Ottawa, Canada | AFP | Canada will not extend its peacekeeping mission in Mali beyond July 2019, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said in an interview that aired Saturday. Sajjan, interviewed by CBC Radio on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum, said that UN officials were “working with other …
Read More »DR Congo Ebola response effort suspended in Beni after clashes
Beni, DR Congo | AFP | Efforts to fight an Ebola outbreak in DR Congo’s restive eastern Beni region were suspended Saturday after clashes just a “few metres” from a local emergency centre and the hotels of several response teams, the health ministry said. UN peacekeepers from the MONUSCO mission …
Read More »Nigeria, Uganda, Mali, Morocco qualify for Cup of Nations
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Nigeria, Uganda, Mali and Morocco qualified for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations on Saturday while Libya scored eight goals to keep alive their hopes of also featuring at the finals. Nigeria drew 1-1 with South Africa in Soweto, Uganda edged Cape Verde 1-0 …
Read More »Baby snatched by monkey dies in Taj Mahal city
New Delhi, India | AFP | A baby died after a monkey snatched it from its mother’s arms, Indian police investigating the incident in the city of Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, said on Thursday. The 12-day-old boy was being fed by his mother when a rhesus macaque monkey …
Read More »Madagascar rivals set for election run-off
Antananarivo, Madagascar | AFP | Two former presidents of Madagascar look set to compete in a hotly-contested run-off election in December after partial results Thursday showed they were frontrunners in the first-round vote. With 80 percent of the ballots counted from last week’s vote, Andry Rajoelina was on 39.63 percent …
Read More »HRW denounces Angola’s expulsion of 400,000 Congolese
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | A global rights watchdog on Thursday called on Angola to halt mass deportations after more than 400,000 migrants mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo fled or were expelled from Angola in just weeks. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says migrants have been targeted in …
Read More »Nigeria ‘sex-for-marks’ don charged with corruption
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | A Nigerian professor accused of demanding sex from a student to boost her marks has been charged with corruption, one of the country’s main anti-graft bodies has announced. The woman came forward in April with a recording of the management and accounting lecturer demanding that …
Read More »France ‘deeply concerned’ over health of Mali hostage
Paris, France | AFP | The French government said Wednesday that it was “deeply concerned” over Sophie Petronin, a 73-year-old hostage in Mali, after a new video in which her kidnappers say her health has deteriorated. A seven-minute video of the charity worker released in June had already showed her …
Read More »Facebook denies hiding Russian sabotage, but fires lobbying firm
Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook on Thursday denied allegations in the New York Times that it tried to mislead the public about its knowledge of Russian misinformation ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, but severed links with a Republican consultancy. The Times detailed obfuscation by Facebook’s top …
Read More »Libya planning to extradite Manchester bomber’s brother: PM
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Libya is planning to extradite the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi to Britain by the end of the year, Libya’s UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj told the BBC in an interview on Wednesday. Britain last year submitted a request to extradite Hashem …
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