Jack Kim

Protests in Bahrain are starting to make forays away from the central square in Manama and into different parts of the city, pressing the Sunni-led government for swift democratic reform.

A gunman shot dead two U.S. soldiers and injured two people seriously in a U.S. Army bus at Frankfurt airport Wednesday, said Boris Rhein, interior minister for the state of Hesse.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly replaced popular Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg on Wednesday, hoping to put his plagiarism affair behind her to focus on three state elections.

Taliban militants on Wednesday shot dead Pakistan's only Christian government minister for challenging a law that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam, the latest sign of instability in a country where many fear radical Islam is becoming more mainstream.

South African investment firm Brait will raise up to $864 million in a rights issue for its latest round of acquisitions, as it jettisons its private equity model in favour of public capital markets.

Mozambique's Nacala Development Corridor (CDN) plans to invest $200 million to upgrade its port at Nacala and raise capacity to 16 million tonnes of cargo in 2030 from 1.5 million tonnes, a CDN official said on Wednesday.

London Commodity Brokers (LCB) aims to sell 2 million tonnes of South African thermal coal a year for Strategic Natural Resources (SNR) PLC, using the port of East London rather than the highly congested Richards Bay.

Copper output in Zambia, Africa's leading producer of the metal, increased by 60 percent in January as mining companies boosted production due to favourable prices, the central bank said on Wednesday.

A powerful member of South Africa's ruling party on Wednesday accused the new government spokesman of making racially insensitive comments that echoed the injustices of the apartheid era.

Somalia's government said it will bar ships from using rebel-controlled southern ports in an effort to starve the militants of revenue and supplies, but it was unclear how it would enforce the ban.

Consultants hired by Algeria to value Orascom Telecom's local mobile phone unit are scheduled to complete their work by the end of May, Algerian telecommunications minister Moussa Benhamadi told Reuters.

The Nigerian naira weakened further against the U.S. dollar on the interbank market on Wednesday as strong demand for the greenback persisted in the face of static supply, traders said.

Guinea's government has dispatched security forces to prevent RUSAL from exporting alumina from the port of Conakry, two sources with knowledge of RUSAL's operations said on Wednesday.

Ghana will receive its first payment for oil flows later this month, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday after parliament passed a long-delayed oil revenue management bill in a unanimous vote.

Nigeria's state oil company had the poorest transparency record of 44 national and international energy companies evaluated in a report published by international watchdogs this week.

Explosions rocked the southern Abidjan suburb of Koumassi overnight and on Wednesday, as fighting between insurgents seeking to oust Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo and security forces spread to new areas of the main city.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe threatened on Wednesday a state-backed take-over of foreign firms and a boycott of products to retaliate against Western sanctions placed on him and his ZANU-PF party.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Wednesday he would investigate the violence in Libya after the U.N. Security Council referred the case to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal.

Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya's east at dawn on Wednesday, sparking a rebel call for foreign air strikes against African mercenaries they said were helping him cling to power.

The Kenyan shilling edged down to a six-and-a half-year low against the dollar on Monday and traders expect it to ease further due to demand for the U.S. currency from oil importers.

Rains mixed with good sunny spells last week in most of Ivory Coast's cocoa growing regions would help the development of the April to September mid-crop, farmers and analysts said on Monday.

Nigeria's state asset management company said on Monday it was set to start the second round of non-performing loan purchases from the banking sector and was on track to soak up all bad credit by the end of next month.

Senegalese telecom operator Sonatel saw 2010 net profits slip as tougher competition nibbled at its margins and it was hit by a temporary tax surcharge on incoming traffic, the group said.

Investors are bracing for a big sell-off when Egypt's stock exchange opens on Tuesday after a month-long shutdown caused by the mass uprising that toppled the country's president.

South Africa's government bond curve steepened again on Monday with the yield spread between shorter and longer-dated debt hitting a record high as dealers positioned ahead of a debt auction on Tuesday.

Tanzania is close to concluding a $400 million loan to finance a 200 megawatts coal-fired power project amidst chronic energy shortages in east Africa's second largest economy, the president said on Monday.

Iran is believed to have told the U.N. atomic watchdog a broken pump is forcing it to remove fuel from its first nuclear power reactor, a new setback for the $1 billion (615 million pounds) project, experts familiar with the issue said on Monday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition holds a narrowing one-point lead over the centre-left opposition in Baden-Wuerttemberg one month before the key state election, according to a poll published on Monday.

Iran has arrested opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the opposition website Kaleme said on Monday.