• Protesters receive Cameroon's Biya in Switzerland

Anti-Biya protesters clashed with presidential security forces of President Paul Biya in Switzerland on Tuesday, the first of his "brief stay" in Europe.

The Cameroon embassy had alerted that some nationals planned to organise violent protests against the leader who left a country dogged by insecurity.

In the conflict-hit Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, separatists have banned watching the national team play at the Africa Cup of Nations.

• Mauritania cracks down on two opposition parties after election

Mauritanian police raided the headquarters of two opposition parties, closing one of them amid high tension following the disputed outcome of Saturday's presidential elections.

Sources said the operation followed clashes with opposition supporters in which the government said more than 100 foreigners were arrested.

Police raided the offices of candidates Biram (Ould Dah Ould Abeid) and Kane Hamidou Baba who lost to ruling party candidate Mohamed Ould Ghazouani.

• Top UN court to hear Somalia-Kenya border case in September

The International Court of Justice on Tuesday set the hearing of a maritime border dispute between Kenya and Somalia for September 9 to 13 at The Hague.

The East African countries are contesting the ownership of a triangle in the Indian Ocean where Kenya has granted oil exploration permits to Italian firm ENI SpA,

The case was filed by Somalia in 2014 and the UN's highest court overruled Kenya's challenge of its jurisdiction in 2017.

• Amnesty urges Nigeria to stop torture by security forces

Amnesty International on Wednesday said torture of civilians and suspects by Nigerian security forces have persisted despite new legislation to curb such abuses.

In a statement marking International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Amnesty said it continued to receive regular reports of torture and other human rights abuses in military and police custody.

It said the Nigerian judicial system failure to prevent or punish torture was perpetuating a culture of impunity.

• DR Congo army launches operation in war-torn region
  

The military in DR Congo has started an operation to stabilise the Djugu region in Ituri province where ethnic violence has left at least 160 dead and forced thousands to flee their homes in the past two weeks.

An army spokesman said the operation targeted militia positions in Walendu Pitsi and would continue in Kpadruma where fighting between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups is raging.
Ituri and North Kivu provinces, on DRC eastern border with Uganda, are also trying to roll back a major epidemic of Ebola that has claimed more than 1,500 lives since last August.

• Robots to take 20 mn jobs, worsening inequality

Robots are expected to take over some 20 million manufacturing jobs worldwide by 2030, extending a trend of worsening social inequality while boosting overall economic output by up to $5 trillion.

A study by Oxford Economics to be released on Wednesday highlights growing concerns that automation and robots are killing low-skill jobs and aggravating social and economic stress.

Robots have already taken over millions of manufacturing jobs and are now gaining in services, helped by advances in computer vision, speech recognition and machine learning.

• Kenya seeks $3 billion for Turkana oil exploitation
  

Kenya on Tuesday signed agreements with three exploration companies - Tullow Oil, Total and Africa Oil, for development of the South Lokichar oil Basin where an estimated one billion barrels of crude have been found.

The Heads of Terms agreement will require up to $3 billion from financiers for among other things land acquisition and piping of water from the Turkwel River to the Lokichar oil fields.

Also required is required is a crude oil pipeline to take the output to a central processing facility from where it would be linked to the Lamu port for export.