20120311
Reuters
SOKOTO, Nigeria (Reuters) - The wife of one of the guards who held a Briton and an Italian hostage in northern Nigeria said on Saturday the two men were taken into a toilet and shot dead during a failed attempt to rescue them by British and Nigerian forces.

20120311
Reuters
SOKOTO, Nigeria (Reuters) - The wife of one of the guards who held a Briton and an Italian hostage in northern Nigeria said on Saturday the two men were taken into a bathroom and shot dead during a failed attempt to rescue them by British and Nigerian forces.

20120311
Reuters
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Thousands of people protested in Libya's two biggest cities on Friday in a show of opposition to moves from some in the oil-producing east to declare autonomy from central rule.

20120311
AFP
African Union troops are set to replace Ethiopian forces in two Somali cities recently taken from Shebab rebels, the AU Commissioner for the Peace and Security Council said Friday.

20120311
AFP
Senegal's failed presidential candidates will hold a mass rally Sunday in support of aspirant leader Macky Sall, who they hope will unseat incumbent Abdoulaye Wade in a run-off election on March 25.

20120311
AFP
An offensive by Somalia's Islamist Shebab fighters on Ethiopian troops on Saturday left many combatants dead, military sources on both sides and witnesses told AFP.

20120311
AFP
Hundreds of Muslim women gathered near Tunis Saturday to call for the return of the caliphate, the defunct Islamic system of governance which they said was the only means of guaranteeing their rights.

20120311
AFP
Algeria's opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy elected its spokesman Mohcine Belabbas as its new leader Saturday at a conference in the capital.

20120311
AFP
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has freed a Mauritanian paramilitary police officer it had held hostage since an attack on a gendarmerie station almost three months ago, officials said Saturday.

20120311
AP
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A grenade attack at one of the main bus stations in Kenya's capital killed at least four people and wounded 40 others Saturday, officials said, in the latest bloodshed blamed on sympathizers of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked insurgency.

20120311
AFP
A grenade attack on a Nairobi bus station on Saturday killed at least five people and wounded nearly 60 others, in an assault Kenyan police blamed on the Islamist Shebab militia.

20120310
AFP
Uganda on Friday warned against misrepresenting the threat posed by rebels there after a Internet campaign to bring indicted war criminal Joseph Kony to justice went viral.

20120310
AFP
The International Criminal Court turned down on Friday a request by four prominent Kenyans including two presidential hopefuls to appeal its decision to try them over post-election killings.

20120310
AFP
An international aid group warned Friday of a growing famine risk in West Africa, amid reports of villagers raiding ant hills to take food from the insects.

20120310
AP
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The wildly successful viral video campaign to raise global awareness of a brutal Central Africa rebel leader is attracting criticism from Ugandans, some who said Friday that the 30-minute video misrepresents the complicated history of Africa's longest-running conflict.

20120310
AFP
Several hundred people, many of them close to Tunisia's dominant Islamist Ennahda party, called for the state television's output to be cleaned up in a demonstration Friday outside its studios.

20120310
AFP
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki confirmed on Friday that the country's next elections would take place early next year following a ruling by the high court.

20120310
AFP
Around a hundred troops, a tank and two helicopters were deployed in a failed hostage rescue bid in northwestern Nigeria in which an Italian and Briton hostages were killed, witnesses said.

20120310
AFP
Investigators probing violations during Libya's conflict said Friday they are giving the UN's human rights chief a list of people who should face international or national justice.

20120310
AFP
A South African court approved on Friday Wal-Mart's $2.2 billion takeover of local chain Massmart, giving the world's biggest retailer its first foothold in Africa.