20120218 AFP Libyans celebrated on Friday the first anniversary of the uprising that ousted Moamer Kadhafi with fireworks and slogans, even as their new leader vowed to prevent further instability.
20120218 AFP Upcoming elections may spark real change in Algeria, an opposition leader said Friday as political figures came forward to launch parties after the relaxing of laws in the wake of the Arab Spring.
20120218 AFP Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai Friday called for openness in the country's nascent diamond trade, getting under way after the lifting of a global ban over rights abuses.
20120218 AP KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan officials have stripped Libya's ambassador of his title and evicted him from the embassy, saying he was an obstacle to new relations with post-Moammar Gadhafi Libya, the foreign minister said Friday.
20120218 AFP Ivory Coast's president was named the new head of West Africa's regional bloc on Friday at a summit dominated by a security crisis in the Sahel that a rights group said could spark chaos in the desert region.
20120218 AFP Police briefly detained Senegalese opposition presidential candidate Cheikh Bamba Dieye on Friday as he tried to join a protest that had been banned by the authorities, an AFP journalist witnessed.
20120218 AFP West African leaders on Friday urged Tuareg rebels to "immediately" end their fresh offensive in northern Mali which has killed dozens and displaced thousands.
20120218 AFP Rights activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday denounced the stifling of dissent during and after November elections, controversially won by President Joseph Kabila.
20120218 AFP An exiled Rwandan journalist in Sweden critical of the regime of Rwandan President Paul Kagame has emerged after a month in hiding after fearing attack, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
20120218 AFP Amnesty International said Friday that a Tuareg offensive raging in northern Mali is causing a human rights crisis, with scores killed and thousands fleeing into neighbouring countries.
20120218 AFP Sudanese police on Friday forcibly evicted hundreds of university students who had remained in their dormitories after violent demonstrations led to the campus's shutdown weeks ago, students said.
20120218 AFP The European Union eased sanctions on Zimbabwe Friday to encourage further progress in political reforms but kept restrictions on veteran President Robert Mugabe.
20120218 AP ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's president has announced that his Ivorian counterpart is replacing him as chair of the West African regional bloc.
20120215 AP MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities say soldiers have found and safely detonated a car bomb in a northeast Nigeria city that's the spiritual home to a radical Islamist sect.
20120215 AFP A tiny songbird weighing just two tablespoons of sugar migrates from the Arctic to Africa and back, a distance of up to 29,000 kilometres (18,000 miles), scientists reported on Wednesday.
20120215 AFP Senegal's government has banned an opposition march planned for the centre of Dakar to protest against President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to run for a third term in February polls.
20120215 AFP A Chadian rebel group based in the Central African Republic claimed Tuesday its forces were preparing an offensive that would position them within striking distance of N'Djamena.
20120215 AFP Sudan and South Sudan still remain far apart in negotiations to resolve a furious oil dispute threatening to reignite fighting between the former civil war foes, a minister said Tuesday.
20120215 AFP Senegal's police on Tuesday blocked youths from settling in a square in Dakar where they planned a permanent sit-in to protest President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to run for a third term in February polls.
