N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad’s President Idriss Deby said Monday that repeatedly postponed legislative and local elections in the central African state will be held in the first half of 2019. It will be the poor, oil-rich state’s first legislative elections since 2011. The vote had originally been scheduled …
Read More »Clashes in Chad gold-rush region ‘leave 30 dead’
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | More than 30 people have died in northern Chad after Arab fighters, crossing from neighbouring Libya, attacked miners in a region in the grip of a gold rush, rights activists said Sunday. The clashes broke out on Thursday in the Kouri Bougoudi area of the …
Read More »Macron takes champagne and foie gras to French soldiers in Chad
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron paid a pre-Christmas visit to French soldiers in Chad on Saturday, bringing enough champagne, foie gras and chocolate for 1,300 troops along with him. Macron landed at Kossei air base near N’Djamena, the nerve centre of Operation Barkhane, a four-year campaign …
Read More »Hong Kong ex-official Patrick Ho convicted in US over bribery scheme
New York, United States | AFP | Hong Kong’s former home affairs secretary Patrick Ho Chi Ping was convicted by a New York court Wednesday over a multimillion dollar bribery scheme in Africa on behalf of a top Chinese energy company. Ho, 69, was convicted by a jury of seven …
Read More »Nigeria’s Buhari to visit troops fighting Boko Haram
Kano, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari will visit troops on the frontlines of the Boko Haram conflict on Wednesday and is to dispatch his defence minister to Chad following a jump in attacks. The presidential visit comes after months of deadly raids by the IS-affiliated jihadists on military …
Read More »Four rhinos die after Chad conservation effort
Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Four out of six South African rhinos that were transferred to a park in southeast Chad in a bid to revive the endangered species have died, but not from poaching, conservationists say. “An additional two black rhino carcasses have been discovered in Zakouma National Park …
Read More »Libya’s south falls prey to foreign armed groups
Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Neglected by rival authorities in Tripoli and the country’s east, Libya’s southern desert has increasingly become a hideout for foreign rebel groups that stand accused of stoking growing insecurity. “Kidnapping, theft and banditry have multiplied” in the region, said Ali Akri Molia, commander of a …
Read More »Six killed in Boko Haram attack on Lake Chad island
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Six people were killed, including four government officials and a soldier, in an attack by Boko Haram jihadists on a Chadian army checkpoint on an island in Lake Chad, a military source told AFP Sunday. The overnight killings, which cost the life of a civilian …
Read More »Six endangered black rhinos flown from S. Africa to Chad
Addo, South Africa | AFP | Six critically endangered black rhinos were flown from South Africa to Chad on Thursday in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals to a country where they were wiped out by poaching nearly 50 years ago. The wild black rhinos were loaded onto a …
Read More »Chad PM resigns as constitutional changes boost president’s powers
N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad’s prime minister and his government resigned on Thursday, according to a presidential statement, as controversial constitutional changes took effect in a move that bolsters President Idriss Deby’s powers. Deby — in power for more than two decades in the oil-rich landlocked African state — …
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