AFRICA

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP |  DJ Arafat, an Ivorian singer with a huge following in francophone Africa, has died after a road accident in Abidjan, evoking a wave of tributes to the award-winning star of the “coupe-decale” dance genre. “Death of artist DJ Arafat… today at 8am as a result …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP | South Sudan activists on Monday began a campaign to pressure the country’s warring parties to meet a fast-approaching deadline to form a unity government as part of their 2018 peace agreement. The Civil Society Forum, a coalition of more than 100 organisations, on Monday marked the beginning of a …

Two Ebola drugs found to increase survival rates: health officials Washington, United States | AFP |  Scientists were a step closer to a cure for Ebola on Monday after two of four drugs in a clinical trial were found to significantly increase survival rates, the US health authority co-funding the …

Searching for lost lives: S.Africa’s unidentified corpses Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | At Olifantsvlei cemetery on the outskirts of southern Johannesburg, undertakers clad in white plastic overalls, boots and face masks take on a grim task: mass pauper burials. They are burying 46 bodies that have been lying in …

Ghanaian Antwi stars for Pyramids Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  Ghanaian John Antwi scored twice for Sebastien Desabre’s Egyptian outfit Pyramids as they lived up to a billing of being a club to watch in the CAF Confederation Cup this season. The debutants thumped Etoile of Congo Brazzaville 4-1 …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Forces battling for control of Libya’s capital agreed to a truce Saturday, on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid Al-Adha, but a car bomb killed three UN staff in the eastern city of Benghazi. Military strongman Khalifa Haftar’s forces announced that they would implement …

Morogoro, Tanzania | AFP | Sixty-four people perished in Tanzania Saturday when a fuel tanker overturned and then exploded as crowds of people rushed to syphon off leaking fuel. The deadly blast, which took place near the town of Morogoro, west of the economic capital Dar es Salaam, is the latest …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  The only hint that something extraordinary lay inside the plain wooden drawer in an unassuming office behind Nairobi National Museum was a handwritten note stuck to the front: “Pull Carefully”. Inside, a monstrous jawbone with colossal fangs grinned from a bed of tattered foam — the …

Freetown, Sierra Leone | AFP |  Wearing a fading Mickey Mouse T-shirt, her knees hugged to her chest, eight-year-old Musu Kamara sits in a corrugated shack in Sierra Leone’s capital waiting for her initiation into a secret society. Kamara will leave for two weeks in the bush with a sisterhood called …

Mindouli, Congo | AFP |  “The trains are running again. We have peace,” says Didier, the station master at Mindouli, in the Republic of Congo’s southern region of Pool. But a glance at the weeds growing on the line connecting the capital Brazzaville and the port city of Pointe-Noire shows that …