Papa Ange Michel Diatta, a colonel with the national firefighting service, told AFP. Prime Minister Amadou Ba visited the crash site vowing to enforce new rules […]
BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau (AFP) — Senegal signed an agreement on Thursday with rebels from the country’s south who pledged to lay down their arms and work towards a permanent peace in the home of one of Africa’s oldest active rebellions. Rebel leader Cesar Atoute Badiate, head of a unit of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), and an emissary of Senegalese President Macky Sall signed the peace deal in Guinea-Bissau. Sall had made a […]
DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — A Senegal court Tuesday handed an opposition MP a six-month suspended prison sentence for defying a ban on protests in the tense run-up to legislative elections and released another lawmaker and 82 other defendants tried in the same case. MPs Dethie Fall and Mame Diarra Fame were tried along with the 82 other defendants at the court in the capital Dakar. They were arrested on June 17 during a rally called […]
by Malick Rokhy BA Eleven newborn babies died in a hospital fire in the western Senegalese city of Tivaouane, the president of the country said late Wednesday. Just before midnight in Senegal, Macky Sall announced on Twitter that 11 infants had died in the blaze. “I have just learned with pain and dismay about the deaths of 11 newborn babies in the fire at the neonatal department of the public hospital,” he tweeted. “To their […]
by Laurent Lozano Agence France-Presse DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) – Many residents of the Senegalese metropolis Dakar get up in the middle of the night hoping to collect water from their taps, which mostly run dry. “We wake up at 4 or 5 am to get water, says Sidy Fall, 44, in her kitchen in a working-class neighbourhood, filled with large bottles of stored water. If she doesn’t get up in time, the water often runs […]
DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) – Untapped groundwater resources have “vast potential,” the UN’s cultural agency said Monday, potentially alleviating demand for ever-scarcer water supplies across the world. In a report, cultural agency UNESCO stated that about 99 percent of all of the liquid groundwater on Earth is groundwater, although the resource is often poorly understood or undervalued. “In the context of growing water scarcity in many parts of the world, the vast potential of groundwater and the […]
by Laurent Lozano Agence France-Presse SAINT-LOUIS, Senegal (AFP) – In the northern Senegalese city of Saint-Louis, excavators are ripping up the beach to lay giant blocks of basalt, in an eleventh-hour effort to keep the sea at bay. When work is finished, a black sea wall will stretch for kilometres along the coastline of the West African country’s former capital, famed for its colonial-era architecture. Dire warnings about the risk of rising sea levels due […]
by Philippe SIUBERSKI DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — Rapper Akon has set his sights on building a sprawling $6 billion city in his Senegal homeland to welcome Africans of the diaspora to their “home back home”. The R&B star, who boasts two multi-platinum albums, told a news conference Monday he had laid the first stone for the city in the Atlantic Ocean village of Mbodiene around 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Senegalese capital Dakar. […]
by Emmet LIVINGSTONE Agence France-Presse DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — It took one morning in late May to cut a large chunk from the side of a seaside volcanic hill in Senegal’s capital Dakar, to make way for a hotel. A man had turned up with permits and diggers got to work, according to Mamadou Mignane Diouf, an official from a local campaign group called Forum Social, who fought against the development. “No one should build here,” […]
