AFRICA

Beirut, Lebanon | AFP | Lebanese authorities on Friday said Israel was involved in a car bomb blast that targeted an official of the Palestinian movement Hamas in southern Lebanon earlier this month. Mohammad Hamdan was wounded when a bomb placed in his car detonated in the southern port city …

Ziguinchor, Senegal | AFP | A group of Spanish tourists were robbed and raped in Senegal’s restive Casamance region by armed men, a security source and state media said on Friday. The tourists’ vehicle was stopped near the village of Karonge, around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the regional capital …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | DR Congo President Joseph Kabila on Friday stood by the timetable for delayed elections despite demands that he step down ahead of the poll. “We have to have elections as scheduled,” Kabila said at his first press conference since 2012, referring to the date …

Washington, United States | AFP | The US military has opened an investigation after images surfaced online this week that appear to have been taken from the helmet camera of one of the US soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger. Grainy photographs posted and circulated on Twitter purportedly show …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Drone strikes by the United States military are “wiping out” Shabaab militants in Somalia, the head of the African Union mission in the country told AFP in an interview Friday. The US has stepped up its operations in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, …

Nairobi, Kenya | THE INDEPENDENT | Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced his full Cabinet, after 85 days of taking oath of office, and named new postings of ambassadors including to Uganda.Ambassador Kiema Kilonzo who has been in Ankara, Turkey will be Kenya’s new High Commissioner to Uganda, taking over …

Davos, Switzerland | AFP | US President Donald Trump on Friday asked the African Union chairman to pass on his “warmest regards” to other regional leaders at a summit this weekend, after sparking outrage with a reported slur against Africans. Trump met Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the World Economic …

Malabo, Equatorial Guinea | AFP | Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema fired four senior regime officials, including his grandson, in recent weeks on suspicion of collusion with a foiled December “coup”, official sources said Thursday. Ruben Clemente Nguema Engonga, president of the court of Bata city and son of …

Miami, United States | AFP | The oldest remains of a modern human outside Africa have been dug up in Israel, offering evidence of what genetic studies have already suggested — that humans migrated out of Africa some 50,000 years earlier than previously thought. Facial fragments, including a jawbone and …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The number of rhinos killed for their horns by poachers in South Africa dipped in 2017, but more than 1,000 were still slaughtered, the government said on Thursday. South Africa is battling a scourge of rhino poaching fuelled by insatiable demand for their horn …