Africa News

NAIROBI, Kenya - At least 2,000 people have died and 250,000 have fled their homes following violence in southern Sudan this year, worsening a humanitarian crisis in a region seeking its independence, officials from a medical aid group said Monday. Full Story »

HARARE (AFP) - Polio has re-emerged in several African countries where it had been eradicated, the World Health Organisation said Monday at the start of a conference on child immunisation in Zimbabwe. Full Story »

RABAT (AFP) - Morocco on Monday charged that Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi activist on hunger strike in Spain's Canary Islands, is part of a "systematic, methodical plot devised by Algeria." Full Story »

KIGALI (AFP) - A former journalist was sentenced to life in prison for her role in inciting genocide in Rwanda, local groups said Monday, in the latest of a series of trials for the 1994 slaughter. Full Story »

LAGOS (AFP) - Twenty-three people burned to death when a bus carrying mourners to a funeral collided with a truck on a road in southwest Nigeria, police said Monday. Full Story »

NEW YORK - Two civilian members of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur who were held hostage for more than 100 days have been released, the U.N. said Sunday. Full Story »

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Leaders of former warring north and south Sudan announced a deal on democratic reforms on Sunday ahead of next year's national elections and a southern referendum on independence. Full Story »

KIGALI (AFP) - Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been reelected with a crushing majority to head the Rwandan Patriotic Front party that has been in power since 1994. Full Story »

MADRID (AFP) - Spain's government Sunday vowed to press Rabat over the demands of Western Sahara activist Aminatou Haidar, who has been on hunger strike for almost a month to force Morocco to allow her to return home. Full Story »

CONAKRY (Reuters) - An assassination bid aimed at the first Guinean leader from the minority Guerze tribe has raised concerns that ethnic and regional divisions in the country could deepen. Full Story »

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has told his deeply divided ZANU-PF to prepare for elections but his movement may never regain absolute power after losing its parliamentary majority last year, analysts said. Full Story »

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The two main political parties in Sudan's north and south reached agreement on Sunday on democratic reforms, defusing a row that threatened to undermine a peace accord. Full Story »

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Former south Sudanese rebels on Sunday said they had made progress in talks with Sudan's president to defuse a row over democratic reforms that has threatened a peace deal in the oil-producing state. Full Story »

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Lesotho-born Thato was brought to South Africa at age three, by a woman she knew simply as "granny". Full Story »

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was re-elected Saturday as ZANU-PF leader for the next five years, urging supporters to work for the survival of the party. Full Story »

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said Saturday the unity government is short-lived and he plans to regain his hold over the country he has ruled for nearly three decades. Full Story »

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was endorsed Sunday to lead his ZANU-PF party for another five years and vowed to resist demands by his opponents to reform the country's security forces. Full Story »

TRIPOLI, Libya - A leading human rights group said Saturday that Libyan dissidents continue to face arbitrary detention and unfair trials, despite a limited expansion of freedoms since the country began to shed its pariah status several years ago. Full Story »