Morocco has sent a special envoy to lobby African leaders to rejoin the African Union 32 years after it left in a row over Western Sahara.
Taib Fassi Fihri met Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi and said Morocco wants to re-join the AU without any preconditions.
Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its territory, much of which it has occupied since 1975.
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The Italian navy and coastguard say they have rescued about 4,500 migrants from dozens of small boats in the Mediterranean during the course of Thursday.
A woman’s body was recovered from one of the vessels.
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European Union ministers will look on Friday into ways of stemming the flow of migrants who set sail for Europe from Libya and elsewhere in north Africa after a deal with Turkey has cut arrivals via Greece to a trickle.
The EU fears the central Mediterranean route to Italy may become the main one now as calmer seas encourage more people to try the perilous journey.
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Nine days before the Paris attacks, Islamic State leaders gathered in the Syrian town of Tabqah to talk about what was coming next for the terror organisation. Senior officials from across the so-called caliphate had made difficult journeys under constant fear of airstrikes to the small town west of Raqqa.
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African forces began a U.S.-led counter-terrorism training program in Senegal on Monday amid what a U.S. commander said were rising signs of collaboration between Islamist militant groups across north Africa and the Sahel.
The annual “Flintlock” exercises started only weeks after an attack in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou left 30 people dead. The assault on a hotel used by foreigners raised concerns that militants were expanding from a stronghold in north Mali toward stable, Western allies like Senegal.
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