Newscast - Africa

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a vote of no confidence from his own Conservative MPs, after a string of scandals that have left the party in tatters.
Johnson, 57, needed the backing of 180 MPs to survive the vote — a majority of one out of the 359 sitting Conservatives in parliament.
Defeat would have meant an end to his time as party leader and prime minister until a replacement was found in an internal leadership contest.

The US ambassador to Moscow says Russia should not close the US embassy despite the crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine because the world’s two biggest nuclear powers must continue to talk.
John Sullivan told the Russian state news agency TASS that such a move would be a big mistake.
Sullivan told TASS that Washington and Moscow should not break off diplomatic relations.

An UN-backed attempt to resolve Sudan’s political crisis has been rejected by a leading civilian group, the Forces for Freedom and Change.
The FFC says that a meeting with the army supported by the UN, African Union and regional group Igad, does not address the nature of the crisis and the process should focus on ending the coup.
It added that the political process to end the current crisis cannot be inundated with parties representing the coup camp or linked to the former regime.

Mali's military leaders have confirmed there won't be a return to civilian rule for two years.
The interim President, Colonel Assimi Goïta, has signed a decree fixing the length of the transition period.
The West African regional grouping, Ecowas, decided to keep the measures in place.
The bloc had asked Mali to review its two-year transition period, considering 12 or 18 months to be reasonable.

Elon Musk threatened to withdraw his bid to buy Twitter, accusing it of failing to provide data on fake accounts, in the latest twist in the Tesla billionaire’s push to acquire the social network.
Musk says that the real number of bots may be four times higher than Twitter estimates.
Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal has said that fewer than five per cent of accounts active on any given day at Twitter are bots, but that analysis cannot be replicated externally due to the need to keep user data private.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry says it would make no further increases in the price of Gasoline and Jet fuel for the month of June.
The Ministry also says there will be a slight reduction in the Price of Fuel and assures that it continues to work along with importers of petroleum products to ensure that there is sufficient stock in the country to serve the market for the next couple of months.
The Ministry assures the public of its commitment to ensuring that essential commodities are available and affordable on the local market in line with the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development.

Ethiopia’s central bank has warned against trade in cryptocurrencies.
The National Bank of Ethiopia says the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin was becoming prevalent despite being against the law.
It said this was creating favourable conditions for hiding illicit funds.
The bank has vowed to take measures against those using cryptocurrencies.

The president of Egypt has promised to provide 30 million doses of coronavirus vaccine to African countries, in coordination with the African Union.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi says that although Egypt had limited resources like other African countries, it was ready to cooperate with them all.

The African Development Bank has stated that an additional €3.5m has been provided for the feasibility study of the Abidjan-Lagos super highway.
It urged five countries of the Economic Community of West African States that the road would pass through to order the consultants to get to work and finish up the study of the project.
AfDB's Chief Transport Economist, Lydie Ehouman, says the new addition of funding was to ensure the study for the 1,028km road project was smooth and completed in time with the grant from the European Union
Ehouman noted that the grant was in addition to its substantial contribution of US$ 25 million, and €12.63 million in the form of a grant from the European Union, bringing the total amount available for financing the study to the equivalent of about US$ 41 million.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, asked the Federal Government to start acting on intelligence from security agencies, especially the Department of State Services following a recent attack on a church in Ondo State.
Falana commiserated with the victims and families of the attack.
He says the government must go beyond issuing threats and alerting citizens of imminent attacks.