Southern Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — The southern African nation of Zimbabwe is sending a Black swimmer to the Olympics, the first from her country to go the Games.

Seventeen-year-old Donata Katai won African youth titles and broke youth records once held by two-time Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry, who is not only Zimbabwe's most successful swimmer but also Africa's most decorated Olympian.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Pro-democracy activists in Eswatini, the southern African kingdom previously known as Swaziland, have vowed to intensify demonstrations against the monarchy until it makes democratic reforms and lifts its ban on all opposition parties.

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president and a champion of African nationalism who spearheaded the fights to end white minority rule across southern Africa, has died at the age of 97.

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Zambia's first president Kenneth Kaunda, 97, has been admitted to hospital, his office announced Monday, as the southern African country battles a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Kaunda asked for “all Zambians and the international community to pray for him as the medical team is doing everything possible to ensure that he recovers,” according to the statement issued by Kaunda's administrative assistant Rodrick Ngolo.

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) — A group of traditional chiefs in Namibia said Thursday they have accepted an offer of compensation by Germany and a recognition that the colonial-era massacre of tens of thousands of their people in the early 20th century was genocide.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is officially recognizing the colonial-era massacre of tens of thousands of people in Namibia as genocide and has agreed to provide funding to help the communities affected. But it is stopping short of formal reparations, which some have demanded.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Pakistan won the series-deciding Twenty20 against Zimbabwe by 24 runs on Sunday after a 91 not out from Mohammad Rizwan and another half-century from the prolific Babar Azam...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Five southern African leaders expressed their concern at the extremist violence in northern Mozambique and said they will consider “a proportionate regional response” at another summit in three weeks...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Rebels fought the Mozambican army Sunday for the fifth straight day for control of the strategic northern town of Palma, as reports came in that dozens of civilians have been killed and bodies were littering the streets...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe started giving COVID-19 vaccinations Thursday, with Vice President Constantino Chiwenga volunteering for the first jab at a hospital in the capital, Harare...

MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) — Mayotte’s main tourist office stands nearly empty, a lonely tropical outpost overlooking a people-less port...

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — Malawi faces a resurgence of COVID-19 that is overwhelming the southern African country where a presidential residence and a national stadium have been turned into field hospitals in efforts to save lives...

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Facing financial difficulties aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, the southern African nation of Zambia appears headed for a default on debt owed to private investors...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Parks authorities in Zimbabwe said Monday that the recent deaths of elephants have been caused by a bacterial disease that has previously affected elephants in Asia and other animals in southern Africa, although more tests will still be carried out...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Locusts are threatening another part of Africa, with up to 7 million people in the southern region facing further food insecurity, the United Nations said Friday...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Unable to protest on the streets, some in Zimbabwe are calling themselves “keyboard warriors” as they take to graffiti and social media to pressure a government that promised reform but is now accused of gross human rights abuses...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A fish eagle swoops over the water to grab a fish in its talons and then flies to its nest...

GABORONE, Botswana (AP) — Botswana says it is investigating a staggeringly high number of elephant carcasses — 275 — found in the popular Okavango Delta area of the southern African nation in recent weeks...

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — Lazarus Chakwera has been sworn in as Malawi's new president Sunday after the announcement the previous night that he had won the southern African country's rerun elections...

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — The opposition has won Malawi’s historic rerun of the presidential election, the first time a court-overturned vote in Africa has led to the defeat of an incumbent leader...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe, where millions of people already face acute hunger, could sink deeper into crisis as the coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on the country’s troubled economy and food supply, United Nations agencies say in a new report.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A billionaire has offered to pay striking doctors in Zimbabwe to help end a months-long protest over grave hospital conditions as the economy crumbles, and a doctors' group on Thursday said it was encouraging members to embrace the money and return to work...

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) — Namibia’s ruling party on Wednesday faced its biggest challenge since independence nearly three decades ago as people fed up with a weak economy went to the polls. The resource-rich southern African nation’s registered 1.3 million voters were choosing the president and National Assembly members.

VOSBURG, South Africa (AP) — Residents call this drought-stricken community a “forgotten town.”

The flat, dusty roads to Vosburg are surrounded by withered fields...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — When her contractions became unbearably painful, 18-year-old Perseverance Kanyoza rushed to a maternity hospital in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — The massive march that Zimbabwe's government tried to rouse for a new anti-sanctions public holiday appeared to fizzle on Friday, as just hundreds of people turned out in the capital, Harare, instead of the many thousands the ruling party had in mind.

GABORONE, Botswana (AP) — Botswana faced its tightest election in history on Wednesday as the long-peaceful southern African nation wondered if the ruling party would be toppled for the first time since independence.

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry has lashed out at the British media for its treatment of his wife, Meghan, accusing it of hounding her the way it did his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a 1997 car crash while trying to elude paparazzi...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A body armor-wearing Prince Harry on Friday followed in the footsteps of his late mother, Princess Diana, whose walk through an active mine field in Angola years ago helped to lead to a global ban on the deadly weapons...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Robert Mugabe will be buried at a hilltop shrine reserved exclusively for Zimbabwe's ruling elite, an official said Saturday, as the southern African nation began several days of official mourning...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Robert Mugabe took a country shining with the promise of independence and left it economically shattered and in the grip of repression — and yet Zimbabwe continued to crumble so badly after his downfall that some of its people began openly missing his nearly four-decade rule...

LONDON (AP) — Representatives for the British royal family say Prince Harry will get to see the legacy of his late mother's humanitarian work in Angola during a fall trip to southern Africa.

Buckingham Palace released details Friday of the trip Harry is taking with his wife, Meghan, and their infant son Archie, who was born in May.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — It is only a few hours since Zimbabwe's schools closed for month-long August holidays, and 13-year-old Tanyaradzwa is already milling outside a bar "doing business," he says.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Botswana became the latest country to decriminalize gay sex on Tuesday, a landmark case for Africa, as the High Court rejected laws punishing it with up to seven years in prison...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Mozambique says it needs $3.2 billion to recover from a pair of powerful tropical cyclones that ripped into the southern African nation earlier this year and left hundreds dead, raising alarm about the effects of climate change on coastal nations...