Eurasia

Niamey – Niger’s air force bombed a Boko Haram base in the country’s southeast and arrested more than 20 militants, security sources said on Thursday, in its biggest counter-attack in eight months. Members of the Islamist militant group based mostly in north-eastern Nigeria have repeatedly attacked the Lake Chad area, …

Egypt’s president and Britain’s prime minister have agreed on the need for “the tightest possible security” at the Sinai resort airport where a doomed Russian airliner departed, London said. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and David Cameron spoke by telephone ahead of the Egyptian leader’s visit to London, according to a statement …

South Sudan’s army and rebel forces have agreed to deploy joint military units in the capital, a key stage of a peace deal aimed to end nearly two years of war. Both sides have repeatedly traded blame for breaking an August 26 peace deal, the eighth such agreement.

Warring parties in South Sudan are expanding stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in violation of an August peace deal and President Salva Kiir risks fueling violence with plans to almost triple the number of states in the country, said UN experts. In a report to the UN Security Council, seen …

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set to hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday on security and the Sinai plane crash, as concerns mount it could have been caused by a bomb. Sisi’s visit is his first to Britain since he led the Egyptian army’s overthrow …

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Wednesday for negotiations in the coming months to settle the frozen conflict over Western Sahara, at the centre of tensions between Morocco and African countries. “This conflict must be brought to an end if the people of the region are to meet …

Egypt’s top court on Thursday postponed the final trial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak over the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule. The Cassation Court adjourned Mubarak’s second and final retrial until January 21 and ordered that it be moved from the High …

Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists are killing more civilians in Libya than the other warring factions, but all sides are committing “large-scale crimes,” International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said on Thursday. Of the 37 car and suicide bombings recorded this year in Libya, 27 have been attributed to the …

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi met with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Cairo on Tuesday, the State held MENA. According to the spokesman of the Presidency Alaa Youssef, Mogherini said that his visit aims at strengthening the Egyptian-European relations through constructive dialogue between Egypt and the EU institutions. …

The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved the appointment of German UN official Martin Kobler as the new UN special envoy to Libya, said diplomats, though it was unclear when he would take over mediating stalled peace talks. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon notified the 15-member council in a letter, …