AFRICA

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza arrived in Tanzania on Thursday for his first foreign trip in more than two years, seeking to revive political dialogue on the crisis in his country. Nkurunziza arrived with a heavily armed escort in the northwest Tanzanian town of Ngara, about 15 kilometres (eight miles) from …

Benghazi, Libya | AFP | The head of Libya’s National Oil Company announced on Wednesday that oil production is expected to reach 1.25 million barrels per day by the end of 21017. NOC president Mustafa Sanalla said, however, that “despite a surge of more than one million bpd” oil production would …

Blantyre, Malawi | AFP | Malawi’s former agriculture minister was Wednesday arrested and charged with graft for allegedly profiting in a $35-million maize import deal from neighbouring Zambia, officials said. George Chaponda has been battling against graft allegations following the controversial purchase of 100,000 tonnes of maize in July 2016. Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau …

Gahara, Rwanda | AFP | Inside a metal shed in southeastern Rwanda, Nicholas Hitimana brandished a plastic container holding a green liquid: geranium essential oil, freshly distilled and ready for export at more than $200 (175 euros) a kilo. The pioneer of essential oils in Rwanda, Hitimana said he understood …

MUSEVENI:  Underdevelopment, lack of democracy are a challenge to environment conservation  Kampala, Uganda| PPU |  President Yoweri Museveni has said continued underdevelopment and lack of democracy are some of the challenges facing wildlife conservation in Africa. The President was speaking on Wednesday at a press briefing held at Entebbe State House Entebbe to …

  Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP |  Five UN peacekeepers’ bases in the Democratic Republic of Congo are to close at the end of July, the UN mission there announced Wednesday, describing it as a change in operational style. But the closures come against the background of cuts to the …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s respected former finance minister Pravin Gordhan called Tuesday for President Jacob Zuma to resign, stepping up pressure on the embattled leader. Gordhan joined a growing number of activists in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) along with anti-apartheid veterans and business leaders who …

Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angola has rejected conditions demanded by an EU election observer mission that had been preparing to witness next month’s polls in the country, state media reported Monday. The European team had called for unfettered access to polling stations across the vast southern African nation during the …

  Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Monday called for a “state of emergency for education” in Nigeria, as she visited the country and met some of the Chibok schoolgirls whose cause she championed. The 20-year-old global education campaigner made the suggestion at a meeting …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  An ambulance carrying South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela caught fire as it was rushing him to hospital, his doctor revealed in a book published on Monday. The incident is one of several bizarre episodes contained in the book chronicling Mandela’s final …