Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Police in Zimbabwe Wednesday reported a sharp increase in road accident deaths over the Christmas holidays, which they mainly attributed to drunken driving. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Niger Prime Minister Hama Amadou has said that despite some improvement in the economy over the past two years, the government's financial situation does not allow a regular increase in salaries of civil servants. Full text...

Niamey Niger (PANA) -- A union catering for private journalists in Niger has condemned the ruling National Movement for Development Society for exercising violence against local and international press journalists who covered the recent 4th congress. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Police in Zimbabwe Tuesday reported 24 deaths and more than 60 injuries from separate road accidents country-wide over the Christmas holidays. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Fourteen people have been killed in road accidents in Kenya, following the mad rush by thousands of people heading homeward from Nairobi for the Christmas holidays. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- Rwanda's Bank of Commerce and Industrial Development (BCDI) has reportedly lost more than 54,000 US dollars to a suspected Canadian swindler, a newspaper reported in Kigali Saturday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kisii district policemen in south western Kenya Friday shot dead a school boy and shattered the leg of another following riots prompted by the death of a woman while in police custody. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya has paid glowing tribute to former Senegalese President, Leopold Sedar Senghor, who passed away Thursday at the ripe age of 95. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The board of directors of the Dakar-based African aviation safety agency (ASECNA) Friday urged the company's general manager, Ousmane Issoufou Oubandawaki, to devise strategies that would put ASECNA on par with its counterparts in the world. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- More than 1700 Hutu rebels captured by the Rwandan army in the country's Northwest last May on Thursday returned to their villages of origin after completing six months of political re-education, official sources reported Friday The fighters belonged to a force of more than 4,000 combatants from the defeated former Hutu-dominated Rwandan government army, which had launched an offensive from north-eastern Congo in late May 2001. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- About 50 people, most of them children, were injured and many more have been trapped after the roof of a large shopping centre in Pretoria collapsed Thursday afternoon. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- World Food Programme (WFP) has agreed to provide Zimbabwe with emergency food aid worth 60 million US dollars to avert starvation in the southern African country, officials said Thursday. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- The World Food Programme has agreed to provide Zimbabwe with emergency food aid worth 60 million US dollars to avert starvation in the southern African country, officials said Thursday in Harare. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenyan authorities Thursday confirmed they have locked up a man who made his way into the Holy Family Basilica Cathedral Church in Nairobi and beheaded some of the most sacred icons of the Roman Catholic faith. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- UNICEF supported landmine awareness activities targeting children in Tigray and Afar regions of Ethiopia will begin a progressive reduction in scope and technical coverage beginning January due to lack funds, UNICEF said Wednesday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- They come in droves, arriving in Nairobi as early as 6. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Even as he announced a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) last week, President Daniel arap Moi and top aides had little doubt that it would take more than an injunction from even the highest authority to stem the practice in Kenya. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- Trials under Rwanda's traditional courts known as "Gacaca" are set to begin in May 2002, judicial sources said in Kigali Tuesday. Full text...

Yokohama- Japan (PANA) -- Due to its trans-national nature, the trafficking of children around the world has to be addressed not only within a country, but also among all countries concerned at bilateral and international levels, the International Labour Organisation has suggested. Full text...

Yokohama- Japan (PANA) -- Laws of west and central African countries do not provide for the protection of children from sexual exploitation for commercial purposes, UNICEF says in a regional report presented Tuesday at the ongoing Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Yokohama, Japan. Full text...

Yokohama- Japan (PANA) -- Laws of West and Central African countries do not provide for the protection of children from sexual exploitation for commercial purposes, according to a UNICEF regional report. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- Child defilement is on the rise in Rwanda where young girls - and even babies - are raped by adult males, human rights activists have said. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- The UN Children's Fund plans to spend 10. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kisumu, Kenya's third largest town on the shores of Lake Victoria, has been elevated to the status of a city, ahead of the Indian Ocean port town of Mombasa, which had hitherto been considered as the country's second largest conglomeration. Full text...

Benguela- Angola (PANA) -- President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has inaugurated the Evokiyo professional training centre for rehabilitating youngsters - especially orphans - from the country's on-going long war. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe has concluded a food aid deal with international donor agencies to avert starvation in some areas of the country, officials involved in negotiating the agreement have said. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Celebrations marking the centenary of Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city on the shore of Lake Victoria, got underway Saturday, graced by leaders from three East African countries. Full text...

Saint Denis- Reunion (PANA) -- The Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church of Reunion has appealed to the country's partners to adopt a government decree that seeks to set retirement age at 55 years. Full text...

Yaounde- Cameroon (PANA) -- Some 50 former workers of liquidated or restructured state-run companies this week staged demonstrations on the foregrounds of the Economy and Finance ministry in Yaounde, to press for outstanding dues. Full text...

London- UK (PANA) -- The British government has launched a new immigration scheme dubbed 'Highly Skilled Migrant Programme' (HSMP) to enable talented people abroad with exceptional skills, abilities or experience to get jobs in the United Kingdom. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- Students from the University of Malawi's Polytechnic on Friday marched through Blantyre's Chipembele Highway to protest the death of their colleague earlier in the morning. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- Millions of African Muslims are looking forward to the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr at the conclusion of Ramadan, which is expected to occur Friday. Full text...

Praia- Cape Verde (PANA) -- Cape Verde is to get US food aid worth 2. Full text...

Algiers- Algeria (PANA) -- Algeria's 1,200 km east-west highway project has run into delays after building only 49 km since its launch 15 years ago. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- There has been a 173-perent increase in the number of degrees and diplomas going to black South Africans over the past decade, up from 14,798 in 1991 to 40,333 in 1998. Full text...

Abuja- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigeria's federal government announced Wednesday it would spend 25. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigerian Polytechnic teachers have embarked on an indefinite strike to press their demands for better welfare, in the latest of incessant work stoppages threatening to paralyse the country's educational sector. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- South Africa's official opposition Democratic Alliance says the dramatic increase in informal housing in the country should be a strong message to government about priorities. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- Under the aegis of the National Association of Burkinabe Students (ANEB), Ouagadougou University students have gone on strike to press for the repeal of a government decision denying repeating students a third chance should they fail. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- A cabinet minister Monday accused the government officials of complicity in the death of 18 more people killed in clashes over pasture land in Kenya's Coast Province. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- The 2002 State of the World's Children Report was launched in Lusaka Monday with a challenge to the Zambian government to assure voters ahead of the 27 December elections on how government will redress the worsening social ills that has plagued the nation's young. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Six former high-ranking Rwandan officials convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by the UN war crimes Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, were transferred to Mali Monday to serve their jail terms, the Tribunal said. Full text...

Algiers- Algeria (PANA) -- The 25-member Algerian Union of Income Tax Workers has decided to go on strike Tuesday and threatened to start a 10-day work stoppage with effect from 22 December, if their demands are not met. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- At least 60 Senegalese soldiers who returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo recently after serving with the United Nations Observer Mission (MONUC) Monday morning blocked traffic at the Diamniadio crossroads, about 40-km east of Dakar. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Canada said at the weekend it would introduce visa requirements for Zimbabweans travelling to the north American country with immediate effect in a bid to curb illegal immigrants. Full text...

Harare- Zimbabwe (PANA) -- Zimbabwe's state-owned power utility said at the weekend it was launching an ambitious 24 billion Zimdollars (43 million US dollars) to provide electricity to rural communities, particularly in the under-developed southern province of Matabeleland. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- More than 150 people where killed in five African countries last week in seemingly senseless incidents that kept people wondering whether human life is worth anything on this blighted continent. Full text...

Porto Novo- Benin (PANA) -- The Benin government has submitted to the Supreme Court a bill seeking to restructure the country's education, according to a parliamentary education committee. Full text...

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Leading Tanzanian scholars have warned that religious turmoil could occur in the country if the government continues to ignore claims by Muslims that they are being marginalised. Full text...

Tripoli- Libya (PANA) -- Libyan leader Col. Full text...