African news : breaking news, features, analysis

Angola says it will allow four experts from the European Union (EU) to monitor its election later this month, the AFP news agency reports.

"The EU will only send a small mission... We cannot really speak of observers, only experts. A real mission of observers is 200 people," a European diplomatic source told the AFP.

Somalia officials say a key al-Shabab commander has been killed in an American airstrike.

A statement from the US Africa Command did not name the dead man, but said one fighter had been killed near Tortorow in southern Somalia.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has said he is "deeply shocked and saddened" by the murder of Kenya’s Electoral Commission Information Technology (IT) Manager, Mr Chris Msando.

Msando was in charge of the electronic voting system for Kenya's election before he was found dead at the weekend.

No fewer than five Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have been killed and six others injured as suicide bombers blew up themselves at an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Dikwa, Borno State.

An outspoken member of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) party has been charged with ill-discipline for speaking out against President Jacob Zuma.

The Member of Parliament (MP), Ms Makhosi Khoza, had repeatedly called on Mr Zuma to resign. Last week, she said he was a disgrace.

Ethiopia says that only a fraction of its citizens working illegally in Saudi Arabia have returned home before today's amnesty deadline.   In March, the Gulf state said that those without papers would not be arrested if they left within 90 days.

Malian and French troops have arrested a close associate of a preacher whose jihadist group has claimed dozens of attacks against Western and Malian targets, Mali's security minister said yesterday.

Macina Liberation Front, based in central Mali's Mopti region, is led by cleric Amadou Koufa who has called upon followers to take up arms and rebuild the historic Fulani empire of Massina.

Egyptian security forces have killed eight suspected Islamist militants belonging to the Hasm movement in what officials said was a training camp in a southern desert region, the interior ministry said yesterday.

Five other militants were arrested in operations carried out in Giza and Sharqiya regions, it said. Automatic rifles, ammunitions and supplies were recovered at the Fayoum camp southwest of the capital, the ministry said.

Three Kenyan men who stripped and attacked a woman in a bus have been sentenced to death by a magistrate in the capital, Nairobi. The death sentence was imposed after the three were convicted of robbery with violence, a Star newspaper reporter told the BBC.

“A bus driver Nicholas Mwangi, conductor Meshack Mwangi and petrol station attendant Edward Ndung’u were found guilty of robbery with violence and assault by the Nairobi Chief Magistrate, Francis Andayi,” the Daily Nation newspaper has reported.

Thousands of Malians have taken to the streets to protest against a planned referendum on constitutional changes that would give extra powers to President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, create new regions and recognise the Tuareg's ethnic homeland.

The government of Mali has delayed the vote, which was originally planned for last week, but still plans to go ahead with it this year.

Voters in the Republic of Congo go to the polls on Sunday in legislative elections, the first since violence-marred presidential polls last year which returned Denis Sassou Nguesso to power.

While no fresh violence is expected, opposition parties have cried foul, as over two million voters are expected to cast their ballots in the first round of polling to elect National Assembly members as well as local councils.

More than 30 people are missing after a boat belonging to an elite Cameroonian military unit sank off the country's coast on Sunday, according to the president's office.

The logistics boat belonging to the Rapid Intervention Brigade, which has fought the Nigeria-based armed group Boko Haram in recent years, was carrying 37 people when it capsized early on Sunday morning, the Cameroonian presidency said in a statement.

The Embassy of France in Ghana has started a new programme to modernise and extend the teaching and learning of the French language in Ghana, the French Ambassador, Mr François Pujolas, announced this during a reception to mark this year’s French National Day at the residency in Accra.

Beyond this programme, the embassy is working on pilot bilingual classes with the Ministry of Education, the Ambassador stated.

President Muhammadu Buhari is "recuperating fast" and will return home "very soon",  says Nigeria's acting head of state Yemi Osinbajo. He made the announcement at a press conference yesterday morning, after visiting Mr Buhari at the London hospital where he is being treated for an unspecified illness.

Mr Osinbajo, now back in Nigeria, said he had discussed a wide range of issues during the hour-long meeting, a BBC report said.

At least 55 UN peacekeepers are accused of sexual exploitation and abuse of civilians across UN missions around the globe since January 2017, new UN data show.

Data released late on Friday night also showed a new case of sexual exploitation was registered against Republic of Congo peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR), less than 10 days after the United Nations announced the withdrawal of Congolese troops from the UN's mission over a string of allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse.

A Ugandan Anglican Chaplain, Rev Canon Christine Shimanya, has advised congregants to give offertories in American dollars and British pounds reports the Daily Monitor.

Subjected gunmen from the militant Islamist group al-Shabab have attacked a police post in Kenya's coastal town of Lamu near the Somalia border, police confirmed to the BBC.

Libyan military spokesperson Ahmed al-Mesmary last Tuesday accused Qatar, Sudan and Turkey of supporting terrorism in the conflict-torn Arab country. "By supporting terrorists, Qatar committed crimes against humanity in Libya," Mesmary told reporters at a press conference in the Egyptian capital Cairo.