AFRICA

Cairo, Egypt | AFP | As Egypt braces for austerity reforms, the military has expanded its economic role, at times helping President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi assuage the impact of rising prices on the country’s poor. For decades, the military — which produced all but one president since 1952 — has …

  Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Burundi announced plans Friday to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), a week after the UN began an enquiry into human rights abuses committed since April 2015. “It is perfectly clear that this is a plot to do harm to Burundi,” said Gaston …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Anti-government protesters in Ethiopia have turned their anger on foreigners, torching tourist resorts and foreign-owned factories in the restive Oromia region, local media reported Friday. At least 11 companies, including textile and plastic factories, were torched in recent days in the town of Sebeta …

Paris, France | AFP |  French investigators have reopened their probe into the 1994 genocide-triggering assassination of a Rwandan president to question a dissident general who has accused the country’s current head of state of orchestrating the killing, AFP learnt Friday. After a French-crewed plane carrying Juvenual Habyarimana was shot …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The election commission that oversaw Kenya’s flawed 2013 polls and was tarnished by a corruption scandal will receive a $2 million pay-off in return for agreeing to leave office early, local media reported Thursday. The nine commissioners will share the pot of cash, according to …

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | AFP | Zimbabwe’s 92-year-old strongman Robert Mugabe will pay a surprise one-day working visit to Malaysia on Friday, the Southeast Asian country said. Malaysia’s government said late Thursday Mugabe will have a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Razak but otherwise gave scant details on the purpose …

International community slams fresh call for war in S.Sudan Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  The international community on Thursday hit out at a call from South Sudan’s rebel leader Riek Machar for renewed war with the government, raising concerns about heavy fighting in recent weeks. Machar, the former vice president, …

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP |  Zambia’s opposition leader and defeated presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema was arrested Wednesday on charges of sedition and unlawful assembly, police said. Hichilema, who disputed the result of August polls which re-elected President Edgar Lungu, was detained along with Geoffrey Mwamba, the vice-president of his United …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP |  Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is selling two of his jets in a bid to cut costs as the West African country battles to overcome a recession. In a statement released late on Tuesday, presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said that Buhari is reducing the number of …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | An American woman was killed by a rock thrown in a town outside the Ethiopian capital, the US embassy said Wednesday, as anti-government anger sparked fresh protests after a deadly stampede. Protesters stoned the vehicle the woman was travelling in as demonstrations sprung up …