East Africa ( 2 )
North Africa ( 1 )
South Africa ( 1 )
West Africa ( 1 )

Nigeria authorities welcome truce

Nigeria's government has welcomed a 60-day ceasefire declared by the main militant group in the country's oil-rich Niger Delta region.

The military said troops would remain in the region, but would not attack militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).

Mend, however, said a partial pullout of troops was a condition of the truce.

The group also threatened to call off its truce immediately because a gunboat had been sighted near one of its bases.

The ceasefire was declared after one of Mend's leaders, Henry Okah, was released from jail under an amnesty.

Both sides have now called for further talks.

Ufot Ekaette, minister for the delta region, told the BBC's Focus on Africa he was confident that a lasting peace could be framed within the next 60 days.

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Zambia prosecutes editor of Post

An editor at Zambia's biggest-selling newspaper has been charged with distributing obscene materials relating to a health sector crisis.

The Post sent harrowing images of a woman giving birth in the street to government ministers to highlight the effects of a health sector strike.

In May and June, Zambia's hospitals and clinics ground to a halt as doctors and nurses went on strike over pay.

An official government spokesman declined to comment on the case.

The trial of the Lusaka-based Post's female news editor, Chansa Kabwela, is due to start at the beginning of August.

'Too gruesome to publish'

Pictures of the woman giving birth, to a child which subsequently died, were taken by a family member and handed to the Post. 

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Killer parasites' genes decoded

Scientists have decoded the genetic blueprint of two parasitic flatworms responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide every year.

Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma japonicum both cause the debilitating disease schistomiasis.

The work has already uncovered possible targets for new treatments to combat the disease, which causes symptoms such as fever and fatigue.

The international study features in the journal Nature.

Schistosomiasis cases top 200 million every year, with 20 million people are seriously disabled by severe anaemia, chronic diarrhoea, internal bleeding and organ damage caused by the worms and their eggs, or the immune system reactions they provoke.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone it kills 280,000 people each year.

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Sun energy empowers Ethiopian village

Two years after the installation of a solar power project funded by international aid groups, villagers in northern Ethiopia say the sun's energy has turned their lives around.

Rema, 150 miles north of the capital Addis Ababa, is home to Ethiopia's largest solar project. Here, every house in the village has electricity powered by solar lighting systems.

This is unique in Ethiopia - 80% of the population live in rural areas where only 1% of the population has access to electricity.

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African View: A question of leadership

In our series of weekly viewpoints from African journalists, columnist and filmmaker Farai Sevenzo considers issues of leadership and that Obama trip to Ghana.

My fellow Africans, it is an honour for me, indeed for us as a people, to be living in these times.

From Accra to Zanzibar, from Lusaka to Libreville, we have been witnessing leadership the likes of which we may never see again.

Just the other week, somewhere in a Libyan backdrop, a great leader said we should become the United States of Africa immediately, that we should not wait.

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