Africa (except North Africa)

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Eighteen suspected robbers were shot and killed during a shootout with South African police in the Limpopo province, the police said on Friday.

Addressing the media from the crime scene in Makhado in South Africa's northernmost province, national police commissioner Fannie Masemola said the suspects were allegedly planning a cash-in-transit (CIT) heist and were responsible for similar crimes in other provinces.

"We do believe this syndicate has been involved in a number of CITs in this province, Mpumalanga and Gauteng," Masemola said.

JUBA, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- President of South Sudan Salva Kiir on Thursday night appointed James Morgan Pitia as the country's new minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation.

In a presidential decree broadcast on the state-owned television, the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation, Kiir appointed Pitia who had previously served as the country's ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative to the African Union.

Kiir sacked acting foreign minister Deng Dau Deng who had been in charge of the ministry since March.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Search teams finished checking a derelict Johannesburg apartment building a day after one of South Africa’s deadliest fires broke out there as pathologists faced the grisly task Friday of identifying charred bodies and body parts that were transported in large trucks to mortuaries across the city.

The death toll from Thursday’s predawn blaze rose to 76 after two people died in a hospital overnight, Health Minister Joe Phaahla told reporters. At least 12 of the victims were children, authorities said.

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 31 (NNN-GNA) — The entry of Ethiopia into Brics is likely to spur increased trade and investment relations with the East African Community (EAC) bloc, according to Ethiopia’s ambassador to Tanzania.

The Horn of Africa country, the second most populous in sub Saharan Africa, is currently one of the fastest growing economies in the continent.

Shibru Mamo Kedida said Ethiopia’s entry into Brics would have a positive impact on the Horn of Africa and East Africa.

NIAMEY, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Niger's ruling junta has ordered police to expel France's ambassador, a move marking a further downturn in relations, and one that authorities in Paris said the army officers who seized power in Niamey last month had no authority to make.

The coup's leaders are following the strategy of juntas in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso in distancing themselves from the region's former colonial power amid a wave of anti-French sentiment.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A nighttime fire ripped through a rundown apartment building mainly occupied by homeless people and squatters in Johannesburg early Thursday, leaving at least 74 dead, officials said. Some people threw babies out of third-story windows to others waiting below in the desperate scramble to evacuate, witnesses said.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The ouster of Gabon’s president by mutinous soldiers appears to have been well organized and capitalized on the population’s grievances against the government as an excuse to seize power, analysts said.

Soldiers on Wednesday ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family has ruled the oil-rich country in Central Africa for more than five decades. The coup leaders accused Bongo of irresponsible governance that risked leading the country into chaos and said they put him under house arrest and detained several Cabinet members.

PRETORIA, August 30. /TASS/: The military officers who took power in Gabon have named Republican Guard head General Brice Oligui Nguema as transitional leader, Reuters reported, citing a statement one of the rebels read out on national television.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported earlier that the rebels planned to choose a transitional leader at a meeting of generals on Wednesday.

LIBREVILLE, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Gabonese military have canceled presidential election results and dissolved state institutions, officers said Wednesday, claiming that they have taken power and put President Ali Bongo under house arrest.

In a televised statement, a group of senior Gabonese officers said that they seized power after Bongo, the incumbent president, was announced to be re-elected in a contested election. The election results were cancelled, state institutions dissolved, and all borders closed until further notice, they said.

MAPUTO, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi has encouraged foreign investors to plow money into the country's natural resource industries.

President Nyusi made the remarks in his address Monday at the inauguration of the 58th Maputo International Fair, the country's most prominent trade exhibition that will end Sunday in Ricatla, Maputo province.