PAKISTAN: A court freed an anti-government retired army general on Thursday following his arrest on charges of inciting the public and government employees against national institutions, his lawyer said.

The action against retired Lieutenant General Amjad Shoaib, a vocal supporter of ousted premier Imran Khan, reflects the government’s practice of using laws to silence critics.

GABON: French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Thursday that Paris has no intention of returning to its past policies of interfering in Africa.

He arrived in Gabon’s capital Libreville on Wednesday at the start of a four-nation African tour aimed at resetting relations with the continent.

“I prefer to be very clear and explicit in meeting you today,” he said in remarks to the French community, “in Gabon, as elsewhere, France is a neutral interlocutor, which speaks to everyone and whose role is not to interfere in domestic political issues.”

TUNISIA: Guinea and Ivory Coast began repatriating citizens who want to leave Tunisia on Thursday after increasingly authoritarian President Kais Saied called for a crackdown on migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

Morissanda Kouyate, Guinea’s minister for foreign affairs and Guineans abroad, was on the chartered flight that brought back 49 Guineans to Conakry, the government said.

IRAN: The United Nations nuclear watchdog has said that director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi will travel to Tehran for high-level meetings at the invitation of Iran’s government.

Thursday’s announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency comes days after it reported that uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 per cent had been found at Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site.