Briefly: Africa

SENEGAL

Students clash with police in Senegal

DAKAR | College students set fire to a bus and clashed with police Wednesday outside the campus of the main university in Senegal’s capital a day after one of their classmates was killed in an anti-government demonstration.

Police Superintendent Harona Sy said police pushed the demonstrators back with tear gas. He confirmed that the students had set fire to a bus.

Mr. Sy said he had asked officers to show restraint because the students were reacting to the death of one of their own in a demonstration Tuesday against a court ruling that allows the country’s aging leader to run for a third term.

A young man was killed Tuesday night when an anti-riot police truck pushed its way through the knot of protesters. It’s unclear if the young man was run over or if he fell and was killed by the stampede that followed.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa recalls 1.35 million condoms

JOHANNESBURG | South Africa is recalling 1.35 million condoms given away at the African National Congress‘ centenary celebrations amid charges that some broke during intercourse and others were porous, an official said this week.

AIDS activist Sello Mokhalipi of the Treatment Action Campaign said he complained after “we had people flocking in, coming to report that the condoms had burst while they were having sex.”

Some were panicking because they were infected with AIDS and were concerned for their partners, he said.

Spokesman Jabu Mbalula of the health department of Free State province, which distributed the condoms before the Jan. 6 to 8 celebrations, said the department had recalled the entire batch of 1.35 million condoms around Jan. 18. He said there was no need for a panic.

He was unable to say immediately how many of the condoms had been used or had been recovered.

In 2007, the government had to recall more than 20 million defective condoms manufactured locally.

Media reports said a testing manager at the South African Bureau of Standards had taken a bribe to certify the faulty condoms. In 2008, 5 million defective condoms were recalled.

The latest allegations involve condoms distributed to hotels and bars in the central city of Bloemfontein, where tens of thousands of people traveled from all over the country for the ANC celebrations.

South Africa has the world’s highest number of AIDS victims, 5.6 million.

MALI

Tuareg rebels attack sixth town in Mali

BAMAKO | Tuareg separatist rebels in Mali extended their reach Tuesday, attacking a sixth town in the country’s remote north, a locality best known as the hometown of one of Africa’s most famed musicians.

Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, a spokesman for the rebel group, said by telephone from Paris that “operations are ongoing” in Niafunke, where legendary blues guitarist Ali Farka Toure grew up.

The attack was not confirmed immediately by Malian forces.

The newest rebellion, launched in January by the Tuareg ethnic group, broke years of relative peace and is being fueled by the return of Tuaregs who fought in the army of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

In the past two weeks, a Tuareg group that calls itself the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad has attacked six towns spread out over more than 500 miles across Mali’s vast north.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports