Aden / AFP Yemen’s government announced on Sunday that nine people had died of cholera in second city Aden as the infectious disease spread across the war-torn country. Ten other people in the southern port city have been diagnosed with the potentially fatal disease which is transmitted through contaminated drinking water and causes acute diarrhoea, the health ministry said. ...

  Arbil / AFP US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter arrived in Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan on Sunday to review the ongoing military offensive to retake the extremist bastion of Mosul. As the Pentagon chief went into talks with Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, US officials said Kurdish peshmerga forces had almost reached their goals in the week-old offensive. The battle ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigerian troops have thwarted an attempted hijack of a vessel in the restive Niger Delta and separately arrested five pipeline vandals, a spokesman said on Sunday. “Troops of Operation Base 2 repelled a hijack of a vessel (MT VAJARA) by heavily armed bandits in Ramos River, around Agge area of Delta state,” Lieutenant Commander Thomas Otuji said ...