NIGERIA

Standard Bank Group is now financing small and medium-sized (SME) enterprises, tapping into a lucrative segment that was previously ignored by mainstream lenders but is increasingly on the agenda for most African governments.

Nigeria said on Thursday it was fining airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic a total of $235 million, as an ongoing row between Britain and Africa's most populous nation over landing slots and ticket prices escalates.

South Africa's third-biggest listed clothes retailer, Mr Price, reported a 22 percent rise in first-half profit as above-inflation wage increases and decades-low interest rates lift consumer spending in Africa's biggest economy.

Bollore plans to invest 18 billion CFA francs in Abidjan port by 2013 to make it the region's key sea hub, the French logistics and transport group's Africa chief said.

Nigeria plans to change the base year for its gross domestic product (GDP) to 2008 from 1990, a move that could lead to a huge jump in the estimated size of Africa's second biggest economy, the national statistics chief said on Thursday.

A violent Islamist sect responsible for scores of killings in northeast Nigeria is increasingly linking up with global jihadist movements like al Qaeda, a military commander in the area told Reuters on Monday.

The report suggests that African people are increasingly shifting to mobile communications because landline service is unreliable and too expensive.

Fire broke out on Wednesday on the Okordia/Rumuekpe oil pipeline in Nigeria and some production has been shut down, but the blaze has since been put out, a spokesman for operator Royal Dutch Shell said.

Nigeria's police said on Tuesday they had arrested suspected members of an Islamist sect behind coordinated attacks in the north of the country that killed at least 65 people late last week.

Nigeria's national security adviser on Monday dismissed a warning from the United States of an Islamist bomb threat to luxury hotels in the capital as not news, and said it was spreading unnecessary panic.

Reportedly, the attacks lasted for 90 minutes and included running gun battles with security forces.

Gunmen attacked a church in Nigeria late Thursday, killing at least two people.

Pirates have hijacked an oil products tanker off the coast of Nigeria after contact was lost with the vessel and crew over the weekend, the vessel's manager said on Thursday.

Kenya's central bank bared its teeth against stubbornly high inflation on Tuesday with a record rate rise that is seen supporting the shilling, boosting appetite for long-term bonds and helping secure the approval of extra funds from the IMF.

Nigerian legislators started hearings this week on a bill that would criminalise same-sex marriage and could make it punishable by five years in jail.

A Nigerian court rejected a challenge to President Goodluck Jonathan's victory in an April election and rejected demands by the main opposition party for a recount in several areas of the country.

Nigeria's Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said on Monday the bank would review its target band for the naira in the next few days, and depending on where the exchange rate settles may move its midpoint to 155/156 to the dollar, compared to its current 150.

According to reports, of the 54 nations of the Commonwealth, three-fourths (41) have laws which ban homosexuality.

Africa's new scramble for oil is heading east, where the potential could be huge but the risks are far higher than in the well-established sector on the continent's west coast.

Nigeria's military said on Monday they had detained a small oil tanker and arrested 46 people trying to ship illegally refined oil products, pursuing a fight against an underground industry worth hundred of millions of dollars a year.

The death of Moammar Gadhafi has definitely clarified one piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is the global oil market: There is now one fewer issue to hinder production security in a host of oil hot spots.