AFRICA

Madagascar’s football chief Ahmad Ahmad was elected president of the Confederation of African Football Thursday, ousting veteran leader Issa Hayatou after 29 years in office. Ahmad won the election in the Ethiopian capital by 34 votes to Hayatou’s 20, official results showed. Delegates cheered and pumped their fists in the …

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | AFP | A top Tanzanian television presenter has been suspended, along with eight fellow employees of the main state-run channel, for relaying fake news in which US President Donald Trump praised his Tanzanian counterpart. In the fake news item, run this weekend, Trump describes Tanzania’s President …

There is no evidence to back this falsehoods – Military spokesman Karemire Kampala, Uganda | AFP | Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said 155 people, including 15 children, were killed in fierce fighting that erupted late last year in western Uganda between security forces and a tribal king’s palace guards. …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP |  Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson met the new Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in a surprise visit Wednesday to Mogadishu, the scene of frequent attacks by Al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab Islamists, an airport official said. “The UK foreign secretary has arrived and he’s now meeting with the …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Kenyan doctors signed a deal on Tuesday to end a strike over pay and working conditions that has crippled public hospitals for 100 days. The government had threatened repeatedly to fire the strikers and hire foreign doctors, and union officials were even briefly jailed in a …

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 …