Tag: topNews

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Eritrea is forcing thousands of students and teachers into indefinite national service, driving many into exile and frustrating hopes that a peace deal with Ethiopia might end conscription, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. Teenage students are systematically subject to hard labour at an isolated military camp near the Sudanese border, with many also enduring physical abuse,… Read More

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a family of seven people and injured three others on Thursday morning in the restive Ethiopian state of Oromia, the prime minister’s home region, authorities said. It was not clear who carried out the attack or why the family was targeted, but militias formed by ethnic groups are proliferating across Ethiopia. The violence is… Read More

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s central bank granted a financial services licence to a foreign-owned company for the first time on Thursday, as the government begins to open up the economy of Africa’s second most populous nation. Ethio Lease’s new licence signals Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is moving ahead with the economic reforms he pledged when he took office last year.… Read More

ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) – Police said on Wednesday they had found the remains of a British woman who fell 1,200 metres (4,000 feet) from a light aircraft in the remote north of Madagascar last month. Alana Cutland, a 19-year-old Cambridge University student, was visiting the island on an internship complementing her studies in natural sciences, her family has said. Police said… Read More

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – An investigative journalist in Tanzania has been charged with money laundering, tax evasion and assisting a criminal racket, according to a court document seen by Reuters, charges his lawyer said were politically motivated. Rights groups say press freedom in Tanzania has drastically deteriorated since the election in 2015 of President John Magufuli, whose administration has… Read More

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) – A Nigerian judge ruled on Monday that the detained leader of a banned Nigerian Shi’ite Muslim group could seek medical treatment abroad, after a series of protests calling for his release turned violent last month. Nigeria banned the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) in July after a week of protests in which the group said at… Read More

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – A drone air strike by eastern Libyan forces on the southern Libyan town of Murzuq has killed at least 43 people, a local official said on Monday. The eastern Libyan National Army force (LNA) forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar confirmed a strike late on Sunday on the town, but denied they had targeted any civilians. The Tripoli-based… Read More

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian security agents arrested Omoyele Sowore, an activist, news organisation founder and former presidential candidate who was calling for revolution, the security agency said on Sunday. Sowore, a human rights activist who founded Nigerian online news organisation Sahara Reporters and ran for president as a minor candidate in the February election, was arrested by the State Security… Read More

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – A light plane crashed in western Tanzania on Saturday, killing two South Africans who had been involved in last month’s successful attempt to fly a home-built aircraft from Cape Town to Cairo, officials said. The crashed Sling plane, which entered Tanzanian airspace from Uganda en route to Malawi, made a distress signal about engine failure… Read More

CAIRO (Reuters) – Sudan’s military council spokesman said on Friday that nine soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the country’s most powerful paramilitary group, have been dismissed and detained in connection with the killing of protesters this week. Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi added that the governor of North Kordofan state and its security council would also be… Read More