World: Africa

ROME (Reuters) - Drought and war in eastern Africa have left more than 20 million people in desperate need of emergency food aid, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Ethiopia on Tuesday announced the discovery of a mine containing more than 40 tonnes of gold deposit worth 1.7 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros).

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The trial of a former Rwandan bank director charged with helping fund the 1994 Rwanda genocide will go ahead despite his absence due to ill health, a Belgian court ruled Tuesday.

CAIRO (AFP) - Restoration work will begin on the tomb of Egypt's most famous pharaoh, King Tutankhamen, Egypt's antiquities department said on Tuesday.

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - The African Union on Tuesday called on Madagascar's political rivals to urgently implement a power-sharing deal reached last week aimed at ending the country's protracted political crisis.

BANGUI (AFP) - Central African Republic former president Ange-Felix Patasse, who returned from exile last month, met Monday with the man who deposed him and vowed to run for office next year.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - World Cup hosts South Africa have axed striker Mabhuti Khanyeza for friendlies against Japan and Jamaica after he missed a training-camp deadline.

COTONOU (AFP) - After a four-week ocean journey to nowhere, Raimi was tired and disillusioned on return to Benin's port of Cotonou, which he had left in high hopes of reaching the oil "El Dorado" of central Africa: Equatorial Guinea.

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - Former Rwandan government minister Callixte Nzabonimana, described by prosecutors as "the Butcher of Gitarama", went on trial Monday at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania.

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has made a big show of defying a global arrest warrant against him, but in fact it has greatly curtailed his travel, as shown by his scrapping of trip to Istanbul.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - China's pledge of 10 billion dollars in concessional loans to African states and enhanced trade was warmly received by African delegates as a two-day summit in Egypt ended on Monday.

HARARE (AFP) - Roy Bennett, a top aide to Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday went on trial for terror charges before a packed courtroom in a case that has rocked Harare's fragile unity government.

ARUSHA, Tanzania - A prosecutor at a U.N.-backed tribunal is accusing a Rwandan official of ordering the murder of children too weak to walk during the country's 1994 genocide.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Prosecutors sought to throw out testimony that evidence against a top prime minister's aide was obtained through torture as the trial that has strained Zimbabwe's troubled coalition government began Monday.

BERN, Switzerland - Two Swiss businessmen detained by Libya over a spat involving leader Moammar Gadhafi's son have been handed over to their embassy in Tripoli, Switzerland's Foreign Ministry said Monday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Rebels from Sudan's Darfur region on Monday threatened to attack any election officials that came into their territory, underlining the challenges facing the country's first multi-party poll in 24 years.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's ally Roy Bennett went on trial accused of terrorism on Monday in a case that has stoked tensions in the unity government of Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF.

Soweto, South Africa - When José Bright arrived in South Africa in 1994, he felt daunted by the task ahead. After all, as an education consultant from the Washington, D.C., public school system, his job was to help South Africa transform its schools, designed to benefit the white minority of 4 million, into a system to educate the 40 million black majority as well.

LOKOJA, Nigeria (AFP) - After decades of delay and wrangling by resisting riverine communities, Nigeria has launched a multi-million-dollar dredging exercise to boost navigation and commerce on the Niger River.

BOR, Sudan (Reuters) - South Sudan could face famine following low rainfall and a surge in tribal conflicts, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said on Sunday.

ISTANBUL - Turkey said Sunday that Sudan's internationally indicted leader, President Omar al-Bashir, will not attend a conference of Muslim nations in Istanbul.

BENONI, South Africa (AFP) - South Africa cruised to a 45-run victory over Zimbabwe on Sunday in a one-day international designed to dust away cobwebs ahead of a tour by England that begins in five days.

CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Sunday he would stay in the government and challenge President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF to implement last year's political deal in full.

CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe (AFP) - Zimbabwe Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday appealed to President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party to treat him as equal partner in the power sharing government.

BOR, Sudan (AFP) - Southern Sudan faces potential famine and the risk of further ethnic conflict, with over one million people already hit by serious food insecurity, the UN Children?s Fund deputy head warned Sunday.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Sunday pledged to give Africa 10 billion dollars in loans, brushing off criticism of "neo-colonialism" as China boosts its presence on the continent.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Security forces in Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested about 100 armed men blamed for killing dozens of policemen in an attack in the country's isolated north last month, the government said on Sunday.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - China's premier on Sunday pledged $10 billion in low interest loans to African nations over the next three years and said Beijing would cancel the government debts of some of the poorest of those countries.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to give African countries 10 billion dollars in concessional loans as a two-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation opened in Egypt on Sunday.