South African President Thabo Mbeki will travel to Zimbabwe on Friday to meet President Robert Mugabe and political leaders, in his role as mediator for the Southern African Development Community, to discuss the current situation in the country.

Militants in the Niger Delta say they would only participate in the proposed Niger Delta summit if the Federal Government promises to implement its outcome.

President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga will head the top decision-making organ of the grand coalition, according to draft proposal on power-sharing.

In many of Africa's towns and villages, smoky kerosene lamps are all that keeps the darkness at bay after sunset. However, kerosene is a dangerous and increasingly expensive source of light for Africans who do not have access to electricity -- about three-quarters of those living on the continent, according to the World Bank.

At least 20,000 people have fled their homes near the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, after fighting between the army and rebels, officials said on 9 May.

The Central African Republic is striving to turn the page on decades of armed violence linked to mutinies, coups and attempted coups. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced, many of them unable, or too afraid, to farm their land. This is an overview of the various armed groups, government security forces and international military missions in the country.

Unidentified gunmen killed an official of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Kenya's northwestern town of Lokichoggio on 7 May, in what the agency has described as the first killing of a WFP aid worker in the relief hub for Southern Sudan.

After years of delays linked to instability in strife-torn Casamance, the government finally launched a landmine clearance programme in the region in February 2008, but lack of adherence to the 2004 peace accord is hampering progress.

Following an hour of heated debate at the joint Chamber of the National Legislature, the House of Representatives Thursday passed into law an act seeking to establish The Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC). But Maryland County Representative Boffa Chambers has filed a motion of reconciliation.

As retired army general Charles Julu and Col. Andrew Dorbor go with a not guilty verdict on treason charges, a pro-democracy campaigner has called on the two men to file a lawsuit against the government of Liberia for damages.

POLICE yesterday arrested the editor of the Standard, Davison Maruziva, on allegations of publishing statements deemed prejudicial to the state and contempt of court after publishing an opinion article by MDC leader Arthur Mutambara lambasting a ruling of the High Court last month on the delayed release of the March 29 presidential election results.

"We do not have any one way of dealing with Zimbabwe," said the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s acting director for the African department Benedict Christensen last month.

The Mineworkers Union of Namibia has given Skorpion Zinc Mine notice of an industrial stayaway effective today at midnight.

President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday congratulated the newly appointed President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, saying that this would further enhance relations and strategic partnership between the two countries.

GOVERNMENT will use K13.6 billion the Task Force on Corruption has earned from the sale of seized properties to build maternity wards at various health centres countrywide.

The Government yesterday described Pemba elders' demand for secession as treason, comparing it with what took place in the Comoros recently.

SA's rapid pace of economic growth over the past three years was well above a sustainable level of about 3,5%, a team of international experts said yesterday.

THE Senate, yesterday, turned down the National Health Bill facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Health with funds from the N300 million unspent 2007 budget of the Ministry.

THE opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said on Thursday that it is still not planning to participate in a presidential run-off election against President Robert Mugabe.

Tanzanian police in collaboration with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) security have launched a manhunt for a controversial protected witness who mysteriously disappeared on Tuesday from a safe house in Arusha.

Less than 48 hours to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag off of the governorship campaign of Chief Timipre Sylva in the ordered re-run election in Bayelsa State, the state secretariat was in the early hours of yesterday attacked with explosives suspected to be dynamites.

The prevalence of HIV/Aids among women and girls involved in commercial sex in Kampala is on the rise.

A good level of security prevails in southern Chad, despite concerns over road banditry and an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR), says the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the two countries.

Calls for the trial of former President Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged corrupt practices swelled across the nation yesterday as different rallies were organised in Abuja and Kaduna by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Coalition of Northern Nigeria Civil Society Organisations, calling on President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to prosecute Obasanjo and his daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello.

Irish rocker and activist Bob Geldof's statement that Angola is a country "run by criminals" unleashed a political storm that could have an impact on Portugal's large investment interests in the largest of its former African colonies.