AFP news

Printed in five denominations ranging from 10 to 200 rand (55 US cents to $10.90), the notes bear the portrait of the anti-apartheid hero sporting a subtle smile, and are slightly brighter in colour than their predecessors.

The government was still counting the cost as families prepared to bury their dead in the aftermath of a natural disaster caused by torrential rains in the steep and hilly country.

Prosecutors accuse Odero of links to cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who is in custody facing terrorism charges over the deaths of more than 100 people, many of them children.

In a case that critics said was politically motivated, Job Sikhala was found guilty by a Harare court almost a year after he was first arrested, and after spending more than 300 days behind bars pending the verdict.

In eastern Ukraine, a few soldiers bustle around an old Soviet mortar stuck in the mud. All Belarusian volunteers, they have taken up arms against Russia's invasion to fight for democracy.

Gabon lies on the edge of the Gulf of Guinea, which remains a hotspot for maritime robbery and ransom kidnapping of seafarers despite a global decline in piracy.

The small country in the Great Lakes region of Africa has been hit by similar disasters in the past but this appears to be the deadliest in several years.

The bank said it looked forward to working with Banga on its "ambitions and efforts aimed at tackling the toughest development challenges facing developing countries."

Kyiv insisted it had "nothing to do" with the alleged attack, suggesting it was "staged" by Moscow, while the US said the report should be taken with a "shaker of salt".

The UN's World Meteorological Organization said it now estimated there was a 60-percent chance that El Nino would develop by the end of July, and an 80-percent chance it would do so by the end of September.

At least 528 people have been killed and nearly 4,600 wounded, according to the latest health ministry figures, which are likely to be incomplete.

Workers in central Cape Town are putting the finishing touches on the 54-room Hemp Hotel, which is due to be completed in June.

Norway and North Korea remain best and worst, respectively, for press freedom, according to the 21st annual report, which was published on World Press Freedom Day.

Scholz's government sees great potential in achieving energy and climate partnerships with Nairobi, a government source said.

After decades of underinvestment, Europe's defence industry is struggling to adapt to a surge in demand sparked by Russia's war on its pro-Western neighbour.

Russian territory and Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have been hit in recent days by a series of attacks.

Some 1,500 troops will be sent to the border, adding to the 2,500 already there to support Border Patrol authorities in the face of a possible new gush of frontier crossings.

Armed men in military uniform slaughtered residents of Karma village in the jihadist-hit Sahel nation's volatile north on April 20.

Legislators amended portions of the draft law to clarify that identifying as gay would not be criminalised, but "engaging in acts of homosexuality" would be an offence punishable with life imprisonment.

The fighting took the capital's five million residents by surprise, and many were unprepared to survive for weeks on the stocks of food and other basic goods they had at home.

For a country already suffering from a shrinking labour force because of persistently low birth rates, the conflict means even more difficulties that could persist for years.

Hundreds have been killed and thousands wounded as air strikes and artillery exchanges have gripped swathes of greater Khartoum sparking the exodus of thousands of Sudanese to neighbouring countries.

The village lies a few hundred metres (yards) from the border with West Darfur, which with the capital Khartoum is among the worst-hit provinces in the Sudan conflict.

Experts carrying out the first post-mortems on more than 100 bodies unearthed in a coastal forest examined nine children aged one to 10 as well as one woman.

The opposition leader had said after the incident that he spent five days in a private clinic in Dakar for treatment, and that samples had been taken from his clothes and sent abroad to check their content.

Deeply religious and Christian-majority with more than 4,000 registered churches, Kenya has been stunned by the revelations of seeking God by starvation.

The Pompidou, a popular attraction in the Marais district of the French capital, has opened the exhibition in its minimalist halls dedicated to NFTs which could give the digital art form a much-needed lift.

There, families have been "sleeping on the ground out in the open", said Oktay Oglu, a Turkish engineer who worked at a factory in the capital Khartoum before escaping with his family.

The chosen spot is between a small road and some woods, about six kilometres from the Russian frontline.