The Gambia’s longtime opposition won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections, easily defeating the party of ousted leader Yahya Jammeh, results announced Friday showed. Official results announced by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) showed the United Democratic Party (UDP) had won 31 of the 53 available elected seats in the country’s National Assembly “(I) hereby declare the final results as… Read more »
The United Nations said late Tuesday that 16 staff members taken hostage by unarmed South Sudanese refugees at a UN camp in a restive eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been released unharmed. The UN peacekeeping department said in a statement released at UN headquarters in New York that “the camp is quiet and under full control”… Read more »
Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has announced a strategic partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regional political organisation that brings together seven Arab states. The move comes after a series of bilateral talks and a stream of multi-million dollar investments from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Among the South African, Palestinian and other young exiles debating revolutionary politics on campuses across early 1980s Britain, there was little at first to mark out Riek Machar, a twentysomething student from what is now the troubled young country of South Sudan.
The US military did not conduct any counterterrorism strikes in southwest Somalia on April 14 contrary to what the media has reported, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a release on Monday. “The US military did not conduct any kind of kinetic action in that area during the timeframe referenced,” the release stated. “The most recent US strike in… Read more »
Sporadic violence broke out in Johannesburg as more than 50,000 people marched in South African cities to protest against President Jacob Zuma on Friday, demanding he quit after a cabinet reshuffle triggered the latest crisis of his presidency. Zuma’s sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in the reshuffle last Thursday has outraged allies and opponents alike, undermined his authority and… Read more »
South Africa on Friday denied flouting international law in 2015 by failing to arrest visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for trial by war crimes judges on charges of genocide in Darfur. At an unprecedented hearing at the International Criminal Court, Pretoria disputed accusations it had broken its obligations to the very tribunal it helped found. There “was… Read more »
Nigeria marks three years since Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok on Friday, a day after the government announced it is in negotiations for the release of those still being held. The government “is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence, to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed”, President… Read more »
Nigeria’s security services said Wednesday that they had thwarted a plan by Boko Haram militants to attack the British and US embassies in the capital Abuja. A statement from the Department of State Services said that it broke up a cell late last month that had “perfected plans to attack” the embassies along with “other Western interests” in Nigeria’s capital…. Read more »