Jack Kim

Egypt's leading liberal party Wafd has scrapped an electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest political force, because it wants to field more candidates than the tie-up would have allowed, said a senior Wafd official.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir will address disputes over oil and territory when he arrives in Khartoum on Saturday for talks with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his first visit since southern independence in July.

Turkey evacuated dozens of severely wounded blast victims from the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday, two days after a suicide bomber killed 72 people in the rebel al Shabaab group's deadliest attack since launching an insurgency in 2007.

Snipers hiding in a mosque and Muammar Gaddafi's favourite summit venue held back Libyan government forces trying to capture his hometown on Thursday, making forecasts of a quick end to the battle look premature.

Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed 10 people, including members of a local aid group, in attacks on vehicles travelling in the province of South Kivu this week, the local government said on Thursday.

The Archbishop Bishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wants to meet Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe during his visit to Africa and call on him to end a violent suppression of the Anglican Church and its priests in the country.

Kenya expects a planned liquefied natural gas terminal to cost $500 million and take 3-5 years to build once it floats a tender in February 2012 as it seeks to diversify sources of electricity to meet rising demand, an energy official said on Wednesday.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) on Wednesday applauded Uganda's four percentage point interest rate hike aimed at taming rampant inflation and said the cycle of monetary tightening was expected to trim economic growth in 2011.

South African share prices rose on Wednesday with investors snapping up stocks they felt had been over-sold and as positive sentiment seeped back into global markets after Europe said it would protect the region's lenders from the euro zone crisis.

South African government bonds and the rand currency ended firmer on Wednesday, boosted after a minister said the government would keep a lid on spending and tracking gains elsewhere as global risk appetite picked up.

Top world cocoa grower Ivory Coast has ramped up border security and warned cocoa dealers they could be prosecuted if they are caught smuggling beans to neighbouring countries, farmers and a government source said on Wednesday.

U.S. explorer Anadarko Petroleum Corp has raised its estimate of the amount of natural gas it has discovered offshore Mozambique by two thirds, lifting hopes that East Africa could become a major gas exporter.

Zimbabwe's economy will grow at a slower pace in 2012 than this year as politics puts a drag on full recovery and inflation should stay in single figures, partly due to prudent fiscal policy, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Wednesday.

Democratic Republic of Congo will see its energy deficit worsen dramatically in the next four years due to a surge in industrial demand from the mining industry, the country's national supplier said on Tuesday.

Democratic Republic of Congo needs to invest some $300 million in its industrial diamond mining operations to revive a flagging sector and boost government revenue, a top mining official said.

Tanzania's ruling party narrowly won a key parliamentary by-election after a tight race marked by low voter turn-out, pointing to a decline in popularity of the party even in regions where it enjoyed strong support.

Egypt's army will not propose a candidate in the upcoming presidential election, its military ruler said on Wednesday, denying speculation that it may have in mind a military nominee who could be seen as out of step with a transition to democracy.

Libya's top oil body is pursuing international oil firms for bills worth around $6 billion that were left unpaid this year due to U.N. sanctions imposed in March, a source in the National Oil Corporation (NOC) told Reuters this week.

Libyan government forces fought their way, street by street, into the centre of Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte on Wednesday after their commanders said the battle for the city was entering its final hours.

Liberia's Supreme Court said on Wednesday it has dismissed a challenge to the eligibility of six candidates in next week's presidential election, including incumbent leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and her main rivals.

South Africa and Zambia have approved the $1.1 billion bid by China's Jinchuan Group for copper and cobalt producer Metorex, bringing closer prospects for the deal to be finalised by November.

Yields on the reopened Kenyan two-year Treasury bond are expected to jump beyond those on short-term Treasury bills, given the anticipated hike in the central bank's benchmark rate on Wednesday, traders said.

Sudan's central bank said on Tuesday export traders needed to repay foreign currency gains within three months instead of six, the latest measure to fight a scarcity of dollars driving up inflation.

South Africa's rand steadied against the rand on Tuesday and government bonds edged higher as tentative calm returned to the market although local assets are still vulnerable to contagion fears over Greece's heavy debt burden.

Germany repatriated to Namibia on Tuesday 20 African skulls taken from the area about a century ago when it was under its colonial rule and sent to Germany for questionable racial studies.

Turkish Prime Tayyip Erdogan visited South Africa on Tuesday, the latest stop in a diplomatic drive into the resource-rich continent whose attention is increasingly fixed on emerging market relationships rather than old commercial ties to Europe.

Tanzania has arrested seven suspected Somali pirates after an attack on an oil and gas exploration ship operated by Brazilian petroleum company Petrobras off the coast of the east African country.

Muammar Gaddafi's former prime minister said on Tuesday he believed the deposed leader was still in Libya and would carry on fighting the country's new leaders until the end.

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, cancelled a trip to South Africa planned for this week that had put Pretoria in a bind between its biggest trading partner China and one of its modern heroes, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu.