Africa News Headlines

Burkina Faso must stop conceding soft goals if they are to have any hope of defeating Ivory Coast on Thursday and getting their Africa Cup of Nations campaign back on track.

Equatorial Guinea grabbed the headlines on day five of the Africa Cup of Nations with a stunning defeat of Senegal to become the first team into the quarter-finals.

Held captive since last fall, an ailing American woman and a Danish man are safely on their way home after a bold, dark-of-night rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs. The commandos slipped into a Somali encampment, shot and killed nine captors and whisked the hostages to freedom.

Eighty-six percent of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have no access to anti-retrovirals, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday.

Senegal's opposition on Wednesday called for the nation to defy a ban on protests, heightening tensions ahead of a ruling on whether President Abdoulaye Wade can seek a disputed third term.

Protesters prepared to spend the night in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday after a massive rally to mark one year since the launch of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, with activists vowing to revive their unfinished revolution.

The outgoing head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) Ellen Loej said Wednesday that efforts to prepare national security agencies to take over from the mission were being intensified.

Nigeria's president fired the country's police chief and all six of his deputies on Wednesday after a wave of Islamist attacks that has fuelled growing criticism of the country's security policies.

Zambia came from behind twice to draw 2-2 with fairytale qualifiers Libya on Wednesday in a rain-delayed Africa Cup of Nations Group A match.

U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia under cover of darkness early Wednesday and crept up to an outdoor camp where an American woman and Danish man were being held hostage. Soon, nine kidnappers were dead and both hostages were freed.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara began a his first state visit to France on Wednesday, less than a year after French troops helped ouster his predecessor who now faces war crimes charges.

A rebel movement that was once the most powerful in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region appears to have split into factions since the death of its leader last month, the head of the peacekeeping mission to the region said on Wednesday.

About 5,000 people have fled their homes to escape floodwaters in southern Malawi, due to heavy rains from a deadly cyclone that is battering neighbouring Mozambique, authorities said Wednesday.

South Sudan signed an agreement with Kenya to build an oil pipeline to a Kenyan port, potentially freeing it from reliance on its northern neighbour Sudan, officials said Wednesday.

The angry youths piled on top of the burned-out truck near a blood-spattered police station Wednesday in Nigeria's north, alternating praises for the radical Islamist sect that bombed the precinct and promising to kill any officer who returned.

Zimbabwe will tap into special reserves at the International Monetary Fund to upgrade its sanitation system, amid a typhoid outbreak in the capital Harare, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Wednesday.

Nigeria's president has forced the nation's federal police chief to retire after an attack by a radical Islamist sect killed at least 185 people in the country's north.

Talks with Zimbabwe's government Wednesday failed to end a strike by civil servants that has shut down many of the nation's schools as workers seek a doubling of basic salaries.

Mediation talks on the political crisis in Madagascar sponsored by regional body SADC should allow ousted president Marc Ravalomanana's return from exile by February 29, a close aide said Wednesday.

Arson and looting broke out in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region on Wednesday after a protest against the appointment of a new governor, witnesses said.

Local authorities say rescuers in military helicopters have plucked villagers to safety in flooded southern Malawi.

Angola is making "concerted efforts" to explain a $32 billion gap in the government's accounts, which apparently was caused by undocumented spending on infrastructure projects, the IMF said Wednesday.

Jubilant youths overran a blood-splattered police station on Wednesday after it was attacked by a radical Islamist sect, revealing a streak of popular discontent with a government that many say has failed them in Africa's most populous nation.