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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term in office Saturday after an election marred by violence and an Internet shutdown, with African observers saying arrests and abductions had "instilled fear".Museveni, 81, won 71.65% of the vote in Thursday's election, the Electoral Commission said, amid reports of at least 10 deaths and intimidation of the opposition and civil society.His victory allows the former guerrilla fighter to extend his 40-year rule of the east African country.He defeated Bobi Wine, 43, a former singer who styles himself the "ghetto president" after the Kampala slum areas where he grew up, but has faced relentless pressure including multiple arrests before his first run for the presidency in 2021.**media[405586]**Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, won 24.72%. He stated his "complete rejection of the fake results" and said he was in hiding after a raid by security forces on his home."I know that these criminals are looking for me everywhere and I am trying my best to keep safe," he posted on X.Police denied there had been any raid and said Wine was still at home, though they said there was a deployment around his residence."We have not necessarily denied people accessing him but we cannot tolerate instances where people use his residence to gather and... incite violence," police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke told reporters.There were major security deployments around the capital Kampala, AFP journalists saw, as Uganda sought to prevent the sort of protests that have hit neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania in recent months.Many Ugandans still praise Museveni as the man who ended the country's post-independence chaos and oversaw rapid economic growth, even if much was lost to a relentless string of massive corruption scandals."I'm really very happy to see he's won," said Isaac Kamba, a 37-year-old teacher at a pro-government rally in a Kampala cricket ground.**media[405587]**"The victory comes because of his hard work, dedication and commitment to the people of Uganda," he said, though the mood at the rally was less than jubilant, with a presenter at one point ordering the crowd to be more animated if they wanted the free food.A spokesman for Wine's party, the National Unity Platform, told AFP the results were "a sham". Wine has alleged "massive ballot stuffing" and attacks on his officials under cover of an Internet blackout that has been in place since Tuesday.African election observers said Saturday they saw no evidence of ballot-stuffing but denounced "reports of intimidation, arrest and abductions" targeting the opposition and civil society.This "instilled fear and eroded public trust in the electoral process", former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan told reporters in Kampala.He was representing election observers from the African Union, as well as regional bodies Comesa and IGAD for east and southern Africa.Jonathan said the shutdown of the Internet "disrupted effective observation" and "increased suspicion" but that the overall conduct of the polls on election day was "peaceful".A senior security official in the president's office, Fred Bamwine, defended the security measures, telling AFP: "We don't take anything granted. It's our responsibility to make sure... the state of Uganda stays standing."REPORTS OF VIOLENCEMuseveni's ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, also had a commanding lead in parliamentary seats, according to provisional results. Ballots were still being counted.Analysts have long viewed the election as a formality.Museveni, who seized power in 1986, has total control over the state and security apparatus, and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his rule.The other major opposition figure, Kizza Besigye, who ran four times against Museveni, was abducted in Kenya in 2024 and brought back to a military court in Uganda for a treason trial that is ongoing.There were reports of election-related violence against the opposition.Muwanga Kivumbi, member of parliament for Wine's party in the Butambala area of central Uganda, told AFP's Nairobi office by phone that security forces had killed 10 of his campaign agents after storming his home on Thursday.Police gave a different account, saying an "unspecified number" of people had been "put out of action" when opposition members planned to overrun and burn down a local tally centre and police station. 

A scramble for gold reserves dug up in illegal mines is fuelling violence by criminal gangs in parts of Nigeria, officials, expert reports and local residents say, with much of it smuggled to a Middle Eastern destination.Northwestern and central Nigerian states have long been terrorised by criminal gangs locally called "bandits" who raid villages, abduct residents and loot and burn homes.While the decades-long violence started as clashes between herders and farmers over limited grazing land and water resources exacerbated by climate change, the conflict has since morphed into organised crime — at a time when the price of the precious metal has been soaring.Nigeria is well known for its oil, yet also has significant gold deposits of some 754,000 ounces (21.37 tonnes), worth $1.4bn, accounting for 0.5% of global production, according to the 2023 Gold Mining Industry report.A recent wave of kidnappings, including hundreds of school children, brought the violence into fresh international focus.Local artisans extract gold for their livelihoods, attracting others from neighbouring countries, officials, including Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris, say.The bandits tax the miners and demand a cut from the extracted ore as a levy to allow them access to the pits, villagers and experts say."Gold has become an increasingly important revenue stream for armed bandit groups in north-west Nigeria since 2023," said the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime in an October report.Nigeria's political and business elite use mining companies as proxies to buy artisanal miners' gold through middlemen.Most of the illegally-mined gold is smuggled out to a Middle East nation, from where it is laundered into the global supply chain in Europe, the US, Asia and South Africa."This gold is almost entirely smuggled out of the country and shipped to a Middle East nation," said a 2024 SwissAid report.Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake said Nigerian gold often ends up in the Middle East "unlawfully".Alake has previously said illegal miners sponsor "banditry and terrorism".Nigeria's counter-terrorism boss Major General Adamu Garba said recently that illegal mining "intersects with banditry, insurgency, arms trafficking and cross-border smuggling".Against the backdrop of recent kidnappings, governors and traditional chiefs from 19 northern states recently dubbed illegal mining a "major contributory factor to the security crises".They want a six-month suspension of mining to clean up the sector.But umbrella union the Nigerian Miners Association warns a blanket mining ban would disrupt locals' livelihoods, "deepen poverty and increase insecurity".Miners who resist paying levies come into the bandits' firing line. In October bandits killed 16 miners and villagers while in April 19 people were killed in different parts of the region.Supported by bandits, some miners raid gold-rich villages, pushing out residents to access deposits, said Mamman Alassan, who fled his village in Niger's Shiroro district three years ago following raids."People usually protest and the miners respond by launching deadly raids to take over the area," Alassan said after resettling in Minna city.The villages also sit on deposits of other minerals including tantalite, copper and lithium, in strong demand for its use in electric vehicles and clean energy tech.Intelligence sources say even licensed companies are forced to pay bandits to gain access to mining sites.Niger State governor Umar Bago recently questioned how miners can "freely access" sites in remote areas without getting attacked.Officials also blame the influx of foreigners for the worsening insecurity, with Kebbi state governor Idris singling out illegal miners from Mali, Chad and as far afield as Tanzania.The violence has been exacerbated by the increasing alliance between bandits and militants from the northeast who have in recent years established a strong presence in northwest and central regions, security officials and analysts say.Although they have no ideological leanings and are mainly motivated by financial gains, the bandits' alliance with militants has exposed them to better arms, tactics and brutality, they say.INEFFECTIVE BANSAround 35% of Nigeria's gold deposits lie beneath impoverished northwestern villages, according to Ismail Suleiman, who owns a mining company that extracts minerals across the northwest.Some state governments have at various times banned mining to curb banditry but the violence has continued unabated.In October, Niger state's Bago announced an indefinite ban on mining, with plans to recruit 10,000 government-sponsored militia to protect Niger's rural communities.In 2019, the federal government imposed a five-year mining ban in Zamfara state but lifted it in January, citing "improved security" despite increased killings and kidnappings there.Artisanal mining has continued on a much larger scale since the ban was lifted and violence has raged, said the miners' union. 

Two people died in the Netherlands in fireworks accidents and there were scattered instances of violence as the country celebrated the New Year, and in a separate incident a historic church in the heart of Amsterdam burned down. The Netherlands traditionally rings in the New Year with people setting off their own fireworks, which causes hundreds of injuries and millions of euros in damage every year.This year, some 250 people were arrested on New Year’s Eve and in several towns riot police were deployed, police said. “The impact of heavy fireworks and arson this New Year’s Eve in some areas was utterly devastating,” police said in a statement Thursday. “The targeted violence against emergency services and police was intense again.” The head of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, reported an “unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency services” over New Year’s Eve. She said she herself had been pelted three times by fireworks and other explosives as she worked a shift in Amsterdam. Shortly after midnight, authorities released a rare country-wide alert on mobile phones warning people not to call overwhelmed emergency services unless lives were at risk. Reports of attacks against police and firefighters were widespread across the country. In the southern city of Breda, people threw petrol bombs at police. The fireworks accidents killed a 38-year-old man in Aalsmeer, close to Amsterdam, and a boy from Nijmegen, a town in the east of the country, police said. In Amsterdam, the neo-Gothic Vondelkerk, near the city’s central Vondelpark, was almost destroyed by a fire that started shortly after midnight. The 50m-high church tower collapsed and the roof was badly damaged but the structure was expected to remain intact, Amsterdam authorities said. The Amsterdam police and fire department said they were investigating and had no comment yet on what caused the blaze in the church, which was built in 1872. New Year’s Eve 2025 marked the last year before a nationwide ban on the sale of fireworks to consumers will come into effect. Emergency room doctors, police, firefighters and local and national politicians have campaigned for the ban for years. According to the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association, revellers splashed out a record €129mn ($151mn) on fireworks. Some areas had been designated firework-free zones, but this appeared to have little effect. An AFP journalist in such a zone in The Hague reported loud bangs until around 3am. In Belgium, meanwhile, police made scores of arrests as officers in both Brussels and Antwerp were targeted with fireworks – with a New Year’s ban on their use failing to prevent chaotic scenes in both major cities. Police used tear gas and arrested more than 100 people in the port city of Antwerp, where minors as young as 10 or 11 targeted officers and emergency services with fireworks and stones, setting fire to bikes, cars and trash cans, a spokesperson told AFP. Authorities confiscated a number of “very dangerous” professional grade fireworks, the spokesperson said. A 12-year-old child was seriously injured in a fireworks incident in the northern city. Likewise in the capital Brussels, police said they were “repeatedly” targeted with fireworks, making some 70 arrests overnight. In Germany, two 18-year-olds died in the western city of Bielefeld when they set off home-made fireworks that produced “deadly facial injuries”, local police said in a statement. 

 Thailand announced Sunday its first civilian death in a week of fighting with Cambodia, as international efforts fail to stop violence that has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.The latest killing comes a day after Bangkok denied US President Donald Trump's claim that a truce had been agreed between the Southeast Asian neighbours.The conflict, rooted in a colonial-era demarcation dispute along their 800km (500-mile) border, has displaced around 800,000 people, officials said."I have been here for six days and I feel sad that the fighting continues," 63-year-old Sean Leap told AFP at an evacuation centre in Cambodia's border province of Banteay Meanchey."I want it to stop," he said, adding he was worried about his home and livestock.At least 27 people have been killed, including 15 Thai soldiers and 11 Cambodian civilians, officials said Sunday.A Thai civilian killed in Sisaket province was the first non-military death recorded in the country since the latest round of fighting began on December 7, health ministry spokesman Ekachai Piensriwatchara confirmed to AFP.The Thai army said the 63-year-old man was killed by shrapnel after Cambodian forces fired rockets into a civilian area.Each side has blamed the other for instigating the clashes, claiming self-defence and trading accusations of attacks on civilians.Trump, who earlier backed a truce and follow-on agreement, said on Friday that the two countries had agreed to stop fighting.However, Thai leaders later said no ceasefire deal was made, and both governments said Sunday that clashes were ongoing.Thai defence ministry spokesman Surasant Kongsiri said Cambodia shelled and bombed several border provinces overnight.The Thai military has imposed a curfew from 7pm to 5am (1200 to 2200 GMT) in parts of Sa Kaeo and Trat provinces.Cambodia, which is outgunned and outspent by Thailand's military, said Thai forces had shelled and launched air strikes on Cambodian territory near the border Sunday.After Trump's promised truce did not come to pass, Cambodia shut its border crossings with Thailand on Sunday, leaving migrant workers stranded.Under a makeshift tent at an evacuation site in Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey, Cheav Sokun told AFP that her husband in Thailand wanted to return home.She and her son left Thailand alongside tens of thousands of other Cambodian migrant workers during deadly clashes in July, but her spouse stayed to work as a gardener with his "good Thai boss"."He asked me to return first. After that, the border was closed so he cannot come back," the 38-year-old said.In Thailand, officials said Sunday that nine civilians have died of non-combat-related causes after evacuating from their homes.The United States, China and Malaysia, as chair of the regional bloc Asean, brokered a ceasefire in late July.In October, Trump backed a follow-on joint declaration between Thailand and Cambodia, touting new trade deals after they agreed to prolong their truce.However, Thailand suspended the agreement the following month, after Thai soldiers were wounded by landmines at the border.Last week Trump pledged that he would "make a couple of phone calls" to get the earlier brokered truce back on track.However, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told journalists on Saturday that Trump "didn't mention whether we should make a ceasefire" during their Friday phone call.Anutin vowed to keep fighting "until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people".A White House spokesperson later said that Trump expected all parties to honour commitments and that "he will hold anyone accountable as necessary to stop the killing and ensure durable peace". 

A suicide bomber killed 12 people in Pakistan's capital Tuesday in a sharp escalation of militant violence that the defence minister said had pushed the country into a "state of war".Pakistani government ministers accused neighbouring Afghanistan of complicity in the bloodshed — an accusation Kabul denied — and vowed retaliation if Afghan authorities failed to rein in the militants Islamabad says were responsible."We are in a state of war," said Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif after the attack, the first strike on civilians in Islamabad in a decade. "Bringing this war to Islamabad is a message from Kabul, to which Pakistan has the full power to respond."Pakistan is locked in confrontation with Kabul and New Delhi, fighting a four-day war with India in May and then last month carrying out airstrikes in Afghanistan, including Kabul, in response to what it said was the presence of Pakistani militants there. Subsequent skirmishes on the Pakistan-Afghan border were followed by unsuccessful peace talks.No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a busy lower court in Islamabad. It happened hours after militants stormed a school near the Afghan border on Monday, killing three people.Attackers were still holed up inside the compound late Tuesday, with around 500 students and staff trapped in another part of the complex.The main Pakistani jihadist group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, otherwise known as the Pakistani Taliban, denied involvement in the attacks.Pakistani Taliban militants have in recent years focused attacks on security forces. Civilians had not been hit in Islamabad for a decade, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group that tracks attacks.**media[380275]**Islamabad says that the Pakistani Taliban and other militants are based in Afghanistan, with the support of India."We are totally clear that Afghanistan has to stop them. In case of a failure, we have no option but to take care of those terrorists who are attacking our country," Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said, speaking at the scene of the court bombing.Naqvi said that the school assailants were in contact with their handlers in Afghanistan during the attack. He said the authorities are investigating the backers of the court bombing, adding that an attack in Islamabad "carried a lot of messages". The Taliban administration in Kabul said in a statement that it "expresses its deep sorrow and condemnation" of the attacks. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on Pakistan's accusations. Kabul denies that its territory is used for attacks on other countries. India denies supporting militants against Pakistan. The attacks in Pakistan came a day after an explosion in the Indian capital, which killed eight people."These targets are clearly an attempt to spread panic in society," said Muhammad Saeed, a retired three-star general."The terrorists have a huge country supporting them and another country providing them space," he added, referring to India and Afghanistan.Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, said that in recent weeks, new militant factions had emerged, which appeared aimed at allowing the TTP plausible deniability for attacks."They are sending a signal: if there will be strikes in Kabul, Islamabad will not be safe," said Basit. "And they are signalling that they can change their modus operandi to indiscriminate violence."The suicide bombing outside an Islamabad court wounded 27 people, in addition to at least 12 killed, Interior Minister Naqvi said. The court bomber blew himself up near the entrance at around lunchtime.Images on local media showed people covered in blood lying next to a police van. A vehicle was seen on fire and another car was badly damaged. Police cordoned off the site.Naqvi said the bomber had tried to enter the court building on foot but, unable to find a way in, detonated the device outside, close to a police vehicle. Several of the wounded were in critical condition, a hospital source said.The attack on the school in Wana, in the north west, began Monday, when a suicide vehicle rammed the main entrance, killing three people, Naqvi said.Militants then entered the school, which is run by the military but educates civilians. By Tuesday evening, three militants were still inside the compound, security officials said, with rescue operations under way for the students trapped in another part of the school.Analysts said that it seemed to be an attempt to replicate a 2014 attack on another army-run school in the north west, in which more than 130 children were killed.

Her Excellency Minister of State for International Cooperation Maryam bint Ali bin Nasser Al Misnad held a phone call with the Ministry of State at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Welfare of the Republic of Sudan, Dr. Salma Ishaq Al Khalifa, who is also responsible for the issue of violence against women. The call discussed the humanitarian situation in Sudan, particularly the latest developments in El Fasher city, and the need to protect women and children.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed grave concern over the number of civilians fleeing violence in northern Mozambique, making it impossible for many of them to return home. UNHCR revealed that approximately 22,000 people fled Cabo Delgado province in a single week in late September. Last month, militants attacked the strategic coastal city of Mocimboa da Praia, clashing with the army. "Civilians continue to be targeted amid reports of killings," UNHCR's representative in Mozambique, Xavier Créach said. He added, "During 2025, the violence has sharply accelerated. By the end of August, over 500 security incidents affecting civilians had been recorded, including raids on villages, abductions, killings of civilians, looting, and the destruction of homes and infrastructure." More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee this year, according to the UNHCR representative, who noted that 89% of them had been displaced previously. Twenty-two humanitarian organizations have announced the suspension of their operations in Cabo Delgado this year, making it difficult to respond to the crisis. Since the conflict erupted in 2017, more than 1.3 million people have been displaced in Mozambique.