20120317 AFP Nearly 72,000 people displaced by fighting in northern Mali between the army and Tuareg rebels are living rough and need help, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.
20120317 AFP Several thousand men and women demonstrated outside the Tunisian parliament on Friday to demand the inclusion of Islamic law in the north African country's future constitution.
20120317 AFP South Sudan must uphold promises to abolish its use of child soldiers, with some 2,000 minors still serving in its rebel turned regular army, the UN's top expert on children in conflict said Friday.
20120317 AFP An Angolan weekly whose computers were seized by police after it lampooned President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will appear this weekend and carry on fighting for democracy, its chief said Friday.
20120317 AFP Guinea-Bissau's election campaign wound down Friday in a carnival-like atmosphere ahead of a weekend vote in the fragile coup-prone west African state to elect new president.
20120317 AFP Atop a remote mountain overlooking one of Africa's largest silver mines, a group of Moroccan activists -- many of them women and children -- are trying to choke off the facility's water supply.
20120317 AFP Nigeria's government and Islamist group Boko Haram have been in indirect talks to end deadly violence blamed on the extremists, two sources familiar with the discussions said Friday.
20120317 AFP Malawi's police stepped up street patrols on Friday after a leading rights group called for the resignation of President Bingu wa Mutharika whose government has vowed to act against "anarchy".
20120317 AFP Eritrea said it will not retaliate after rival neighbour Ethiopia attacked its territory, dismissing charges it harbours armed groups against Addis Ababa as a "base and bogus lie."
20120317 AFP Students demanding the payment of scholarships funds and police clashed in the Gabon capital Libreville on Thursday, leaving three people wounded, state television reported.
20120314 AFP Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz Tuesday vowed to press on with attacks on "criminal elements" after a failed air raid in Mali on suspected members of Al-Qaeda's north African branch.
20120314 AFP Suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram opened fire on a checkpoint in northern Nigeria on Tuesday, with two policemen and a soldier feared dead, a police source and residents said.
20120314 AFP Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara took the key post of defence minister and named a one-time rival as premier Tuesday as he moved to cement his authority nearly a year after coming to power.
20120314 AFP The latest week-long round of talks between Sudan and South Sudan has ended without any deal on the contentious issues of disputed border areas and oil revenue sharing, mediators said Tuesday.
20120314 AFP Somalia's Shebab rebels Tuesday banned the aid group Save the Children from operating in regions under their control, levelling a string of accusations against the organisation.
20120314 AFP The Zimbabwean government and mining firm Zimplats reached Tuesday an agreement to transfer a 51 percent stake to local investors, as required by the country's controversial "indigenisation" policy.
20120314 AFP An Algerian court sentenced the fugitive head of Al-Qaeda's north African offshoot to death Tuesday for a string of 2007 attacks, including a deadly bombing at the prime minister's office.
20120314 AFP The European Union will give about 1.5 million euros ($2.0 million) for Angolan civic groups to educate voters and monitor elections due this year, the EU delegation in Luanda said Tuesday.
