Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Four miners were killed and three others were trapped underground after an earthquake hit a gold mine outside Johannesburg, its owners said Friday. Thirteen miners were initially trapped about three kilometres (two miles) below the surface, James Wellsted, spokesman for mining company Sibanye-Stillwater, said …
Read More »DR Congo planning to allow oil exploration in national parks: NGO
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Democratic Republic of Congo’s government is seeking to reclassify swathes of two UNESCO-listed parks so that oil exploration can be carried out there, an investigative group said. The London-based NGO Global Witness said it had seen documents about a scheme to “redraw the boundaries” …
Read More »Kenya floods leave 112 dead in two months: Red Cross
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Flooding across Kenya triggered by weeks of torrential rain has left 112 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of others, the Red Cross said Friday. Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet made an appeal for $5 million (four million euros) to help those …
Read More »Death of Mozambique rebel leader shakes peace process
Maputo, Mozambique | AFP | Mozambique’s president said the country’s fragile peace process must not collapse after rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama, who had opened talks with the government, died unexpectedly aged 65. President Filipe Nyusi hailed Dhlakama as “a citizen who has always worked for Mozambique” and said he was …
Read More »Four killed in suspected Shabaab attack in northern Kenya
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Four people were killed in the northern Kenyan town of Mandera, which borders Somalia, police said Friday, in an attack blamed on Islamist group Al-Shabaab. The four men, all non-Muslims who were not from the area, were attacked at a remote quarry on Thursday night, …
Read More »Six endangered black rhinos flown from S. Africa to Chad
Addo, South Africa | AFP | Six critically endangered black rhinos were flown from South Africa to Chad on Thursday in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals to a country where they were wiped out by poaching nearly 50 years ago. The wild black rhinos were loaded onto a …
Read More »Nile dam won’t harm Egypt, says new Ethiopian leader
Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Ethiopia’s newly appointed prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, said on Thursday that the controversial dam his country is building on the Nile will not harm Egypt’s share of water supplies. Egypt relies almost totally on the Nile for irrigation and drinking water, and says it has “historic …
Read More »Guinea president to take legal action over Bollore row
Conakry, Guinea | AFP | Guinean President Alpha Conde said Thursday he would file a complaint in the French courts over allegations raised in a corruption case embroiling French billionaire Vincent Bollore. “I shall bring a complaint in Paris for false accusation,” Conde told reporters in Conakry, without giving further …
Read More »UN takes 1,500 economic migrants to Niger from Algeria
Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | Around 1,500 economic migrants have been taken from Algeria to Niger in recent days by the UN’s migration agency, its Niamey chief said on Thursday. Giuseppe Loprete from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AFP around “600 Cameroonians, two large groups of Malians …
Read More »Chad PM resigns as constitutional changes boost president’s powers
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad’s prime minister and his government resigned on Thursday, according to a presidential statement, as controversial constitutional changes took effect in a move that bolsters President Idriss Deby’s powers. Deby — in power for more than two decades in the oil-rich landlocked African state — …
Read More »