AFP news

Without evidence, the Tunisian president accused migrants of causing a wave of crime and plotting to change the country's demographic make-up.

Saied claimed that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and attacks.

Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron, visiting the country on the last leg of his African tour aimed at renewing frayed ties, said that all sides would support a ceasefire in the fighting.

Radio journalist Martinez Zogo, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in January, was outspoken against graft and financial sleaze and had often faced threats over his work.

Ukraine has vowed to defend "fortress Bakhmut" which Russian troops seem determined to take. Analysts say the city, which has been virtually destroyed in the fighting, has little real strategic value.

Thousands of people have come to seek help, either for themselves or for a loved-one, from a 20-year-old woman named Adja whose reputation for healing powers has spread across the country.

The Kremlin meanwhile warned the West against providing more arms to Ukraine, as key Kyiv backers President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were set to meet in Washington.

Macron said France harboured no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa ahead of an environment summit in Gabon, the first leg of his trip.

Tinubu, a former Lagos governor of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared winner of Saturday's election with 8.8 million votes and the required number of ballots across two-thirds of Nigeria's states.

The 1.2 billion people that comprise the planet's 46 least developed countries (LDCs) are "possibly bearing the heaviest brunt" of coronavirus, climate catastrophes and Russia's war in Ukraine, said Rabab Fatima.

"We have been advised by the parole board that the hearing will take place on the 31st of March, 2023," his lawyer Julian Knight told AFP. "It's an internal process."

South Africa's energy giant is crippled by debt, beset by corruption scandals and unable to keep the lights on.

Russia has been sending huge waves of Iranian Shahed drones across the country in recent months, many targeting power networks.

The Burkinabe foreign ministry advised the French government that the country was "renouncing the technical military assistance agreement reached in Paris on April 24 1961," according to the correspondence, dated Tuesday.

TotalEnergies has long been cautious about the possibility of restarting operations on the $20-billion onshore liquefied natural gas project in the African country's restive Cabo Delgado province.

Morocco's neighbour and arch-rival Algeria is pushing to relaunch plans for a Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline linking Nigeria to Algeria's Mediterranean coast via Niger.

Despite lingering questions about his health and past corruption allegations, the two-time Lagos governor will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army general he brags of helping put into power.

Macron's trip comes as alarm grows in Paris over Russia's rising influence in French-speaking African countries, alongside Chinese jockeying for position, which has been visible for some years.

Flower bouquets adorned each coffin in the building in Crotone, while a toy blue car had been laid on the smallest, ready for mourners to pay their respects.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, must still confirm whether Tinubu secured 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of Nigeria's 36 states and capital, a threshold he must hit to be confirmed president.

Work is underway "to strengthen assessment of the spread of the epidemic," said the statement, read on national television.

In recent weeks, online conspiracy theories conflating child sexual abuse at boarding schools with consensual same-sex acts between adults have reached fever pitch.

In a process known here as banking, residents pile layers of tyres, rubbish and sacks of earth into the water, pack the ballast with mud, and then build homes on top.

Conflict still torments the oil-rich but deeply-poor country half a decade after its leaders declared an end to the civil war that killed 380,000 people.

Musk called US media "racist" on Sunday after multiple American newspapers announced they would stop publishing a popular comic strip whose creator called Black people a hate group.

Oil is coming to this biodiverse but impoverished region on the eastern shores of Lake Albert -- and not everyone is pleased.

Crime studies say hiring a contract killer costs anywhere between $145 and $8,700 in South Africa, where assassinations have come under renewed spotlight after the murder of a popular rapper.

A local politician said "terrorists" had killed at least 13 civilians and burned homes in the village of Kani-Bonzon on Thursday, adding that the death toll could be as high as 20.

Russia, for its part, accused the United States, the European Union and the G7 nations of disrupting the ministers' meeting by trying to force through a joint statement on Ukraine.