South Africa is preparing its hospitals for more admissions, as the Omicron coronavirus variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of Covid-19 cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday.

Sudan’s military will exit politics after elections scheduled for 2023, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told Reuters in an interview on Saturday, adding that the deposed former ruling party would have no role in the transition.

At least 20 people drowned yesterday when a bus travelling to a wedding in central Kenya was swept off a bridge into a flooded river, police said.

Ethiopia said yesterday that pro-government forces had recaptured of Shewa Robit, around 220 kilometres (135 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa by road, after Tigrayan rebels claimed control of the town last week as part of their advance towards the capital.

An overloaded boat carrying dozens of passengers, mostly children aged eight to 15, capsized late on Tuesday in northwest Nigeria’s Kano state, a rescue agency spokesman said.

Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said on Tuesday that two Brazilians had tested positive for the Omicron Covid-19 variant, the first reported cases in Latin America.

Sudanese security forces deployed tear gas against tens of thousands of protesters gathering in central Khartoum on Tuesday to oppose military rule following last month's coup.

On Friday, November 19, Raquel Viana, Head of Science at one of South Africa's biggest private testing labs, sequenced the genes on eight coronavirus samples - and got the shock of her life.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed yesterday urged Tigrayan rebels to surrender, claiming government forces were nearing victory just one week after he vowed to lead military operations at the front.

Morocco will push for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, King Mohammed VI said yesterday, almost a year after his country renewed ties with the Jewish state.

Canada said Sunday it has detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid, in two people who had traveled recently to Nigeria.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said his soldiers would “destroy” rebels from the northern Tigray region, in the latest instalment of state media footage purportedly showing him at the war front.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday that the number of people requiring food aid in war-torn northern Ethiopia had surged to more than nine million.

South Africa complained yesterday that it is being “punished” for detecting a new Covid-19 variant Omicron which the World Health Organization has termed a “variant of concern” and is more transmissible than the dominant Delta strain.

Recurring drought, regular power outages and a devastated farming industry - these are the problems scientists say Brazil could face as research suggests the rainforest-rich country is drying out at an alarming rate.

Australia rushed peacekeepers to the Solomon Islands yesterday hoping to quell riots that threatened to topple the Pacific nation’s government and left its capital ablaze.

Australia yesterday listed all of Hezbollah as a “terrorist organisation”, extending an existing ban on armed units to the entire

Sudan’s military reinstated Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok yesterday and announced the release of all political detainees after weeks of deadly unrest triggered by a coup.

Sudan's military reinstated Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on Sunday and announced the release of all political detainees after weeks of deadly unrest triggered by a coup.

An al Shabaab suicide bomber in the Somali capital killed himself and a well-known Somali journalist on Saturday, al Shabaab and the journalist's family told Reuters.