Mali was under a state of emergency on Saturday after a brazen siege by gunmen at a five-star hotel killed 21 people in the heart of the capital, Bamako. A breakaway al-Qaeda faction from the country’s restive north claimed responsibility for the attack. Three days of mourning were announced by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who also clarified the death toll after Malian state televison reported late Friday it was 27 victims dead along with three attackers. “This evening the death toll is heavy and terrible: 21 dead, two [assailants] amongst them and seven wounded,” Keita said. The president cut short…
Author: AMA
South Africa’s military said it dismissed 47 peacekeepers serving in the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo for violating curfew. South African National Defence Force spokesman Brigadier General Xolani Mabanga said the soldiers were fired for breaking a “curfew in the eastern Congo where they were based” in September. The soldiers’ actions “compromised the security” of other South African troops deployed in the area, he said on Wednesday. “We don’t know where they were, who they were with and what could have happened thereafter,” he said. South African media speculated the soldiers visited a pub frequented by…
Rwanda’s upper house of parliament has unanimously approved a constitutional amendment to allow President Paul Kagame to seek a third term. The vote by the Senate on Tuesday clears the path for a referendum that is not expected to face much opposition. Earlier this year, more than 60 percent of voters signed a petition calling for constitutional changes to be drafted that would allow Kagame to stand again. Senate head Bernard Makuza said that Kagame, whose current term ends in 2017, could run for another seven-year term and then two five-year terms, possibly keeping him in power until 2034. “But…
Utrecht, The Netherlands – When actor Bright O Richards came to Holland as a refugee of the Liberian civil war, he bought himself a pair of brightly coloured wooden shoes. He wore them everywhere he went. As an African in clogs, he attracted a lot of attention. Everywhere he went, people would strike up a conversation with him. “In a way, with those clogs, I secured myself a public again,” he says. “In Liberia, I was a celebrity. But as a refugee, I totally lost my identity. I was a nobody. But thanks to those clogs people couldn’t help noticing…
At least four people have been killed in shooting attacks and explosions in the capital of Burundi, according to witnesses and local officials. The overnight attacks on Sunday in Bujumbura came despite a UN plea for both sides to end the violence and attend talks. Attackers targeted a police post in the south of Bujumbura, killing one police officer and injuring another, a policeman, who witnessed the incident and did not wish to be named, said. Dieudonne Nduwayo, administrative secretary of Bujumbura’s Bwiza zone, said three other people had been killed in different places within Bujumbura’s Mukaza district. Freddy Mbonimpa,…
At least 15 Sudanese refugees have been shot dead and eight more injured in Egypt’s Sinai region as they reportedly attempted to enter Israel. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Egyptian security officials told the Associated Press that the refugees were killed while caught in the crossfire between security forces and people smugglers on Sunday. Earlier in the day, however, officials said that security forces had shot the Sudanese as they approached the border fence separating the Sinai and southern Israel. Most of the people being smuggled through the Sinai are fleeing political violence in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia, among…
Mondika, Congo – Over the past 60 years, illegal hunting and logging have been the main causes of an estimated 80 percent reduction in the numbers of chimpanzees and gorillas in Congo’s Mondika wildlife reserve. Since 1988, the apes have gone from vulnerable, to endangered, to critically endangered – and conservationists say the forests of central Africa’s Goualougo Triangle are being lost at an alarming rate. They have helped turn a number of animal hunters into wildlife trackers, who now protect their former prey. http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201511/3951/665003303001_4613918080001_20151115-CongoApes-JHE-Nostraps.mp4 By John Hendren via [Al Jazeera]
The Congo Basin in Africa, the world’s second-largest tropical forest, is facing a growing threat of deforestation carried out to clear the way for palm oil plantations. Environmentalists fear that increasing forest fires and illegal logging are putting endangered species and the ecosystem at greater peril. The destruction could also affect millions of people who depend on the Congo Basin for their livelihood. Al Jazeera’s John Hendren reports from the Republic of Congo. http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201511/841/665003303001_4612924249001_20151114-cong-nostraps.mp4 By John Hendren via [Al Jazeera]
Marikana will haunt South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa for the rest of his career. Ramaphosa revealed on Thursday in parliament that he’s been summoned by lawyers representing the victims of Marikana – they insist he’s to blame for the police shooting 34 striking platinum miners in 2012. Ramaphosa was a director and shareholder at the Lonmin platinum mine at the time of the massacre. He was involved in an email exchange with the ministers of mineral resources and police in which it’s alleged he pressured them to take action. This was all before Ramaphosa became deputy president. But he…
The families of South African striking miners shot dead by police at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in 2012 have issued a court summons for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa over complicity in their deaths, the presidency said. The violence around the Marikana mine during a strike in August, 2012, culminated in the police shooting 34 striking miners dead. “A summons has indeed been served on lawyers of Deputy President Ramaphosa arising from the Marikana tragedy. Ramaphosa has instructed his lawyers to defend the action,” a statement released on Thursday by the presidency said. Ramaphosa was a director and shareholder at Lonmin at…