AFRICA

Bujumbura, Burundi | AFP |  Burundi’s newly elected president Evariste Ndayishimiye will be sworn in on Thursday, after the sudden death of his predecessor who left him an isolated nation in political and economic turmoil. Ndayishimiye was elected in May in a vote disputed by the opposition, and was meant to …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP | South Sudan’s main rivals on Wednesday sealed a deal on control of the country’s 10 internal states, an issue seen as the biggest threat to peace since a unity government was formed in February. President Salva Kiir and former rebel leader and now vice president Riek Machar, whose 2013 …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP |  The stakes are big, and so are the egos. Two clans, the Desvas and the Ahiteys, are fighting it out for control of the local cocoa industry… and boardroom thuggery, love, betrayal and guns are the tools of their trade. “Cacao”, an Ivorian TV soap …

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | AFP | Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Tuesday dissolved parliament to allow for elections in October, pledging a “free and fair” vote in a country where the opposition has decried a climate of fear and violence. Magufuli, who took office in 2015 promising a crackdown on corruption but whose strongman …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | African countries are pushing for the UN’s top rights body to launch a high-level investigation into “systemic racism” and police violence in the United States and beyond, according to a draft resolution seen Tuesday by AFP. The text was being circulated to diplomats for consultations ahead of a so-called urgent …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP |  The smell of gunpowder still lingered in the battle-scarred south of Libya’s capital when Hicham Suleiman, a teacher in his 50s, cautiously returned to his home. He left his car some 400 metres (yards) from his house and continued on foot, anxious about booby traps hidden …

Bujumbura, Burundi | AFP | Burundi’s newly-elected president Evariste Ndayishimiye will be sworn in on Thursday, the foreign ministry announced, in a ceremony fast-tracked by the sudden death of the incumbent, Pierre Nkurunziza. Nkurunziza died on June 8 aged 55, of what authorities said was heart failure. His death came less than two weeks after …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudan’s public prosecutor announced Monday the discovery of a mass grave of conscripts killed in 1998 after trying to flee a military camp. The committee tasked with investigating the killings at Ailafoon military camp “found the mass grave in the past four days after hearing witness accounts”, said public prosecutor …

Amman, Jordan | AFP | UN agencies warned Monday that the coronavirus pandemic could lead to the deaths of an additional 51,000 under-fives in the Middle East and North Africa by the end of the year. The World Health Organisation and United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said the disruption of essential health and nutrition services …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday condemned as “acts of inhumanity” a surge of femicides since South Africa eased anti-coronavirus stay-at-home measures. Murders of women have spiralled since the start of June, when lockdown restrictions were loosened allowing for more movement of people, according to the police. “I have been …