Africa

About 2.5 tons of natural uranium have disappeared in Libya, announced the UN nuclear agency, AFP reported.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, told the organization's member states that inspectors on Tuesday found that 10 barrels containing uranium ore concentrate "were not available as previously announced" at the site in Libya

Alamy Photo

Angola said on Saturday it will send a military unit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, after a ceasefire it brokered between rebel militiamen and government troops collapsed.

The DR Congo's restive east has witnessed a flare up in violence since a militia called M23 took up arms again in late 2021, going on to capture swathes of territory.

The World Bank is pausing talks over its future engagement with Tunisia following anti-immigrant comments made by the country's president, Kais Saied, according to an internal message to staff seen by AFP.

A decade ago this year, the head of the European Union's executive branch stood, visibly shaken, before rows of coffins holding the corpses of migrants drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Some of them, small and bone-white, contained the bodies of infants and children.

Italian energy giant Eni signed an $8 billion gas deal with Libya's state-run National Oil Corporation on Jan. 28 as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Tripoli.

As Sudan's economic crisis drags on, grocer Hassan Omar keeps busy cleaning packaged food items that have been gathering dust for months as his dwindling customer base make fewer purchases.

"People can no longer afford to buy all their needs," Omar, 43, told AFP at his grocery store in the capital Khartoum.

The failure to hold a consultative meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in the Libyan capital is seen as evidence of the diplomatic isolation of the Tripoli government, even among Arab states. 

Indicatively, of the 22 countries in the Arab League, 15 did not attend, and neither did its secretary-general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. 

A handful of top Arab diplomats met Sunday in the Libyan capital in a gathering boycotted by powerful foreign ministers who argued that the mandate of the Tripoli-based government has ended.

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is expected in Brussels Monday for an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting chaired by the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrell.

Ministers will discuss Russia's war on Ukraine, the Sahel and coastal countries of West Africa, and more.

After the meeting, Dendias is scheduled to travel fo South Africa and Mozambique. [AMNA]

Hundreds of Tunisians marched Saturday after opponents of President Kais Saied called for protests over a worsening economic crisis.    

"The people want what you don't want. Down with Saied," chanted the activists, including supporters of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party.