DAKAR – Senegal’s President Macky Sall has called for a fight against the “excessive form” of Islam which has led to the growth of jihadi groups. Muslim clerics needed to be trained to promote “tolerant Islam”, he added. Mr Sall, a Muslim, also called for greater intelligence-sharing between governments. Last week, Senegalese officials said two…
JOHANNESBURG – Security guards slapped, kicked and pepper sprayed students who were protesting on the Kingsway campus of the University of Johannesburg on Thursday. News24 reporter on the scene, Lizeka Tandwa, said workers were camping outside the gates of the campus in a peaceful protest against outsourcing, but the trouble began when students inside the…
JOHANNESBURG – Twenty-nine people have been charged with public violence in South Africa following the biggest student protests to hit the country since minority rule ended in 1994. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades on Wednesday to disperse students who had stormed the parliamentary complex. The 29 who appeared in court in Cape Town…
CAIRO – Polls have opened in Egypt in the first round of long-delayed elections to choose a new parliament. They are the first such elections since the previous chamber was dissolved by a court ruling in 2012. The authorities say the poll is the final step in a transition to democracy. However, critics say most…
LAGOS – At least 39 people have died after multiple explosions in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, an emergency official says. Three female suicide bombers, thought to be aged between 11 and 15, struck on Friday morning, an official with the National Emergency Management Agency told BBC Hausa. It follows bomb attacks on a mosque…
HARARE – The US dentist who sparked an international outcry after killing a lion in Zimbabwe will not be prosecuted because he had obtained the legal authority to hunt, officials say. Walter Palmer admitted to killing Cecil the lion in July but has always denied that he acted illegally. Zimbabwe’s Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri said…
MARALAL – Singing and dancing as she performs in a school assembly, Younis looks for all the world like a typical Kenyan teenager, with a beaming smile and a grey and maroon uniform. There’s little outward clue to the trauma she’s already been through in her 13 short years. When she was just nine years…
CONAKRY – Voters in Guinea are electing a president in the west African country’s second democratic presidential election since independence in 1958. Seven candidates are competing against President Alpha Conde, who is hoping to win a second term. His main challenger, Cellou Dalein Diallo, has urged his supporters to vote despite the country’s top court…
LAGOS – An Ebola scare has been reported in southern Nigeria, a year after the country was declared free of the virus. Ten people have been quarantined after coming into contact with a man showing Ebola-like symptoms, officials said. The man reportedly died shortly after being admitted to hospital in Calabar. On Wednesday, the three…
OUAGADOUGU – The leader of last month’s short-lived coup in Burkina Faso has been charged with crimes including threatening state security and murder. Gen Gilbert Diendere is expected to face trial before a military tribunal. Interim President Michel Kafando was reinstated two weeks ago after intervention from the army and West African leaders. The presidential…
