Africa

The UN children's agency said on March 1 it fears hundreds of boys were kidnapped last month in the northeast of South Sudan, raising suspicions that the abductors were from a pro-government militia.
      

An Egyptian presenter, working at one of the Egyptian stations broadcasting from Istanbul, was attacked at the station's building in the city on Feb. 24.

Egypt is forcing Libyan airliners flying between Turkey and Jordan and the capital Tripoli to stop in eastern Libya to allow the country's internationally recognized government to screen out potential Islamist fighters, officials said.
   

Turkey?s relations with its neighboring regions have strained for the last years. The economic and trade ramifications of these deteriorating ties become more and more visible.

Libya?s decision to exclude Turkish companies from contracts does not carry any value given the dispute over political legitimacy in the country, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has said.

Almost 15,000 Egyptians have flocked home from war-torn Libya via the border crossing at Sallum, state media reported on Feb. 23, after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group jihadists murdered 21 Coptic Christians.
      

PM condemns acts of terror targeting Egyptians

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic met on Monday with Egypt's Ambassador to Serbia Menha Mahrous Bakhoum and condemned the attacks on Egyptian citizens in Libya.

The ambassador stressed the support of Egypt for Serbia's "moderate and responsible policy."

Libya?s internationally-recognized government plans to exclude Turkish companies from contracts, a cabinet statement has said, effectively banning them from the oil producer, as Reuters reported today.

An Egyptian court on Feb. 23 sentenced Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leading dissident in the 2011 uprising that toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, to five years in prison over an illegal protest.
      
The remaining 24 defendants in the case received sentences ranging from three to 15 years.
      

A stampede at a Cairo stadium earlier this month, much like a politically-loaded football brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said three years ago, is shining a spotlight on Egypt's unreformed, unabashedly violent, and politically powerful police and security forces amid confusion over what precisely happened and how many fans died.