Africa

All 43 political groups that have expressed interest in participating in the general elections have been approved by the National Electoral Commission to compete in the 9 October vote

After the first drops of Niger oil gushed out in Sémè Kraké, Benin, a couple of weeks ago, Beninese President Patrice Talon declared that Niger will not use its port to export oil, with diplomatic tensions threatening exports

The Migration Observatory has been launched with a physical space in Praia and a website gathering information on migratory movements; it aims at producing and analysing statistical data on migration, enabling research and scientific studies

Igor Martynov will be Russia's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Burkina Faso; the Russian diplomatic mission reopened in December after 31 years

40% of the Ethiopian population lacks proper personal documents, according to Yodahe Arayaselasie, CEO of the National ID Programme

A tribunal for economic and war crimes committed during the 14 years of civil war that plagued Liberia between the 1990s and 2000 will be established upon executive order signed by President Joseph Boakai

Médecins Sans Frontières has withdrawn staff from the Madani Teaching Hospital, the only functioning hospital for hundreds of thousands of people in the capital of Al Jazirah State - an 'extremely difficult' decision taken after months of challenges

Several members of the Assembly of People's Representatives asked the Tunisian government to clarify its policy on the migration issue and to explain the solutions adopted to tackle the phenomenon

Abubakar Tahiru, a 29-year-old forestry student from Ghana, set a new world record for the most trees hugged in one hour: 1123 trees, 19 a minute; the record-breaking challenge took place at the Tuskegee National Forest in Alabama, United States

Mahamat Idriss Deby's victory in the first round of the presidential elections was announced by the National Election Management Authority; the current transitional president, heir to his father-president Idriss Deby Itno, obtained 61% of the vote

Death penalty for traffickers of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin has been established as extreme measure, passed by Senate, in a radical move to combat drug trafficking

Diane Rwigara, a Rwandan activist known to be among the most critical of President Paul Kagame, has announced her intention to run in July's presidential elections; in 2017 she had been barred from running for 'technical reasons'