Africa (except North Africa)

MOGADISHU, Sept 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Somalia’s attorney general has appointed a special prosecutor for crimes against journalists.

The prosecutor will probe and prosecute “those who carried out killings and maiming of journalists,” Dr Suleiman Mohamed Mohamud said in a statement.

He added that perpetrators would face the full force of the law.

This comes four months after the Banadir regional court directed the attorney general’s office to investigate allegations of killing of journalists in the country.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The legal team for “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina has filed a complaint with the United Nations special rapporteur on torture asserting that Rusesabagina faces an “immediate risk” of cruel treatment as he remains cut off from lawyers, consular officials and his family more than a week after he appeared in handcuffs in Rwanda.

The complaint filed Monday with Nils Melzer asks for an immediate investigation to make sure Rusesabagina, long an outspoken critic of Rwanda’s government, “is still alive.”

NIAMEY, Sept 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Soldiers in Niger executed dozens of civilians during the counterinsurgency campaign against extremists in the country’s troubled Tillaberi region earlier this year, a probe into the deaths reported.

The West African nation has suffered years of conflict with militants operating in the vast and inhospitable Sahel desert, with thousands of soldiers and civilians killed to date.

BAMAKO, Sept 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mali’s ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta has been admitted to a hospital in the capital Bamako.

The media quoted two anonymous sources at a clinic where the former leader is reportedly being treated.

The 75-year-old politician was detained for 10 days by the military junta before he announced his resignation and was later freed to stay at his home.

During mediation talks he was quoted as saying that he was not interested in the presidency.

NAIROBI, Sept 2 (NNN) –– Policymakers can improve the chances of achieving climate goals and limiting global warming to 1.5oC by making more specific commitments to transforming national food systems, a report jointly published by WWF, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), EAT and Climate Focus says. 

The report, Enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for Food Systems, published on Sept 1, said countries were missing significant opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

NAIROBI, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The family of Paul Rusesabagina - hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about Rwanda’s 1994 genocide - has demanded that authorities in Kigali charge him in an international court after his sudden detention, his son told Reuters on Wednesday.

Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager, was played by Don Cheadle in the Oscar-nominated film ‘Hotel Rwanda’, which told how he used his job and his connections with the Hutu elite to protect Tutsis fleeing the slaughter.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Two crew members from a tugboat involved in cleaning up an oil spill off Mauritius were killed late on Monday when their vessel collided with a barge in bad weather, a local lawmaker said.

Four other members of the crew were rescued by helicopter and two were still missing, Mahend Gungerpersad, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour Party, told Reuters on Tuesday.

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed in the film “Hotel Rwanda” as a hero who saved the lives of more than 1,200 people from the country’s 1994 genocide, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges, police announced on Monday.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda since 1996 and police did not say where he was apprehended. He had been living in Belgium and then in Texas in the U.S.

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria), Aug 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Not less than 23,000 persons, mostly children were reported missing in eight years in Nigeria, a new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has stated.

According to the report, which was released to mark the annual International Day for the Disappeared (Aug 30), coronavirus pandemic hindered the search and reunification of missing persons as large gatherings of persons were discouraged.

ACCRA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced here on Sunday that the country is going to resume international flights on Sept.1 after a nearly five-month suspension.

In the meantime, the West African country's land and sea entry points would remain closed, the president said.

Akufo-Addo said in his latest COVID-19 nationwide broadcast that each traveler coming into the country would be required to produce a negative COVID-19 test result from a certified laboratory in their countries of origin.