Africa News

BAMAKO (AFP) - Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was nominated by his party to have another crack at running for president in April elections in the arid west African nation.

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-Moon arrived to attend an African Union summit and hold crucial talks with Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir on deploying a joint AU-UN force in war-torn Darfur.

BANGUI (AFP) - Central African Republic President Francois Bozize said that for the first time he had held talks with rebel chiefs aimed at "recovering peace".

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - Militiamen torched a police station on Sunday as they rampaged through part of Port Harcourt in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta to try to free a leader they believed had been jailed, residents said.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Prosecutors call Thomas Lubanga a Congolese warlord whose militias plucked children off the streets as they walked to and from school and forced them to fight and die in a brutal rebel conflict.

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Heads of state were gathering in Addis Adaba for an African Union summit set to be overshadowed by another row over Sudan's bid to become president of the 53-member organisation.

KISANGANI, Congo (Reuters) - Sudan must make concrete commitments on allowing U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur and will be pressed to do so at an African Union summit this week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Sunday.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Xenophobia is on the rise in South Africa where foreigners are increasingly being blamed for spiralling crime and growing unemployment, thereby damaging the country's credentials overseas.

CAPE TOWN (AFP) - Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince steered South Africa to a series-clinching five-wicket win over Pakistan on the third day of the third and final Test at Newlands.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) will decide on Monday whether there is enough evidence to try a Congolese militiaman for using children as soldiers in what would be the new court's first trial.

KIGALI, Rwanda - Rwanda will release more than 8,000 prisoners convicted or awaiting trial in the country's 1994 genocide, many of them elderly and sick, the justice minister said.

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese President Hu Jintao heads to Africa this week unbowed by the controversy over his nation's ties with Sudan, where a brutal conflict in its western Darfur region has been described as genocide.

CONAKRY, Guinea - Guinea's union leaders ended a deadly 17-day strike Sunday after the president agreed to name a new prime minister with boosted powers.

KHARTOUM (AFP) - The UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict met with Sudanese officials at the start of a visit on the situation of child soldiers in a country ravaged by conflicts.

KINSHASA, Congo - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed to Congo's first elections in more than four decades as a sign of hope for the rest of Africa, praising the country's fragile democracy in his first official tour of the continent Saturday.

CAIRO (AFP) - Islam bars women from becoming head of state, Egypt's top Muslim cleric or mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, ruled in an official fatwa or religious edict published.

LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian militants holding two Italians and one Lebanese national hostage said they were concerned for the comfort of their victims.

LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian police were out in force as the ruling Peoples Democratic Party kicked off its campaign for April elections in the opposition stronghold of Lagos.

COTONOU, Benin - When this West African nation ran short of funds to finance its election machinery, voters raised cash, loaned computers, and lit up vote-counting centers with their motorcycle headlights.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon, on his first visit to Africa since taking office, promised the people of war-torn Congo they could rely on United Nations' support and vowed to tackle regional crises gripping Darfur and Somalia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia could send peacekeeping troops to the Darfur region in Sudan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told news agencies on Saturday.

KARACHI (AFP) - Fit-again all-rounder Abdul Razzaq and hard-hitting Shahid Afridi were recalled for Pakistan's five-match one-day series against South Africa starting early next month.

UNITED NATIONS - Gunmen killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded two others in southern Sudan on Friday, the U.N. said.

GENEVA - Jody Williams, the U.S. anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner, will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe killings, rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur, officials said Friday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Nine Chinese oil workers are missing after an armed attack on their company in south Nigeria, China's foreign ministry confirmed.

DAVOS, Switzerland - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and musician Bono on Friday urged countries and companies that have pledged to aid Africa to keep their promises and their helping hands extended.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Darfur rebels said on Friday they would refuse peace talks and would fight African Union peacekeepers on the ground if Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir became chairman of the pan-African body.

GENEVA (AFP) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams will head a high-level United Nations team to investigate rights abuses in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the UN Human Rights Council said.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Friday was Africa day in Davos and the mood, for a change, was upbeat.