Each morning, Daybreak Africa looks at the latest developments on the continent, starting with headline news and providing in-depth interviews, reports from VOA correspondents, sports news as well as listener comments. …

After 137 years of construction, overseen by 10 architects, one of Spain’s tourist attractions finally has been granted a building permit.  La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s modernist masterpiece, was granted the permit in what may be a new high mark for bureaucratic sluggishness.  Janet Sanz head of the Barcelona’s urban planning said the city council had finally managed to “resolve a historical anomaly in the city — that an emblematic monument…

Moldova has plunged deeper into political crisis after the Constitutional Court stripped pro-Russian President Igor Dodon of his power over his failure to form a new government after months of political deadlock. The court on Sunday also appointed former Prime Minister Pavel Filip as interim president. Filip immediately dissolved the parliament and called for snap elections on September 6 as thousands of his supporters gathered in the capital, Chisinau, for…

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is stepping up his campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister by challenging the European Union over Brexit terms. Johnson told the Sunday Times he would refuse to pay the agreed-upon 39 billion-pound ($50 billion) divorce settlement unless the EU offers Britain a better withdrawal agreement than the one currently on the table.   The contest for leadership of the Conservative Party officially begins Monday.…

Search and recovery operations continued in in the Danube River in Hungary’s capital Budapest on Sunday to help raise a sunken sightseeing boat with the help of a floating crane. Hungarian rescue officials said Saturday that the tour boat is unlikely to be raised out of the water before Tuesday.   The Hableany (Mermaid) was carrying 33 South Koreans and a two-man Hungarian crew when it collided with a much…

Police across Kazakhstan have detained dozens of protesters as the country holds a snap presidential election, with the chosen successor of authoritarian ex-President Nursultan Nazarbaev expected to win easily. More than 100 protesters were detained in the in Astana Square in Kazakhstan’s largest city of Almaty as they were calling for a boycott of the election in which Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev is running against six government-approved candidates. Several foreign and local…

Albania’s president on Saturday canceled upcoming municipal elections, citing the need to reduce political tensions in the country.    President Ilir Meta said he acted because “the actual circumstances do not provide necessary conditions for true, democratic, representative and all-inclusive elections” at the end of the month. The president said he would clarify his decision Monday.    Thousands of Albanians who support the political opposition assembled for an anti-government protest on Saturday. Opposition…

Libya’s coast guard said Saturday that it had intercepted nearly two dozen Europe-bound migrants off the country’s Mediterranean coast.    Spokesman Ayoub Gassim said a wooden boat carrying at least 22 African migrants, all men, was intercepted Friday north of the Bouri offshore oil field, around 105 kilometers (65 miles) from Tripoli.    He said the migrants were given humanitarian and medical aid and then were taken to a refugee camp in the Tajoura district of…

A White House deputy national security advisor says Kosovo’s excessively high tax on goods from Serbia precludes direct U.S. involvement in normalization talks, which President Donald Trump has been pushing for since December. The EU-mediated dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade, which started in 2011, broke down last fall over a proposed land swap and Kosovo’s levy of a 100-percent tax on imports from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Last month, Kosovar President…

The race to succeed the Brexit-fouled Theresa May as Conservative party leader and the country’s prime minister got underway Saturday in earnest, two days after Britain’s governing party suffered one of its worst ever humiliations in a parliamentary by-election. The Conservative leadership contest risks deepening the rift in the party over when, how or even if to leave the European Union — with a few of the nearly dozen contenders…