A Somali pirate was sentenced by a US district court to 25 years in prison for attacking a Danish ship off the coast of Somalia in 2008, for which he and other pirates received a $1.7 million ransom.
As pro-Alassane Ouattara forces move into Abidjan, residents who support rival Laurent Gbagbo fear reprisals. Reports of atrocities on both sides are mounting—including people being burned alive.
The shelling of a market in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, which killed at least 25 people and wounded 40, may be a crime against humanity, the UN says. Laurent Gbagbo denied responsibility and urged his people to “fight the rebels.”
Some 20 prisoners escaped in Burkina Faso after middle and high school students set four police stations on fire to protest the killing of four youth by police last month.
Rebel militias have risen in South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states—fueling fears of a Khartoum strategy to take back lands from the SPLA before the South’s formal secession in July.
Government troops in the Comoros killed or repelled French-speaking white mercenaries who tried to seize control of part of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation.
Senegal cut diplomatic ties with Iran, accusing Tehran of arming separatist rebels in its restive southern Casamance region, where 16 soldiers have been killed this year.
A federal judge in Virginia ruled that former Somali prime minister Mohamed Ali Samantar is not entitled to legal immunity from civil lawsuits over human rights abuses.
At least 20 are dead in two days of clashes in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, as a pro-Khartoum militia refused to withdraw to the North following the vote for secession.
Students clashed with police in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities as protesters demanded that President Omar al-Bashir turn himself in to the International Criminal Court.
Protesters clashed with riot police in Gabon, following contested elections and WikiLeaks revelations of corruption in President Ali Bongo Odimba’s ruling dynasty.
Obama’s State of the Union address praised the vote for secession in South Sudan—but an inter-imperial struggle for oil and pipeline routes lies behind US support for the referendum.
