Al Shebaab’s terror campaign is starting to have a deleterious economy-wide consequence. “The sell-off that’s driven the Kenyan shilling to the lowest against the dollar in more than three years is poised to extend after the country’s deadliest attack by Islamist militants in more than 16 years. The currency weakened to its lowest since Nov.16, 2011 after militants attacked a university on April 2, killing 147 people. With Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants threatening more violence, tourism, which has been in decline since the start of 2013, may shrink further, impacting the East African nation’s second-largest source of foreign exchange, according to Rich Management Ltd. The shilling has declined for four consecutive weeks.” (Bloomberg http://bloom.bg/1GfyaGW)
UK Foreign Aid Poised to Increase Further…”The overseas aid budget will increase by an extra £1 billion over the next two years under new European Union rules, it has emerged. The Department for International Development (Dfid) is preparing to change accounting methods in order to bring Britain in line with other EU countries, making it harder to meet the controversial aid target in the next parliament, according to The Times. The UK already spends more than any other country on international agencies and is the second largest aid donor in the world. Government figures released on Thursday reportedly show that Britain met last year’s aid spending target of 0.7 per cent of GDP, totalling £11.7 billion. They showed that most of the extra cash had gone to international aid agencies rather than projects run by the British government on the ground.” (Telegraph http://bit.ly/1GfyIN2)
Number of the day: 1,500…Italian navy and coast guard ships rescued around 1,500 migrants aboard five boats in the southern Mediterranean in less than 24 hours, officials said on Sunday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1DPAySW)
Africa
Unidentified gunmen kidnapped a Romanian security officer on Saturday from a manganese mining project in northern Burkina Faso, near the border with Mali’s lawless desert north, the company and a security source said. (Reuters http://reut.rs/1GfypC0)
The son of a Kenyan government official was one of the masked gunmen who killed nearly 150 at a university last week, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as Kenyan churches hired armed guards to protect their Easter congregations. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1c05jKh)
One person was killed and three injured on Sunday as unidentified assailants shelled the city of Gao in northern Mali, the country’s U.N. peacekeeping mission and a hospital official said. (US News http://bit.ly/1Gfyrtv)
Thousands of Christians across Niger tried to forgive and move on as they celebrated the first Easter since their churches were torched during deadly riots spurred by the publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1DPywlX)
Sierra Leone’s eastern district of Kailahun, once a hotbed of Ebola, has recorded its first case in nearly four months, threatening progress made to stamp out the disease, officials said on Saturday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1IBAfKJ)
Fed up with immovable African presidents and political dynasties, campaigners across the continent are joining forces to “turn the page” on leaders who see power as an end in itself. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1DPz1MM
Kenyan special forces were not deployed to a university massacre in which 148 people died for at least seven hours, reports said Sunday, as the government defended the response. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1HEMgyV)
With the border reopened since February, the commercial post of Bo Waterside on the Liberian side is once again open for business, a symbol of hope for the country’s desperately-needed economic recovery. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1DPzE94)
In DR Congo, where women struggle against terrible violence and inequality, a committed activist fights against all the odds to give women a third of all elected posts. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1DPzHBV)
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says the Somalia-based al-Shabab militant group is a regional enemy that needs to be confronted. (VOA http://bit.ly/1HEN1Iq)
MENA
Shi’ite Houthi rebels in Yemen have arrested more than 120 members of a rival Islamic Sunni party, even as a Houthi leader has proposed peace talks. (VOA http://bit.ly/1GfykOv)
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says he has refused to accept hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenues unfrozen by Israel. Mr Abbas says he returned the money because Israel deducted a third to pay for what it called utility bills. (BBC http://bbc.in/1GfywNU)
The International Committee Red Cross hopes to bring vital medical supplies and aid workers into Yemen on Monday after receiving approval from the Saudi-led military coalition, an ICRC spokeswoman said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HELTV1)
A monitoring group said fighting between Islamic State and Palestinian militants, as well as shelling by government forces, caused hundreds of residents of a refugee camp near Damascus to flee early Sunday. (VOA http://bit.ly/1DPzRJf)
Asia
A severe storm sweeping across Bangladesh killed at least 24 people and injured dozens more, mostly in Bogra district in the northern part of the country, police and officials said on Sunday. (Reuters http://tmsnrt.rs/1Gfz1aP)
Bangladesh’s former premier and main opposition leader Khaleda Zia was granted bail in two graft cases on Sunday after she appeared before a special court, a potential sign of easing tension in the politically unstable South Asian country. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HEMgPA)
Activists say the previously unquestioned power of the religious establishment is being challenged for the first time in Afghanistan’s modern history. Religious leaders and conservative politicians have been forced by the power of public opinion to apologize for trying to justify Farkhunda’s killing. (AP http://yhoo.it/1HELWjy)
Sri Lanka’s new government has ordered a criminal investigation into alleged corruption at the state-run national airline that it says involved “billions of dollars”. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HEMgih)
Hundreds of people in the north of the main Philippine island of Luzon left evacuation centers and returned home on Sunday after a typhoon weakened significantly as it made landfall, although officials still warned of heavy rain and rough seas. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1DPzHl6)
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s chief of staff and a former ambassador to the United States, who was also a senior member of Najib’s party, were among six people killed in a helicopter crash near the capital, officials said on Sunday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HEN0UD)
The Americas
Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro took to the famous sands of Copacabana on Sunday to protest the death of boy who was killed in the crossfire during a police gunfight in a favela. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1DPyEBM)
Rescue workers in Chile say the death toll from last week’s floods has risen to 25 and could increase further. There is growing concern for the 125 people still missing after last week’s flash floods and mudslides in the Atacama region, which includes the world’s driest desert. (BBC http://bbc.in/1HEN7zC)
Opinion/Blogs
Africa, Own Up to Your Word (Tanzania Daily News http://bit.ly/1HELD8F)
Binyavanga Wainaina: “Kenya is not a nation if we can’t properly memorialize each and every citizen we lose” (Africa is a Country http://bit.ly/1CruYR1)
Why I’m not doing “fieldwork” (Rachel Strohm http://bit.ly/1Crv9f9)
Do economic inequality and political inequality go together? (Monkey Cage http://wapo.st/1C56EFF)
This Was the Real Hero of the Nigerian Elections (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1F38EEJ)
Establishing a workable follow-up and review process for the Sustainable Development Goals (ODI http://bit.ly/1C56U7x)
A Useful Overview of Food and Nutrition Programs in the US (Marc Bellemare http://bit.ly/1C56Vsh)
#OneKenya (An Africanist Perspective http://bit.ly/1C570fr)
How to make sense of the #GarissaAttack in Kenya (you may want to switch off television news) (Africa is a Country http://bit.ly/1F39kKh)