21, November 2018
Gabon: President Ali Bongo heading to London for medical recovery 0
Gabon’s sick president Ali Bongo Ondimba has recovered after he was admitted for severe fatigue on medical advice.
Even as his situation becomes better after weeks at the King Faisal hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, reports indicate that he is heading to the United Kingdom to continue recuperation.
The Jeune Afrique portal which broke the news of Bongo’s ill-health in October 2018, said London was chosen to allow Bongo receive specialist care. It added that Morocco was the other destination on the cards but London had been settled on.
The last government update on Bongo’s health was on November 11 with presidential spokesman, Ike Ngouni, confirming that the president was recovering his faculties and was to remain in Saudi on expert advice.
Since then, the country’s top court has ordered a significant ruling that allows cabinet meetings to be chaired by the vice-president in the president’s absence.
The meeting had been off since Bongo was taken ill. He was in Saudi to attend an investment summit when he was taken ill. Some reports said he had suffered a stroke.
Source: Africa News
22, November 2018
Niger: Armed men attack French firm’s drilling camp 0
Armed men killed eight people on Thursday in a late night attack on French drilling company Foraco’s water well site in southeastern Niger, Foraco said.
“Last night at 2 a.m. local time, a group of terrorists attacked the small building where a Foraco team was sleeping and killed seven of them, plus one civil servant,” the company said in a statement.
Five other employees were wounded, with two in serious condition, it said. The workers were drilling two deep water wells for the water ministry in southeastern Niger’s Diffa region.
A security source told Reuters that the assailants were believed to belong to Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram, which is active near the border with Nigeria.
Boko Haram has been trying since 2009 to establish an extremist state in northeast Nigeria and has launched repeated attacks into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Thousands of civilians have died in the violence.
Marseille-based Foraco is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and says it is the third largest global mineral driller with mining and water projects across 22 countries.
(Source: Reuters)