Africa

Fighting rocks Sudan capital as regular army battles paramilitaries

Explosions rocked the Sudanese capital Saturday as paramilitaries and the regular army traded attacks on each other’s bases, days after the army warned the country was at a “dangerous” turning point. The eruption of violence came after weeks of deepening tensions between military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his number two, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, over the planned integration of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into the regular army. Witnesses reported “confrontations” and […]

Continue Reading →

DEVELOPING STORY: Sudan paramilitaries say in control of Khartoum presidential palace

  Sudan’s paramilitaries said they were in control of several key sites following fighting with the regular army Saturday, including the presidential palace in central Khartoum. In a statement, the Rapid Support Forces said it had taken “full control” of the presidential palace as well as the airports in Khartoum and Merowe in the north of the country. It said the moves came in response to attacks by the regular army on RSF bases in […]

Continue Reading →

Kenyan sect leader arrested after four followers die

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Saturday 4/15/2023 Kenyan police said Saturday they have arrested a local cult leader after the death of four followers he reportedly told to starve themselves in order to “meet Jesus”. Eleven other followers of the Good News International Church led by Makenzie Nthenge were taken to hospital, three of them in critical condition, after being rescued Friday in the Shakahola forest near the town of Malindi. Police said they feared […]

Continue Reading →

DEVELOPING STORY: Sudan paramilitaries say they took control of Khartoum airport

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Saturday 4/15/2023 Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Force said it had taken control of Khartoum airport Saturday in response to army attacks on its bases. “The Rapid Support Forces defended themselves in response to the hostile forces inflicting heavy losses” on the regular army, the RSF statement said. It said its fighters “were able to take control of Merowe airport” north of Khartoum, “expelled attackers on bases in Soba” and “took […]

Continue Reading →

China launches three days of military drills in Taiwan Strait

  Beijing, China | AFP | Saturday 4/8/2023 by James Edgar with Matthew Walsh in Pingtan China launched military drills around Taiwan on Saturday, in what it called a “stern warning” to the self-ruled island’s government following a meeting between its president and the US House speaker. Dubbed “United Sharp Sword”, the three-day operation — which state media said includes rehearsing an encirclement of Taiwan — will run until Monday, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) […]

Continue Reading →

Nearly a million Sahel children face ‘severe wasting’, UN says

DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — Nearly a million young children in Africa’s Sahel region will face severe acute malnutrition this year amid high food prices, conflict and climate change, UNICEF warned Friday. “An estimated 970,000 children under 5 from West Africa’s three central Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) will face severe wasting this year”, the UN children’s agency said in a statement. The three countries are poor, landlocked and fighting jihadist insurgencies. Niger is […]

Continue Reading →

10 Nigeria schoolchildren kidnapped: official

Kano, Nigeria | AFP | Tuesday 4/4/2023 Ten students have been kidnapped in northwest Nigeria’s Kaduna State where criminal gangs have previously carried out several mass abductions of children, a government official said Tuesday. The victims who are students at the Awon Government Secondary School in the central Kachia district were seized on Monday in unclear circumstances, said Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna’s internal security and home affairs commissioner. This was the first known mass abduction of […]

Continue Reading →

S.Africa’s Pistorius denied parole decade after killing girlfriend

  Pretoria, South Africa | AFP | by Dinki Mkhize South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was refused parole on Friday after seeking early release from prison, a decade after he shot and killed his girlfriend, lawyers and authorities said. The Department of Correctional Services said a parole board found Pistorius had not completed the minimum detention period required to be let out. “We were… advised at this point in time that it has been […]

Continue Reading →

S.Africa’s Pistorius up for parole in girlfriend’s murder

  Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Wednesday 3/29/2023  by Umberto BACCHI South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius might be released from prison this week, a decade after he killed his girlfriend in a crime that gripped the world. A parole board is to decide whether Pistorius should be let out early, after a hearing in Pretoria on Friday. “The board must determine whether the purpose of imprisonment has been served,” said Department of Correctional […]

Continue Reading →

Freed French journalist returns home to emotional welcome

  by Delphine TOUITOU with Camille LAFFONT in Niamey French journalist Olivier Dubois, 48, made an emotional return home on Tuesday following nearly two years in captivity in the Sahel, greeted by his family and President Emmanuel Macron at an airport near Paris. Dubois and 61-year-old US aid worker Jeffery Woodke, who was seized in southwest Niger in October 2016 — arrived in the Niger capital, Niamey, on Monday after being freed. Dubois stepped off […]

Continue Reading →

Cyclone Freddy leaves half a million displaced in Malawi: UN

The deadly cyclone that lashed Malawi last week has displaced more than half a million people in the country, the UN said Tuesday as it warned of soaring humanitarian needs. Cyclone Freddy dumped six months’ worth of rainfall on southern Malawi in six days, with floods and mudslides sweeping away homes, roads and bridges in a record-breaking deluge. The cyclone has left almost 500 people dead in the south of the country, while another 150 […]

Continue Reading →

Gabon ferry disaster toll rises to 26 dead

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AFP) — The toll from this month’s ferry disaster off the coast of Gabon has risen to 26 dead after two more bodies were recovered on Monday, the public prosecutors office said. The toll update came 11 days after the ferry, carrying 161 passengers and crew from the capital Libreville to the oil town of Port-Gentil, went down at night ten kilometres (six miles) from shore. Eleven passengers remain missing, the prosecutor said. […]

Continue Reading →
1 … 14 15 16 17 18 … 101