SOMALIA: Somalia's PM fires 3 Cabinet ministers as opposition looms

Mogadishu - Somalia's prime minister has fired three Cabinet ministers as his government faces stiff challenges from the opposition.

Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire on Thursday announced the replacement of Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Garaad Omar with Ahmed Isse Awad, a former ambassador to Washington.

Khaire also replaced the interior minister and trade and industries minister.

Opposition parties in the Horn of Africa nation have been trying to capitalise on recent security incidents, accusing the government of shortcomings in a bid to unseat the prime minister. The country is still recovering from an October truck bombing in the capital that killed 512 people and was blamed on the al-Shabaab extremist group.

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Ex-VP Mujuru 'was hit on the cheek with a stone by Zanu-PF activist': Spokesperson

Harare - A Zimbabwean opposition leader and her entourage were Thursday attacked with stones by suspected ruling party activists in Harare, her party said. Joice Mujuru, a former vice president of the country who is now leader of the National People's Party (NPP), and her supporters were pelted while on the campaign trail. Zimbabwe is due to hold general elections before July - the first polls since independence hero Robert Mugabe was ousted after 37 years in power. Mujuru is one of the prominent contenders. Mujuru was hit on the cheek with a stone and later addressed a rally in the working class suburb of Glen Norah after she received medical treatment, her spokesperson said. Mujuru "was going to address a rally ...she passed through a shopping centre and when people realised it was her, they came out of the shops to cheer her", Jeffryson Chitando told AFP. "She got out of her car and greeted the people, and that is when Zanu-PF (activists) started thro...

Kenya gov't arrests another Odinga ally, AU 'ready to help

Government in Kenya has arrested Miguna Miguna, the other legislator that actively participated in the illegal ‘swearing in’ ceremony of opposition leader Raila Odinga. The self-styled National Resistance Movement ( NRM ) General Miguna Miguna was arrested on Friday morning, shortly after he raised the alarm on a police raid at his home. The National Resistance Movement is the resistance wing of the opposition National Super Alliance Coalition ( NASA ). The Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti confirmed that he was arrested for administering an illegal oath and being a member of NRM , an organisational that has been declared ‘criminal’. “He publicly declared that he is the general of NRM , which is already declared a proscribed group. By the time he declared publicly, there was a gazette notice by the minister. How can we let it go? We are law enforcers,” said Kinoti. Kinoti added that Miguna told ‘people to burn portraits of a democratically elec...

NIGERIA: Nigeria flying citizens from Libya amid 'endemic' abuse

Nigeria is flying out thousands of its citizens from Libya who face grave abuses such as rape and slavery as they attempt to reach Europe through the war-torn North African nation. Large numbers of Nigerians have been trapped in Libya where they were trying to cross to Italy by sea, but were stopped by local armed factions and the Libyan coastguard. Nigerian officials on a fact-finding mission to Libya expressed shock at what they saw and heard from victims. "They talked about various abuse - systematic, endemic, and exploitation of all kinds," said Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama. "There were obviously interests that wanted to keep as many of them there as possible because they were commodities." Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idris, reporting from the Libyan capital Tripoli, said Nigerians there told of abuses such as slavery, rape, imprisonment, and torture. "These happened either in the hands of the authorities or people-smugg...

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