French Special Forces have freed a Dutch man Sjaak Rijke who was reportedly seized by gunmen from a hotel in Mali’s city of Timbuktu, along with two other men in 2011.
The Dutchman is believed to have been seized by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and appeared in a video by the militants in November. BBC reported that French President Francois Hollande said that Mr. Rijke had been found by chance in a dawn raid in northern Mali.

South Africa’s Gauteng police are reportedly on high alert this evening as Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters threaten to claim unoccupied land in Etwatwa on the East Rand, Eye witness news reported.

A policeman was killed and seven other people wounded on Sunday after Islamist militants attacked Egypt's two largest cities with a bombing in Cairo and an attack on a church in Alexandria, Reuters reported quoting security sources.

Egypt’s the interior ministry reportedly said, the leader of a militant group that has targeted police and soldiers around the capital was killed in a firefight with security forces early on Sunday in a separate incident, says Reuters.

Following an outbreak of avian influenza virus type H5N1 over the past two months in Burkina Faso, some 115,000 poultry out of 41 million have been killed, official source in charge of animal resources said on Thursday, reports Xinhua.

Burkina Faso’s general director of the veterinary services Lassina Ouattara said, “we have registered about 115,000 poultry killed by the avian influenza at Sanguie in the west-central region and at Kadiogo in the central region.”