Africa News

YAOUNDE, Cameroon - A conservation group is caring for more than 1,000 African gray parrots with help from an Ohio zoo after the birds were rescued from smugglers who had stuffed them into crates bound for the Middle East. Full Story »

EL-FASHER, Sudan (Reuters) - Militias raided a Darfur refugee camp, shooting dead two people and injuring at least 10 in an escalation of tensions in Sudan's restive west, witnesses and U.N. officials said Wednesday. Full Story »

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities have accused detained senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's biggest opposition group, of trying to set up training camps for staging attacks, the group's lawyer said on Wednesday. Full Story »

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia has sent Britain a petition calling for posthumous pardons for two soldiers court-martialled and executed more than 100 years ago in South Africa, a government spokesman said Wednesday. Full Story »

PARIS (AFP) - A ban on fishing around a colony of threatened penguins in South Africa has brought swift benefits to the beleaguered birds, marine biologists reported on Wednesday. Full Story »

NAGPUR, India (AFP) - Batsmen Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik were on Tuesday named in India's squad for the crucial second and final Test against South Africa beginning in Kolkata on February 14. Full Story »

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office as acting president on Tuesday to fill a power vacuum more than two months after President Umaru Yar'Adua left for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. Full Story »

ABUJA, Nigeria - Nigeria's parliament empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa's most populous nation Tuesday in place of an ill and absent president, striving for a political end to a crisis that ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil sector. Full Story »

ABUJA (AFP) - Nigeria's Vice President Goodluck Jonathan took office as acting head-of-state on Tuesday after parliament voted to force ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua to hand over until he is well enough to return. Full Story »

ABUJA (AFP) - Nigeria's Vice President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday accepted the post of acting president while the country's head of state, President Umaru Yar'Adua, receives treatment abroad for a heart problem. Full Story »

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir said Tuesday the country has "completely turned the page" in its conflict with Chad and was ready to fully normalise relations with its neighbour. Full Story »

KHARTOUM (AFP) - The Red Cross said on Tuesday it had requested Sudan President Omar al-Beshir's help in obtaining the swift release of a French employee kidnapped in the Darfur region last year. Full Story »

ARUSHA (AFP) - The alleged financier of the Rwandan genocide, Felicien Kabuga, is still in Kenya, notwithstanding government declarations to the contrary, US diplomat Stephen Rapp said Tuesday on a visit to Arusha. Full Story »

ABUJA (AFP) - A top US envoy on Tuesday highlighted the "uncertainty" in Nigeria where political turmoil has mounted while the country's ailing president is treated abroad. Full Story »

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Emergency workers pored through the charred debris of a South African orphanage, searching for the remains of young children killed in a fire Tuesday that left 15 dead, officials said. Full Story »

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - An international news channel is showing chilling footage of men in uniforms shooting unarmed men after they purportedly were arrested during clashes last year with Muslim militants in northern Nigeria. Full Story »

NAGPUR, India (Reuters) - South Africa captain Graeme Smith hailed the maturity shown by his team in adverse circumstances after they won the opening test against top-ranked India on Tuesday. Full Story »

NAGPUR, India (Reuters) - India found their number one ranking under threat after South Africa orchestrated their first defeat on home soil in almost two years on Tuesday. Full Story »