AFRICA

WTO members made history when the General Council agreed by consensus to select Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria as the organization’s seventh Director-General. When she takes office on 1 March, Dr Okonjo-Iweala will become the first woman and the first African to be chosen as Director-General. Her term, renewable, will expire on …

Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say more than 60 people have drowned after a barge capsized and sank on the Congo River. Three-hundred people have been rescued but possibly 200 others are unaccounted for following the accident. Locals said the boat hit a rock east of the capital, …

A South African judge says he wants ex-President Jacob Zuma to be given a jail sentence for failing to appear before him to answer corruption allegations. Mr Zuma, 79, ignored a summons to appear before a commission of inquiry being chaired by Justice Ray Zondo. The judge said Mr Zuma’s …

Hassabo Mohamed Abdel Rahman, who once served as vice-president to Sudan’s ousted long-serving leader Omar al-Bashir, has been arrested for fomenting weeks of protests against rising food prices. Other senior members of Bashir’s administration have also been detained. Hassabo Mohamed Abdel Rahman served as one of Sudan’s vice-presidents between 2013 …

President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he himself will be leading the ANC’s presentations to the state capture inquiry. This as Ramaphosa is expected to lead the ANC’s top six in a meeting with former president Jacob Zuma early this week to convince him to co-operate with the commission. In his …

A woman was airlifted to hospital after she slipped and fractured her right ankle on a  Magaliesberg mountain on Saturday afternoon, paramedics said. Netcare911 spokesperson Shawn Herbst said the incident happened at around 4pm. Herbst said paramedics, the Mountain Club of SA, Off Road Rescue Unit, Mogale city fire and …

Mpumalanga police commissioner Lt-Gen Mondli Zuma has called on officers to seek urgent help when faced with domestic challenges following a tragic shooting incident involving a female officer. Police spokesperson Brig Leonard Hlathi said the call came after a 28-year-old constable allegedly shot her 33-year-old partner and their five-month-old son …

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed for calm after at least 10 people were killed in ethnic violence in the southern city of Ibadan. Mr Buhari called on religious and traditional leaders not to allow ethnic or religious groups to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups. “I appeal …

An Ethiopian schoolgirl has told the BBC how she lost her right hand defending herself from a soldier who tried to rape her – and who had also tried to force her grandfather to have sex with her. The 18-year-old, who we are not naming, has been in hospital in …

At least 10 people have died during ethnic clashes that began at a busy market in the Nigerian city of Ibadan in Oyo State. The governor of south-western Oyo State has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew to contain the violence in the city. It began after a wheelbarrow pusher, believed to …