Paris, France | AFP | Long-overdue presidential and legislative polls can only be held at the end of year in troubled Democratic Republic of Congo, the head of the national election commission said Friday. “It will not be possible before December,” Corneille Nangaa told reporters in Kinshasa. Elections are …

Hamburg, Germany | AFP |Donald Trump pressed Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday on allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election in their eagerly-awaited first face-to-face talks, according to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “The president opened the meeting with President Putin by raising the concerns of …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | The head of a West African force maintaining security in The Gambia told AFP Friday that army officials loyal to veteran former leader Yahya Jammeh were plotting against the new government. West African troops were first sent to The Gambia in January to compel Jammeh to …

Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP |Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed a UNESCO vote Friday declaring old Hebron an endangered world heritage site and announced a $1-million cut in funding to the United Nations. “It is another delusional decision by UNESCO,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew, in a video posted online. “This …

Hamburg, Germany | AFP |Russia and the United States have agreed to a ceasefire in southern Syria starting from midday on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Friday in Hamburg. “Today in Amman Russian, American and Jordanian experts… agreed on a memorandum of understanding to create a de-escalation zone” …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | A military court in DR Congo on Thursday handed stiff jail terms, including life imprisonment, to eight soldiers for killing civilians in the violence-wracked central Kasai region following mounting pressure from the UN. In less than a year, brutal violence in four central Kasai provinces …

Paris, France | AFP | European plane maker Airbus said Thursday it received 203 firm orders for aircraft in the first six months of this year and delivered 306 jetliners. Airbus said in a statement that it received orders for 138 medium-haul A320 and long-haul A330 aircraft in June alone …

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP |  Zambian President Edgar Lungu on Thursday justified imposing a state of emergency by alleging that opposition parties were behind a string of arson attacks intended “to create terror and panic”. Lungu denied he was establishing a dictatorship in Zambia — until recently a relatively stable …

Foreign mass recruitment of Uganda’s public health workers is a threat to national security |James Zeere| While health workers have always migrated from Uganda to work in other countries, there is a worrying trend developing of mass recruitment of Ugandan public health workers by foreign entities. In 2015, civil society …

Washington, United States | AFP |The Pentagon is confident it can protect the United States against an incoming North Korean rocket, an official said Wednesday following Pyongyang’s first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Tuesday’s launch saw North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un fire a new type of missile from …