Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - In his first public address since being unanimously re-elected as head of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma has sparked an outcry by saying that spending money to buy a dog and taking it to the vet and for walks belonged to "White" culture. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigerian security agents on Thursday shot dead five suspected members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect in the northern city of Kaduna, the military said. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The imposing residence of former Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, in the country's South-west, was gutted by fire on Thursday, causing what the local media called "extensive damage". Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) – The Rwandan army has offered three combat helicopters to the UN Mission in South Sudan (MINUSS), the Rwandan military spokesperson, General Joseph Nzabamwita, said on Thursday. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – Gambians under the banner of Democratic Union of Gambian Activists (DUGA) in America are preparing to stage a demonstration and prayer conference over the prolonged detention of a Moslem cleric, Imam Baba Leigh and all "prisoners of conscience in the Gambia". Full text...

Luanda, Angola (PANA) - Thirty-five people were killed and 172 injured in 195 road accidents in Angola in the past five days, the National Police said Thursday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region, Operation Pulo Shield, has registered 85 vessels, 217 boats and 64 barges in an effort to check pipeline vandalism, illegal bunkering and other crimes in the region. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Two journalists working with Al Mizan, a Hausa language newspaper based in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state, remain in detention Thursday, four days after they were arrested by operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) over their newspaper's Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - World statesman Nelson Mandela was discharged from a Pretoria hospital on Wednesday night, the Office of the Presidency has confirmed. Full text...

Conakry, Guinea (PANA) – The greed of senior executives, impunity and illegal enrichment are the main causes of endemic corruption in the West African state of Guinea, the executive director of the Guinean National Agency for Promotion of Good Governance and Fight against Corruption (ANLC), Mohamed François Falcone, told PANA on Wednesday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - One person was confirmed dead and 45 others injured Wednesday in an explosion that rocked a building that housed a shop packed with firecrackers in Nigeria's commercial city of Lagos, according to the spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye. Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libya will initiate a plan aimed at withdrawing heavy weapons and dismantling armed groups in the country, spokesman for Libya's Ministry of Home Affairs Moujdi Al-Arfi told journalists here Tuesday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - More than 15 houses were set on fire and an unspecified number of people injured Wednesday when a building being used as a warehouse for firecrackers exploded in the busy Jankara Market area of Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital city, eyewitnesses said. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A warehouse packed with firecrackers has exploded in Nigeria's economic capital city of Lagos, but casualty details are still unknown. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - In the spirit of Christmas, the Catholic Church in Nigeria's northern Kaduna State said it had forgiven the violent Islamic sect Boko Haram for its attacks on Catholic churches in the state. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - South Africa's former President and global icon Nelson Mandela received Christmas Day visits in hospital by his wife Graca Machel, other family members and President Jacob Zuma. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - A Mauritanian Court of appeal in Nouadhibou on Monday condemned three Malians to death for the murder, in July 2010, of Mohamed El Mane, a 75-year-old Mauritanian, judiciary sources told PANA here. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria's Interior Minister Abba Moro has ordered the immediate cancellation of the ongoing recruitment exercise in the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), following allegations of widespread irregularities in the process. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The military Joint Task Force (JTF) battling the Islamic sect Boko Haram in northern Nigeria has discovered and detonated many explosives planted in strategic locations in northern Kano city, according to a top army officer. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - ECOWAS Commission President Kadré Ouédraogo has condoled with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan over the 15 Dec. fatal crash of a military chopper that claimed six lives, including a State Governor and a former National Security Adviser (NSA). Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Security cooperation was high on the agenda of the talks on Sunday in Tripoli between Libya's Minister of Home Affairs Achour Souleymane Chawali and American Secretary of Foreign Affairs Bop Laurens. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Gunmen have kidnapped four foreigners after attacking a supply boat off the coast of Bayelsa state in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region, the police said Monday. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) - A Rwandan national was stabbed and slightly wounded by unknown persons in an attack in Brussels, Belgium, at the weekend, the local media quoted Rwanda's Embassy in Belgium as saying. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Security operatives have arrested two journalists with the Hausa-language newspaper Al-Mizah in Nigeria's northern city of Kaduna, the online Premium Times reported Monday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Nigerian government has been urged to take urgent steps to address the recurrent violence in northern Plateau state, where settler-indigene tensions have fuelled inter-communal crisis, leading to internal displacements and several deaths. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Against the backdrop of terror attacks in the north as well as kidnapping and armed robbery in the south, the Nigeria police hierarchy has ordered heightened security across the nation. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela is expected to spend Christmas Day at a Pretoria hospital, almost three weeks after he was admitted with a lung infection. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The four abducted South Korean and one Nigerian workers of Hyundai Fabrication Company, who were released in Nigeria's oil-rich Bayelsa state Friday after five days in captivity, have indicated their captors set them free after labelling them 'bad market', Full text...

Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) - Zambian President Michael Sata has urged his compatriots to use this Christmas period as an opportunity for reconciliation and service to others, in addition to giving assurance and hope to one another. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Kenyan prisoners suffering from cancer and other terminal illnesses have been allowed to leave prison at age 65 in President Mwai Kibaki's first presidential pardon since signing a new law. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) -The peacekeeping mission in Darfur, western Sudan’s war-fatigued region, has complained that it has been denied permission to verify airstrikes and attacks that caused displacement of unspecified number of villagers. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Two suicide car bombers on Saturday attacked facilities of mobile phone operators, Airtel and MTN, in Kano, killing themselves, the Kano State Police Commissioner, Ibrahim Idris, has confirmed. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Suicide bombers have carried out two separate attacks against telecommunication facilities in Kano, in what seems to be a resumption of attacks on telecommunications facilities in the Northern part of Nigeria, according to local media reports. Full text...

New York, (PANA) - The New York-based media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has condemned a series of censorship measures imposed this month by media regulators in Guinea against three popular current affairs talk shows stemming from news commentary critical of officials. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has directed the security forces deployed to the troubled Tana Delta region to stop any further killings after a dawn raid killed 39 people, mostly children, Friday. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – Three international human rights groups Friday urged the Gambian government to ''immediately stop its crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists, government critics, lawyers and anyone who dares to speak out against the government or its policies.'' Full text...

Washington, DC, US (PANA) - The US has welcomed Thursday's conviction of former Rwandan government minister Augustin Ngirabatware by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Full text...

Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) - Lightning Thursday struck at least 20 people in the northern Malawi lakeshore district of Nkhata Bay, but all the victims, including a baby girl, survived. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - A combined counter-piracy operation has led to the arrest of five suspected Somali pirates, who were rescued after drifting at sea for several days, an international force said Thursday. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigerian anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has declared Abubakar Audu, a former governor of Kogi State, in central Nigeria, wanted for offences bordering on conspiracy, stealing and misappropriation of public funds, PANA reported, quoting a statement from the EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The sub-regional rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Wednesday released a statement, saying authorities in Burkina Faso have slammed one-week suspension against Le Qoutidien newspaper over publication of a picture. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Some 30 rampaging gunmen bombed a police station and kidnapped a French Engineer, Mr Francis Colump, in Rimi local government area of Nigeria's northern Katsina State on Wednesday night, the police said Thursday. Full text...

Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) - Some 10,000 former Angolan refugees are to be integrated locally in Zambia, a development that has been described by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, as a landmark decision that will bring hope and durable solutions to the former refugees who have opted to remain in Zambia at the end of the voluntary repatriation. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), manager of Ghana’s sea ports, says the detention of an Argentine frigate at its prime berth at the Tema port for 76 days - in a dispute between the South American country and a private company - cost it US$7.6 million in revenue loss. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - A coalition of 10 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) Thursday warned that a military offensive in northern Mali would have serious humanitarian consequences and stressed the need for serious safeguards to be put in place to protect the people. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Some 27 people were killed and 15 others injured when a truck ferrying cows to the southern part of Nigeria crashed into a river along Sokoto-Illela road in northern Nigeria, after the driver lost control of his vehicle due to over-speeding. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) – The United Nations says thousands of people from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been pouring into South Sudan since last week following a deterioration of security in their home country. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) – The Argentine frigate, whose seizure by a ruling of a High Court in Accra has been a source of a diplomatic row between Ghana and the South American country, sailed out of the Tema harbour on Wednesday. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, will appeal against the acquittal of Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, who was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes following the 2003 fighting in the restive region of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Full text...

Monrovia, Liberia (PANA) - The ECOWAS Commission has donated over 300 metric tons of rice to the Liberian government for distribution to more than 66,800 Ivorian refugees in Liberia, Full text...