HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)—An independent research group says Zimbabwe’s capital is the world’s fourth-worst city to live in, based on daily hardships and political risk. Cities in war zones are excluded from the “livability” index.

The British-based Economist Intelligence Unit put Harare 137th out of 140 cities surveyed and gave it a 39.4 rating on a scale to 100 for ideal urban conditions. In its report available Thursday, Harare ranked marginally better than Lagos in Nigeria, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

HEROES DAY—Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, left, with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, during the country’s Heroes Day Commemorations, in Harare, Aug. 13. Zimbabwe’s president says his party’s symbol of a raised fist was used to fight colonial-era white rule and is not a gesture of violence toward fellow Zimbabweans. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

by Tom Odula

VINDICATED—Rebecca Kerubo, mother of three children, sits with her son at her house in Nairobi, Kenya on Aug. 9. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Rebecca Kerubo, a $6-a-day security guard at a Nairobi mall, is one of the city’s countless low-wage slum residents. So when she made a formal complaint that Kenya’s second most powerful judge threatened her with a gun at a security checkpoint, few thought the struggling mother of three stood a chance.

Now it appears, though, that the justice will lose her seat on the bench.

by Sarah DiLorenzo

PARIS (AP)—The French government wants companies to hire young people so much that it’s offering to pick up the tab.

The new Socialist president, Francois Hollande, told his Cabinet Wednesday that he wants to wage a war on unemployment and unveiled a plan for the government to pay most of the salaries of tens of thousands of young people hired next year.

Unemployment in France is 10 percent, but nearly 23 percent for those under the age of 25. That’s an imbalance that many European countries are struggling with: In Spain, youth unemployment is over 52 percent; it’s 34 percent in Italy.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP)—The rumors started to swirl around Ghana in June: President John Atta Mills was ill, maybe too sick to seek re-election, and he was going abroad to seek medical treatment. Some radio stations went so far as to prematurely report his death.

PROTECTING HIS IMAGE—President Barack Obama listens as the late President John Atta Mills of Ghana, left, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 8. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)