AFRICA

Nouakchott, Mauritania | AFP | Western donors said Thursday they have pledged 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in funding aimed at preventing terrorism and lawlessness along the southern rim of the Sahara. The updated pledge total was announced in a final statement from a donors conference held in the Mauritanian …

Bangui, Central African Republic | AFP | The line of parents waiting to see doctors stretches back outside the hospital into the dusty courtyard. Mums and dads carrying weak, starving children. Many hanging limply in their arms like half empty sacks of rice. The scene at the paediatric complex in …

Integration is essential to scale and connect markets where lack of electricity is holding back progress GLOBAL COMMENT | Tony Blair | African countries are increasingly coming together. A landmark free-trade agreement was concluded earlier this year. East Africa has made great progress on free movement of people. And a commitment to …

Accra, Ghana | AFP | Respect Ruvimbo Topodzi was 15 and walking home from school in her native Zimbabwe when a 22-year-old man asked her out. She turned him down but it was too late. Her father saw them and assumed they were already together. He told her she had …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The Burundi government has ordered the United Nations Human Rights Council to shut its office in the country within two months, foreign ministry and UN sources told AFP. The government on Wednesday sent a verbal note to resident UN coordinator Garry Conille to transmit the …

Kano, Nigeria | AFP | Boko Haram jihadists have attacked two military bases in Nigeria’s restive northeast, killing one soldier and injuring two, security sources told AFP Wednesday, in a week that saw insurgent assaults on troops intensify. Riding in trucks fitted with anti-aircraft guns, fighters from the self-styled Islamic …

Beni, DR Congo | AFP | A key opposition candidate in DR Congo presidential elections launched his campaign Wednesday in a city caught between an Ebola epidemic and militant attacks in one of the country’s most dangerous regions. Martin Fayulu, vying to replace President Joseph Kabila in the pivotal December …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Libya is set to launch a campaign overseen by the World Health Organization to vaccinate more than 2.7 million children after months of shortages, the health ministry said Wednesday. The “national immunisation campaign”, organised with the United Nations children fund UNICEF, is expected to begin …

Rabat, Morocco | AFP |  Gabon’s President Ali Bongo has left hospital in Rabat and will stay at a private residence in the Moroccan capital as he recovers from illness, a presidency source said Wednesday. The 59-year-old, who fell ill on October 24 at an economic forum, arrived in Morocco …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Gabon’s President Ali Bongo is recovering well after being hospitalised in Morocco, his prime minister said after the two met in the capital Rabat. The 59-year-old president, who fell ill on October 24 at an economic forum, arrived in Morocco last week following a month’s …