AFRICA

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday fired Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, state media reported, after he said that Sudanese diplomats abroad had been unpaid for months. In a speech to lawmakers on Wednesday, Ghandour, who negotiated the lifting of decades-old sanctions with Washington in October 2017, …

Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angola on Thursday passed a law scrapping rules that previously forced foreign investors to partner with local firms, as President Joao Lourenco tries to revive the oil-dependant economy. Lourenco has vowed to pull in foreign investment after he succeeded Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who had ruled …

Dakar, Senegal | AFP | Senegal’s parliament on Thursday passed a law setting a higher bar for presidential candidates after protests that saw police fire tear gas on demonstrators, with dozens arrested according to the main opposition party. The change to the electoral law, approved by 120 of the body’s 165 …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari came under fire on Thursday for criticising youths who he said “do nothing” and want everything for “free” in the oil-rich country. Buhari, who declared earlier in April he is seeking re-election in 2019, made the remark on Wednesday at a …

Moroni, Comoros | AFP | The president of the Comoros has suspended the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, in a move immediately denounced by the opposition in the Indian Ocean island nation. President Azali Assoumani said the court was “disfunctional” due to the number of appointed judges being …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe warned Thursday that a string of strikes threatened efforts to revive the economy after the ousting of Robert Mugabe, as a stand-off with striking nurses deepened. The government on Tuesday sacked the majority of 15,000 nurses who started industrial action this week shortly after …

  Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The lower house of Burundi’s parliament has voted to allow security forces in the politically tense nation to conduct night raids without a search warrant. The draft law changing the criminal code was passed late Wednesday in the lower house, with 90 votes in …

Mbabane, Swaziland | AFP |  The king of Swaziland, one of the world’s few absolute monarchs, announced on Thursday that his country had changed its name to eSwatini to mark 50 years since independence from British rule. Meaning “place of the Swazi”, eSwatini is the Swazi language name for the …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Fuel smuggling is costing Libya more than $750 million each year and harming its economy and society, the head of the National Oil Company in the conflict-riddled country said. “The impact of fuel smuggling is destroying the fabric of the country,” NOC president Mustafa Sanalla …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Ethiopian new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed reshuffled his cabinet Thursday in a bid to stem growing discontent with the long-ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. Abiy, 42, is the first prime minister to come from Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group the Oromo, who …