Accra, Ghana | AFP | Hundreds of Togolese nationals have fled to neighbouring Ghana to escape reprisals after a wave of anti-government protests, a Ghanaian official said on Wednesday. Paddy Tetteh, from the Ghana Refugee Board, said the first batch arrived last Wednesday and although numbers had since fallen, more were …
Read More »Cameroon accused over Nigerian Boko Haram refugees
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Cameroon on Wednesday denied allegations by a human rights group that it had forcibly returned about 100,000 Nigerian refugees in breach of international agreements, putting them in danger from Boko Haram Islamists. Human Rights Watch said Nigerians who had sought refuge across the border because of …
Read More »Chad condemns ‘injustice’ of US travel ban
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad expressed to its United States ambassador the “injustice” of being added to the list of countries targeted by its travel ban, the acting foreign minister said Tuesday. The landlocked African country was included in the newest version of President Donald Trump’s order, which cited Chad’s …
Read More »Ghanaian villagers profit from monkey business
Tafi Atome, Ghana | AFP | The villagers of Tafi Atome, in Ghana’s Volta Region, grew up listening to tales of their spiritual links to the 1,000 or so mona monkeys that inhabit the surrounding lush forest. But they have also turned that reverence into revenue, by making the cheeky primates …
Read More »Zimbabwe court orders release of activist pastor
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | A Zimbabwean court on Tuesday ordered the release of an activist pastor and government critic who was detained over a video on social media lamenting the country’s worsening economic crisis. A Harare magistrate ruled that Evan Mawarire be freed immediately after the prosecution delayed taking him …
Read More »Kenya police fire tear gas to disperse election protesters
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Kenyan police on Tuesday used tear gas to disperse opposition protesters outside the headquarters of the election commission a month before a scheduled re-run of the annulled presidential poll. Opposition leader Raila Odinga is insisting on widespread reforms of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission …
Read More »Angola swears in Lourenco, first new president for 38 years
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s 38-year reign over Angola finally came to an end Tuesday when his hand-picked successor Joao Lourenco was inaugurated as president at a ceremony in Luanda. Lourenco read an oath in which he vowed “on my honour to devote myself” to the …
Read More »Zimbabwe pastor Mawarire pleads not guilty to subversion
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwean activist pastor Evan Mawarire pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of trying to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government, a day after he was detained over an offending post on social media. Mawarire responded “not guilty” when the two charges of subverting a constitutional government …
Read More »LOURENCO: Angola’s political Lazarus
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angola’s new president, Joao Lourenco who will be sworn in Tuesday, is a former general who spent several years in the political wilderness after angling for the top job in the 1990s. Since then, Lourenco, 63, convinced key regime players he was the right man …
Read More »Sudan vows to normalise ties with US as travel ban lifted
Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudan vowed Monday to step up efforts to normalise relations with the United States after Washington dropped the country from a list of countries facing a US travel ban. President Donald Trump decided to remove Sudan from the list just days ahead of an October …
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