Africa (except North Africa)

JOHANNESBURG, June 13 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. lawmakers is calling for a U.S.-Africa trade summit planned for later this year to be moved from South Africa in response to what they said was the country's "deepening military relationship" with Russia.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior officials, they also suggested South Africa is in danger of losing its benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) - Washington's flagship trade programme.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers wants the Biden Administration to punish South Africa for what they call its support for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine by relocating an important trade meeting to another country, according to a letter published Tuesday in The New York Times.

The lawmakers also said that South Africa’s “aid” for Russia, including allegedly supplying Moscow with weapons for its war in Ukraine, calls into question its eligibility to receive trade benefits from the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party expelled its former secretary-general on Monday for misconduct and other breaches of party rules while he also faces charges of corruption in a criminal case.

The once-influential Ace Magashule is on trial over the alleged misappropriation of money from a government contract worth more than $13 million when he was the premier of the Free State province before his rise to the top administrative position in the ANC.

MOGADISHU, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) and the United Nations have condemned the hotel terrorist attack that occurred in the capital, Mogadishu on Friday in which nine people were killed and ten others wounded.

In separate statements, the AU mission and UN in Somalia said terrorist attacks including the latest on Pearl Beach Hotel in Mogadishu by al-Shabab extremist group will not dissuade efforts to stabilize Somalia.

Johannesburg, June 10 (PTI) An international conference in South Africa pondered upon the issues that can be addressed using the principles of non-violence advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King.

LAGOS, June 10 (Reuters) - Nigeria's suspended central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele has been detained and is being held in custody for investigative reasons, the police's Department of State Services (DSS) said on Saturday.

The country's new President Bola Tinubu suspended Emefiele with immediate effect on Friday, a measure the government said was linked to an ongoing probe of the governor's office and to planned reforms in the financial sector.

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The death toll from clashes between displaced people inside a U.N. site in South Sudan has risen to more than 20, with more than 50 others wounded, the medical charity MSF said Friday.

The statement by the organization, which is also known as Doctors Without Borders, said that two of its staff were among those hurt. Some of the injured were being airlifted to the capital, Juba.

DAR ES SALAAM, June 4 (NNN-DAILYNEWS) — THE World Bank has approved a financing of 300 million US dollars (about 708bn/-) for implementation of Tanzania Food Systems Resilience Programme, which is a Programme for Results (PforR) under International Development Association (IDA).

The financing is part of a Multiphase Programmatic Approach (MPA) aimed at increasing resilience of the food system that was launched in June 2022, with the aim of increasing food resilience systems and preparedness for food insecurity in the participating countries.

KAMPALA, June 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 54 soldiers who served as African Union peacekeepers were killed when militants attacked a base housing Ugandan units in Somalia last week, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said.

“We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander,” Museveni said in a statement posted on his official Twitter account late Saturday.

Al-Shabaab, which has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia’s fragile central government for more than a decade, claimed responsibility for the dawn attack on May 26.

DAKAR, June 4 (Reuters) - Senegal's government has cut access to mobile internet services in certain areas because of deadly rioting in which "hateful and subversive" messages have been posted online, it said in a statement on Sunday.

The West African country has been rocked by three days of violent protests in which 16 people have died, one of its deadliest bouts of civil unrest in decades.