United Nations aid agencies and their partners today launched an appeal for more than $14 million to help the victims of flooding in Burkina Faso rebuild their homes and livelihoods over the next six month. The emergency humanitarian action plan unveiled today estimates that about 105,000 Burkinabé require assistance as a result of floods which have struck the impoverished West African country since early July.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has begun a public awareness campaign about hygiene at primary schools across northern Cameroon in a bid to stem an outbreak of cholera that has killed hundreds of people.

In the wake of last week's riots in Maputo against price increases, the Mozambican government on Tuesday announced that it will subsidise bread, and reduced the announced increases in water and electricity tariffs.

South Africa, home to the world's largest HIV treatment programme, is trying to pull off the most extensive global HIV testing campaign but the ambitious initiative is facing some daunting realities.

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.

The announcement on 17 August by ExxonMobil that it is abandoning its campaign to buy a 23.5% stake in the Jubilee field, Africa’s biggest offshore oil field, is likely to precipitate a bid by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), backed by the China Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), Africa Confidential has learned.

After 21 days of strike, hundreds of thousands of South African public sector workers have returned to work.

The first direct flight between Liberia and the United States of America in 20 years touched down Sunday afternoon, September 5, at the Roberts International Airport in Margibi County, some 40 miles from Monrovia.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma today released the Final Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group which observed the 9 August Presidential elections in Rwanda.

The Registrar of Political Parties, Mr John Tendwa yesterday refused to announce his decision over petition filed by Chadema against CCM presidential candidate but information from the ruling party confirmed that the petition has been thrown out.

EU NAVFOR welcomes the first judgement yesterday in a Kenyan prosecution in connection with the interdiction of a pirate group by an EU NAVFOR warship.

The United Nations declared 2010 the Year of Biodiversity. But 17 years after the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the issue of biopiracy is still pitching North against South.

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.

An online database of people separated from relatives by conflict or natural disasters can now be accessed by mobile phone, thanks to a joint venture between the UN, an NGO and two private sector companies.

The Zambian police routinely engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, including torture, to extract confessions, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should investigate, discipline those found to be implicated, and train officers to interrogate suspects without coercion, Human Rights Watch said.

The inclusive government reportedly endorsed a decision by the South African government to end a special dispensation that allowed thousands of Zimbabweans, to enter that country without documents.

As the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continues its ding-dong cum hide-and-seek over former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar's registration in the party, his former party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), said yesterday that, by his defection, the former vice-president may have hit the last nail on his coffin politically.

The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kogi, Alhaji Mohammed Ahmadu, says the commission will sensitise politicians and other stakeholders about the dangers of using violence to win elections.

South Africa, home to the world's largest HIV treatment programme, is trying to pull off the most extensive global HIV testing campaign but the ambitious initiative is facing some daunting realities.

Zambia's economic management to all intents and purposes has been exemplary and it is not surprising that this achievement has been recognised by the World Bank.