South Sudan’s president has agreed to meet his rival as soon as next week to jump-start peace talks that have been stalled for months, US secretary of state John Kerry said.

The chairman of the African Union has said the body will not allow a sitting head of state to be prosecuted by an international tribunal.

Egyptian troops have opened fire on supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi as they marched on a Republican Guard facility.

A suicide bomber has blown up a car at an army base in Somalia, local police have said.

The UN Security Council and the African Union are "categorically rejecting" rebel attempts to divide Mali and are calling for Guinea-Bissau's military rulers to relinquish power.

American military advisers in Uganda are drawing on lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan to help train African Union soldiers to fight Somalia’s most powerful insurgent group, al Shabab.

Turkey has raised the stakes on Syria by reminding Nato countries of their treaty responsibilities, but no country or group is willing to act first, writes Anne-Marie Slaughter

Nations must help Somalia’s fragile leadership tackle terrorism, piracy and hunger or be prepared to pay the price, British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned at an international conference on the troubled east African nation’s future.

Al-Qaida-linked militants have threatened more terror attacks that will “increase day by day” after a suicide bomber killed 72 people in Somalia.

MUAMMAR GADDAFI’S wife and three of his children fled Libya to neighbouring Algeria yesterday, firm evidence that the longtime leader has lost his grip on the country.

DOZENS of decomposing bodies were found piled up yesterday in an abandoned hospital in Tripoli, a grim testament to the chaos roiling the capital as Libyan rebels clash with forces still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

Tanks opened fire at rebels trying to storm Muammar Gaddafi’s main compound in Tripoli today, although he appeared to have vanished a day after the lightning advance by his opponents into the city.

The African Union has called on its member states to disregard the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a move that could weaken the ability of the world court to hold the Libyan leader accountable for crimes committed against his people.

Muammar Gaddafi is ready for a truce to stop the fighting in his country, the visiting South African president said after meeting the Libyan ruler, but he listed familiar Gaddafi conditions that have scuttled previous cease-fire efforts.

At least three people died after a suicide bomber attacked an African Union peacekeeping base in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

Libyan rebels clashed with Sudanese mercenaries fighting for Muammar Gaddafi near the border with Sudan today.

Libyan rebels, backed forcefully by European leaders, rejected a ceasefire proposal by African mediators because it did not insist that Muammar Gaddafi relinquish power.

AN African plan to halt Libya’s civil war quickly foundered when fighting raged for the besieged city of Misrata and NATO refused to suspend its air campaign.

Libyan government forces battered the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery today despite Muammar Gaddafi earlier accepting a cease-fire deal.

A delegation of African leaders said that their Libyan counterpart, Muammar Gaddafi, accepted their “road map” for a ceasefire with rebels, whom they will meet today.

HEAVY fighting is raging near the presidential palace in the Ivory Coast’s largest city Abidjan as armed forces loyal to the elected president try to install him in power and oust the country’s strongman.

TINY Qatar became the first Arab country to fly combat missions over Libya yesterday after NATO agreed to take command of the no-fly zone part of air operations against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

Tiny Qatar became the first Arab country to fly combat missions over Libya today after Nato agreed to take command of the no-fly zone part of air operations against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

The African Union has called for a transition period in Libya that would lead to democratic elections, a rare rebuke from African leaders for Gaddafi.

A rebel army allied with Ivory Coast’s democratically elected president has taken control of a fourth town in the country’s far West, a military spokesman said.

African leaders were under fire today after choosing Equatorial Guinea’s coup plotter and dictator of 31 years as their ceremonial leader for this year.

AT LEAST 14,000 people have fled the violence and political chaos in Ivory Coast, some walking for up to four days with little food to reach neighbouring Liberia, the UN refugee agency said. At least one child drowned while trying to cross a river.

International pressure mounted on Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo today to accept defeat following the country’s disputed election, a day after the constitutional council led by one of his allies overturned results deemed credible by independent observers.

Angry youths took to the streets in Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan, burning tyres, hurling chunks of concrete and tearing down billboards after election results were reversed.

Somalia is more dangerous for civilians than Afghanistan or Iraq, a group that works to prevent civilian deaths said.

The confessed mastermind of bomb attacks in Uganda against World Cup football fans said he had hoped to kill many more Americans in the explosions in which 76 people, including one American, died last month.

African leaders are pledging thousands of new troops for Somalia to fight al Qaida-linked militants responsible for the twin World Cup bombings that killed 76 people, and the US said it will help bankroll the military campaign.

A JUNTA that seized power in a coup in the west African nation of Niger named a platoon commander as its leader, hours after soldiers announced on state TV their group was in charge of the uranium-rich country.

The soldiers who seized power in Niger named an army colonel as their leader today hours after announcing on state TV that they were in charge of the country.

At least 11 civilians and four security officers were today killed in the Somali capital in two separate incidents of violence, an officer and residents said.

Somalia’s transitional government successfully rebuffed threats from extremist forces to overthrow it, the UN chief said.

Drunken soldiers were loose on the streets of Guinea’s capital today, 24 hours after the presidential guard shot dead at least 157 pro-democracy demonstrators.

Islamic insurgents posing as UN personnel detonated suicide car bombs in an African Union (AU) peacekeeping base in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

After bitter wrangling, Africa’s leaders agreed to denounce the International Criminal Court and refuse to extradite Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

TANKS and troops took control of a presidential palace in the centre of Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo yesterday after the military joined opposition leader Andry Rajoelina in his power struggle with President Marc Ravalomanana.

Libya’s Colonel Gadaffi was elected leader of the African Union today, a position the eccentric dictator has yearned for as he pushed his oil-rich nation into the international mainstream after years of isolation.

In one of the Bush administration’s last major foreign policy initiatives, the US circulated a draft United Nations resolution seeking international authorisation to hunt down Somali pirates on land.

THE death toll from Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic neared 600 yesterday and President Robert Mugabe’s government accused western powers of exploiting the outbreak to force the veteran leader’s departure.

MUTINOUS soldiers fought their way into the fortified residence of Guinea-Bissau’s president yesterday, launching a three-hour gunbattle with his guards, as the leader and his family hid elsewhere in the building, a top official said.