https://www.scmp.com/rss/519156/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Dulue Mbachu Dulue Mbachu As the energy shock unleashed by tensions in the Middle East rippled through Africa, a massive oil refinery in Nigeria’s biggest city of Lagos, owned by Africa’s wealthiest man, came to the rescue. Running at its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, the world’s biggest single-train refinery supplied fuel to many African countries that usually relied on imports through the Strait of Hormuz, from Senegal in the west to Mozambique in the southeast. Built at a cost of about US$20 billion,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3352256/fuelling-continent-how-chinas-engineering-prowess-built-africas-biggest-oil-refinery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3352256/fuelling-continent-how-chinas-engineering-prowess-built-africas-biggest-oil-refinery?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 May 2026 08:00:14 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse The pace of tropical forest destruction slowed in 2025 after record losses the year before but remained at worrying levels equivalent to 11 football fields per minute, researchers said Wednesday. The world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical primary rainforest last year, down 36 per cent from 2024, said researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. “A drop of this scale in a single year is encouraging – it shows what decisive... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3351895/tropical-rainforest-loss-eases-after-record-year-still-11-football-fields-minute?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3351895/tropical-rainforest-loss-eases-after-record-year-still-11-football-fields-minute?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:35:31 +0000 Reuters Reuters Pope Leo sought ⁠to downplay his feud ⁠with US President Donald Trump on Saturday, ⁠saying reporting about comments he has made so far during his Africa tour “has not been accurate in all its aspects”. Speaking to reporters in English aboard his flight to Angola for the third leg of his ambitious 10-day Africa tour, the first US pope said comments ‌he made two days earlier in Cameroon decrying that the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not aimed at Trump. That speech, said... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350604/pope-leo-seeks-defuse-tensions-trump-says-not-trying-debate-him?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350604/pope-leo-seeks-defuse-tensions-trump-says-not-trying-debate-him?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Apr 2026 03:32:39 +0000 Reuters Reuters Pope Leo called on Cameroonians on Friday to reject violence and be generous with their neighbours during an event billed as the biggest of his four-nation Africa tour, with roughly 120,000 people flocking to a mass he led in the port city of Douala. Amid heavy security, some believers had made their way on Thursday to the city’s Japoma ‌Stadium, venue of the mass, and slept overnight outside on mats to hear Friday’s address from the pontiff, who has become outspoken on war and inequality and... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350542/pope-urges-cameroon-reject-violence-mass-draws-120000-people?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350542/pope-urges-cameroon-reject-violence-mass-draws-120000-people?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:15:32 +0000 Reuters Reuters Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, in unusually forceful remarks in Cameroon on Thursday after US President Donald Trump attacked him again on social media. Leo, the first US pope, also decried leaders who used religious language to justify wars and urged a “decisive change of course” in a meeting in the biggest city ‌in Cameroon’s anglophone regions, where a simmering conflict going back nearly a decade has left... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350355/cameroon-pope-leo-assails-tyrants-ravaging-world-amid-trump-row?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350355/cameroon-pope-leo-assails-tyrants-ravaging-world-amid-trump-row?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:50:09 +0000 Reuters Reuters Pope Leo has said the world needs to hear a message of peace and coexistence, after US President Donald Trump attacked him for a second time this week on social media. Speaking on Wednesday during his flight from Algeria to Cameroon for the second leg of a whirlwind 10-day ‌Africa tour, the first US pontiff urged respect for all people and said his travels so far had shown the importance of pursuing dialogue between different communities. “Although we have different beliefs, we have different... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350217/pope-leo-stresses-message-peace-and-unity-despite-another-trump-attack?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350217/pope-leo-stresses-message-peace-and-unity-despite-another-trump-attack?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:15:08 +0000 Lawrence Chung Lawrence Chung Taiwan has pushed back against a growing number of foreign governments that label it part of China in their internal systems. But questions are mounting over whether Taipei’s retaliatory moves can deliver results. The dispute has widened in recent weeks after South Korea, Denmark and Cameroon were found to have changed how they designate the island in official systems, such as those that handle visa documents, residence permits and international conference credentials. Taipei has responded with... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3348438/names-and-games-taipei-hits-back-over-china-label-will-it-pay?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3348438/names-and-games-taipei-hits-back-over-china-label-will-it-pay?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:00:12 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In these turbulent times, focusing on the World Trade Organization’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14) in Yaounde, Cameroon, is a bit like trying to focus on a picnic sitting alongside a bar brawl, or listening to a lesson in pruning bonsai while a lumberjack takes a chainsaw to a giant redwood. But try we must. Even if the deliverables are meagre and may take years to materialise, the symbolism of Yaounde points to a possible future very different from today’s chaotic hegemonic unilateralism –... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348028/wto-meeting-cameroon-signals-rise-world-minus-one-order?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348028/wto-meeting-cameroon-signals-rise-world-minus-one-order?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:30:08 +0000 Finbarr Bermingham Finbarr Bermingham German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said he can imagine a trade deal with China in the future, signalling a new softening stance towards Beijing in European capitals. “We have set quite a lot in motion when it comes to trade policy. I can also envisage further agreements, for example, in the longer term an agreement with the People’s Republic of China,” Merz said in the German parliament on Wednesday. Merz’s remarks underscore how surging trade and geopolitical tensions with Washington are... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3348030/germanys-merz-floats-eu-china-trade-deal-capitals-soften-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3348030/germanys-merz-floats-eu-china-trade-deal-capitals-soften-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:00:51 +0000 Ralph Jennings Ralph Jennings Though a Hong Kong operator has lost control of the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most pivotal waterways for merchant ships, researchers said this week that Chinese state institutions have funded hundreds of other seaports around the world. Specifically, they have invested a total of US$23.9 billion over the past quarter century in 363 ports and related activities abroad, according to AidData, a research lab at US university William & Mary. The lab called the investments a safeguard against... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3345361/panama-out-study-says-china-investing-us239-billion-worlds-seaports?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3345361/panama-out-study-says-china-investing-us239-billion-worlds-seaports?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:00:10 +0000 Finbarr Bermingham Finbarr Bermingham The European Union’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic has railed against the bloc’s glacial trade defences, warning that years-long probes and rigid rules will not protect the bloc from China’s increasingly fierce export machine. Speaking in the European Parliament on Tuesday, Sefcovic lashed out at Beijing’s “unsustainable” trade surplus and called for an urgent overhaul of world trading rules to account for “overcapacities”, “unfair trade policies” and “state subsidies”. He confirmed, meanwhile,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3344517/eu-too-slow-act-china-rewrites-global-trade-rules-trade-chief-sefcovic-warns?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3344517/eu-too-slow-act-china-rewrites-global-trade-rules-trade-chief-sefcovic-warns?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:55:55 +0000 Ushar Daniele Ushar Daniele In the dead of night, officers from Malaysia’s maritime agency boarded two tankers that were transferring millions of barrels of oil in the waters off Penang, as the re-emergence of ageing vessels from a shadow fleet in the country’s waters has put the spotlight on the illegal trade in Asia. The January 29 bust was a rare disruption to a trade worth billions of dollars each year – much of it from sanctioned oil-producing nations Russia and Iran, and involving ships plying the waters in the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3342393/malaysian-waters-see-return-illegal-oil-transfer-dark-fleet-tankers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3342393/malaysian-waters-see-return-illegal-oil-transfer-dark-fleet-tankers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:05:21 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press A fire at a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana in the early hours of New Year’s Day has left dozens of people presumed dead and around 100 injured, according to authorities. Here is a look at some other nightclub, bar and music venue fires that have led to significant death tolls: December 2025: A fire ripped through a popular nightclub in Arpora village, in India’s Goa state, killing 25 people, including kitchen workers and tourists. March 2025: A fire and ensuing stampede at the... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3338451/swiss-ski-resort-bar-inferno-joins-long-list-worlds-worst-club-fires?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3338451/swiss-ski-resort-bar-inferno-joins-long-list-worlds-worst-club-fires?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jan 2026 02:23:18 +0000 Jevans Nyabiage Jevans Nyabiage In the heart of Algeria’s Sahara Desert, Chinese state-owned giant China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) has completed laying track on the PK330 Bridge, a final and critical link in a new railway designed to unlock the nation’s mineral wealth. The 6km (3.7-mile) bridge is part of the 950km railway linking the Gara Djebilet iron ore deposit in southwestern Tindouf province to the industrial hub of Bechar in the northeast. It was the “most technically demanding railway engineering feat... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3337896/how-algeria-could-help-china-plug-iron-ore-gaps-and-gain-pricing-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3337896/how-algeria-could-help-china-plug-iron-ore-gaps-and-gain-pricing-power?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Dec 2025 08:00:13 +0000 Victoria Bela Victoria Bela A microbiologist who revolutionised the production of laboratory-grown seafood protein took home the top prize in the 2025 African Business Heroes awards in Rwanda on Saturday, in the seventh annual edition of the largest event for start-ups of its kind on the continent. Diana Orembe, the founder of Tanzania-based NovFeed, was the winner out of 10 finalists in the awards, which received up to 32,000 applications from 54 countries. She took home US$300,000 in grant funding. Abraham Mbuthia of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3336326/china-africa-partnership-leaps-future-beijing-expands-market-access-envoy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3336326/china-africa-partnership-leaps-future-beijing-expands-market-access-envoy?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Dec 2025 09:19:45 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has been declared the winner of October 12 elections that were marred by the disqualification of his main challenger, and is set to rule the central African nation until the age of 99 if he completes his eighth term. The country’s top court on Monday said Biya, 92, the world’s oldest president, who held one election rally, had got more than half of the votes cast. Presidential candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary rejected the official results by the Constitutional... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3330402/4-killed-cameroon-protests-ahead-election-results-opposition-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3330402/4-killed-cameroon-protests-ahead-election-results-opposition-says?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Oct 2025 19:44:20 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press Cameroon voted in an election on Sunday that could see Africa’s oldest leader extend his rule by another seven years. Analysts have predicted a victory for President Paul Biya. Now 92, he would be 99 by the time his term finishes. He first came to power in 1982 following the resignation of Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, and has ruled the country since then. Biya was declared the winner of seven subsequent elections. Cameroon has seen just two leaders since independence in 1960. His... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3328711/worlds-oldest-president-92-could-extend-his-rule-cameroon-heads-polls?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3328711/worlds-oldest-president-92-could-extend-his-rule-cameroon-heads-polls?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Oct 2025 12:34:32 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell The grand edifice of the World Trade Organization’s headquarters on the banks of Lake Geneva stands as strong and sturdy as ever, but US President Donald Trump is set upon bulldozing its foundations. Inside those headquarters, there is evidence of increasing irrelevance. It is populated by a community of around 600 diplomats, economists and various experts who are adrift and directionless. Meanwhile, countries are wrestling with the implications of Trump’s assault on the global trading system... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321935/most-favoured-nation-thatll-be-us-under-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321935/most-favoured-nation-thatll-be-us-under-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:30:08 +0000 Reuters Reuters Cameroon’s nonagenarian head of state, Paul Biya, will run for re-election in this year’s presidential vote expected on October 12, a post on the president’s social media account said on Sunday. “I am a candidate in the presidential election of October 12, 2025. Rest assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face,” the post on the official account said. Biya, the world’s oldest serving head of state, came to power more than four decades ago in 1982, when... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3318065/cameroons-paul-biya-92-announces-bid-eighth-presidential-term?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3318065/cameroons-paul-biya-92-announces-bid-eighth-presidential-term?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Jul 2025 19:59:22 +0000