Nouakchott, Mauritania | AFP | A powerful jihadist alliance has claimed an attack on a French military vehicle in Mali that left two soldiers dead, Mauritanian media reported on Friday. Two soldiers from France’s counter-terrorism force in West Africa were killed and another was hurt on Wednesday when their vehicle …
Read More »UN wants prosecutions for South Sudan war crimes
Juba, South Sudan | AFP | A UN rights commission in South Sudan said Friday there was sufficient evidence to charge at least 41 senior officers and officials with war crimes and crimes against humanity. South Sudan’s four-year-old civil war has been characterised by extreme brutality and attacks on civilians. …
Read More »Trump, gun lobby chief push armed citizens as solution to shootings
Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump and America’s powerful gun lobby on Thursday cast citizens with weapons as a solution to shootings, as it emerged an armed deputy was on campus during a deadly Florida rampage but failed to act. National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre hit …
Read More »British couple kidnapped in S.Africa: foreign office
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | An elderly British couple have been kidnapped in South Africa, police said Thursday, amid reports they were abducted by extremists suspected to have links to the Islamic State group. The British foreign office confirmed that a pair of Britons had been kidnapped and warned …
Read More »Six killed in attack on S.Africa police station
Port Elizabeth, South Africa | AFP | An armed gang stormed into a rural police station in South Africa on Wednesday and stole firearms in an attack that left five officers and a soldier dead, police said. The robbers entered the police station in the southern village of Engcobo shortly …
Read More »Mission unclear in Brazilian army takeover of Rio security
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | AFP | The takeover of Rio de Janeiro’s security by army generals was meant to bring clarity to a city mired in chaotic crime, but three days later the exact mission remains unclear. President Michel Temer signed a decree Friday putting the police in Rio …
Read More »Myanmar seizes drugs and equipment worth $7 mn in lab raid
Yangon, Myanmar | AFP | Myanmar troops seized $7 million worth of narcotics, precursors and equipment in a raid on drug labs in the restive north, the army said Monday, as it continues a war against ethnic rebels accused of profiting from the drug trade. Soldiers and local officials found …
Read More »In Kenya, anti-poaching dogs are wildlife’s best friends
Maasai Mara, Kenya | AFP | Five-month-old bloodhound Shakaria gambols through the long savannah grasses of Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve, her playful mood swiftly turning to keen determination as she is ordered to track a human scent. Straining at the leash, she pulls her handler along an invisible scent path …
Read More »Trump turns on FBI over school shooting after criticism from survivors
Fort Lauderdale, United States | AFP | US President Donald Trump said Saturday the FBI was so caught up in the Russia probe that it failed to heed signs which could have prevented the Parkland school shooting. His comments came as he faces criticism from survivors of the attack over …
Read More »‘Shame on you!’ student tells Trump at Florida anti-gun rally
Fort Lauderdale, United States | AFP | A student survivor of the Parkland school shooting called out US President Donald Trump on Saturday over his ties to the powerful National Rifle Association, in a poignant address to an anti-gun rally in Florida. “To every politician taking donations from the NRA, …
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