AFRICA

Omdourman, Sudan | AFP | Sudan’s veteran opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi called on Friday for an “objective” international investigation into last week’s deadly crackdown on protesters, after the ruling military council rejected such a probe. Mahdi’s call was backed by top US envoy Tibor Nagy, who urged an “independent and credible” …

  Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The World Health Organization said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not qualify as an international threat, despite the spread of the virus to neighbouring Uganda carried by an infected family. The closely-watched decision followed advice from WHO’s emergency …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The World Health Organization emergency committee was meeting Friday on whether to declare a raging Ebola epidemic an international threat, after an outbreak that began in Democratic Republic of Congo crossed into Uganda. The WHO panel, which was formed in 2005, has used the label “public …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP |  “Cover your goods,” Diakaria Fofana, a doctor of public health, warns food vendors as a thick cloud of insecticide spray wafts down a street in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s economic capital. Men in protective clothes, goggles and masks are disgorging plumes of mosquito-killing chemicals in a …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP |  Here’s your new job: You have to protect the country’s precious tropical forests. You have to stop illegal logging and fight the entrenched corruption backed by powerful forces which goes with it. By the way, you are a committed environmentalist — and you are foreign-born. This …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudan’s ruling military council Thursday for the first time admitted it had ordered the dispersal of a Khartoum sit-in, which left dozens dead, as US and African diplomats stepped up efforts for a solution to the country’s political crisis. Protesters had staged the weeks-long sit-in outside …

  Mpondwe, Uganda | AFP | At the bustling Mpondwe border post, a woman crossing from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda is whisked away to an isolation unit after a thermal scanner picks up her high temperature. Health workers keep Mulefu Kyakimwa, a 32-year-old vegetable oil trader, under …

  Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi said Thursday that his country was seeking to join the East African Community, a regional political and economic bloc. The DRC shares borders with four of the six members of the bloc, and Tshisekedi said on a …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP |  Sudan’s public prosecutor has charged ousted president Omar al-Bashir of corruption, the official SUNA news agency said on Thursday. The announcement came more than two month after the military ousted Bashir on April 11 following months of nationwide protests against his 30-year ironfisted rule. “The …

Accra, Ghana | AFP | Two young Canadian women freed from their kidnap ordeal by Ghanaian security forces were unharmed, the government said Wednesday, after the development volunteers were snatched at a golf club in the city of Kumasi last week. Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said five Ghanaians and three …