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...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The days of crooked lawyers in Kenya may be numbered if the government enforces to the letter new rules aimed at weeding out the rogues among the so-called learnt men and women. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- A 9 percent increase in the number of foreigners entering France was registered in 2000, sources close to the High Council for Integration (HCI) disclosed Thursday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- UNDP has launched a new 1. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Authorities in Kenya are planning to set up a drug addicts rehabilitation facility after official investigations showed that drug taking was the leading cause of student unrest across the country. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- Police in Blantyre have arrested a 39- year-old woman who hanged her 10-year-old son. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigeria's upper legislative chamber has passed a bill to restrict the use of siren by the convoys of some top government and legislative officials. Full text...

Bissau- Guinea Bissau (PANA) -- The former chief justice of Guinea-Bissau's Supreme Court, Emiliano Nosolini dos Reis and ex- associate justice Venancio Martins are currently under arrest in Bissau, according to reliable sources. Full text...

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Pressure groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America are calling for an international panel to probe the 1996 mass killings of artisanal miners at the Bulyanhulu gold mine in Tanzania. Full text...

Lome- Togo (PANA) -- Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema has sent a condolence message to US President George W. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has initiated a partnership establishing a network of three multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs) in and around refugee camps along the north- western border of Tanzania. Full text...

Khartoum- Sudan (PANA) -- The Sudanese ministry of justice said Wednesday it was launching special tribunals in the border regions separating the south and north of the country to try persons involved in enslaving women and children from the civil war zones. Full text...

Port Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- The Mauritius National Addicts Treatment and Rehabilitation Agency, in collaboration with the Mauritian ministry of youth and sports, has launched a training programme in drug addiction prevention for young people. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya has established a national crime research centre to serve as a reference point for all crime-related activities, Attorney General Amos Wako disclosed Wednesday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- New York-based Human Rights Watch Wednesday called on the UN and former South African President Nelson Mandela, to help secure the release of dozens of students abducted from Burundi schools last week by one of the country's rebel groups. Full text...

Banjul- Gambia (PANA) -- The High Court in Banjul on Wednesday turned down a bail application filed on behalf of the jailed Gambian MP for Kombo North, Musa Suso, who is serving an eight- year prison sentence for drug offences. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- UNESCO's representative for the Sahel region, Guinea's Madigbe Kourouma, died Monday night in a Paris hospital following an illness, the educational agency's office in Ouagadougou announced on Wednesday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- World Food Programme warned Wednesday in Dakar that it would fail to carry out its humanitarian operations in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone unless more contributions are received immediately. Full text...

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Tanzania has appealed to the UN to give priority to the repatriation of more than 800,000 Burundian refugees living in the country. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- An enraged butcher stabbed his customer to death after a dispute over a piece of meat at a remote Kenyan trading centre on Monday night, the local media reported Wednesday. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki says the role of the Hindu community in the struggle for freedom in South Africa must be commended. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- The Social Action and Charitable Commission of the West Africa Regional Episcopal Conference (CERAO) Tuesday began a six-day sub-regional symposium on reconciliation and peace in West Africa. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- Burkina Faso's National Union of Female Movie Professionals (UNAFIB) Tuesday launched a film broadcasting campaign meant to increase public awareness of women's rights in the country. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Six Tunisian student refugees in France have decided to file a lawsuit with the French judiciary against 40 of their country's civil servants for torture. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger President Mamadou Tanja Tuesday lambasted the lack of discipline in the management of Katako Market in Niamey, which was ravaged by a fire last Saturday, saying that the way it was operating, it was obvious that the traders could not avoid disaster. Full text...

Praia- Cape Verde (PANA) -- Members of the Permanent Council of Bar Associations of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) Monday declared their solidarity with Bissau- Guinean colleagues struggling for the rule of law in their country. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- When President Daniel arap Moi announced early last week that he would be heading to New York for the UN General Assembly, little did he know what jinxed trip he would endure coping with stalled and cancelled flights. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- Rwanda has released 552 minors suspected of genocide and other crimes against humanity after the children spent two months in a re-education centre near the capital Kigali, judicial sources in Kigali said Tuesday. Full text...

Tunis- Tunisia (PANA) -- Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has warned that attempts to set Islam against Western values could lead to "bloodshed". Full text...

New York- US (PANA) -- US officials investigating Monday's crash of American Airlines flight 587 in the Queens Borough, New York City, say preliminary information points to the crash being an accident. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- The World Food Programme Tuesday announced in Monrovia that was seeking support assistance valued at 60 million US dollars in food and other relief assistance for vulnerable people the Mano River Union (MRU) sub-region. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- The state house in Monrovia has been making "frantic efforts" to retrieve from newspaper houses photographs of President Charles Taylor whipping his daughter last week, local dailies revealed Tuesday. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- The Ministry of National Defence has dismissed 2,248 personnel of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) for "protracted absence without leave," press reports said Tuesday in Monrovia. Full text...