Benita Van Eyssen

The constitution puts him on fairly firm ground but citizens of post-dictatorship Gambia are determined to hold their leader to account

It is not unusual for Equatorial Guinea to seal its border with Cameroon. But a plan to build a solid border wall has Cameroonians fuming

The protest wave sweeping across Sudan was never about bread; it's a nation fed up with a decades-old military dictatorship

Kenya owes more to China than it does to Western lenders, the traditional source of loans to the continent

The controversy surrounding South Africa's biggest arms-acquisition deal has resurfaced. That prosecutors in Düsseldorf at the weekend confirmed a probe into allegations that a German ship-building consortium supplying four Corvettes to the South African navy, handed over bribes, proves rather embarrassing and comes at a bad time for the two nations.

Phil Naledi has changed the lives of residents along a leafy street in the north-eastern Johannesburg suburb of Sydenham. He earns R900 a month for guarding the houses in the relatively affluent suburb, working 12-hour shifts. ''No one can make a life if they spend so much time working for this little money,'' he explains.

Hollywood seems to have embraced the South African reality of crime, grime and poverty after Tsotsi won the best foreign-language film Oscar on Sunday. The story of a violent young criminal living dangerously in and around the townships of Johannesburg has been lauded for its apt depiction of life for millions today.

As the final preparations for the first of three A1 grand prix races were under way in South Africa on Tuesday, managers of host city Durban announced they have their sights set on building a reputation as a global motorsport centre. The A1 grand prix, a growing force on the world racing calendar, takes place on Sunday.

Heavy rains in parts of Southern Africa have left more than 1 000 people homeless, caused structural damage, and played a part in spreading cholera . In Zambia more than 1 000 cases of cholera have been reported since August with at least six deaths amid an escalation in the number of infections in recent days.

The twin infants wrestle for their mother's breasts as the young woman stops to catch her breath. Weak and exhausted she is standing in the shade of a large tree at the United Nations food distribution centre in rural Malawi, one of Africa's poorest countries.

Tens of thousands of unmarried Swazi girls performed a final dance on Monday culminating a week-long celebration of chastity as Swazi authorities moved to defend the centuries-old ''reed dance'' from international ridicule. Every year, tens of thousands of girls from across the country gather to participate in the dance.

Tens of thousands of unmarried Swazi girls gathered at the royal residence on Sunday to lay down reeds as part of a week-long celebration of national pride that will culminate in King Mswati III selecting a new virgin bride. The bare-breasted girls in brightly coloured traditional fabric and clutching clumps of reeds, sang and stamped their feet as they edged along a snaking queue toward the thatched dwellings at Ludzidzini.