20120101
Reuters
(Reuters) - Former rebels have been promoted to senior posts in Democratic Republic of Congo's military in return for supporting President Joseph Kabila's re-election effort, the United Nations said in a report on Friday.

20120101
Reuters
(Reuters) - The European Union said on Friday police raids of pro-democracy and human rights groups' offices in Egypt amounted to an "open demonstration of force" and urged the authorities to support civil society.

20120101
Reuters
(Reuters) - The International Committee for the Red Cross said on Friday it had sent more than a ton of medical supplies to southern Somalia, where over 100 people have been wounded in areas where Kenyan troops are fighting entrenched Islamist rebels.

20120101
Reuters
(Reuters) - The death toll from a bomb attack on a church just outside Nigeria's capital Abuja on Christmas Day has risen to 37, with 57 people wounded, a source at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Friday.

20120101
Reuters
(Reuters) - A record number of rhinos were poached this year in South Africa, home to the greatest number of the animals, as rising demand in Asia for their horns led to increased killings of the threatened species.

20111231
AFP
Kenyan troops clashed with Somalia's Al-Qaeda linked Shebab militants leaving several dead, the latest casualties in weeks of dragging conflict in southern Somalia, officials and insurgents said Friday.

20111231
AP
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A second foreigner working with Doctors Without Borders died of his wounds in an attack in Somalia that also killed the group's country director, though the aid organization declared Friday that despite the risks it would still provide medical care in one of the world's most dangerous countries.

20111231
AFP
Medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders said Friday it believed the killing of two staff members in the war-torn Somali capital was an isolated act but that it was reviewing its work in the area.

20111231
AFP
Senegal's Interior Minister Ousmane Ngom on Friday banned the carrying of firearms for a period of four months which will include presidential elections, after recent violent political clashes.

20111231
AFP
Ivory Coast freed on bail ex-strongman Laurent Gbagbo's personal physician Friday and two journalists detained during the country's post-election unrest earlier this year, a judicial source said.

20111231
AFP
Al-Qaeda has sent militants to Libya in a bid to recruit a fighting force after the fall of Moamer Kadhafi's regime, but the group has yet to gain a strong foothold there, US officials said Friday.

20111231
AFP
A top businessman and a prominent critic of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz denounced on Friday an arrest warrant issued against him for supporting terror groups.

20111231
AFP
US Somalis said Friday that a Minnesota bank group's decision to cut off their money transfer business would have a devastating impact on people in the war-torn African country.

20111231
AFP
"The leopards won't like that!" jokes ranger Fyson Suwedi as his pick-up truck rattles along the bumpy road that leads from the airstrip to Malawi's Majete Wildlife Reserve.

20111231
AFP
The European Union is weighing expanding its anti-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa to include targeting equipment stored on Somali beaches, Germany said Friday.

20111231
AP
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen killed two civilians in a northeast Nigeria town plagued by attacks from a radical Muslim sect, an official said Friday, as a hospital official said one more person died from Christmas attacks blamed on the sect, raising the toll to 42.

20111231
AP
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The party of Congo's opposition leader says he is under effective house arrest after he inaugurated himself president.

20111231
AFP
Increased insecurity in Sudan's Darfur has restricted peacekeepers' ability to work, the head of the joint UN-AU mission in the western region said on Friday.

20111231
AFP
The death toll from a wave of attacks blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram targeting churches and other locations on Christmas day in Nigeria has risen to at least 49, a church official said Friday.

20111231
AFP
Guinea-Bissau's government has said that its security forces executed a police officer earlier this week as he turned himself in over his role in what the regime describes as a coup bid.