AFRICA

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambian President Yahya Jammeh faced the strongest electoral challenge of his 22-year rule Thursday as voters went to the polls, braving an internet and phone blackout the government defended as a security measure. After an unprecedented two-week opposition campaign that has energised his rivals, Jammeh …

Kibeho, Rwanda | AFP | Christian pilgrims gather each year in their thousands in the southern Rwandan hill town of Kibeho, some hopeful of miracles where three schoolgirls said the Virgin Mary came to them. A service held Monday in the small, isolated town marked the 35th anniversary of the …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP |  Eleven countries, meeting Wednesday on security in central Africa, urged the Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition to back a deal that could keep its president in office far beyond his official mandate. Leaders or their representatives from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) …

Rabat, Morocco | AFP |  Morocco on Wednesday accused the African Union commission’s chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa, of blocking Rabat’s efforts to rejoin the AU and lacking neutrality. The foreign ministry, in a strongly worded statement, charged that she was “trying to thwart Morocco’s decision to regain its …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambia’s president once said he would govern the country for a billion years if God willed it. But voters may deliver an upset Thursday after years of economic hardship that have pushed thousands of young people to attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe. Yahya …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South African President Jacob Zuma survived an attempt to oust him from office only after a “robust” and “difficult” debate within the ruling ANC party, an official said Tuesday. Zuma has been weakened by corruption allegations, but his supporters were taken by surprise at …

KIGALI, Rwanda | AFP | Rwanda on Tuesday opened a formal probe into 20 French officials suspected of playing a role in the 1994 genocide, in a move likely to further sour diplomatic ties with France. Kigali has long accused France of complicity in the genocide of some 800,000 mostly …

The trial in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a top commander of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army,  is scheduled to open at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, December 6 – 2016. The Prosecutor versus Ongwen case will be before Trial Chamber IX of the ICC, composed of presiding Judge …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  A top advisor to Burundi’s president and the most public face of the government, Willy Nyamitwe, has escaped an assassination attempt in the capital Bujumbura which left one of his bodyguards dead, officials said Tuesday. “Thank God, Willy Nyamitwe narrowly escaped an attack…” tweeted Burundi’s …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP |  Nearly half the population of strife-torn Central African Republic needs humanitarian assistance, the UN said Monday, appealing for $399 million from donors to cover the country’s aid needs next year. UN humanitarian coordinator for Central Africa, Fabrizio Hochschild, told reporters that decades of chronic poverty, …