AFRICA

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP | Zambian authorities on Sunday said they had arrested three Chinese nationals and two locals found carrying pieces of rhino horn at the border with Mozambique. Parks and wildlife ministry spokesman Sakabilo Kalembwe said the five were arrested at the Chanida border post. They were held …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s military has been ordered to strengthen its response to Boko Haram after 69 people were killed in an ambush earlier this week, the government said on Sunday. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo held emergency talks with top brass to discuss Tuesday’s attack, which targeted an oil exploration …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP |  Shabaab militants in Somalia on Sunday claimed they had killed 39 African Union troops in an ambush in the country’s south. The claim by the Al-Qaeda linked insurgents, made by the group’s spokesman on an affiliated radio station, could not be immediately verified. Local residents …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe, declaring “I am not dying,” sought Saturday to brush aside growing concerns about his health after his wife urged him to name a successor. Mugabe’s medical trips to Singapore have become frequent in recent years, fuelling questions about his health. His …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Elite Kenyan security forces on Sunday killed a man at the home of Deputy President William Ruto, ending a 20-hour siege that left one officer dead and another wounded, security officials said. Ruto and his family were not at the vast property in the northwest of …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Sunday declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, six years after the predominantly Christian south gained independence from the north. The Anglican church in Sudan, a majority Muslim country, has been administered from South Sudan since the …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | At least five people were killed and ten wounded in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Sunday when a car bomb detonated on a busy road, the security ministry said. There was no immediate claim of responsiblity but the bombing fits the pattern of Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab …

Kano, Nigeria | AFP | At least 69 people died in a Boko Haram ambush of an oil exploration team in northeast Nigeria, as three men kidnapped by the jihadists made a video appeal. Experts said the attack — Boko Haram’s bloodiest this year — underscored the persistent threat it …

Rabat, Morocco | AFP | King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Saturday pardoned more than a thousand people who were under arrest for taking part in protests in the troubled northern Rif region, the justice ministry announced. The monarch pardoned a total of 1,178 detainees, including a number who had …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  South Africa’s firebrand opposition leader Julius Malema on Saturday accused Zambia’s president of apartheid style repression for detaining a leading opposition politician on treason charges. Hakainde Hichilema, leader of Zambia’s United Party for National Development (UPND), has been in detention since April and Zambian …