AFRICA

Alger, Algeria | AFP | Algeria’s ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced Monday he is dropping his bid for a fifth term in office, scrapping the upcoming elections altogether after weeks of protests against his candidacy. “Peacefully, we have overthrown the puppet!” people sang in Algiers following the president’s decision. Celebratory honking …

Port Harcourt, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s election authorities announced the suspension of activities in volatile opposition-held Rivers State on Sunday citing violence and threats to its staff, as tensions rise in the wake of closely-watched regional elections. Counting is continuing across the country after Saturday’s elections for governors in 29 …

Tulu Fara , Ethiopia | AFP | Airlines in Ethiopia, China and Indonesia grounded Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets Monday as investigators recovered the black boxes from a brand-new passenger jet that crashed outside Addis Ababa a day earlier, killing all 157 people on board. The Nairobi-bound plane — the same …

Algiers, Algeria | AFP | Thousands of students and public transport workers went on strike in Algeria Sunday against Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term, as the presidency confirmed the ailing leader had returned from Switzerland. The plane carrying Bouteflika from Geneva — where he has been in hospital for …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The United Nations Department of Safety and Security has confirmed that it lost 19 of its staff members in the Ethiopian Airlines crash which killed more than 150 people yesterday. Among the dead are seven staff of the World Food Programme and two from the …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | All 149 passengers and eight crew on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight died when it crashed shortly after takeoff en route to Nairobi on Sunday, Ethiopian state media reported. Quoting Ethiopian Airlines, Fana Broadcasting Corporate said the plane, which departed the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Former Burundi president Pierre Buyoya, the subject of a government arrest warrant, has urged the international community to intervene over what he termed breaches of the country’s peace accord. The warrant against him was one such violation of the Arusha agreement of 2000 that ended …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South African telecommunications giant MTN on Thursday said its subscriber base grew by 16 million customers last year to 233 million, good news for the embattled mobile operator. MTN faces regulatory issues in some of the countries it operates in, including the largest, Nigeria. A …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | A lawyer acting on behalf of an unnamed Algerian citizen has filed a petition with a Swiss court requesting that Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in Switzerland for medical treatment, be placed under a trusteeship for his own protection. The petition came as tens of thousands of …

Butembo, DR Congo | AFP | Armed men attacked an Ebola treatment centre in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo again on Saturday, killing a policeman and wounding a health worker, the authorities said. The facility, located at Butembo in the troubled province of North Kivu, only reopened …