Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - ECOWAS has expressed deep shock and sadness over the sudden death of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, according to an ECOWAS press statement, obtained here Saturday by PANA. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria has formally protested to Senegal over the attack by Nigerian citizens on its embassy in Dakar, during which cars were vandalised, office equipment and fittings destroyed and the national flag desecrated. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The Accra-based sub-regional rights body, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Thursday urged Ghanaian authorities to intensify their efforts and bring to book the attackers of journalist Isaac Kofi Normanyo. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Ms. Helen Clark, on Friday called for scaled-up efforts globally to stop violence against women, calling it a weapon of war in much of the world and a major obstacle to equality and development. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Former Nigerian International Soccer star, Nwankwo Kanu, has lost 1.4 billion naira (about US$ 9.3 million) to fraudsters, allegedly aided by the Manager of an Hotel he owned, according to reports in the local Punch newspaper. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A former Nigerian State Governor, Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu, was on Thursday re-arraigned before a Federal High Court in Lagos for alleged money laundering, five years after he was first arraigned for the same offence, according to local media reports. Full text...

Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has called on Muslims and Christians in the country to offer prayers on Friday and Sunday respectively for the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday declared that the federal government will not grant amnesty to members of the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram. Full text...

Brussels, Belgium (PANA) – In collaboration with the European Union (EU) and Interpol, the Libyan government has launched a new passport control system for effective airport and land border patrols, EU sources told PANA here Thursday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday that despite the military progress in Northern Mali, there is still a general sense of insecurity in the area, as most displaced people are afraid to return to their homes. Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan authorities have arrested and repatriated a total of 655 people who tried to enter the country illegally, the Libyan Bureau in charge of illegal immigration announced Wednesday. Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has warned that he would use force against outlaws, after demonstrators besieged the headquarters of the General National Congress (GNC) Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The UN refugees Agency (UNHCR) said hundreds of Sudanese have walked for five days on foot to South Sudan, where they are now being sheltered by the agency. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for the release of a journalist who was detained by the Malian authorities on Wednesday. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The Radio France International (RFI) correspondent in Burundi, Hassan Ruvakuki, was released Wednesday after one year in detention over charges of “involvement in terror activities”, judiciary sources told PANA here. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) – The UN has commended recent reconciliatory moves between two sub-tribal groups fighting over traditional gold mining rights, creating a peaceful atmosphere for the delivery of much needed humanitarian assistance to the needy in Darfur. Full text...

Niamey, Niger (PANA) – The Nigerien Minister of Public Security, Decentralization and Religious Matters, Abdou Labo, on Wednesday launched a nationwide initiative aimed at identifying all users of cell phones in the country. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The Accra-based sub-regional rights body, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Tuesday condemned the attack on four journalists by officers drawn from the Nigerien Police Service. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the UN Security Council to authorise the deployment of a special force within the current UN peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to address imminent threats to peace and security. Full text...

Pailles, Mauritius (PANA) - Mauritian Health and Quality of Life Minister Lormus Bundhoo has said the 21st century is associated with the globalisation of unhealthy lifestyles, rapid unplanned urbanisation, and the ageing of populations - all of which have not spared Mauritius. Full text...

Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) - Former Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika collapsed in his office at the New State House (now renamed Kamuzu Palace) and died minutes later before reaching Kamuzu Central Hospital, a report on his sudden death has revealed. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The spiritual head of Nigerian Muslims has called on the federal government to grant amnesty to all members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram so they can stop the violence that has claimed over 3,000 lives since 2009. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the shutdown of a radio station in Nigeria because it was linked to the recent killing of nine polio vaccinators in the northern city of Kano. Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan authorities have warned the two warring tribes in the Western part of the country to end their hostilities or face air strikes to restore order, the Libyan news Agency reported. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - In an alarming twist to the brutal killing of a taxi driver by the South African police near Johannesburg last week, the Mozambican Embassy has suggested that the death of its citizen, Mido Macia, resembled the xenophobic attacks that flared up around South Africa in 2008, leaving 68 people, mostly foreigners, dead. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State in South-east Nigeria, where a top police boss was killed by gunmen over the weekend, has offered 10 million naira (US$65,000) for anyone with information that can lead to the arrest of the killers. Full text...

Kinshasa, DR Congo (PANA) – At least 30 people are feared dead when a plane on a domestic flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) crashed on Monday in the eastern city of Goma, official sources told PANA in Kinshasa. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – The Congolese mourned on Monday as they commemorated the first anniversary of the explosions from the arm and ammunition dump at Mpila, in Brazzaville. on 4 March last year. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The Gambia Press Union (GPU), an umbrella body for journalists in the Gambia, Sunday called for the release of detained journalist, Alagie Jobe, while expressing serious concern over his fate. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Members of the ECOWAS Strategic Planning and Coordination Committee (SPCC) began a three-day meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Monday to finalise the Risk Management aspect of the Regional Medium Term Action Area (RMTAA). Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Nigeria Police have vowed to fish out and bring to justice the killers of the Commissioner of Police for the country's central Kwara state, Mr, Chinwike Asadu. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) - The case against eight South African policemen implicated in the brutal death of a Mozambican taxi driver last week was postponed by the Benoni Magistrate's Court on Monday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described as a major setback for freedom of the media in Somalia Sunday's upholding, by the appeal's court, of the conviction of a journalist who interviewed a woman alleging rape by government forces. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria's federal government is to train 29,875 graduates of tertiary institutions annually, under the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), to make them ready for jobs and reduce unemployment. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The military Joint Task Force (JTF) battling the Islamic sect Boko Haram said on Sunday it killed 20 members of the sect following an attempted attack on a military barracks at Monguno in Nigeria's northern Borno State in the early hours of the day. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Commissioner of Police in Nigeria's central Kwara State, Mr. Chinwike Asadu, was shot dead by unknown gunmen near his private residence in Amorji Nike in Enugu, capital of the eponymous South-east Enugu State, on Saturday night. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - As Kenya prepares to go to the polls on Monday, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura, has called on authorities to ensure the protection of civilians, especially women and girls, against sexual violence and abuses. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Four human rights bodies have called for an immediate end to the practice in which doctors in Sudan perform amputations on court orders. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Lagos studios of South African entertainment and sports channels MNET and SuperSports have been gutted by fire that destroyed property worth millions of naira, the private Punch newspaper reported Sunday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A former governor of Nigeria's South-east Abia State, Mr. Orji Uzor Kalu, has been stripped of the degree certificate awarded to him while in office by the state-owned Abia State University for failing to meet the requirements for the award of such certificate. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The sub-regional rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Thursday urged the Togolese government to drop a newly-passed law with ''discretionary powers to impose sanctions on the media without recourse to judicial processes''. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The Kenya branch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM Kenya) has said that it is fully prepared to respond to emergency humanitarian needs ahead of the 4 March general election in the East African nation. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - At least 4.1 million people in South Sudan are likely to be food insecure this year, according to a new report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Full text...

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) – Some 841 former Libyan rebels were Thursday officially integrated into the police force, affording the government the opportunity to control the ex-fighters. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – The South African government on Friday announced that the police officers involved in the death of a Mozambican taxi driver this week have been suspended and disarmed. Full text...

Tripoli Libya (PANA) – The official spokesperson for the Libyan Defence ministry, Colonel Adel al-Baress, has said that Libya has refused a French request to set up a military base in the south of the country. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria and India are to establish and train special military units to undertake high-risk anti-terrorism missions, the visiting Indian Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Shiri Krishina Singh, indicated here Thursday. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – The brutal killing of a Mozambican taxi driver by South African police has sparked an outcry with Amnesty International (AI) calling for an end to police brutality in South Africa. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is sheltering more than 400 people following fighting between national troops and an armed group, a UN statement in New York said on Thursday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Pope Benedict XVI officially steps down Thursday, 28 February, 2013, as head of the Catholic Church worldwide, becoming the first pope in nearly 600 years to do so. Full text...