Oil hits wall of resistance, trades near $44 a barrel

The WikiLeaks' founder is currently fighting an appeal by Washington to extradite him back to the US. Assange's legal team has rejected US assurances that he won't be sent to a "Supermax" prison.

The explosion, in the capital, Freetown, happened as large crowds gathered to collect leaking fuel. The oil tanker was damaged earlier in an accident with a bus.

At least 18 people were killed on Sunday in an artisanal gold mine collapse in southern Niger, the local mayor said on Monday. The disaster took place in the southern Maradi region, near the border with Nigeria. The death toll is likely to rise, said the mayor of the commune of Dan Issa, Adamou Guero, . The Governor of the Maradi region, Aboubacar Chaibou, visited the site on Monday and promised better working conditions for people at the sire.

Award-winning biowaste converters are helping farmers in Ivory Coast turn mountains of agricultural by-products into compost for their fields or gas for their cooking stoves.

The US has announced it will release 50 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves, in coordination with several major consumer nations including China and India.

Three weeks after the Santa Barbara wellhead failed, it is still blasting water, gas and oil across Nembe in Nigeria's Delta, littering the shoreline and water with yellow-brown clumps of waste as cleanup crews and booms struggle to contain it. Santa Barbara wellhead owner Aiteo Eastern E&P, the petroleum minister and Nigeria's president have all promised that specialist workers would quickly stop the spill. But experts say the difficulties containing it are a reminder of how the once-fertile, fish-filled creeks, mangrove swamps and waterways that crisscross Nigeria's Delta became some of the most polluted areas on the planet amid decades of energy exploration.

Ghana is the largest gold producer in Africa. Its extraction poses serious threats to the environment, but one organization is training small-scale miners to engage in safer, eco-friendly mining methods.

Traditionally, growing avocados requires lots of water. But entrepreneurs in Nigeria are attempting to grow them in a new water-saving and sustainable way by using drip irrigation systems and recycling water.

Africa's abundant sunshine is ideal for renewable energy production. But the continent relies heavily on crude oil. Experts warn that the economy will continue to suffer if governments don't wean themselves off of oil.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday.⁣⁣

Captain Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar admitted he had been drinking alcohol as cargo ship Wakashio ran aground in July 2020, spilling more than 1,000 tons of fuel into the Indian Ocean.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday.⁣