AFRICA

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudan’s ruling generals and protest leaders have made “strong pledges of commitment” to bring about a transition to a civilian-led rule, a US official said Wednesday. US Undersecretary for Political Affairs David Hale was speaking after meeting with Sudan’s military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, protest leaders …

Niamey, Niger | AFP |  In the desert landscape of southeastern Niger, a radical Islamist insurgency has claimed hundreds of lives, fractured families and ravaged communities, fearful of the next Boko Haram attack. Strategically located in the Lake Chad basin in the middle of the Sahel, the Diffa region’s borders are …

Maputo, Mozambique | AFP |  Mozambique’s government and the ex-rebel group Renamo completed a long-awaited peace pact on Tuesday, inking a final deal aimed at ending years of conflict. President Filipe Nyusi and Renamo leader Ossufo Momade embraced after signing the landmark agreement at a ceremony in Maputo’s Peace Square …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Veteran Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir ruled the northeast African country for three decades with an iron fist. Now Sudan is turning the page, ushering in a new era of civilian rule. A constitutional declaration, signed on Sunday between the ruling generals and the leaders of an …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | Trade between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa is in the doldrums despite a 2000 US law designed to boost access the American market, a conference in Ivory Coast has been told. The African Growth and Opportunity Act, which in 2015 was extended to 2025, …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Relatives of people murdered by death squads in The Gambia expressed outrage on Monday over the release of three former hitmen, who said they committed dozens of assassinations ordered by ex-president Yahya Jammeh. The men, who were part of an unofficial paramilitary unit known as the …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | At least 42 people were killed and dozens wounded in an air strike targeting a town hall meeting in southern Libya, a local official and the UN-recognised government said Monday, accusing forces of military strongman Khalifa Haftar. The Government of National Accord (GNA) said Sunday’s raid …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s ex-leader Robert Mugabe remains hopsitalised in Singapore where he has been receiving medical care for four months, his successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Monday. Mnangagwa said in a statement that the 95-year-old Mugabe had been receiving medical care for an undisclosed ailment, and was …

The models and their pros and cons | Ruth Hall, Dzodzi Tsikata and Ian Scoones | Colonialism brought large-scale farming to Africa, promising modernisation and jobs – but often dispossessing people and exploiting workers. Now, after several decades of independence, and with investor interest growing, African governments are once again …

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 …