AFRICA

Washington, United States | AFP |  Russia is trying to expand its influence in Libya through a combination of military means and oil and weapons sales, a top US general said Friday. General Thomas Tom Waldhauser, who heads the US military’s Africa Command, said Russia is “on the ground” in …

Bangui, Central African Republic | AFP | At least 50 people have been killed and dozens more injured since Tuesday after armed men attacked three villages in the central Bambari region of the Central African Republic, local residents who fled their homes told AFP. Prosper Tchoulekrayo, who escaped from Yasseneme village, …

  President Yoweri Museveni is in the Kenyan Capital Nairobi for a two-day special summit on durable solutions for Somali refugees. President Museveni joins other Heads of State under the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight country trade bloc that includes governments from the Horn, Nile Valley and the …

United Nations, United States | AFP | The UN Security Council voiced alarm Thursday about the deepening humanitarian crisis and famine in South Sudan, with the United States, Britain and France raising anew the idea of sanctions and a weapons embargo. Attacks on humanitarian and UN missions, serial rapes, recruitment of …

Ousted Egypt president Mubarak freed from detention: lawyer Cairo, Egypt | AFP |  Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak left a military hospital on Friday where he had spent much of his six-year detention, his lawyer said. Mubarak had been cleared for release earlier this month after a top court finally …

United Nations, United States | AFP | Somalia’s new president appealed to the international community Thursday for more aid to avert a famine threatening his country that could also undermine fledgling political hopes born in his peaceful election. “Almost half of our people are facing acute food shortages and about 15 …

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | AFP | Tanzania’s information minister was fired on Thursday after he criticised an ally of President John Magufuli who had stormed into a television station accompanied by armed men. The sacking comes amid an uproar over the incident at one of Tanzania’s main private broadcasters, …

Kigali, Rwanda | AFP |  The pregnant Rwandan-British wife of an exiled opposition official appeared in a Kigali court Thursday accused of seeking to form an armed group and revealing state secrets. Violette Uwamahoro, who moved to the United Kingdom in 2004, went to Rwanda for her father’s funeral and …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The United Nations said Wednesday investigators found 10 mass graves in the violence-wracked Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s centre. “We have communicated to the (Congolese) government the presence of seven mass graves in the town of Demba … and three mass …

  Rome, Italy | AFP | The United Nations has approved an emergency loan of $22 million (20.3 million euros) in a bid to prevent another famine in drought and crisis-hit Somalia, its food agency said Tuesday. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) is releasing the funds to the Food and Agriculture …