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Sibanye Gold incident
On January 31, 2018, a power outage at a gold mine owned by the Sibanye-Stillwater Gold company in Welkom, South Africa caused nearly 1000 miners to be trapped underground. This incident led to pressure from labor unions to get the mine's management to address safety concerns before allowing anybody else to go in. -
Al-Shabaab Attack in Mogadishu
On February 23, 2018, two suicide car bombs exploded in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The first bomb went off after militants breached a checkpoint near the president's residence and shot at security personnel, and the other exploded in front of a hotel away from the checkpoint. 45 people were killed and 36 were injured. The Islamist group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. -
Ouagadougou Attacks
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso is in western Africa. Since 2015 there have been many attacks by Al-Qaeda on all sorts of places making everyone on edge. The most recent attack was this one on the French embassy. It started when a car bomb went off blowing up a building. Then the terrorists opened fire on all officers surrounding the French embassy. This attack was done by an affiliate group of Al-Qaeda. The results of it was 30 deaths, 85 injuries, and 8 people arrested. -
Algerian Air Force Plane Crash
In Algeria on April 11, an Ilyushin II-76, which is a military transport aircraft, took off from Boufarik Airport heading to Tindouf Airport. The plane had members of the People's National Army and they had their family members aboard for a total of 247 passengers and 10 crew members. Shortly after the takeoff, the plane had caught on fire. It crashed and resulted in everybody on board dying. Algeria and neighboring countries all declared multiple days of national mourning. -
Largest cholera vaccination drive in history launched
The largest cholera vaccination campaign in history has been launched in an attempt to put the brakes on a disease which is ravaging parts of Africa. Nearly 3.5 million doses of oral cholera vaccine will be used in campaigns in Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, Uganda and South Sudan.There has been an increasing number of outbreaks of the infectious disease in recent years and at least 12 countries sub-Saharan Africa are currently reporting cholera outbreaks. -
President of Zimbabwe survives 'assassination attempt' in Bulawayo
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Zimbabwean president, said he narrowly survived an attempt on his life after a explosion at a party rally that injured two of his vice-presidents and several party officials.Fifteen people were hurt, three of them seriously.Mr Mnangagwa later said he had visited some of the injured in hospital and pleaded for unity ahead of elections next month. -
China in Africa
Starting in July, China announced that they will increase their military presence in Africa. By doing this, they are looking to strengthen their ties with Africa and also add to their economic profile in Africa. They are also going to further protect their assets, activities, and weapon sales in Africa. -
America Reduces Troops
The United States outline a plan to reduce the number of troops occupying territories and countries in Western Africa. These American troops have been on missions to to train African military groups to combat other enemy military groups. The troops were put there to help train, and now they are shifting their focus more toward protecting American assets in Africa. -
China Buying African Media Influence
In 1999, China began an outreach project towards Africa known as the "Going out" policy where they invested millions in African media to change the negative perception of China. China's influence is ever growing as they start to control more media. -
Africans can't travel to other African countries
Africans are finding it increasingly hard to travel from country to country in Africa. According to the AU (African Union)'s "vision and roadmap for the next 50 years", they are intending on having a border less Africa. Some countries have loosened restrictions, but AU's vision is far far away. -
Voluntary Colonialism Proposal
A controversial idea was proposed in November that would require African countries to lease their land to European nations. Europe would be allowed to develop on this land for 50 years. The main idea of the proposal is the hope that many African immigrants would stop migrating to Europe if the Europeans came to Africa. In the end, the proposal was rejected. -
Salah wins African Player of the Year
The 26 year old Liverpool player won the African player of the year with an incredible season leading Liverpool to their Champions League final appearance and helping Egypt to their World Cup appearance. He received a record 650,000 votes.
