Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigerian troops have rescued 1,880 civilians from a Boko Haram redoubt in the restive northeast in the past week and arrested hundreds of insurgents, a military commander said on Wednesday. The Sambisa forest, covering about 1,300 square kilometres (500 square miles), is a stronghold of …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Talks on defusing an explosive crisis in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) resumed Wednesday, a day after bloody clashes, as the Catholic church appealed for a deal by Christmas over the future of President Joseph Kabila. The call by bishops sponsoring talks between the …

Chicago, United States | AFP | The families of three Orlando nightclub shooting victims have filed suit against Facebook, Twitter and Google accusing them of providing “material support” to the Islamic State group by allowing the spread of extremist propaganda that inspired the attack. The assault by gunman Omar Mateen, …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Volkswagen on Wednesday opened a new assembly plant in Kenya and launched plans for a ride-sharing service in Rwanda as it seeks to take advantage of surging car demand in Africa. The German car manufacturer’s move into East Africa comes just weeks after it signed …

ACP-EU MPs Overwhelmingly Reject Resolution on Presidential Term Limits Members of the European Parliament and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) parliamentary group have rejected a motion to impose presidential term limits on member states. The ongoing ACP-EU joint parliamentary assembly in Nairobi  voted against the motion for presidential terms limits, that was …

Paris, France | AFP | From Donald Trump’s victory to Brexit and the onslaught on Syria’s Aleppo, here is a snapshot of ten stories that dominated the news in 2016: – Trump earthquake – On November 8, Republican billionaire Trump, a 70-year-old populist with no political experience, wins the US …

Soroti, Uganda | AFP | When power goes out in the rural town of Soroti in eastern Uganda, store manager Hussein Samsudin can only hope it won’t go on so long it spoils his fresh goods. Another shop owner, Richard Otekat, 37, has to pay a neighbour hourly to use …

Brussels, Belgium | AFP |  Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola has agreed to pay more than three billion dollars to recently-merged AB InBev for control of Africa’s biggest soft drinks bottling company, both companies said Wednesday. On merging with SABMiller in September, Belgian-Brazilian giant AB InBev found itself with 54.5 percent …

A third attempt by Sheikhs Yunus Kamoga, Siraje Kawooya and Multabh Bukenya to get bail flopped on Tuesday after  two of three judges on the panel to hear it were said to be indisposed. The sheikhs, and 11 others, applied to be released on bail on grounds that it is their constitutional right and …

Washington, United States | AFP |  Donald Trump’s upset win in the US presidential election astonished people so much that they rushed to the dictionary to look up the word everyone was using to describe the event: surreal. Indeed, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary on Monday named surreal its Word of the Year …