AFRICA

Maputo, Mozambique | AFP |  The impact of the most severe drought to hit southern Africa in 35 years is expected to worsen in the coming months, a UN climate envoy warned Friday. “The crisis has yet to peak,” Macharia Kamau, special envoy on El Nino and climate, said at …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP |  Ivory Coast heads to the polls Sunday for a referendum on a new constitution their president insists will heal a nation beset by violent turmoil, but which the opposition says is dangerously anti-democratic. Given that President Alassane Ouattara’s political foes have called for a …

Cairo, Egypt | AFP |  IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Thursday that Egypt is going through a currency “crisis,” suggesting a quick devaluation to tackle a widening gap between the official and black market rates. Egypt has been struggling to shore up its foreign currency reserves in the political and …

Luanda, Angola | AFP |  Leaders of the Great Lakes region called Thursday for the UN peacekeeping force in strife-torn DR Congo to be bolstered, as fears rise of an upsurge in violence linked to delayed presidential polls. At the end of two-day talks, they called for more contributions to …

United Nations, United States | AFP |  Burundi on Thursday formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, dealing a blow to the tribunal seen as a pillar of international justice. South Africa was the first to take the formal step at the United Nations …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  A man was shot and killed by Kenyan police outside the US embassy in the capital Nairobi on Thursday after stabbing an officer with a knife, police said. “The man was shot after stabbing a GSU officer in the hand and left him with injuries,” …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s currency scarcity remains a nightmare that won’t go away, with even Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote feeling the pain. The West African country’s economy has been hammered by the global crash in oil prices — worth 70 per cent of its revenue and the …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP |  Sudanese police fired tear gas on Wednesday to break up a protest in Khartoum against what demonstrators said was a government plan to seize their land, an AFP correspondent reported. Hundreds of people were demonstrating in the East Jreif district of the capital when clashes …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP |  Ethiopia on Wednesday denied that a string of withdrawals of troops from towns in Somalia were connected to the state of emergency declared in response to nearly a year of anti-government protests. Government spokesman Getachew Reda insisted the removal of troops from a string …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP |  Swedish police on Tuesday arrested a 48-year-old man suspected of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide which claimed 800,000 lives, police and prosecutors said. The man, whose identity was not revealed, was arrested at dawn in his house at Orebro, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) …