AFRICA

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic. “Burundi faces a malaria epidemic,” Josiane Nijimbere said Monday, commenting on a World Health Organization (WHO) report. …

United Nations, United States | AFP | The UN Security Council on Monday said it was disturbed by reports of torture and forced disappearances in Burundi but ignored calls from rights groups for sanctions. A French-drafted statement was adopted unanimously after some wrangling with Russia, China and Egypt, which oppose sanctions. …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP |  Nigeria’s government has ordered the head of the country’s football association to back current CAF president Issa Hayatou of Cameroon in his re-election bid, a senior official said Monday. The decree from on high came despite Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick having publicly …

Cairo, Egypt | AFP | The release of Egypt’s ex-president Hosni Mubarak approved on Monday ends “talk of the Arab Spring” uprising that toppled him in 2011 after 30 years in power, an analyst said. An Egyptian prosecutor approved a request by Mubarak’s lawyer for his release after a top …

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | At least 46 people died and dozens more were hurt in a giant landslide at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump outside Addis Ababa, a tragedy squatters living there blamed on a biogas plant being built nearby. Saturday’s landslide flattened dozens of homes of people living …

Bamako, Mali | AFP | Mali could be thrown out of the 2018 World Cup qualifying competition after the government sacked the national football federation leaders. The bottom-of-the-table west Africans are scheduled to play Morocco twice, group leaders Ivory Coast and Gabon this year. Global football body FIFA does not permit …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP | International aid agencies on Saturday slammed South Sudan’s decision to raise foreign worker visa fees to as much as $10,000 (9,300 euros), warning it would worsen a humanitarian crisis in the famine-hit country. “The government and the army have largely contributed to the humanitarian situation,” …

  African legislators meeting in Midrand, South Africa this week have been tasked to lobby their governments to support the adoption of the Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons on the continent in the January 2018 African Union Summit. Speaking to parliamentarians in the Committee of Trade, Customs and …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP |  African bishops have asked Radio Vatican, the official radio of the pope, to restore shortwave transmissions to the continent, the Catholic agency Fides reported on Friday. Catholics are estimated to number more than 150 million in Africa, the poorest of all continents, and …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambian coalition parties which united last year to deliver the first new president in 22 years are unlikely to run together for legislative elections next month, a senior government source told AFP. President Adama Barrow said in January his coalition government would “continue as a …