Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.3 billion people as of 2018, it accounts for about 17% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.
Africa straddles the equator and the prime meridian. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. The majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, except for a large part of Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya and Egypt, the northern tip of Mauritania, the entire territories of Morocco, Ceuta, Melilla, and Tunisia which in turn are located above the tropic of Cancer, in the northern temperate zone. In the other extreme of the continent, southern Namibia, southern Botswana, great parts of South Africa, the entire territories of Lesotho and Eswatini and the southern tips of Mozambique and Madagascar are located below the tropic of Capricorn, in the southern temperate zone.
Africa is highly biodiverse; it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. However, Africa also is heavily affected by a wide range of environmental issues, including desertification, deforestation, water scarcity, pollution and other issues. These entrenched environmental concerns are expected to worsen as climate change impacts Africa. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified Africa as the continent most vulnerable to climate change.
The history of Africa is long, complex, and has often been under-appreciated by the global historical community. Africa, particularly Eastern Africa, is widely accepted as the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes). The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster— the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) remains, found in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Morocco, date to circa 233,000, 259,000, and 300,000 years ago respectively, and Homo sapiens is believed to have originated in Africa around 350,000–260,000 years ago. Due to being the longest inhabited continent, Africa is also considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent on the planet. (Full article...)
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- ...that Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, a Nigerian Senator from the People's Democratic Party, is the daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
- ...that the 2007 South Africa miners' strike, which impacted over 240,000 workers, was the first ever industry-wide miners' strike in the history of South Africa?
- ...that Seleh Leha, a town in Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, was the site of a leprosarium built during the Italian occupation of East Africa and abandoned in 1941?
- ...that Sarir field, an oil field in Cyrenaica operated by the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), is considered to be the largest in Libya, with estimated oil reserves of 12 Gbbl (1.9×109 m3)?
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Félix Houphouët-Boigny (French: [feliks ufwɛ(t) bwaɲi]; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was the first president of Ivory Coast, serving from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he worked as a medical aide, union leader and planter before being elected to the French Parliament. He served in several ministerial positions within the French government before leading Côte d'Ivoire following independence in 1960. Throughout his life, he played a significant role in politics and the decolonization of Africa.
Under Houphouët-Boigny's politically moderate leadership, Ivory Coast prospered economically. This success, uncommon in poverty-ridden West Africa, became known as the "Ivorian miracle"; it was due to a combination of sound planning, the maintenance of strong ties with the West (particularly France) and development of the country's significant coffee and cocoa industries. However, reliance on the agricultural sector caused difficulties in 1980, after a sharp drop in the prices of coffee and cocoa. (Full article...)Selected country –
Chad (Arabic: تشاد; French: Tchad), officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It borders Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west.
Chad has three major geographical regions: a desert zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre and a more fertile Sudanian savanna zone in the south. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad and the second largest in Africa. Chad's highest peak is the Emi Koussi in the Sahara, and the largest city is N'Djamena, the capital. Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups.
While many political parties are active, power lies firmly in the hands of President Idriss Déby and his Patriotic Salvation Movement. Chad remains plagued by political violence and recurrent attempted coups d'état. Recently, the Darfur conflict in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation. (Read more...)
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In the news
- 19 March 2022 – Politics of Australia
- Preliminary election results show Peter Malinauskas and his Labor Party winning a majority. (ABC News Australia)
- 15 March 2022 –
- Burkinabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré wins the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, becoming the first African and black person to do so. (The Guardian)
- 15 March 2022 – COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Namibia
- Namibia drops its requirement of face mask and mandatory PCR COVID-19 test for vaccinated visitors as the number of cases falls. (Reuters)
- 14 March 2022 –
- Cameroon bans shisha smoking, becoming the sixth African country to do so. (Africanews)
- 13 March 2022 – Insurgency in Northern Chad; aftermath of the 2021 Northern Chad offensive
- The Transitional Military Council of Chad meets with 44 different armed rebel and opposition groups, including the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, and the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development in Doha, Qatar for peace talks. The President of Chad, Mahamat Déby, hopes that the talks will be the first step towards agreeing on a new constitution and holding free elections. (ABC News) (France24)
Updated: 7:33, 20 March 2022
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