Africa News Headlines

With around 50 players leaving France for the Africa Cup of Nations this month, Ligue 1 clubs are having to juggle their resources in order to keep their seasons on track.

Chevron Corp. says it has ended its search for two workers who went missing in a fire on an offshore rig near Nigeria's coast.

A rainbow nation of shoppers poured through the racks of fashion giant Zara's brand new store, its first in South Africa, where the Spanish chain hopes to tap an increasingly diverse middle class.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon told Wednesday how he begged governments for helicopters but could still not get peacekeepers to a South Sudan town under siege because of growing equipment shortages.

Rare and expensive fragments of a Mars meteorite fell from the sky in July over Morocco, a team of international scientists confirmed on Wednesday.

More than five million people are going hungry in Niger, the impoverished west African country's premier said Wednesday.

Five Tunisian students said they went on hunger strike Wednesday against a ban on niqab veils imposed by a university, upping the ante in a dispute which began in November.

Morocco's new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane met Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday for talks to mend troubled ties and a fishing dispute that has hit Madrid badly.

There will be no shortage of stars on show at the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations from Saturday despite the absence of big guns Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.

Egypt is seeking to build a political consensus to back a much-needed financial support program from the International Monetary Fund, the Fund said Wednesday after talks in Cairo.

Nigeria's police are under scrutiny after the suspected mastermind of the Christmas Day bombing that killed dozens escaped from custody during a police-escorted transfer — an embarrassment for a nation struggling to contain increasingly bloody sectarian attacks by a radical Islamist sect.

Gunmen in Ethiopia's arid north attacked a group of European tourists traveling in one of the world's lowest and hottest regions, killing five, wounding two and kidnapping two, an Ethiopian official said Wednesday.

Scottish Premier League leaders Celtic made their second signing in as many days on Wednesday with the arrival of Nigerian Under-23 midfielder Rabiu Ibrahim after he had an impressive trial with the club.

Mali's army said Wednesday it had fought off attacks by Tuareg rebels, some of whom recently returned from fighting in Libya and have launched an offensive to seize several northern towns.

A new Tuareg rebel group launched a second day of attacks to "liberate" Mali's arid north, a rebel spokesman said Wednesday, ending the tenuous peace that has existed between Tuareg groups and the government for the last two years.

The EU said Wednesday it is doubling humanitarian aid to Africa's Sahel area to 95 million euros in a "race against time" to lift two million people facing food shortages out of danger.

Sudan expressed optimism on Wednesday that a deal can be reached with its breakaway neighbour South Sudan on oil compensation, despite an impasse at the latest African Union-brokered talks.

South Africa on Wednesday pushed its campaign for Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to head the African Union executive, a key post to be decided at a summit next week.

African football legend Abedi 'Pele' Ayew says the absence of Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa from the 2012 Cup of Nations saddens him.

Madagascar's exiled leader Marc Ravalomanana said Wednesday that he is preparing to return home, nearly three years after his overthrow.

Government workers in Zimbabwe will stage a one-day strike on Thursday to demand a salary increase and improved work conditions, union officials said.

Nigerian soldiers have arrested six Islamists described as high-ranking members of the Boko Haram sect during a raid in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, an officer said Wednesday.

Thousands of people, more than half of them children, died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond to early warnings of an impending famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday, even as they warned of a new hunger crisis in West Africa.