South African riot police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on Thursday, killing several men in the deadliest episode of a week of union violence.

Tanzania said a shipping agent based in Dubai had reflagged 36 Iranian oil tankers with the Tanzanian flag without the country's knowledge and approval.

A Kenyan court has lifted a ban on a group demanding an independent state around the coastal city of Mombasa - a popular tourist destination.

South Africa's former police chief Jackie Selebi is to be freed early from his 15-year sentence for corruption on health grounds, a minister has said.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe flew to Singapore on Monday for what a senior aide called a routine medical check-up, reviving speculation about the health of the 88-year-old leader who has denied reports he has cancer.

Zimbabwean police said on Sunday they had launched an investigation connected with finance minister Tendai Biti, and a state-owned newspaper said the probe was over the disappearance of $20 million in a failed bank.

The U.N. war crimes court for Rwanda sentenced former military officer Ildephonse Nizeyimana to life in prison on Tuesday after he was found guilty of involvement in his country's 1994 genocide.

Her CV is distinguished, with stints on the boards of a bank and the state rail operator, but many South Africans are wondering whether their first female police chief, Mangwashi Phiyega, has the clout to turn around a scandal-plagued, hard-pressed force.

South Africa wants Western nations to lift economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and is pressing Harare's power-sharing government to speed up reforms needed to bring about elections in the troubled country.

Democratic Republic of Congo's government said on Saturday hundreds of rebels fighting its army in the east have been trained in Rwanda and Kinshasa accused its neighbour of "passivity" in dealing with the situation.

Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti has been killed in a helicopter crash, officials say.

Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo are investigating allegations that neighbouring Rwanda is recruiting and training fighters in support of a new armed movement in its troubled eastern borderlands, a government spokesman said on Monday.

Hundreds of South Africans have marched in Johannesburg to protest over an assault on two women who were attacked for wearing mini-skirts.

Rwanda has arrested four military generals for alleged business dealings across the border in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo, an army spokesman said on Wednesday.

The Somali militant group al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al Qaeda, has endorsed the takeover of Ayman al-Zawahiri to head al Qaeda after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden last month, according to an al-Shabaab spokesman.

JUBA, Sudan - A rebel militia killed 29 people including police and civilians in a south Sudan cattle raid, the southern army said on Tuesday, adding to the region's woes ahead of independence in July.

KHARTOUM  - More than 10,000 people displaced by fighting in Sudan's Southern Kordofan were staying near a U.N. compound on Thursday, the country mission spokesman said, after nearly a week of clashes in the tense border state.

ADDIS ABABA, June 8 (Reuters) - An Ethiopian court sentenced 14 people to lengthy prison terms on Wednesday for plotting to carry out bombings during an African Union summit in January.

NAIROBI  - Kenya's High Court on Tuesday allowed the finance minister to read the budget on Wednesday as planned, throwing out an application filed by a political activist for the reading to be postponed.

Southern Sudan’s capital, Juba, has been gripped by power outages due to fuel shortages caused by a cutoff of supplies from the north, government officials said. The oil-rich region, which is due to become independent on July 9, depends on the north for its supplies of diesel and gasoline.