AFRICA

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Boko Haram jihadists launched a large assault on a military base in Nigeria’s remote northeast region and killed one soldier, defence officials said Sunday. The attack on 145 Battalion in Gashigar, Borno State, began on Saturday and continued into early Sunday morning, said Nigerian air …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | More than 50,000 supporters of DR Congo’s President Joseph Kabila turned out on Saturday to hear a speech by his favoured candidate in a long-delayed presidential election in December, AFP reporters said. Although campaigning has not started officially, the appearance of Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s last apartheid era president FW de Klerk has been hospitalised with a lung condition, his foundation said Saturday, adding that the former leader had undergone successful treatment. The 82-year-old was admitted to a hospital in Cape Town, the FW de Klerk foundation …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa on Saturday vowed to continue his push to take power after disputed elections in which he lost to President Emmerson Mnangagwa in July. “We want to claim the victory of the people. We must lead this country. We won …

Douala, Cameroon | AFP | Cameroon police on Saturday arrested around 50 supporters of opposition figure Maurice Kamto during an unauthorised march in Douala, his spokesman said. “Mass arrests of activists (Mrs Michele Ndoki and around 50 others) and of supporters demonstrating peacefully today,” the spokesman, Olivier Bibou-Nissack, said in …

Bamako, Mali | AFP | Two UN peacekeepers were killed and “several others” wounded in two attacks in central and northern Mali on Saturday, the United Nations mission in the country said. In a statement the MINUSMA peacekeeping mission said Blue Helmets had “repelled a complex attack” at dawn at …

Mbabane, eSwatini | AFP | King Mswati III of eSwatini on Saturday named a political novice as prime minister of the former Swaziland, to replace Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini who died last month. The new PM is Mandvulo Ambrose Dlamimi, national head of Africa’s leading mobile operator MTN. Mswati, one of …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 164 lives, according to health authorities. In mid-October, Congolese authorities said they were facing a “second wave” of the outbreak centred on Beni, a town in North Kivu near the border with Uganda. …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Eighteen civilians were killed and others injured on Saturday when an army truck crashed into a minibus in northern Ethiopia, local media reported. The accident in Amhara state happened in the morning, the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate said. Despite having one of the world’s …

Niamey, Niger | AFP | Niger has launched a mass polio vaccination campaign targeting more than three million children under five after new cases were detected, an official said Friday. The programme kicked off Thursday in the regions of Zinder, Maradi, Agadez and Diffa, said Rabi Souley, who is in …