African news : breaking news, features, analysis

The leader of South Africa's opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has launched his party's campaign for the upcoming local elections, promising to rescue citizens from poverty, unemployment and corrupt government.

Preparations are virtually set in Kenya’s Nairobi National Park where a huge stockpile of illegal elephant and rhino tusks plus a small collection of ivory figurines are to be destroyed on Saturday.

The ivory were confiscated by Kenyan authorities.

The effort, a symbolic disapproval of the trade threatening elephants with extinction, according to an account by AFP, will see the 105 tonnes of ivory which represents thousands of dead elephants go up in flames on specially prepared pyres.

It is reported that rhino horns account for 1.35 tonnes of the lot from over 340 rhinos and estimated to value as much as $80 million on the black market while the quantity of ivory could sell for over $100 million.

A court in Cameroon has jailed for life the former head of the defunct national carrier Camair, Yves Michel Fotso, on conviction of embezzling almost $56 million, legal sources said Tuesday. Fotso, already sentenced to 25 years behind bars in a separate graft case, “took the rap for life,” said a source close to the Special Criminal Tribunal, set up in the central African country to try major corruption cases.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema has never received less than 97 percent of the vote in an election. On Monday, with partial results indicating that 99.2 percent of the vote has gone in his favor, Equatorial Guinea's leader was surely all set for another seven years in a seat that has no doubt molded to his figure.

A court in Nigeria has sentenced a former local MP to 154 years in jail for corruption and money laundering.

South African politician Julius Malema says the opposition "will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun" if the ruling African National Congress (ANC) continues to respond violently to peaceful protests.

Authorities in Mali say they have arrested a Mauritanian man suspected of masterminding deadly attacks on hotels in the country last year.

 Citizens of Equatorial Guinea are heading to the polls in a vote expected to hand the incumbent president, Africa's longest serving leader, another seven-year term in office.

The frequent changes in governments and policies, coupled with the lack of long-term programmes by African governments, have been blamed for the poor development and low foreign direct investments in the continent.

The insufficiency in related laws and policies and the inadequate enforcement by the governments are also common problems for African countries.

The Director General of the Department of African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Mr Lin Songtian, made this observation when he addressed the opening ceremony of the 5th China Africa Think Tanks Forum which is underway in Yiwu, China. 

Gunmen from South Sudan have killed at least 140 civilians, including women and children, in a raid in Ethiopia's Gambela region, according to the Ethiopian government.

Zambian police have officially charged two journalists working for the privately-owned Post newspaper for defaming President Edgar Lungu.

Boko Haram's use of child bombers has increased over the last year with one in five suicide attacks now done by children, the UN's child agency says.

Pirates have attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria kidnapping six of the crew, says the Nigerian navy.

The question was always the same, she says. So, too, was the answer. 

"They came to us to pick us," Fati recalls. "They would ask, 'Who wants to be a suicide bomber?' The girls would shout, 'me, me, me.' They were fighting to do the suicide bombings."

Young girls fighting to strap on a bomb, not because they were brainwashed by their captors' violent indoctrination methods but because the relentless hunger and sexual abuse -- coupled with the constant shelling -- became too much to bear. 

Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh has won a landslide victory in an election criticised by opposition parties and rights groups.

Officials said Mr Guelleh won 87% of Friday's vote, which activists complained was preceded by political repression and curbs on basic freedoms.

The people of Chad are voting in a presidential election widely expected to deliver President Idriss Deby a fifth term in office.

Mr Deby, who took power in a coup 26 years ago, is seen by Western governments as a bulwark against Islamist militants in central Africa.

The first lady of the Islamic Republic of The Gambia, Madam Zineb Yahya Jammeh, says that country has adopted a multi-sectoral approach to the empowerment of its women.

In line with this, she said, the government had been investing in vocational and skills training for the youth and women and facilitating their access to grants and concessionary financing to enhance employment and self-employment.

South Africa's parliament is due to vote on an opposition-sponsored motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said he was no longer fit to govern after the country's highest court ruled last week that he had breached the constitution by failing to repay public money used to upgrade his private residence.

The governing African National Congress (ANC) is expected to defeat the motion.