African news : breaking news, features, analysis

Moncef Marzouki has refused to admit defeat in Tunisia's first free presidential election after exit polls suggested Beji Caid Essebsi had won.

No fewer than 110 Boko Haram insurgents were, at the weekend, killed in a gun battle in Damboa, the headquarters of Damboa local government area of Borno State in an attack repelled by men of the 7 Division, Nigerian Army.

Kenyan lawmakers traded blows and the deputy speaker had water thrown on her during a chaotic parliamentary session which approved changes to a tough new security bill.

Militants have stormed a remote village in north-eastern Nigeria, killing at least 33 people and kidnapping about 200, a survivor has told the BBC.

A Nigerian court martial has sentenced 54 soldiers to death for refusing to fight Boko Haram Islamist militants.

Kenya has deregistered 510 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including 15 accused of links with terrorism, an official has said.

Liberia has begun treating Ebola patients with serum therapy - a treatment made from the blood of recovered survivors.

Abuja, Nigeria - 14 December, 2014: President John Dramani Mahama has closed the one-day Summit of the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), with expressions of hope for peaceful, transparent and credible elections in five Member States in the coming year.

A Ugandan maid has been sentenced to four years in jail for assaulting a toddler, in a case which sparked national outrage after a video was released.

President John Dramani Mahama has urged African countries to work hard to save themselves from poverty, ignorance and diseases instead of expecting “manna from heaven”. He further asked for unity and cooperation among African countries in order to create the necessary environment for development.

Following the signing into law of the National Health Bill, several groups and individuals have come out to commend President Goodluck Jonathan.

Next year's presidential election in Nigeria will be a repeat of the last vote four years ago, with former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari taking on incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

Health officials in Sierra Leone have discovered scores of bodies in a remote diamond-mining area, raising fears that the scale of the Ebola outbreak may have been underreported.

The father of a Ugandan toddler tortured by her nanny said Wednesday the family remained “traumatised” by the event, as sentencing was delayed for the maid.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has sacked his vice-president, Joice Mujuru, after accusing her of plotting to kill him.

Nigeria's Labour Congress, NLC, has called on the Federal Government to reduce the pump price of petroleum products in line with falling crude prices in the international market as has been done by other importers of refined petroleum products.

A damning programme exposing police death squads in Kenya was aired by an international television network Monday.

ABUJA — An Abuja High Court has restrained former President Olusegun Obasanjo from proceeding with plans to publish or have someone publish on his behalf, a new autobiography entitled ‘My Watch.”