Bloomberg IS has dug trenches and rigged roads and buildings with explosives ahead of a US-led coalition offensive to dislodge the militants from their stronghold in Mosul in northern Iraq. “We’re certainly well aware that this is going to be a difficult challenge, a difficult operation,” U.S. Defense Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said. He also said that IS …

  Bujumbura / AFP Burundi’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is carrying out a preliminary probe into atrocities committed during an 18-month political crisis. “The ICC is a tool being used to try and change power” in Burundi, charged Aloys Ntakirutimana, a lawmaker with the ruling CNDD-FDD, during a …

  Juba / AFP South Sudan’s government was on Wednesday forced to deny President Salva Kiir had died, following days of rumours over his health that have heightened tensions in the capital Juba. “This is a mere lie, there is nothing as such, Salva Kiir has not even been sick,” Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told journalists in Juba, slamming “wild …