Photos: The horrific slave trade at Elmina Castle in Ghana

Elmina Castle has a horrifying past. Picture: Erik Cleves Kristensen Source: Flickr

AT HIS whim, the Governor stood on his balcony to select one of the 400 female slaves gathered below to be his ‘mistress’ for the day.

A purpose-built staircase led directly from women’s dungeons straight to the Governor’s quarters. After being at the mercy of his sexual fantasies — they were raped — the terrified women were given a proper meal and the first wash they would have had since being captured. More pics after cut

President Buhari "My Government is short of money"

Mr Buhari promised to improve the lives of Nigerians when he took power

Nigeria's treasury is "virtually empty", President Muhammadu Buhari has said.

His government had inherited millions of dollars worth of debt from the previous administration, he said at a media briefing.

"It is such a disgrace for Nigeria," Mr Buhari added.

Boko Haram-hit Niger facing child malnutrition crisis: charity

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Nigeriens who fled to Nigeria because of the drought in 1985 have came back 30 years later, fleeing Boko Haram attacks, May 24, 2015 in Diffa, Niger (AFP Photo)

Southeast Niger is struggling with a dramatic increase in child malnutrition as tens of thousands of people flee the Boko Haram conflict, the charity Save the Children said on Monday.

Niger's Diffa province, where the army has been battling Boko Haram jihadists since February, has seen an influx of people fleeing the conflict, with around 150,000 displaced people swelling the previous population of 600,000 inhabitants, Save the Children said.

Skinny jeans could make you a fashion victim: doctors

Squatting in super-tight "skinny" jeans may pose a health risk, Australian doctors warned Tuesday, reporting the case of a woman who temporarily lost feeling in her legs from an hours-long squeeze.

Picture credit: Instagram

The 35-year-old collapsed and had to be hospitalised the day after helping a relative move home, spending hours on her haunches to unpack cupboards.

The unusual case was reported in a British specialist publication, the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

"She had been wearing tight 'skinny' jeans and recalled that these had felt increasingly tight and uncomfortable as the day wore on," the journal said.

More than 3,000 dengue cases in Yemen since March: WHO

People and police gather at the site of a car bomb attack outside the Qubbat al-Mahdi mosque in Yemen's capital Sanaa. File photo.
Image by: REUTERS

The Saudi-led air strikes launched in late March have crippled an already weak health infrastructure, and lack of water and sanitation facilities are exacerbating the situation, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.

Grenades, words fly in Burundi

The troubled central African nation has been in crisis since late April over President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial bid to stand for a third consecutive five-year term, a move branded by opponents as unconstitutional and a violation of a 2006 peace deal that ended 13 years of civil war.

Many fear a repeat of that violence, which split the country along ethnic lines between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis.

Photos: Nigeria Vice-President Prof Osinbajo in his Office at Aso Villa, Abuja

Yesterday we showed pictures of the President at his office at Aso Villa, today we show case the VP from his own office also at the Aso Villa in Abuja. Work of good governance begins. More pics after cut....

Photos: State of Roads in Muyiwa Opaleye Street in Surulere, Lagos State.

After over 16 years of Democratic governance in Lagos State, this is the condition of a road in Aguda, Surulere, Lagos. We at FOB are calling on his excellency, Gov. Ambode of Lagos to please look at the state of internal roads in lagos. Another pic after cut...

Yes, Cuba is more open now. But for these artists and activists, little has changed. : The Washington Post

People walk near the painting “Ayotzinapa,” created in honor of 43 Mexican missing students, at the Havana Biennial. (Enrique de la Osa/Reuters)

 Tania Bruguera’s work sits in the permanent collection of Cuba’s premier art gallery, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. So it was a surprise when, despite invitations from organizers of the Havana Biennial, Bruguera was turned away by the guards there during an event taking place on the Biennial’s first weekend.

Keep Fighting Joseph Kony’s LRA By Kathryn Bigelow and Holly Dranginis

In February, a man and his teenage daughter floated in a fishing boat on the Were River, deep in the heart of Garamba National Park, where Congo’s last elephants roam. Out of the forest, four armed rebels appeared, wielding AK-47s and speaking a language indigenous to Northern Uganda.

They attacked the boat and took the girl and her father, marking two of the roughly 240 abductions carried out this year by suspected Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters.

Not Only Voiceless, But Choice-less: The Impregnated Victims of Boko Haram by Akila Radhakrishnan and Kristina Kallas

The rescue of hundreds of Nigerian women and girls from terrorist group Boko Haram received more press coverage than the human rights of women and girls are generally allocated. But what wasn’t included in that coverage is how the U.S. is actively denying those same women and girls the medical care they desperately need. 

Many of those rescued were raped and forcibly impregnated while being held captive. This is becoming an all too common tactic of war, employed by Boko Haram and other groups such as the so-called Islamic State. The governor of Borno State in Nigeria, where Boko Haram is most active, told reporters, “The sect leaders make a very conscious effort to impregnate the women…Some of them, I was told, even pray before mating, offering supplications for God to make the products of what they are doing become children that will inherit their ideology.”

Buhari, ‘legislooters’ and the change agenda By CHIDO ONUMAH & GODWIN ONYEACHOLEM

(Reuters)

Wind the critically slurred legislative tape back to the first National Assembly of the Fourth Republic. It began sometime in 1999, you’d recall. That was the period the incautious yet irrepressible Chuba Okadigbo, then a brand new senator of our perpetually blighted Republic, first gave an inkling of what the legislators had in stock for an already battered people. A furniture allowance of N5m each had just been announced by one unfeeling government agency for 109 senators, and something a little less for their 360 equally rapacious partners stationed in the House of Representatives. “What!” Nigerians screamed in ear-splitting anger. 

Charleston shooting shows importance of removing Apartheid symbols: EFF

21-year-old Dylann Roof

"Dylann Storm Roof who is only 21 years old. He is as young as South Africa’s post-apartheid government and was shown in his Facebook picture wearing the apartheid flag," EFF national spokesman Mbuyiseni Quintin Ndlozi said in a statement.

Photos: Charly Boy Birthday Party

Area father, Charly Boy was a year older recently and his wife and partner Lady D held a birthday

party for him. In attendance were friends, family and associates. Happy birthday. More pics after cut...

Photos: President Buhari Resumes At the Presidential Office In Aso Rock, Abuja.

President Buhari finally moved into the Presidential villa in Aso Rock months after his inauguration as President. More pics after cut....