AFRICA

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South African President Jacob Zuma admitted Saturday that voters were “not happy” with the ruling ANC party as it began a five-day conference to elect his successor as party leader. Zuma said in his keynote conference address that the African National Congress’s poor local …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South African President Jacob Zuma on Saturday blamed infighting and perceived corruption for the troubles of the ANC party, which risks losing power for the first time since the end of apartheid. Zuma, whose reign has been marred by graft scandals, spoke at a party …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo Saturday hailed as a “major advance” life sentences served this week on a provincial lawmaker and ten militiamen convicted of raping young girls. The group were jailed for life on Wednesday in the east of the …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | West African leaders on Saturday threatened to slap Guinea-Bissau with sanctions unless the country’s grinding political crisis was resolved within two months. In a summit in Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it was “disappointed with the absence of progress in …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is within touching distance of South Africa’s top job, previously had his presidential hopes dashed and opted for life in business that brought him spectacular wealth. After failing to clinch the ANC nomination to succeed president Nelson Mandela in 1999, …

The Hague, NETHERLANDS | AFP | International war crimes judges on Friday awarded $10 million in landmark reparations to “hundreds or thousands” of former child soldiers left brutalised and stigmatised after being conscripted into a ruthless Congolese militia. Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was jailed for 14 years after being convicted …

The Hague, NETHERLANDS | AFP | A Dutch-Ethiopian man was sentenced to life in jail on Friday after Dutch judges found him guilty of war crimes committed during Ethiopia’s bloody purges in the late 1970s, a period known as the “Red Terror”. Eshetu Alemu, 63, was “guilty of war crimes …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is expected to use a conference of the ruling ZANU-PF party on Friday to consolidate his grip on power after Robert Mugabe’s shock ouster last month. Mnangagwa took office after the military forced Mugabe to resign, ending a 37-year reign marked …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The African National Congress was lauded for its moral authority in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, but many veterans of that era are deeply disillusioned by the party’s actions today. As delegates prepare to elect a new leader to succeed Jacob Zuma, …

Bani Walid, Libya | AFP | For migrants who escape torture and starvation at the hands of people traffickers, a “Safe House” in an oasis town offers a rare commodity in Libya: shelter and medical care. Bani Walid, on the edge of the desert 170 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of …