Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Though it is seen as the most democratic country in east Africa, Kenya is on a knife-edge because its opposition coalition is claiming election results are being rigged. Partial results from Tuesday’s general election released by the electoral commission (IEBC) show President Uhuru Kenyatta …
Read More »SAfrican activist jumped to death, ex-guard tells apartheid probe
Pretoria, South Africa | AFP | A South African policeman present when an anti-apartheid operative plunged to his death more than 40 years ago insisted on Monday that the victim had jumped to his death. But the judge hearing the inquest into the death of Ahmed Timol warned him that he …
Read More »Apartheid’s fake news, James Bond, Radio Moscow, torture and cover-ups
Pretoria, South Africa | AFP | Police brutality, “fake news” propaganda and official cover-ups at the height of apartheid have been laid bare in a South African court probing the death of a communist activist 46 years ago. Ahmed Timol, a 29-year-old anti-apartheid volunteer, was arrested in Johannesburg in …
Read More »S.Africa confronts apartheid-era custody deaths
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The brutal death of anti-apartheid campaigner Ahmed Timol was allowed to go quietly unsolved in the interests of South Africa’s democratic reconciliation. But now more than 45 years after he fell from a 10th-floor window at a notorious regime security building and died, Timol’s …
Read More »SPECIAL FEATURE: How the 1967 Arab-Israeli war began
Over the next four days, AFP will move a series of stories marking the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War between Israel and neighbouring Arab countries from June 5 to 10, 1967 ****** Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP | The Arab-Israeli Six-Day War erupted early on Monday, June 5, 1967, a …
Read More »Frustration and hope: Biafra 50 years on
Umuahia, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria on Tuesday marks 50 years since the declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra plunged the country into a civil war, amid renewed tensions and fresh calls for a separate state. The main pro-independence groups — the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and the …
Read More »Bitter legacy: 20 years on, Kinshasa recalls Kabila ‘liberation’
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Two decades after Kinshasa gave itself up willingly to rebel commander Laurent-Desire Kabila, his son Joseph remains at the helm of this vast, conflict-ravaged nation although his rule is mired in political crisis. Back in 1997, the country then known as Zaire was struggling …
Read More »History lesson: S. Korea’s Moon scraps state textbooks
Seoul, South Korea | AFP | South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-In on Friday scrapped state-issued school history textbooks introduced by his ousted predecessor, saying they represented an “outdated and one-sided” view of the past, his office said. The previous Park Geun-Hye administration had introduced state-authored history textbooks at middle …
Read More »Burundi king’s remains to be reburied in Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | A Swiss court has ruled that the remains of Burundi’s deposed king Mwambutsa IV, who died 40 years ago, must stay in Switzerland, ending a drawn out legal battle, local media reported Tuesday. Mwambutsa led Burundi at independence from Belgium in 1962, but was deposed …
Read More »‘Down with Zuma’ chants at S.Africa freedom icon’s funeral
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The funeral of celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada on Wednesday was transformed into a rally against President Jacob Zuma, who had been barred from the event. The family of the African National Congress (ANC) stalwart, one of Nelson Mandela’s closest colleagues in …
Read More »