AP - Four months before Southern Sudan is scheduled to hold an independence referendum, tensions are already rising in this oil-rich region that sits on the expected future border, with allegations the central government is using violence and ethnic cleansing to sway the vote.

AFP - Fresh clashes between police and demonstrators erupted in Mozambique on Thursday, the second day of violent protests over food and fuel prices that have left seven dead and hundreds injured.

AFP - The undefined border between ex-civil war foes in northern and southern Sudan is creating tension in the oil-rich area as the south nears an independence vote, the International Crisis Group warned on Thursday.

AFP - Uganda said Thursday it can provide up to 10,000 troops for deployment to Somalia where it already has soldiers in the African Union mission protecting the country's embattled government.

AFP - Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced the alleged torture by Moroccan police of seven prominent members of the country's leading Islamist association, the organisation said in a statement.

AFP - Liberia's parliament on Thursday ratified a 1.6 billion US dollar (1.2 billion euro) concession granted to Indonesian palm oil giant Golden Veroleum to develop plantations in the west African nation.

AFP - South Africa's foreign minister said Thursday the informal grouping of fast-growing emerging economies known as BRIC -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- should add South Africa to become BRICSA.

AFP - Nobel Peace laureate and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Thursday said calls on African governments to give priority to agricultural funding are starting to bear fruit.

AFP - South Africa will at the end of the year scrap a special policy allowing Zimbabwean nationals without proper documentation to enter its territory, a government spokesman said Thursday.

AP - South Africa's government is withdrawing the special status granted to illegal Zimbabwean immigrants who fled their country's economic meltdown and political violence, a spokesman said Thursday.

AFP - Mozambique's government said Thursday that seven people were killed and 288 injured during riots against price rises in the capital Maputo and surrounding areas.

AP - Angry protesters burned tires on the streets of Mozambique's capital and a TV station said at least one person was killed Thursday, a day after at least four people died in clashes between police and rioters.

A few pennies' increase in the price of a loaf of bread can mean the difference between getting by and going hungry -- and erupting in anger -- in the world's poorest countries.

Activists on Thursday hung posters across Cairo supporting Egypt's intelligence chief as a candidate in next year's presidential elections, the latest campaign to try to undermine a possible father-son succession in the Arab world's most populous nation.

Togo's opposition leader claims police tried to stop him from leading protesters through a police blockade in their attempt to protest the alleged rigging of this year's presidential election.

A report detailing hundreds of gruesome attacks against civilians in Congo over a 10-year period won't be released until October, the UN's top human rights official said Thursday, after Rwanda angrily protested the findings in a draft version.

Southern Sudan's parliament may vote to secede from the Khartoum-based north if an independence reference scheduled for January is delayed, a former top Southern Sudan official said Thursday.

Police have opened fire on crowds of demonstrators in Mozambique, killing at least six people including two children.

President Jacob Zuma was again accused by the opposition on Wednesday of covering up the involvement of senior ANC officials in a scandal that saw companies pay bribes to the regime of Saddam Hussein to secure contracts under the United Nations Food-for-Oil Programme.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is calling on Israel to freeze settlement activity in the Israeli-occupied territories and seize the moment for peace.

Rising prices around the world have raised concerns about a return to the political instability of 2008, when Haiti, Kenya and Somalia were among impoverished countries that saw rioting over the cost of living.

Uganda said Wednesday it is ready to send 10,000 more troops to Somalia if the U.S. provides the funding, a move that would see the African Union force in Mogadishu more than double in size.

Botswana's government has charged the former defense minister with corruption. A court in Gaborone charged Ramadeluka Seretse on Wednesday for failing to disclose his position as a shareholder in a company that was awarded a government contract.

Protesters angry with rising prices in impoverished Mozambique threw stones, burned tires and ransacked shops in the capital Wednesday, and police responded by firing shots into the air.

Three Russians abducted by gunmen in Sudan's restive Darfur region were freed by security forces after a clash with their kidnappers, a Sudanese news website reported Tuesday.

The South African government has increased its offer to civil servants whose nationwide strike for higher wages has crippled hospitals and schools across the country, officials said Tuesday.

Eight days of deadly clashes between government forces and al-Qaida-linked insurgents have forced dozens of people to seek surgical care and left Somalia's capital in a critical state, the international Red Cross said Tuesday.