AFRICA

N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad’s interior minister has said that a ban on some protests in the country is justified because of security risks. It comes after a coalition of activist groups earlier this week said they were planning to defy the ban and hold a major anti-government march. Interior …

Yaoundé, Cameroon | AFP | Nigeria called for an end to violence in neighbouring Cameroon, where a crisis sparked by a separatist drive in English-speaking areas has forced thousands of people to seek sanctuary across the border. “The Nigerian state by no means supports the secessionists,” Nigerian ambassador Lawan Abba Gashagar …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has said he believes the woman who accused President Jacob Zuma of rape, triggered an immediate riposte from the presidential office. Ramaphosa is a leading contender to take over from Zuma as head of the ANC ruling party later …

  Meressa K Dessu | ISS TODAY | With the civil war in South Sudan concluding its fourth year, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is maximising its efforts to revitalise the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS) through the establishment of a …

Yaoundé, Cameroon | AFP | Cameroonian author Patrice Nganang was arrested at the airport as he tried to fly to Zimbabwe a day after publishing an opinion piece sharply critical of Cameroon’s president, a source said Thursday. Nganang, who teaches literature at New York University, “was taken into custody yesterday …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s new government ordered Thursday that land confiscated from a white farmer to give to an ally of former president Robert Mugabe must be returned. Robert Smart, who grew tobacco and corn on his farm in Makoni in eastern Zimbabwe, was evicted in June after …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Months of electoral upheaval, sporadic unrest and economic slowdown have hit young Kenyans hard, a nationwide youth survey found Thursday. The struggle to make ends meet has left them disillusioned, apathetic and angry, according to the annual survey of nearly 3,000 Kenyans aged 15-24 years …

Diass, Senegal | AFP | Senegal opens a flagship new airport on Thursday seven years later than originally planned but with ambitions to become a west African regional hub with a capacity for three million passengers. President Macky Sall will cut the ribbon at Blaise Diagne International Airport (AIBD) at …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Human Rights Watch on Thursday denounced a series of attacks against shrines of the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam in Libya by “extremist” militias. “Sufi religious sites are under assault in Libya,” the New York-based rights watchdog said after two attacks in the capital Tripoli …

Niamey, Niger | AFP | Niger has flown home more than 500 of its citizens from Libya as part of an urgent repatriation plan which will see up to 4,000 people evacuated, the foreign ministry has said. The move follows global shock over the atrocities suffered in Libya by African migrants, …