Africa News

KADUNA, Nigeria -; Police say security officers have foiled an attack in central Nigeria after gunshots were heard near a government building.

A source close to the Swedish government told The Associated Press the diplomat had engaged in "refugee espionage" and was sent back to Rwanda last week.

Gen. Mohammed Lamari, who led Algeria's military during a decade of civil war that crushed the nation's Islamic rebel groups, died Monday.

Pirates off Nigeria's coast attacked a cargo ship early Monday, shooting dead its captain and chief engineer in the increasingly dangerous waters for shippers, an official said.

Thousands of Somalis are gathering at a militant-organized demonstration on the outskirts of Mogadishu in support of the merger of the Somali militant group al-Shabab with al-Qaida . Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told those gathered at Monday's rally that al-Shabab is happy with its unification with al-Qaida, a merger announced last week by ... (more)

Social networks were abuzz at the weekend over the decision to use Nelson Mandela's image on all bank notes.

Exiled president of Madagascar Marc Ravalomanana is told by an airline security official that the flight he is on is being turned back from Madagascar to South Africa, last month.

A New Jersey father and son were being held captive in a hotel in the southern African nation of Angola for 44 days and counting after New York City rapper Nas skipped out on a concert there.

A United Nations freelance consultant was fatally shot in the head while driving through an upscale Cairo neighborhood on Sunday, Egyptian security officials said, as concerns persist over a security vacuum blamed on lax policing since the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak last year.

A transport minister says a senior adviser to Congo's president is among two killed after a private jet crashed while landing in Congo's city of Bukavu.

Mali beat 10-man Ghana 2-0 Saturday in the third-place match at the African Cup of Nations for its best finish since it lost the 1972 final.

"Nationalisation is not the ANC or government policya Our policy is a mixed economy," Zuma told the business and diplomatic community in Cape Town less than 12 hours after his State of the Nation address.

Nigerians voted amid tight security in a governorship election on Saturday in President Goodluck Jonathan's restive and oil-rich home state of Bayelsa, where last week militants attacked a major oil pipeline.

Mali is determined to quell a heavily armed Tuareg rebellion in its north before an election scheduled for April, the defence minister said yesterday.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said in a statement that the attacks took place Friday in Maiduguri, the spiritual home for the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.

Jacob Zuma holds a new South African bank note at the South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria.

Egypt's military rulers have warned that the country faces conspiracies that seek to topple the state and spread chaos, in a message intended to undermine activists who plan to mark the anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak's overthrow with anti-army protests.

Sudan and South Sudan on Friday signed a security agreement which aims to defuse tensions over oil payments which officials had warned could spark a war between the two countries.

A boat carrying Somalis fleeing violence in their homeland capsized this week in the Gulf of Aden, leaving at least 11 people dead and another 34 missing, a U.N. agency said.

Al-Qaida's decision to formally extend its terror franchise to what once was a nationalist movement in Somalia may only be a desperate joining of hands to prop up two militant groups that are both losing popular support and facing increasingly deadly military attacks, analysts said Friday.