AFRICA

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa is the continent’s most industrialised economy and among its most developed, but marked by gaping inequalities rooted in years of racist white-minority rule that ended in 1994. – Apartheid – Black South Africans, around 80 percent of the population, voted for the …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | DR Congo’s long-delayed election due on December 23 to choose a successor to long-serving ruler Joseph Kabila will not take place without electronic voting machines, the poll chief said Tuesday “Without voting machines, there will be no elections on December 23, 2018,” election commission …

Bunia, DR Congo | AFP | About 200,000 people have been displaced in ethnic clashes since mid-December in the northeastern Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a humanitarian source told AFP Tuesday, as escapees spoke of burnt villages and victims being hacked to death. Hema herders and Lendu …

  Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP |  Top Ethiopian dissident Bekele Gerba was released from jail on Tuesday, state media reported, as anti-government protests by the country’s largest ethnic group closed roads and businesses near the capital. The release of Bekele was a key demand of Oromos, the majority ethnic …

Nairobi, Kenya | THE INDEPENDENT | Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta has appointed Justice Paul Kihara Kariuki as the Attorney General following the surprise resignation of Professor Githu Muigai on Tuesday. He has been attorney General for the last six and a half years, guiding the country through trying times that included the …

  Paris, France | AFP | The world has abundant freshwater but it is unevenly distributed and under increasing pressure, UN agencies say, as highlighted by the severe shortages in Cape Town. – Water, water ‘everywhere’ – More than 97 percent of the planet’s water is salty, most of it in …

Dabafayed, Ethiopia | AFP | Down a sandy track past a desiccated animal carcass lies a cluster of half-built huts that Ethiopia’s government and aid agencies hope will blunt the worsening toll of repeated droughts. The soon-to-be village of Dabafayed is intended as a new, permanent home for once-nomadic herders made …

United Nations, United States | AFP | South African troops serving in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been accused of beating a 17-year-old boy and sexually exploiting women, a UN spokesman said Monday. UN and South African investigators will conduct a joint probe of the …

Kigali, Rwanda | AFP |  Rwanda’s media watchdog has ordered a US-owned Christian radio station shut for three months after a “vile” sermon against women, it said Monday. The radio station, Amazing Grace FM, broadcast a sermon by local pastor Nicolas Niyibikora on January 29, in which he called women …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s ruling ANC party ended marathon closed-door talks early Tuesday morning resolving to remove the scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma as head of state after he refused to resign, local media reported. The party’s powerful 107-member national executive committee (NEC) met for 13 hours at …