Africa News

LAGOS (AFP) - Nigeria's main rebel group, which has targeted oil facilities in the south, claimed responsibility for a strike on an oil jetty in Lagos in its first attack in the country's economic heart.

ALGIERS (AFP) - Cuban President Raul Castro met Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Sunday as he began a three-day visit to Cuba's north African ally ahead of a key summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

LAGOS (AFP) - Treason charges against a top militant leader are expected to be dropped at a court hearing Monday, as part of a government amnesty deal offered to rebels, said the defendant's lawyer.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic insurgents fought their way toward Somalia's presidential palace Sunday in fighting that killed dozens and wounded about 150, officials said. African Union peacekeepers directly intervened for the first time to support government forces.

BERN, Switzerland - A Swiss tourist taken hostage in North Africa in January has been released to authorities in Mali, officials said Sunday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region are still struggling to get hold of vital helicopters more than 18 months after arriving because of competition from other conflict zones, a senior U.N. official said on Sunday.

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt on Sunday urged rebel groups in war-torn Darfur to unite to help end the fighting which has plagued the western Sudanese province since 2003, the official MENA news agency reported.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — Opposition calls for a voter boycott in the Republic of Congo's presidential election appeared to be cutting into the turnout Sunday, but it was unclear how this would affect longtime President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's bid for another term.

CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's military rulers have put their armed forces on maximum alert, saying drug traffickers and their allies in neighboring countries want to destabilize the world's biggest bauxite exporter, state television reported.

CONAKRY, Guinea - Guinea's military leaders have uncovered a plot to overthrow the government in the poor, unstable West African nation, state radio reported.

LAGOS (Reuters) - A top Nigerian rebel leader has agreed to the terms of a federal amnesty program, his lawyer said on Sunday, but analysts doubt that militants will halt attacks in Africa's biggest oil sector.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali government troops backed by African Union peacekeepers battled insurgents on Sunday in clashes that killed at least 43 people in north Mogadishu, residents and officials said.

ACCRA (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told Africans on Saturday that Western aid must be matched by good governance and urged them to take greater responsibility for stamping out war, corruption and disease plaguing the continent.

JOHANNESBURG - The global economic crisis can be an opportunity for positive social change, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said Saturday during a speech honoring former South African President Nelson Mandela.

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday made a new appeal for unity in the country's power-sharing government.

DRESDEN, Germany - Hundreds of people carrying white roses gathered Saturday on the steps of Dresden's city hall in honor of an Egyptian woman who was fatally stabbed by a defendant in a German courtroom.

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe on Saturday criticized Western nations for setting conditions for aid to his devastated country and questioned whether a government he formed with rivals was truly united.

(Corrects to show that panel has no position on ICC)

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An African Union (AU) panel led by South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki said it had not taken a stance on an international court's indictment of Sudanese officials including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.