A carload of suspected Islamist suicide bombers attack Mogadishu airport, killing soldiers and civilians, officials say.

US Marines have boarded and seized a vessel hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia, navy officials say.

The murder rate has fallen by 8.6% over the past year in South Africa, the latest statistics show.

The referendum on independence for Southern Sudan is a "ticking time bomb", US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says, however Sudan rejects her comments.

Striking pilots at Air Zimbabwe have began talks with management over a pay dispute that has grounded the carrier's flights.

The UN's head urges Rwanda not to withdraw its peacekeepers from Sudan over a leaked report saying its troops may have committed genocide.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed new military and police chiefs ahead of planned January presidential election.

Seven Koranic teachers in Senegal are given suspended jail sentences for forcing their students to beg.

About 700 prisoners escape after members of an Islamist sect storm a jail in northern Nigeria, where many of its followers were held.

South African researchers develop a tea bag size filter that can purify drinking water in a bottle at a fraction of cost.

JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2010 (IRIN) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned of an "imminent and severe threat from the increasing number of swarms of Migratory Locusts" in Madagascar, requiring "immediate response assistance to prevent a humanitarian disaster".

GABORONE, 9 September 2010 (IRIN) - The Botswana government has passed an amendment to its Employment Act that will bring an end to dismissal based on an individual's sexual orientation or HIV status, but rights groups believe the legislation needs to go further.

NAIROBI, 9 September 2010 (IRIN) - A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the Kenyan government needs to do more to provide palliative care for children with chronic illnesses, including cancer and HIV/AIDS.

JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2010 (IRIN) - HIV-positive patients about to start antiretroviral treatment are warned not to skip even the occasional dose of their medication because of the virus' ability to mutate rapidly and become drug resistant; but what about patients who have never taken treatment and already have a drug-resistant strain of the virus?

NAIROBI, 8 September 2010 (IRIN) - Primary school is a dead end for many children in Somalia, particularly in the southwestern Gedo region where many end up jobless, joining a militia, or emigrating.

NAIROBI, 8 September 2010 (IRIN) - On a dusty football field in Mathare, one of the largest slums in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, young boys chase a rough, home-made ball. Their coach, Elias Mwangi, 21, a former drug addict, hopes football will not only keep the boys away from crime but motivate them to avoid behaviours that put them at risk of HIV.

MAPUTO, 7 September 2010 (IRIN) - Carlos Matos, who has worked as a policeman in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, for the past 12 years, has to borrow a few dollars each month to supplement his US$52 wage.

NAIROBI, 7 September 2010 (IRIN) - Authorities in Galkayo, in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, are offering internally displaced persons (IDPs) skills training in a bid to integrate them into the community, officials said.

DAKAR, 7 September 2010 (IRIN) - As school resumes in Cameroon, some 1.6 million students in the north are receiving cholera-prevention messages via SMS, flyers, stickers and special textbooks, in a public-private effort to stem the country's worst outbreak in 20 years.

MANZINI, 7 September 2010 (IRIN) - The scope of Malawi's health assistants - first introduced in the 1960s as part of an initiative to eradicate smallpox - is being broadened to compensate for the lack of available medical skills and to assist in managing the treatment of child malnutrition.

The Director of African Democracy and Good Governance Edwin Nebolisa Nwakame was on Monday sentenced by Magistrate Abeke of Banjul Magistrates' Court to a mandatory jail term of six months imprisonment with hard labour. A fine of D10, 000 was also imposed on the defendant in default to serve three years in prison with hard labour.

While the overall security situation in Liberia is stable, it also continues to be fragile, and further progress is needed in a number of areas to truly consolidate the peace, the top United Nations envoy to the West African nation said today.

There was palpable tension in Jos yesterday following the news that a heavy duty vehicle loaded with arms had arrived the city. The vehicle, which was apprehended by security officials around Zawang Junction, attracted hundreds of residents of the area.

The Federal Government yesterday announced that over 781 persons have lost their lives to the recent outbreak of cholera while confirming that 13,000 cases of cholera have been recorded nationwide.

Most Nigerians who spoke with LEADERSHIP last night expressed shock at the sudden removal of the service chiefs, the Inspector-General of Police, Ogbona Onovo as well as the director-general of the State Security Service (SSS), Alhaji Afakriya Gazama by President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday.

The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Prisons Service, Mr. Olusola Ogundipe, has revealed that 721 out of the 759 inmates at the Bauchi Prisons escaped, following an attack by the Boko Haram sect.

COMMENDATIONS and condemnations, yesterday, trailed Wednesday's sack of service chiefs and the Inspector General of Police by President Goodluck Jonathan.

As Jonathan fires service chiefs, Gadzama, Onovo || Appoints 6 govs as zonal campaign co-ordinators || Forty years after the end of the civil war fought by Dim Chukwemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu-led Republic of Biafra and General Yakubu Gowon-led Nigeria army, President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday appointed an Igbo man, Major-General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika, from Ovim, Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State to head the Nigeria Army.

The Police Force Public Relations Officer Emmanuel Ojukwu yesterday said 35 out of the 721 inmates set free by the suspected Boko Haram sect in Bauchi have been re-arrested by the police. Ojukwu said at a press conference in Abuja yesterday that fighters armed with

Samuel Peter is confident of scoring a knockout victory over reigning IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, Wladimir Klitschko, when both get to slug it out on September 11 in Frankfurt, Germany.

There was palpable tension in Jos yesterday following the news that a heavy duty vehicle loaded with arms had arrived the city. The vehicle, which was apprehended by security officials around Zawang Junction, attracted hundreds of residents of the area.

Rapid economic growth and its sustainability as well as the empowerment of the citizenry, which are indices of national development, have continued to elude Nigeria because of the lip service being paid to science and technology.

Nigeria is to host the first AU-New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) meeting on external debt management in the first quarter of 2011, Mr Goodie Ibru, has said. Ibru, the Chairman of NEPAD Business Group Nigeria, disclosed this when he paid a courtesy visit on the Director-General, Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr Abraham Nwankwo.

AFRICAN Institute for Applied Economics (AIAE), has identified recipes for increasing the size of the economy by N50 trillion in the next three years, and for attaining 11 per cent Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per annum.

On Monday September 6, 2010, the striking lecturers of state-owned universities in the South East geopolitical zone donned full academic regalia and staged a protest march in Enugu, the political capital of the defunct Eastern Region, over the failure of governments in the zone to implement the Federal Government/Academic Staff Union of Universities (FG/ASUU) pact reached last year after a prolonged national strike.

AIRPORT traffic at the Ibom International Airport at Uyo, has witnessed a geometric rise with no fewer than 79,588 passengers undertaking commercial flights since the commencement of inaugural flight at the airport in September last year.

Sierra Leone's telecoms regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), and the University of Sierra Leone (USL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, committing the two institutions to work together for the advancement of computer literacy and information and communication technology (ICT).

Scores of stone hewing women and girls along the Hill Station and IMATT axis have called on government and non-governmental organizations to come to their aid by providing them with an alternative means of livelihood.

Government would receive the colossal sum of Le355.1 million from Koidu Holdings company for the next 17 years after the signing of a new mining agreement between the two parties.

African Minerals SL Ltd. (AML) Freetown, 23 August, 2010. Our attention has been drawn to a seemingly self-seeking report by the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) titled "Dancing with the Chameleon - Mining Communities in Sierra Leone and the many faces of Frank Timis" - June 2010.