AFRICA

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe announced Thursday it will introduce next month “bond notes” equivalent to the US dollar, sparking fears of a return to the hyperinflation that wrecked the economy several years ago. The country, led by authoritarian President Robert Mugabe, adopted the US dollar and South African …

Juba, South Sudan | AFP |  The South Sudan government has shut down the country’s main English-language daily, which headlined news on a war profiteering report commissioned by actor George Clooney, the paper’s editor told AFP on Wednesday. Nation Mirror editor Simon Aurelious said officials from the National Security Service …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP | The head of Gabon’s top court, which has the pivotal task of ruling if President Ali Bongo’s contested re-election is valid, is a former beauty queen whose affair with the leader’s father produced two children. Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo is in the limelight in this oil-rich Central …

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Ugandan counterpart President Yoweri Museveni on Sept.05 launched the inaugural Global African Investment Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.   Dubbed the Global African Investment Summit COMESA & Government of Rwanda (TGAIS-Rwanda), the meeting brought together African leaders, heads of State, senior policymakers and influential business leaders …

Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP |  Somalia on Tuesday agreed to lift a week-old ban on imports of Kenyan khat after a storm of controversy from angry growers of the leafy narcotic in neighbouring Kenya. The decision was made on the margins of a historic one-day summit in the Somali capital, …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  South African President Jacob Zuma has paid back $542,000 of public money spent refurbishing his private home, his office said Monday, in a controversy that has dominated his second term in office. The country’s highest court found earlier this year that Zuma had violated …

Washington, United States | AFP | South Sudan’s warring leaders and their cronies have amassed fortunes — including foreign properties and stakes in international firms — while prosecuting a murderous conflict, George Clooney charged Monday. After presenting the results of a detailed two-year inquiry to the media, Hollywood stars Clooney …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP |  Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday pledged to reverse the country’s economic slump as his government also tackles endemic corruption and the security threat from Boko Haram Islamists. Recession was officially confirmed in Africa’s most populous nation last month, after a second successive quarter of …

  Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |    Hollywood plague movies are usually about a fictional viral outbreak, unleashing chaos and anarchy that can only be stopped by heroes who transcend the panic. That’s not true for “93 Days”, a Nollywood film premiering on Tuesday, which dramatises the story of Nigeria’s …

  Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Traffic jams may clog the city and the beaches look like garbage dumps, but for the Lagos state government developing tourism is now a do or die matter. Nigeria has survived almost exclusively on oil revenues for decades, but the plunge in crude prices …