Africa (except North Africa)

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — As emergencies go, it has a catchy tune. Faced with a Nigerian election that could spiral into violence, some in the popular film industry known as Kannywood gathered this week to shoot an urgent music video appealing for peace.

On an impromptu set outside the northern city of Kano, young women bickered between takes but at “Rolling!” smiled and swiveled in unison as male dancers sashayed by. While a drone camera buzzed overhead, a singer gestured and lip-synced a plea for Africa’s largest democracy to keep its cool.

YAOUNDE, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- More than 100 students and teachers of a private college in Northwest, one of the two war-torn English-speaking regions of Cameroon, were kidnapped on early Saturday, according to school authorities.

School officials earlier told Xinhua that only eleven students and three teachers had been kidnapped, but further investigations have revealed that more than 100 students and teachers have been kidnapped.

KANO, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria’s electoral commission says the presidential election is delayed until Feb. 23 over unspecified “challenges” amid reports that voting materials have not been delivered to all parts of the country.

Commission chairman Mahmood Yakubu spoke to reporters a little over five hours before polls were supposed to open in Africa’s most populous country and largest democracy.

The commission promised more details at a 2 p.m. briefing in the capital, Abuja.

KIGALI, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- African coffee products could dominate the global market in the next five years as some countries have expanded coffee growing acreage and raised quality of coffee produce, experts told Xinhua on Friday.

Production of coffee in Africa could rise by more than 2 million bags in each of the next five years, as farming improves in most coffee-growing countries like Ethiopia, Cote d'Ivoire, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, said Peter Kettler, global product manager for coffee at Fairtrade International.

KAMPALA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's security agencies and immigration department have deported the chief executive of the largest telecommunications company in the country over security reasons.

MTN Uganda on Friday confirmed the deportation of Wim Vanhelleputte.

"MTN has not been notified of the grounds for the deportation," the company tweeted.

Vanhelleputte, a Belgian national, was deported to Belgium late on Thursday over circumstances of threatening national security, said police spokesman Fred Enanga.

ABUJA, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a stampede during an election campaign rally on Tuesday in Nigeria's southern state of Rivers has risen to 15, a hospital spokesman revealed Wednesday.

Kem Daniel-Elebiga, a spokesman of the Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, said in a statement that casualty data from the hospital's emergency department indicated a total of 15 bodies were brought in dead, including three men and 12 women.

He said 12 injured people rushed to the hospital received timely treatment, and three of them had been discharged.

WINDHOEK, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hage Geingob, president of Namibia and chairperson of Southern African Development Community (SADC), on Sunday attacked the countries that sought to interfere in the affairs and sovereignty of the Republic of Venezuela.

A statement released by the presidency on Sunday said countries had sought to undermine a democratically elected government of Venezuela.

08 Feb 2019; DW: Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio declared rape and sexual violence a national emergency on Thursday, calling for an end to the culture of "indifference" and impunity surrounding it.

His announcement follows a national outcry over the prevalence of sexual violence in the West African nation, where recorded cases of sexual and gender-based violence doubled last year, reaching 8,505 in a population of 7.5 million, according to police statistics.

YAOUNDE, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy to Cameroon confirmed on Thursday that the Singapore-flagged oil tanker, seized by Cameroon military over commercial dispute since Feb. 1, has been released with all its 26 crew members on board, including two Chinese nationals.

The ship is managed by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping. In a statement published Wednesday, the company said the vessel departed Cameroon's western port of Limbe on Tuesday with all 26 crew members safe and unharmed.

ABUJA, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- A total of 41,000 Nigerians were killed by cancer in 2018, out of an estimated 166,000 cases recorded in the country, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

WHO's health emergency team lead in Nigeria, Clement Peter, made the disclosure here at a seminar in commemoration of the "2019 World Cancer Day," which is observed annually on Feb. 4.

The theme for this year's World Cancer Day is "I am and I will."