The African News Agency rises from the ashes of the South African Press Association (SAPA). It has a start-up capital of $20 million and plans to expand into 15 countries around the continent by July.

The African News Agency is publishing international news stories from the Chinese service Xinhua and the German News Agency DPA.

National content comes from a team of reporters in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria – many of whom are drawn from Sapa which winds up operations at the end of the month.

ANA CEO Chris Borain says they’re excited to be embarking on the first step of providing African news by and for Africans.

African business leaders – including Ghanaian Ladislas Agbesi and Iqbal Surve, owner of the Independent Group of Newspapers in South Africa – are among those behind the formation of ANA.

An editorial in the Cape Times, which is one of his newspapers, says yesterday that ANA will challenge the domination of the major Western wire services in Africa.

The editorial says it’s a matter of anger and shame that it, like so many others, has had to rely on Europeans and others to provide news about its own continent.

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