KIGALI – Rwandan president Paul Kagame was gearing up on Tuesday for a fourth term after winning a thundering 99.15% of votes, according to partial results from an election where only two challengers were allowed to run against him. The outcome of Monday’s poll was never in doubt, with Kagame ruling the small African nation...
MILWAUKEE – Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail yesterday as the star of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, a gathering meant to fire up the grassroots that has instead been overshadowed by the weekend attempt on his life. The 78-year-old former president is carrying Republican hopes into November’s election – and days after...
LONDON – A suspect has been charged with murder after the bodies of two men, one of who was from France, were found dumped in suitcases on a well-known UK bridge, police said on yesterday. The two victims had previously been in a relationship, but still lived together in west London, adding that the suspect...
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s government will seek to ban the political party of jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan, the information minister said yesterday, days after a series of court decisions that favoured the former leader. Khan was jailed in the run-up to a February election, and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was targeted by a crackdown...
TUNIS – A leader of Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha was arrested on Saturday, his party said in a statement on Facebook. The party, whose chief Rached Ghannouchi has been in jail since April last year, did not give any reason for the arrest. “Ajami Lourimi, the secretary-general of the Ennahdha Party, was detained without...
TRIPOLI – The United Nation’s mission in Libya on Saturday called for the “immediate” release of a prominent journalist arrested this week, warning against a “crackdown” on media freedoms in the war-torn country. Ahmed Sanussi, chief editor of Libyan financial news website Sada, who has long covered corruption in the hydrocarbon-rich country, was arrested at...
KIKWIT – Dozens of people were killed in clashes between Congolese soldiers and militiamen in a village in western Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said on Sunday. The death toll in the village of Kinsele “has already reached 42 ‘Mobondo’ militiamen, nine soldiers and one woman”, David Bisaka, a lawmaker for the province, told...
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa on Sunday launched a long-awaited process of reconciliation over notorious 1980s massacres by government troops that claimed tens of thousands of lives. Survivors will be interviewed in a series of hearings opening the way for possible compensation, in a bid to settle longstanding grievances and tensions. “Today is a...
NIAMEY – Niger has recaptured “a large number” of detainees who escaped from a high-security prison near the capital Niamey, the army said on Saturday, adding that three of the “dozens” of escapees had been killed. The jailbreak occurred on Thursday at the Koutoukale prison that houses many jihadist insurgents, who have targeted the West...
KIGALI – Millions of Rwandans began voting in presidential and parliamentary elections yesterday, with its leader Paul Kagame set to cruise to victory and extend his iron-fisted rule for another five years. Rwanda’s de facto leader since the end of the 1994 genocide and president since 2000, Kagame faces only two challengers after several prominent...