Bamako, Mali (AFP): Malian voters overwhelmingly approved changes to the constitution in a referendum, marking a key step in the ruling junta’s declared plans to restore civilian rule, provisional results showed Friday. The military has made the draft constitution a cornerstone for the rebuilding of Mali. Ninety-seven percent of the refe...
Tunis, Tunisia (AFP): Tunisia’s state prosecutor on Friday appealed against a judge’s decision to release opposition figure Chaima Issa four months after she was detained for “plotting” against the state, her lawyers said. Issa would have walked free following a decision taken by a judge from the counterterrorism court ...
KIGALI, Rwanda (AA): Voters in Sierra Leone will go to the polls on Saturday in the country’s general elections to elect a president, MPs and local councils. Thirteen candidates are in the race for the president in the West African country. Incumbent President Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), who was […]
Paris, France (AFP): Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has filed a criminal complaint in France for “crimes against humanity” against President Macky Sall, his lawyer said, as well as requesting a probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sall was in Paris on Thursday and Friday for a global climate finance summit c...
Freetown, Sierra Leone (AFP): Alie used to work eight hours a day driving a commercial tuk-tuk in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown but as fuel prices soar he now finds himself working 18-hour days just to make ends meet. “Everything is going uphill — there are no jobs, and (problems with) the electricity and water supply,̶...
Freetown, Sierra Leone (AFP): Sierra Leoneans will vote in tense elections on Saturday, with President Julius Maada Bio hoping to secure a second term despite a crippling economic crisis which sparked deadly protests last year. The West African country, which never fully recovered economically from a 1991-2002 civil war and the Ebola epidemic ...
DOUALA, Cameroon (AA): A referendum vote on Mali’s new constitution has been marked by kidnappings of election officials and irregularities, a local observation mission reported after a poll noted that voter turnout was only 27%. More than 8 million Malians were called on Sunday to vote on the draft constitution proposed by the junta, wh...
Geneva, Switzerland (AFP): The United Nations has condemned the use of firearms to quell protests in Senegal, calling for an independent probe and punishment for the perpetrators. The June 1-3 violence was sparked by the handing of a two-year-sentence to opposition figurehead Ousmane Sonko for “corrupting” a young woman, making him...
Beirut, Lebanon (AFP): Lebanese lawmakers have failed for a 12th time to elect a new president, as bitter divisions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents risk miring the country in a protracted power vacuum. Crisis-hit Lebanon has already been without a head of state for more than seven months. The previous attempt to elect [&hel...
ANKARA (AA): A group of Muslim scholars has urged authorities to release former Tunisian parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi and other political prisoners from jail. Ghannouchi heads the progressive Islamic political movement Ennahda, which is the most popular and influential opposition group in the country. The International Union for Muslim...
