AFRICA

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  A new video of a black South African labourer being forced into a coffin was presented in court Thursday at the trial of two white farmers accused of the attack. The two-minute clip showed the alleged assailants shoving Victor Mlotshwa into the wooden coffin …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP |  The Gambia has revoked the diplomatic passports of ex-leader Yahya Jammeh and his associates, the foreign ministry said Thursday, as the new government pursues former regime figures it believes embezzled state funds. Jammeh plundered an estimated $50 million before leaving for exile in Equatorial Guinea …

Thousands of Rwandans in Uganda happy to vote next President Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE |  The queues started forming as early as 7am as thousands of Rwandan living in Uganda on Aug.03 thronged their embassy to vote in the presidential election. Many of them told The Independent that they …

Antananarivo, Madagascar | AFP | At least 34 people died when a bus carrying young Christian worshippers plunged down a steep ravine in central Madagascar, police and hospital officials said Tuesday. Police said 12 badly burned bodies were counted at the site, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of the capital Antananarivo. …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP |  At least four people were killed by unknown gunmen on the main road between South Sudan’s capital and the Uganda border on Wednesday, an army spokesman said. The deadly attack was the latest on the dangerous yet busy highway that ferries South Sudanese fleeing …

Hoedspruit, South Africa | AFP |  It was a hard-fought victory for South Africa’s black community seeking to reclaim land, and for the Moletele ethnic group it has become a surprising model of wider racial cooperation. After a 10-year legal battle, the Moletele have taken back the land from which …

Changes to higher education can empower youth to drive continent’s economic transformation  COMMENT |KIM KERR| When South African university students took to the streets in 2016 as part of the “Fees Must Fall” protest movement, the “decolonisation of the curriculum” was among the movement’s chief concerns. It was a pivotal …

President Museveni opens Commonwealth Youth Ministers’ meeting Kampala, Uganda | PPU |  President Yoweri Museveni has opened the 9th Commonwealth Youth Ministers’ meeting at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort Hotel in Kampala with a call for increased trade between the Commonwealth member countries. The theme of the 4-day meeting is ‘Resourcing and …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  The timing was perfect. Two months before Kenya’s August 8 vote, President Uhuru Kenyatta inaugurated the nation’s biggest infrastructure project: a railway connecting the capital Nairobi and the port of Mombasa. With pomp and ceremony Kenyatta touted the railway as proof of his campaign promises …

Pretoria, South Africa | AFP | A South African policeman present when an anti-apartheid operative plunged to his death more than 40 years ago insisted on Monday that the victim had jumped to his death. But the judge hearing the inquest into the death of Ahmed Timol warned him that he …