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Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Thursday 2/16/2023 Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday defended a currency swap that sparked protests and cash shortages, but ordered old, small denomination 200 naira notes to remain in circulation to ease scarcities. Nigeria has been struggling with a shortage in physical cash since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) began to swap old bills of the local naira currency for new, re-designed ones, leading to a shortfall in […]
by Nina LARSON Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Poverty and the prospect of better-paid work, rather than ideology, are what fuel recruitment to jihadist and other violent groups in Africa, the United Nations said Tuesday. The conclusion casts doubt on conventional wisdom that religious doctrine is the main lure for joining groups like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and the Al-Qaeda-linked Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM). The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2021 interviewed […]
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AFP) — Jamaica is ready to participate militarily in an international force in Haiti, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said, an intervention the UN has been calling for without success for months to counter record violence by criminal gangs. “Jamaica will be willing to participate in a multinational security assistance deployment to Haiti under the appropriate jurisdictional parameters to support a return to a reasonable level of stability and peace, which would be necessary […]
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Bodies were still being pulled Tuesday from the wreckage of a mosque blast at a police headquarters in northwestern Pakistan that killed more than 80 people and wounded 150 more. The attack happened during afternoon prayers on Monday in the provincial capital Peshawar, close to areas along the Afghan border where militancy has been steadily rising. Overnight, at least nine bodies were recovered as rescuers sifted through the rubble of the […]
Jakarta, Indonesia (AFP) Two workers including a Chinese national were killed at a nickel smelting plant in Indonesia at the weekend after a riot broke out during a protest over labour conditions, officials said Monday. The clashes began Saturday evening at the facility on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island operated by PT Gunbuster Nickel Industry (GNI), a local unit of China’s Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry. The island is a hub for the mineral-rich country’s production of the […]
Lagos, Nigeria (AFP) Gunmen attacked a train station in southern Nigeria, kidnapping around 30 people and wounding others, police and officials said, nearly a year after a bomb assault on a train travelling from the capital. Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria where gunmen have repeatedly attacked and abducted people in large groups, but mostly in the northwestern and central states. The train station attack in Edo state, 360 km (223 miles) […]
GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are holding civilians hostage for suspected collaboration with enemy militias as fighting erupted despite recent peace efforts, local sources told AFP on Monday. The group — one of scores in the volatile region — has conquered swathes of territory from the army and allied militias in North Kivu province in recent months and advanced towards its capital Goma. It delivered the strategic […]
by Richard Pierrin with Amelie Baron in Paris Agence France-Presse PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — His Haitian passport was in order, with up-to-date visas, so when police in the Dominican Republic detained him for hours, Josue Azor feels certain it was because of the black color of his skin. The arrest of the young photographer came amid a wave of expulsions of Haitian migrants by the Santo Domingo government, with Black people being specifically targeted, according […]
by Patrick FORT Agence France-Presse ABANCAY, Peru (AFP) — Apurimac, a poor, Indigenous-majority region in Peru’s rural south, is the birthplace of the country’s brand new president, Dina Boluarte. It has also been the epicenter of violent protests against her political takeover. Twenty-one people have died in countrywide unrest sparked by the ouster early this month of leftist Pedro Castillo, under whose tumultuous 16-month leadership Boluarte was vice president. Six of the deaths were recorded […]
Bannu, Pakistan (AFP) All 33 suspected militant prisoners who seized a Pakistan police station over the weekend were killed and their hostages freed in a clearance operation by special forces on Tuesday, the defence minister said. The hostage takers, who were suspected of being members of various militant groups including the Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), overpowered their jailers and snatched weapons on Sunday. “All the hostages have been freed,” Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament. […]
by Luis Jaime CISNEROS / Patrick FORT Agence France-Presse LIMA, Peru (AFP) — Peru declared a nationwide state of emergency Wednesday over violent protests against the ouster and arrest of ex-president Pedro Castillo that have left seven people dead. Castillo’s supporters have taken to the streets and set up roadblocks countrywide in protests that have also left 200 injured as they demand his release and the holding of early elections. The country plunged into crisis […]
Dhaka, Bangladesh (AFP) by Sam JAHAN / Mohammad MAZED Nearly 100,000 supporters of Bangladesh’s main opposition party descended on Dhaka Saturday to protest against the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and demand new elections. “Sheikh Hasina is a vote thief,” they chanted at the Golapbagh sports ground where the rally was held as the crowd spilled into surrounding streets. All seven opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) MPs announced their resignations from parliament at the […]
