AFRICA

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  A Kenyan court on Friday issued an order blocking the deportation of two South Sudanese opposition figures after an outcry by rights groups over treatment they would face at home. The families of prominent lawyer and activist Dong Samuel Luak and opposition member Aggrey Idri …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP |  Islamist Shabaab fighters attacked a Kenyan military base in southern Somalia on Friday in their latest assault on foreign and national army outposts. The attack on the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) base at Kolbiyow, close to the Kenyan border in Somalia’s Lower Juba region, began …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP |  President Adama Barrow arrived in The Gambia on Thursday to a jubilant welcome marking the beginning of the west African nation’s first democratic transfer of power, AFP journalists said. Dressed in flowing white robes and cap, Barrow stepped off the plane, with heavily-armed troops from …

Dakar, Senegal | AFP | The Gambia’s new president will return to the capital on Thursday, aides said, ending a prolonged political crisis sparked by disputed elections that forced him to flee to neighbouring Senegal. The announcement capped days of anxious waiting in the tiny former British colony that was …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | Twenty-eight people were killed Wednesday when Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a popular Mogadishu hotel, setting off two car bombs and opening fire on security guards, according to the city’s main ambulance service. The attack, claimed by the Al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab insurgents, began when a car loaded with …

COMMENT: By John Campbell It’s boring bureaucrats, not his Twitter feed, that will shape his administration’s Africa policy President Donald Trump has not said much about Africa, but judging by his explosive Twitter feed, he is no great admirer of the continent. He has called South Africa a “total – …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP |  Gambian ex-president Yahya Jammeh will be allowed to keep his collection of 13 luxury cars and fly them out to his exiled home in Equatorial Guinea, a spokesman for new president Adama Barrow said Tuesday. Barrow’s spokesman confirmed to AFP an agreement had been struck …

Soma, Gambia | AFP | They breathed a sigh of relief when strongman Yahya Jammeh finally left The Gambia. But supporters of the new president, Adama Barrow, say he has a lot to do to get the country — one of Africa’s poorest — on its feet. “At the end …

United Nations, United States | AFP |  The UN Security Council stepped up calls Monday for regional troops in South Sudan, to help a UN contingent already there stem ongoing violence and stave off a brewing humanitarian crisis. Olof Skoog, UN ambassador from Sweden, which holds the rotating Security Council …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Sporting agony in the shape of an early elimination from their own Africa Cup of Nations has only added to the other woes facing Gabon, a country already in the midst of a political and economic crisis. “The Africa Cup of Nations is not finished. …