Africa (except North Africa)

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Monday said that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement is one of Africa's milestone trade policy that would serve as an imputes towards transforming Africa's future development.

"The AfCFTA is one of the milestone trade policy developments in Africa which is expected to change the way Africa does trade and catalyze transformation in a way trade policy has not done before," the ECA said in a statement on Monday.

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — An election observation group in Congo is reporting multiple complications as the country turns out for a presidential election.

Spokesman Luc Lutala with the Symotel civil society group says that “we knew there would be issues but this is way beyond what we expected.”

He says some polling stations have been moved at the last minute, confusing voters.

The group also has heard reports from every province saying voting machines in some cases are not working. The group has some 19,000 observers deployed around Congo.

28 Dec 2018; AFP: Patients being monitored as possible Ebola patients fled a camp in eastern DR Congo on Thursday after it was attacked by demonstrators protesting further delays to the country's election, the health ministry said.

Around 20 patients fled the centre during the incident, at a holding centre in the Beni region, the epicentre of this latest outbreak of the highly infectious and potentially fatal disease.

BUJUMBURA, Burundi, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China provides selfless assistance to help with Burundi's development and its people's livelihood, the Burundian foreign minister said Saturday.

The establishment of the diplomatic ties 55 years ago launched the sincere cooperation between the two countries, Burundian Foreign Minister Ezechiel Nibigira said at a reception celebrating the 55th anniversary of bilateral ties.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The U.S. military says it has killed eight members of the al-Shabab extremist group with an airstrike south of Somalia’s capital.

The U.S. Africa Command statement says the airstrike occurred on Saturday near Gandarshe, a coastal community. The statement says no civilians were involved.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s military on Friday suspended the activities of UNICEF in the extremist-threatened northeast, accusing the U.N. agency of “training selected persons for clandestine activities.”

The statement said UNICEF’s activities are on hold until further notice because it has “abdicated its primary duty of catering for the wellbeing of children and the vulnerable.”

Military spokesman Onyema Nwachukwu alleged that UNICEF carried out the training this week in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist group.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The second-largest Ebola outbreak in history has spread to a major city in eastern Congo, as health experts worry whether the stock of an experimental vaccine will stand up to the demands of an epidemic with no end in sight.

Butembo, with more than 1 million residents, is now reporting cases of the deadly hemorrhagic fever. That complicates Ebola containment work already challenged by rebel attacks elsewhere that have made tracking the virus almost impossible in some isolated villages.

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Stepping out of a helicopter last week, South Sudan armed opposition commander Ashab Khamis came face-to-face with his rival in a crushing five-year civil war, army Gen. Keer Kiir Keer.

The meeting, witnessed by The Associated Press, was their first attempt at reconciliation since the conflict began and a crucial test of a new peace agreement ending a war that has killed nearly 400,000 people.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak is now the second largest in history, behind the devastating West Africa outbreak that killed thousands a few years ago, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Peter Salama, called it a “sad toll” as Congo’s health ministry announced the number of cases has reached 426. That includes 379 confirmed cases and 47 probable ones. So far this outbreak, declared on Aug. 1, has 198 confirmed deaths, with another 47 probable ones, Congo’s health ministry said.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Poor countries around the world are facing a dangerous shortage of toilets that puts millions of live at risk, according to campaigners marking World Toilet Day by urging governments and businesses to invest more in sanitation.

The toilet crisis is most severe in parts of Africa and Asia facing extreme poverty and seeing a population boom.