Geography of Africa

Turkey's largest state-owned lender, Ziraat Bank, has proposed opening the first foreign-owned bank branch in Ethiopia, Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has said.

Speaking at the Turkey-Ethiopia Business Forum in Ankara on April 27, Zeybekci said Turkish lender Ziraat Bank was awaiting a response from Ethiopia on its proposal.

Global oil prices have advanced as the Saudi Arabia-led coalition renewed airstrikes in Yemen, stoking new supply concerns about the crude-rich Middle East.

European Union leaders gathering for an extraordinary summit are facing calls from all sides to take emergency action to save lives in the Mediterranean, where hundreds of migrants are missing and feared drowned in recent days.

ALEXANDRIA - Former Serbian president and leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDS) Boris Tadic was appointed as member of the Board of Trustees of the Library of Alexandria, SDS said in a release on Monday.

The international community has condemned the slaughter of at least 28 Ethiopian Christians in an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) video, with Ethiopia confirming that the victims were its citizens. 

Four UNICEF employees have been murdered during an attack in Somalia, as reported by the organization's local headquarters.

Their car has been attacked in the region of Garowe. Information on the incident is still incomplete, but accoridng to preliminary information, four other UNICEF emplopyees have been hurt and are in severe condition.

Somalia's Shebab Islamists killed at least six UN workers on April 20 when they exploded a huge bomb in a staff bus in the northeastern town of Garowe, police said.

Islamic State (IS) released a new video, which purportedly shows the killing of up to thirty Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

The video depicts one group of men being beheaded on a beach and another group being shot in the head in a desert, the BBC reports.

The victims are believed to be members of the Ethiopian Church, who had been captured by IS militants in Libya.

Foreign ministers of EU member states are set to discuss Sunday's incident in Mediterranean in which hundreds are feared dead.

A vessel carrying up to 700 migrants capsized late on Saturday off Libya. Only 28 have been rescued so far. A survivor is quoted by various news sources as saying there were as many as 950 people on board, about 50 of them children and nearly 200 women.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged the European Union on Sunday to urgently come up with a plan to tackle a mounting migrant humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.

"The Mediterranean must stop being a graveyard sea and southern European countries a storage of human souls,» Tsipras said in a televised address.