The security court in Comoros has handed down life sentences with hard labour to four senior opposition figures and lengthy jail terms to several others for plotting against the state. The two-day trial and the sentences, delivered late on Saturday, were condemned by the opposition as an insult to democracy . Former vice-president Djaffar S ...

Iraqis on Sunday laid the cornerstone in rebuilding Mosul's Al-Nuri mosque and leaning minaret, national emblems destroyed last year in the ferocious battle against the Islamic State group. The famed 12th century mosque and minaret, dubbed Al-Hadba or the hunchback, hosted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's only public appearance as IS chief, when he decl ...

Jacques wanted to start working when he was 10. His father refused so he left his home in Tema, Ghana, to live in nearby Benin, like many young children in search of a better life. I got on a bus to Cotonou sticking to a lady as if I were her son, says the relaxed young man, as if travelling several hundred kilometres alone at such a young age ...

Qatar on Saturday revealed the design for the stadium that will in four years' time host the first ever World Cup finals game to be played in the Middle East. The 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium -- also the venue for the 2022 World Cup final -- was revealed in an elaborate ceremony attended by the country's ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and o ...

Several thousand people marched in Rome Saturday in protest at Italy's tough new anti-migrant law which makes it easier to expel new arrivals. The protesters waved flags and donned yellow vests emblazoned with the slogan Get up Stand Up for your right in a reference to the famous Bob Marley song. The new law would only increase the numbe ...

Huthi rebels on Saturday hailed a ceasefire accord for a vital Yemeni port agreed at UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden, although the deal's implementation remained fragile. The breakthrough agreement at the first round of negotiations since 2016 was a success , said Daif Allah al-Shami, information minister for the rebels' unrecognised national ...

More than 52,000 people have been displaced by violence since January in western Niger, an unstable area hit by jihadist incursions near the poor west African country's border with Mali, the UN refugee agency said. The UN refugee agency is becoming increasingly troubled by ongoing violence in Niger's border areas with Mali and Burkina Faso, th ...

The UN rights chief on Friday denounced violence targeting the opposition by DR Congo's security forces, just days before a vote marred by an increasingly tense campaign. I am deeply worried about the reports of excessive use of force, including live ammunition, by security forces against opposition rallies, the United Nations High Commissione ...

Thousands of people demonstrated in Ouagadougou Thursday on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Burkinabe investigative journalist Norbert Zongo. Participants marched down the city's main thoroughfares, occasionally stopping to shout slogans calling for justice for the journalist, who was killed while investigating another murder. Th ...

The United States lashed out Thursday at predatory Chinese and Russian involvement in Africa as it announced a leaner footprint that insists on accountability in trade and peacekeeping. In a speech billed as unveiling a new US strategy on Africa, national security advisor John Bolton sounded the same notes as Trump's America First philosophy ...

The United States will seek an end to UN peacekeeping missions in Africa that do not bring long-term peace, national security advisor John Bolton said Thursday. We will only back effective and efficient operations, and we will seek to streamline, reconfigure or terminate missions that are unable to meet their own mandate or facilitate lasting p ...

Nearly 80 percent of the equipment for staging the December 23 election in DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa, was destroyed when a fire ripped through a warehouse, as violence flared just 10 days before the vote. The blaze, which officials blamed on arson, was the latest drama of an increasingly tense election campaign ahead of the December 23 electi ...

Nearly 80 percent of the materials for staging the December 23 election in DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa, were destroyed when an election warehouse was torched overnight, officials said Thursday. The blaze ripped through a large warehouse in central Kinshasa in the early hours of Thursday morning, destroying most of the election materials stored ...

A teenager was shot dead in DR Congo's central Kasai region on Thursday as party faithful gathered to welcome one of the leading opposition candidates vying to replace President Joseph Kabila in the December 23 elections. The bloodshed occurred ahead of a rally by Felix Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) just 10 day ...

The sun glistens on waves lapping against wooden fishing boats as their sails ripple in the breeze coming off the Indian Ocean. Nearby a young man with a diving mask bobs below the water's surface armed with a stick to lure his catch into a net while also trying to snare fish on a nylon line. In Anakao, a traditional fishing community in sout ...

A radio message comes in from a Spanish maritime rescue boat to the service's command centre in the southern town of Tarifa: 34 migrants rescued . The onset of autumn, with the cold, storms and fog, has not stopped migrants from crossing the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain, a journey that has this year claimed the lives of hundreds of youth ...

The US military is investigating a car crash that killed a French soldier in Niger, including whether alcohol was a factor and whether an American service member was driving, a US official told AFP on Wednesday. The crash happened late Saturday in northern Niger, where French forces operating under the anti-jihadist Operation Barkhane are deploy ...

Mozambique has appointed three top commanders from Renamo, the largest opposition party and a former rebel movement, to key army command posts as part of peace-building efforts. The defence ministry hailed the move, which came out of an agreement between Renamo's interim leader Momade Ossufo and President Filipe Nyusi in July, as a step towards ...

Mozambique has appointed three top commanders of Renamo, Mozambique's largest opposition party and former rebel movement, to key army command posts as part of peace-building efforts between the government and Renamo. The appointments following a deal struck between Renamo's interim leader, Momade Ossufo, and President Filipe Nyusi in July are a ...

Mining companies have invested at least $5 billion towards gold exploration in West Africa in the last decade but significant reserves are under-exploited, mineral industry experts said on Tuesday. Delegates at the Ecomof mining and petroleum forum in the Ivory Coast commercial capital Abidjan were told that more must be done to attract internat ...