Latest North Africa News
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Tunisia Setting Election Date Helps Ease Tensions - Bouchamaoui
Tunis - Chairwoman of the Tunisian Industry, Trade and Handicrafts Union (UTICA) Wided Bouchamaoui underlined on Thursday that it is necessary to set the schedule of the next elections and complete the drafting and the promulgation of the Constitution to ease tensions in the country. During the inaugural session of the second round of the National Dialogue Conference organised by the Tunisian ...
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Census finds Christianity in Britain losing ground
Almost 10 percent of young people in the United Kingdom now identify themselves as Muslim and fewer than half as Christian, 2011 Census figures show. The new analysis of the 2011 data released Friday shows Christianity has been losing ground even faster than thought among those born in the country, The Daily Telegraph reported. A report last year said the Census found 4.1 million Christians, ...
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France to buy American drones for Mali operation
War Two of America's medium-altitude Reaper drones will be sold to France as backup for the country's operations against Islamist rebels in Mali. The news comes from the 'Air et Cosmos' specialist magazine, which reported online that a deal had been reached between France and the United States for the sale of two non-armed MQ-9 units. The French air force had already ...
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Hollande holds talks with Annan on Mali
French President Francois Hollande received Thursday former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan at the Elysee Palace, to share views on the situation in Mali and the UN's peacekeeping mission in the West African country. The meeting came just "a few days after the UN Security Council's unanimous adoption of the resolution 2100" which authorized the creation of ...
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Liberias Johnson-Sirleaf defends governance record
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Friday defended her government's record on good governance and transparency, following an independent audit that cast doubt on her anti-corruption ...
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South Sudan The Army Accused of Looting and Attacking its Own People
South Sudan is not quite two years old. The world’s newest country was created in July 2011, after decades of fighting a civil war against the north. But it is now facing its own internal rebellion. The army there is being accused of terrorizing its own people in the eastern state of Jonglei. Caelin Briggs is with Refugees International in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. She’s ...
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Militants Turn Nigeria into Christian Killing Field
Last year more Christians were killed in Nigeria than any other country. The onslaught of bombings gave Nigeria the sad distinction of being the nation with the highest Christian death toll. More than 900 Christians reportedly were killed in Nigeria in 2012, all victims of the Boko Haram group and other Islamic militants. "They are so radical they don't even spare Muslims. If Muslims ...
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Nigeria Police Repel Hoodlums Attack In Daura Katsina State
By SaharaReporters, New York There are conflicting reports emanating from Daura, Katsina State, about the overnight confrontation there between security forces and Boko Haram sect members, with the latest saying that, following an "exceptional display of courage and gallantry," repelled the armed militants, killing five of them. In an earlier report today, SaharaReporters learned ...
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Nigeria bombs Islamists U.S. sounds alarm
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian warplanes struck militant camps in the northeast on Friday in a major push against an Islamist insurgency, drawing a sharp warning from the United States to respect human rights and not harm ...
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Medical student brings healthcare to rural Ghana
Medical school graduates often have their pick of job opportunities in well-outfitted urban hospitals in Ghana. Meanwhile, the ratio of doctors serving the population of the rural Upper East region is just one for every 35,010 citizens. One student is defying trends of urban migration to bring much-needed care to these remote ...
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Mali Prospects for Improved Human Rights
Whether it concerns training the Malian Army in the laws of war (an aspect included in the European Union's training program to be extended to four battalions of the Army), or the fight against corruption (which played a significant role in giving rise to the current crisis and deprives the country of resources required for respecting social rights), or the setting up of a "truth, ...
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UN chief appoints head of peacekeeping mission in Mali
Albert Gerard Koenders of the Netherlands has been appointed to head the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) in Mali. Photo: UNOCI/K. ...
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Political change on Algeria horizon as old guard succumbs to old age
North Africa and the Sahel and is an important bulwark against terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda. Any further instability in North Africa, where Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are already struggling, could embolden the armed militants. So far Algeria has been buoyed by high oil prices and, with almost $200 billion in foreign reserves, it has spent lavishly to try to buy off the discontent. But ...
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Bahrain Takes Part in Donors’ Conference on Mali
Luxemburg, May 17. (BNA) -- The Kingdom of Bahrain took part in the international donor conference to aid development in Mali held recently in Belgium, Brussels. Bahraini Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union Ahmed Mohammed Al Dossary led the Kingdom's delegation to the conference. The conference, which followed another similar meeting held in Addis Ababa, ...
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Nigeria states of emergency | Editorial
Nigeria , has made little secret of the fact that it regards itself not only at war with the Nigerian state, and its security forces, but its people too. It has bombed churches, mosques, carried out assassinations, kidnapping, and mass assaults. On a single day in January last year, it killed 185 people across Kano. As the years have gone by, the ferocity, ambition and scale of its attacks have ...
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Tunisia hardline Islamists in standoff over Sunday gathering
But the group, under fugitive leader Saif-Allah Benahssine, has said it would defy the order and go ahead with its annual gathering on Sunday, which it expects to attract some 40,000 ...
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Official Nigeria military attacks suspected Islamic extremist camps in northeast killing 21
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Soldiers in Nigeria launched their first raid against suspected Islamic extremists in a campaign to take back control of the nation's northeast, killing at least 21 people, a security official said Friday. The fighting happened Thursday in the Sambisa Forest Reserve, just south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, which soldiers previously targeted hunting for ...
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Ex-warlord Prince Johnson quits his own party in Liberia
MONROVIA, Liberia - Prince Johnson, a former warlord-turned-politician who is best known for having videotaped himself overseeing the torture of Liberia's ex-president, announced Friday he is quitting the political party he founded. For years since the end of Liberia's civil war, Johnson has tried to erase his violent past, first becoming an evangelical pastor, and later running for ...
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Tunisia Salafi conference threat to public order setting up weekend confrontation
TUNIS, Tunisia - Tunisia's Interior Ministry on Friday banned a conference by the North African country's most prominent ultraconservative Islamic group, setting up the possibility of a confrontation over the weekend. The ministry statement, which appeared on their Facebook site, said Ansar al-Shariah's annual conference to be held in Tunisia's holy city of Kairouan was not ...
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Suspected MUJAO fighters attack Tuareg rebels in northern Mali
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - Tuareg rebels who control the region of Kidal in northern Mali said that al-Qaida-linked extremists from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa attacked their fighters in a village. No casualties were immediately reported. Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh, a member of the Tuareg-led National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, said in Burkina Faso the ...
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Nigeria launches assault on Islamists
NIGERIA'S military has attacked Boko Haram Islamist strongholds across the northeast, launching air strikes on insurgent camps, with dozens of militants killed in the fighting, the military says. Several thousand soldiers have spread across three northeastern states where President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency after Boko Haram seized territory and declared war against the ...
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Violence in South Sudan Town Shuts Down Hospital
WASHINGTON -- The humanitarian situation in a rural area of eastern South Sudan appears to be worsening after a hosptial run by an international medical group was heavily damaged in violence last week. Residents are fleeing Pibor town, which is in Jonglei state, near the border with Ethiopia, and some NGO's are evacuating staff from the area. The local hospital, which was run by the ...
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Finding Skywalker’s House Photos of Old Movie Sets in North Africa
If you’re a Star Wars fan, you might be looking at the photo above and wondering — ';Hey, isn’t that one of those moisture vaporators from the Skywalker farm there by that man who is begging?'; And you’d be right. Star Wars is only one of the many big budget films that have gone to various North African locations over the years to create a certain feel, a ...
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Tunisia bans conservative Islamist conference
TUNIS, Tunisia -; Tunisia's Interior Ministry on Friday banned a conference by the North African country's most prominent ultraconservative Islamic group, setting up the possibility of a confrontation over the ...
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Nigeria Military Kills Extremists in New Offensive
Abuja, 17 May (Prensa Latina) Soldiers in northeast Nigeria shelled suspected camps of Islamic extremists in the first military action of a new offensive against the insurgents, killing several people, a security official said Friday. The fighting was happening in the Sambisa Forest Reserve, just south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, which soldiers previously raided on the hunt for ...
Sudan Spotlight
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Sudan and the South
In January of 2011 the future of Sudan as a unified country will be decided. A referendum is due to be held in South Sudan that will decide whether the regional government of the area, which accounts for around a third of Sudan, should break away from the rest of the country and become a fully-independent nation.
South Sudan has a long history of being at odds with the rest of the country and this conflict of interests has been attributed in Western media to the fact that northern Sudan is primarily Muslim and Arab dominated, whereas South Sudan is made up of indigenous African cultures and ethnicities, this view has been reinforced by the ongoing violence in Darfur, a region of Sudan where a genocide is occurring and has led to President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan being charged with war crimes by the International Court at The Hague, a charge that the government in Khartoum categorically denies. Read more
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