AFRICA

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Scandal-hit British charity Oxfam was reeling Tuesday after fresh claims of sexual assault and cover-up in South Sudan, as Haiti’s president condemned the behaviour of some of its staff in his country as “undignified and dishonest”. The latest revelations by Helen Evans, former global head …

Kainji, Nigeria | AFP | A man involved in the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northeast Nigeria has been jailed for 15 years, the government confirmed on Tuesday. The conviction of Haruna Yahaya, 35, is the first in relation to the mass abduction, which triggered global …

Top job for South African Lesetja Kganyago gives African countries sway Kampala, Uganda | DANNY BRADLOW | South Africa’s Reserve Bank Governor, Lesetja Kganyago, has been selected as the first sub-Saharan African to serve as chair of the International Monetary and Finance Committee. The chair is appointed by consensus. The three-year …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africans were on tenterhooks Wednesday as their scandal-tainted President Jacob Zuma was expected to respond to his party’s decision to “recall” him from office in an atmosphere of growing political turmoil. The embattled president, who could be ousted in a parliamentary vote of …

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 …