Author: Amnewsworld

In Somalia, Sunday, a majority of members of parliament approved the country’s appointed cabinet by a show of hands. Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre’s 75-member government was confirmed moments after mortar shells struck residential neighborhoods near the presidential palace in Mogadishu. “The quorum is 237 MPs, seven MPs refused, one MP abstained while some 229 MPs endorsed the approval the new cabinet ministers, therefore it is approved”, the speaker of the house,  Adan Mohamed Nuur Madobe, said. If there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, security challenges will remain top of the agenda of the newly appointed…

The head of Chad’s military government, Mahamat Idriss Deby, is expected to sign Monday, a peace deal with rebel groups which took part in the Doha talks with the Chadian authorities. Ahead of the signing, the Chadian ruler met with his host Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who backs a “comprehensive national reconciliation in” the Sahelian state. AFP news agency reported some 40 rebel factions could sign the deal, according to diplomatic sources. After months of talks between, it remains unclear whether the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, the main rebel group in the country, will sign the…

US top diplomat landed at Lanseria International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his three-nation tour of Africa. He visited the Hector Pieterson memorial in Soweto township, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It is with Antoinette Sithole, the sister of the late Hector that the diplomat laid a wreath at the memorial which honors the student killed in 1976 when protesting South Africa’s regime racist regime of apartheid. “Hector’s story is one that really resonates because we have our own struggle for freedom and equality in the United States and South Africa’s story is unique…

High diving competitors at a water reservoir in rural Czech Republic beat the heat, by jumping into water by up to 25 meters high platforms. AMN/Reporters/Czech.

At least one person has been killed in and another severely injured in flooding caused by torrential rain in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, on Friday. It is the second time in less than a month heavy downpours have turned roads into muddy rivers and submerged underpasses. Some drivers described frightening scenes, including Tahar Trabelsi, a Tunisian engineer living in Dakar. “There were a lot of traffic jams, we were completely blocked,” he said. “We weren’t moving forward and – with the rain – there was a lot of water coming in – and little by little, the water was rising. So…

Mali’s government has said it will integrate 26,000 ex-fighters from a northern rebellion group into its army as part of a deal with the former independence movement. The agreement was struck in a meeting on Friday between the two parties and suggest a new energy in the stalled reconciliation deal, signed several years ago. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga. Also attending the event were the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General and head of the peacekeeping mission in Mali, El Ghassim Wane, and other ambassadors. A peace deal between the government and non-extremist armed…

Shiite Muslims take part in a mourning ritual in Iraq’s southern city of Basra, during the Muslim month of Muharram in the lead-up to Ashura. AMN/News Report/Mecca.

Authorities in Uganda have suspended the work of a high profile LGBTQ rights group, calling it an ‘illegal entity.’ Sexual Minorities Uganda has been the nation’s most prominent support group for LGBTQ people since 2004 but its leader, Frank Mugisha, said on Saturday the authorities had told him to suspend activities due to a lack of documentation. He said the case against the group stems from the name itself, which the registrar of companies considers to be unsuitable. A judge agreed and the group is awaiting the judgement of a higher court. Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited in Uganda under…

The Malian army and “white soldiers” were involved in the deaths of 33 civilians, including 29 Mauritanians and four Malians in Mali according to a report by United Nations experts consulted by AFP on Friday. The disappearance of these civilians on 5 March in Robinet El Ataye, in the Segou region near the Mauritanian border, had caused a stir in Mali and Mauritania. Nouakchott accused the Malian army of “recurrent criminal acts” against Mauritanian citizens in this border region. Bamako had said that nothing implicated its army. The two countries had launched a joint investigation, the results of which had…

When Shieh Jhy-Wey looks out his office window, he can see the German Cathedral in Berlin. From where he sits in the Taipei Representative Office, it is less than a half-hour walk to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. Yet the two offices are worlds apart. The visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has escalated tensions between Beijing, Washington and Taipei. Shieh told DW how tensions are not merely between Taiwan and China, rather “two value systems”: dictatorship and democracy. Taiwan’s representative in Berlin may not be called an ‘ambassador’ German foreign policy faces a dilemma: China is Germany’s…