Abuja- Nigeria (PANA) -- The privatisation of Nigeria's oldest surviving newspaper, Daily Times, will be concluded by April 2002, according to the country's privatisation agency. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigeria will conduct its next population census in 2003, according to the head of the country's National Population Commission (NPC). Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- The New National Party and the Democratic Alliance Tuesday welcomed the conviction of four men for setting their police dogs on three illegal immigrants, in an incident that generated shock waves around the world. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Embattled Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, still smarting from public embarrassment after divorcing his wife Vera, has attacked former Vice President Christon Tembo for making public the contents of a discussion on his (Chiluba's) matrimonial problems with the then First Lady. Full text...

Saint Denis- Reunion (PANA) -- More than 400 pupils in Reunion Tuesday participated in a pedagogic rally in observance the 12th anniversary of the international convention on the Day of Children's Rights. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- The number of Burundian "street children" and "child soldiers" is almost equal to those orphaned by HIV/AIDS and the ongoing civil war, official sources said in Bujumbura. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- The Refugees' Appeal Commission here will in the coming weeks decide whether a Malian couple, who fled to France to save their daughter from genital mutilation, falls under the category of people protected by the Geneva convention or not. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Fourteen persons died instantly when the bus on which they were travelling got involved in an accident and caught fire in the Ashanti Region. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Two non-governmental organisations based in France have decided to put their resources together to help children orphaned by the war and HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- Criminal court judge Felecia Coleman Tuesday reserved ruling for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus filed by three law firms to set free two lawyers detained by the lower house of parliament. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- One of Nigeria's foremost private newspapers, The Punch, was virtually of the streets in the commercial city of Lagos for the second day running Monday, following a disagreement between its management and distribution agents. Full text...

Algiers- Algeria (PANA) -- A bomb exploded Tuesday morning in a school at central Algiers, killing at least one person and wounding 27 others, two of them critically, eyewitnesses said. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- A Sharia Court in Zamfara, the Nigerian State which pioneered the operation of the Islamic law in the country about two years ago, has sentenced a 40-year-old man to 40 strokes of the cane and two months in prison for marrying five wives, News Agency of Nigeria reported Tuesday. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigerian Police said Tuesday they have arrested 23 Togolese girls, who were being taken to the Nigeria's south-eastern Akwa Ibom State for prostitution and slave labour. Full text...

Brazzaville- Congo (PANA) -- A Committee comprising officials from Gabon, Congo Brazzaville and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), has agreed to repatriate home, some 15,000 Congolese who have been living in Gabon since 1998. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- At least 36 people died in a road crash along the Zaria-Funtua road in northern Nigeria at the weekend, the private Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. Full text...

Port Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- Air Mauritius' former chairman and managing director Nash Malam-Hasham was buried Monday afternoon after dying of heart attack Sunday as he read his weekend newspapers. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura has expressed outrage at the murder of Colombian journalist Heriberto Cardenas Escudero by unidentified gunmen. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- Shocking cases of child rape being reported in South Africa are not isolated events, says an academic who has studied causes of the problem. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- The number of street children, locally called "Shégués" in DR Congo, has increased in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- Four men were found guilty in the Pretoria Magistare's Court Monday of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm after admitting they set police dogs on a group of helpless illegal immigrants. Full text...

Saint-Denis- Reunion (PANA) -- There is slum full of Comoran residents located a few kilometres outside Saint-Denis, the Indian Ocean capital of the French territory of Reunion. Full text...

Douala- Cameroon (PANA) -- Refugees and asylum seekers in Cameroon are complaining about poor services at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Douala, which is scheduled to be closed on 31 December. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- The UN Human Rights office in Burundi has signed a co-operation agreement with 30 local associations active in the human rights field in order to make them more effective. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger's human rights association has deplored the frequent violations of the rights of citizens and communities that occurred in the country during the year 2000. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya's powerful teachers union has called for the immediate re-introduction of canning in secondary schools, saying its suspension was to blame for the current state of indiscipline among students. Full text...

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Tanzanian authorities have launched an Internet appeal as well as an audit to collect views on the progress of the government's anti-corruption campaign, whose seriousness has been doubted by critics. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- At least three people were killed in an accident that occurred Saturday at Zalewa, 58-km from Blantyre on the road to Lilongwe, the Malawi capital, a police spokesman said. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- A legal counsel for a former advisor at the Chadian presidency has called for a cross-examination of President Idriss Deby, legal sources said in Paris at the weekend. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, defence counsel for islamist militant Mohamed Chalabi, Saturday told journalists that the Algerian consulate in Paris had refused her an entry visa into Algeria. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- OAU Assistant Secretary General in Charge of Administration and Finance Vijay Makhan has handed over a cheque of 100,000 US dollars to the Algerian Ambassador in Addis Ababa and permanent representative at the OAU, Smail Chergui. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The UN World Food Programme has launched its first major relief operation in years to the Nuba Mountains area of Southern Sudan to feed a total of 158,000 people impoverished and displaced by the long civil war. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- Botswana members of parliament are calling for the re-introduction of traditional public flogging, banned 20 years ago, to combat crime in the country. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- Nigerian beauty Agbani Darego was crowned Miss World at a glamorous pageant staged Saturday at Sun City resort near Rustenberg in the Northwest Province. Full text...

Yaounde- Cameroon (PANA) -- National Education minister Joseph Owona Friday reassured families in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, that no deaths had occured among 400 pupils who recently took ill after eating presumably contaminated food. Full text...

Tripoli- Libya (PANA) -- The Libyan population started observing Ramadan, the month of fasting, on Friday, while in other parts of the Moslem world Ramadan will start on Saturday. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Algerian nationals living in France have chartered a plane loaded with tons of relief items meant for the victims of last week's torrential rains and landslides that hit Algiers and the northern part of the country, killing over 700 people. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- About 800 young African girls under 15 and mostly from Sierra Leone, have for the past year been forcefully dragged into prostitution networks. Full text...

Luanda- Angola (PANA) -- Angola's Roads National Institute (INEA), says a project is underway to rebuild all bridges destroyed by the country's war. Full text...

Ilishan- Nigeria (PANA) -- The American Embassy Friday commissioned an Independent Study Centre and donated reading materials to a private Nigerian University in Ilishan, about 80-km north of Lagos. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- Three law firms here have filed a writ of Habeas Corpus at the Criminal Court for the government to produce the living bodies of two lawyers it has in detention, court records showed Friday. Full text...

Saint Denis- Reunion (PANA) -- A Malagasy academician and former cabinet minister, Mireille Rakotomalala has criticised officials at the French Consulate in Madagascar over their discrimination in issuing visas for travel to the French overseas territory of Reunion. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- A letter containing a powdery substance suspected to be anthrax spores has been sent to the editor of Nigeria's Daily Champion newspaper, the Lagos-based paper reported Friday. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- A 32-year-old man has been arraigned before a magisterial court in north-eastern Liberia for allegedly having sex with a chicken, 'The Inquirer' reported here Friday. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- A high court in Gaborone has awarded 250,000 Pula or 40,000 US dollars in damages to a Botswana judge who sued a local newspaper for defamation. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- A Nigerian Federal High Court sitting in Lagos Thursday struck out a suit filed by the government against two leaders of Yoruba nationalist group Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) for lack of jurisdiction. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- Security has been beefed around United Nations offices in Gaborone, Botswana following a threat by an Ethiopian refugee to bomb them after being denied a scholarship. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Mozambique's former rebel movement of Renamo Thursday claimed that no bridge has been built across the Zambezi River (linking Sofala and Zambezia provinces) due to a deliberate government policy to favour the south of the country at the expense of the centre and the north. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Over three million motor cars disappear each year in the world, with a vehicle stolen every ten seconds, the France-based International Police (Interpol) announced Thursday. Full text...

Khartoum- Sudan (PANA) -- A criminal court in Khartoum Thursday passed a death sentence on a man convicted in March of killing a police officer and three other people who tried to prevent him from abducting his fiancée. Full text...