Zimbabwe police raid offices of PM’s party

May 9 | HARARE, May 9 - Zimbabwean police raided the office of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party Thursday in the southern district of Gwanda and seized motorcycles meant to be used for election campaigns, a party spokesman said. "Police have confiscated 10 motorbikes following a raid on our Gwanda office," Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman...

Orania, South Africa’s whites-only town

May 8 | South Africa, May 8 - Welcome to Orania, South Africa: a whites-only enclave established in 1991 during the dying years of apartheid. The town in the sparsely populated Karoo region is inhabited only by Afrikaners. These descendants of Dutch-speaking migrants who arrived in South Africa in 1652 with Jan van Riebeeck, now make up six percent of the...

DRC named worst place to be mother

May 7 | LONDON, May 7 - The Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday displaced fellow African nation Niger to gain the unenviable distinction of being the worst place in the world to be a mother, according to the annual report of Save the Children. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa took up each of the bottom ten places for the first time first time in the 14...

Vietnam, S.Africa target illegal rhino hunters

May 6 | JOHANNESBURG, May 6 - South Africa and Vietnam have agreed to exchange the names of registered hunters in a bid to stop rhino poachers who obtain hunting permits under false pretences, a spokesman said on Monday. Authorities are targeting these hunters who take advantage of laws allowing them to export the rhino horn as a hunting trophy to trade it...

Zimbabwe youth leader rearrested for insulting Mugabe

May 6 | HARARE, May 6 - A youth leader from the Zimbabwean prime minister's party who is charged with insulting long-ruling President Robert Mugabe was rearrested on Monday after prosecutors revoked his bail, a lawyer said. Solomon Madzore, an activist from the Movement for Democratic Change is accused of calling Mugabe a limping donkey during an MDC rally...

Terrorist attack on Tanzanian church leaves 2 dead

May 6 | ARUSHA, Tanzania, May 6 - Two people were killed in Sunday's attack during a mass at a Tanzanian church, officials said Monday, as President Jakaya Kikwete called the explosion an "act of terrorism". Six people have been arrested, including four from Saudi Arabia, officials said. "This is an act of terrorism perpetrated by a cruel person or group who...

At least 30 wounded in blast at Tanzanian church

May 5 | ARUSHA, Tanzania, May 5 - At least 30 people were injured, including three seriously, in an explosion Sunday at a church in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha, police said. "There have been 30 people wounded, three in a serious condition, and one person has been arrested," said regional police chief Liberatus Sabas. It was not immediately clear...

‘Several’ killed in suicide bomb blast in Somali capital

May 5 | MOGADISHU, May 5 - Around 11 people were killed on Sunday when a suicide attacker rammed a car laden with explosives into a government convoy at a busy junction in the Somali capital, police said. "Several people have been killed, the blast was big, we are gathering details but the number of those killed is around 11," police official Mohamed Adan...

UN’s Ban urges Abyei calm after chief, peacekeeper die

May 5 | KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 5 - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for calm after the top Dinka tribal chief and an Ethiopian peacekeeper were killed in an "attack" by a Misseriya tribesman in the disputed Abyei region. Ban "urges the governments of Sudan and South Sudan and the Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities to remain calm and avoid any escalation...

39 die in Nigerian religious violence: police

May 4 | KANO, Nigeria, May 4 - Thirty-nine people died and 30 were injured in fierce fighting between Christian and Muslim mobs in central Nigeria's Taraba state on Friday, prompting a round-the-clock curfew, police said. Scores of houses were set ablaze and destroyed during the clashes in the town of Wukari which come amid a surge in religious violence in...